He had only been to Suna once, just barely skirting the borders on a mission gone awry. He remembered the blinding sun, grit in his teeth, bloodied sand stinging his eyes. Half of a yellow flower poking through a dune.
It was difficult to pinpoint when and where the mission's miscommunication had occurred and the fighting began. At first, Sand and Leaf charged one another with a feigned, disdainful malice, the kind brought on by a change of orders, not of heart. Disbelief spurred their motions, turned one eye away, until a misplaced kunai blossomed into flesh and Tenten went down, withering into the sand. And oh, he was a falcon then, eyes sharp and wings fast, talons scything into the Sand nins' tenketsu with vicious jerks. His chakra keened.
Eventually the dunes darkened, blood clumping the sand, and he gave pause, gaping at the half-buried bodies. His chest heaved, the sensation of something crawling up his throat. His byakugan surrounded him in death, bodies that would bake if left for more than a few days and be preserved in eternal, papered agony.
By the time Temari arrived, Neji was on his hands and knees, helplessly retching. Eyes widened like her fan, she watched as he gathered his legs beneath him, unfettered hair coated with his own sick.
"There's been a mistake," she said, and he couldn't help but agree, wiping stickiness from his lips and sinking into a practiced stance. She almost looked alarmed when he regained control so quickly, so eager to dispatch another unto his fists.
"It's too late," he said, something hoarse tearing at his vocal chords. "I've killed them all."
He couldn't help but notice her wild desperation, the determined unwillingness to fight such an unwound opponent. He could see that she was trying to speak, but he couldn't hear, could barely see...
He had only been to Suna, once, just barely skirting the borders on a mission that had gone awry.
