Chapter Sixty-Four: Madness was just a Doorstep Away
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His palm eased across the plump skin of her buttocks. She was young, too young, in a manner that she possessed a dimpled flesh on her thighs and abdomen. Her breasts, milky white, were small, peach nipples pebbled in anticipation and uncertainty.
Blush surged upwards and scorched patches of her skin, as though hungry spring gnats had bitten her all over; and he had only just been driven curious by this terrible isolation. Unwrapped her he had to gaze upon her flesh, and a rasp of her red obi under his fingertips, which contrasted well with her thighs, thrilled his loins.
They had sluiced her down with waters, mixed with essences of sandalwood and something foreign his nose could not register: a lake lily? He held his nose close and took a generous whiff again, and her hot body's vaporus floated up his nostrils in a manner as if his senses had been caressed by airy plumes of night birds.
His cock throbbed at the grassy scent, in need, oozed out liquid at the heavy head. In the fire's light that grew, he saw as more sweat quivered and mapped her skin, and how his own body's moisture deposited droplets on her breasts, dimply abdomen, and plump pink lips. Her eyes tinged with an innocent craving her flesh demanded . . . now.
He would spend a night abed with her if that was what it took to calm his wicked older brother, and put his own daemons to sleep—for just a little while; so, with this determination in mind, he pulled away the sheath that covered her genitals and stroked down the soft thighs, spread to either side, his fingers yawning open the sweat-sodden, swollen fleshes of her sex.
He saw the moist crevice part between her lips at his touch and reveal strange combinations of colours: mellow red outside and ripe pink in the slick depths, purple fleshes plastering themselves to cleave to his fingers as if they belonged there. A delicate veil hung taut before her passage, which prevented further progress of his fingers.
She was an odd thing, a young thing, and his hands luxuriated in the feel of her form. Black hairs scraped against his palm, but they were not coarse; she had not yet ripened to a state of womanhood: still a girl. The heat of her sex radiated against his slick palm, and the pink whorl of her anus, glistening with the exertions of her body's natural state, twitched.
When he pulled his hand back, a string of her arousal clung to his fingers, telling him of her readiness to take him in. There was nothing more to be done. He leant in close and allowed her to feel his erection through the fabric of his trousers. He saw a colourless mass of fear spread in her eyes like water; however, she did not complain. After all, she had come here to lay beneath him, all pliant and pretty, and give him a son.
Without giving the matter any more thought, he laid his body over hers, worked himself loose, and pressed the heavy head of his cock against her slick lips. She twitched a little underneath him and wedged her nose in the crook of her fleshy elbow, as though she had no desire to see him now. It was easy to agree to play, but it was hard to engage in the act itself. All for the better: he did not care!
His hips surged forward, with a snap, and his cock sank into the liquid-heat of her cunt. Her body sang, first with the expelling of additional fluids from her cunt, and then with uproarious trembles and uncontrollable outpours of sweat (surprisingly, she was ready enough that she did not bleed); and mewls escaped from her throat, which were muzzled by her control. He struggled to keep his thrusts slow and shallow, but it was an insurmountable task, for she was wonderful and tight, and he felt bliss from their conjoining.
She just lay there as he pumped between her splayed thighs: he wanted her to act a bit more animated than this state, but he stayed quiet for he felt that asking her of this would only frighten her more. Ornamental pins fell out of her hairs, which were left in rough tangles. Sweat streaked sliver her pretty hair (in the pouring light) and formed on the edges of her lips, as though they were smooth seashores studded with flowers that possessed the most pretty pink hues. Then she clutched at him, pressing her mouth into a hard line, but she was a young girl still. She did not possess the control to halt her desires.
Her eyes, which lacked the shade of years, opened wide; and she looked deep into his red, searching, searching . . . for something soft to sway her heart; but the dark red, spreading like a forlorn motion of blood from a wound, crashed onto the frail rocks of her senses, fracturing them, going in deep—like his cock.
The sensation, a prickling and worming one, shivered in her, and at last, her mouth parted, and she let loose innocent mewls; however, the young, wild Uchiha had his mind elsewhere, away from the pearly web of desires his body had methodically spun to catch a prey: gratification. His gaze crossed the dim room, dotted over with pearlescent particles of dust that floated in the light beams, and rested upon the letter that lay on his low table; and his hips contracted in uncontrollable spasms, and he moved roughly between her damp, clutching thighs with a new vigour.
Violent spasms overtook his body, and a delightful feeling of liberation surged from his heart and galloped across the length of him, unchecked and un-reined, freeing him; he did not stop and filled her vessel with his fluids and his chakra. When the lunging spasms subsided, his breaths calmed. He pulled away from the girl and watched, with a disgusted look apparent upon his countenance, as his essence flowed out of her cleft . . . vulgar—this defeat, so vulgar . . .
For three nights, she came to him, and for three nights he took her to bed, without protest, and made sure that these sessions lasted hours for his contentment—and she lay under him, enjoying their physical union, smiling, sighing. Sweet, bottomless moans escaped from inside her in this prison, which his brother so delightfully referred to as his "sweet child's chamber". She was delighted every night to mate with him, face all lit up and eager, lips covered in drops of berries' juice. At least, he had something to indulge himself with, even if it was a foolish little girl.
And on the third night, he felt something of him in her womb: a germinating seed with chakra strong that would grow into a boy from a shapeless leech, which would feed upon her life-force and suck her dry with a mouth hungry—a son he did not want. He doubted that she would survive the birth of his child . . . she smiled at him, red lips and redder cheeks dusted with drops that appeared like morning dew in the light.
He felt a little guilty, so he told her that this unformed blob would exude a crushing chakra her womb was never meant to carry; but she laughed a girly laugh and told him that she was taking herbs to strengthen her chakra and body; so he need not worry for her sake. Rain fell outside in the dark, and he sensed the air turn heavy with earth's and grass's melding scents. Inside, she sat in the light, all innocent and little, and he did not have the words upon his tongue to speak anymore.
Silence—red had never come out to sheath his eyes. His ears glutted with a blend of confusing sounds and music that came to him from the garden: water slapped against the stone-path and shivered pebbles fell down from the deity statue that lay broken by the tree his grandmother had planted. It was old like this place . . . so old.
She rose to her feet, a little ungainly in her motions, smiled, and did a curtsey; and very firmly and properly, in a lady-like manner, took hold of her kimono. Then she bent down a little and cupped a small hand to her mouth, a smile going across her lips in soft haste, and whispered: "can I come to you again?"
He just looked to her, surprised—young and foolish to be enamoured by acts of passions. Besotted with drinks of lust, she stood before him now, all young and girl-like, clothed in deep red; and he did not have the strength left in him to watch her squirm and mewl, like a little cub, beneath him again for even one more night.
He bent his head down, indecisive, and her face fell in dismay (a child's expression), and the hue had but vanished from her round cheeks. When he did not reply in the coming moments, fleeting as they were, her lips became all pouty and red, and a frown disturbed her smooth brow, and an unhappy expression rested upon her countenance.
She straightened with a start when a knock came upon the door, and she heard the vexed voice of the red-haired woman in the corridor outside. Kiku did not understand why an heir's son would keep a cheap company; however, it was not her place to ask.
So little Kiku turned around, cast one last look upon him, as he sat with his head bowed in the shadow, and left the room, silent as a little flower. Kiku heard the vulgar woman mumble something behind her, but she turned up her nose at her uncultured antics: once a harlot, always a harlot! That was what her mother had taught her, and she was a lady who would bear Sasuke a son. With that lofty thought in mind, she exited the place she did not know was a prison for the uncultured.
"Little bitch!" Karin hissed and closed the door, trapping the rain's sounds on the other side. Her gaze fell upon Sasuke, but the sight of him did not cool her rising temper.
"You filled up her little cunt nice and good," she said, and her voice was harsh enough to be heard in the melodies from storm and forest.
Sasuke raised his head slightly; his face turned hard, and his eyes narrowed some more, dangerous in the light despite being unlit by his clan's fires. "Quiet! I'm not in the mood," he rasped, and the subsequent silence bathed the room in its cold essence. Then a special fragrance of flora filled the room, and, as if its presence had dulled her irritation, her expression changed to something more soft.
She looked around and felt a strange cold, in the room, skitter across her skin like a stone skittered across a lake. Her eyes found the letter on his table. He had left it there—certain that Itachi would not come, and he was right. The older one had been absolutely cold towards his sibling: he had not stepped foot in this room since that night.
"What do you think it's made of?" she asked and sat down beside him, her eyes upon his face, which was all pale and melancholy. He looked miserable, more so than last night: a dark shade of illness surrounded his eyes, and dark hair clustered, in messy layers, over the white brow. He had not bothered to fix them.
"It's artificial," he spoke, and his words suddenly sounded so clear in the midst of sounds from autumn's defeated storm.
"Are you sure?" she asked, her face showing surprise.
"I can't see the damn seal! It's artificial—this chakra's artificial!" he spoke through gritted teeth, and his eyes moved across the shadow-filled room in a manner as though he was frantic in search of shapes that came metamorphosed from his paranoia—his nightmares that he chose not to share with his brother, with anyone.
"That's impossible! I—"
"I've tried and I've tried," he cut across her, his voice growing rough in the grip of anger, frustration, defeat, "I can't replicate it. The base seal's hidden from my gaze. Even with the Sharingan, it's useless!" He turned his face away, exposing his sharp cheek to the light; he had lost the fat that usually filled out a bit of his cheeks (in these past few nights).
"Sasuke, calm down," she whispered, in tone soft, but he had no patience left in him for such customary acts.
"I am calm," he hissed and lied to his heart, and to her, eyes blazing red this time, ever so ready to punctuate his argument. "Tell Jūgo to keep a watch on Meru's men."
The storm yawned outside and sent in breaths to disturb the bleak flames in the sunken-fireplace. Karin had never felt so cold in the presence of warmth. Sweat appeared on Sasuke's skin, and he shivered—his fever had risen again with a new furiousness.
Moments passed, and he spoke no more—his head bowed, eyes focused on the flames that had lost their strength in the night's cold. She did not know what to do; so she watched him and the shade that darkened upon his features as the fire lost some more of its vigour; it had become a dull yellow shade on his face.
With a little hesitation indicated by her face, she grabbed hold of his hand. He did not stir, nor did he resist. Itachi had truly broken him . . . in these past few weeks. She brought his hand up to her lips and kissed his fingers; but still he sat there like a lifeless toy; and they sat like this through the cold of the night—unaware of the coming storm . . .
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From the window, Leaf straggled irregularly up the side of the hill in his vision, quiet against a dismal sky—evening was coming. The birds had gone silent in the new autumn winds, which had shown no signs of altering their paths; they would keep blowing through the season, turn freezing, welcome winter with breaths colder.
A few puffs of wind blew in his face, and his eyes transfixed upon the large sacred-stone that guarded the back-entrance of Uchiha village. It was beset with trees whose leaves had gone orange. A stream ran out from the north side, quiet in its sombre motions.
"You'll have to ask Sasuke," Tsunade said from her perch; her demeanour had little gentleness to spare. Almost thoughtlessly, she grabbed hold of a sake bottle and poured a glass full to the rim and put it to her lips.
"Isn't Sasuke away? Would he—" Sakura stopped and moved her gaze over to the older brother's face, which appeared sickly white in the last lights of today's sun. There was a bit of life's colour in the visible parts of his neck and cheek, like a tinge of pink on a snow-white funeral cloth, but it was not enough to suppress her fears.
She swallowed her words for Itachi made her afraid. It did not seem as if he had even acknowledged her presence: he was preoccupied with the idle task of gazing upon the hillocks beyond the forest. A wind touched softy his hair, and the loose hanging strands stirred against his long white throat, like a black-brush against a clay-toy in the skilled hands, to bestow a certain sense of naturalness to the lifeless features; but without the colours, he was a mockery of Nature—a perfection without passions. She immediately looked away, not desiring to see more of him; he was like Sasuke, only unnatural and less beautiful and more coarse in appearance . . . bereft of the ghostly touches of passion's, life's, innocence's hues. He frightened her!
"Reo, was it?" Tsunade asked, and the young man, with a slim and graceful figure, nodded behind Sakura. He appeared to be a fresh-coloured youth of about four-and-ten years of age. He had a rather stiff shock of dirty brown thatch on his head that could be likened to prickly shrubs that grew unchecked on the borders of Sand.
"He can stay with you—if Itachi doesn't disprove," Tsunade said and took a noisy sip of sake. Then she directed her gaze to Itachi, who appeared quite disinterested in the whole affair: he merely cast the boy a cold glance and looked away again, after he had crossed one leg over the other (as if out of habit).
She gestured them to leave and they did. The sounds of their steps, on the new wood, died away. Quietness pervaded the room that slowly eroded away against the decaying noises from autumn; but he was quiet still. He had not picked up the letter again, and she did not know what he would say.
Tsunade breathed in deeply, eyes going dark, and her lips, of a delicate cherry-coloured hue, thinned in a hard, long line: he was being quite bull-headed! "You've grown unusually bold," she commented at last, and her nose, furnished with fine nostrils, flared dangerously and took on a decided red tone as she glanced away from him.
As always, Itachi treated her in a same manner as he treated others: a cold sort of aloofness. When a few moments of silence passed into a sure stillness, he rose to his feet and walked to the door of her office, and that was when she stopped him: "Give me that scroll, boy," Tsunade said, her tone deep and commanding, and stood up as though in challenge. "I'm warning you. I've played this game long enough! If you don't give me that scroll, I will allow Root to arrest your brother and empty out his head for all to see. Don't force me to go down this path."
Itachi turned slightly and looked at her, yet his expression remained elusive. "Your threats are empty," he spoke, his voice soft like waters and serrated like winters. "Your nature is not bound to my decisions. Why have you not?" And this time, a smile, so like the sinister presence of a spectre, disturbed his countenance a bit—in mockery.
"You rude—" she stopped mid-sentence; her breaths came heavy, and her breast rose and fell fast, and her eyes darted over every inch of his face in search of a sign of weakness—deep down she knew she would never find.
Tsunade's projecting lips turned redder in anger, overtaking the artificial hue sake had imparted upon them; however, she controlled her emotion, and it faded back down into her breast to throb as a faded irritation.
In the light, now, she saw it rise again in his eyes as a strong colour to deliver a sure threat, which fluttered about him as moths in a dream-haze. She touched the side of her head and squinted her eyes against the radiance of his clan's accursed shade. He did not speak a word as though he awaited her response, to his wordless acts of intimidation.
"You—" she started, but stopped again, afraid to meet his eyes lest he meddled with her memories, "—you're imposing, and I don't like it one bit. You know I can't stop the Daimyō's councilman. Have you grown so foolish that you overlook the seriousness of the situation?"
"No," Itachi merely breathed out, his visage no less expressionless; only the slight quirk of his mouth, a pleasant feature that was barely discernible at the present moment, told her that she amused him, greatly.
His nonchalance left her shocked. A harsh breath whistled out of her nostrils, and she put aside the cup that she had been holding on to for the sake of her sanity. "Then you know that I—"
"I know you did nothing of value," Itachi cut across her, his tone of voice still hiding a thread of dominance that she intimately resented now. "I wonder where all of these games will culminate?
"If the Uchiha found out about your innocent mishaps, they would deem you and the Council a threat. The Okami clan would think even less of you. What a mess you have created, Hokage-Sama." And this time, a wicked smile danced, like the lightest touch of breeze, about his lips; then he left her office as a quiet man full of danger—her heart had sensed it in his breast, and she did not know how to touch Sasuke without fighting a losing battle . . .
The walk back home was draining, and he could only put up the act for so long. That accursed missive—it had rattled his soul. Just a week? What would he do? A gaping chasm had opened up a rift in his mind, and he did not have it in him to lock away that malice. He stood between his Devil and his deep . . .
Tsunade had proven to be utterly wanton—a foul woman who was out to get his child to save her own. He should not have instructed Kai to save her life. Such a mess—such a mess. He had created such a mess . . . for his child.
Still trapped in the thought's mire, Itachi went to the graveyard and walked through the mist's pool by his feet. It dispersed against his movements like water. It was almost quiet here as he stood before his father's grave. Like thin streams, rain droplets traced his face and the shape of the gravestone. In there he lay, all rotten and still and dead.
It was so dark here that his Sharingan sprouted, a flower in his eyes' soil. He could now see the dancing Lilies Sasuke had planted along the grave long ago. He sat down in an obedient posture, as a good son would before his father, took out two incense sticks from his pocket, and let loose a little flame-kissed breath. It ignited the tips that sizzled beneath the rain. The embers shone brightly, and plumes of smoke snaked up, along with the fragrance, in the dark air.
He stuck the sticks into the rain-softened dirt where the Lilies grew. The rain was sparse and light—it did not disturb the smell and the embers too much. The fragrance hit his senses, and he breathed in deep and long, and felt the strong smell fill up his lungs in great bursts. He sat like this—as moments went by—all quiet like his father's grave. He did not speak, and neither did he. Words clove to his tongue's tip as though it was their final anchor. He did not want to part with them just yet.
Itachi did not spare his mother a single glance, his eyes tethered, a tethered slave, to his father's grave; and in silence she lay, waiting for his words still. A storm of emotions longed to burst-forth from his memories' maw, but the banks of control and cold mounds from his past prevented them from spilling over.
He did not know what to say. It had been a while since he last sat here, all alone by the foot of his father's grave under the lonely sky. Words were like slips of fish, slippery and quick. They always escaped Itachi's grasp in his presence. Even in death, his father's whispers haunted him into a cold submission.
" . . . must you always, Otō-Sama?" his tongue spoke at last, in voice heavy, betraying his control by listening to his heart that shivered a bit like a boy's heart.
No sound came from the grave—a frightening spot of his father's sepulture. Quiet—he had fallen quiet again. Control had taken over and falls of distant pebbles sounded in his ears like roaring crashes. A distraction, and he cherished it for some more moments; but how long would this control last?
And the wind whispered sweetly, and the Lilies swayed to and fro to create a show for his eyes: innocent their movements—free their spirits. And his heart, no matter how cold, was the heart of a man. He was a man. His heart was of a man. It felt—things at times . . . things that caused him distress and gripped his heart in grief.
A white mist climbed his form with formless fingers, and his breath suspended before his face. (Strange, these rich signs of wetness that were concealed well by rain.) His eyes moved slightly, and he noticed that the embers had died away—not even the plumes remained.
Itachi lowered his eyes in obedience, and his fingers twitched a bit on his thighs. "I—" he started and stopped, and it was not like him to stop like a small boy, "—I do not know what to do." He let out a sigh, a burden lifting from his heart as though his father's breast was before him to bear it in his stead, like a father would; and a voice's whisper, from a spectral gate, cradled him, and he felt . . . empty.
"Why did you not tell me of what was in your heart?" he asked in a soft voice that had a perceptible trace of a boy's accusatory tone, and his words went into the wind and became silence. A cold wind soaked though his clothes and skittered across his back—like innumerable spiders out to craft a web on him—and his skin went numb to all sensations but the ones inside his heart: so deep they lay, seedlings sprouting new roots into the soil; and they moved towards the dark, away from the sun.
"Should I do what they all want?" he asked and went silent, as if waiting for an answer that would never come.
"Yet what of my heart, Otō-Sama? What of—" he stopped when he looked up, a quiet grave greeting his eyes. Shushing sounded from trees—a lonely place, like his heart would be without the child and the obsession he ignited in him; and he did not desire for such a loneliness, such a grave in his breast.
With his dreams still compelling his mind, heart wounded, he spoke, bitterness woven through his liquid-sweet voice: "You are cold to me, Otō-Sama—cold . . . in your grave—quiet to my worries. You never listen, do you?" And then he inhaled the scent of the dead, as though to weave another memory that was meant to be forgotten, got to his feet, and left for his home without looking back at his father's grave . . .
Up in the sky, night had spread, and Itachi had left the dream behind in the graveyard. His steps halted by the stairs that went down to the prison, but he chose not to see Sasuke.
Itachi went to his room and sat by the sliding door that was left open to air the room. Breeze slid across his skin and night approached fast in silence. He rested his forehead in his palm and listened to Kirin's rueful calls, filled with pain. Its wings fluttered erratically after every few moments.
At last, unable to deny its strange-tongued pleas any longer, Itachi went to the cage: he noticed, with a heart heavy, that it had broken the bones in its right wing in a desperate attempt to free itself of this prison. He opened the little door and took it out. The little hawk did not struggle in his grasp—it was tired, so tired.
Sharingan filled his vision, and he carefully stretched the white wing (which bore streaks of vivid red) to its full length. Kirin cried out a painful sound and pecked his finger. Its wing was useless—had he noticed it before, he would have called upon Yuu to heal it; but, now, it would never be able to fly again. It was better to put it out of its misery.
Itachi brushed his fingers against its bloodied plumes that were still white as the first winter's snow, his heart guilty: Sasuke would be saddened by its death; but he never felt any emotion for the animal. It was the thought of Sasuke that made the movements of his fingers indecisive.
He grabbed hold of its small head between his fingers with care. All he had to do was twist its neck and end its life; but, at that moment, a thought of Jūgo came to him. It was a fleeting thought, yet it gave him a sense of hope. He put the bird back inside the cage, and the little hawk started screeching in impatience again . . .
Itachi waited in his room. Evening had come, and the sky's purple shade darkened to a terrifying black. He had asked of Karin to bring Jūgo to him. Though reluctant at first, she went away for Sasuke's sake. Rao came by, asking of him to be kind to Sasuke. Her words about Truth always mounted his worries.
Now, he stood shadow-less inside the shadow and watched as Jūgo merged his flesh with that of the bird, which screeched in agony. Yuu stood by him, utterly shocked by the spectacle. Threads of flesh came out from Jūgo's fingers, went into Kirin's broken wing, and entwined with the broken tendrils: they wriggled, wormy and excited, and merged with the animal's flesh. His Sharingan saw—it saw everything!
"Heal its wing," Itachi commanded and watched the meek Medic position his hands above the bird. A green glow appeared around his hands, and its radiance calmed the struggling bird and eased its pain. Within moments, the muscles repaired themselves in a manner as if they had never been injured. It soothed Itachi's anxiety a bit, but the human nervous-system was impossibly complicated . . .
"If I asked of you to heal the broken nerves behind a Sharingan-wielder's eyes, would you be able to accomplish that impossible task?" Itachi asked, and Yuu's eyes widened in fear. He could not be planning to do such a cruel thing!
"Itachi-Sama, you—" Yuu stopped when Itachi raised a silencing hand. He bit into his lip and stayed silent. It was not his place to question a clan's Head. He was just a servant . . .
Jūgo looked at him odd, his countenance calm. "I've never tried anything like this. What are you . . ." his voice trailed off when Kai and Serizawa stepped into the room. Kai appeared cold and hard; Serizawa, anxious and gloomy.
"You can leave the house. I will call upon you if need be," Itachi spoke, and his voice was harsh despite its pleasant and soft tone. Then he went out from the room, Kai and Serizawa in his wake, and left both of them in the dark.
Night was cool, but a new storm was being spun by Nature's hands in the sky. Itachi did not stop his walk till he reached the door of his sibling's prison. Irritation came across his face at the sight of Suigetsu: he had come at Karin's request. She stood behind him, in his shadow, wringing her hands together as she looked everywhere except at Itachi's face.
"Stop what yor doin', mate! This ain't right. Ya got ta think af some other way!" Suigetsu said, anxious and a little angry.
"Why are you here? You have no business here. Leave," Itachi commanded, and his voice, as unfriendly as a winter's night, felt clear and heavy, almost as if it was an object itself.
"Don't do it. I beg af ya—he's yor brother!" he pleaded, his tone growing rough with emotion.
Itachi remained silent for a few moments, appraising the man before him. A wind blew in their direction, and the lantern went out behind Itachi's back, and all Suigetsu could see now were a pair of red eyes on a tall, tall shadow in the oppressive dark.
"This matter is not your concern. My brother is not your concern," Itachi's shadow spoke softly and dangerously. "Whilst your gushing sentiments are touching, I do not have time for your theatrics to-night. Leave, and take this treacherous girl with you."
Suigetsu clenched his teeth and fingers. Anger rushed through his veins. "Send 'im with me," he said and slapped his hand against his breast. "I'll take care af 'im. Ya got a choice. Don't—don't be like that. Ya got a—"
"I have no choice—Sasuke has left me with no choice," Itachi spoke, words hissing from his lips, and his shadow grew taller like a menacing Daemon with wings. "You may think your foolish games were worth the trouble, yet now my child will reap the rewards of your games. You will know remorse one day. I will make certain of it."
And then he went quiet like the moth, and red went away and left showy eyes in his face, like the ones the Devil's Moth wore on its wings. He turned to the door and went into the room, Kai and Serizawa behind him, and all Suigetsu could do was watch . . . in defeat.
Sasuke sat quietly by the fire. He had hidden away the letter; it was as if he had felt it in his bones that his brother would come. He rose to his feet slowly when Itachi stepped into the light, through the film of barrier stretched across the doorframe, from the shadows that filled the corridor.
Shadows rippled and Kai and Serizawa appeared from the dark, as well; their heads bowed. They stood still and Kai closed the door without looking up. Like two statues, they positioned themselves on either side of the wrathful deity that was his brother. His face wore a trance-like expression, deeper than the winter's dream; and Sasuke did not speak. A chill had fallen on this place and turned it into his grave.
"You child," Itachi breathed out, his eyes fixed upon his brother's face, which was endowed by Nature with innocence—and love he always felt for him.
"Tell me what you have done. Do not disobey me now. Do not hide things from me now," he spoke and stepped closer, and Sasuke's visage displayed a fear his weakness could not let him control.
"You're arrogant, and I hate your love for this treacherous village that killed our people—you're not my brother!" Sasuke accused, and his voice was as rough as a heavy metal being dragged across the dirt-ground.
Itachi's eyes became so red, and Shurikens formed in their depths to transfix the little one in place. White light illuminated Itachi's face; there was a shadow's gloom in the room, and the fire in the fireplace had gone unfriendly in his brother's presence.
"You are honest," Itachi began, and words tripped from his tongue in an effortless manner. "I do love this village . . . more than everything. More than you can imagine. I would give my life for it, and I would take a life for it, as well. I will never question this sentiment. It is in my bones, but you . . . are in my heart, and you wound me . . . always.
"Had I loved you less, I would have killed you for your mischief, but I cannot. You know that I cannot for you are aware of being my weakness—my only weakness."
Then, as Sasuke's weakness got the best of his vision, he saw a blur move, but he did not have time to react. His back met the floor and breaths escaped his lungs in a single sound of pain.
"Let go!" Sasuke growled, struggling beneath Itachi's imposing weight. He was unable to free his hands from Itachi's punishing grasp. He tried to knead chakra to run Raiton through his system, but only a little spark of it manifested about his hands. He could not knead chakra!
Sasuke's system expelled a large amount of sweat, and his skin went clammy and cold in fear. "What have you—"
"What is the matter? I thought you enjoyed the taste of berries?" Itachi spoke so coldly, watching as Sasuke's expression warped in fury at his remark.
"Hold him down," Itachi commanded, and Kai and Serizawa placed their elbows on his breast and their knees on his arms so that his movements were almost completely stopped. He tried to thrash about, but without the breath of fire in his veins, it was hopeless.
Serizawa turned his face away: sadness invaded his visage that was perceivable to Itachi's eyes.
"You can leave if this distresses you," Itachi spoke, without emotion's touch. Serizawa bowed his head and did what was asked of him, but he kept his gaze away from Sasuke's face.
Sasuke was overcome by anger, fear, shame now. Despite the influence of a foreign substance in his veins, his chakra was powerful enough to power through: he turned and tamed it into Raiton and it burnt on the skins of his tormentors.
He saw Itachi indicate something to them with a subtle tilt of his head, and then un-kneaded chakra poured into his system. It was mixed with something strong that throttled his own, and his Raiton went out—right before his eyes. Had he been robust and healthy, he would have thrown them off him with a slight change in his chakra; but in these moments, his flames were defeated, tamed by his brother's schemes.
"Look at me," Itachi spoke and bent down so much that he appeared like a white and terrifying ghost in Sasuke's vision—all actors and theatres and plays!
Sasuke squeezed his eyes shut. He wanted to turn his face away, but Itachi had grabbed his face between his hands. Sasuke felt him pry open his right eye with his thumb and forefinger; and he was left with no choice but to stare deep into the red that greeted him. His heart pounded loud and clear in every chamber, every vein, every bone of his body. It sang and it feared, yet it had no tongue to speak. What an odd instrument of his emotions' music!
Yet before the dark, before the anger and before the fear, overtook him, his heart whispered in sincerity: "My brother was cruel, but in his eyes, one day … I had seen the man I wanted to become. You're not that man anymore—you're not the brother I loved . . . you're not the father I loved . . . "
Then Sasuke's voice changed, and he sang out in a different tune. The dark chamber filled with his screams. Blood poured out from his eyes as though they were martyrs in battle and went down his white face; but Itachi kept looking, and a strong emotion waged a war against the ever-present influence of winter in his expression.
The screams faded like autumn's songs in his mind, and he came upon the world of his child's mind. A small Sasuke, all white and sweet, stood by his feet whilst he looked up at him, a Purple Lily in little hands; and black beaks, sharp like swords, went deep into his flesh, bleeding him, wounding him till he shrieked—his face a picture of grotesque artistry.
Crows poked at him and ripped his white skin away and left patches of oozing flesh for Itachi to see. One took the boy's eye out and the other ruined his petal-like lips. They inflicted such violence upon his face that, once they were done, they left a misshapen mouth and peeking teeth and hollow eyes for him to see . . . it is only a mirage, Itachi assured his heart, it is not real . . .
Threads of blood diluted in the clear water by the child's feet as it crumbled away bit by bit, piece by piece, drop by drop, till a husk of its shell turned to dust right before his eyes and vanished in the autumn air invaded by his winter. The sight of it all—stabbed his heart in two. The sounds of the babe's harrowing cries still resounded, till the echoes, too, faded away.
Madness was just a doorstep away—solemn stillness prevailed in this world that was beset by his crows' cruelties and their malice. He saw tulips in misty waters and a shark hiding amidst slips of fish below the film of water. Purple blobs fell from his skin, took on shapes as they congealed in the water, and flew out as Purple Moths, sly Devils, to envelop the distant memory of a child in a dark pool—it had to be re-written!
When Itachi pulled out from the depths of Sasuke's memories, he was exhausted: Sasuke had turned his face into the floor, and his screams had stopped; but now, he whimpered like a child. Kai and Serizawa let go of Sasuke at his command, and Sasuke curled up on the floor and wrapped his arms over his head as if trying to protect himself from a blow.
"I'm sorry, Nii-San—I won't do it again," he whimpered as Itachi rose to his feet. He watched as blood flowed from Sasuke's eyes in a manner as if they had been stabbed through with swords.
"I won't do it—won't do it again," he whispered between sobs that shook his whole body. "I can't see. Nii-San, I can't see—can't see . . . Nii-San, don't leave—don't . . . " And he kept mumbling like this, weeping in hysterics, that his words were rendered incoherent to Itachi's ears.
Itachi looked to Kai and Serizawa, who looked utterly horrified, his calm an impenetrable barrier. "Tie up his hands to the wall so that he does not wound himself and lock him up," Itachi spoke with a certain firmness to his voice and left the prison-room . . .
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