๏ผ he keeps to a rigid schedule. with neither sun nor stars by which to gauge time, he instead relies on the artificial means available on the station. he rises each morning at 0300, when the station is largely quiet and most of its denizens asleep or otherwise occupied, and makes breakfast for himself before spending several hours in the training room. generally, in these times, he is left alone.
as his vision has deteriorated, he has adapted. there are other ways to tell when someone approaches. shikamaru is too quiet and light on his feet to hear in the silicon-soled shoes of a shinobi, but one learns to listen for the way a body becomes dead space in the air, disrupting its natural flow.
he's aware of shikamaru a moment before he steps into the kitchen, and simply tilts his head towards him in acknowledgement. he is making tea, and there is tamago gayu simmering on the stove. he is, admittedly, not much for cooking, but he stood at his mother's elbow often enough to be able to replicate her recipes to the letter rather than the spirit. it does not often taste like he remembers it, but perhaps that is something of the sheen of childhood gilding all those things he cannot know again.
without a word, he pours a second cup of tea for shikamaru and sets it on the raised countertop nearby. an unspoken invitation. ๏ผ
[ he isn't in much of a mood for idle chatter, so silence is met by silence.
it would be easy for him to turn around and return to his room, wait for itachi to be done first before coming back here. a part of him would like to do that, yet he's already here and he came to brew himself some tea anyway. since the man is offering him a cup, then he may as well stay.
these encounters are unavoidable as long as they're both here.
as much as he dislikes bothersome things, itachi is one he cannot ignore. the hours he has spent on shogi were numbered with thoughts on how to deal with him. he has questions, ones that have been dissected, pulled apart and deliberated on countless times. they're all speculations in the end. the only way he can get an answer, even if it isn't a definitive (or even truthful) answer, is from uchiha alone. he would only be wasting his own time pondering further at this point.
of course, shikamaru has rationalized that he may not receive an answer even if he did ask, but he can't eliminate the possibility that he would either. in the end, he pondered over what naruto would do and his decision was suddenly made simple: just ask. why the hell not, right? ]
You previously spoke of goals and loyalties. Where do they lie?
๏ผ he takes the porridge off the heat, and portions it out into two bowls. shikamaru did not turn away the tea, so itachi assumes he will accept breakfast as well. the bowl is put down before him with a spoon, and itachi sits across from him. his expression is as placid as the waters of a lake on a day without wind.
shikamaru would not ask if he knew with absolute certainty, and no one sane would question where the loyalties of a clan-killer lay without cause. therefore, he knows enough to sew doubt.
something of the truth has survived him, then. it should not ache as it does — but it is as if the pain has stepped inside him, occupied every atom. it means that everything he worked for and towards in his life was for nothing after all.
forgive me, sasuke.
itachi looks at him intently, knowing full well that shikamaru will not meet the vicious catherine wheel of the sharingan. there is a part of him that has become all too acquainted with cruelty that wishes for a moment that he would, so itachi could pull him into the nightmare of tsukuyomi and show him in vivid, painstaking detail how a traitor responds to such a query.
that moment has its hold on him for far, far too long before he breathes out, and slants his gaze away. ๏ผ
If you have cause enough to doubt them, then you are already aware of the answer.
I need to hear you say it. No more guesses or ambiguous talk.
[ it may be asking too much of him though.
he knows the risks involved in confronting itachi outright like this. cordiality has its limitations between ones on seemingly opposing sides, butโ... if what naruto has said of him is true, then he can at least do as much as trust in his friend. he will give itachi the benefit of the doubt, but it isn't without its stipulations. after all, naruto's viewpoint, especially in relations to sasuke, can be extremely skewed and shikamaru has never been one for blind faith.
he has yet to touch either the tea or the porridge, but he doesn't intend on turning them away either. instead, they simply sit while he speaks. ]
๏ผ he has already determined that the lie does him no good here. yet, letting go of something that has subsumed his entire adolescent and adult life is — trying. he is silent a time, but the silence is a fraught one, tension like a tripwire in the air. admitting to his duplicity is almost — worse, in a way. it acknowledges something that he has long hidden away, known but ignored.
that he was a pawn. whether danzล or hiruzen's — when one owns body and one owns soul, does it matter which hand gave the order he followed?
that the lives of two hundred and seventy-four members of the uchiha clan were simply thrown into the gears of perpetual conflict to tangle them awhile. that none of it mattered in the end, and that all his hopes for sasuke have been —
he curls his hand around his cup, thumb rubbing absently at an imperfection at its lip.
is it so much better to be seen as cruel than as a discarded tool of the shinobi world? the former suggests autonomy, the latter strips it away and the double-edged blade of it is that it seems also a flimsy attempt to justify actions that he alone chose to enact. it is as vulnerable as exposing his throat to an enemy knife — perhaps moreso. even now, it is a choice he regards dispassionately. he has a goal here, he will need allies, and there is no one better situated to understand exactly what it may take and how ruthless they must be than another shinobi. his allegiance to akatsuki is worthless on the ximilia, unless he wishes to put value on the blood shed to ensure his position among them.
yet — this is not sentiment from shikamaru, it is calculation. he will grant him the respect of responding in kind.
there is nothing in his voice. no emotion, no inflection. but he does as he's been asked. ๏ผ
My loyalty is to Konoha.
๏ผ still. always. the only love greater than what he held for his village is what he has for his brother — but he knows full well that if they were ever deeply enough in conflict, he would slaughter his countrymen to a single soul if it meant preserving sasuke's life.
(is living at any cost truly living? he cannot say, and does not know.) ๏ผ
[ a thick blanket of silence permeates the air, seconds ticking by unheard and unacknowledged in the stillness of the room. he half-expects him not to answer, but when he does and he finally gets his answer, it isn't relief that shikamaru feels. the unspoken implications behind his words weigh heavily in his mind and deepens the crease etched between his brows. was naruto aware of this? was sasuke? it could explain some things, if they did.
more speculation โ something that hadn't until now felt tiresome.
but it doesn't stop the gears in his mind from turning and piecing together what he knows of the past, from forming conjectures and realizing the depths of his confession โ because it is a confession, isn't it? a secret he kept a hold of, possibly until his death. it's frustrating that he can't confirm any of this with naruto.
it also isn't easy to accept. there is a likelihood that itachi could be lying. let him hear what he wants to hear, so that he can manipulate him. whether it is a truth, partial truth or a lie, he can only make up his mind once he learns more. it's difficult to assess, even without having to simply go by the intonation of his voice โ and there is little to infer from there, unless he really wants to risk overanalyzing the emptiness in which he delivered his statement.
he needs time to work this over in his mind and he can already perceive a long and restless day ahead of him. there is no way he can make a sound judgment with how little he knows as of now, but what he can do is listen and inquire. he can choose to believe him because naruto himself vouched for him.
he can do at least that much. ]
Then, why? [ he can barely get the words out, his voice a soft rasp. there were only a few who had the power and authority to order itachi to carry out the acts he had committed back then. their names flicker at the forefront even as he remains steadfast in what he said earlier. he wants to hear it directly from him. be it a truth or a lie, he needs uchiha to be the one to utter everything without any input or suggestion coming from him. ]
๏ผ does he remember the massacre in any impactful way? it would have been a thing from which parents shielded their children. did he notice, when sasuke spent a month in bed, wrecked not only by grief but also by tsukuyomi laying ruin to his mind?
did shikamaru realize how different his little brother had become, when he finally returned to school? how quiet, how distraught, how hatred took hold of him? did he sense the vicious streak that grew from the bloodied corpse of kindness?
the sandaime hokage used to send him sasuke's academy report cards via messenger hawk, buried under several layers of sealed encryptions. he could not keep them, and was not sentimental regardless — the sharingan's perfect photographic recall would be memento enough that he burnt them to ash afterwards — but he had always... appreciated it. that small token of compassion.
he was notified of hiruzen's death by a single kanji seared bright into his palm, a warning. panic had gripped him like a hand around his throat, squeezing until his body fought the dip into airless euphoria like an animal thing. he'd been grateful to be alone, so kisame couldn't see the way shallow, rapid breathing had lead to a coughing fit that would have put him in bed for a week if he hadn't needed to act immediately and with absolution despite the blood dappling his palms. he could not afford weakness when he went before danzล, and so weakness had been put away.
(yet, sharks can smell blood, and kisame was always considerate of him.)
then why, shikamaru asks, as if he has an right to sound distraught by the question. itachi closes his eyes briefly, but they are still the red of cinnabar stone when he opens them. like most of his generation, shikamaru would have grown up to venerate the honourable sandaime, and the thought of chipping away at the man's legacy, tarnishing it to salvage his own is — abhorrent. he has given up enough ground already. ๏ผ
I have answered your question. I will not speak in defense of my actions.
๏ผ there is nothing to defend. nothing will change the fact that it was his hand on the blade, that it was his arms that wearied halfway through the night's work, that it was his soft steps that his clansmen hid from and listened for in closets and beneath blankets. he was the one that dragged children out of the arms of their mothers. it is messy work, taking a life. the wearier you are, the harder it becomes to make a clean kill. adrenaline was no help in steadying his hands.
he chose to do those things. he could have taken sasuke and fled. he could have followed shisui to the grave. he could have gone to his knees before his father and begged him to change course. but at the time there had only been one path: danzล's. ๏ผ
[ he was too young back then to comprehend the depths of the tragedy, but he wasn't blinded to the effects it had on sasuke. they were never close though and, if he was going to be honest, he never felt it his place to ask his parents about it and they, in turn, never brought it up with him.
it was the talk of the village for a time though, even if it was confined to whispers behind closed doors.
no one could fully grasp the senseless violence that took place or what led uchiha itachi to commit such a heinous crime against his own clan. it was all swept under the rug. maybe a little too neatly now that he thinks about it.
but he didn't ask his question because he wanted itachi to justify his actions. that isn't why he asked, so there is no hesitation in his next words. ]
I'm not asking you to defend what you've done. I'm asking for the truth. Why were you ordered to wipe out the Uchiha Clan?
๏ผ whether it is defense or justification or absolution — by any other name, it lessens the sting of the sin he shouldered to lay blame at the feet of others.
he does not wish to be known, to have his motives writ plain. it does not matter that he anticipates shikamaru is not one for sympathy or pity — it is his own interiority that is the issue, cobbled together out of all the things he always felt a shinobi should be. loyal, even unto death. the idea of betraying that loyalty, to breaking the silence placed on him like a geas — it is the only principle left to him that he has not torn down in contravention of who he was, and what he became.
he could refuse. there are few things in his life he has guarded more closely than this. but he expects that would lead them down a circuitous road, and more like than not have them at each other's throats at a critical moment. ๏ผ
Then look into my eyes.
๏ผ the tomoe pinwheels of the base sharingan sharpen into the blades of the mangekyล, his eyes are narrowed faintly as he allows his gaze to settle on shikamaru with patient resolve.
the man has a sense of entitlement to the knowledge, to the judgement — it's obvious he wishes to analyze the details and decide from a position of strength whether or not itachi is trustworthy, while he surrenders nothing himself.
[ believe it or not, he did factor the sharingan as a potential play on itachi's part during his past ruminations. it's almost an inevitability when dealing with an uchiha, yet it still feels a little comical to hear the man voice his demand out loud. maybe he expects to end the conversation by doing so. no one in their right mind would agree to look him in the eyes knowing what he can do. once trapped in his genjutsu, shikamaru won't be able to break out of it on his own and there is no one aboard the ximilian who could release him from it. he could easily be finished off in the quiet of this small kitchen. he wouldn't be as fortunate as he was back in the land of silence.
but if he doesn't agree to it, then they will be back to square one. would he be able to do this song and dance with him all over again? he knows far too well how one misstep can lead to the irreversible, how one missed opportunity can lead to a lifetime of regrets. he didn't agree to join the ximilian on impulse. from the moment he agreed to come aboard, he already threw away his life and what he knew of it. he came here to rectify his past mistakes and he cannot afford to have that goal be compromised by anyone or anything, no less uchiha itachi. at the same time, he realizes that he cannot move forward without overcoming this obstacle first.
the traces of gengo's words and the effect his voice had on him still lingers in the back of his mind, a undesirable memory that has followed him home to konoha and made even more prevalent here with the unexpected presence of itachi. shikamaru is no longer under its influence, yet it would be a lie to say that it hasn't been added to the plague of dreams that continue to haunt him late into the night. bothersome. it's all so fucking bothersome.
every rational part of him is warning him against taking this gamble. he can turn him down, regroup and figure out another method of getting him to talk. he doesn't need to rush it. they have time and yetโ he reasons that he would not be able to let it go even if he made the safe play now. he would rewind and replay every word of this exchange in his mind. it will rot and fester until he can draw closer to the truth again. he further reasons that withdrawing now does not mean that he would not be put into a similar situation once more โ that he might just be postponing the inevitable. what then? would they be trapped in a stalemate and for how long?
there is no easy answer to this. neither side would benefit if that were the case. there is only one move he could make that would progress this game they've started and yet it could very well be the same move that could effectively end it. as a leaf shinobi, as a man with a clear objective for being here, shikamaru cannot afford not to make that move. he was ready to lay down his life for the future of his village long before he accepted this almost surreal journey.
one thing stands clear to him as well โ rather than to think this is solely a gamble of life and death, this is also a test of trust. he does not trust uchiha itachi himself, but there is someone who he does trust above all else and that same person upheld itachi as a man who is deserving of honor. if he is to base his next move on that simple fact, in juxtaposition of what he now knows and suspects, then it is no longer a gamble or a test. it just is.
so without a word, he lifts his gaze, sharp and steadfast, to meet the brazen red of the mangekyล. ]
๏ผ it is the only move shikamaru could have made. the only one that did not end in stalemate. it surprises him not at all that he takes it, and for a single heartbeat it is as if nothing at all will come of it. then —
tsukuyomi.
they are pulled into that desolate realm of which he is conqueror and king, but rather than rolling expanse of black-red void beneath a blood moon, they are instead within the nakano shrine beneath the uchiha compound. itachi is sitting seiza several meters away from the stone tablet, allowing space for shikamaru to sit opposite him. ๏ผ
It is easier to speak here.
๏ผ it gives him reign, also, over shikamaru's life. he cannot say he is not tempted to show him what that power is like, to drown him at a riverbank, hold him until his body's last impulses to twitch and quake have been subsumed by imaginary death.
to bring him back, and do it over again. and again, and again — until he is trapped in the labyrinthine ruin of his own mind and no one aboard the ximilia can drag him back from that awful, awful brink.
instead, he gestures for shikamaru to join him on the tatami, and then rests his hands on his thighs. he is dressed plainly here, no hitai-ate, no akatsuki robe, nor the anonymous body armour of the anbu, just a dark-colored tunic with sleeves that brush his wrists. his hair is pulled back and bound. his eyes are simple, starless dark. ๏ผ
There was a legend, that Madara Uchiha had controlled the Kyลซbi with the mangekyล sharingan in the early days of Konoha's founding. After the attack that killed the Yondaime Hokage, that legend was brought to the forefront of people's minds. The rumour took root in the hearts and minds of the village. Police headquarters and our clan compound were relocated to the outskirts of the village, our responsibilities as a policing force reduced, our nomination for Hokage ignored. Resentment at this treatment simmered for many years following the attack, and it was eventually decided a coup d'รฉtat would be staged, with the goal of overthrowing the Hokage and instating our own leadership in Konoha. My father, Uchiha Fugaku, was the head of our clan and the captain of the police. He was also the man responsible for organizing the coup, and was expected to be the one to assume the mantle of Hokage.
By the time I entered ANBU, it was already very near a boiling point. For two years I served as a double agent at the behest of the Leaf, passing information to Sarutobi Hiruzen, Shimura Danzล and the Go-Ikenban regarding the Uchiha position. The Uchiha were under constant ANBU surveillance, with several units stationed around the city to observe them. Cameras covered nearly every corner of the compound. Any family that had a seditious member actively participating in planning the coup found themselves unable to hold a job beyond the compound. Shinobi that had been trusted in the Great War were no longer given important missions regardless of status or skill. All of this fed the fire of dissent. There were one hundred and sixty-eight members of the Uchiha clan that were of age and combat-capable — all but two supported the plan.
๏ผ this is all said dispassionately, there is no hint of what his true feelings on the matter may have been. it may as well be a mission report, for all the intonation that alights on his words. ๏ผ
Rather than permit their sedition to endanger Konoha in a time of fraught political engagement with the other villages, it was decided by the council that they would be eliminated. Shimura Danzล assigned the duty to me. As I had already accepted a mission from the Hokage to join the Akatsuki, it added credibility to my defection, ensuring my loyalties would never be in question. Afterwards, I remained in regular contact with Sarutobi Hiruzen to keep him aprised of Akatsuki's movements and aims.
๏ผ he lifts one elegant, fine-boned shoulder in an abortive shrug. ๏ผ
As far as I am aware, no proof of this exists save my word.
[ it disorients him at first โ a sudden and abrupt upset to his reality. he braces himself for the worst, only to find them within the solitary confines of what looks to be a shrine. the tension doesn't leave his body, not even when itachi gestures for him to sit across him on the tatami. he does so wordlessly.
there is nothing he can do now to resist him. the stark awareness and unsettling vulnerability of it sends an involuntary chill down his spine, yet he maintains a calm demeanor, albeit a somewhat displeased one. resting his own hands on his thighs, shikamaru keeps his focus trained on him as itachi begins to speak.
he can't say with any certainty what he was expecting to learn from him, but the more uchiha relayed to him of the circumstances surrounding the mission assigned to him, the more his frown deepens. there is too much to parse here. he quells the frenzy of thoughts threatening to erupt in his mind with the silent promise that he can allow them to overtake him later. these are events of the past anyway, he reassures himself; and this is neither the time nor place to be swept away by words.
instead, he immediately begins to pick apart the details he offers, comparing them with what he knows to be true from the documentations he has looked through and read up on. admittedly, there isn't a whole lot to go by, but there is still enough to at least determine that some things do line up. but as itachi succinctly puts it, there is no solid proof to back most of it up, especially when most of those involved are now dead. even the man in front of him should have simply been another bygone remnant.
what a cruel and sickening world they've lived in. ]
If what you say is true, then what is your purpose for being here? Are you trying to undo all that you have done?
๏ผ his tone is mild, rather lacking in judgement. shikamaru may ask him as many questions as pleases him, itachi does not owe him every secret to his name. ๏ผ
he still needs to spend the next week staring into the fucking abyss while he dissects everything they've talked about here. but sure, he can let it go for now. easy does it, right? ]
๏ผ he cancels out tsukuyomi with a thought, and the two of them are returned less than a heartbeat after he had first initiated it to the ximilia's kitchen with its utilitarian, brushed-steel walls. he lifts a hand to palm away the blood on his left cheek, rising to rinse his hand at the sink. ๏ผ
๏ผ what people say about sasuke doesn't trouble him. he knows his brother is — difficult. yet he knows equally as much that he would not have been so without the massacre of the clan. he sits back down, drying his hand on a towel which he then puts over his shoulder.
but, sasuke has survived. until at least nineteen. nothing beyond that is guaranteed, yet it still — eases something in the desperate clench of his chest. his brother will only become stronger, and if he took his eyes as intended he will not suffer the same ill fate that brought itachi to his end. it's more of a chance than danzล would have given him. all the things he wanted for his brother — friendship, a family, a life beyond the massacre all seem so very possible now, and he closes his eyes briefly.
he does not think shikamaru is lying. when one spends enough time as a spy, one becomes accustomed to divining truth. ๏ผ
[ shikamaru has his reasons for disliking sasuke. he can easily rationalize why he turned out the way he did, but none of it excuses the choices the guy made or the devastation he caused. it isn't an opinion he openly shares with others, but he has never been the type to hide his dislike for someone either.
he's glad for the subject change though. it is way too soon for him to be talking about sasuke with his older brother anyway. ]
Naruto? He's the same as ever. [ there is more affection in his tone now, a fleeting smile peeking through the solemnity that has enveloped him over the course of their exchange. ] Still an idiot. [ an idiot who'll make a great hokage one day. ]
Anyway, [ he finally picks up the cup set in front of him, raising it slightly before taking a sip of it. ] thanks for the tea, but I think I've taken enough of your time. [ he rises from his seat at the counter, picking up the bowl of porridge as well. ] I'll be on my way now.
๏ผ he lifts his cup as well in a gesture of farewell, but says nothing further. even with no ill effects imparted from tsukuyomi, he will likely need time to recover himself.
what shikamaru did was very brave and also very, very stupid — to allow an s-rank criminal to trap you in an unbreakable genjutsu on the off chance he may be telling the truth of his allegiance is beyond foolish. but oddly — it reminds him of naruto.
perhaps that's another thing he can change alongside his regret. he can ensure that the severity of the treatment towards him is lessened — after the friend he has been to sasuke, it's the least he could do in return. ๏ผ
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
as his vision has deteriorated, he has adapted. there are other ways to tell when someone approaches. shikamaru is too quiet and light on his feet to hear in the silicon-soled shoes of a shinobi, but one learns to listen for the way a body becomes dead space in the air, disrupting its natural flow.
he's aware of shikamaru a moment before he steps into the kitchen, and simply tilts his head towards him in acknowledgement. he is making tea, and there is tamago gayu simmering on the stove. he is, admittedly, not much for cooking, but he stood at his mother's elbow often enough to be able to replicate her recipes to the letter rather than the spirit. it does not often taste like he remembers it, but perhaps that is something of the sheen of childhood gilding all those things he cannot know again.
without a word, he pours a second cup of tea for shikamaru and sets it on the raised countertop nearby. an unspoken invitation. ๏ผ
no subject
it would be easy for him to turn around and return to his room, wait for itachi to be done first before coming back here. a part of him would like to do that, yet he's already here and he came to brew himself some tea anyway. since the man is offering him a cup, then he may as well stay.
these encounters are unavoidable as long as they're both here.
as much as he dislikes bothersome things, itachi is one he cannot ignore. the hours he has spent on shogi were numbered with thoughts on how to deal with him. he has questions, ones that have been dissected, pulled apart and deliberated on countless times. they're all speculations in the end. the only way he can get an answer, even if it isn't a definitive (or even truthful) answer, is from uchiha alone. he would only be wasting his own time pondering further at this point.
of course, shikamaru has rationalized that he may not receive an answer even if he did ask, but he can't eliminate the possibility that he would either. in the end, he pondered over what naruto would do and his decision was suddenly made simple: just ask. why the hell not, right? ]
You previously spoke of goals and loyalties. Where do they lie?
no subject
shikamaru would not ask if he knew with absolute certainty, and no one sane would question where the loyalties of a clan-killer lay without cause. therefore, he knows enough to sew doubt.
something of the truth has survived him, then. it should not ache as it does — but it is as if the pain has stepped inside him, occupied every atom. it means that everything he worked for and towards in his life was for nothing after all.
forgive me, sasuke.
itachi looks at him intently, knowing full well that shikamaru will not meet the vicious catherine wheel of the sharingan. there is a part of him that has become all too acquainted with cruelty that wishes for a moment that he would, so itachi could pull him into the nightmare of tsukuyomi and show him in vivid, painstaking detail how a traitor responds to such a query.
that moment has its hold on him for far, far too long before he breathes out, and slants his gaze away. ๏ผ
If you have cause enough to doubt them, then you are already aware of the answer.
no subject
[ it may be asking too much of him though.
he knows the risks involved in confronting itachi outright like this. cordiality has its limitations between ones on seemingly opposing sides, butโ... if what naruto has said of him is true, then he can at least do as much as trust in his friend. he will give itachi the benefit of the doubt, but it isn't without its stipulations. after all, naruto's viewpoint, especially in relations to sasuke, can be extremely skewed and shikamaru has never been one for blind faith.
he has yet to touch either the tea or the porridge, but he doesn't intend on turning them away either. instead, they simply sit while he speaks. ]
Where do your loyalties lie?
no subject
that he was a pawn. whether danzล or hiruzen's — when one owns body and one owns soul, does it matter which hand gave the order he followed?
that the lives of two hundred and seventy-four members of the uchiha clan were simply thrown into the gears of perpetual conflict to tangle them awhile. that none of it mattered in the end, and that all his hopes for sasuke have been —
he curls his hand around his cup, thumb rubbing absently at an imperfection at its lip.
is it so much better to be seen as cruel than as a discarded tool of the shinobi world? the former suggests autonomy, the latter strips it away and the double-edged blade of it is that it seems also a flimsy attempt to justify actions that he alone chose to enact. it is as vulnerable as exposing his throat to an enemy knife — perhaps moreso. even now, it is a choice he regards dispassionately. he has a goal here, he will need allies, and there is no one better situated to understand exactly what it may take and how ruthless they must be than another shinobi. his allegiance to akatsuki is worthless on the ximilia, unless he wishes to put value on the blood shed to ensure his position among them.
yet — this is not sentiment from shikamaru, it is calculation. he will grant him the respect of responding in kind.
there is nothing in his voice. no emotion, no inflection. but he does as he's been asked. ๏ผ
My loyalty is to Konoha.
๏ผ still. always. the only love greater than what he held for his village is what he has for his brother — but he knows full well that if they were ever deeply enough in conflict, he would slaughter his countrymen to a single soul if it meant preserving sasuke's life.
(is living at any cost truly living? he cannot say, and does not know.) ๏ผ
no subject
more speculation โ something that hadn't until now felt tiresome.
but it doesn't stop the gears in his mind from turning and piecing together what he knows of the past, from forming conjectures and realizing the depths of his confession โ because it is a confession, isn't it? a secret he kept a hold of, possibly until his death. it's frustrating that he can't confirm any of this with naruto.
it also isn't easy to accept. there is a likelihood that itachi could be lying. let him hear what he wants to hear, so that he can manipulate him. whether it is a truth, partial truth or a lie, he can only make up his mind once he learns more. it's difficult to assess, even without having to simply go by the intonation of his voice โ and there is little to infer from there, unless he really wants to risk overanalyzing the emptiness in which he delivered his statement.
he needs time to work this over in his mind and he can already perceive a long and restless day ahead of him. there is no way he can make a sound judgment with how little he knows as of now, but what he can do is listen and inquire. he can choose to believe him because naruto himself vouched for him.
he can do at least that much. ]
Then, why? [ he can barely get the words out, his voice a soft rasp. there were only a few who had the power and authority to order itachi to carry out the acts he had committed back then. their names flicker at the forefront even as he remains steadfast in what he said earlier. he wants to hear it directly from him. be it a truth or a lie, he needs uchiha to be the one to utter everything without any input or suggestion coming from him. ]
cw: massacre/suicide refs
did shikamaru realize how different his little brother had become, when he finally returned to school? how quiet, how distraught, how hatred took hold of him? did he sense the vicious streak that grew from the bloodied corpse of kindness?
the sandaime hokage used to send him sasuke's academy report cards via messenger hawk, buried under several layers of sealed encryptions. he could not keep them, and was not sentimental regardless — the sharingan's perfect photographic recall would be memento enough that he burnt them to ash afterwards — but he had always... appreciated it. that small token of compassion.
he was notified of hiruzen's death by a single kanji seared bright into his palm, a warning. panic had gripped him like a hand around his throat, squeezing until his body fought the dip into airless euphoria like an animal thing. he'd been grateful to be alone, so kisame couldn't see the way shallow, rapid breathing had lead to a coughing fit that would have put him in bed for a week if he hadn't needed to act immediately and with absolution despite the blood dappling his palms. he could not afford weakness when he went before danzล, and so weakness had been put away.
(yet, sharks can smell blood, and kisame was always considerate of him.)
then why, shikamaru asks, as if he has an right to sound distraught by the question. itachi closes his eyes briefly, but they are still the red of cinnabar stone when he opens them. like most of his generation, shikamaru would have grown up to venerate the honourable sandaime, and the thought of chipping away at the man's legacy, tarnishing it to salvage his own is — abhorrent. he has given up enough ground already. ๏ผ
I have answered your question. I will not speak in defense of my actions.
๏ผ there is nothing to defend. nothing will change the fact that it was his hand on the blade, that it was his arms that wearied halfway through the night's work, that it was his soft steps that his clansmen hid from and listened for in closets and beneath blankets. he was the one that dragged children out of the arms of their mothers. it is messy work, taking a life. the wearier you are, the harder it becomes to make a clean kill. adrenaline was no help in steadying his hands.
he chose to do those things. he could have taken sasuke and fled. he could have followed shisui to the grave. he could have gone to his knees before his father and begged him to change course. but at the time there had only been one path: danzล's. ๏ผ
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it was the talk of the village for a time though, even if it was confined to whispers behind closed doors.
no one could fully grasp the senseless violence that took place or what led uchiha itachi to commit such a heinous crime against his own clan. it was all swept under the rug. maybe a little too neatly now that he thinks about it.
but he didn't ask his question because he wanted itachi to justify his actions. that isn't why he asked, so there is no hesitation in his next words. ]
I'm not asking you to defend what you've done. I'm asking for the truth. Why were you ordered to wipe out the Uchiha Clan?
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he does not wish to be known, to have his motives writ plain. it does not matter that he anticipates shikamaru is not one for sympathy or pity — it is his own interiority that is the issue, cobbled together out of all the things he always felt a shinobi should be. loyal, even unto death. the idea of betraying that loyalty, to breaking the silence placed on him like a geas — it is the only principle left to him that he has not torn down in contravention of who he was, and what he became.
he could refuse. there are few things in his life he has guarded more closely than this. but he expects that would lead them down a circuitous road, and more like than not have them at each other's throats at a critical moment. ๏ผ
Then look into my eyes.
๏ผ the tomoe pinwheels of the base sharingan sharpen into the blades of the mangekyล, his eyes are narrowed faintly as he allows his gaze to settle on shikamaru with patient resolve.
the man has a sense of entitlement to the knowledge, to the judgement — it's obvious he wishes to analyze the details and decide from a position of strength whether or not itachi is trustworthy, while he surrenders nothing himself.
but trust cuts both ways. ๏ผ
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but if he doesn't agree to it, then they will be back to square one. would he be able to do this song and dance with him all over again? he knows far too well how one misstep can lead to the irreversible, how one missed opportunity can lead to a lifetime of regrets. he didn't agree to join the ximilian on impulse. from the moment he agreed to come aboard, he already threw away his life and what he knew of it. he came here to rectify his past mistakes and he cannot afford to have that goal be compromised by anyone or anything, no less uchiha itachi. at the same time, he realizes that he cannot move forward without overcoming this obstacle first.
the traces of gengo's words and the effect his voice had on him still lingers in the back of his mind, a undesirable memory that has followed him home to konoha and made even more prevalent here with the unexpected presence of itachi. shikamaru is no longer under its influence, yet it would be a lie to say that it hasn't been added to the plague of dreams that continue to haunt him late into the night. bothersome. it's all so fucking bothersome.
every rational part of him is warning him against taking this gamble. he can turn him down, regroup and figure out another method of getting him to talk. he doesn't need to rush it. they have time and yetโ he reasons that he would not be able to let it go even if he made the safe play now. he would rewind and replay every word of this exchange in his mind. it will rot and fester until he can draw closer to the truth again. he further reasons that withdrawing now does not mean that he would not be put into a similar situation once more โ that he might just be postponing the inevitable. what then? would they be trapped in a stalemate and for how long?
there is no easy answer to this. neither side would benefit if that were the case. there is only one move he could make that would progress this game they've started and yet it could very well be the same move that could effectively end it. as a leaf shinobi, as a man with a clear objective for being here, shikamaru cannot afford not to make that move. he was ready to lay down his life for the future of his village long before he accepted this almost surreal journey.
one thing stands clear to him as well โ rather than to think this is solely a gamble of life and death, this is also a test of trust. he does not trust uchiha itachi himself, but there is someone who he does trust above all else and that same person upheld itachi as a man who is deserving of honor. if he is to base his next move on that simple fact, in juxtaposition of what he now knows and suspects, then it is no longer a gamble or a test. it just is.
so without a word, he lifts his gaze, sharp and steadfast, to meet the brazen red of the mangekyล. ]
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tsukuyomi.
they are pulled into that desolate realm of which he is conqueror and king, but rather than rolling expanse of black-red void beneath a blood moon, they are instead within the nakano shrine beneath the uchiha compound. itachi is sitting seiza several meters away from the stone tablet, allowing space for shikamaru to sit opposite him. ๏ผ
It is easier to speak here.
๏ผ it gives him reign, also, over shikamaru's life. he cannot say he is not tempted to show him what that power is like, to drown him at a riverbank, hold him until his body's last impulses to twitch and quake have been subsumed by imaginary death.
to bring him back, and do it over again. and again, and again — until he is trapped in the labyrinthine ruin of his own mind and no one aboard the ximilia can drag him back from that awful, awful brink.
instead, he gestures for shikamaru to join him on the tatami, and then rests his hands on his thighs. he is dressed plainly here, no hitai-ate, no akatsuki robe, nor the anonymous body armour of the anbu, just a dark-colored tunic with sleeves that brush his wrists. his hair is pulled back and bound. his eyes are simple, starless dark. ๏ผ
There was a legend, that Madara Uchiha had controlled the Kyลซbi with the mangekyล sharingan in the early days of Konoha's founding. After the attack that killed the Yondaime Hokage, that legend was brought to the forefront of people's minds. The rumour took root in the hearts and minds of the village. Police headquarters and our clan compound were relocated to the outskirts of the village, our responsibilities as a policing force reduced, our nomination for Hokage ignored. Resentment at this treatment simmered for many years following the attack, and it was eventually decided a coup d'รฉtat would be staged, with the goal of overthrowing the Hokage and instating our own leadership in Konoha. My father, Uchiha Fugaku, was the head of our clan and the captain of the police. He was also the man responsible for organizing the coup, and was expected to be the one to assume the mantle of Hokage.
By the time I entered ANBU, it was already very near a boiling point. For two years I served as a double agent at the behest of the Leaf, passing information to Sarutobi Hiruzen, Shimura Danzล and the Go-Ikenban regarding the Uchiha position. The Uchiha were under constant ANBU surveillance, with several units stationed around the city to observe them. Cameras covered nearly every corner of the compound. Any family that had a seditious member actively participating in planning the coup found themselves unable to hold a job beyond the compound. Shinobi that had been trusted in the Great War were no longer given important missions regardless of status or skill. All of this fed the fire of dissent. There were one hundred and sixty-eight members of the Uchiha clan that were of age and combat-capable — all but two supported the plan.
๏ผ this is all said dispassionately, there is no hint of what his true feelings on the matter may have been. it may as well be a mission report, for all the intonation that alights on his words. ๏ผ
Rather than permit their sedition to endanger Konoha in a time of fraught political engagement with the other villages, it was decided by the council that they would be eliminated. Shimura Danzล assigned the duty to me. As I had already accepted a mission from the Hokage to join the Akatsuki, it added credibility to my defection, ensuring my loyalties would never be in question. Afterwards, I remained in regular contact with Sarutobi Hiruzen to keep him aprised of Akatsuki's movements and aims.
๏ผ he lifts one elegant, fine-boned shoulder in an abortive shrug. ๏ผ
As far as I am aware, no proof of this exists save my word.
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there is nothing he can do now to resist him. the stark awareness and unsettling vulnerability of it sends an involuntary chill down his spine, yet he maintains a calm demeanor, albeit a somewhat displeased one. resting his own hands on his thighs, shikamaru keeps his focus trained on him as itachi begins to speak.
he can't say with any certainty what he was expecting to learn from him, but the more uchiha relayed to him of the circumstances surrounding the mission assigned to him, the more his frown deepens. there is too much to parse here. he quells the frenzy of thoughts threatening to erupt in his mind with the silent promise that he can allow them to overtake him later. these are events of the past anyway, he reassures himself; and this is neither the time nor place to be swept away by words.
instead, he immediately begins to pick apart the details he offers, comparing them with what he knows to be true from the documentations he has looked through and read up on. admittedly, there isn't a whole lot to go by, but there is still enough to at least determine that some things do line up. but as itachi succinctly puts it, there is no solid proof to back most of it up, especially when most of those involved are now dead. even the man in front of him should have simply been another bygone remnant.
what a cruel and sickening world they've lived in. ]
If what you say is true, then what is your purpose for being here? Are you trying to undo all that you have done?
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๏ผ his tone is mild, rather lacking in judgement. shikamaru may ask him as many questions as pleases him, itachi does not owe him every secret to his name. ๏ผ
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I'm here for my own reasons.
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๏ผ shikamaru you literally got the straightest answer out of him this man has given anyone since he was an actual child, take the L. ๏ผ
Are you satisfied?
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he still needs to spend the next week staring into the fucking abyss while he dissects everything they've talked about here. but sure, he can let it go for now. easy does it, right? ]
For the time being.
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What of Sasuke?
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he knew sasuke was gonna be brought up sooner or later, but it doesn't make it any less exasperating. ]
That prick survived. He was more trouble than it was worth though.
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but, sasuke has survived. until at least nineteen. nothing beyond that is guaranteed, yet it still — eases something in the desperate clench of his chest. his brother will only become stronger, and if he took his eyes as intended he will not suffer the same ill fate that brought itachi to his end. it's more of a chance than danzล would have given him. all the things he wanted for his brother — friendship, a family, a life beyond the massacre all seem so very possible now, and he closes his eyes briefly.
he does not think shikamaru is lying. when one spends enough time as a spy, one becomes accustomed to divining truth. ๏ผ
And Uzumaki Naruto?
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he's glad for the subject change though. it is way too soon for him to be talking about sasuke with his older brother anyway. ]
Naruto? He's the same as ever. [ there is more affection in his tone now, a fleeting smile peeking through the solemnity that has enveloped him over the course of their exchange. ] Still an idiot. [ an idiot who'll make a great hokage one day. ]
Anyway, [ he finally picks up the cup set in front of him, raising it slightly before taking a sip of it. ] thanks for the tea, but I think I've taken enough of your time. [ he rises from his seat at the counter, picking up the bowl of porridge as well. ] I'll be on my way now.
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what shikamaru did was very brave and also very, very stupid — to allow an s-rank criminal to trap you in an unbreakable genjutsu on the off chance he may be telling the truth of his allegiance is beyond foolish. but oddly — it reminds him of naruto.
perhaps that's another thing he can change alongside his regret. he can ensure that the severity of the treatment towards him is lessened — after the friend he has been to sasuke, it's the least he could do in return. ๏ผ