When Itachi walked out of the Hokage's office, dawn was still hours away. Danzou walked beside Itachi, not half as chastised as he had pretended to be during the lecture. Itachi was still dappled with blood, though he had washed his hands. The Hokage's ANBU guards had been dismissed, and, for once, even Danzou's bodyguards had always been left behind. So precious was the secret—so ruinous the deed.
Itachi listened for a moment as he walked. He ran through the structure of the hall in his mind and counted the steps he'd taken. He decided he was far enough from the Hokage's room. Old as Danzou was, he remained fast enough to turn and ready himself as Itachi moved. He didn't get far. Itachi slammed the old man's shoulder into the wall, and then buried a kunai hilt deep in the wall just shy of Danzou's right eye-conveniently under wraps.
Itachi smiled. He could smell the sweat on Danzou. The fear, even though the man tried to hide it. Itachi could see it all. Sense it all.
"You're going to kill me, after you swore to protect Konoha?" Danzou's voice was gravelly. Itachi wondered how Madara had kept his so smooth, though it had gone hollow through the ages.
"Oh, no, not now, Danzou-san." Itachi let his hand slide from the hilt of the kunai, and he touch the right side of Danzou's face. The contact sent shivers of revulsion down his spine, but he only smiled. His fingers stroked the bandages, but Danzou didn't dare move. Itachi felt the rush of something. Power. Control. He almost wanted to laugh with it.
Itachi knew if he made a move, Danzou would try to kill him. He also knew that if Danzou used Shisui's eye so soon, he'd likely kill himself. Without the eye, Danzou was no match for Itachi. No one was now. Shisui had made him untouchable.
"But, one day..." Itachi leaned closer. "One day, Konoh won't need you anymore, Danzou-san. One day, you will be obsolete, and that day..." Itachi let the happy sing-song of his voice play over the words as Madara had. His skin, he knew, radiated unnatural heat. His voice was silk and cream. He knew the shuddering feeling that crawled down Danzou's spine. Knew the shudder of the oil slick fingers of suggestion sliding painfully under skin, making you want to scratch until you were raw. This art of intimidation did not live in the mind of the victim, but in every part of them.
"I won't kill you." The words were breathless. Hollow. Perhaps age did not hollow a voice. "Oh, no, not that day, or the next...Ojii-sama told me he kept a man alive and in torment for a month. I think I can double that." Itachi bared his teeth less like a smile.
It was too much. Danzou had a knife in hand, but Itachi was across the hall. "Until then, I'll practice just for you. Maybe I'll put on a henge and make you believe it's Shisui come back from the grave who torments you. Maybe I'll pluck my cousin's eye from your face and bring Shisui back to torment you himself." Did genjutsu have to pass through the eyes? Itachi didn't know, but as he vanished from the hall, the look of hate and rage and fear on Danzou's face told him one thing. The man would never sleep well again.
"How you grow in the space of a night, my little one." Madara, sated from his kills, sat waiting for Itachi in the deserted streets. Madara had gorged. Itachi felt like he had been purged, but of everything good and healthful.
"I'm not yours." Itachi wiped the blood from his face. It flaked off like a lepers skin.
"Oh, then who's are you, little one?" Madara's fingers curled against his mask. His nails were black. His hands were white and clean. His knuckles were the knobs of an old man's knuckles.
Itachi blinked. He pushed his hair back behind his head and heard the soft jingle of a bell buried in his ponytail. "The ANBU will be here soon."
"Yes, ANBU." Madara stood, jerky and smooth in an eye twisting way. "And you have your new comrades to meet, my pet."
Mine. Mine. Mine.
Madara extended a hand. "Come."
Itachi's ninto drove six inches into the ground. Madara curled his unbloodied hand closer to his chest. Itachi met the old man's visible eye.
"I'll meet you at the temple at dawn." Itachi pulled the sword from the ground and wiped it clean before he turned and walked away. The night's work wasn't over yet.
It had been twenty four hours, and the jutsu to preserve his corpse had faded. Uchiha burned their dead. The smell-the sight of Shisui's body, decaying was...
An offense. A wound. To be repulsed by something to loved and cherished wasn't something Itachi thought he would ever truly get over. Still, he carried the corpse cradled against him, ignoring the stench. His mind grew numb as he walked, but his body never faltered. This, he saw, would be the way he lived his life. The daze would be his friend in the years to come.
Using a jutsu to build the pyre might have been easier. It, perhaps, would have looked neater. Itachi wouldn't cheat that way. He spent the hours carefully twisting and molding the materials into the shape he wanted. The rough wood cut his fingers, and he bled. He bled all over the pyre, drying drops of red and brown. He stuck into it the few flowers and decorative grasses he could find. It looked childish and meager, but Itachi came to this as a child. A lost child who'd lost everything that mattered to him.
He spoke as he worked. Spoke to the dead and the water that lapped at the bank. He spoke to the corpse, which moldered by his feet. He spoke to the stars in the sky as the dimmed and died. He spoke to the pyre, the flowers, everything and anything that couldn't hear. He spoke until his voice grew rough and cracked because he knew he's never speak another unguarded word.
Dawn had come by the time Itachi settled Shisui's body on the pyre. He slowly, gently, walked Shisui out into the water. Mist rose from the water, cloaking them, isolating and muffling every sound. Itachi's hand rested on the side of the raft. Shisui's cold fingers rested against Itachi's. Itachi took a moment to look at the corpse-to look at Shisui.
Shisui: his cousin; his brother; his love; his friend; his everything. Dead. Cold. Rotting.
The tears finally started. Itachi's body shook as he leaned down and pressed his aching lips to the cold flesh. His heart hammered and tried to break itself on his ribs.
"You have made me untouchable."
Itachi set the pyre alight with black flame. He stood waist deep in water and watched the river carry Shisui away. They were three miles downstream from where Shisui had drowned. A mile and a half from where they had found his body yesterday morning. The sun broached the tree line, and the black flame had eaten Shisui's body away into nothing. It would dissolve his very essence, and only his eyes and will would live on. Only that.
No one must ever know it, but Itachi must never forget.
By mid-morning Itachi would be meeting his new comrades as a cold killer. Now, at dawn, he hugged his arms around himself and cried for the last time. The tears mixed with blood and he shook with every breath. It hurt. He thought, as he struggled for each gasping cry, he might die with it. He might drown. He might. He would. Please, please, just let him. Wasn't this enough? Wasn't this already too much?
You're stronger than that.
Itachi pulled himself from the water and sat on the bank. He stared out at nothing and waited for the sun to dry him. The sun, weak as it was, shone warm on his skin. The day promised to be beautiful and bright. Itachi wondered if he'd ever stop feeling cold, and if the sight of a river would ever stop making him feel sick.