Chapter 5

Something inside me had dropped away, and nothing came in to fill the cavern.

— Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

Nothing ... a great and miserable nothing that revealed the uncertainty and fear of tomorrow that dwelt in me - the horror that another lifeless body would appear overwhelmed me with a sense of incompetence.

One week after the last murder, the investigation was still in its infancy - there was no suspect, no conclusive evidence to give us a clue, and the toxin used was still a mystery that seemed to be deepening. We received, then passed on to the whole world empty words, meaningless lies to hide the absolute confusion that floated above us like a gray cloud, losing the overall image on which we should have focused. The essentials were deliberately lost sight of, in order to preserve the grandeur of the organized crime department over which the darkness seemed to have set.

There were too high expectations for a disgraced department - incompetence cost us dearly, and people lost confidence in us. They looked at us with skepticism because I know, damn it, I know all the mistakes that have been made over the years, I know how many you lost your life and although no one said it, their lips were sealed by the question of what even I I had in my head: "But who will follow?"

"Oi, I don't know who lied to you, but I'm pretty sure this case won't work out on its own if you frown at the case in front of you." the male voice that came from the door frame made me look up as I pressed my temples with two fingers in the hope of relieving the headache I didn't have, but I felt it coming and I looked at him. He leaned nonchalantly on his shoulder against the wall, looking at me with a confused mixture of feelings in his dazed, dazzling black.

I had the vague impression that an eternity had passed since I had never seen him, that in front of me was a stranger, not my own brother.

"Oh, you were ..."

"Were you waiting for someone? I heard about the new case you received and I came to see you. You don't look very good ..." he had a certain harshness in his eyes - an expressionless face, difficult to discern, to understand, although behind his eyelids was the endless, indefinite mirror of his soul, of the truth. His keen eyes seemed tired, torn between something I thought was a mixture of worry and fear.

"Did you come to our mother's insistence? You can tell her I'm fine ... I'm still surviving!"

"Actually, believe it or not, but I came of my own will... I wanted to know if ..." I raised my right eyebrow, waiting for my little brother to step on his unwavering pride and finish his sentence. "I wanted to see how you are ... I'm very worried, in fact, we all are. And I know, big brother, we've always had a lot of tense moments, I know I've been a bastard, a terrible brother, but I care about you. I hate to know you're pushing us all and getting more and more lonely. It's been years since you came home and mom, she's trying ... she's really trying to give you space, but, Itachi, how long are you willing to lose for a dead woman?"

His disrespect annoyed me. Even after all these years of silence, he was still unable to understand. Behind that muscular joint carcass, behind that man's body, was still the ragged child he used to be — just as selfish, superficial. Proud and arrogant, he was the faithful copy of a tyrant who destroyed his childhood by absence.

"And who is to blame, little brother?" I gritted my teeth, clenching my fist in frustration at the memory of my dying woman in my arms haunting me like a night ghost.

"But, Itachi ... we're a family and ..."

"No Sasuke, you're wrong ... my family is dead. You all killed it, with your indifference. Now please ... I have to get back to work!"

But he didn't leave. He chose to stay there, like a stone sheepfold, in front of the lacquered wooden desk, staring at me with strange eyes, bathed in boundless regrets. I had the strange feeling that all his masks had fallen off. I felt agitated, in a difficult, awkward position, and although he was out of his comfort zone — far from his usual dominating posture, he did not leave but did not have the courage to face me. He just sat and looked at me silently, with a far too fine shadow of a tear gathered in the corner of his eye.

"You can hate me, Itachi, you can refuse to ever see your family again and hell, you are entitled to do it, you have every right in the world to hate us, to feel the repulsion you feel. Izumi is dead because of us ..." it was the first time anyone had had the courage to verbalize this fact that proved the well-hidden cruelty of my family and I could not stop the mad anger that was boiling in my chest. Maybe I should have appreciated his sincerity or at least the desire to straighten things out a little, but the drama of the woman he loved, the injustice he fought prevented me from being able to forget or forgive.

"No one and nothing will bring her back to you, but you can't stop us from caring about you either. You can't stop wanting to change something and I know ... maybe it's too late, maybe I left you too long or maybe I was never fully able to understand you. But we are still brothers, and you have been and will remain my role model. You are Itachi, Itachi who has always supported me, who has always been there and who ..."

"It is too late for us to have this conversation. Please, Sasuke, leave the office because I need to see the forensic doctor soon."

I took a careless stance toward the young man, who had bowed his eyes to the ground like a loser, and took a moment to take a moment to analyze the feelings that were gripping me. It was an endless whirlwind of feelings that struck me violently, dizzyingly and contrastingly; I felt everything and nothing at the same time and somewhere in the depths of my soul crushed with hatred and frustration, I still felt that there might be a small and fragile chance to atone for their sins. I watched him leave the room with a resigned look, without saying a word, a look, and I was again, as if destined for my birth, alone, in the dimly lit office lined with rice paper. There was a bitter silence, bizarrely harmonized with my tangled thoughts that tormented me. Loneliness tired me, sucked from me the life that seemed to have frozen since Izumi left.

It was now past 20:00 and in less than a few moments, Orochimaru should have appeared. It's just that he didn't show up. Ten minutes passed, then another ten and then ten and then nothing. The corridor was empty and the footsteps seemed to dissipate as the daylight faded into the horizon, pastel shades. I peeked through the bamboo blinds that filtered the golden light of the sunset, to see how a black SUV stops in the empty parking lot, from which a pink ghost, dressed in black, hurries out like a storm.

For the first time today, I felt that luck was smiling on me. I was waiting for a strange forensic expert and instead I received a fiery student with the body of a goddess who attracted me like a magnet. The woman had a sublime elegance, a pathos that burned in her like a flame - hot and lively and enchanted me, made me gravitate around her. It made me want to feel it, touch it and hear my name moan so melodiously.

And the door opened and the beautiful nymph entered it, which seemed to illuminate the whole room like a gentle spring.

"Oh, Haruno-sama, did you miss me so quickly?" I began to tease her again, seeing how she was trying at all costs to hide her embarrassed look from mine.

"Leave that now, you idiot! I brought the toxicological results. The venom belongs to a snake called Cobre-Scorpio. It seems to affect neural activity and cause a very slow and painful death and prevent the victim from being able to defend himself. Basically, it works like a paralysis, but his senses are amplified, so the pain feels stronger."

"Looks like we're dealing with a poison expert psychopath ..." I sighed in exasperation, as I read between the lines the forensic report brought by rosette.

"Captain Uchiha, you still haven't heard the most interesting part of the story ..." she smiled mischievously at me as she sat more comfortably in her chair. With a short nod, I allowed her to continue, while I lit a cigarette. "It seems that another has not been ingested; no one poured anything into the drink. The victim would most likely have realized if he had done so - the poison has a specific smell and color. In addition, it is one hundred percent effective if administered intravenously. It was administered by an old medical method, developed by doctors in the Land of Sound. It is the only place where scorpion snakes can grow, the swampy habitat is a favorable environment for creating venom."

"Can he be a doctor ...?!" I frowned angrily, thinking how someone who should have taken care of people was taking advantage of the power of his job. "Tell me, please, more about this method!"

"Medicine has always had a dark side, especially during the Great Wars, when the feudal lord of Land of Fire transformed the Land of Sound into an impenetrable military fortress in the heart of the mountains. Doctors were paid to develop a supreme weapon, to discover the secret of the perfect crime. They named it "The Fate of Fire" and the mechanism is quite simple. All you need is a poison-soaked needle, which you then insert into a specific spot on the victim's neck. Then wait a few hours and boom, you have a corpse."

It was hard to describe the disgust I felt for my own country, driven by our past in which we were always obsessed with bloodshed. Everything that happened then seems to be turning against innocent people now, and I couldn't help but be angry. It was so unfair for someone to use a weapon that some doctors had developed more than fifty years ago to take advantage of poor women and then throw them like rags among the thorns.

"You seem to know quite a few things, young lady, don't you?"

"I was born and raised in the Land of Sound." she answered me shyly, in a low voice, almost whispered "It is a sad place, very conservative. People are being carefully checked and you need a pass that needs to be renewed from month to month." she kept talking to me, a little absent, a little sad. "If I were you, I'd start at the border!"

"Thank you for the advice, Haruno-sama!"

"If there is nothing more to say, then I will leave, Uchiha-sama!" she bit her lower lip stressed, groping nervously, her hands trembling for the file I had just pushed lightly toward her.

"Actually, honey, we both have something to discuss, and you know this very well. Time passed. It's time for you to give me an answer. " I felt like I was getting involved in something I couldn't carry, but I wanted her so much that I didn't care what I had to give to get her.

"I will do that..."

Saying this, she turned her back on me and headed for the door, waving her thighs sensually, in a seemingly innocent gesture. But something of her way of being, something of the shy smile that had thrown me over her shoulder, made me understand that she didn't feel intimidated or scared - she looked at everything as a challenge, as a game and it happens to be a damn good strategist.

"Hmm, we'll see, honey ..." I grinned, still staring at where she had been a few seconds ago.

…...

Hello everyone, I finally managed to bring chapter 5 and I hope that, however, you didn't wait too long. I had a very bad period mentally and it was quite difficult for me to do anything but I try to recover and I hope to bring maybe longer and better chapters.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and that I piqued your interest in what might follow. It would mean a lot to me to know your opinion and if you like what I write, you can go to my other story "Serendipity" which has Shisui and Sakura in the foreground.

I hope you are all well and thank you for reading what I am writing.

PS: If you are a workaholic just like me, don't forget to take breaks and take care of yourself!