[She nods, feeling the avalanche gaining speed. Maybe drawing it out is the worst thing, now that it's inevitable -- now that Lee knows his teammate has no future, maybe the kindest thing is to plunge into it all at once, just tell him, and be done with it.

But she can't. It's this slow collapse, little by little but gaining horrible speed, ready to bury Lee. To bury both of them.]

He did. They... they would have died, maybe both of them. She was trying to shield him but...

[She swallows hard, around a lump in her throat she hadn't been able to give voice to on the battlefield. Now, here, in this place outside of time...]

Instead, Neji shielded them both.