[ The first thing he'd done upon arrival wasn't seeking out comrades or familiar faces. Already he couldn't feel Naruto's presence, so to assume he was anything other than alone felt more dangerous than the opposite. No.
He'd sought out weapons.
LILITH's representatives had been kind enough to inform him of not only a few choice modifications made to his body (the implant that irks him and the ocular "enhancements" which do far worse) but of the fact that he'd been forced to rest and recover as a result. Somehow, it does little to calm a mind that had bathed for hours in combat high, fighting for days unceasing and seeing enemies both before him and at his side. Instinct screams warnings about unfamiliar surroundings in spite of a placid exterior, and while finding his chokuto in his quarters had offered him some assurance it hadn't been enough.
That's precisely what drives him to the cafeteria after hours, weaving through dark corridors and past cleaner bots whirring over scuffed floors. Hardly an ideal place to start but certainly the one with the least security, and he's well into his raid on the knives when he suddenly senses a nearby presence.
Reflex rules over logic for one pivotal moment, and before this imposer can blink he's flung one of those serrated blades right in their direction. Truly a dream reunion. ]
（ Not his first strange new world, nor even the first patterned with brightly coloured lights and neon signs and the foul, polluted air of a world dominated by industry and the distant baying wrath of some unspeakable cruelty. Kaiju, he hears in furtive murmurs and whispers behind medical masks, and he sets his jaw against the word.
He has not ruled out a malfunction of Degar's magic or the ire of the orbs. In his own world, in his own time, he may have had a dozen explanations for such a place or at the very least his perception of one. Now those numbers have cascaded, multiplied. Glittering facets of could-be's woven like spidersilk. If not Degar then Remi. If not Remi then some kin of the Highest One. If not that, then, perhaps —
There is no company here to seek out, and instead he keeps his own. A quiet room, empty walls. No books of Chinese poetry, no tomes on thirty-third century physics, no manuals on medical ninjutsu with little slugs doodled in the margins. He resents the bed and its unnecessarily outsized presence. Opulent and wasteful in equal measures. Still, he prefers the floor — but sleep is elusive even when exhaustion catches on the crags of old injuries, and reminds him with each beat of his heart that he has outpaced death.
He did not expect to miss the lulling engines of the Ximilia.
The restlessness that tugs him from his room is unwelcome, and the lack of discipline it reflects unsettles him — but not enough to stay his feet, nor still his wandering mind. Visiting the cafeteria is incidental more than intentional. He thinks nothing of it — food is inexplicably entwined with companionship in many cultures — until that knife cuts the air.
It is difficult to say which occurs to him first — that the strength and precision with which it was thrown could only imply a weapons expert, or that the chakra behind it, veiled though it may be, leaves a taste like ozone on his tongue. Silence builds, deafening, inexorable. It rolls over him like the break of a wave, like thunder, and the knife is caught bloodlessly with a flick of one wrist. It does not so much as draw the eye. Instead —
His brother looks twelve and twenty all at once. Everything about him is taken in in a blink, the dutiful sharingan etching into blood memory each new thing, and how it compares to the old. He's taller. There's a breadth to his shoulders now, and his left arm —
— notable, also, is the sharpening of the features he shares more with their mother than their father. Almost, it is like looking in a mirror.
There is an ancient instinct, honed much more keenly than a simple kitchen blade, to be cruel. His fingers flex against the urge. It results only in him lowering the knife. ）
Sasuke.
（ Logically, he must be from after the war. Edo Tensei is days, or weeks, or months behind him now. Itachi will not presume naked hostility, but civility is in and of itself a stretch. ）
[ His turn is imbalanced, a fraction more weight put onto his right leg as it draws back as a counter-measure for a left arm that no longer hangs at his side. It doesn't unsettle him nor is it blatant, but its subtlety wouldn't escape a pair of eyes as sharp and calculating as his own. The loss of limb is fresh, enough so that the ghostly sensation of phantom fingers curling into a fist blurs the line between illusion and reality. A line well-worn in his life, and one which paints the man before him in broad strokes as soon as he's rounded on him.
Itachi.
A wound within him which has hardly had time to knit itself closed, let alone scar, is suddenly ripped wide. It feels like it's been mere moments since he was forced to accept his brother's second goodbye, the catalyst for another swath of violence unleashed by the younger Uchiha who was meant to have finally known better, and yet here he stands. Intact, placid, inscrutable, and it fills Sasuke with as much sudden dread as it does exhilaration. That internal battle is, of course, shielded, but the caution in his stare speaks volumes before he's even opened his mouth. He stays silent as a mismatched gaze – previously violet paired with black, but now instead with red as the sharingan spins to life – instantly seeks out familiarity. The way he stands. How he carries himself. The barely present furrow in his brow. Hallmarks of Uchiha Itachi and not some illusory phantom, not unless it's one made accurate by his own imagination. Is he hallucinating? If he were, he wouldn't see his brother with eyes modified like his own.
And if he were, he'd sooner be haunted by a familiar face streaked with blood.
His expression remains unreadable, a line of tension in his shoulders that suggests readiness but whether he intends to respond with further violence is unclear. ]
What are you doing here? [ Somehow, it's all he can eke out. The presumption that he's truly capable of understanding yet where "here" is is still laughable after his unwilling traipse through Kaguya's various dimensions, but it doesn't matter. His brother does, and always will, take precedence. ]
me, a fool, forgetting about the rinnegan entirely
（ that would be the question. his lips purse, but it is the only indication he heard or is considering a response at all.
nearly three years dog his heels now, and in that time he had not entertained the possibility of seeing his brother again. he had considered: orochimaru's arrrival. kisame's. danzō's. he had given clipped warning to the precious few that would have found themselves a fulcrum in some old war, warning that had amounted much of the time to do not engage, do not speak of me. he had never asked any of them to consider sasuke. how he might have enmeshed with the crew. what he might have done, or thought. with whom he may have found solace, or those he may have disliked.
but it is that lack of consideration that leaves him clumsy now, like the hand of a born pacifist trying to curl around the hilt of a blade, fingers stuttering in a rictus of grasping horror. he has not written this script. nothing has been engraved by rote into his mind's theatre. sasuke asks him a question, and blood sings in his ears, and red, red eyes alight briefly on the terminus of his arm (like him, sasuke is ambidextrous. unlike him, he has always been left-hand dominant) and slip away in feigned disinterest.
he has no right to the surfeit of black anger that stitches shadow into the fabric of his calm. in doing worse, he forfeited a brother's right to concern or even curiosity. such injuries happen in war, and he left sasuke in the thick of one. the emotion is examined and deftly severed.
here, sasuke asks. there are two possible answers, one that assumes he means shinjuku and one that assumes he means in the cafeteria itself at this moment. answering either would be a kindness.
instead — ）
I could ask the same of you.
（ that knife is flipped over in his hand, and then disappears into the folds of his dark clothes. perhaps a better man would give it back. ）
[ Itachi is one for such levels of premeditation that in the moment make him seem akin to clairvoyant, while his younger brother has instead always been the reactionary, directionless unless pushed or used by someone possessing a great sense of purpose. Even with his vow to change he finds himself here at the whims of others, not considering a lack of foresight the way Itachi is but instead finding himself wholly encased in the now, absent agency or control.
Should he feel that familiar twist of frustration at his brother's dismissive reversal of his inquiry? Or should he allow the relief of further starved paranoia to wash over him, darkly satisfied with the realization that an illusion sent to manipulate him would likely use kinder, less believable words?
This may indeed be his brother, but not in the same form or fashion that he saw him last. He's... changed, whether through evolution or regression, and bereft of context he feels rudderless. His younger self would react to that confusion with anger. His older self would demand answers. Now, he takes the opportunity to truly look at him, gaze lingering only briefly on a blade vanished onto his person before returning to that steady crimson stare. ]
... you could, [ he begins finally, measured. ] But I'm the one that witnessed what happened to you, Itachi. So I'll ask again.
What are you doing here?
god im sorry im trying to get out of the lower case habit IT'S HARD TO BREAK
（ What ease was battleborn between them has ended as all battles do: with yawning nothingness. standing united against Kabuto and by extension Obito gave them purpose, direction. Even if he might have tarried in his defense of Konoha, even if he had made a deliberate choice to give Sasuke some small sliver of his time before he laid Edo Tensei to rest, it would not have been to fill the air mindlessly with conversation. What questions were owed he has given. Sasuke has his memories, segmented and spilt out like the divining entrails of a bird. It was not recompense, and he seeks neither understanding nor redemption — but it leaves them with little else to discuss.
(He is being foolish. He knows it. He is mired in it, and the deep roots of it reach down, down into black earth. There are a million things he wants to discuss, but the truth is that he did not expect to have to carry the echo of I love you into the living world, into a place of neon lights and monsters, and piece apart the complexities of that love in all the places it's become enshrined along a hatred he built brick-by-brick with blooded hands.
Simply put: he has steeled himself against many things, save Sasuke.)
Now, Itachi steps forward. He does not approach deliberately in the sense of forcing Sasuke to decide if he would prefer to stand fast or shift, but neither is there a concerted effort to grant him a generous margin of space.
If Sasuke chooses not to move, it will result in the barest touch of their shoulders as he makes his way to the cantina. ）
oh man my brain doesn't even register it anymore, YOU DO YOU 100%
[ Fire ends in ash and adrenaline fades into malaise, and when the barriers between them have the time to build back up they're both left with one immutable truth: they don't know one another well. Sure, he knows the essence of his brother, he knows his love for him is enough to raze villages to the ground, he knows his mannerisms and the nuance of his language, but he doesn't know him. They grew into tools sharpened for single use, not into men with intricate private lives or interests, and while Itachi may have used a few in between years more wisely than his brother Sasuke has experienced no similar growth.
Here he's adrift, and his current singular anchor is splintered and achingly familiar and unknown all at once. Uchiha Itachi. His blood.
He does move but the gesture is half-hearted, the barest of steps that still forces Itachi close to him in passing and relieves none of the pressure of that omnipresent mismatched gaze. The tension isn't gone, but no weapon is readied and that alone speaks volumes. What says more is the fact that he falls in line after him once his brother has passed, allowing for a comfortable distance but communicating his own intent to keep the conversation alive. ]
You're suggesting that because you have no answers or because some part of you deems it wise to keep them from me. Which one is it?
（ He does not answer with any immediacy, instead turning inward to evaluate his own feelings on the matter, toeing the line of that first ruthless severance with a sense of internal chastisement. He has — or had thought — he had grown tolerant of such reflection, mindful in a way that could not have been cultivated in alignment with the cultural mores of their home. Emotion will never rule him for the simple reason that he cannot risk the ruling — madness being as much a birthright of their clan as the sharingan — but he has learned to live alongside it.
So, then, each one is dissected. Irritation wars with love begets pride and reaches ruin. He does not especially want to be followed. He has no desire to be interrogated. Yet, despite the curling clutch of resentment that burns hot as black fire at the sheer, simple fact that they are having this conversation at all, he finds — after a time — that the old modalities of interaction he might have reached for in years past do not...
fit.
Certainly, there are words he could say. Knives he knows to twist. Insidious poisons on the tongue. There are insecurities present in Sasuke like flaws in a grand tapestry that he could unravel with a look. It would take him less than a heartbeat to tug a glimmering thread and in that time drag him back beneath bleak waters and drown him in the carelessness of his daring to have hoped. It is a simple throughfare to envision. A selection of paths on which he only needs to step, that will carry him through to an end no less final than his first death. It would, he thinks, be easy. It was always easy.
(Is he giving himself too much credit, or Sasuke not enough? His little brother was always less a person to him and more a concept, a vessel he had overfilled with the runoff of his own inadequacies. Albatross and anchor.)
Yet — even in considering it, there are things that catch, that snag, that hitch in places where friction has never lived before. He recognizes the feeling as his own building resistance to doing harm for harm's own sake. There is no point. Nothing to gain from the act itself, no protection offered to Sasuke in the continued retread of old wounds. It could only be done selfishly, an externalization of his own violent self-hatred, and that is no longer an acceptable reason to reach for what is easy.
Silence persists, but the quality shifts. It has lost its quality of old armour, worn to wound.
He takes two cups down from a cupboard. That, too, is a communication of intent.
Finally, ）
Later. （ an assertion, but not refusal. ） What happened to your arm?
（ It is as much compromise as he is capable of — which is to say, nearly none at all. There is a dictatorial quality to every interaction they two have ever had, and while he has a perfect awareness of how to crack Sasuke open and press on fractures until the very marrow of him yields beneath bone, to speak to him of anything not founded in hatred or duty or goodbyes is raw in its newness, and that clumsiness wears natural poise and disassociation like a funeral shroud. ）
[ When the silence yawns wide between his direct inquiry and his brother's soft dismissal, as he knows immediately it will, Sasuke is forced to fill that void with his own presuppositions. Itachi internally debates the merits of hurting his younger brother, a known instinct that can be executed thoughtlessly. Sasuke, similarly, starts to mentally prepare salve for the anticipated wound.
In a way – in many ways – it's inconvenient to see him like this. Sasuke may be something less tangible and more representative to his brother and in turn he's forced to feel the same. Itachi is, and always has been, his motivation. As a young boy it manifested as an uncomplicated desire to chase after his heels. As a fledgling shinobi it had become tainted with an overwhelming need to cause him hurt, to bludgeon him with all his miseries built up over a scant few years. As a teenager he'd made him into a martyr to drive his campaign of revenge and massacre, and now? Now he's Sasuke's figurehead for revolution, whether achieved through devastation or the slow crawl of peace talks.
Most of what he knows about his brother is secondhand, stories he's been told about the man he was in absentia of the man he is, and the icon he's built out of those fragments has to remain well-intentioned, logical, gentle, and long-suffering. Having him here in the flesh might threaten that memory if he lets it. But Sasuke is far more aggrieved by his emotions than Itachi is, and has dipped into that pool of insanity far too many times to abandon the love he has the brother who's lied to him throughout his whole life.
So he readies himself for abuse in spite of their last remembered encounter, because it's familiar, because it's what he expects to sustain their relationship.
And Itachi instead grabs him a cup. ]
My– [ The start of the sentence is soft, gaze lowering distractedly to a haphazardly healed amputation that he's managed to ignore in spite of persistent aches. ]
I had some unfinished business. It's the only way Naruto and I were able to fully communicate with one another. [ A concept understandable between two brothers who had nearly ripped each other apart. ]
（ Violence is understood like a native language lullaby, its utility as a tool of communication unmatched. The Uzumaki boy was the one who had loved Sasuke like a brother when such things were beyond his own grasp, and not all injuries are inflicted with cruel intent. It was a lesson, then. And Sasuke, who has learned more from pain than from any other singular sentiment, had accepted it. Does not regret it.
Itachi can do nothing less. It settles him. Better that than to wonder if it was an act borne out by an enemy. He had envisioned — but no, his imaginings do not matter.
The cantina has only packaged teas, and he sifts through a poorly-organized box of them until he finds two separate brands of sencha. It's with a faint distaste that he opens the packets and lays the string and branded tab against the outside of the cup as the kettle boils nearby. They smell grassy, manufactured, faintly of chemicals and cheaply made.
The knife, where he had tucked it away, has a heavy quality to it. ）
I see.
（ The technology here is on par with the place he has called home for some years now, and before long the kettle makes a dolorous ding to indicate the water having achieved its optimal temperature. The area is tidied, the cups filled, and Itachi carries them to the nearest table. Sets them down on opposing sides of it, as if that is not a metaphor. He sits, and lifts his gaze to Sasuke even as he curls long fingers around his cup, and tugs it in nearer to his side of the table. It had been easy in the cavern to find other things to which he could avert his gaze. He had barely spared him a glance before the end. Here, the luxury of avoidance does not become him. ）
[ Itachi had interrupted him late enough in his weapons foraging that there are a number of sharp implements now secreted away on his person, but he's hardly more dangerous with them than he was without. His way of defending himself, should he even choose to enact any against Itachi now, sits carved into his skull like lamplights, painting his brother with the glow of his chakra thanks to an ever-active rinnegan. He thinks to close it, to capture this untread moment without his ocular jutsu ever on the lookout for danger, and when a lid slides shut it's like a sword being sheathed.
A message to Itachi, not dissimilar to his brother's to him. They are going to speak to one another, civilly, and he's so unprepared for that reality that the time between his brother's segmentation of their tea and the chime signalling the water's readiness is lost to him.
He sits, hand slipping overtop that mug in spite of its heat, and lifts it wordlessly to his mouth. Can he do anything else? Not engaging with his brother – and his brother's wishes – has never been an option. ]
... it's shit, [ he offers finally, quietly, ever the foul-mouthed foil to Itachi's polite composure. ]
（ He'll ask about the rinnegan — though it does not arrest his attention with the immediacy of the arm — at some point in the future. It's easier to accept a new weapon in his brother's arsenal than a loss, and he can still feel his own chakra in Sasuke's eyes, easy assurance that that story, at least, progressed how it should.
But the comment offers an unexpected levity, and Itachi's mouth twitches upwards, faint, at one corner as he samples his own cup. While he wouldn't go quite so far as to say the same — more out of that selfsame polite composure than anything — he can't say he doesn't share the sentiment. That silence stretches a moment longer, and then with a wry quality to his tone, ）
It is.
（ It's softly agreeable, breathed out on a huff of breath. ）
[ He inhales sharply at the response, a mere two words to match his, but they're still enough to startle him into an instinctual reaction he fails to smother. When did he last sit with him like this? When did they last exchange words which were unnecessary?
A decade? Longer?
Yes, Itachi knows how to use practiced cruelty to tug at the threads interwoven with Sasuke's various wounds, but he's far less prepared to be unraveled by something that to anyone else would be a forgettable shared sentiment. A plain kindness, not a dagger in the ribs, and his chest feels tighter from the former.
His exhalation is more purposeful, slow, subtle, a lowering of shoulders that eases him back to neutral at his pace. ]
... what's happened, Itachi? For me, the war is over. For you... what do you last remember?
（ The war is over, Sasuke says, as if he could not have discerned that in the dark. The fact that he is living (and does so, until at least nineteen) means more than Sasuke could possibly hope to infer. Madara never would have let him live. Obito would have simply used him as a tool and discarded him. But rather than disdain the information unnecessarily offered, he chooses to view it as a gift. Something Sasuke can give him that costs nothing and everything.
Does he imagine the accusation in that statement? For me.
(It was his own choice, not the geass of Kotoamatsukami, that had driven him to release Edo Tensei when he did. He could have stayed. He can think of a dozen ways he might have done it, now. Does Sasuke wish he had? The old impulse to assume the worst of Sasuke's feelings for him speaks venom at his ear, and is silenced. His brother has wished for many things, but at that second end he cannot imagine him having hoped for his return to death.)
Itachi studies his tea, as if he could divine meaning or derive strength from the way the bag bobs wetly against the side of the cup.
The question is a complicated one. He is all at once fiercely protective of his time aboard the Ximilia, and acutely aware of just how much of that time had been spent in service of Sasuke's future. Logically, he should feel as though he's failed. As though that dream he had, of another Itachi trusting another Sasuke, is now forever removed beyond his grasp.
Instead, he simply... ）
I remember saying good-bye.
（ He can do nothing about the physical changes he has undergone, the same as Sasuke. His hair, too, is longer. He has put on muscle, unimpeeded by the sickness that once ravaged his body. He has more scars, not the least of which is Venom's claws and Jun's teeth where they closed on his body, concealed beneath dark layers of clothing.
What is less concealed, perhaps, is the fact that the burns on his hand and forearm sustained during the fight with Sasuke, have had time to heal. But he will not offer the information out of turn — if Sasuke wants to know, he will have to ask. ）
[ Fingers curl tighter over the rim of his mug, threatening porcelain with a grip he's learned to measure with the greatest precision. Four words this time. A rush of memory and color made brighter by a violent bloom of emotion in his chest, and throughout the relived experience his expression remains as stolid as it has thus far.
He wants to shout. At him? At himself? Questions or answers?
No... always questions.
As a child he'd done what he thought was necessary and what would make him a dependable addition to his family: he'd stayed quiet. His excitement was tempered until he was "as expected", until he was more like his older brother and less like himself, and the illusion of family life that he'd crafted defense mechanisms to mold himself into had bled away into the cracks of that silence. Year after year he'd found his voice, his thin placid veneer crumbling at the mention of his brother's name until all he had was bombastic emotion and yelling. And Itachi was silent, crafting his own mechanisms to fit a different mold.
Now he's quiet and calm again, and more than anything it's because he doesn't want to trigger that goddamn silence in someone else. He doesn't want Itachi to be forced to pretend. ]
Aa. I remember it too. [ Physical differences are catalogued even with one dark eye, flicking its focus here and there in a way that his brother certainly won't miss. ]
（ It should not surprise him, that his little brother has grown perceptive. Itachi rubs his thumb against the lip of the cup, finding some minute flaw in the ceramic that he chooses to briefly swing his focus to.
His nails are no longer painted, but they are kept blunted and tidy enough, grown out. The notable absence of the ring, and no band of pale skin denotes a recent removal speaks to at least weeks without it. He is statue-still as Sasuke surveils him the way one casts a critical eye on a battlefield. He neither hides the changes, some of which are still aching in their newness, nor attempts to refute them. If he had cared, truly cared, he would have used a henge the moment he became aware of Sasuke's presence.
But it is recalcitrance and his own fierce, natural preference for privacy that caution him against saying anything in immediate answer. Yet, he cannot sit across from his brother, who would as soon bleed as look at him, and simply shut down the conversation there.
What harm could it do? is both afterthought and echo, and it annoys him how much it sounds like Wei Ying. His more foolish thoughts always do. ）
No, （ he begins, but in such a way that it does not seem either answer or evasion. ） not at the moment, and not here. It is irrelevant for the time being.
（ His hand twitches, old code in the Uchiha hand signs that Sasuke surely still knows, that no one without the sensory perception of the sharingan would presume to be more than the faintest flick of one's hand when the warmth of the tea cup becomes too much. We are being watched.
There had been no privacy, aboard the Ximilia. Viveca could have accessed any conversation, any camera. When he had wished to have a conversation without her awareness — which had been often, early on, and less so as he learned her measure — he had communicated with others through genjutsu. ）
As I've heard it, our presence is intended to act as a bulwark against Kaiju.
[ He doesn't so much as blink, and his gaze doesn't visibly shift its focus. Subtle hand signals are viewed subtly, secrets maintained between the two of them as though they had planned this deception for months. Even with years of separation and more time apart than together, this is the ease with which true genius perceives itself. The Uchiha have always stood balanced on the edge of a knife, and the only thing that matches their misfortune is their skill. ]
Fine. If that's your stance on it.
[ He's no actor but the reluctance in his tone that alludes to unspoken words is a masterstroke in believability. Simple, when he himself feels it to his core and has so much practice being disappointed by his elder brother's reticence. ]
We've heard the same thing. This world is beset by monsters and their other options have been so exhausted that they've turned to us... one way or another.
If they're to be believed, we could anticipate an attack at any time. The two of us will need to fight together again.
（ It takes him a long moment to realize that what follows Sasuke's recognition, awareness and the pivot to his conversational bent is a sense of pride. He had always known that Sasuke would grow strong, and had died knowing he would become stronger still, but in an instant he is split between two worlds — their present and their past, and their father's voice saying, as expected of my—
A blink, and the memory retreats behind the hewn stone of high walls, unbidden. ）
If there is a singular point of attack.
（ That brief coruscation of pride does not bleed through, and perhaps the words sound more colder and more critical in its absence. ）
However, in the event of multiple enemies, such an approach may leave other areas of the complex more vulnerable by contrast.
（ Given Lilith's criterium for recruitment, there should be others equally well suited to the task — but as yet they are unknown to him, and he is not so far removed from the circumstance of his home world that he is willing to put what small amount of faith he has scraped up out of the dirt in them so soon. ）
[ A single eyebrow moves, though only ever-so-minutely and only for the briefest of moments. For a pure blood Uchiha, it might as well be an outright accusation of disbelief. ]
Physically together or together by virtue of allegiance – both are still "together". If we're fighting on opposite fronts we'll still need to stay in contact with this device. [ And here his hand lifts, forefinger curled for a tap against his right temple. The ocular implants. A violation in every regard, yet one he's emotionally processed as thoroughly thus far as he has his brother's sudden arrival.
（ One shoulder lifts, brief concession. He is not here to instruct his brother on allegiance. Sasuke's insistence does, however, throw into vivid, perochial relief the nature of the relationship he is still yearning for. Together.
He takes another sedate sip of his tea. ）
Do not assume contact will be possible.
（ He is loathe to use the devices, and would be so regardless of their provenance. But the infrastructure they rely on may fail at a critical moment, and he would prefer not to rely upon contact when the better thing to do is establish a procedural approach to attack, and adhere to it. ）
Yes.
（ The silence that follows suggests he might be debating the merits of a non-answer, but eventually — with a pinch to one corner of his mouth that might be perceived correctly as annoyance — ）
[ Itachi drinks of the tea he's admitted to finding loathsome, their most blatant display of a unified front thus far, and he reconsiders his desire to call him out directly. Reconsiders, reaffirms, and proceeds with his instinct anyway. ]
Likewise, don't assume it won't be. The spirit of my point is unaltered, Itachi. [ They'll fight together in spite of the discomfort it may cause, or, perhaps more likely, the discomfort that acknowledging it openly and flaunting it in the face of their troubled past may cause. ]
（ Doubtless. He did not give his brother much avenue for conversation, at the end. Long fingers curl faintly against his cup. He takes another sip — terrible as it is, he won't waste it. His eyes close, and he wonders if this was Viveca's plan all along. He would not put it past her, to have engineered a reunion with his brother. Is she watching, even now? She'd have some choice words for him, he imagines.
That acursed dismissal is heavy on his tongue, but he does not say it. His attention falls past Sasuke to the shadows that align in a latticework against the shelving units on the far wall. Whatever Sasuke wishes to tell him, whether it's born of love or hatred, he can only endure it. As much as he wishes to set his jaw against it and turn him away —
His head cants faintly to one side, not wholly unlike a bird. Then, a flick of his fingers upwards towards their shared heritage. Has Sasuke noticed the chakra that emanates from his eyes is different yet? Wind-aligned, rather than fire? ）
I will listen, if you wish.
（ Their genjutsu is changed, but it is not absent. It can be used for such a thing. ）
[ His brother's eyes no longer matching his own is something he keened onto as quickly as he did his altered physical appearance, but to assume he won't speak on one is to assume he also won't speak on the other. It leads too easily to his next answer, perhaps the most unexpected yet. ]
I believe you. But... I don't have any plans to say it, yet. There's still too much I need to align for myself first. [ But even so– ]
It just felt important that you knew. [ His desire to speak, his willingness to share in spite of the lack of transparency he's received in kind over the years. He's embittered, but arguably he should be far more so. ]
Besides, a part of me wants to believe you understand that feeling.
（ he wonders, briefly, if his little brother intended that statement to be the slow inward push of a blade, or is it that the only way he knows to demonstrate love comes at the point of one? itachi gives him a considering look, and then: ）
Hm.
（ it's as much an answer as he'll get for now. then: ）
I would ask that you not use my name on the network, nor inform anyone of our connection. I will use my civilian identity broadly among the Outsiders. Likewise, I will refrain from using the Sharingan, and I will refer to my chakra as qi.
（ it is easy to alter his combat style. he has years of memories of sparring with wei ying in the back of his mind, he will simply adopt the man's motions instead of the uchiha's own proclivity for weapons and taijutsu.
refraining from the sharingan will be a test, given its position as the foundational lynchpin for many of his abilities, but he has no desire to make plain the connection between them, much less their world of origin. the role of the spy, more naturally, falls to him. ）
[ To business, then. It stings, but no doubt his reticence burned Itachi first and he expects and accepts his "reward". Besides, it's a drop in the bottomless ocean of pains shared between them both, paired neatly with what a defensive mind first interprets as a desire for Itachi to distance himself from him.
But it's sensible as a strategy. There's no reason for them to telegraph anything to their so-called allies here without cause, and every reason to keep things confidential. There's little he can do aside from nod once, curt and affirmative. ]
"Qi", huh. [ That alone is what stands out the most. ]
（ he lifts one shoulder in what anyone else might interpret as a careless shrug. ）
However you wish.
（ whether sasuke chooses to use his civilian name or would prefer some other manner of address is not his to determine. so long as he abides by the rules of engagement itachi has laid down, he has no other preferences. ）
[ It slips out whether he means it to or not, though emotion is at least largely kept out of a quiet and reflective tone. Distance is what his brother requests, and in spite of a tendency towards rebellious outbursts they both know that Sasuke will acquiesce to at least this. The name is the easy part.
What it represents, and the fact that his brother refuses him answers, is where the real challenge lies. ]
I'll use your cover name, but I'll be asking questions of you again soon, Itachi. You need to be aware of that.
（ there's a weariness there — crept in the way insistent, invasive plants will punch holes through concrete, over time. yet it is a sign their conversation is beginning to flag, and so he rises. he will gather the cups, and carry them over to a bin. surely there is some automated service that would do it if only they abandoned the area, but he cannot quite bring himself to rely on such a thing. the cups are soundless as he deposits them.
then: ）
I'm in room 010 of Revelation. Find me when you wish to speak.
（ and with that, there is a flicker of shunshin, and he is gone. ）
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
and we're OFF
He'd sought out weapons.
LILITH's representatives had been kind enough to inform him of not only a few choice modifications made to his body (the implant that irks him and the ocular "enhancements" which do far worse) but of the fact that he'd been forced to rest and recover as a result. Somehow, it does little to calm a mind that had bathed for hours in combat high, fighting for days unceasing and seeing enemies both before him and at his side. Instinct screams warnings about unfamiliar surroundings in spite of a placid exterior, and while finding his chokuto in his quarters had offered him some assurance it hadn't been enough.
That's precisely what drives him to the cafeteria after hours, weaving through dark corridors and past cleaner bots whirring over scuffed floors. Hardly an ideal place to start but certainly the one with the least security, and he's well into his raid on the knives when he suddenly senses a nearby presence.
Reflex rules over logic for one pivotal moment, and before this imposer can blink he's flung one of those serrated blades right in their direction. Truly a dream reunion. ]
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He has not ruled out a malfunction of Degar's magic or the ire of the orbs. In his own world, in his own time, he may have had a dozen explanations for such a place or at the very least his perception of one. Now those numbers have cascaded, multiplied. Glittering facets of could-be's woven like spidersilk. If not Degar then Remi. If not Remi then some kin of the Highest One. If not that, then, perhaps —
There is no company here to seek out, and instead he keeps his own. A quiet room, empty walls. No books of Chinese poetry, no tomes on thirty-third century physics, no manuals on medical ninjutsu with little slugs doodled in the margins. He resents the bed and its unnecessarily outsized presence. Opulent and wasteful in equal measures. Still, he prefers the floor — but sleep is elusive even when exhaustion catches on the crags of old injuries, and reminds him with each beat of his heart that he has outpaced death.
He did not expect to miss the lulling engines of the Ximilia.
The restlessness that tugs him from his room is unwelcome, and the lack of discipline it reflects unsettles him — but not enough to stay his feet, nor still his wandering mind. Visiting the cafeteria is incidental more than intentional. He thinks nothing of it — food is inexplicably entwined with companionship in many cultures — until that knife cuts the air.
It is difficult to say which occurs to him first — that the strength and precision with which it was thrown could only imply a weapons expert, or that the chakra behind it, veiled though it may be, leaves a taste like ozone on his tongue. Silence builds, deafening, inexorable. It rolls over him like the break of a wave, like thunder, and the knife is caught bloodlessly with a flick of one wrist. It does not so much as draw the eye. Instead —
His brother looks twelve and twenty all at once. Everything about him is taken in in a blink, the dutiful sharingan etching into blood memory each new thing, and how it compares to the old. He's taller. There's a breadth to his shoulders now, and his left arm —
— notable, also, is the sharpening of the features he shares more with their mother than their father. Almost, it is like looking in a mirror.
There is an ancient instinct, honed much more keenly than a simple kitchen blade, to be cruel. His fingers flex against the urge. It results only in him lowering the knife. ）
Sasuke.
（ Logically, he must be from after the war. Edo Tensei is days, or weeks, or months behind him now. Itachi will not presume naked hostility, but civility is in and of itself a stretch. ）
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Itachi.
A wound within him which has hardly had time to knit itself closed, let alone scar, is suddenly ripped wide. It feels like it's been mere moments since he was forced to accept his brother's second goodbye, the catalyst for another swath of violence unleashed by the younger Uchiha who was meant to have finally known better, and yet here he stands. Intact, placid, inscrutable, and it fills Sasuke with as much sudden dread as it does exhilaration. That internal battle is, of course, shielded, but the caution in his stare speaks volumes before he's even opened his mouth. He stays silent as a mismatched gaze – previously violet paired with black, but now instead with red as the sharingan spins to life – instantly seeks out familiarity. The way he stands. How he carries himself. The barely present furrow in his brow. Hallmarks of Uchiha Itachi and not some illusory phantom, not unless it's one made accurate by his own imagination. Is he hallucinating? If he were, he wouldn't see his brother with eyes modified like his own.
And if he were, he'd sooner be haunted by a familiar face streaked with blood.
His expression remains unreadable, a line of tension in his shoulders that suggests readiness but whether he intends to respond with further violence is unclear. ]
What are you doing here? [ Somehow, it's all he can eke out. The presumption that he's truly capable of understanding yet where "here" is is still laughable after his unwilling traipse through Kaguya's various dimensions, but it doesn't matter. His brother does, and always will, take precedence. ]
me, a fool, forgetting about the rinnegan entirely
nearly three years dog his heels now, and in that time he had not entertained the possibility of seeing his brother again. he had considered: orochimaru's arrrival. kisame's. danzō's. he had given clipped warning to the precious few that would have found themselves a fulcrum in some old war, warning that had amounted much of the time to do not engage, do not speak of me. he had never asked any of them to consider sasuke. how he might have enmeshed with the crew. what he might have done, or thought. with whom he may have found solace, or those he may have disliked.
but it is that lack of consideration that leaves him clumsy now, like the hand of a born pacifist trying to curl around the hilt of a blade, fingers stuttering in a rictus of grasping horror. he has not written this script. nothing has been engraved by rote into his mind's theatre. sasuke asks him a question, and blood sings in his ears, and red, red eyes alight briefly on the terminus of his arm (like him, sasuke is ambidextrous. unlike him, he has always been left-hand dominant) and slip away in feigned disinterest.
he has no right to the surfeit of black anger that stitches shadow into the fabric of his calm. in doing worse, he forfeited a brother's right to concern or even curiosity. such injuries happen in war, and he left sasuke in the thick of one. the emotion is examined and deftly severed.
here, sasuke asks. there are two possible answers, one that assumes he means shinjuku and one that assumes he means in the cafeteria itself at this moment. answering either would be a kindness.
instead — ）
I could ask the same of you.
（ that knife is flipped over in his hand, and then disappears into the folds of his dark clothes. perhaps a better man would give it back. ）
i try to forget every day
Should he feel that familiar twist of frustration at his brother's dismissive reversal of his inquiry? Or should he allow the relief of further starved paranoia to wash over him, darkly satisfied with the realization that an illusion sent to manipulate him would likely use kinder, less believable words?
This may indeed be his brother, but not in the same form or fashion that he saw him last. He's... changed, whether through evolution or regression, and bereft of context he feels rudderless. His younger self would react to that confusion with anger. His older self would demand answers. Now, he takes the opportunity to truly look at him, gaze lingering only briefly on a blade vanished onto his person before returning to that steady crimson stare. ]
... you could, [ he begins finally, measured. ] But I'm the one that witnessed what happened to you, Itachi. So I'll ask again.
What are you doing here?
god im sorry im trying to get out of the lower case habit IT'S HARD TO BREAK
（ What ease was battleborn between them has ended as all battles do: with yawning nothingness. standing united against Kabuto and by extension Obito gave them purpose, direction. Even if he might have tarried in his defense of Konoha, even if he had made a deliberate choice to give Sasuke some small sliver of his time before he laid Edo Tensei to rest, it would not have been to fill the air mindlessly with conversation. What questions were owed he has given. Sasuke has his memories, segmented and spilt out like the divining entrails of a bird. It was not recompense, and he seeks neither understanding nor redemption — but it leaves them with little else to discuss.
(He is being foolish. He knows it. He is mired in it, and the deep roots of it reach down, down into black earth. There are a million things he wants to discuss, but the truth is that he did not expect to have to carry the echo of I love you into the living world, into a place of neon lights and monsters, and piece apart the complexities of that love in all the places it's become enshrined along a hatred he built brick-by-brick with blooded hands.
Simply put: he has steeled himself against many things, save Sasuke.)
Now, Itachi steps forward. He does not approach deliberately in the sense of forcing Sasuke to decide if he would prefer to stand fast or shift, but neither is there a concerted effort to grant him a generous margin of space.
If Sasuke chooses not to move, it will result in the barest touch of their shoulders as he makes his way to the cantina. ）
oh man my brain doesn't even register it anymore, YOU DO YOU 100%
Here he's adrift, and his current singular anchor is splintered and achingly familiar and unknown all at once. Uchiha Itachi. His blood.
He does move but the gesture is half-hearted, the barest of steps that still forces Itachi close to him in passing and relieves none of the pressure of that omnipresent mismatched gaze. The tension isn't gone, but no weapon is readied and that alone speaks volumes. What says more is the fact that he falls in line after him once his brother has passed, allowing for a comfortable distance but communicating his own intent to keep the conversation alive. ]
You're suggesting that because you have no answers or because some part of you deems it wise to keep them from me. Which one is it?
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So, then, each one is dissected. Irritation wars with love begets pride and reaches ruin. He does not especially want to be followed. He has no desire to be interrogated. Yet, despite the curling clutch of resentment that burns hot as black fire at the sheer, simple fact that they are having this conversation at all, he finds — after a time — that the old modalities of interaction he might have reached for in years past do not...
fit.
Certainly, there are words he could say. Knives he knows to twist. Insidious poisons on the tongue. There are insecurities present in Sasuke like flaws in a grand tapestry that he could unravel with a look. It would take him less than a heartbeat to tug a glimmering thread and in that time drag him back beneath bleak waters and drown him in the carelessness of his daring to have hoped. It is a simple throughfare to envision. A selection of paths on which he only needs to step, that will carry him through to an end no less final than his first death. It would, he thinks, be easy. It was always easy.
(Is he giving himself too much credit, or Sasuke not enough? His little brother was always less a person to him and more a concept, a vessel he had overfilled with the runoff of his own inadequacies. Albatross and anchor.)
Yet — even in considering it, there are things that catch, that snag, that hitch in places where friction has never lived before. He recognizes the feeling as his own building resistance to doing harm for harm's own sake. There is no point. Nothing to gain from the act itself, no protection offered to Sasuke in the continued retread of old wounds. It could only be done selfishly, an externalization of his own violent self-hatred, and that is no longer an acceptable reason to reach for what is easy.
Silence persists, but the quality shifts. It has lost its quality of old armour, worn to wound.
He takes two cups down from a cupboard. That, too, is a communication of intent.
Finally, ）
Later. （ an assertion, but not refusal. ） What happened to your arm?
（ It is as much compromise as he is capable of — which is to say, nearly none at all. There is a dictatorial quality to every interaction they two have ever had, and while he has a perfect awareness of how to crack Sasuke open and press on fractures until the very marrow of him yields beneath bone, to speak to him of anything not founded in hatred or duty or goodbyes is raw in its newness, and that clumsiness wears natural poise and disassociation like a funeral shroud. ）
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In a way – in many ways – it's inconvenient to see him like this. Sasuke may be something less tangible and more representative to his brother and in turn he's forced to feel the same. Itachi is, and always has been, his motivation. As a young boy it manifested as an uncomplicated desire to chase after his heels. As a fledgling shinobi it had become tainted with an overwhelming need to cause him hurt, to bludgeon him with all his miseries built up over a scant few years. As a teenager he'd made him into a martyr to drive his campaign of revenge and massacre, and now? Now he's Sasuke's figurehead for revolution, whether achieved through devastation or the slow crawl of peace talks.
Most of what he knows about his brother is secondhand, stories he's been told about the man he was in absentia of the man he is, and the icon he's built out of those fragments has to remain well-intentioned, logical, gentle, and long-suffering. Having him here in the flesh might threaten that memory if he lets it. But Sasuke is far more aggrieved by his emotions than Itachi is, and has dipped into that pool of insanity far too many times to abandon the love he has the brother who's lied to him throughout his whole life.
So he readies himself for abuse in spite of their last remembered encounter, because it's familiar, because it's what he expects to sustain their relationship.
And Itachi instead grabs him a cup. ]
My– [ The start of the sentence is soft, gaze lowering distractedly to a haphazardly healed amputation that he's managed to ignore in spite of persistent aches. ]
I had some unfinished business. It's the only way Naruto and I were able to fully communicate with one another. [ A concept understandable between two brothers who had nearly ripped each other apart. ]
But I don't regret it.
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Itachi can do nothing less. It settles him. Better that than to wonder if it was an act borne out by an enemy. He had envisioned — but no, his imaginings do not matter.
The cantina has only packaged teas, and he sifts through a poorly-organized box of them until he finds two separate brands of sencha. It's with a faint distaste that he opens the packets and lays the string and branded tab against the outside of the cup as the kettle boils nearby. They smell grassy, manufactured, faintly of chemicals and cheaply made.
The knife, where he had tucked it away, has a heavy quality to it. ）
I see.
（ The technology here is on par with the place he has called home for some years now, and before long the kettle makes a dolorous ding to indicate the water having achieved its optimal temperature. The area is tidied, the cups filled, and Itachi carries them to the nearest table. Sets them down on opposing sides of it, as if that is not a metaphor. He sits, and lifts his gaze to Sasuke even as he curls long fingers around his cup, and tugs it in nearer to his side of the table. It had been easy in the cavern to find other things to which he could avert his gaze. He had barely spared him a glance before the end. Here, the luxury of avoidance does not become him. ）
Sit.
no subject
A message to Itachi, not dissimilar to his brother's to him. They are going to speak to one another, civilly, and he's so unprepared for that reality that the time between his brother's segmentation of their tea and the chime signalling the water's readiness is lost to him.
He sits, hand slipping overtop that mug in spite of its heat, and lifts it wordlessly to his mouth. Can he do anything else? Not engaging with his brother – and his brother's wishes – has never been an option. ]
... it's shit, [ he offers finally, quietly, ever the foul-mouthed foil to Itachi's polite composure. ]
no subject
But the comment offers an unexpected levity, and Itachi's mouth twitches upwards, faint, at one corner as he samples his own cup. While he wouldn't go quite so far as to say the same — more out of that selfsame polite composure than anything — he can't say he doesn't share the sentiment. That silence stretches a moment longer, and then with a wry quality to his tone, ）
It is.
（ It's softly agreeable, breathed out on a huff of breath. ）
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A decade? Longer?
Yes, Itachi knows how to use practiced cruelty to tug at the threads interwoven with Sasuke's various wounds, but he's far less prepared to be unraveled by something that to anyone else would be a forgettable shared sentiment. A plain kindness, not a dagger in the ribs, and his chest feels tighter from the former.
His exhalation is more purposeful, slow, subtle, a lowering of shoulders that eases him back to neutral at his pace. ]
... what's happened, Itachi? For me, the war is over. For you... what do you last remember?
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Does he imagine the accusation in that statement? For me.
(It was his own choice, not the geass of Kotoamatsukami, that had driven him to release Edo Tensei when he did. He could have stayed. He can think of a dozen ways he might have done it, now. Does Sasuke wish he had? The old impulse to assume the worst of Sasuke's feelings for him speaks venom at his ear, and is silenced. His brother has wished for many things, but at that second end he cannot imagine him having hoped for his return to death.)
Itachi studies his tea, as if he could divine meaning or derive strength from the way the bag bobs wetly against the side of the cup.
The question is a complicated one. He is all at once fiercely protective of his time aboard the Ximilia, and acutely aware of just how much of that time had been spent in service of Sasuke's future. Logically, he should feel as though he's failed. As though that dream he had, of another Itachi trusting another Sasuke, is now forever removed beyond his grasp.
Instead, he simply... ）
I remember saying good-bye.
（ He can do nothing about the physical changes he has undergone, the same as Sasuke. His hair, too, is longer. He has put on muscle, unimpeeded by the sickness that once ravaged his body. He has more scars, not the least of which is Venom's claws and Jun's teeth where they closed on his body, concealed beneath dark layers of clothing.
What is less concealed, perhaps, is the fact that the burns on his hand and forearm sustained during the fight with Sasuke, have had time to heal. But he will not offer the information out of turn — if Sasuke wants to know, he will have to ask. ）
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He wants to shout. At him? At himself? Questions or answers?
No... always questions.
As a child he'd done what he thought was necessary and what would make him a dependable addition to his family: he'd stayed quiet. His excitement was tempered until he was "as expected", until he was more like his older brother and less like himself, and the illusion of family life that he'd crafted defense mechanisms to mold himself into had bled away into the cracks of that silence. Year after year he'd found his voice, his thin placid veneer crumbling at the mention of his brother's name until all he had was bombastic emotion and yelling. And Itachi was silent, crafting his own mechanisms to fit a different mold.
Now he's quiet and calm again, and more than anything it's because he doesn't want to trigger that goddamn silence in someone else. He doesn't want Itachi to be forced to pretend. ]
Aa. I remember it too. [ Physical differences are catalogued even with one dark eye, flicking its focus here and there in a way that his brother certainly won't miss. ]
Will you tell me the rest, or not?
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His nails are no longer painted, but they are kept blunted and tidy enough, grown out. The notable absence of the ring, and no band of pale skin denotes a recent removal speaks to at least weeks without it. He is statue-still as Sasuke surveils him the way one casts a critical eye on a battlefield. He neither hides the changes, some of which are still aching in their newness, nor attempts to refute them. If he had cared, truly cared, he would have used a henge the moment he became aware of Sasuke's presence.
But it is recalcitrance and his own fierce, natural preference for privacy that caution him against saying anything in immediate answer. Yet, he cannot sit across from his brother, who would as soon bleed as look at him, and simply shut down the conversation there.
What harm could it do? is both afterthought and echo, and it annoys him how much it sounds like Wei Ying. His more foolish thoughts always do. ）
No, （ he begins, but in such a way that it does not seem either answer or evasion. ） not at the moment, and not here. It is irrelevant for the time being.
（ His hand twitches, old code in the Uchiha hand signs that Sasuke surely still knows, that no one without the sensory perception of the sharingan would presume to be more than the faintest flick of one's hand when the warmth of the tea cup becomes too much. We are being watched.
There had been no privacy, aboard the Ximilia. Viveca could have accessed any conversation, any camera. When he had wished to have a conversation without her awareness — which had been often, early on, and less so as he learned her measure — he had communicated with others through genjutsu. ）
As I've heard it, our presence is intended to act as a bulwark against Kaiju.
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Fine. If that's your stance on it.
[ He's no actor but the reluctance in his tone that alludes to unspoken words is a masterstroke in believability. Simple, when he himself feels it to his core and has so much practice being disappointed by his elder brother's reticence. ]
We've heard the same thing. This world is beset by monsters and their other options have been so exhausted that they've turned to us... one way or another.
If they're to be believed, we could anticipate an attack at any time. The two of us will need to fight together again.
no subject
A blink, and the memory retreats behind the hewn stone of high walls, unbidden. ）
If there is a singular point of attack.
（ That brief coruscation of pride does not bleed through, and perhaps the words sound more colder and more critical in its absence. ）
However, in the event of multiple enemies, such an approach may leave other areas of the complex more vulnerable by contrast.
（ Given Lilith's criterium for recruitment, there should be others equally well suited to the task — but as yet they are unknown to him, and he is not so far removed from the circumstance of his home world that he is willing to put what small amount of faith he has scraped up out of the dirt in them so soon. ）
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Physically together or together by virtue of allegiance – both are still "together". If we're fighting on opposite fronts we'll still need to stay in contact with this device. [ And here his hand lifts, forefinger curled for a tap against his right temple. The ocular implants. A violation in every regard, yet one he's emotionally processed as thoroughly thus far as he has his brother's sudden arrival.
That is to say, not at all. ]
You have a "username". [ It's not a question. ]
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He takes another sedate sip of his tea. ）
Do not assume contact will be possible.
（ He is loathe to use the devices, and would be so regardless of their provenance. But the infrastructure they rely on may fail at a critical moment, and he would prefer not to rely upon contact when the better thing to do is establish a procedural approach to attack, and adhere to it. ）
Yes.
（ The silence that follows suggests he might be debating the merits of a non-answer, but eventually — with a pinch to one corner of his mouth that might be perceived correctly as annoyance — ）
Suzaku.
（ The Vermillion Bird. ）
no subject
Likewise, don't assume it won't be. The spirit of my point is unaltered, Itachi. [ They'll fight together in spite of the discomfort it may cause, or, perhaps more likely, the discomfort that acknowledging it openly and flaunting it in the face of their troubled past may cause. ]
... that name. Did you choose it yourself?
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No.
（ Frankly, it's loathesome. ）
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This place really is intrusive. [ There's an unspoken pressure he puts on himself to revisit his tea, and somehow, so far, he resists. ]
... there's a lot I want to say to you.
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That acursed dismissal is heavy on his tongue, but he does not say it. His attention falls past Sasuke to the shadows that align in a latticework against the shelving units on the far wall. Whatever Sasuke wishes to tell him, whether it's born of love or hatred, he can only endure it. As much as he wishes to set his jaw against it and turn him away —
His head cants faintly to one side, not wholly unlike a bird. Then, a flick of his fingers upwards towards their shared heritage. Has Sasuke noticed the chakra that emanates from his eyes is different yet? Wind-aligned, rather than fire? ）
I will listen, if you wish.
（ Their genjutsu is changed, but it is not absent. It can be used for such a thing. ）
no subject
I believe you. But... I don't have any plans to say it, yet. There's still too much I need to align for myself first. [ But even so– ]
It just felt important that you knew. [ His desire to speak, his willingness to share in spite of the lack of transparency he's received in kind over the years. He's embittered, but arguably he should be far more so. ]
Besides, a part of me wants to believe you understand that feeling.
no subject
Hm.
（ it's as much an answer as he'll get for now. then: ）
I would ask that you not use my name on the network, nor inform anyone of our connection. I will use my civilian identity broadly among the Outsiders. Likewise, I will refrain from using the Sharingan, and I will refer to my chakra as qi.
（ it is easy to alter his combat style. he has years of memories of sparring with wei ying in the back of his mind, he will simply adopt the man's motions instead of the uchiha's own proclivity for weapons and taijutsu.
refraining from the sharingan will be a test, given its position as the foundational lynchpin for many of his abilities, but he has no desire to make plain the connection between them, much less their world of origin. the role of the spy, more naturally, falls to him. ）
no subject
But it's sensible as a strategy. There's no reason for them to telegraph anything to their so-called allies here without cause, and every reason to keep things confidential. There's little he can do aside from nod once, curt and affirmative. ]
"Qi", huh. [ That alone is what stands out the most. ]
... very well. How do you want me to address you?
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However you wish.
（ whether sasuke chooses to use his civilian name or would prefer some other manner of address is not his to determine. so long as he abides by the rules of engagement itachi has laid down, he has no other preferences. ）
no subject
[ It slips out whether he means it to or not, though emotion is at least largely kept out of a quiet and reflective tone. Distance is what his brother requests, and in spite of a tendency towards rebellious outbursts they both know that Sasuke will acquiesce to at least this. The name is the easy part.
What it represents, and the fact that his brother refuses him answers, is where the real challenge lies. ]
I'll use your cover name, but I'll be asking questions of you again soon, Itachi. You need to be aware of that.
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I know.
（ there's a weariness there — crept in the way insistent, invasive plants will punch holes through concrete, over time. yet it is a sign their conversation is beginning to flag, and so he rises. he will gather the cups, and carry them over to a bin. surely there is some automated service that would do it if only they abandoned the area, but he cannot quite bring himself to rely on such a thing. the cups are soundless as he deposits them.
then: ）
I'm in room 010 of Revelation. Find me when you wish to speak.
（ and with that, there is a flicker of shunshin, and he is gone. ）