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Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take – but the number of moments that take our breath away.
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Amnesia.
Chapter Ten: Uchiha Curse.
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Life never ceases to amaze me, how one moment your heart can soar, and the next, your heart plummets into a deep dark depth. But what is life, what is reality? Perhaps this is a dream, a fantasy of reality that we cannot touch. Many a man has gone chasing these wonderful fantasies, only to be rewarded with wonderful madness.
Many of those men belonged to the Uchiha clan, for, to most, it is a known fact that all who posses the bloodline limit of the Uchiha with eventually either go blind or blind and insane, thus the 'Uchiha Curse'. I was lucky to still have some sort of handhold on reality.
But, however, apparently, this curse was not well known to Kenshi, and the gullible idiot preferred to use more traditional methods of testing.
"I can see fine." I complained as he swung that infernal light back and forth between my left eye and my right, if the idiot was in anyway an optometrist, he would have noticed that my pupils didn't respond normally to light.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Now let me out of here!"
"No I still have to check your blood pressure, your temperature, your heartbeat, a blood test -"
"I'm fine." I snapped in a voice akin to a growl.
One thing I hated more than anything was feeling like a test pet, thus a furthering hate for sitting in a white medical room surrounded by metal instruments, the air smelling of bleach and cleaning products. I hated having someone in my personal space, especially if they were planning to probe my ears or wave a flashlight in my eyes.
"At least let me check your burns; you're still susceptible to infection."
If you don't let me go you'll be susceptible to beating with medical implements.
"No."
"Itachi-san this is ridiculous, I know you don't like this room but avoiding medical procedures is -"
"NO! TOBI WILL DIE! TOBI SAYS NO! UNHAND TOBI NOW!" yelled the voice of the one and only, insatiably curious and mischievous, third person talking, more than slightly insane Akatsuki, Tobi.
Saved by the bell…
Kenshi left in a flurry, opening to door to let a screaming, partially restrained and bleeding Tobi inside. There was many things on the list of 'Tobi's hates', somewhere in the top five was getting stitches. (Number one was bathing.).
Of course by the time Raiu and Kenshi had Tobi restrained I was already out the window, inhaling that blissful fresh oxygen that was free of acid and chemical smells, running free of metallic objects prodding my ear canals and needles extracting blood.
But alas, my carefree moment was gone in a flash, for if the only trusted watch guards were in the infirmary (one holding down the other whilst he screamed), who was watching Sakura?
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Thankfully she had not turned to mush and/ or been eaten by Zetzu. Nor had she been beheaded by Pein for an offhanded comment, nor had she been sadistically tortured by Hidan. No, they we're too busy engaging in a highly illegal poker game. I decided against asking them, when money was involved you never spoke (especially if enough money was on the table to earn a few drinks in the village.) But it looked like they we're playing over money stolen from Kakuzu's room.
Outside, Deidara was corrupting the new recruits with maddening talk of art as they were forced to dig a grave; a body covered by a white cloth lay on the lawn beside them. Hinari, whom I decided was a very strange girl, was still cleaning blotches of flour from the hall across from Deidara's room; it looked as if he had left his door open when it exploded.
"Where is Sakura?"
Hinari squeaked in surprise, she mustn't have heard my approach. "Sa-Sakura-san is sleeping."
I stepped over the girl, continuing down the flour blotched hall and into my bedroom.
Not was she naked nor was she begging for my touch (regrettably), but she was most definitely not sleeping. She sat on the window sill pooling her attention on the well worn green leather book she held, it remained shut as she attempted to pull it open.
If I had belonged to anyone else, I wouldn't have minded. But it was the fact that it was mine and had spent the last two years hidden in the dark messy depths of my closet. And she was touching it, I felt violated.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!"
With my words she whirled around in shock and stared at me like a deer caught in the headlights, as she fell unceremoniously on to the floor with a 'thud'. The book slid across the floor before hitting the wooden base of the bed.
"I-I...I..." It seemed she was having trouble forming a coherent word.
I scooped up my leather book, my heart sinking as I found the edge had been dented from its escapade. I had always taken care of my almost ancient book; it had been in my family for over a century.
"How dare you think you have the right to touch my things!"
She still stared at me like I held a knife to her heart.
"Speak up! Don't just sit there! Answer me!"
I wasn't sure what to do when she stood and began taking unsteady steps towards me; I'd never had someone not have even the faintest inkling of terror towards me. Should I run or continue to stare with a dumb look on my face? I tried to remain stoic, but it was hard with her intoxicating presence so near. All I could hear was the blood pumping in my ears and all I could feel was the warm air about me.
"What are you…?" I trailed off as she reached up and touched my left cheek with her fingertips. When her little fingers returned to my vision they were smeared with blood, my blood. Then her emerald eyes seemed to shimmer with an emotion somewhat resembling sympathy.
"Your eyes are bleeding…" she whispered softly.
Indeed they were. I could feel it on my cheeks as it leaked from my eyes and dribbled down my face. My vision was tunneling, clouding up with blackness. My head was throbbing, sharp pains in my temples the only thing I began to feel. And consciousness was fading into the same abyss my vision was in.
"Are…you okay?"
I could only hear her vaguely; it was hard to hear anything over the rush of blood in my ears. My legs felt like they were made from melted butter.
Is the floor getting closer?
"Itachi!"
"I…thought…I…t-told…you…to…"
"To what?"
"I…told…y-you, call…me…sir…"
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"Itachi? Wake the fuck up!" Vaguely I could sense someone prodding my side. "ITACHI! Get up we don't have time for this shit! You can nap later."
"Don't wake him. He needs to rest his eyes -"
"Fuck, girly, who said you could talk?"
"I'm a medic I know wh -"
"And I suppose you know that all fucking Akatsuki members are required to attend a fucking funeral of a fellow member if he or she gets themselves killed like a fucking idiot!"
"I'm not an Akatsuki member am I?! I'm a prisoner! Get out before you wake him up!"
"But -"
"Get out now!"
"What-fucking-ever."
"Asshole." She mumbled as the door slammed shut behind Hidan.
"Don't talk like that." I whispered hearing Sakura cuss.
"You're awake!" She said with a hint of surprise. "Go back to sleep you need rest." Her voice chided, hands pushing my shoulders back down.
I opened my eyes
I can't see.
"Take the bandages off!" I demanded, grasping her little wrist to stop her escaping.
"I -"
"Take them off damn it!"
"You -"
"Take them off or I'll kill you."
"Itachi!" She squeaked as my grip tightened to a crushing pressure. "You're not -"
"I'm not well enough? Fucking take the bandages off!"
"Itachi, you're not wearing any bandages."
"What…"
"You're blind." She whispered.
Fuck.
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If hadn't experienced life changing situations, I might have despaired. And had I not been a ninja trained not to feel, to suppress emotions, I might have cried. I may have wanted to be held had I had someone to hold dear.
"Today we mourn the death…" Pein's voice began to drone. I'd listened to this speech a hundred times; a hundred times I'd had to look at their rotted stinking corpses in the twilight glow.
At least now I couldn't see Kakuzu's body, and judging by the sound of it, Sakura's squeaks of disgust and terror, it had been a reasonably grotesque sight. I was surprised when I felt one of her little hands fist in the material of my shirt; her body was warm against my side, a body so much smaller than mine.
A body I'd never get to see properly.
I couldn't see but it forced me to focus on what I could hear, what chakra signatures we're about me, the smells. I could hear Sakura's cries, the chirping of crickets indicating the sun had set. But the most prominent sound was the dull thuds as, I assume, Kakuzu's body parts hit the earth of the grave. Nobody had told me how badly his body was damaged or how he'd died.
When Sakura buried her face in my shirt, making noises akin to a sob, I spoke up to her.
"What's going on?"
"He's…in…bits." She whispered.
"From decomposition?"
"Not natural, He's rotted…apart."
He couldn't have looked worse than the last recruit that died on a mission, he had resembled a white gray mess of sludge, the smell had been awful, he'd only been dead a week but something in the poison used to kill him rotted away his flesh and bones in mere days.
"As Kakuzu's partner, Hidan you will be the one to bury him, hoping that Kakuzu may achieve a calm place to rest in peace."
"Woo-fucking-hoo." Hidan grumbled as I figured he would have been handed a shovel. "How can you people believe in this 'rest in peace' shit?"
"Just bury him already. I have money to spend."
I heard Hidan mumble something along the lines of 'cheating bastard' and 'ugly fucking pot plant'.
"Kakuzu has dedicated his fortune to the good of the organization, in hope that we may -"
"Like hell Kakuzu would 'dedicate his money' the greedy bastard would have wanted to be fucking buried with the shit."
"Keep shoveling. Have some respect for the dead."
"I'm not the one who cheated to fucking steal a dead man's winnings."
"I'm not the one who betted them. It was your own bad luck."
"Shut up you two, this is a funeral for Kami's sake!" That was the first thing Konan had spoken since I had seen her earlier on in the morning, when I could still see.
Apparently Tobi knew it was bad karma to speak at funerals, so Hidan could swear all he wanted without any speech of 'my ears are bleeding!", either that or Tobi was still calm from the sedatives Kenshi would have given him, Deidara had attacked Tobi with the shovel when he wouldn't shut up.
"We shall all watch, in silence, and pray that Kakuzu reaches a resting place."
"I'm not shutting up! I don't believe in this stupid fucking resting shit! We could have sacrificed him to Jashin while he was still alive! This is fucking bul -"
"Do you want to join Kakuzu?"
"I'm immortal you dick wad!"
"Doesn't mean you can't feel pain…I am feeling a little hungry."
"Don't you even fucking think about eating me! I will gut you from the inside out."
"The quicker you shovel the quicker it's finished. And maybe then I'll consider not eating you."
"Nobody is eating anyone." Pein snapped. "Now shovel! In silence!" Pein added when Hidan grumbled.
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"Now let's make like a tree and get the fuck out of here!" Hidan exclaimed as he finished scooping the earth over Kakuzu's grave.
I stood silently as everyone said their final words and scooted off back inside the manor. Sakura still grasped my shirt, as if she wanted to guide me.
"Let go of me." I said as she began to lead me back inside.
I wasn't going to let her think she was doing some good deed by helping me like a charity case, I'd been walking the halls of the Akatsuki manor with poor eyesight as long as I could remember. This was my home and I remembered each hallway, each stair. I could walk the halls in the dark; I could certainly walk the halls in blindness.
"But -"
"I'm not a cripple, I can walk just fine." I went and sat on a rock that had always inhabited the space underneath a dormant cherry blossom tree.
"I don't think you're a cripple, I was just trying to -"
"Help? I don't need help."
"Yes you do. You're blind -"
"I am not blind."
"Denying the fact will not make it -"
I snatched her wrist and gripped it tightly. "You will not breathe a word of it or you and your baby will die."
"My…lips are sealed." She whispered, I could almost 'see' the fear in her eyes. I released her wrist and she, surprisingly, sat beside me.
I sat and listened to the night for a while, forgetting her presence completely. Chancing a shot with my Sharingan I could sense an owl watching a small mouse scurry across the yard.
"Turn your Sharingan off now!" She exclaimed like a mother berating a child.
"Why should I, I can't damage my eyes anymore."
"You'll make your eyes bleed again; eventually your Sharingan ability will fade too."
"All the more reason to use it while I can."
"You'll kill yourself!"
"Since when is that a bad thing." I snapped at her. "Why are you still here? I thought Raiu was offering to watch you for me while you ate."
"Because I was going to get you to rest, I need to perform some tests -"
"No tests."
"But I might be able to -"
"Unless you can reverse blindness I don't want to know about it."
"…Nothing can reverse blindness." She whispered.
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In bed that night I imagined the rays of moonlight coming in through the windows, casting shadows about the room, while it filled other parts with an eerie white moonbeam glow. I imagined that I could see the brown owl that sat outside on a tree branch and made tell-tale 'hoots'. It was strange not to hear yells or cries or arguments, instead all I could hear was the ambience.
Of course it was only quiet because almost everyone had shuffled off to the village to drink away Kakuzu's fortune; it had been awhile since we'd had any money for luxuries. And tomorrow morning I would be dragged out of bed at the crack of dawn for the initiation of the four new recruits. There they would be presented with their own cloak and ring, and for those who hadn't already, would scratch a line across their hi-ate, symbolic of severing their loyalty to that village.
Tonight I knew I would get no sleep. How can I sleep knowing I'll never see another dawn or sunset? How can I sleep knowing I'll never see another sunny day?
If I were a weaker man I might have cried, if I were a dim man I wouldn't have known that blindness was the second sign.
I plucked my leather book from the nightstand and tried to sneak out of the bed without waking the kunoichi. I just escaped tripping over as my feet twisted in the bed sheets. I struggled to identify those unmoving inanimate objects as of yet. Slowly and carefully, running my hand along the wall, I was able to find the closet.
Before tucking the book back away in its original hiding spot, I whispered a word of prayer to my mother, I would join her soon.
GAsp!!!!! I won't be updating as often as I have to go back to school tommorrow, where they enjoy supressing my writing ability by cramming my head with useless information and cramming my bag full of homework. Wish me luck... Keep reviewing! Reviews give me the will to keep writing. And a big thanks to the ultra super special awesome people who reviewed! You guys/girls get a cookie.
And I apologise for Hidan's bad language...somebody should really make him eat soap.
Imagine I had a shotgun. Imagine you stood six feet away. Imagine I said if you didn't review you would become a bullet-filled corpse. Imagine you reviewed :).