Chapter Sixty-Six: Drunk on the Smells of Devil's Moths
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It was night, and a storm raged that spun out threads of noise. The house shook, uncertain, but he slept in the cradle of his dreams, his face white in the crepuscular gloom of the room, a canvas for the moth. It was a dark shade upon his countenance, a little ink drop, with shades pretty and wings steady.
For a kiss his lips parted, and the moth went inside his mouth in search of his heart, its sticky legs bitter like liquid-words on his tongue; and down and down it went along the walls of his throat where pulses of life travelled loud and vibrated clear. Then, with a breath hot, its frail shell was steamed off its body, and it metamorphosed into the Devil's pulchritude inside his throat and loosened a streamlet of a poison sweet.
The dewdrop burnt, like a sour aperitif, and a deep ache spread across the expanse of his chakra, framed rigidly in his body. A shudder went, a rippling snake, to his heart, which sent answering pulses in the same intensity, and his Adam's apple pushed out of his neck. He felt the new moth eat towards his skin, which had burst sweat from its pores in pain and pleasure, its poison burning away layers of his flesh that was soft beneath the carapace that was human to touch.
At last, his alembic spirit, unable to distill the chemical sensations any longer, reflected ache and want upon his countenance and his brows stirred—almost in a frown; but the moth continued to gnaw and nip and hurt him, from the inside, fluttering back to his lips in search of liberation from his cocoon; and in its wake, it left notches deep from which vivid liquid came out.
He sat up straight and rid his body of what was real, hand reaching to his throat, fingers hurting his flesh to create this feeling to crush the other one—unsuccessful. His left eye blinked out a stream, as though ridding his body of pestilence, and then there was a dawn of moon in his vision, sky clearing to reveal a pearl amidst the dark; his mind was lost—lost in illusions, lost in memories, lost in dreams that assailed him formless now.
He was kneeling on the ground, and then he sighed out the winged Devil from his mouth, its purple wings a blur in his vision, softer than a kiss on the lips; and it flew away into the world bounded by his crows: their necks escalated from bodies dark, their eyes watching him with eyes red. They cawed, and he did not have the strength in him to stop them.
Their sounds hit him harder than pebbles, and then they diluted to murmurings in the spinney where he sat. He raised his eyes and gazed upon his Lord, and he lacked mercy in his eyes—his chair large and sturdy and ornamented. The Lord widened his legs and placed his arms on the armrest, comporting himself in the manner befitting a True King.
His Lord's gaze—so heavy that the place where his neck extended to his backbone was bowed in a sharp arch. His gaze lowered in playful adoration. His long hair fell in his eyes and touched the sodden ground made of ash, bone, dirt. A canopy of crows sheltered the place and Purple Lilies nodded about in the regenerating coppice of grotesque trees.
"My child . . . my sweet child," his Lord spoke, and he felt the voice touch his skin like a damp cloth. "Why do you run? Do you doubt my love?" He looked up, raised his head this time, and watched a rosy patch spread across his Lord's face and breast. Heedless of his weakness, his Lord's body was quiescent, like his crows, now.
A dark fell across his Lord's body and the chair he occupied, but he could not get recourse to the sword to end this dream, end the Lord, end that memory. Gaudy red jetted from the Lord's heart and mapped his body's contours. Then it surged in his direction, a noisome odour in the world that rippled as though it were alive!
Vapours from the Lord's corpse became sweeter and went into the ground whose teeth chewed on his remains and spat out . . . more Purple Lilies that grew by the dozens about him—sweet, innocent, full of love; and his lips longed to smile at the sight of them playing like that, in his heart.
He widened his eyes, enlarged his vision, and his Lord evaporated into many crows that took away a bit of his heart with them; and it was replaced with a grave that was occupied with the seeds of Lilies. In that grave they grew—in his heart they cooed.
From the crevasse of his Lord's resting place, she rose on the tar he had emitted, her body, naked as a babe's, a labyrinth of conflicting whites and fierce reds in the flicker, her hair pomaded into solid-ink down her back. She moved with a lusty stalk of predators, flanked by his crow's shadows—she was eerie.
His Lord had lain with her, and he had come from her womb, covered in blood, wailing. She had come to make trial of his love, which he never did possess, her eyes gleaming in love. Her arms hung loose around her growing belly, as though she carried more of the Lord's seed in her . . . to birth the incubus that coloured his dreams.
Her soft footfalls thudded a horrific rhythm on the ground. Leaves crunched beneath her feet and moonlight slid down her body in silver streams. The sounds she made pierced the quiet, pierced the calm, pierced the spirit into a bone-cold submission; and she reached out to him, and red ran across her lips in awe.
She spoke, and her words wrested . . . things from his heart: "I had made you from my heart, my womb. My boy, my sweet boy . . . you run from her—me. Come into my arms. Lay your head against my bosom, and I shall take you into my heart, my soul—it aches for your love!"
And love, red like Higanbana, red like roses, red like his clan's legacy, dripped from the junction between her plump thighs, white against red, and he could not stop looking at that place, whence he began his journey of breaths and limbs—the place that had made him mortal . . .
Blood kept coming from her womb, congealing, forming thick globules over her thighs; and from them burst out winged Devils. They fell down like drops of slack ink. Then a wash of mist passed over them, and re-invigorated, they flew upon this world's breaths to become a new extension of his spirit.
She sat down before him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Then a wound opened up in her breast, and she pressed his face into its mouth. He saw her heart, cut up in two, still beating like twins, like two sons inside a ripe womb.
"Do you see my heart?" she asked, thrusting a hand into his hair and passing the other one over his head in a tender gesture of love. "You have broken my heart, Itachi—you have broken it in two . . . "
Blood gurgled out from the wound and collided against the roof of his mouth in slick streams—warm and sweet. It flowed down his throat in rich runnels. Her body shivered against his and she wept and by her tears she haunted him. He backed away as her skin and eyes oozed like melted tallow, expelling more blood that was thick tar.
"Why do you break my heart?" she whimpered with lips trembling. Her arms fell slack by her sides, and she looked up at the world that was still cold to her like Winter; and crows wept in the sky and black tears rained on her. The womb and wound bled love and moths, and he could not look at her any longer; so he rose, away from her arms, but her blood in his mouth made him sick; the world spun like theatre-dolls that danced from strings in his eyes, and he fell fainting to the ground, pain and pleasure blent in the world, here and now, his body sizzling with the twisting of colours, voices, dreams.
His world's asperities rose from his waking eyes, and he sensed the left one emit bright ichor to trace his cheek and throat. Then the droplets became round, fought against gravity as they clove to the map of tiny openings in his skin, and fell back into the sky, an ocean of his Sharingan's dreams—drouth in his eyes upon which his lashes trembled to let go—let go . . .
The sky pulled him in and its mouth, a beak, opened to devour him whole. The whole world lurched and rattled over his spirit, a cold apparatus of bones. His hair fell forward and streamed before his features, his breaths going into the endless black between the crow's gaping beak that was hungry for every last drop of memories in his eyes. Anon, red welled up in his gaze, and the sky closed its eyes and its mouth; the whole world fell back with a crash that created a painful thrum in his bones, a sensation which did not leave his system for too long.
He lay like this for what felt like hours in the quiet, counting his own breaths. The crow in the sky had gone to sleep, but he could still see ripples travel through its skin, which ruffled its feathers in a rush of shushes and flurries of black. The sounds vanished into his heart and mingled with the thump-thumps like loose liquid; and he heard stirring on his right, and, when he looked, he saw his Lord looking at him, lying by his side, his eyes dripping with love.
"You are a child . . . my child," the Lord spoke, and he saw the white of his face in the stone-black of his Lord's eyes. The dry leaves stirred by the Lord's breaths brushed against Itachi's face . . . and it felt too real! Then he heard crunches on his left, and he saw the woman whose womb he had inhabited for months, a place that had created the hand that wrote her fate.
"You are a good boy, Itachi—you are such a good boy," she said, and her breaths came out in huffs, her white dress smeared red at the supple breast that rose and fell as if burdened by her love.
Then Itachi felt a little weight on his breast, and he reached his hands to curl them around the little babe cooing and sleeping there. It smelt like Lilies—just like Lilies; and his heart sang like the Moths fluttering upon the wind laden with the scents of love!
"Let it stay here—with me," she said, twisted her neck to look at him full in the face, cast him a look that seethed with love. Hair fell across her cheeks, and few strands went into her mouth, from which she bled. "Let it—Itachi—Let it!" She convulsed in his love, weeping again, and her writhing body opened the wound wider in her breast, and she bled some more till her whole dress was red with love!
Her limbs twisted uncontrollably till she appeared mad, and her sweaty arms and legs trembled as moths overtook them, of which she was so afraid: they came out from her mouth, eyes, breast—much love had the Devil filled her with! The babe became heavier and wetter on his breast and pressed his heart down with more love.
Itachi strained his neck and saw the right side of his child's face resting on his breast, in the nursing position, red in the bow of his lips, in the white of his skin, in the whites of his eyes; and his heart stepped up the speed and sound of the beats to a frenzied pitch; the whole world became one with his heart when he sat up and drew the child into his arms, into his breast—his child's body had gone cold . . .
Itachi ran a hand over his child's hair that was matted in mud and ash and red. His eyes were voids; his limbs, stone. The child lay on his knees as he watched the shade framed tightly . . . eternal the sleep in the child's eyes; and he laid back the hair and pressed his lips upon the brow, and his heart made the whole world dirl . . . his love bleeding from his gaze, endless.
His heart longed to hear the music of the child's breaths: it could not bear this parting. His Lord had been eaten to the bones by moths, and he cared not; and the woman who had conceived by the Lord grabbed his child's wrist, pleading in tones sorrowful.
"Leave it with me—let it stay," she spoke, blinded by the Devils that had consumed her inside out—just a talking husk now, brimming to the full with his love, drunk on the smells of Devil's Moths.
Itachi lifted up the child's body that grew youthful in sleep and stepped away from her; but she sat up, stubborn, that he was forced to run her breast through with a sword sharp that skewered her to the ground, fertile with her red love. She jerked, leant her head back into the soil, and let loose a scream—then she burst into angered Moths!
The child became heavier in his arms, but he did not care—he was still a child, his child. He carried him in his arms to the clear water of his dreams—and then . . . he drowned him, watching shimmering red rise to the surface in strings, hoping . . .
Itachi's eyes opened to the faint shadows that lay across his roof. The eyes still played to the tunes of his dreams. He placed his hand over the left eye and wiped away the blood across his cheek in straight lines. Then, as if the child beckoned him, he got up and walked barefooted to the prison in a limping gait, his senses going berserk, dreams dancing as shades along the manor's walls.
He could hear nothing above the sounds of red bubbles that rose to the surface of his Sharingan's vision. Everything blurred and vanished behind his dream as he walked in the rain that diluted the lines on his face into pink. The dark in the corridor did not cause him worry: his eyes carved out their own path in search of the child, for whom his passion knew no bound.
Itachi's breaths squeezed out from his lungs when he stopped in front of the prison door; he rubbed his fingers across the closed left eye, and his fingers came away red. He opened the seal with the red and walked inside; his eyes saw nothing but the child that slept in the light.
He stopped when he reached him, his breaths calming. Then he sat down by the sleeping child's side and reached his hand to touch his brow—it was warm, a little clammy with sweat. The vision went away and colours and smells filled the room. His child had a cloth tied round his eyes to make him sleep; his expression was strained—did he dream terrible dreams?
Itachi caressed the child's head and bent down to press a kiss on his brow. The child stirred a little, and the iron clanked around his right wrist. He backed away without a sound. He did not want to disturb him any longer; so he left the room, locked it behind him, and stood in the rain.
Then, as though strength left his body, he slumped down onto his knees in the garden that glimmered in the white sparks. Love and Moth and Lily burnt in his breast, together, till he could not withstand the intensity anymore. He took off his soaked shirt, sitting in the rain that curled in the wind, whipping his back.
Itachi looked up and his eyes filled up with rain and red and reveries. He could not hear any sounds but the water that bubbled to the surface. The sky turned black, and the crow looked back into his eyes, and he went delirious in the grip of poisons.
"Itachi-Sama—Itachi-Sama!" Tanaka came running, his back stooped. He sat down by Itachi's side and pressed Itachi's forehead against his shoulder. Itachi did not answer, quiet as a moth.
"Itachi-Sama, a—are you dreaming again?" No answer. "Let me take you to bed—you're not well . . . " he said in a voice filled with love and patted Itachi's head and back, as though he was his own child. He put chakra into his trembling arm and wrapped it around Itachi's waist. Itachi did not resist and went along with him.
By the time Tanaka put Itachi to bed, he was out of breaths. Tanaka puffed and his frail hands trembled, but he sat by Itachi's side as he waited for his fever to cool. When Itachi did not blink and close his eyes, Tanaka passed his hand over his eyes and closed them for him . . .
The whole day went by in thoughts. It was a terrible dream with a ripe soil for paranoia; its threshold blossomed with misgivings; but he did not have time. Trouble was brewing, and he had to act before it reached his doorstep.
Now, he stood in the evening light again, holding on to the Kunai made by the hands of his people, with its tip pointed at the visible green vein in his wrist. Serizawa stood by him, obedient; Kai stood there, too, less obedient and more apprehensive of the Head's decision. Jūgo stood in front, his face inquisitive. Yuu's head was bowed, as though the prospect of blood frightened him!
"Are you sure?" Jūgo asked, and his eyebrows nearly came together in a frown. Jūgo could not say he understood this man Sasuke so adored.
"You would not be here if I was not . . . sure," Itachi spoke with a little pause; and then he drove the Kunai's tip into the skin, pushed it inward, and pulled it up and cut the vein cleanly in two. Blood jetted out in a squirt and formed an arc across his wrist that was white-as-ash just a moment ago. The streamlets dripped down to the floor in tiny splatters and dirtied the finely-crafted mat. His expression had not changed.
Jūgo adjusted the cloak over his shoulders and drew closer. His shadow was less imposing than that of the man before him, albeit Itachi was a little shorter than he. He positioned his hand above the wounded wrist and made his flesh merge with the vein that got re-attached with organic stitches in moments.
Yuu, who had been holding his breath through the whole process, rushed to Itachi and wiped clean the wrist. When he looked upon Itachi's face after finishing the task, he did not see any shift in his countenance; whatever Itachi had resolved, he had resolved it within himself.
"Kai, take these two with you to the prison-cell," Itachi spoke and clamped his hand around his healed wrist thoughtlessly.
Kai gave a bow of his head and stopped in his movements to the door and turned to Itachi, a little reluctantly. "Suigetsu is—he came by. He said he wants to see Sasuke," he said and lowered his eyes when he saw visible irritation appear in Itachi's face.
"He is still here?" Itachi asked and Kai gave a nod in silence.
Itachi looked away from him at the hue in the horizon, his irritation melting into a subtle expression that usually meant trouble for those who knew him. "You have grown quite lax in your duties. I wonder . . . " Itachi spoke and Kai lowered his head more as if he was filled with reverence and about to go into the deepest bow.
When Itachi remained silent, Kai gave another bow, just out of habit, and left the room, Yuu and Jūgo right behind him. Itachi remained quiet for some time, watching the sky darken a little above the dividing arc. Then he spoke, his voice cold like the coming winter in a manner that he meant what he said: "if this does not go as I have imagined, I want you to convince the people in your house. They should allow me to give Sasuke my eyes. He would—"
"Itachi-Sama!" Serizawa's said, startled, his hands moving forward with a sudden swiftness as though to grab hold of Itachi's shoulders.
"Let me speak," Itachi spoke, and Serizawa spoke no more as he stood in obedience to his clan's Lord. "He would require my chakra veins, as well. I do not want him to live a life of blindness, without the power he would require in my absence . . . the power that was his right and Otō-Sama's will. I see no reason to mock the dead."
"Itachi-Sama, you'll live a long and fulfilling life—you don't have to do this!" he reasoned, tone affected by emotions, standing inside the shadow Itachi had cast upon him.
Itachi looked over his shoulder, and for a fleeting moment, his eyes were without the cold that had become their habit. He looked to the sky again and spoke, his voice a little soft this time: "I do not want Sasuke to be unhappy and grieve at my grave as he does now. He does not live. He only grieves." He inhaled deeply. "Life is uncertain . . . mine even more so, but Sasuke's life should never be uncertain. That is what I should ensure as his brother . . . and his father." Then Itachi left the room without looking at Serizawa, and he was left with no choice but to follow.
In the prison-cell, Sasuke trembled and whimpered. He was completely incoherent in speech, burdened by the fever that attacked his mind. Itachi had asked Kai to take Jūgo to his room, along with Suigetsu simply because he had insisted. Itachi wanted the man gone, but he had little patience in him to worry about his tricks—for now.
Karin stood with Yuu in the room's penetrating shadow. The fire had gone out in the hearth, and it was nearly dark outside. Serizawa struggled with the chain around Sasuke's wrist as he sat bowed in a thoughtless adoration befitting a worshipper. His body struggled with the shivers that assailed his limbs. He could not sit up.
When the chain clanked to the floor, a fire bloomed in Sasuke's eyes; it was something Itachi's mind had anticipated, but he was surprised just the same. Sasuke bumped into Serizawa and lunged at Itachi—his face crazed, dark.
Itachi senses did not register what had happened, eyes bending upon Sasuke's sorrowful face and fury-filled eyes, till Sasuke plunged the Kunai into his breast once, twice, thrice . . . each stab went all the way through to reach the wall behind him and released a jet of blood in Sasuke's face and a pulse of such pain in his own body. Sasuke's arm swung forward to stab Itachi's breast the fourth time when Serizawa grabbed hold of his wrist and pushed him into the floor—he had snatched the special Kunai from Serizawa's waist, a gift from his late brother.
"I'll kill you!" Sasuke snarled, his face pressed into the floor. The Kunai had fallen from his blood-smeared hand, blood dripping from its gleaming-sharp edges to gather on the wooden-floor like a black stain.
Itachi's pink teeth clamped tight between the gums. He took in a breath so sharp and slid down to the floor, onto his knees, leaving vertical red lines on the white portion of the wall. His head bent down with the pain in his body, and he could hear nothing, his eyes still on Sasuke.
Itachi pushed Karin's arm away when she pressed it against his red lips, her flesh soft against his teeth. She made a cut into her arm with her finger-tips and brought it to his lips again. He did not break her skin, but when his lips closed on the wound, starved for relief, he could not deny that her blood was . . . the second sweetest thing he had ever tasted!
There was a slack richness to it as it went down his throat in languid trickles that closed up his wounds that stopped sending pain signals through his body. Green light glowed on his breast as Yuu healed him, his face enveloped by shock and fear. In a few moments, pain went away and sounds returned . . . Sasuke was weeping again.
"Nii-San, I-I'm sorry," Sasuke wept, child-like, shivering underneath the weight of Serizawa's arms. Itachi did not speak a word as he beheld the boy with eyes emotionless, and his blood glistened bright-red against the evening sun's hollow radiance . . .
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Izumi was a girl who fell in love with the older one: she was a girl who fell in hate with the younger one. It was a simple story for her heart. She had known it to be true since she had seen the twilight glow during the sunset of that autumn day, with Itachi by her side. The servant girl told her that Sasuke had gone mad, that Itachi had locked him up in the cell. He's gloomy, the servant girl had said, and gloomy men often enjoyed the company of women!
Her heart fluttered like birds. It was a cruel thought, but she wanted to be alone with the man she loved! So she smiled like a girl always in love and fingered the letter in her hand, just to feel the sensations the paper gave off. She had written it with care and bold brush strokes. He would like it!
She looked at the sky, her kimono flowing in the light breeze that was replete with the scents she hated. They clogged up her nostrils and made her sneeze. Spring was better; summer, lovely. Her thoughts drifted along the waves in the sky, and a red colour reckoned upon the horizon's arc, faded away with the dipping sun.
Then Izumi heard a sound and her heart stalled from the sky, like a bird. She grasped her kimono, raised up the layers a bit, walked into the manor's shadow that seemed to be stretching forward towards the stone-pathway. The inside was quiet, but she could hear the sounds coming from Itachi's room.
The door was slightly ajar and a vertical light beam stood between the door and the shadows. She tip-toed to the door and peered inside, and the scene that greeted her made her clamp her hand over her mouth: Sasuke was thrashing about, without anything covering his torso, as four men tried their hardest to keep him still; Sasuke's head was in Itachi's lap, who was rubbing his fingers gently against Sasuke's temples.
The sounds were louder here and flowed as waves that ebbed after striking against something invisible. A seal? She tucked the letter in her obi and leant forward, too curious to go back now. Itachi's face was unusually cold, colder than she had ever seen.
Gently, he brushed the hair from Sasuke's forehead and spoke, "what are you waiting for?"
Jūgo's teeth tightened down on his jaw—he was reluctant and afraid of what he might end up doing. He stilled Sasuke's arm, which had gone frail with hunger and pain and illness, with one strong hand and looked into the older one's eyes without fear. "This'll hurt him—a lot," he said, and though his voice shivered a little, he still managed to stress on the last two words with a resoluteness that came naturally to him: he was a man of the wild!
"I am aware," Itachi spoke and caressed Sasuke's forehead as he called for him in this mad state. "He needs to feel pain for the veins to expel chakra into his system. Without it, you might as well just leave him mad."
"Without any anesthetic agent, he'll—"
"Are you under the impression that I want to take Sasuke's life . . . kill him?" Itachi cut across him, his tone and face incredibly sober, but Jūgo felt mocked by his sincerity. "I have given him something. It will diminish the pain, but not enough to vanish it completely."
Then Itachi went quiet, eyes upon Sasuke who dampened his cheeks with more tears, and his quietness told Jūgo to do what he had asked of him; and partaking the grim sensation that pervaded the air, Jūgo's breast swelled with a great breath. He bent over Sasuke and positioned his hands, his palms facing inwards, on either side of Sasuke's head; Itachi held Sasuke's free hand down in his stead.
Veins wriggled out, and at Jūgo's wordless command, their ends tapered off into needle-like points fit for penetration. Sasuke felt them break the skin on his temples, and his breathing stopped for a moment. Fear's ripples went through his body and vibrated into his tormentors' hands. His brow pinched with uncertainty, but, with a return of realisation, he felt a rush of the fiercest pain.
The veins burrowed further in, and Sasuke filled his lungs to the brim with air. His mouth opened slowly, and the dip below his ribcage intensified so much that Itachi could count all of his ribs! Then he let out a scream so loud that it collided against the seal and went across the walls in beats!
Sasuke's body went into spasmodic movements, and his screams kept coming, each one louder than the last. His breast was held fast with strong hands, and it grew weary from the weight; his throat grew hoarse from screaming for so long that he started pleading, which all he could do to muster little whimpers, like a child.
For a little while, Sasuke only emitted shuddering breaths, his body going limp with oppression. Blood came from his temples and collected in Itachi's palms, but Itachi could not tell how much pain Sasuke felt now. Streams of it streaked through Sasuke's hairs that were still laced with grime and dirt for not having bathed his body for nights and days.
Everyone sat in silence, but shadows came forward and announced night's arrival. Itachi raised his eyes and saw that the shadows on the paper-screen windows were gone. Outside, a breeze puffed across the garden and rough leaves spun along the wet stones: storm had passed—for now.
Sasuke's mouth gaped open, and he clamped his eyes shut under the cloth that Itachi saw the muscles strain in his cheeks. His lungs heaved and fought for breath, and he made retching sounds deep in his throat. Then his face fell to the left and he expelled the contents of his stomach on Itachi's trousers.
Jūgo looked at Sasuke and then at Itachi with concern. "What's wrong with him?"
"It is a natural reaction of the body from the pain. It will subside," he spoke without a discernable tone in his manner of speech, watching Sasuke's body make a shivering movement each time he heaved and retched, which cramped his stomach. He had deposited nothing more than white slime on Itachi's black trousers.
When Sasuke stopped, his breast rose and fell slowly with deep breaths, as though he had fallen asleep. Itachi grabbed a damp cloth from the side and wiped Sasuke's face and his trousers clean. He would have to ask the servants to bathe Sasuke, but maybe, he would clean his hair and face himself . . . ?
Itachi put the dirty cloth aside and saw Jūgo back away with a nod. It was done. He looked down with a different vision and his breast filled with calm: the method had worked; Sasuke's veins were mended. It would take him a few days to heal (he was very weak), but he was in danger no longer.
They all rose up, exhausted, and that was when Itachi spoke: "be seated, Suigetsu." Suigetsu inhaled a quick breath and sat back down. Others left through the door that led to the garden: they were not allowed to march through the house at this time of the night.
"N-Nii-San—you're here?" Sasuke's asked and enclosed Itachi's hand in his and shook it, as though to make sure.
"Yes," Itachi answered and Suigetsu had never heard such softness in his voice—he was a strange man . . .
"I-I can't see, Nii-San," he said, eyes bulging out under the cloth, "i—it frightens me. You'd stay, won't you?"
"Yes," Itachi spoke again, and that created a smile of relief and contentment on Sasuke's face; and as though he was a child who had played himself to exhaustion, he fell asleep immediately.
Itachi stroked Sasuke's head that deepened his slumber. Moments passed in this activity, and shadows grew thicker. "I do not want you speaking of this before Sasuke. I forbid it," Itachi spoke and that slight change in his tone made Suigetsu's skin shiver as the thin hairs stood at attention.
Suigetsu gulped down the anxiety that clutched his heart like a clenching steel-hand. "Ya think big ol' Jūgo would shuttup 'bout this? Don't know, mate. Ya 'ave ta ask 'im, too. Don't go throwin' the whole thin' on me," he said with a smile, and his right hand gestured for emphasis.
"He gave me his word," Itachi spoke, and Suigetsu's smile went away and a look of shock took its place. "He desires Sasuke's well-being, yet you want to play games with him. Children's games. That makes him different from you."
"Ya aren't bein' fair," Suigetsu said, and he wanted to say more, but Itachi's eyes flashed scarlet—he was not in the mood to talk this out.
"I would tell Sasuke that he was poisoned during his mission . . . hence, his fragile state. That is what you would say to him, as well," Itachi spoke and looked down briefly and returned his eyes to Suigetsu. "That is what Jūgo would say. That is what Karin would say. That is what everyone would say, for mistakes create troubles and troubles create tragedies. Simple, is it not?"
Suigetsu gulped and nodded. He did not speak—he had nothing to say to the man who truly made him taste the most exquisite fear. He watched whilst he stroked Sasuke's hair, his other hand delicately laid against Sasuke's right cheek.
"Do not mention Sakura to him. He does not need to recall . . . every unpleasant business," he spoke and looked down with a strange curiosity in his eyes, which had softened his eyes against the cold again. "Leave."
Suigetsu emitted a loud breath—this was not how he had hoped for this to end; yet he still had things to do. He could still make it work! He said nothing to Itachi, rose to his feet, and left from the room; Izumi walked away, too, without another peep . . .
Hours went by and wind grew a little rough. Izumi sat in the guestroom by the fire, the letter tucked away in her obi. She wanted to leave, but the letter had compelled the girl in her to stay—that and Rao had also given her a letter for Itachi. Not that it was important, but it was a good excuse to stay!
She sat bent-legged on the mat, not caring about the lady-like manners in Itachi's absence. Smiling, she took out the letter, unfolded it carefully, looked at the writing. Roses faded from her cheeks at the sight of the ugly letters—she could have asked Hana to make them prettier for her. She was a fool!
Izumi was still battling her anger when the door opened and Itachi stood in the aperture, looming tall. She immediately hid the letter under the makura and sprang to her feet in haste.
"Why are you here?" Itachi asked, at which she made a bow to him.
"L-Letter—" she answered, trembling.
"What letter?" he asked, and she noticed that his tone was a bit harsh—he seemed tired, irritated.
"From Rao-Sama." She kept herself composed and pulled out the scroll from her obi. To her immense satisfaction, he came into the room, closed the door behind him, settled himself down cross-legged by the hearth.
Izumi sat down beside Itachi and smiled when he took the scroll-letter from her hand. She wanted to read the letter, too, but it would have been imposing; so she watched as he unrolled the scroll and read the words in silence.
In this failing season, I wish you well, my child.
I love you with all my heart, and I forgive you—I will always forgive you.
Kami will protect you—always.
That was all. Itachi put the letter down upon the mat, eyes on the flames. Then he leant forward and placed his elbows on his knees and rested his face in his hands. His back curved and he stayed in this position for several long moments of complete silence. Izumi had always seen him look very rigid—this was new for her.
"Itachi-Sama, are you—" she stopped, hesitant—he made her afraid for some reason; but she mustered a bit of courage and spoke again, "are you a'right? I-I wrote a letter for—" Then nothing came out. Words strangled her throat. She cursed under her breath and that got his attention; and he pulled his hands away, straightened his spine, his back taking the form of a rigid sword, and looked at her in a manner no one would wish to tempt a second time.
Yet Izumi was stubborn. She would tell him that she loved him, and no one would stop her—not Sasuke, not anyone. He was not here to snatch her letters away from her. She opened her mouth to speak, but he forestalled her: "when did you come into the house?" he asked, his manner of speaking a little strange, tempting in a way she did not understand.
"Half an hour ago?" Izumi lied, looking down. "No one was here, so I let myself in. I—I wanted to speak to you." Then she raised her eyes a little and peered at him and his soot-like lashes and the sensation that clouded his eyes. He looked . . . different, but not in a way she wanted.
"Speak to me of what?" Itachi asked her another question, his voice a little strained as he looked at her. The moth's essence had stirred in his limbs again, sinister vibrations that roused his flesh: he had taken its poison, out of the need to soothe his nerves, so many times now that even a slight weakness of his spirit made it rise from his gut to fondle his spirit in perverse ways. Now that that woman who enticed his flesh was not here, she would just have to do . . . to purge it, to expel it from his body.
Izumi sat so close to Itachi that she saw a purple vein bulge through the skin of his neck, a thin and long snake. His left eye twitched, and he moved closer till she could see the purple threads spread across his Sharingan, like poison. His breath fell across her lips, and it was sweet.
"I wrote it f-for—you," she said, her cheeks going red with passion.
"For me?" another question as he gathered a strand of her hair between his fingers. "You enjoy the sensations the thoughts give you from that autumn evening? Strange . . . " Then he rubbed the lock between his fingers as if it fascinated him.
Izumi did not answer. He placed his hand just below her neck, his finger-tips gliding across her collar-bone, never truly touching, and pushed her gently down on the mat. She wanted to resist, but . . . he mesmerised her, all fresh-skinned and beautiful in the fire's light.
He bent down and balanced himself by putting his hand on the mat, his other hand busy undoing her obi. This was not how she had imagined it—so sudden and without love. "W-Wait!" she ejaculated and took hold of his wrist. He stopped and gazed down at her with a curiosity that was odd for his countenance.
"Is this not why you came here? I thought you wanted this union," Itachi spoke, tilting his head a little to the left as though he was seeing her for the first time. "If you do not want—"
"No, I—" she stopped, and her hand trembled around his now.
"Then what do you want?" he asked, his voice dipped in a whispery tone, his eyes colder than stones, flecked at the cores by something that made her tremble; but she had wanted him to make love to her for so long; and he was here now, looking at her, that she released her grip and allowed him to discover her . . . the way he wanted—for now.
He undid her obi in silence and pulled open the front of her kimono and let it slither down to the sides. Her breasts were ripe, peaked with heat; sweat dotted her body all over, a map for his gaze. His lovemaking was complicated—if she could even call it that. His hands hovered near, his finger-tips giving off chakra and sensations to the pores in her skin, which consumed the particles with hunger. This was so . . . new for her blossoming core.
Itachi did nothing intense, as though her pretty body and skin did not interest him. He just traced the pronounced hollows from her hipbones down to her thighs; but his chakra kept flowing in, and she found it harder to breathe. She closed her eyes when he slid her undergarment down her legs and pried her thighs open with his hands.
Pin-pricks of dull light floated against her eyelids, and, when he lay onto her, she took a swallow of his scent—he smelt noxious and sweet and strange. What was this smell? She did not have time to dwell on this as he shifted and his hand reached down to part the moist curls on her genitals.
When he probed her open, she opened her eyes to look at the deep dip where his clavicle met his shoulder, enveloped in sweat. He grasped her thigh and pressed his hips into her, his arousal thick between her thighs, which glided into her at such a slow pace that her breath broke, and she wrapped her hand around the back of his neck, lifting herself up to slant her lips over his throat.
And she bled from that place, a virgin no more, and he had not said a word, had not passed a breath for her loss. She felt . . . full with him as he stroked her over and over again, feeling her muscles tightening sweetly around him. Her breaths kissed the pulses that beat like tempests in his veins.
And still he said nothing, and still he did nothing—more than merge his flesh with hers without a heart. And the lover who loved him took heart and fell back on the mat inside his shadow and squeezed his hips between her thighs, yet she knew he did not feel the love she felt, and her heart could not bear his un-feeling nature; so she wept, and her breast puffed in and out at a fast rate.
He stopped and looked down to her, and he spoke this time: "why do you weep? I was surprisingly gentle with you—when I do not care for these frivolities."
Her lower lip pushed out but she said nothing, and he began moving inside her again, his thrusts harder, deeper now. Her body felt delighted when she spilt her want, but as she turned her head to the left, tears welled up and blurred the letters Rao had made in her missive—they were far prettier than the ones she had made, clumsy like her.
His last two breaths came short and sharp, from deep in his throat, and he transported his seed into her womb. Then he backed away without a sound, zipping himself up, and she saw a kind of disgust in his countenance of the whole matter, as though he never wanted to mate with her.
The look never left his face, and he left the room without speaking to her; she lay there, felt the wind cooling the burning from her pleasure-covered body; then, as she became aware of his seed flowing out from her that was without his chakra, she wept . . .
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EN: Incubus, archaic, a nightmare.