（ his attention tracks to blue's reflection in the glass. ）
What happened in Ganymede?
（ this may seem unrelated, but it isn't exactly — he has understood and put away most things that blue has divulged about the mu, except this. what blue said about ganymede has stayed with him. ）
[Blue's expression grows grave, quietly startled by the sudden pivot. eyes widen and then soften with sorrow. silence creeps in as his eyes flick downward and then to the window.
（ he is aware that this is a discomfiting line of conversation. perhaps all too aware. some things never leave you, and surviving any upheaval... there is a stain on the psyche. he would call it survivor's guilt, if he knew the term — yet to him it has only ever been shame. ）
Fourteen? Fifteen? [his head shakes a little, his gaze far, far away now.] I'll never know...for certain. All the memories before that lab room...gone. I've never been able to recover anything...anything except those scripted...standard messages the computers conditioned everyone to remember.
（ so, then, the version of blue he met in that very first dream must have been the one for whom ganymede was still fresh. a few things slot into perspective the way pieces of a puzzle begin to resemble a picture when enough are laid in sequence.
he has managed so far, mostly, to avoid feeling... protective of others here. he knows it to be his downfall, that urge to stand between those he knows and danger. he does not care for blue, not exactly — but there is something. he is drawn to him, inescapably, the way uchiha are drawn to hatred and power.
and yet —
something alights in him like a raven taking wing — sorrow and grief and understanding that yawns like a bottomless well. ）
Does it trouble you, that you have no memories of that time?
[there it is - that resonance again. Itachi guards himself well, but some things go beyond walls and restraint. to Blue, it's like trying to keep one's eyes closed and sleep in the bright sunlight - the sun's still there, and it's not truly dark.]
（ those words may as well cleave him to the core. his body goes taut in an instinctive expectation of physical pain — faint rigidity crawling up his spine and across his shoulders. it's barely perceptible (after all, pain is nothing to him) but present nonetheless, and it isn't until he disentangles the fact that it is only emotional hurt that claws at him that he exhales faintly and shifts, putting his back to the glass. ）
[Blue's never carried a knife as a weapon; his blades are the unseen needles and skewers of a psionic power that mankind fears - that he feared, too. even so, he knows what pain feels like, inside and outside.
it pulls his eyes away from the glass and over to Itachi's. this man...keeps trying to be a monolith of his own making and circumstance, but his humanity still makes him resonate. connect. even if it hurts.
...perhaps especially when it hurts.]
Pain changes...just the way everything else does...as time passes. But what does that mean...in the moment you're in right now?
（ compared to you, our pain will be over in an instant. his father had known then what he would carry, and had still called him kind at the end even as he lifted the sword.
he does not regret what he did. he did not have a choice. he was too young and too called to heel by danzō to have realized there could have ever been another path. he left his cousins, his aunts, his uncles, distant relations to whom he had never spoken dead in the streets and he would do it again if he felt it necessary to keep the peace.
but if his time on the ximilia bears fruit... it may never become necessary at all.
he feels blue's eyes on him, and for once he has no driving urge to meet his gaze. he simply tips his head against the glass, focused on the overhead panels. it is not melancholy that seizes him and settles in the soul, but weariness. ）
[that statement, too...it may not be a troublesome concept to accept anymore, but it's quite sad. acknowledging that changes little about it, but...]
When you survive long enough... You can find that there's...a means to live still. But...it doesn't happen alone. [a slight pause.] Rather, it...didn't, for me.
I survived the fires of Ganymede...the fires I ignited...because I had a reason to.
does it surprise him, to learn that blue had lit those fires? no more than he expects it would surprise blue to learn that itachi slaughtered his family to a man. ）
[and for Itachi...Shisui, perhaps? Blue can only guess; anything that may rise to the surface to be perceived is muddied in shadow - like forms just under the water in the dark of night, obscured by dappled reflections of firelight.
silence settles in for a bit, their constant companion. but Blue doesn't give them command for long.]
Humans...must be quicker about it. Their pain...changing...as fast as they must.
[he only misses the beat to draw breath, and his stare is unwavering.]
Being here...among free human minds...only makes it that much more important.
[he hesitates, his gaze breaking away, looking at seemingly nothing but the sheer station wall parallel to their perch, but he can perceive the glimmers of others' mind just beyond it.]
It...makes me wish...I had come here sooner. For everyone here. If such a thing were possible. To be here, but also with them. [his people.]
（ the sentiment should strike him as odd. untruthful, perhaps. instead, it aligns perfectly with everything blue has shown him up until now. the gentleness is not feigned — nor the love. ）
（ he thinks of the stone in the nakano shrine, and how the mangekyō can only be born from pain. how this has stained the uchiha name in blood and strife for nearly two hundred years. his fingers curl in against his palm and then release their tension. ）
Perhaps once. Now — if I believed in the trappings of fate, I do not imagine I would be here.
（ 'grateful' is the wrong word for it, where his own position is to be considered. he did not anticipate having a second chance. had surrendered to the inevitability of his family's ruin and his brother's fractured state — the one that itachi himself pushed upon him. he will not speak to gratitude unless the orbs do what has been promised of them. until then he will be wary, circumspect, and as guarded as he has ever been in war.
but blue is...
hm.
now that he knows the man's true age, it has added a new facet of understanding to his perception. madara would have been over a hundred years old, but three... that is the sort of thing orochimaru has dreamed of and strove for.
itachi himself has no desire to have outlived sasuke's revenge, but he is curious — from the perspective of one who has studied history — what one would see in such a span of time. ninja lives are brutal, often short, and few have the luxury of achieving their aspirations as he did. twenty-one was sufficient for him, and he would have had nothing else to live for beyond that time anyway. but to measure the scope of your existence in decades, in centuries...
it is... admirable, perhaps, that blue has found a way to nurture gentleness despite all he's been through. and equally remarkable is the fact that he's had sufficient time to choose who he wishes to be. ）
If you find your resolve has begun to waver — （ a faint cant of his head to one side. ） — will you tell me?
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Mu are born from mankind; it's only natural.
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（ don't you sass him. ）
I meant more due to the nature of psionic abilities.
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Mm, I think...those senses only build on what's already there. What's inherent in both humans and Mu.
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What happened in Ganymede?
（ this may seem unrelated, but it isn't exactly — he has understood and put away most things that blue has divulged about the mu, except this. what blue said about ganymede has stayed with him. ）
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eventually:] ...Terrible things.
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（ blue had asked him the very same thing, once. it had occurred to him then it may be a matter of personal experience. ）
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That didn't start...until after Ganymede. After we fled. Those of us who survived.
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How old were you then?
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he has managed so far, mostly, to avoid feeling... protective of others here. he knows it to be his downfall, that urge to stand between those he knows and danger. he does not care for blue, not exactly — but there is something. he is drawn to him, inescapably, the way uchiha are drawn to hatred and power.
and yet —
something alights in him like a raven taking wing — sorrow and grief and understanding that yawns like a bottomless well. ）
Does it trouble you, that you have no memories of that time?
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Not anymore. It can't. It's...been too long.
It isn't troubling anymore. It's just...sad.
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The perspective of a long life, I suppose.
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it pulls his eyes away from the glass and over to Itachi's. this man...keeps trying to be a monolith of his own making and circumstance, but his humanity still makes him resonate. connect. even if it hurts.
...perhaps especially when it hurts.]
Pain changes...just the way everything else does...as time passes. But what does that mean...in the moment you're in right now?
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he does not regret what he did. he did not have a choice. he was too young and too called to heel by danzō to have realized there could have ever been another path. he left his cousins, his aunts, his uncles, distant relations to whom he had never spoken dead in the streets and he would do it again if he felt it necessary to keep the peace.
but if his time on the ximilia bears fruit... it may never become necessary at all.
he feels blue's eyes on him, and for once he has no driving urge to meet his gaze. he simply tips his head against the glass, focused on the overhead panels. it is not melancholy that seizes him and settles in the soul, but weariness. ）
It means you have something to survive.
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When you survive long enough... You can find that there's...a means to live still. But...it doesn't happen alone. [a slight pause.] Rather, it...didn't, for me.
I survived the fires of Ganymede...the fires I ignited...because I had a reason to.
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（ his brother.
does it surprise him, to learn that blue had lit those fires? no more than he expects it would surprise blue to learn that itachi slaughtered his family to a man. ）
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[and for Itachi...Shisui, perhaps? Blue can only guess; anything that may rise to the surface to be perceived is muddied in shadow - like forms just under the water in the dark of night, obscured by dappled reflections of firelight.
silence settles in for a bit, their constant companion. but Blue doesn't give them command for long.]
Humans...must be quicker about it. Their pain...changing...as fast as they must.
Your time is shorter.
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It must all seem very petty to you.
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[he only misses the beat to draw breath, and his stare is unwavering.]
Being here...among free human minds...only makes it that much more important.
[he hesitates, his gaze breaking away, looking at seemingly nothing but the sheer station wall parallel to their perch, but he can perceive the glimmers of others' mind just beyond it.]
It...makes me wish...I had come here sooner. For everyone here. If such a thing were possible. To be here, but also with them. [his people.]
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Perhaps you are here when you are most needed.
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[he looks back over.]
Does such a thing seem real to you?
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Perhaps once. Now — if I believed in the trappings of fate, I do not imagine I would be here.
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Fated or not...I'll be grateful to be here, all the same, I think.
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but blue is...
hm.
now that he knows the man's true age, it has added a new facet of understanding to his perception. madara would have been over a hundred years old, but three... that is the sort of thing orochimaru has dreamed of and strove for.
itachi himself has no desire to have outlived sasuke's revenge, but he is curious — from the perspective of one who has studied history — what one would see in such a span of time. ninja lives are brutal, often short, and few have the luxury of achieving their aspirations as he did. twenty-one was sufficient for him, and he would have had nothing else to live for beyond that time anyway. but to measure the scope of your existence in decades, in centuries...
it is... admirable, perhaps, that blue has found a way to nurture gentleness despite all he's been through. and equally remarkable is the fact that he's had sufficient time to choose who he wishes to be. ）
If you find your resolve has begun to waver — （ a faint cant of his head to one side. ） — will you tell me?
（ it is both request and question. ）
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I...I can, but...why?
[why would Itachi care to know?]
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