Night 43: M51-M60 Hallway
The intercom's words grew more and more telling as the day neared its end. Faize now understood that to those running the institute, he and the other captives were the subjects of some sort of reeducation program, one which was responsible for the brainwashing of patients, visitors, and doctors alike. Next Wave, the announcements mentioned often.
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Sasuke's room was only a block away, and Kakashi had fortunately seemed to avoid any major happenings in the hall. Maybe there were good things to be said for being early, but the jounin wouldn't be the one saying them. At least not in front of his students.
At any rate, little time had passed before Kakashi was standing in front of the door to M58. Deciding not to give the Uchiha another reason to be mad at the world in general and the jounin in particular, Kakashi knocked on the door before calling through it.
"Sasuke-kun?" Though he doubted Sasuke would want him there for anything he considered less than life-altering, Kakashi wanted to keep things light for the moment. By not letting Sasuke's anger and hate fluster him, Kakashi kept control in his own way. Better that than letting the boy think he could walk all over the ninja. "Are you going to accuse me of being a fake if I say I'm here already? I really don't want to have to go through it a second time, so I'll leave and come back later if it makes you more comfortable."
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Despite that, Sasuke had ultimately decided not to speak with anyone today, at least. The most effective way he'd found to form allies was to go through a nightshift with them. He had plans for the night that he wasn't about to give up.
The other reason became confirmed the moment the nightshift started -- Sasuke had been distracted by the news that his roommate had apparently changed, but before he could try to speak with whomever the new person was, the intercom rang in the night.
With it came a hunger that was nearly painful, despite the fact that he'd just eaten dinner. At the same time, there rose the distinct smell of decay, the same scent that had pervaded the entire town during the previous night -- and when Sasuke lifted a hand to his shoulder, the flesh was as soft and rotten as it had been right after he'd nearly lost control and attacked Sakura. Aidou was right. The infection was back.
Well, fuck.
It was only by gripping the edge of his bed until he could feel the lines of the sheets cutting into skin (more deeply in his right hand) that he ignored the scent of another living person in the room, was able to wait until the room was empty. Once the door had closed, Sasuke exhaled, closing his eyes and trying to focus on anything but the excruciating hunger -- the only blessing he could think of was the fact of Kakashi's chronic lateness.
So of course in the next minute a knock and a familiar voice sounded at the door. Kakashi was on time. Of course.
It took an infuriatingly long moment before Sasuke could think of anything but the faint scent of human wafting in from the crack under the door. Kakashi smelled delicious, even if he was somewhat older than the meal that had just walked out -- but Sasuke gritted his teeth and found the edge of strength, willed himself to ignore the hunger, ignore any kind of need but the need for information. For clarification.
"I'm inside," he called after a moment, voice almost completely steady. "Come in slowly."
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He never really regretted having a good sense of smell. But maybe he wouldn't hurt if it wasn't quite so sharp.
"You're infected." It wasn't a question. Kakashi had seen the symptoms listed across the bulletin, and he'd smelled decay more than often enough to recognize it instantly. Itachi had gotten to him. Coming inside, Kakashi shut the door behind him, then leaned against the wall beside it. The posture might have looked casual, but Kakashi had his guard up. He wasn't going to underestimate Sasuke, especially not when he was like this.
"Is that why you wanted me to come here, Sasuke?" It would be difficult, but Kakashi could incapacitate the Uchiha. He had enough scalpels to paralyze the boy's limbs, though he wouldn't enjoy explaining it later. At least Sakura could heal Sasuke's wounds, after she got over her shock and potentially punched Kakashi through a wall.
That was the worst case scenario, though.
"Sakura was with you last night. Did she try to heal your wound?" It wouldn't have been incompetence if she hadn't, but a lack of time, or safe space to work. Mentally, Kakashi cursed. If they had gotten out of the hardware store sooner, they could have fended off the horde while Sakura worked.
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And he already owed Aidou on this count.
Thinking about the fact of the meeting was somewhat better than thinking about how his former sensei smelled, Sasuke discovered. A combination of precise focus and an exertion of will would doubtless get him through this situation. Certainly it hadn't often failed before.
So Sasuke took a slow breath, unclenched his fists, and stood. Calmly and deliberately, to ensure that Kakashi wouldn't be caught off-guard by the movement. At this point Sasuke could hardly blame the man if he took quick action.
"That's not the reason," he explained shortly, and turned to rummage under his mattress for the files. "Sakura didn't have time before night ended. There were more important things at hand.
"Regardless, I can control it," and he was confident enough that he was able to sound it. If he kept aware of where every part of his body was, forced himself to pay attention to the slightest change in sound, heat, feel of the environment -- he could definitely control the hunger that seemed to be gnawing its way out of his gut. "This is the reason I asked you to come."
He held out Itachi's file, hand carefully steady. Kakashi would doubtless figure it out the moment he saw the contents.
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Opting not to poke at Sasuke's confidence by stating this fact, Kakashi took the offered file. Luckily, he had some experience reading while still maintaining awareness of his surroundings. Who said no good came from his dedication to errotic literature?
Looking at the first page was enough to answer all of Kakashi's questions. Itachi's real life: what the nurses expected him to believe, all in print that Sasuke couldn't read. "Anything in particular you're interested in hearing, or should I start from the beginning?"
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Though he probably ought to be grateful that Kakashi was willing to remain in here at all. He could smell the stench of rot from his own body, the weird loose pain of it still strong on his right side.
"The whole thing," he answered. Anything in there that might lead to a clue (a reason), anything that might be worth knowing at all -- he needed to know. "We can discuss what I owe you afterwards."
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Having something more important to focus on helped. Still keeping an eye on Sasuke, Kakashi began reading the contents of the file. It was an interesting perspective on a man he'd never known personally, but who had played then critical role in altering the fate of one of Konohagure's greatest clans. No one would know that from the life he was supposed to have led though. The start of the file was all about Ivan Li, a beloved son who loved his younger brother 'Sean' even more. Supposedly the illnesses of the two were linked, which wasn't unexpected, given the truth lives of Uchiha Itachi and Sasuke.
What was a shock were the details of the fantasy. Even Kakashi paused when things that should have been easily guessed truths turned out to be far from what he expected. For power. That had been what they'd always been told. To test his strength. That was the excuse. The reason Uchiha Itachi was supposed to have turn traitor and killed his clan.
But now there was a different explanation. "Patient Li claims that the elders of his village ordered him to do it," Kakashi kept his voice even, because he knew that Sasuke wouldn't take this well. Not even Kakashi was taking it well, and his grip tightened on the papers as he kept going. "Because his family was plotting to overthrow the village. Patient Li said he had to become a traitor to save his brother, who would likely die in the resulting war. Shortly after receiving these 'orders,' Li attacked his parents, who managed to fend him off, and was committed to Landel's Institute."
The elders of his village ordered him to do it.
The Third Hokage would have known, but Kakashi doubted the man would have put such a burden on Itachi or anyone through a simple order. And there were other powers, other elders with authority in the village. People like Koharu and Homura--and Danzo.
Just what had gone on back then?
Kakashi couldn't focus on it too much, however, because he wasn't the only one who had just learned the truth. He closed the file, not saying anything more then as he turned his gaze fully to Sasuke. The brother who had betrayed him did so because of the elders. Because of their village. Even if it was to prevent a war, or stop the Uchiha clan's apparent coup d'etat--even if it had been for the best of reasons, the truth remained unchanged.
Uchiha Itachi had killed his entire clan, save one. And he'd done so on the orders of Konohagure.
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Well, Itachi had seemed to care.
Sasuke had resigned himself to being told the same information he'd experienced when Kakashi said something that didn't even quite make sense at first, the words not properly resolving in Sasuke's hearing. His first instinct was that he'd heard wrong, had to have heard wrong -- but Kakashi kept reading, calm voice somehow brutally grating.
The Uchiha plotting to overthrow the village (midnight meetings, whispered words). Itachi acting on orders -- orders, and from Konohagakure? For a moment Sasuke tried to picture the Third giving such an order (instead remembered being very young and very alone and yet greeted by name by the Hokage) to Itachi.
He couldn't. There must have been some kind of mistake. Kakashi was reading wrong; the file was wrong, something --
"That's not," Sasuke started, and his own voice sounded foreign to his ears. Unsteady. "That can't be true -- you must have read it wrong!"
Without realising it he'd clenched his fists, voice rising and expression close to panicked. It couldn't be true -- "Itachi said it was to get stronger, to -- he never mentioned the village, he sure as fuck didn't do it to protect me! I was his spare!" (And yet rising somehow there was something that sounded too young and too desperate, grasping hungrily for what had to be a lie: really?)
"There's no way!" And it was only when he realised that he was shouting that Sasuke remembered to rein in the pitch of his words. It was all he could control; vaguely he was aware that his hands were shaking, but he couldn't focus on such small details when -- "Read it again, look closer, or -- or -- or something, it just -- it has to be wrong!"
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Uchiha Itachi. Kakashi never had been able to understand him. But now, in a few lines, maybe he was starting to.
"I didn't read anything wrong, Sasuke." There was sympathy in Kakashi's words, but also conviction. There wasn't any turning away from the truth now that it'd been said. "That sort of conflict would have destroyed the village. So the elders acted to prevent it--to minimize the loss. And Itachi was the one given the mission."
An impossible, unthinkable mission.
"He probably made sparing your life a condition of his acceptance." Why else would there be a single survivor of the otherwise total massacre? Kakashi closed the file, knowing he wouldn't have to read it again. That single time would be enough to burn the words into Sasuke's mind--into both of their minds. "I can't do anything but guess, but Itachi probably saw the potential for you to be the avenger you've longed to be. He betrayed his clan for his village. So he needed you to hate him so you would only blame him."
That was why he said all those things. If he'd wanted, Itachi could have told Sasuke the truth. But the Uchiha's sacrifice had been complete, hadn't it? Even after his death, he'd never meant for Sasuke or anyone else to know the truth. He was willing to bear all the pain of it for the brother he loved.
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But why? Why would the Uchiha plan a coup? Sasuke wracked his mind frantically, trying to remember anything (except being too young to understand, too young to be told anything of note -- feeling a strange tenseness in the air that he couldn't explain but, but surely there had to have been more of a sign than that). Any hint his father or mother might have given, because if there had been such plans there was no doubt that the family of the clan head would be involved.
And of course the son of the clan head would be in a prime position to spy on it and stop it before it could happen.
But for Itachi to betray the entire clan, to kill their parents in order to -- preserve Sasuke's life? To minimize conflict? Itachi, who'd turned and told Sasuke to live like an insect in order to be strong enough to exact revenge, who'd (always been a calm presence, a perfect brother) only needed Sasuke for a spare (you and I are the obstacles --). Who'd stood over the corpses of their mother and father without a trace of remorse or even the barest expression (Fugaku and Itachi hadn't been speaking --).
That Itachi could possibly want to protect the village that had ordered the death of everyone in his entire clan was unthinkable. That Itachi had weighed the lives in the balance and been willing to sacrifice everyone in order to keep Sasuke's was --
Was something that made it impossible to even think. Wordlessly, Sasuke sank onto the bed, head clutched in both hands as memories that didn't make sense (and now did, but -- couldn't) forced their way through his mind. And throughout it all, there was the same small voice getting stronger: really? The brother who'd called Sasuke nothing more than a spare set of eyes had actually cared, the entire time, enough to sacrifice the clan, enough to sacrifice himself?
And if that were the case --
What had Sasuke done?
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Shinobi were meant to be tools. That was the mentality the elders approached every situation with. Kakashi had tried to adopt that same mentality after his father's death, but couldn't maintain it in the face of another Uchiha's resolve. What would Obito think of their village if he knew?
Kakashi had an idea. One he would leave unsaid. He knew that all of Sasuke's anger wouldn't just vanish. He'd redirect it somewhere, and there was a single target that was obvious.
Suddenly the threat presented by Sasuke's infection didn't seem so worrisome, though Kakashi hadn't forgotten the very real possibility that the Uchiha might try to eat him. But taking care of his former student, not abandoning a boy who hadn't looked this young since Kakashi arrived was more important to him. That was why, after Sasuke had fallen back onto the bed, Kakashi crossed the room to sit beside him. Maybe he'd lash out, wouldn't appreciate the gesture or the sympathy. But he'd just have to deal with it, if that was the case.
"You didn't do anything wrong, Sasuke." Kakashi set the file down on the mattress, on the side away from the Uchiha. "Whatever his reasons, you believed and acted on the truth Itachi wanted you to know. That's not something you should blame yourself for." Words that would seem impossible to believe now, but that might be something Sasuke could cling to once the truth had fully set in. "Itachi wanted you to blame him--not the village, and not the Uchiha. He wanted to be the only one that you hated, Sasuke. You can't blame yourself for his choices, or his sacrifice."
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Kakashi thought Sasuke hadn't done anything wrong? When barely two nights ago Sasuke had killed Itachi -- killed the brother who had apparently been protecting him the entire time, who'd sacrificed his own bonds with the clan, with their parents, with Sasuke in order to keep Sasuke safe. It was a thought that was still difficult to understand, let alone believe, but it was apparently an incontrovertible fact.
That Itachi had cared. That Sasuke had failed to realise this -- had failed to ever understand his brother, and though Sasuke never really had surely he should have figured out something of this magnitude, surely he should have seen through the lies and the silence around him (who had ordered the massacre; why had no one ever told him about a coup?). If Sasuke had been any kind of a brother at all he should have known somehow --
But instead he'd failed, as he always did. He'd never quite been good enough (clever enough, strong enough) and Itachi had known that he'd needed protection, needed an incentive to grow strong and -- and (you were my spare) perhaps in that fight he'd even -- even meant to tell Sasuke the method to gain the perfect Sharingan. Not the self-satisfied speech of someone sure of victory (for centuries, the Uchiha have killed their best friends and taken their brothers' eyes) but an attempt to teach a lesson. Issue a warning (Uchiha Madara).
Protect a foolish little brother yet another time.
No, Sasuke couldn't blame himself for what Itachi had chosen to do, but -- "How could I not have understood?!" He shouted, less a question than an accusation towards himself. "I didn't understand anything! I should have known, but I just blindly believed whatever I was told, what Itachi told me, what the village told me! Like a stupid child, like a mindless fool!"
There was a vehemence about the word village that perhaps already spoke to what Itachi had tried to prevent. Sasuke had already known that he had another target -- now he knew that he had even more cause, because this meant that Uchiha Madara had taken advantage of Itachi's situation to wreak destruction on the clan for his own reasons. But that Konohagakure (a place that even now Sasuke sometimes caught himself nearly calling home) was the true source of blame ...
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Instead, Kakashi gave the simple answer. "You just couldn't have known, Sasuke. That's the truth of it." No one had known outside of those that had orchestrated the plan, and they never intended for anyone else learn of their secret. Kakashi felt a twinge of regret at reading the lines out loud, knowing he could have just kept up with the lies. It would have been simpler to just keep Sasuke in the dark.
But it also would have been wrong. Sasuke deserved to know, for better or for worse. And Itachi deserved more than Sasuke's hate.
"The village isn't to blame, either. Not the whole of it." Sasuke's hatred leaked out in that single word, immediately sparking caution in Kakashi's mind. The last thing any of them needed was for the Uchiha to seek revenge on the Leaf. "I know how stubborn you are, Sasuke--and how angry you are. And we both already know that I probably can't talk you out of seeking revenge." Because Kakashi had already tried, hadn't he? Already tried, and already failed. But not this time. Not again, damn it.
"Don't undo everything Itachi gave his life for." It took more of an effort than Kakashi liked to sound like he wasn't begging Sasuke then, and no doubt some of his desperation showed. It was hard enough on Naruto and Sakura when Sasuke simply saw their home as an obstacle. If his hatred was redirected, aimed at Konohagakure...Kakashi didn't want to think about what would happen, even here in their prison. "The Uchiha were killed because they were going to start a war with Konoha. Itachi became a criminal because he killed the Uchiha--and then he was killed. But you don't have to fall victim to that cycle."
Because we aren't the lucky ones, but we aren't the worst off.
"There's nothing but emptiness and tragedy at the end of that road, Sasuke. Even worse than what you feel now." Kakashi let out a slow sigh, wondering if now, somehow, the words might ring truer. "Don't keep following that path."
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Was something Kakashi was trying to explain away. Konohagakure's leaders had ordered the destruction of an entire clan; that much was now fact.
The question was how many people had known about it -- how many people had supported it, and how many people had then deliberately hidden that fact and allowed everyone to believe that Itachi was a traitor. Had forced him to kill his own family and then branded him missing-nin, lied to Sasuke for all these years.
Kakashi said it so easily, as if it made sense. As if Sasuke weren't already part of the cycle, because by killing Itachi he'd been the one who'd nearly completed the village's silence in the end. He'd certainly nearly fulfilled Itachi's plans and never learned the truth.
(Had he ever truly walked a path of his own?)
"I can't just," he started, voice harsh, and then didn't quite know how to finish it. He couldn't just sit back and allow the lie to continue to exist. Couldn't allow those who were responsible for the deaths of so many, those who'd made Itachi an outcast, enjoy the peace for which they'd sacrificed an entire clan. He sure as hell couldn't just -- forgive himself for killing his own brother and forget that he'd ever learned this.
And he had walked away from Konohagakure for the Uchiha long ago.
"I can't just ignore this! Who could have ordered the massacre?" He demanded, fists clenching. "The Third? The elders?"
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Had she been fast enough? It wasn't hard to find Sasuke's room number on the bulletin, but knowing what kind of schedule he was running on was another thing entirely. It was probably a wasted trip, especially when there were so many other things she ought to be looking for tonight, but as was so often the case with her, Sakura's heart won out over her head and she stared at the door to M58 for a few seconds before she knocked and pushed the door open.
After seeing what'd happened to Itachi last night, she didn't like the look of Sasuke's injury. If that sort of thing was spreading, she had to attempt some kind of treatment before he turned into the same thing. Just the thought was enough to turn her stomach. Besides, she assured herself, there was no way in hell Sasuke would die from something so stupid! No way!
"Sasuke-kun?" she said firmly, "it's me. I just wanted to-"
Sakura glanced from one person to the other once she got a good look at the room. Kakashi was already there and sitting next to Sasuke. It was hard not to feel like she'd interrupted something and while Kakashi could tell she looked apologetic, it probably wouldn't come across quite as well to Sasuke.
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He let the words trail into silence when Sakura knocked, and opened the door a moment later. Whether the girl had excellent or terrible timing, he'd just have to see. Kakashi glanced at the Uchiha still sitting beside him, then back to Sakura, offering her a weak smile.
"To look at Sasuke's wounds, right?" She meant well, but right now, Kakashi knew that wouldn't be enough for Sasuke. The Uchiha clan, the elders of Konohagakure, Itachi: every one them had meant well too, and acted according to what they thought were the best reasons. What was important now, however, was to make sure that Sasuke didn't lash out needlessly at Sakura. She'd done nothing wrong, and she didn't deserve to be an outlet for Sasuke's rage.
"That might not be a bad idea. After all, you shouldn't do anything rash, given the condition you're in." Kakashi stood up, making sure to take the file off the bed. He knew that he couldn't keep the truth hidden for long, but at the same time, he wanted to give Sasuke a chance to come to terms with it. "And the sooner Sakura checks you out, the sooner she can rejoin her team--if you heard from Naruto and Jiraiya today?" Which reminded the jounin that he hadn't, a thought that truly didn't please him. He'd have to check up on them tomorrow. For the moment, however, it was more important to make sure that Sasuke understood the message Kakashi was trying to get across.
Kakashi wanted to save Sasuke somehow, but he also still had a team to protect.
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