I Am You?! (NejiTen)

Merry Christmas!

It's finally Christmas! This year has been a long and cumbersome year but I am glad that I am seeing you guys at the end of it. Thank you for the 1k reads on this book. As per usual I am posting a one shot for the Christmas and 1k bonus. This is a NejiTen issekai featuring Neji as a mediaeval  scholar who finds himself in a world of flashing lights, tall buildings and horseless chariots and Tenten as a hot cop. Enjoy reading!

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Long fingers gripped the handle of the brush with the delicacy of a flower's petals. In short and intricate strokes, the words made themselves known on the white paper. The wind blew softly through the leaves on the tree under which he was writing. His hair swayed with it.

Neji was up till now, a nameless entity. He had no family or clan. The man heard that he was abandoned because of his pale eyes but he did not know how far the truth was. All he did know was that he was nobody. Nobody until he found a brush, an ink pot and a piece of paper.

He merely poured his despair into words but people seemed to like his poems and stories and that was how he became popular. An old scholar taught him how to write and read better than he already knew how to. Neji learned fast and became a scholar and author. His books were considered one of the best in the Gyu region.

He wore colourful clothes rather than the dull brown and grey of the poor region (social class is determined by colour in the olden days. The brighter your clothes are, the richer you are. Red, black, gold and purple are royal colours). He ate rice and food with salt rather than bland food of the poor (rice and salt were really expensive back then. Now I can't even imagine a world without salt and rice).

Life was good but it was about to go downhill. How did Neji know? He knew because an eccentric prophetess had told him his fortune...or should he say lack of. He was going to die young. The weight of his ill luck pressed greatly on his shoulders. He was going to die young. The prophetess had said something further but Neji was too overwhelmed to hear it. He was going to die young.

The prophecy came to pass sooner than he'd like. Not even two weeks after, the palace guards burst into his lonely house and arrested him for blasphemy to the throne. Neji was dumbfounded. Blasphemy? He had done nothing!

It was during his questioning that he found out why he was accused of blasphemy. Apparently, he wrote bad things about the emperor in his latest published book. Neji balked. He wrote nothing of the sort!

"Please hear the words of your servant, my lord! I have written nothing of the sort in any of my literature!" Neji defended himself but all evidences were against him. Surely the handwriting was his and the insignia was his too but he had never done this!

"He lies! He lies in the face of numerous evidence and in front of the great emperor!"

Neji's vision swam with black dots as the emperor gave his verdict. Death by beheading. He had less than twenty four hours to live. While in the dungeon, waiting for the sun to rise and for his inescapable death, Neji prayed. He was never a religious person. He didn't believe in the gods that were supposedly in the sky watching him suffer through life. He didn't believe but he prayed for salvation.