Disclaimer: I still only own who I said I owned so if you would kindly get off my back on this.
A/N: 300 REVIEWS+ THANK YOU!
Chapter 15:
"You'd think you'd wake up by now. If just Ian was too much for you, I can't wait to see what happens when I get to Kai and Hiro." Itachi said, cradling a still unconscious Tala, only to blink when the being in his arms became something akin to an ice sculpture.
"Your biggest mistake was to release me from those restraints." Tala supplied from behind him, then jabbed him in the back, in the same spot where Sasori had gotten him with a kunai, back at school.
"Although I have to say, those eyes of yours, are rather impressive." He added.
"Even if you get out of this room Tala, you cannot escape from here." Itachi supplied from behind him, as his clone dispersed.
"Furthermore, child, you're in my world now. Remember that. I control everything here, even the possibility of you being free." Around him everything turned into black and white again, and Tala collapsed to his knees coughing, and wheezing as he suddenly felt, like there was no air around him, or in his lungs, at all.
"That wasn't necessary." Itachi heard from Tala in the real world. The redhead was struggling against the restraints on him viciously, glaring at him all the while. "In case you haven't noticed, I am at your complete mercy dumb-ass. I'm not an idiot Itachi, I know that anything I say or do here, you will use against me."
"Well, that is true. Also, don't ever tell me something I do to you here is not necessary. You are my slave here, and if I want to toy with you, if I want to give you hope, only to crush it, I will." Itachi removed all of the toys inside of Tala, and thrust into him fully. There was no resistance from the redhead's body, and the redhead showed no sign of having felt a thing from it.
"You idiot. Now that I know you're going to do that, it will be meaningless to even go forward with it." Tala said to him, as the clones showed up again inside the other realm, and an ax began to strike his copy. Tala couldn't help begin to cry at that. A sword was one thing, an ax was another.
"Do you remember, how you told me you'd kill me, if I lay even one finger upon Deidara?" The raven asked, slowly carving his name into the redhead's chest, with a v-42 stiletto.
"I remember everything Itachi. Like the fact that you tried to get me to believe, that Ian was an evil person, and that he hated me. Tell me now, if you've done something to Deidara, so that I can do as I told you, and kill you right now." Tala retorted, wincing as the Uchiha continued to carve.
"You truly must love blood." He added, when Itachi finished, only to begin licking each letter, until the skin scarred over.
"I won't deny that, but your blood tastes especially good." Itachi supplied, and smirked at him.
"You cannot do a thing." He reminded him with a small laugh.
"Deidara, is mine. I even forced his head into a toilet bowl full of waste, and he still couldn't deny he liked it in the end, filthy as he was." His words caused Tala to make an attempt to do something to him, anything, but his body was wired up, and his arms and legs, were not only wired, but chained as well. There really was, nothing, that he could do, and Tala spit at him, growling at him, that he would pay somehow.
"Hah, I will believe that when it comes true, no sooner. Also, if it pisses you off so badly, perhaps I will make a habit of taking him. He does taste good after all, I might as well enjoy him, now that he is mine." Itachi countered still smirking, and smearing the spit Tala had launched at him on his face.
"Do you really think it bothers me? Spit some more, I'd love to be covered in your spit." He put his finger in Tala's mouth, and commanded him to suck thereafter, but Tala bit him, and Itachi swore the bite was as powerful as one from a wolf.
"More of the power of that monster infused inside you?" He asked, not bothered in the least, instead happy as he sucked on his now bloody finger.
"Hn. It is just the power that is sealed in me. The wolf no longer exists, I have become it." Tala remarked boredly.
"I hate you so much Itachi, that bite was all me, no power." Tala spit some blood he had drained from the Uchiha's finger, onto his face.
"Usually the evil ones taste good, you just taste bitter." He said, sounding slightly disappointed.
"I hope you have more than just the idea of trying to twist the relationships I've got with others into things I'll feel pain because of. None of the people you listed before would ever hurt me the way you want to make me believe they would, and they would most definitely not hurt me willingly. If that is the best you can do, you have already lost." That caused Itachi to give him a serious look, and smack him hard.
"You don't understand what I mean when I say I control everything inside of the realm of Tsukuyomi do you?" Itachi allowed a memory of Tala's to play out inside of Tsukuyomi, then made it burn away.
"This is but a demonstration, however let me explain to you what would happen if I truly wanted you to forget that memory, not just mentally torture you with the idea of it being gone. If I wished for you to believe Ian was as I had displayed him before you before I left for school this morning, then all I would have to do is rewrite your memories of him to include only that. I could erase and rewrite any one of your memories if I wished. I can apparently not manipulate them into the reverse, because your bonds are strong, but I ask you, do you truly want me to take it further, than attempting to manipulate your memories into the reverse?" He eyed Tala with a devil's look.
"If you did, I still wouldn't lose. I'd never know that they were once people I loved and was loved by, which ultimately defeats the purpose does it not?" Tala countered.
"Perhaps rewriting them might, but erasing major memories and leaving gaps sure wouldn't. It would be amusing I think, to see how you'd live with the knowledge that you and Kai are best friends, but cannot remember how that came to be, or that you and Hiro are together, but have no idea how you got together. Now that I think on it, I have the perfect idea. I will alter your memories of your life, and see how you live with it." Itachi stopped speaking and inside the realm of Tsukuyomi all of Tala's memories appeared like small t.v screens.
Some were burned away, and others were x'd out and replaced. In the end Itachi recreated Tala's life, into a childhood that was hell itself, much worse than his original one, as he threw in the story Tala had fed him back in the limousine when he was acting, and turned his most recent years into an equal nightmare, throwing him into an abusive relationship with Spencer and Bryan, taking away all of the good between him and Kai, removing Ian entirely from the equation.
He morphed the relationship Tala had with Hiro and Deidara, into one where Hiro and Deidara merely used him as a toy, and threatened to tell Spencer and Bryan if he didn't obey them, as well as throwing himself in as Tala's only savior from his cursed life, playing the role of the lover he secretly had, but could not openly be with, which was only tearing him apart even further.
"Stop it!" Tala cried out repeatedly, but by the time Itachi was done Tala fell into a coma, completely taken by the life Itachi had created for him inside the realm of Tsukuyomi.
Itachi decided to leave him like that, and go play with Deidara some more. If Tala ever recovered from the illusion, he would make sure that hell was waiting for him when he did. There were some parts of this equation of torture, that he still needed to take care of. He tied Tala to the bed, deciding that it was too dangerous to just leave him to recover there, because Tala was strong, and he didn't want to risk him breaking out, before he finished with him.
Stepping out into the hall he locked the door, and placed the key into his pocket, before walking up the stairs of the dungeon, to the other side of the castle, where Madara's room was. He needed to let his uncle know, that he was leaving Tala in his care for now. Half way there he ran into the man himself, who was giving him a look that could kill. "What did you do to the poor boy now?" He was asked.
"I altered his life, and left him comatose because he couldn't take it. I'm leaving him in your care for now. I have other things to take care of, before this revenge is truly complete." He replied, but stepped back slightly when Madara took a step forward.
"You realize that he could stay that way for decades, don't you?" Madara gave him a piercing look, which made him step back once again.
"If he doesn't wake up in a year, I'll release him from the technique entirely. He's not aware of it, but you and I both know I have to take a break eventually. He's sharp he'll figure it out sooner or later, and if he doesn't in a year I will have gone blind in that particular eye, and Tsukuyomi will become unusable." He replied simply.
"This boy is beginning to pull my attention. Is he that interesting Itachi?" Madara sounded bored.
"I'll confess something to you Madara." Itachi said, making Madara put on a serious face, as Itachi was rarely honest with people.
"What is it?" He asked.
"Even with everything I'm doing, I still feel like crap. I truly love him Madara, and it's tearing me apart. I'm out to hurt others now, because he doesn't feel the same. Is it so wrong? Is it so wrong, to want him for myself?" Itachi collapsed to the floor then, and Madara sighed, as the younger Uchiha began to cry.
"Feeling for him is not wrong Itachi. What is wrong is, that you are hurting him, and those he cares for. Take it from me, I lost the only woman I ever loved, because of the same exact reason. That seems to be the only thing we Uchiha ever do, push away the ones we really love. Even Fugaku and Mikoto, are only together now, to keep up the appearance of a happy family for Sasuke's sake." He pat the teen on the head, as he sat down next to his fallen form, and pulled him into an embrace.
"I still don't understand that you know. The way mom and dad have grown so far apart in the last couple of years I mean." Itachi supplied, as he snuggled into the embrace.
"It doesn't matter why, the point I'm trying to make, is that they are not happy. None of us Uchiha, are ever happy in the end. We are simply too controlling, and because of it, we push those who care for us away, and regret it too late, to make up for such a mistake." Madara retorted, merely holding him as he cried.
"Who was she? The woman you loved?" Itachi asked, not wishing to speak of his family anymore.
"A commoner. She was a bar dancer, and a waitress. She worked to pay for medical bills that her parents could not. They were old, and eventually they passed away. When I sent my men to kill her, because she had a baby, and I figured it couldn't be mine if she'd never said a word to me about it, I took over paying their medical bills as an apology, because I received a letter stating that she had sent the baby away somewhere, as it was her dying wish." He paused momentarily, thinking back on that day sixteen years earlier.
"The letter claimed the child was mine, that it did not belong to the person she sent it to. I have yet to find out, where she sent the child, or who his current guardians are. Every second, of every day, I regret giving the order to kill her. We could have been happy, if I had only let her live. All of those times you and Sasuke called me an antisocial asshole, they hurt, but go ahead and call me that. Better to be antisocial, than risk letting myself hurt another woman." Madara sighed heavily after that, and let go of Itachi, getting up. "I'll watch him for you, just let me know if you need anything else."
"What did she look like?" Itachi asked tugging on his pants, and giving him a compassionate look, as he looked down, clearly ready to say, that he wanted the subject dropped.
"Red hair, blue eyes, figure that puts your mother's to shame, and your mother is a top idol." The elder replied, recalling the woman.
"Where was she from?" Madara sighed at that, Itachi was sometimes too kindred.
"I am perfectly fine Itachi, I've learned to live with the guilt." He said.
"That doesn't mean you shouldn't talk about it with someone every now and then." Itachi countered, simply.
"I am supposed to be letting you do as you please, and allow you to learn from your mistakes, not sitting here, and allowing you to comfort me. I am a forty year old man, who never bothered with women after twenty four, and due to not being into men, never walked that path, and because of it all, never bothered to marry, and will grow old and die, alone in this castle, that should be much livelier. You don't need to do this." He retorted, but sighed when Itachi wouldn't let go of his leg.
"You just won't take no for an answer will you?" He asked.
"No. You need this. We all need to talk sometimes Madara, even you." Itachi remarked, knowingly.
"She was originally from Kyoto, but her family moved to Moscow when she became a teenager. Alright?" Madara didn't want to talk. It was painful, and there was no way he would ever cry in front of Itachi, or anyone else for that matter.
"What was she like?" Itachi pressed.
"She needed to be brought down a few pegs, she was absolutely full of herself. Always got what she wanted in the end, one way or another. She loved to play with people. She would get men and women, head over heels in love with her, just to drop them like rocks, and she had a mouth on her that could not just speak wonders, but work them as well, and she knew it." He begrudgingly began to talk.
Madara felt a bitter happiness enveloping him, memories were just that, but she had been such a lively being, that he wanted to get up and go remind her, that she wasn't 'all that' as she liked to think, and it actually felt, like she was still around to listen to him, and retort with something stupid, like 'I see. Perhaps I shouldn't sleep with you this week.' or something along those lines.
"She sounds like a female Tala." Itachi said suddenly.
"Tala?" Madara asked.
"The boy in the dungeon. I thought you said you'd go check on him while I was at school, and where were you before anyway? You said you'd come by to check on things, but never showed up." Itachi looked at him curiously.
"I was working child, and really? I am truly curious about this boy now." Madara didn't even try to hide his curiosity.
"Well, everything you've said about her reminds me of him. They have the same eye color, and the same hair color too. I dunno, I think I might be starting to get, why dad keeps saying I'll turn out, to be another you." Itachi said.
"That is not funny in the slightest. I think I will go and have a look at this boy myself for a change, instead of leaving him to the maids." Madara smacked him gently on the back. "Now go on and head home. If his folks are looking for him, you're going to look more and more suspicious if you're away from home so much, considering you are an Uchiha, and do have the power to make him disappear if desired."
"Alright I'll go, but don't think this conversation is over. If you need to talk, I'm willing to listen Madara." Itachi gave in and started heading for the castle exit after that.
"Nah, that's impossible." Madara said to himself, as he headed for the dungeon. There was no way the boy down there, could be the same boy he'd been searching for the past sixteen years, there was just no way.
"What is the boy's condition?" He asked the doctor, who was in the room next to the one Tala was being kept in.
"He is stable for now, but we both know it's not his body that's suffering." The man replied.
"You're dismissed until further notice." Madara told him, and left the room.
"Itachi you've really outdone yourself this time." He said with a sigh, as he closed the door behind him, and approached the bed Tala was tied to.
"Much better," He said, after he'd untied the boy, and for the first time took notice of him. Itachi wasn't kidding, the boy looked remarkably similar to the woman he loved.
"That's impossible Madara, stop believing that the gods would be nice enough, to drop your son in your lap, after so many years." He scolded himself, turning his gaze away from the boy. The boy even bore similar marks, to the ones he would often leave on his beloved so long ago, but that was to be expected from the torture Itachi was performing on him.
"...help me..." He heard weakly, minutes later.
"He can even partly resist something as powerful as Tsukuyomi...can he really be?" Madara eyed the boy, and reached out a hand to check his eye color, the same blue as his beloved, and even the same red hair, he noted recalling Itachi's words.
"Itachi, you might just have sinned recently." He admonished, as he blinked his eyes, and compared what the boy would look like as a female with his eternal sharingan to his deceased beloved.
The boy was a near perfect match to his beloved. Getting up, Madara left the room, and returned minutes later, to take a sample of the boy's blood. He needed to know for certain, if this was really his son. Stopping one of the maids on his way to testing their blood for a match, he ordered her to go clean the boy up, gently, and put him in some clothes, comfortable ones. The woman looked at him oddly, as he wasn't someone who was often kindred, but did as he said.
A/N: I have nothing much to say this time, except for I hope you enjoy and please keep reading and reviewing!