. L U C I F E R .
Naruto Fanfic by Sunshinegirl09
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters. Only storyline.
Tenten
Chapter 28: Love Song Requiem
"Neji..." I didn't even know how his name could escape my lips. The sound seemed to be stuck in my throat. There was a lump growing in it and I was feeling my eyes water, tears dropping uncontrollably. I tried to resist the feeling of shock and attempted to move my body.
The Devil's high cackle rang in my ears and I started to shake as He coughed up blood, spluttering it over Neji's perfectly pale face.
"T-Tenten." Neji barely let the words out as he spit his gum on the ground.
Instinctively I sprinted out, diving on my knees to catch Neji as he fell, the end of the trident still deep into his chest.
"Hey I'm here!" I shrieked. "Stay with me!"
Neji bit his lip as his eyes started rolling to the back of his head.
"It's o-okay." He gruffly explained to me but I refused to believe it.
My heart was racing a million miles an hour and it felt like the world was crashing down on me, harder than the ceiling that had almost crushed me once. But this time the pain was inside and not hurting my physical body but my mind.
"No Neji!" I argued. "Please don't go away! Don't leave me!"
More blood oozed out of his mouth and I felt trapped. I was in love with him and he was dying. Why? Why did it have to be like this?
I was about to say something to him, beg him to stay with me but there was a sudden explosion that knocked me off my feet so now I was cradling Neji's head in my lap.
Glancing around, impatiently waiting for the smoke to clear, I realized the Devil had just blown up, taking with him half the wall.
Just as I could start to see again I began to hear a noise...running water. Clearly, now in front of me, was a river that was behind the wall that was blown to smithereens. It was black.
My eyes widened. River Styx. The sight of the water sent shivers through my spine and began to stroke Neji's hair.
His breathing was very ragged and his eyes kept rolling up.
"Please stay...stay with me..." I sobbed, cupping Neji's face, kissing it everywhere.
Neji shook his head. He knew what was going to happen.
"As long as I s-saved-" He coughed loudly. "You...it's okay."
I bit my bottom lip so hard it bled profusely and shook my head.
"You're the only person I've ever ... loved." Neji's pale eyes widened.
"Wait!" I screamed.
His throat quivered and his body in my arms went limp.
"I love you too..." I whispered. But it was too late.
I knew deep down he was gone but I refused to except it. He was mine. The first boy who could've been my boyfriend and the first person who knew me well and understood me, unafraid to give me feedback.
"No!" I screeched so loud that I couldn't hear the running water anymore. "No! No! No! Come back!"
What do I do? What? He can't be gone. He can't be. Everything was crashing down.
"Are we too late? Do not we have a chance?" The words left my mouth and I realized I was singing.
"What should I do? Even now, I live these painful days because of what you said
Tell me if this is a bad thing to do."
And then I stopped singing suddenly. I still had a chance.
I lowered my forehead and pressed it against his, closing my eyes. And then it happened.
Blinking again, I awoke in someplace different. Deeper Hell. Voices screeched familiarly.
"HELP!"
"SAVE ME!"
"MAKE IT STOP!"
"GET THE FUCK OFF OF ME!"
I knew who that voice belonged to.
"Neji!" I bellowed over the other voices.
I took the next turn and tried to weave my way through the screaming people reaching out of cells. It was scarring looking at all of their injuries and dead faces, with voices begging for me to save them from their pain.
I spotted Neji struggling to push a dead man off him.
"NEJI!" I yelled even louder, feeling my heart rate quicken. This was my chance. I had to do it!
He turned and spotted me, blinking.
"Tenten!" He cried. "You have to save yourself! You could die!"
Tears drowned my eyes as I watched him try to maneuver around the dead people to get closer to me.
"Goddammit Neji!" I screeched over the shrieks of the other people. "I LOVE YOU! AND I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT YOU!"
Neji stopped moving and stared at me, eyes widened, as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.
He mumbled something that looked like 'unbelievable' but with all the noise around me, I couldn't possibly hear it.
"GRAB MY HAND!"
I didn't care how doomed I was. I was gonna try. Neji was mine and I wasn't going to let him stay dead on my watch.
Tightening my muscles, I shot my burnt and blistered hand through the thick barrier between the living and dead.
Neji's cold, unalive hand, gripped it and I felt the energy draining from my body as I tried to pull him through the impossibly thick and invisible wall that has separated us.
Half of Neji's body was already through when something started tugging on him. I figured it was a jealous dead person but it turned out to be the fucking Devil. Shit. I forgot he died.
"You're not going anywhere!" He hissed.
Well at least he was in his Hispanic form.
The Devil then bit my wrist and I screamed loudly. I didn't know if he had venom in his teeth or something but the pain was intensified and was much more agonizing than a regular bite should have been.
Neji's bloody chest moved up and down as he panted heavily, trying to free my wrist of the Devil's mouth.
My entire body shook and I thought I was going into shock when I looked the Devil in the eye and spit on the ground.
"Not today bitch." I hissed, shoving my foot through the clear wall, kicking the Devil in the face.
Even with one foot in and an unsteady balance, I managed to tug Neji through the barrier, leaving a heel mark on the Devil's cheek.
I collapsed back onto the ground where I was once before I saved Neji and the trident in his chest disappeared. Relief filled me as he started to breathe once more.
"N-Neji!" I shook him awake and his eyes fluttered open, hitting me with a shock as he sat up.
His eyes...his eyes. They looked cold as stone and for a fleeting second I wondered if he was still dead. But he couldn't have been because I just saved him and he was clearly moving.
But his eyes...
"Neji!" I exclaimed. "You're okay!"
My body was so tired from using my reviving power it was impossible to move, yet I did.
I wrapped my arms around him, relieved to be close to his moving chest but it felt wrong for some reason.
"Get the fuck off of me."
My eyes widened and I quickly moved, the river swishing in the background.
"Neji?" I wondered. "What's wrong?"
He blinked darkly.
"Who the hell are you?" He mumbled. "And why am I here?"
It hit me so hard. He didn't remember me. I knew that he would never pull such a prank but he had to be joking.
"We're partners!" I cried. "You don't remember?"
Neji glanced around at the scene and looked at our burned hands and the predicament of the environment we were in. He saw the creature we had saved earlier, whimpering in the corner but didn't recognize him.
"I don't know you." He growled. "So don't act like we're close."
A shiver shot through my body. How? How was this possible? He didn't...remember...HOW?
A tear rolled down my cheek as I stood up, with great effort.
"How could you...not remember?" I question, backing up, touching my lips, imagining his touch, forcing myself to move my immobile muscles.
Amnesia? Shock? What was wrong with him?
"I just don't know you." He argued. "Go...just leave me you idiot."
A tear fell from my puffy eyes as I backed up farther, hearing the rushing river.
"How could you...?" I mumbled, taking another slow step back towards the water.
Neji's cold stare continued to look at me in disgust.
I brought my foot up and took of one heel and discarded it on the floor, still staring at Neji with water in my eyes. After another lethargic step back, I took of another heel. One more back.
My heels were now touching the edge of the black river and I felt the world rushing around me. I confessed all my secrets to Neji. He was the one who knew the most about, almost more than my own mother.
"You don't remember." I whispered, a tear sliding down my cheek.
And then I took one more step and into the black water, back first.
The moment my almost bear body hit the liquid something pulled me under, so fast I didn't have time to scream. It was such a pain, feeling the breath escape my lungs and not be able to return. It was probably the worst part, not being able to breathe.
Multiple hands kept pulling me under and the fear of not being able to swim was increased. I found it hard to swim when it was an open pool and nothing else was in it but now there were things yanking me under.
Wrapping my arms around my chest, a minute passed of agony and struggling to breathe. I was preparing myself to die. If Neji didn't remember, what was the point of risking my life to save him. If this is what he wanted in the end. Then I'll have to let it be.
I couldn't save myself anyway. My body was so exhausted after reviving Neji, there was no way I could swim now.
Oh but I didn't want to die. I wanted to live and become someone important in life, but as I sat here at the bottom of blackness with death's door in front of me I wondered what good could a person do if they couldn't even swim?
What do I do?
Almost two minutes passed and I figured I must be dead now. But it takes 6 minutes to die. I didn't want it. I wanted to live.
But my eyes disagreed with me. They started to close and blackness was surrounding me once more and I felt my head spin a hundred miles an hour.
There was a sudden jerk in my chest and I knew it was my death. I knew it was what death must've felt like. The water around me seemed to move and the dead people around me screeched ferociously ... in triumph?
Then it felt like something kicked me...wind? No it wasn't wind it was air. That pressure in my chest and waist continued to move as I felt myself hit something hard. Was it the cell in hell?
Inside my chest there seemed to be a relief. Death wasn't so bad. It didn't hurt after you died.
And then something crashed onto my lips. I could feel it but I was unable to move. The pressure in my chest increased and it came in beats. 1, 2, 3. 1, 2, 3.
Then suddenly a stream of light burst through my lids as I opened them and my forehead was tickled by something soft...hair.
Pale eyes stared into mine and they were soft. A small tear slid out of the left eye, rolling down the cheek.
I coughed up probably a gallon of water, holding on to someone's hands. My throat dry, raw and aching.
"Panda...you idiot."
Neji wrapped his arms around my head and pulled me into his chest as it moved up and down, steadily breathing.
"Y-You...remember..." I rasped.
"I'm sorry." He told me. "I'm so sorry. Being through hell and back can give you amnesia." He shook his head. "I was lucky enough to come back. No one ever does." He explained. "I don't why but seeing you drown triggered something."
My breath was so shaky that I didn't know what to feel.
"You're such an idiot yet you saved me from...everything." Neji mumbled. "Thank you..."
I sniffled.
"I...was so scared when I saw that spear stab you in the chest." I informed him.
Neji shook his head again.
"Just stop." He murmured, turning our hug into him pulling me in his lap.
I wondered if we were gonna be super powerful, surviving the river and all, but I didn't feel like I was super powerful.
I'd never seen Neji so ... kind and loving before. He was acting like such a human being.
My hands hurt, my body ached, every scratch on me seemed to intensify in pain but I felt that this was my favorite moment of my life. With Neji. Right now it seemed like neither of our injuries mattered. We were here together.
We stayed for a few minutes like that until there was tons of shouting.
"Help us!"
Neji and I moved to see people's shadows running down the dark hallway. It was our friends. Max cradled Ino in his arms while Sasuke led the way. Sakura and Naruto attempted to keep her awake.
She looked terrible. A bloody mess. Wounds everywhere. She almost wasn't recognizable.
I covered my mouth in horror, and tried to hold down the bile in my throat again.
"Where's Shikamaru?" Neji demanded.
"Getting back up!" Sakura cried. "He's got an idea."
"Thank god we found you guys!" Naruto exclaimed. "What happened?"
"H-He's gone!" I rasped again, shivering as my short hair clung to my neck, my silk dress soaked.
Sasuke glanced at the two of us.
"I don't believe it." He muttered. "You didn't."
Neji nodded.
"You took a dip in Styx!" Naruto cried. "And who's gone?"
Neji moved me off his lap.
"The Devil. We killed him." He explained.
"Neji died." I butted in. "But I saved him."
"And then you went for a swim?" Sakura raised her eyebrows.
"Focus!" Max ordered, cupping Ino's face. "She's dying dammit!"
I narrowed my eyes.
"We needed to find you." Sakura quickly explained. "Just in case Ino dies, Tenten might be able to bring her back."
Neji's eyebrows furrowed.
"Saving more than one person in a day is impossible!" He argued. "She can barely walk!"
"Not to mention the river." I muttered. I didn't want to be a total ass saying I wouldn't save Ino if she died, I just didn't really think that I could.
"So what are we gonna do?" Max questioned.
"We wait for Shika-" Sasuke was cut off.
"I heard you guys are in a situation." The voice was strangely familiar, like I'd heard it a few times before...
And then there she was, like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day, Tsunade appeared, the rest of our friends behind her, with her hands on her hips.
"What a scene." She commented.
You have no idea.
A/N: HEY! I updated again! Yesh I did this morning because I didn't want to leave you with such a mean cliffie and I was originally gonna write this chapter in the previous chapter before. In case you wanted to know about the song used in the middle it was 'what do i do' by jisun. it's granddd so look it up and then the chapter was named after 'love song requiem' by trading yesterday which is also great so look that up too. Thaaanks for readin the chapter and review pleeaaasee =D
