--Can't Take It/Me--

You don't want to hurt me,
But see how deep the bullet lies.
Unaware that I'm tearing you asunder.
There's a thunder in our hearts, baby,
So much hate for the ones we love,
Tell me, we both matter, don't we?--Running up that Hill--Placebo.

"Fuagku, what did you say to Itachi?" Mikoto asked as she stood in the doorway or their bedroom. She looked down at her husband, who had his back to her. She knew he could feel her eyes on him. He didn't turn around.

"About what, Mikoto?" Fugaku asked. He was wrapping his wrists and ankles, getting ready for a day at work. He was still chief of police, along with everything else. He was getting to old to drag around like that--he should hand the post off to someone younger. He should delegate his duties more. He didn't have to do everything.

"About me. What did you say to him to make him avoid me like this?" Mikoto asked, voice gaining a strained tone she hated. She had never been like this when she was in ANBU. She'd never been this emotional when they'd let her be a ninja, which she was born and bred to be, and not a housewife who tried to take care of people who were bashing themselves against walls and running themselves into the ground.

"I didn't say anything to him, Mikoto," Fugaku said, voice just as tired and strained as Mikoto felt. He wasn't young anymore. Neither was she. They were both hitting the downward slope--Fugaku was running down it.

"Then why won't he talk to me? Why is it every time I try to ask him questions he clams up or he just leaves? Why won't he tell me anything, Fugaku?" Her voice rose. She tried to keep it low and calm, but it rose and cracked and frayed like everything else. This whole house was falling down around them, and no one seemed to care.

Or they cared about other things more.

Fugaku stood up and turned to face his wife. Mikoto struggled to school her face into some semblance of order. She couldn't. It wouldn't hold. Fugaku was looking at her like he didn't know her. "I haven't told him anything, Mikoto."

"Then why is he avoiding me? Are you two trying to keep me 'safe' like Sasuke? Do you think I'm not trustworthy, or strong enough to handle what's going on? I see what's happening to us, Fugaku! I see what's falling apart! I see the dissention, and I see the radicals, and I see that you're trying your damn hardest to stop it all, but you can't! I know what's going on, so don't treat me like a child or a brainless trophy wife! I am an Uchiha! I was ANBU. I'm just as much a ninja and Uchiha as you are, with just as much a right to now what's going on!

"I'm your wife! Itachi's my son, and I deserve to know what's going on."

"Mikoto, I haven't told him anything--he doesn't tell me anything except impertinent details about his investigations and missions. If he's avoiding you, than I'm the last one who'd know why," Fugaku's voice was level, calm, and Mikoto was both furious and ashamed. "None of us are safe right now."

"He passed his psych. eval," Mikoto said softly. "But he's not talking to us--he's not himself Fugaku. Doesn't that bother you? Can't you see what's happening?"

"Can I do anything about it?" Fugaku asked. He grabbed his tonfa.

"You can stop pushing him so hard. Fugaku, don't you see you're going to ruin our son? You can see it too. He's going to break if you don't tell him to slow down. You're clan head--it's you job to look out for these things, and he's your son!" Mikoto protested.

"He's also a vital member of the clan, and a key part in an investigation that will, if everything pans out, help the clan."

"So you'll sacrifice your son for the good of the clan?"

"Itachi understands what he's doing."

"He's doing it because you've asked him too. He doesn't want to let you down. How can you--"

"I have two sons, Mikoto. I have a clan that's practically dying out. How many children have been born this year? Sasuke is the third Uchiha to go into the Academy since Itachi went in. We're dying out--there aren't enough children. If we don't stand up and push, we'll die out just like the Senjuu clan, and fade away into nothing--"

"So it's all mean to an end! You have two sons, Fugaku, one of them being Itachi! I have two sons--I carried both of them inside of me for nine months. I fed them with my body. They are the future of the Uchiha. They are our children--both of them. Are you going to sacrifice one to save the future of the other?" Mikoto asked, cold, hard, angry and desperate. She couldn't say anything that would make Itachi stop. Itachi saw her only as his mother. Fugaku he saw as a father, his clean head, and his superior. He would listen to Fugaku. If only Fugaku would say what Itachi needed to hear.

Fugaku met her gaze. "You're right. It's all means to an end, Mikoto. I sacrifice one child to the machinations of the clan and save the other so he can grow up as a child, and not some parody of one with killers hands and eyes. Itachi's not a child--he never was, and you started that. You were the one who began teaching him before he could properly walk how to kill. I may be the one pushing him now, but you are the one who nursed him with blood and steel from your breast."

Mikoto's hand was caught in Fugaku's grip. She should know she couldn't hit him. She was out of practice. He was a ninja, and she was no longer. Mikoto's eyes were red, spinning and mad. Fugaku's were grey still--impassive and cold like Itachi's were now. Itachi had his father's eyes. Mikoto's chest was tight. She couldn't breath, but her heart was pounding. She was inches from Fugaku's face.

When had she started hating grey eyes?

"We've already lost him to the clan, Mikoto. You still have Sasuke--don't forget him." Fugaku released Mikoto's hand, and walked out.

"I hate you." Mikoto said, hand dropping to her side.

She heard Fugaku pause. "You're not the only one."

Mikoto knew he what he meant. She knew what he felt. She knew he felt the same feeling she did in his chest. It didn't make it any easier to take.

He was right. She had Sasuke. She's raised him to be a child, coddled and loved him like she never had Itachi. She was a mother to Sasuke, while for Itachi she had been a teacher of the killing arts. She'd learned how to be a mother since then, but now there was no child for her to mother. Now there was only, as Fugaku had said, the form of a child with the mind and soul of a killer--nursed on blood and steel from a cold ANBU's breast.

The Uchiha always bred true.

Mikoto hated herself too.

---

Itachi sat in a lonely room, filling out paperwork. With more missions came more reports. Itachi spent a few hours a week just writing out the things. He was practically living in the ANBU headquarters now. When he wasn't running missions, doing paper work, or training, he was poking around and seeing what he could hear of find out. He was always listening. Always.

He felt like time was running out--for him and his clan. The other had ended up killing his clan, though he didn't seem happy about it. He'd gotten no satisfaction from the kills, so why had he done it? Why did he insist Itachi would do it? Something had to change--either in Itachi or outside of him. Itachi had, in the other's past, possibly cracked. Maybe he'd simply gone crazy and killed everyone.

Why else would he do it? Itachi didn't want his clan dead--did someone else? Why would that make Itachi kill his clan? Had he been paid by an outside source to kill his clan? Why would he have accepted? Had he been forced to? How could you force someone to do something like that? Itachi didn't think you could. He didn't think it was possible.

He needed to figure this out. He needed to find out what had happened before it happened to him. He didn't know how soon this would take place. He had no landmarks to go by.

Safe as long as Shisui is still alive. The other interjected in a vague, sleepy way. The other, who for a while had been almost part of Itachi, had been mostly separate of late, and hard to sense most of the time. Other times it took over and Itachi knew nothing until he awakened hours, or in one case, days later. It usually happened on missions. The missions Itachi ran and remembered, he seemed to be guided--maybe goaded--into action by something inside him that wasn't precisely him--the other. Moves came to him that he'd never seen or imagined.

Why was Shisui's death do pivotal? Itachi gnawed on his pen and thought as he stared at the paper. Shisui was still alive and well, so if Itachi avoided Shisui, and the other didn't want the clan dead, then things should be okay. It would give Itachi some breathing room. He just needed some time to figure out what was going on in ANBU—he got the feeling that was connected to his clan's death somehow. He could be wrong, but he knew there was something odd going on in ANBU now.

The door to the room opened. Genma came strolling in, followed by Raidou. Itachi looked up, and then back down to his report. They were probably here to file a report, or pick other paperwork up. It was late--or early, and no one else was really around.

"Ne, Itachi," Genme said, brining Itachi's gaze back up. "Are you cleared for missions? Tsume had to pull out, and we're scheduled for a mission tonight. Can you do a switch for us?"

A 'switch' was pulling a member from another squad to fill out yours in case of an emergency. Itachi hadn't done it much, but squads that worked a lot together or knew each other well did it all the time. When Itachi had been on Kakashi's squad, they had done a lot of switching with Gai's squad.

"Yes, I can," Itachi closed the file he was working on and stood up. He put it away to be finished later, locking the box he put it in with his own chakra seal.

"Excellent--I don't have to go get Kakashi out of bed now," Genma grinned and grabbed a paper from a stack and wrote some things on it. He handed it to Itachi who made a few notes on it and signed his name. He was now temporarily on Inoichi'a squad. Genma and Raidou were already dressed and ready. Genma would get the paper sealed by the missions desk, and it would be placed in the report to explain why the squad had a different member. ANBU was half paper work--at least for the captains it was.

Itachi headed for the locker room to get ready. He found Inoichi was there, waiting for his team to return with the fourth member. He looked a bit surprised to see Itachi. Itachi gave him a bow and moved past to get dressed. He just needed his armor, being still in his black clothes and boots. Itachi began the mindless process. ANBU could dress in uniform in their sleep after a few months.

He could feel Inoichi's eyes on his back. It bothered him a but. He wondered what Inoichi thought of him--the Uchiha heir. Ino wasn't much younger than Itachi. Was he thinking that his own daughter might one day be ANBU? Was he thinking of all the heart-ache and pain being the parent of a ninja was? Did he regret ever teaching his daughter the ways of the ninja?

Did he teach her out of love or duty?

"I didn't expect Genma and Raidou to find you," Inoichi finally said. "It will be interesting to finally run a mission with you, Itachi-kun."

"With you as well," Itachi politely said. Actually, he was looking forward to running this mission. Genma and Raidou knew him as Itachi, the clumsy little gennin that had grown quick and fast into a more than competent ninja. He had nothing to prove to them, and Inoichi was going to think of Itachi as a small child no matter what he did here. Itachi grabbed his mask as Raidou and Genma returned.

Genma ruffled Itachi's hair. "Ready to go, brat?" Itachi cast him a sharp eyed look.

"Watch it, I hear he bites," Raidou called as he picked up his mask.

"Peh, kids bitten me more times than I can count. One more isn't going to hurt me," Genma replied, sliding his rat mask into place. Itachi should probably be more offended than he was but....this was Genma. He felt a grumble in his mind that said it didn't matter, the man should respect Itachi more, but Genma did respect Itachi. He'd seen Itachi grow at an unprecedented rate. He'd been the one to grab Itachi and keep him from running himself into the ground too early. He'd held Itachi back long enough to keep Itachi from falling on his face.

It was too bad Genma couldn't do that now.

Itachi placed his mask over his face and took a deep breath. The mission was about to begin.

Itachi was standing in front of the locker--his locker in ANBU headquarter. His gloves were a mess of crusted blood. His eyes--gods his eyes were on fire. They hurt. Itachi took a gulping breath under his mask, disoriented, pained, and almost panicked. What about the mission? How had he gotten here? Had the other done something again? Itachi took another breath, and it hurt. His chest was pain. He breaths were almost agony.

Had he taken a hit? He couldn't remember. Had he taken a blow to the head? He didn't know. His head didn't hurt--just his eyes, and his chest. It burned. Itachi gulped another shallow breath. He couldn't breath. The other was right--breathing hurt. Did his joints ache too? No, no, just his eyes and his chest.

His ribs. His ribs hurt--they were cracked or broken. Itachi hadn't had a bad injury for a while. Itachi took another shallow breath, telling himself to calm down. He was fine. He just needed to stop taking such deep breath. Why weren't his ribs wrapped? If he'd taken a hit, then they should have stopped to wrap his ribs before coming back to base. You didn't take chances with ribs--if you lost a lung out on the field it was a big problem.

His eyes hurt. There were tears trailing down his face--no, no, not tears.

Oh gods.

Itachi blinked, lashes thick and sticky. He knew what that was. He knew why his eyes hurt so much. Itachi pulled off his gloves. His hands were stained with blood. His whole uniform needed to be cleaned. Itachi felt like he'd bathed in blood--they'd been taking out a small group of missing-nin, so how had he gotten to messy? Why couldn't he remember the mission? Itachi pushed to find the other, but his mind was empty. It felt cold.

He gulped a breath, and couldn't find anything but pain.

Chakra enforced kick, flying at him, No time to dodge--no, there was time, but taking the hit would allow for a double kill. The kick hit, and a kunai buried in the attacker's throat. Itachi hit the wall, breathless, choking on the sudden exhalation of air. His body moved without another breath, twisting into an attack and slamming his ninto home into the chest of another enemy. Blood showered him, bone crunched, things ripped and tore and all around him he could smell blood and death.

There was pain, sharp, high, and annoying. There was a soft keening in his mind, crying softly because that hurt--hurt so bad, and why couldn't he breath? Why was he still moving? Why wasn't he waiting for the deep aching fire pain to stop and for his lungs to take in air again? The pain didn't hurt him. Oh, it hurt Itachi, had the little lamb crying inside his mind, keening like a broken animal. He could ignore the pain. It wasn't his to feel.

Itachi hand was on his side, gingerly cupping the ribs that ached. He was braced with one hand against the lockers, and he just couldn't find the right way to breathe without hurting. The faded, hate tinted images and thoughts racing through his mind didn't help. Itachi hadn't run the mission. Something else had. What though? The other?

"How bad're your ribs?" Genma asked from close at hand. Itachi jumped, eyes flashing wide into the sharingan. That was agony of a new level. His chakra pathways felt raw and sore--like they'd been over used and stretched in a way that wasn't possible. Itachi took a sharp breath, which he only managed half of before the sharp pain from his ribs stopped him.

"Fine," Itachi lied, stepping away from Genma. He squeezed his eyes shut behind his mask and swallowed. The sharingan spun, and calmed.

"Brat, your breathing's a mess. You should probably go to see the medic, or you can let me look and see if it's fine," Genma lectured, slipping into the tone of teacher to student. It rankled. Itachi felt hot anger rise up in him, burning him.

"I'm fine," Itachi almost growled. He felt his eyes burning, and the sharingan trying to come to life. He felt the trickle creeping down his cheek, pooling in the edge of his mask.

"Bratling's bleeding," Raidou intoned from across the row of lockers. Genma swore lightly, and Itachi stepped back again.

"It's nothing--I'm fine," Itachi started. he didn't want them to see that his eyes were bleeding. He didn't want those rumors to start, or for news of that to get back to his parents. They had enough to worry about, and it wasn't like worry would stop Itachi's eyes from bleeding. No one knew why that happened--no one could stop it.

"Uchiha, take your mask off and let Shiranui take a look at your ribs and whatever you've got under your mask," Inoichi said, with calm authority in his voice. At this moment, Itachi had to follow Inoichi's orders. The man was his superior.

But why should Itachi follow those orders? What right did that man have to give Itachi, of all people, orders? Inoichi was nothing in comparison to Itachi. He was just an old war veteran who'd outlive his glory days. He had no right to tell Itachi, who was a bright sun next to all these dying stars, what to do. Inoichi was weak--pathetic, and there was no way Itachi would take orders from a small time clanner like him if Itachi didn't want to.

Itachi felt the thick, hot rage swelling in him. It bubbled up in him, burning at the base of his skull. He saw red, and the sharing was spinning in his eyes, and, gods, it hurt but it didn't matter.

You're not angry! That's not you!

It was like getting a slap with an icy cold hand. The color drained from Itachi face, along with the anger. It wasn't his, Itachi realized with a shock. It wasn't the other's--not since it was the other that had shocked Itachi from the rage. It was something else. There was something else in Itachi's mind. Itachi scrambled for the receding source of the rage—trying to see what it was, who it was, if it was really something other than Itachi. It was gone, leaving him feeling cold and drained. His mouth was dry. He had no doubt he'd felt whatever it was. He had no doubt it was real.

"Itachi." Genma's voice jerked Itachi from his thoughts. Itachi looked over at his former teacher, and he felt small and fragile again. He felt like a child--he was a child. He was only thirteen. Why was he here among these killers and battle hardened men? Why had they ever let a child, a creature so fragile, into their world of death and hardships? Why had he ever wanted to come here?

"Let me see."

See what? How broken Itachi was now? How far he had fallen? How broken he'd become? Itachi had been deluding himself this whole time. He didn't have his future self in his mind. He was going crazy--simple as that. That was why his clan was in danger. Itachi was crazy, and all he could think about was how they were going to die.

Genma touched Itachi's shoulder. Itachi whirled, smacking Genma's hand away. "Stay away from me," Itachi said, voice hard, cold, and that was the only things keeping it from being desperate. Genma looked a little shocked. Inoichi's brow was furrowing, and Raidou was moving towards them. Itachi walked around Genma, small legs reaching so he could get away from them.

"I'm going to see the medic," Itachi managed to keep his voice calm as he walked by them, wishing he could run, but his chest hurt too much for that. Walking was fast enough to get by them--to get away from them.

It was too bad they weren't the problem.

A/N: This chapters is brought to you by Bronchitis! Yeah, I have no idea at this point if this chapter manages to make sense or if I need to do some serious work on it when I'm not medicated and feverish. I probably shouldn't even be posting it right now, but I am. If ya'll find it way too disjointed and illogical and the what-not, lemme know and I'll work on it.

Thank you so much for all the wonderful reviews! :D You guys rock.