Turning the Gears
There was a bare, sullen grace in his movements. Eyes closed, he swung the katana smoothly out in front of his body, an even line from shoulder to the tip of the blade. Itachi's actions were in no way beautiful, in no way something Kisame enjoyed seeing; it was vicious and dangerous and there was a gleam of something feral those crimson eyes as he goes through the kata.
It was not something he enjoyed, but that grace had a sort of sickening pull because Kisame more than anyone else knew what that blade could do. He had seen the other skin a man, scalp a man, had seen him emerge from that safe, cold shell and methodically take his victim's body and mind apart.
That, he thought, was the worst part of watching Itachi practice. The reminder of what he became. People thought his partner had no emotions. This was correct, in a way. He was totally detached, something in his mind had changed and emotions were foreign and certainly not welcome. So instead of feeling, he studied emotions intently, from all directions. Not long after joining Akatsuki,
Itachi had discovered that, of all the emotions a human could display, it was fear that truly made up the basis of their consciousness.
So he had dedicated himself to that one emotion. As Kisame watched the smooth movements of the blade, he could not help but think of the look on Itachi's face as he had tortured a spy to death. He hadn't used his deadly eyes, just a kunai, and the look on his face hadn't been pleasure, or regret, or rage, or anything else that he could understand.
Nothing he wanted to understand.
Itachi had simply acted. There was an inhuman focus in his gaze, every reaction and every drop of blood was tracked and recorded in the genius' mind. That scared Kisame more than anything else about his silent partner; the fact that he wasn't sadistic, that he regarded pain and injury and death with a kind of distant curiosity.
It wasn't personal. Nothing was personal with Itachi.
He wondered, sometimes, about the younger Uchiha. Sasuke. He wondered if the boy understood that Itachi truly had killed every single person in his family, not because of a grudge or because of rage, but simply to test himself. Kisame wasn't sure if Itachi even really understood how morally wrong what he had done was, even in a society of killers. Oh, Itachi knew it was a terrible thing to do, from other people's perspectives, but he himself simply regarded it as an action – there was no real question of why for him.
Feeling hungry? Eat something.
Want to test your strength? Fight all others who have had the same basic training as you.
It was, for him, an obvious thing - a foregone conclusion. And yet…
Kisame's eyes focused once more on the present, and he watched that deadly weapon cleave the air with an air of unwilling curiosity. Just for a second, just for the barest second, he thought something like anger had flashed through Itachi's eyes when his little brother had attacked. No. It was, he decided, best not to think of such things.
Besides, anyone who could inspire emotion in his partner would be dead too soon for it to matter, anyways.
And one-shot number three is up. I don't know where these things come from! Still, my wonderful ad magical beta, Computerfreak101, liked both this and Full of Grace, so I posted them. Enjoy? -Heliotropic