Utterly Unexpected: Careful, it's not just Sasuke anymore.
Itachi was grateful that the battle had moved away from the village gates. In fact, he was grateful that the battle moved away from the village period, because he was rather sure that Sasuke would be incredibly upset if he had accidentally destroyed a chunk of his home because of his enthusiasm to end him.
Which he had done surprisingly better at than Itachi had thought he would do.
Still, by the time things ground to a halt, he was completely certain that he'd be screamed at for an eternity, and that Sasuke would never forgive him for the fight, because though he passed out, he wasn't dead. Which was good, and bad, because on the one hand, quality time with Sasuke in the hospital! On the other hand... quality time with Sasuke in the hospital.
Where they'd just spent a considerable amount of effort making sure he would not be ending up abruptly dead... that he had managed to completely undo, and in fact had made worse.
Damn.
Still, he was rather sure that Tsunade-sama wasn't fool enough to stick them in a room together under any circumstances before Sasuke was done with the whole 'kill my brother at all costs' thing, so him waking up to Sasuke attempting to get enough energy to effectively smother him? Baffling, and a bit depressing too.
He really had broken his poor little brother, hadn't he?
Well, there was no help for it at the time, and he was home now, so he could work on fixing it!
If he survived the effort.
Which might be a problem considering it just took two ANBU to drag Sasuke back out of the room even in his weakened state.
He only then eased himself up to a sitting position, noting that the shadows had settled down in the room, which meant that, yes, things were back to normal.
Of course, that also brought his attention to the fact that his suppression seals were back on.
Damn again.
Hopefully he wasn't the only one though, because having him suppressed when Sasuke wasn't was simply unfair, and if he died he at least wanted to make it worth his brother's time and skills, otherwise it really wouldn't be at all meaningful for the teen. Though he was rather sure that the near smothering thing had been exhaustion and desperation, not actual forethought.
It really didn't seem Sasuke's style.
It wasn't much longer at all before someone came to the door. Blonde. That must mean the Hokage. Please, please let it be the Hokage.
He wasn't sure he could take Ino right now, and felt that he really hadn't done anything since her last visit that meant he needed to be punished. In fact, he should get a reward, because he'd been right and Sasuke was home now! Just like he'd said!
But Hokage. Thankfully yes, it was the Hokage, and she'd been talking while he'd been thinking so he came in on the tail end of her words with very little idea as to what could have come before. Oops.
"-Which means I need more of the details."
Details? What? He stared at her, then squinted to try to bring her face into focus, though if anything his sight had gotten about three times as bad as before, thus making the effort futile. "Details?"
"You never actually wrote a report about your last 'mission' Itachi-san."
"Oh."
"Right. So, can you still write with your eyes that bad?"
"I think so?"
"...Legibly?"
"...Maybe?"
"Right... I'll have Ibiki come by to help you get down the details. Oh, and if you see pink in your room, page for help immediately. You're no good to us dead."
"Wha-?" But she was already going back out the door, and he was left trying to figure out why pink apparently was going to mean his death.
Last he'd checked the only pink was Sasuke's genin teammate and that girl had always seemed rather nice, outside of battle at least, so why...?
Still, it was sound advice. Pink equals death, call for help.
Got it.
And now he was going to be paranoid about a color he couldn't even see.
This day was going perfectly.