Several hours passed before Itachi showed any signs of wakefulness. Slowly, as the sedation began to wear off, dark eyes fluttered behind heavy lids and fingers tightened around bedsheets. House propped his feet on the bed, and stretched his arms behind his head.

"You know, dying criminals don't just get up out of bed to go after their little brothers without a good reason."

The words echoed in the quiet, sterile room, and Itachi's eyes shot open.

"Don't worry. Your secret's safe with me." House added nonchalantly. "I sent that big blue buddy of yours off on an errand. Something about turning a certain jonin's desk into beachfront property in return for the chance to see her nipples through her vest – something I'd personally love to see, but you know what they say. Business before pleasure."

Too exhausted to activate his sharingan, Itachi forced himself to squint in the doctor's general direction. House leaned forward, but it did little good.

"It was pretty obvious if you ask me. You never intended to kill the brat." House continued. "All your attacks did were systematically egg him into using up his own chakra so the chakra in the curse seal would be easier to latch onto with that strange jutsu of yours."

Itachi managed a glare, and House smirked.

"Actually, you didn't just not kill him. You nearly killed yourself to save him."

House studied Itachi's face, but it betrayed no emotions whatsoever. Sighing, he sat back against the chair, spinning his cane around in his hand.

"At first, I thought you were just acting out of guilt. Murder everyone the kid knows and loves. He's bound to come back for revenge, finish what you started. He did it in Tanzaku Town, right? Same thing, only this time, you're weak enough he might actually get somewhere with it." House added. "But if that were the case, you wouldn't have taken so many precautions. You wouldn't have accepted Cameron's aid. You wouldn't have even cared about the curse mark, on your brother or on my doctor."

This time, House's words provoked a reaction, albeit a small one. Itachi's gaze fell somewhere between the IVs in his left arm.

"You didn't just want him to kill you and avenge the death of everyone you killed. That would make him no better than you." House smirked again. "No… You actually care about what happens to the kid. You don't want him to be a murderer. You want him to be a hero – a proud, strong, righteous hero! That is your plan, isn't it?"

Itachi clenched his fists.

"But he's not a hero, is he." House slid to the side of Itachi's bed, forcing himself into the patient's line of limited sight. "That's why you kept encouraging him during the fight, isn't it? It's why you knocked him out in Tanzaku Town with that Tsukuyomi jutsu. That, which does not kill you, makes you stronger? The EEG ruled out the most devastating physical effects of whatever it is you did to him, so the real damage must be psychological. Am I right?"

Itachi slowly nodded.

"Of course, how were you to know the psychological strain would be enough to break the seal that was controlling the curse mark? That was certainly unexpected, wasn't it!" House boasted. "So of course, now you have to fix that on top of the whole engineering your own death at his hands part. And well… None of that's working out quite the way you planned, is it..."

Itachi would have let out a long sigh, were it not for the forceful push of the respirator. He was far too tired to even sit up, so he resigned himself to running his fingers through the tubes pumping near-toxic doses of medicine through his failing body.

"Microscopic Polyangiitis." House threw the words, like shuriken, in his patient's face. "Your body's own antibodies are turning against your white blood cells, damaging the walls of blood vessels all over your body – in your eyes, in your kidneys, especially in your lungs. Now, given how complex your little scheme is, it's pretty obvious you're smart enough to have figured out that your prognosis isn't exactly favorable. So I won't waste time patronizing you. But if we can force the symptoms into remission, and your body responds well to treatment, you might still have a couple of years left."

Itachi glared back up at House, and his expressionless expression said both everything and nothing at the same time.

"It'll give you enough time to make some new plans." House added as he stood up. "Because that brother of yours isn't going to be the one avenging you. Your own body's going to beat him to it by leaps and bounds."