night terror
Even Uchiha Itachi has a fear. For him, it is that his redemption and his condemnation walk hand in hand. ;; itachicentricdrabble
(a/n) I love Itachi. For serious.
This started off as inspired by the song "No One Mourns the Wicked," from the Broadway musical Wicked, and...it changed. A lot.
Hisashiburi desu ne?—It's been a long time, hasn't it? It's funny because Itachi says it all the time.
(disc) Naruto is owned by Masashi Kishimoto, Viz, TV Tokyo, and a whole bunch of other people.
Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;
I never saw a brute I hated so;
He must be wicked to deserve such pain
-stanza XIV, "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came"
--
Sometimes, Itachi dreamed.
--
A kunai was in his hand.
It was trembling.
Kisame was not there. It was just Itachi himself and a lone, approaching figure.
As he drew closer, Itachi recognized the person as Orochimaru, and his grip on his weapon tensed momentarily before he consciously forced himself to relax it, for maximum effectiveness. It didn't make much sense for Orochimaru to be pursuing him, not now, years after he'd left Akatsuki. Especially not after Itachi had threatened him with the most painful death he could deliver if he tried to obtain Itachi's body again.
That thought sparked another, far more unsettling one, and Itachi was again forced to consciously release the tension from his muscles. Don't think. Breathe, he reminded himself. Be one with the weapon.
Orochimaru stopped only when he was a short distance away, enough so that Itachi could just make out his expression. He didn't even question that his eyesight was near-perfect, better than it had been in a long time.
"Hisashiburi desu, ne? Itachi-kun," Orochimaru purred, causing Itachi to become faintly irritated that he'd beaten him to saying it.
"I don't think we have anything to say to each other, Orochimaru," Itachi said. The fact alone that he'd cut off the honorific hinted at the tension rising in his gut.
Orochimaru chuckled. "Why not, Itachi-kun? Didn't you miss me?" He licked his lips sensuously, and Itachi suppressed a shudder—it would not do to show weakness.
"Not particularly," he said, flexing his knees and lowering his center of gravity by another fraction of an inch.
Only wind and dead rustling leaves made any sound in those next few moments...
--
The first time Itachi had the nightmare, he woke up, rolled over, and retched at the base of a tree, breath coming in short, hitching gasps. He braced himself against the trunk with his hands and shook, covered in a sheen of sweat, trying to control his breathing. Don't think. Breathe. Don't think about it. Breathe.
He closed his eyes and pressed his hands to his mouth, dripping with residual bile, and tried not to scream.
--
...They attacked as one, Itachi moving in out of their preferred mid-range to catch Orochimaru off-guard. They exchanged blows at close range—Orochimaru wielding his sword with his mouth while Itachi's kunai whirled and darted, deflecting his blows smoothly in an attempt to turn his head and make eye contact.
It happened once—slit amber met patterned crimson and Itachi felt a sense of confident almost-relief start to rise as he pushed out with chakra—
and felt resistance, a strange and unsettling feeling like a glancing blow off slick glass. Itachi had an immediate sense of wrongness, like a sort of reverse resonance, a discord that momentarily shook him to his core.
He disengaged his blade and backed off, retreating to mid-range and pausing to reassess. What had that been? It was a feeling both terribly alien and yet somehow familiar, something he should know but didn't.
Orochimaru chuckled again where he stood, pulling his blade back down his throat or into his stomach or wherever he kept it. "Do you get it now?" he asked, grinning and tilting his head to the side as his voice singsonged, "I-ta-chi-kun?"
Itachi, after a tense pause, shook his head slowly, keeping his eyes locked on Orochimaru at all times.
Orochimaru laughed then, threw his head back and practically shrieked with obscene laughter. "Oh, but this is so sad!" he bellowed, throwing his arm out in a broad, encompassing gesture. "Why, you mean to say you don't recognize me? I'm hurt." He slowly and pointedly brought his hand to his brow. "We're practically family now, Itachi-kun," he hissed through a grin too wide for comfort.
Itachi's eyes widened as he caught the implications of the man's words right before he ripped his face off...
--
The second time Itachi had the nightmare, he jerked awake in a seedy motel six miles outside of Kusagakure, shaking and covered in sweat. Kisame, who had been awakened by the sound of his thrashing from across the room, asked him if anything was wrong. Itachi gripped his head in his hands for a brief minute, not trusting himself to speak at first. When he looked up, it was with his usual blank stare and guarded tone that he said,
"Nothing."
--
...That face.
Oh, god, that face.
Itachi was shaking so hard that the scene kept blurring, or perhaps that had something to do with the hot, wet feeling building up in his eyes. Something to do with the empty yawning fissure that had opened up in his gut. With the bile rising in his throat and the name that dropped unbidden from his lips.
"Sa...suke..."
Orochimaru leered at him with his brother's face.
"Dear, dear Itachi-kun," he said, in Sasuke's voice—
—I have lived only for this day—
—you killed them for that—
—Itachi, watch this—
—as long as we're together sometimes—
—"I must thank you. Sasuke-kun would never have come to me of his own volition if not for that strong, beautiful flame of hatred that you kept alive for him. That lust for power..." His tongue came out, incongruously and perversely long, disgusting and horrifying to see in that fallen angel face, and wet his lips. "...Is what brought your brother to me, Itachi-kun."
His responsibility.
His fault.
Being a traitor didn't matter. Being a villain didn't matter. His death at Sasuke's hands would have taken care of that. No one would mourn him, as no one mourns the wicked—he would reap as he had sown, and Sasuke could finally live. His unattainable redemption would come at the mercies of fate and the avenger of his clan. The blood of all the Uchiha was on his hands forever, but this—
This was beyond unforgivable.
No matter how long Itachi lived, and no matter how painfully he died, nothing he could do could ever make up for this.
This... this abomination was his final sin to bear.
"So," Orochimaru said, bringing out a kunai and smiling horribly, "it's nothing personal, Itachi-kun. It was simply..." His smile widened as he prepared to deliver the last verbal blow.
"...his last request."
--
The knowledge that Sasuke was still alive was both balm and terror to Itachi. Comfort that Itachi still had a chance, not to redeem himself (an impossible task), but to atone, at least. Terror that any day could be his last, whether falling to Orochimaru or someone else, it didn't matter. Sasuke had to be there to watch his brother fall.
Itachi's greatest fear was dying alone.
--
The third time Itachi had the nightmare, he rolled over and went back to sleep.
He deserved to live in fear.
.owari.