AN: Did you know that I absolutely adore writing Itachi?
This was the hardest chapter to write thus far. And, yes, I finally revealed what the healer girl's name is. She's also the closest thing to an antagonistic force this story has. *shrug*
Unsubtle hint: you should totally, like, follow me on twitter or something.
Enjoy! : )
X – Blame, part 2
The room was dimly lit. A monitor beeped in one corner, and the blinds had been closed on the window. Sasuke was briefly struck with the idea that he was stepping into an opium den; the chairs started to morph into burgundy-colored piles of tasseled cushions and thin trails of smoke wafted through the room. A pair of glowing red eyes materialized from the corner with the monitor, a corner that seemed to be miles away. There was no window. And the glowing eyes beckoned to him with promises of sunlit days spent among the tall grass of the Uchiha Compound, promises of fulfilling every want and need Sasuke ever had.
"Walking into my trap like always, foolish little brother." The genjutsu dispersed and the light was flipped on by Mizuki.
"Apologies, but I would prefer it if we conducted this in proper lighting," she said to Itachi, whose eyes were averted from the light.
Sasuke froze in the doorway. This was the same room in which he had been subject to Mizuki's genjutsu. Gone was the chaise, and in its place were two chairs. Itachi was seated in one of them; behind him was an IV drip. Mizuki had begun to speak, mostly about the guards posted just outside the door and even near the window, the security camera, and that she would personally oversee the meeting.
A pervasive sense of discomfort filled the room. Sasuke took the other chair hesitantly. Mizuki pushed a small table with several manila folders on it between them.
"The point of this meeting is to begin to come full circle. If either of you makes a move to harm the other—physically—then I will intervene. If either of you are at a loss, peruse the items on the table. You might be surprised." She promptly stepped into a newly fabricated shadow.
With his normal abilities back in gear—the renewed flow of chakra through his body was like an old muscle to be stretched—Itachi could garner the results he wanted. Needed. What had first been a move of drug-induced desperation had become the springboard needed to enact justice upon himself. There was no longer a chance of leaving Konoha, that much was certain.
"Why?" Sasuke asked, finally.
Instead of the anger and hate Itachi expected, it was a subdued, almost strangled murmur. Dark eyes stared at him, bright points of light within. Was there anything he could say to justify it? It would be easier to simply lay bare all the facts, strip them of mystique, of emotion.
Sasuke's eyes...they were still a child's eyes. Just a little boy wanting his parents back, small white hands gripping the door frame. Color drained from his face, a face full of fear and anger and disbelief and inexplicably love.
Itachi found he could not separate his actions from the motivations and remained quiet. The Sharingan bled out and his eyes were their usual brown. Sasuke became a blur of black, white, and blue. Flecks of red accompanied soon after.
"Didn't you hear me?" Sasuke stood up. Itachi tensed almost imperceptibly.
"Yes. I did."
"Give me a goddamn explanation," Sasuke said, with clenched fists.
"What do you want me to say? That I enjoyed it? Killing every single one of them?"
The quiet intensity of Itachi's voice was different than his usual aloof tone. Sasuke had found a chink in his brother's armor. Now he abused that little weakness for every single word Itachi could say, albeit subconsciously.
"Did you? Did you fucking enjoy it?" Sasuke's knuckles were white; his head was bowed.
"No," Itachi murmured at last.
"How?"
A glint of steel appeared in the elder one's eyes, then they bled into the Sharingan. "It was easy. I simply took my katana—" He gestured a chopping motion with his right hand. "—until no more stood."
"...Bastard," Sasuke spat.
"I was just a soldier carrying out an assignment." Itachi's expression remained aloof, but his gaze was to the floor.
"That's how you justify it?" Hot tears flooded the younger Uchiha's face. He was shaking.
"That's how everybody else justified it. Why not me?" Itachi's eyes were sharp. "Tell me."
"Nobody can justify that. No one!"
"What would you have done? There was no way out. No escape," he murmured.
"You couldn't just run away?"
"They would have sent somebody else. Somebody more thorough."
Itachi's gaze slid up and down Sasuke's body. Head to toe and back. The implications were very clear to Sasuke all of a sudden. Another person would have killed everyone, even Sasuke. Even Itachi. There was a surge of some indeterminate feeling in his gut.
"That's not the whole answer though. You and I and Mizuki know it isn't."
Itachi remained silent. Sasuke lurched forward to strike him, but Mizuki materialized from the corner to step between them.
"I think that is enough for today. Don't you?" Her demeanor was surprisingly determined to keep Sasuke from landing a blow.
He acquiesced just because of that.
000
The healer girl had been stuck with the job of cleaning Itachi's room with one of the other nurses. She felt that being put on 'bedpan duty' was not a part of her job description. It hadn't been at the prison, at least. She did not understand how she was supposed to cull information from him if he never talked. She didn't have any mind-affecting jutsu to call upon or truth serum. Through guile alone she was supposed to get under the skin of a powerful missing-nin who could kill her with a thought.
At that moment, she made a decision. It was much riskier than using chakra healing, but the risk was worth the outcome. She had a feeling that Itachi wanted to die anyway. He accepted the treatment passively, but a few times, when taking away his meal or replacing an IV bag, there was a bleak, hopeless look in his eyes.
Protocol be damned, Itachi Uchiha needed to die or finally confess to whatever the hell she wanted. He was a traitor and a criminal. He did not deserve to be in the same floor as people who were in greater need of intensive care than him. Sure, he was a twisted, broken man, but that was not an excuse in her book.
Perhaps Satsuki Araya didn't know the entire truth, and perhaps Satsuki Araya didn't want to know the entire truth. She wanted her old job back.