trainingwings | (no subject)

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[If you happen to go out to the edge of the forest in a certain direction, you'll find Neji there. Frustrated with Luceti and what it means to be trapped here, he's taking it out in time-honored Team Gai fashion - by beating the shit out of whatever inanimate object no one appears to be using. In this case, it's a tree, which is definitely looking the worse for the series of blows he's directing against it. Nothing fancy for now, no Gentle Fist, no jutsu. Just good old-fashioned beating until he's exercised out some of his overflowing frustration. And he's talking while he hits -- just letting it all out here, so he can be calm and collected later, each emphasized word coming with a blow to the splintering tree.]

This... this damned hellhole, why did they have to decide it was a lark to grab everyone now of all times? I need to be home, I need to be fighting where it's going to do some damned good...

[Of course, he thinks no one can see him. Going to correct him on it?]

Player Name: Del
Are you new?: Y
Character Name: Hyuuga Neji
Character Fandom: Naruto

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Overconfidence is perhaps one of the greatest deciding factors in battle. Even a weak fighter can manipulate his foe's sense of superiority and thus gain advantage.

[She looks over. A critique on her? No. He doesn't know about that. But she nods.]

It's a game.

It is my life.

[There's a hint of rebuke in his words; her statement seemed to trivialize it.]

[A pause.]

Was mine.

[And now she's piqued his curiosity.]

Was?

I lost the Game. [And because of course it matters:] Finished fifth. Or sixth. Depending on how you look at it.

[But not everyone knows how the Games work, she supposes. She's learned that, here. So she simplifies. It's a fact, not something she's connecting to emotionally. ...As far as she'll let anyone know.]

I died.

[Well, that's not a revelation you hear every day. And considering what he's been facing back home... well.]

And now you're here. After dying?

Apparently.

[It doesn't make sense to her, but nothing else does either. She doesn't believe in an Afterlife, so this has to be real.]

[And he's facing down an army that's halfway made up of the raised dead. Makes this an awkward topic, doesn't it?.]

Brought by those who've trapped us here?

Guess so. I don't know how else I could be here.

Unless this is what happens after you die anyway.

[She shakes her head, dismissing the thought.]

Never cared much about the theories about "after."

I should hope it isn't. [Because there are a lot of people he'd rather not run into. And a couple he would desperately hope to, and that is almost worse, in its own way.]

I'll admit to having wondered, but short of going through it, I don't know there's a way to ever get an answer.

That doesn't answer it either.

Or at least you don't remember the answer if you come back.

I see.

[Is it comforting, is it not, to think of the moment of passing being forgotten? What his father did...

His eyes flicker into the distance, but he forces himself not to get lost in thought, not with a new acquaintance there.]

[She's quiet now, too.

She can remember the events leading up to her death. The fatal blow. The agonizing hours (minutes, actually, but she has no real sense of how time passed then) she spent waiting to die. And the last thing she saw before it all went dark.

But nothing after.

Not until she opened her eyes in a grassy plain in Luceti.]

[Well, now this is kind of awkward. Talking about death seems to do that. But Neji's curious about something she said, and since they've gone quiet... well, might as well see if she's willing to say anything.]

You said it was a game?

One every year. [It's normal enough to her. Simple fact of life.]

Twenty-four players. Last one alive wins.

[While that would sound horrible to a normal person, to Neji, it doesn't sound that much worse than the chuunin exams. Except they're not actually trying to kill people then, just don't give a shit if they do.]

Harsh. I take it there's some benefit to it?

It's to remind us about when the Districts revolted against the Capitol. It's an honor.

[But there is tangible benefit, too.]

A male and a female from every District compete. The winner's District gets more food, more money, and more supplies for a year.

[Definitely sounds familiar. Maybe the rewards of victory and the motivations are a little different, but in the end, only a little. It shows in his voice, that understanding.]

I know how that goes.

They changed it during the Game the year I was chosen for the Games.

[Because it's interesting.]

If the boy and girl from the same District were the last alive, they could both win. They'd never done anything like that before.

Hm. We compete for promotion in a similar way. But the winner of the competition isn't always the one promoted. They have to display technique as well.

[Dryly] Although deaths are only incidental, not required.

No one really cares about us once we win. Or even once we die. The Victor has a year of tours and interviews. And they're set for life, never have to compete again.

But people... forget about you. After that year's Game.

[She looks at him. It's a fair enough trade. Information for information.

Not for the Games, but her Academy was the same way. That the best physical scores didn't always go to the fastest runner. Sometimes it was endurance. Or, as he said, technique.

Whatever they're looking for.]

What sort of promotion is it?

[Information for information, and it isn't as though he's giving away village secrets.]

Advancement within our ranks, and prestige between our countries. A country whose contestants distinguish themselves gains status, and those who show poorly lose face. Each village rewards its best contestants by making them team leaders. Chuunin.

Chuunin. [She doesn't get the pronunciation quite like he said it, but she tries.]

Best we get, really, after that year, is becoming a mentor. We teach future tributes how to survive.

[A pause.] Are you one? A chuunin?

[Close enough he'll do without correcting her.]

Tributes? That is an ... interesting way to refer to combatants.

I'm actually of higher rank than that; jounin, elite. I take the most difficult missions.