Chapter Fifty-Five: Death of a Crow
AN: I'm not much of a poet, but I enjoyed writing this.
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A butterfly flies with precarious wings,
It shudders playfully whilst it sings.
Flying insistently towards the red,
It made a little wound that bled.
In the glare of that light, its mind was lost,
It did not care for the terrible cost.
Yet once it knew, it was too late,
It had made a little blunder in haste.
Poor thing, its wing caught fire,
It died silently in the mire.
She was always meant to eat her words like a picky child ate his sweets. Her games were dull and instilled a sense of lethargy in him now. Other times, they grated on his nerves the way something big and heavy, made of metal, was dragged on the rocks. He was through with them and her superficial charms. They were theatre-performances one saw daily simply out of boredom.
After that last order, Tsunade's missives came no more. It had been a week since he heard from her last. Kai sent him a letter last night that Sasuke was all right and that everything was going along smoothly. At least, his words gave him the reassurances he needed that his brother was safe and that he had not made a foolish bargain to protect him. He would damn the scroll and every treacherous word spoken to him if it all came to naught. He never fought fruitless battles and never devised any blundering plans. Everything should yield results. Everything!
That was his motto; so he never involved himself with anyone and in any situation where he lost. He saw things through to the end, played his games right, and made perfect plans to trap the prey. He cornered it from here and he cornered it from there, till it ran and ran, huffed and puffed in exhaustion, and was left vulnerable to the final strike that ended it at last. That was how his games reached their end—fitting symphonies for the journeys he had grown fond of.
Yet he was no Kami. He killed his foes, but he could never hurt Sasuke: a foe who shared his blood. He was never created to commit this terrible sin. Sasuke was a fine paradox of his ideals. Life crafted him with care to mock him sweetly, innocently. Over the years, Sasuke had grown treacherous and moody and angry over the massacre of their Clan. Itachi could not say he understood his passions. Their deaths were a matter of the past. Why did the boy child not look into the future? He asked himself this question often now; yet, as brilliant as he was, his mind was ill-equipped to solve this wonderful mystery.
Itachi truly wished that he could breathe great sighs of relief, yet the precocious son, Sasuke, always pushed him about to be a little nervous. Itachi feared for his life and that fear wrought delicious nightmares in his mind. Sharingan was a wild beast, and its glare created ominous dreams whilst he slept. Sasuke's mischievous wildness had made a silly man from him. He feared his own dreams, and they haunted him, relentless like ravenous crows that nipped at his heels for one juicy bite.
The innocent child did not listen, did not obey, and he was forced to re-create the rules of his own playtime over and over again. What a tiresome task it was? And it wore him down, and he did not know how to win this game anymore. Sasuke wanted nothing to do with his games. He was a child that kicked at the fragile temple he had made meticulously out of sand and watched it sag to the ground in great amusement—only to demand that he should be entertained.
Itachi was at a loss. The rules of their games were so different: Sasuke took delight in the assumption that he could, someday, beat his older sibling at his own games. He was always like that even when he was a small child, and this innocent wish amused him, sometimes, for it was endearing; so he tried to read him and he did the same. It was just a game to them both. Itachi wanted to give temper to his wild nature; and Sasuke, his defeat. Youth made wild men out of boys. A man's nature was a malleable piece of clay that was to be moulded by the inexperienced hands of youth—hands that did not know any better, did not know the experience of patience through failures . . .
A tale-telling heart needed the tales to weave and craft them in earnest. Perhaps he, too, needed time and patience to mould his brother, his son, his darling. His father had been clumsy in his spring, but he chose to learn few things from him. He did not know what the future would yield for them both.
Yet others were not Sasuke. When the rules did not concern the profundity of obsession and mercy, he was ruthless, remorseless, unkind. His foes chose to play and lost terribly. There were no aspects and demeanours to delight his senses, no smiles to fill his heart with wonder. Everything was crude and easy. The passions were quick and hot. He killed them, and his designs completed themselves perfectly, neatly, wonderfully. The perfect soldier—the perfect killer.
It went along easily, and it was in his nature to be treacherous to Konoha's foes. He killed them, and they became new tales for his heart. It sang and danced in contentment at the thoughts that he had protected what he cherished. The passions came easy. They delighted him and made him ache with an abandonment that was no more than small acts of pleasures.
Itachi was a man. He was no Kami. He accepted it, touched the skin as it shuddered like the dry trembling boughs in the less kind wind. They needed water to fill their depths, and so, he filled hers and relished the primal act every man enjoyed. There was a slight flutter of fingers against his throat: she so loved that part of him, and then, as if out of habit, she pricked his skin with the needle.
Blood oozed out and sluggishly clung to his sweaty skin; then she smeared it there with her thumb, made it look like a butterfly's misshapen wing that had caught fire. He did not care. He had his own games to play. He did not have to break his rules for her. She was a foe and her time was short.
So Itachi looked into her eyes, and they lighted with a new fire—a dangerous fire. She stared deeply, entranced by its beauty like a child. It was as if the moth's poison had imbued her body with a disease, and it shattered itself completely, feeling pain and pleasure, that the wall upon her mind crumbled, and he peeked into her thoughts with ease.
Funny little, tricky little thing . . . it could not hide from the eyes of the beast. The red light trained on her, and her body was awash in a desire to squeeze him good; and so she did, and she was wild in the moments whilst she fought against the assault of death upon her flesh-temple and the prisoner-spirit that everything in her shuddered at the unseen motion it had made in her direction.
He spilt wantonly, savouring the way her body clutched him harder and harder. The more he probed, the harder she squeezed. It was like a game of quid pro quo, but he made all the rules. The irony almost delighted him. Then it was done just like that. The borrowed breath of life returned to her, and her body trembled in acknowledgement. She dragged in a loud breath, shaking beneath him like a puppeteer's doll pulled by the strings around his fingers to give the audience an unreal show of what was real. A curious expression came to her face. She had erupted rather generously upon the bed.
She looked into his eyes again, trapped in the trance of a faint memory, but the red she saw was the ordinary red. It only looked back at her, and the beast she thought she saw was gone. Her mind was at ease, and she felt as though she had won a game on an empty reassurance. He pretended that he did not see the soul-chilling fear invade bits of her face and eyes—his body, a temple of feverish contentment after this satisfying eruption. She lived in a fool's paradise of her own making . . .
Karin's seals were crafty and strange. Kikyo's guard felt the tremors of a foreign chakra in the worst possible ways. There was a rictus upon his face that was reserved for fools, and when his Genjutsu struck his mind, he spilt out more words than necessary. Kikyo had all the rowdy bandits under her little thumb. It was a small army she had created when she was young. It grew and made more factions, and strangely, one faction did not know fully about the other.
Their Heads contacted each other through common birds and did the bidding of rich men willingly. Men that filled the lower ranks were slaughtered for bigger prices, and they remained blissfully unaware of the secret alliance between the Heads. It was a cluster of fascinating lies. Their lives were of little value to Meru and his men. His group sat at the nexus of these scruffy hooligans he had gathered on her orders to prattle on about freedom and liberty.
Kikyo was hell-bent on taking over Okami Clan through Sharingan's illusions. The foolish men in Shitchi never had the luxury of Uzumaki seals she had stuffed into her sleeves. She must have got them cheap from Danzō; so her Sensors waited around, alert and vigilant in their pursuits, to detect an intrusion into their minds. Classic Root. Classic Danzō.
Itachi had little to lay on him, but he would have to be a fool to not see reason in this logic. Danzō was protecting the scroll, and he simply wanted to keep him here. For what purpose? And that thought had filled his soul with poison, and he had chosen to be so callous to cut her down. She was not worth the trouble. If he waited around any longer, it would prove to be disastrous for him—for Sasuke. It was not as if Tsunade was willing for a diplomatic solution. It was better this way.
Now, he stood on the cliff's apex, looking down at the path that undulated through the forest for his eyes. A soft drizzle caressed his face and throat: the wounds she made there had healed. A small army of thugs stood by the trees, lying in wait to ambush him. This cluster of trees was meant to become a natural lid on their mass-grave.
Itachi flashed down fast and grabbed the man he thought to be their leader by his jaws. His fingers clawed, and he thrashed about violently, unable to free himself as got lifted off the ground. Itachi dislocated and crushed his jaws. The man fell down, and he appeared to have a puppet's wide and silly grin on his face. Karin gasped and watched, too horrified to look and too mesmerised to look away, as he cut, maimed, burnt men under the light touch of the sweetest rain she had experienced in a long time.
The scent of it was defiled by his cruelty, and the ground glared with blood. Bodies crashed onto rocks and shattered like theatre marionettes as she looked on. This was the darling brother Sasuke chose to mimic? Karin did not know what to feel about his decisions. Though exceptionally brilliant, Sasuke always had been a strange one. She loved him but also wanted him to free himself from Itachi's clutches; but it did not feel as though Sasuke wanted to twist away from the grip Itachi had on him—too blinded by his love for him . . .
He was a babe in his brother's arms, and Itachi played with him out of love and a bizarre sort of obsession that carried cruelty's taint. The father's perfect mask that he wore upon his face was streaked with the most unkind shadows he brought with himself from the battlefield. His hands were decorated with the blood of fools and innocents. She did not desire for Sasuke to become like the older one—she did not.
The battle was over so quickly. In a matter of few minutes, he had laid waste to an army of seventy men. Karin sensed and felt nothing; so she took in the air, filled with blood's stench, and ran down. Itachi stood quietly over the man he had killed only moments ago. He was staring at his face like something there made him a little curious.
She stopped and he turned around, and for a fleeting moment, she felt an intent in him that made her stagger back. The feeling vanished, and his eyes cooled down like a fire going out without a hiss. He held out his sword under the forgiving rain and watched as the blood slipped down the sides and became food for the ground. These bodies would become a feast for all the scavengers in the morning.
"Can you Sense him?" Itachi asked and raised his sword to look at the gleam sliding on the perfect edges. It looked good as new. Sasuke had told her that Itachi sharpened it himself, often. She could tell that he liked the sharp sword the way a satisfied smile touched his cold eyes.
"No," Karin said and sensed his chakra roil in his body without an emotion, a fire without heat. Her gaze wandered to the right to look at the cruel expressions frozen upon the faces of the dead men.
"Were you the reason Sasuke managed to kill Fū?" Itachi asked suddenly and stashed the sword away. Karin's heart beat loudly. It had jumped up to beat inside her throat. Serizawa appeared from the right, and she could smell the blood on his hands. His red eyes did not give her the reassurance she needed.
She inhaled a cold, cold breath and stared him right in the eye as though he did not scare her, though she knew that his Sharingan could see all of the tales in her child-heart. "Sasuke bought my freedom," Karin said a little rudely, her cheeks going red in hurting fury, "I owe him everything and I owe you nothing! Why do you play games with me? You know what he did! You know—you've always known!" Then she was breathing hoarsely and looking deep into his eyes, with the carelessness of a child.
And his smile surprised her. Anger washed away, and she looked around at the fabric of that sweet air inwrought with many red butterflies . . . slowly changing into Autumn Moths. Their wings become their fabric and purple mottled the red, a lingering disease. They fluttered about him, enthralled by the chakra he exuded. Then they vanished . . .
"For how long do you want to play with him, knowing that he does not love you?" His gaze wandered her body as he appraised her worth. "You have a big heart for a hopeful little girl," he spoke in a way as if he mocked her and looked to Serizawa with an authoritative expression upon his face now. The cold had given him a little spring hue about the cheeks to fashion a make-believe mask of an ordinary man for his face. He was no man: he was a monster!
"I couldn't find Meru. He must have moved on to another outpost a day ago," he said and a hint of shame appeared on his pink face.
"You could not catch him fleeing? You continue to disappoint me, Serizawa," he spoke and there was a subtle note of irritation in his flat tone of voice, and Karin sensed a sudden flare of anxiety rise in Serizawa's breast. He was afraid.
He bowed his head and spoke no more. His Sharingan had crumbled beneath Itachi's harsh words. His limbs slightly shuddered, and he kept looking down towards his feet in a very servile manner.
At that moment, a crow dragged itself out of Itachi's body. His eyes went wide. He stumbled forward, as if someone had harshly yanked him by the neck, and then slumped down onto his knees in terrible pain and shock that invaded his body and mind like a deadly assailant. The poison . . . it burnt up his veins; it hurt so much that he lost the natural capacity to pull in some air. Serizawa rushed to him and grabbed him by the shoulders, but he did not move and shook helplessly all over. He stared, with wild eyes, at the crow that struggled to gain shape by his knee. It was premature—an ugly foetus.
Then Itachi looked at his trembling hands and the greying veins. His chakra had stopped for a moment, and now, it was frantically vibrating in him to find its right pace again. One moment passed, then two, then three, and he finally dragged in air by the lungfuls. His Sharingan flickered, vision betrayed him for a moment, but it recovered swiftly to look at the tiny chakra particles flow through his body again. He had neglected it for so long, far too long, that his body had decided to smooth out the chakra on its own.
A man's body—false and feeble—he truly was no Kami. He watched as the slimy crow opened its beak wide like a hungry babe dragged out forcefully from a womb and looked at him with a deformed Sharingan, as if it thought him to be its creator—its mother. Its caw tore apart the air, filling its torn up portions with a new dread, and he raised his eyes and stared almost impatiently at the one he had made before, only to watch it vanish in a bundle of wispy black feathers. His strained eyes followed the movements of each feather as they floated down one by one, turning into tendrils of bright chakra before they kissed the ground.
Karin sat down beside him and pressed her wrist to his lips. He pushed it out of his face. This easy escape from torment did not interest him. He was so used to pain that he overwhelmed it, and it slowly mellowed to a dull ache that thrilled his body and spirit.
And Itachi raised his defeated eyes again to look where the crow was only a moment ago as though he could actually see Sasuke's sly smile as he flashed into the forest, leaving Kai to his own devices as he remained oblivious to the guard-crow's fate. Then he uttered a low, soft whisper, nearly mourning the death of a lifeless crow, mourning the death of a child he had birthed: "no . . . "
Itachi looked down at it again and it died, staring back into his eyes with a last mournful look of a dying babe that needed the merciful assurance from his eyes that something sweet-tasting and peace-giving awaited it beyond this life's fate, and he was speechless for he did not know how to comfort a dying child . . .
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