[video] [week 4, day 3]
[ When the Hitomi begins to broadcast, the background displays two faces. They they are related is obvious. That one of them is Uchiha Itachi is obvious to anyone who happens to know him.
But the other face -- the face of the small child hanging over Itachi's shoulder -- is less so.
Seven-years-old-Sasuke is extremely impressed by Itachi's Hitomi, and so has insisted that Itachi let him watch as he uses it. Sasuke's not really sure why Itachi wants to use it, or who he wants to talk to, but that's not really important. What's important is that it is cool and interesting and Itachi is letting him see. Itachi is paying attention to him. Even if he is strangely older now, and they are somewhere different and far from Mother and Father, it's okay because now Itachi doesn't have any missions to go on and leave Sasuke alone and he is paying attention to Sasuke and that is just perfect.]
Is it on? Is it on?
Itachi...
[ Sasuke is touching him.
Itachi is looking into the screen with steady determination and a hesitation that is mute, not expressed -- evidenced only by his rigid body language.
Sasuke is touching him, and it is as if the world had never ended.
( As if the world had never ended. As if the world had never ended; as if it is, instead, full and whole and smooth; as if words such as family and brother might have some meaning once more -- and not be mere words, useless relics that do not aid in the process of communication. Family: what they cannot, will never be. And Sasuke is alive, alive with hope as he once was; in the cool shadows of evening, in the damp twilight, he looks at Itachi with eyes that have yet to know loss -- that have yet to rinse themselves with tears of mourning, of absence. Uchiha is noted for its eyes, and Sasuke's eyes could always hold and reflect a limitless capacity for isolation, for suffering; Itachi had taught him that. Itachi had drained the light from those eyes, replaced the warm darkness with eyes stained like blood spots, like his own, flecked with tomoes that swirl like shadows on the evening waterways, moving as if to circulate the memories of lives destroyed. Even his own. Sasuke's own future. Erased.
Because while it was the duty of the younger child to surpass the eldest, to strike the eldest dead, it was the duty of the eldest child -- Itachi's duty -- to steal Sasuke's words; to rob him forever of "family" and "brother" and everything which had meaning, to destroy meaning, to render Sasuke mute and fill him up with other words: words such as hatred. These are all of the truths I will impart upon you, he had thought, but Itachi knew his truths, what Sasuke would take for his own truths, were in fact misshapen lies, crafted in love and crafted in guile and crafted in cruelty, but Sasuke would take hold of these truths, each one, and he would cleave to them, and without the words of his own, his truth would burn down the others' words, their own precious truths. )
It is as if the world had never ended, because there is no loss in Sasuke's eyes now. Because his eyes do not discern truth from falsehood; do not seek to destroy the truths of the others. Not now. They are smooth. Single-coloured. Warm dark like cut firewood, like a stone in the sun; those eyes, young and hopeful and ignorant of all he would someday claim for truth, for the territory of the absolute. And words: Sasuke still has those. He is small, with small, waving hands, and he is perfect, and he has words, and his words are not yet Itachi's words. Itachi is only a brother, and they are like family.
But they are not.
That, also, is a lie.
He would steal the light from Sasuke's eyes. Sasuke is his light. He is Sasuke's darkness. They are the phases of the moon, Tsukuyomi, waxing and waning in Uchiha pale and shadow.
Sasuke is young and likes to talk and wishes to run, to go where Itachi cannot follow.
And this -- this must be a curse of hell. These visions. Itachi will not abide them. He will do what he could not in the first world: He will set Sasuke free.
He will not put out the light of those eyes. Will not smother him in black wings.
A freedom Itachi has never known. But he will give it to Sasuke.
He must. ]
Hm.
I am looking for assistance in a matter.
But the other face -- the face of the small child hanging over Itachi's shoulder -- is less so.
Seven-years-old-Sasuke is extremely impressed by Itachi's Hitomi, and so has insisted that Itachi let him watch as he uses it. Sasuke's not really sure why Itachi wants to use it, or who he wants to talk to, but that's not really important. What's important is that it is cool and interesting and Itachi is letting him see. Itachi is paying attention to him. Even if he is strangely older now, and they are somewhere different and far from Mother and Father, it's okay because now Itachi doesn't have any missions to go on and leave Sasuke alone and he is paying attention to Sasuke and that is just perfect.]
Is it on? Is it on?
Itachi...
[ Sasuke is touching him.
Itachi is looking into the screen with steady determination and a hesitation that is mute, not expressed -- evidenced only by his rigid body language.
Sasuke is touching him, and it is as if the world had never ended.
( As if the world had never ended. As if the world had never ended; as if it is, instead, full and whole and smooth; as if words such as family and brother might have some meaning once more -- and not be mere words, useless relics that do not aid in the process of communication. Family: what they cannot, will never be. And Sasuke is alive, alive with hope as he once was; in the cool shadows of evening, in the damp twilight, he looks at Itachi with eyes that have yet to know loss -- that have yet to rinse themselves with tears of mourning, of absence. Uchiha is noted for its eyes, and Sasuke's eyes could always hold and reflect a limitless capacity for isolation, for suffering; Itachi had taught him that. Itachi had drained the light from those eyes, replaced the warm darkness with eyes stained like blood spots, like his own, flecked with tomoes that swirl like shadows on the evening waterways, moving as if to circulate the memories of lives destroyed. Even his own. Sasuke's own future. Erased.
Because while it was the duty of the younger child to surpass the eldest, to strike the eldest dead, it was the duty of the eldest child -- Itachi's duty -- to steal Sasuke's words; to rob him forever of "family" and "brother" and everything which had meaning, to destroy meaning, to render Sasuke mute and fill him up with other words: words such as hatred. These are all of the truths I will impart upon you, he had thought, but Itachi knew his truths, what Sasuke would take for his own truths, were in fact misshapen lies, crafted in love and crafted in guile and crafted in cruelty, but Sasuke would take hold of these truths, each one, and he would cleave to them, and without the words of his own, his truth would burn down the others' words, their own precious truths. )
It is as if the world had never ended, because there is no loss in Sasuke's eyes now. Because his eyes do not discern truth from falsehood; do not seek to destroy the truths of the others. Not now. They are smooth. Single-coloured. Warm dark like cut firewood, like a stone in the sun; those eyes, young and hopeful and ignorant of all he would someday claim for truth, for the territory of the absolute. And words: Sasuke still has those. He is small, with small, waving hands, and he is perfect, and he has words, and his words are not yet Itachi's words. Itachi is only a brother, and they are like family.
But they are not.
That, also, is a lie.
He would steal the light from Sasuke's eyes. Sasuke is his light. He is Sasuke's darkness. They are the phases of the moon, Tsukuyomi, waxing and waning in Uchiha pale and shadow.
Sasuke is young and likes to talk and wishes to run, to go where Itachi cannot follow.
And this -- this must be a curse of hell. These visions. Itachi will not abide them. He will do what he could not in the first world: He will set Sasuke free.
He will not put out the light of those eyes. Will not smother him in black wings.
A freedom Itachi has never known. But he will give it to Sasuke.
He must. ]
Hm.
I am looking for assistance in a matter.