sunshineverse | Genius and madness go hand in hand

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Genius and madness go hand in hand

Where: Konoha training fields
When: April 18th
Notes: Open, Itachi's having fun setting up a training area for more fun. Come have fun with him?

The training area had a "reserved" sign hung politely on it, and Itachi had been working for several hours now. At times it was obvious he was setting up traps, but he'd also stop and stare at nothing for a while, a frown of concentration on his face. He'd already used up a substantial amount of chakra, but a chakra pill had kept him going and now he was almost finished. He was smeared with dirt and had sticks and leaves in his hair and stuck to his clothes. Frequent breaks were key. He’d gone home and slept for a few hours already, but his mind wouldn’t calm down enough for him to sleep more than that. He'd only run into his father on the way out of the house, which was perfect since Fugaku was the least likely to send him back to bed to get more rest. As he couldn't sleep, the obvious solution was to get ready for putting Sasuke through hell, if he agreed to it.

If not Sasuke refused, then Itachi could always drag Shisui out here to have some fun. That would be a wonderful “I haven’t seen you in awhile” gift. The poisons would all have a day to lose some potency, so they’d be annoying but not dangerous. All the traps were made to immobilize or cause minor damage. All good for testing someone skills when you needed them to stay mostly unharmed. Itachi considered that he probably look a little crazy right now, going here and there and coming back frequently to sit down under a tree and drink water and nibble on whatever snacks he’d brought. He had a small pile of equipment under a tree at the edge of the training area, most of which he’d already pulled out and tinkered with when he was resting.

OOC: Feel free to come and stare or talk to Itachi while he's resting, hanging from a tree, staring into space....whatever.

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"I see..." Well, Shisui was pretty certain Itachi should have probably gone after him, too. Then again, neither of them approached a situation in the manner described, so it would be like the pot calling the kettle black. "Ah. She was injured, too, I believe? In that mission. Because Obito mentioned Hiashi storming into his office regarding that." Glancing at Itachi again, Shisui wonders if the man had anything to do with Hinata and Sasuke getting injured. Or not; people just assumed Itachi could save the world?

He cocked an eyebrow at the question, though. Wouldn't Itachi have known before the rest of them? Studying him for a second or two, Shisui figured he'd tell. He'd know if something should happen since divulging this information. His tone dropped to just barely audible. "Snake summons, a man with Orochimaru's description being sighted, and the fact that Oto's nin were the only others present in or around those missions besides ours and Kiri's."

"Everyone came out fairly scraped up, except maybe Sasuke. Adela was the worst." Poisons were nasty.

Itachi tried not to breathe a sigh of relief. He really was getting to paranoid. Itachi nodded. "There's always the possibility that it's a copycat, someone who admired his style and decided to use Orochimaru's name to his advantage, or it could be a decoy--maybe Orochimaru trying to make us think he's with Oto. That's not likely, but..." Itachi gave a little shrug and felt a sharp pang. If he'd grabbed Ashiko, would they know these things for sure? Probably. Or not. It might take longer than that to crack her.

Itachi felt a little sick at the thought. Torture had never been his strong point. He was good with genjutsu, but physically torturing people had never been something that came easily too him. It shouldn't matter if it made his stomach sick. He should be stronger. He should do what was necessary to protect Konoha. They needed intel on Oto, and Ashiko could have given them that. She was a civilian, and he couldn't have taken her down easily. Low risk, high rewards.

"It's troubling," Itachi added after his white knuckled pause.

Everything around them seemed to suddenly plunge into an eerie silence when Itachi spoke. Shisui took his time observing his friend, expression solemn as he tried to piece together the reactions that... weren't displayed.

While Shisui was convinced that this most certainly wasn't a copycat, and not to mention somewhat disappointed that Itachi didn't think so either, he said nothing. The silence between them then probably spoke volumes.

"What's troubling?" What's troubling you, he wanted to ask.

Because something was off and Shisui could sense that.

"What's not troubling that Orochimaru's still alive and well and working with a village we know very little about?" Itachi turned the question around on Shisui as he thought of what he could and couldn't say to his cousin here. He'd met Ashiko on ANBU business. Itachi bit his thumb nail.

Of course, lying to Shisui was painful and often useless. Itachi certainly left things unsaid, as they both understood there were some things they couldn't, for whatever reason, tell each other. Itachi didn't consider that lying.

He might as well have Shisui tell him how stupid he'd been before he had an official talk with the Hokage about how stupid he'd been. Itachi sighed. The weight he had been ignoring with the frenetic setting up of the training field settled on his shoulders in a prickling tension.

There was no point in drawing this out. He should get it out in one go. Shisui knew something was up.

"I've been working undercover in the Land of Ride Paddies for a few years," Itachi began slowly. Shisui would know Itachi did undercover work, but not where. Still, Itachi felt it important Shisui have all the damning details. And if he couldn't trust Shisui, then he might as well not trust anyone at all.

"I've been...running into the same young woman there at least once a year. I'm fairly sure it's been coincidence. We both travel widely across the country, and it's not that large of a place." Not if compared with some of the other countries, at least. "She's the maid servant of someone I assumed to be an important political figure in the country. She never told me who her master was, but she talked about him."

Itachi paused, taking another few seconds to gather up his words very carefully. He kept his eyes on the tree around them, not daring to look at Shisui yet.

Shisui chuckled. "That is troubling, but it didn't seem to worry you too much." Which is why he figured Itachi knew more than he was letting on. And now he wasn't sure if he was too happy with the knowledge that Itachi did probably know--

--Because it was no longer just 'theory' anymore.

At the mention of Itachi running into a woman every year, however, Shisui raised a brow. "Really? Are you sure it's coincidence?" This time, he looked intently at the other's face, ignoring the fact that Itachi was determined to look everywhere but at his.

Itachi felt Shisui's eyes on him, boring into his skin and probably reading so much more into every nuance of Itachi movements and expression than anyone else ever could.

Itachi nodded. "As far as I can tell, it's nothing more than that. I taken the time to study each meeting before, how it came about and what happened before. I truly think it's coincidence, or people travelling the same road. There's a possibility, I know, that these weren't random meetings, but the seem to be. She's given me travel tips and advice on which roads were bad or news that travelers often trade."

Itachi took a breath and held it for a moment. "She was with the caravan the Chuunin were watching during the mission that you were talking about." Itachi paused. "The man matching Orochimaru's description stabbed though Ashiko to get to someone else." A clean strike, but straight through Ashiko's body.

"I'm fairly certain he's her employer," Itachi added. "She goes travelling a lone a lot on what she calls errands, so it stands to reason she's very high in his trust and would know some valuable secrets."

Itachi refused to look at Shisui still. "I ran into her last week."

As information rolled in, Shisui's brows knit into a frown. Somehow, he wasn't convinced that these so-called meetings were nothing but coincidence. He was, however, going to hold back on his opinion for until Itachi had finished. Or until he had exhausted his questions.

Somehow, his only reaction to the man matching Orochimaru's description stabbing through this Ashiko (and Shisui mentioned nothing of how casually her name rolled off Itachi's tongue, either, though he made note of it) was a raised eyebrow. More curious than concerned. She meant nothing to him, personally. All he was interested in was the dynamics of these two strangers'. "Did he hit her vitals?"

Whether or not Shisui would be convinced that things were coincidence hung on Itachi's answer to that question. But then Itachi answered that question for him. "Ah." So the man hadn't aimed for her vitals.

"Ashiko, hm?" Shisui shifted, eyeing his friend curiously. Already on a first-name basis with a complete stranger. It made sense to keep in touch with her if Itachi suspected something, but something was still... off.

"Is she pretty?"

Perhaps Shisui had a tiny smile going on at that~

Edited (OOPS didn't read your tag closely!) 2014-04-20 22:25 (UTC)

Itachi felt his face heat up. "That has nothing to do with this." It didn't. Itachi didn't care at all what Ashiko looked like. She was, he knew, an attractive young woman. That was one of the reasons he found it odd she was running errands for her "danna-sama."

Or did it have something to do with it? Could it be a physical attraction had had effected his decision about Ashiko? Itachi bit the end of his thumb. That was something he hadn't thought about before.

Shisui did everything in his power at the time to hold back that burst of laughter that threatened to spill. This-- really wasn't a time to be laughing, he knew. Instead, smiling just a little wider, he added softly: "It might."

He almost felt a touch of sadness here, just at the situation. Had this Ashiko person been someone else, someone not at all connected with who he thought she might be with, perhaps things would have been different for Itachi. And Shisui really, really didn't want to not side with Itachi on something of this nature.

"Was she doing alright when you met her recently?" Reaching up, he put a hand to Itachi's shoulder, giving it a squeeze.

Itachi finally looked at Shisui, a rather bland look over a suggestion that Shisui wasn't getting it. "She was well. After we politely suggested it would be in my best interest if I never came back to the country, I bought supper and tea and she bought sake and desert. It was a most companionable evening."

Itachi looked back at the forest. "She had valuable information Konoha could use. She's a civilian. It would have been easy to incapacitate her and smuggle her out of the country without anyone knowing it was Konoha that had done it. She knew I was a spy for someone. She knew Sasuke and Hinata, or had met them before and she knows they work for Konoha now.

"I should have brought her back here for interrogation. We need information about the hidden village in that country. If she's connected to Orochimaru, we could know what he's been up to.

"But I didn't." For no greater reason than he had become friends with her. He couldn't think of a time he'd felt more like he'd failed in his duty to Konoha, and all for a girl.

"Sure. Sounds like a date~" Shisui was never going to stop teasing him about it now. 'Companionable evening' my ass, it was a date. Enough with the euphemisms, Itachi, hah--

Well, Shisui was determined for it to be a date.

"Seems like she knows too much, Itachi. And I haven't even met her." To come to that conclusion, that is. Yes, it might have been just a little teasing, too. "You don't have to bring her here, you know?" He let go of his friend's shoulder, leaning back against the tree and calling out for a bird again. "But perhaps... you might have missed things if you kept meeting up with her." Shisui smiled up at nothing in particular, squinting behind the rays of light that filtered through the mesh of leaves and branches.

"It's okay to feel that way, y'know? We're all... human, first." Before they were shinobi or civilian, Konoha or Oto, ally or enemy. It was normal. It was how it was supposed to be. And, most importantly, it meant the ANBU hadn't completely stripped Itachi of that.

For that, Shisui was grateful.

And it showed.

Edited 2014-04-21 01:07 (UTC)

Itachi turned his head enough to give Shisui a sharp look. He didn't think Shisui was treating this with the proper gravity. Itachi had failed. He'd been charged with gathering intelligence and let a huge source of information slip away because he was something as nebulous as friends with her.

"Feeling 'that way'--" Whatever Shisui meant by that. "--is one thing. Endangering Konoha because of the way I feel is another thing entirely."

Shisui's lips twitched into a tiny smile at that. "So what? You want me to reproach you for it? When you're already doing that to yourself unprompted?" Did you want him to beat a dead horse, Itachi?

...But it didn't mean that Shisui was going to deny that he'd not exactly done his job just then.

"You could always go back and keep tabs on her under the guise of..." He shrugged. "Being interested." Pause. Swallow. "In something else." He wasn't necessarily going to sit there and explain what that 'something else' means. He'd done it before, and wasn't proud of it. Deceiving anybody was-- always awkward. And it left a bad taste in his mouth. Not to mention the doubt that followed-- doubt in one's own abilities to form any sort of meaningful relationship with anyone anymore.

"...Not saying it won't eat you up inside if you decide to go with it." That last bit was mumbled.

"I should just start keeping things you can't fix to myself," Itachi responded dryly. He knew there was no fixing what he'd done, but he'd thought telling Shisui would make him feel a little better.

Itachi gave a moment of serious thought to pushing Shisui off the tree branch. "She knows I'm someone's spy. She'd know something was up." And Itachi's training in seducing people had mostly been about seducing men while dressed up as a woman, usually in the setting of one of the higher class brothels. It was easier to hide your gender under several layers of silk. If Ashiko saw him again, she would be one her guard, and she might have told other people to be watching out for him now. If her master had any skill with genjutsu, he could easily get an image of Iori's face from her mind, and that face would match the one of the Uchiha he'd crossed blades with not too long ago.

"Do you think anyone could have fixed it?" Even yourself. Not now, anyway. He reached out to put an arm around Itachi's shoulders, a casual sideways bro-hug. (As for pushing Shisui off the tree-- good luck with that, Itachi, because his butt was planted there with a good amount of chakra. Shisui does take precautions, y'know~?)

"Listen, what's done is done. If you want, if it would make you feel better, if you think Konoha would benefit from it-- we could send somebody else to keep tabs on her. Even if you didn't really bring her home for interrogation, you were still able to gather that much information about her that no one else really could have put forth otherwise. Quit thinking about it as if all is lost; and--" Have another squeeze to your shoulder, Itachi. "Have faith in your fellow shinobi, Itachi. They can pick up where you left off. These shoulders don't have to bear the weight of the world when it can be shared with others."

There was a pause; a long, calculating, pregnant pause.

"I could do it."

He stared into the distance again.

"But you'll have no say about the outcome if I find out she's less friend than foe."

The suggestion startled Itachi a little. He hadn't expected it. Immediately, part of him said no, don't send Shisui. Shisui was far more ruthless and effective than Itachi had ever been. A much better ninja, even if Itachi's skill had technically come to overshadow his cousin's. Obviously Itachi had become too emotionally involved with Ashiko, a deadly failing in a ninja. Making friends outside one's village always meant that you might have to kill them one day. Or turn them in for interrogation. Either way.

"She's intensely loyal to someone who is most certainly a foe of Konoha." How could she be a friend. Itachi resisted for a moment, but leaned a little into the hug. At least, no matter how badly he screwed up, he was certain Shisui would always like him. Itachi also had more faith in Shisui's abilities than he had in a lot of people's. But...did he really want to send his cousin after Ashiko? He knew Shisui would if he asked.

"Thank you, but you really don't have to clean up my messes anymore, Shisui. No doubt the Hokage, if they send it that high up, will decide how to handle the situation."

Shisui sent Itachi a glance, noting the moment's hesitation. He was quiet, mulling over things. How could he tell him that he had entertained the idea of going after this woman the moment he'd heard Itachi mention her? It wasn't to clean up Itachi's mess-- it was to annihilate a threat. As much as Shisui found himself dealing with grey areas, this... This was a case of black and white. And it was looking a whole lot black at the moment.

It didn't matter if he considered her a friend. If her loyalties lay with an enemy of Konoha, that woman was going to turn around and use Itachi. Play on his feelings for her-- platonic or whatever else they might be.

Perhaps it was the potential for someone to betray his best friend than to betray his village that had him grinding his teeth in his jaw.

"How much does Obito know?" Curt. So very curt.

Shisui was angry. Not at Itachi, but at this other woman...

Itachi kept his face impassive when he looked at Shisui. Shisui, who was nothing if not loyal, both to Konoha and, for some reason, Itachi. Itachi would never understand why Shisui had chosen to spend so much time with his younger, exceptionally strange cousin so many years ago, but those hours spent with Shisui had probably made Itachi who he was today. Itachi plucked a twig and pulled the leaves off it absently. He knew Shisui was angry.

"Everything was in the report I sent to him." Itachi might have done something wrong, but he knew better than to lie about it. Itachi snapped the little twig in two. "I haven't talked to him in person yet," Itachi admitted. He was dreading that, a little.

"Obito hasn't requested an audience with you since then?" It was more a statement than a question. And he was rather disappointed by the fact that they hadn't spoken, too. Shisui knew he couldn't poke Obito about it without letting him know that Itachi had divulged sensitive information. Not that anyone ought to be surprised, but there were certain things that just weren't conducted in a particular way.

He gave Itachi one last squeeze before taking his arm away from around his shoulders. "Just-- don't beat yourself up over it, okay?"

"I only got in last night," Itachi pointed out. "And he is a very busy man." he doubted Obito knew and was letting him stew. That wasn't Obito's style. Itachi gave Shisui a jaundiced look. When had he ever beat himself up over anything? Sarcasm. Humor for the jaded.

Shisui, Itachi reflected, probably came the closest of anyone Itachi knew to knowing all Itachi's secrets and the things he'd done he wasn't proud of and the things Itachi shouldn't have been proud of, but was. Or had been. Still, there were secrets between them.

Itachi now felt drained, the black feeling settling down around him again now that he was still and had unburdened himself to Shisui at least partially.

"Ah." So he'd met Ashiko very, very recently. Allegedly for the last time. And as for beating himself up-- Shisui didn't think anything would come out of mentioning it for the millionth time, but... Just making sure there was no room for anybody thinking Shisui might have suggested otherwise.

And secrets... They had a few between them. Everybody had secrets. That was normal, in Shisui's opinion.

However, the weight pressing down on Itachi's shoulders seemed to nudge Shisui too. Which is why he sighed, softly, shaking his head. Elbow to knee, Shisui brought his hand up to press thumb and forefinger to his temples. "Stop." Just stop it.

Itachi gave Shisui a fond if not exasperated glance. He patted his cousin on the back with a patronizing gentleness. "Ah, poor Shisui, suffering from the migraine of shared angst. Obviously as one reaches the venerable end of life, one is no longer able to safely process the intense mental misery of the younger generation and exposure to it causes acute head-aches."

Itachi paused suddenly "Maybe that's why people drink." It made everything seem less important except sleeping or getting warm. If one needed to sleep a night away and misery wouldn't let them, it seemed like a reasonable solution.

His back stiffened in response, muscles going rigid, just barely keeping it together and keeping him from reaching back and grabbing the other's hand away from him. "Save that smart-ass comment for another time, Itachi, this isn't funny."

It wasn't. And the sudden tension between them was almost so solid you could cut through it with a knife. "If you think drinking's going to fucking fix shit, why don't you try and drown yourself in sake instead of moping about what could have been and what you should have done?" Shisui rarely swore, but when he did, it meant he was frustrated. And angry.

Just --why?! He wanted to help. He wanted to make things right for Itachi but Itachi wasn't letting him.

As soon as Shisui stiffened, Itachi drew his hand back. When Shisui swore, Itachi's entire posture changed. He sat up straighter, not moving away from Shisui, but not leaning towards him. Itachi sat perfectly still, barely breathing and eyes firmly fixed on Shisui with a blank expression.

His mind was racing, tripping over itself as he took in the words, the tone, and tried to come up with the proper answer. Beyond the initial conclusion that he had seriously, to follow Shisui's example, fucked up.

Itachi bit down the initial impulse to tell Shisui he'd tried drinking and it had gotten him into this mess. Would it have made a difference if he hadn't been drinking? He was beginning to think it wouldn't have mattered at all. He'd hit a wall with Ashiko, and that was the issue: his emotional excess and inability to kill someone he liked--liked. Maybe this would be more excusable or at least expected if he were in love with Ashiko, but he wasn't. She was a friend, nothing more, and that was enough to have Itachi compromising for her benefit at the cost of Konoha's.

That was the crux of it. That was how shallow his loyalty was. He'd die for Konoha, murder strangers, lie, cheat, steal, torture, but he wouldn't kill a friend he should have never made. Itachi felt a little sick, but Shisui was right. It was time to stop moping and do something.

Obviously he couldn't trust himself to do what was right here. Itachi dug in the pouch at his hip and came up with a blank scroll. He'd brought a lot of random things with him today, including a pencil for marking traps on his map of the training field. Itachi pulled the scroll open. Being able to put on paper what his eye saw was a skill Itachi had been trained in since he was young. He wasn't at artist, but he could accurately depict people's
features by now.

"Her name is Kuzuryu Ashiko. She's usually in or around Oto. She works for someone who's attached to the new hidden village, possibly even Orochimaru. She's a civilian with some fighting skills, but she is a civilian. She doesn't travel with any bodyguards or companions, and she's easily drawn into polite conversation." Itachi handed the sketch of Ashiko, just head and shoulders, to Shisui.

"I should have brought her in for questioning, or done it myself. I should have killed her, as she could all to easily figure out who I am if she speaks to her master about me." Itachi kept his eyes steadily on Shisui. "I c-would not do any of those things. I did not." And he had failed. This was more than a childish mistake. This was endangering his village. The offering of the sketch was giving this up to Shisui. If he had her face and where she traveled, he could find her. He would find her.

This was what he was going to do about it. He was giving it over to Shisui. Hewas admitting defeat and his inability to do what was needed. He was admitting he'd failed the teachings and beliefs Shisui had instilled in him since he was young. He'd failed his village. He'd failed Shisui. He knew that.

It wasn't enough to make him go back and kill Ashiko.

And that--that was the thought that drove him to feverish action. That was what ate at him whenever he stood still. That was what was going to keep him up all week and have him pacing halls.

He should have killed her. He shouldn't have even hesitated.

Edited 2014-04-28 16:40 (UTC)

Itachi's blank expression was met with something strained from Shisui. Shisui himself had a tendency to close off, shut himself out from any outside help and bear the burden of all the blame on himself. But he couldn't stand to see Itachi do it. He saw himself in Itachi then, and it infuriated him. There was frustration clawing at him, this need to want to reach out and grab Itachi by the shoulders, shake him till he was almost blind. It was what he sometimes wanted to do to himself, but knew better than to act upon it, aware that the problem was an intangible one.

And at the same time, he wanted to pull Itachi into an embrace, dig his fingers in the other's man's flesh, grip bruising.

But Shisui did neither. he could only stare back at him with that same pained expression.

Watching Itachi sketch the person in question, Shisui pursed his lips. Itachi was giving him the job of finishing up what he started. Itachi was literally handing it over to him. He wasn't going to go back and finish up himself, was he?

Shisui eyed the other while he sketched the woman out.

He could finish what Itachi had started. That went without question. He hadn't formed any prior attachment to the person in question to harbor anything that would hold him back. But even so, it wasn't the village he was worried about yet. It was Itachi.

Would Itachi forgive him for it? Would he come to resent him? Would it only add layers to the guilt he was already trying to fight off? Some of those questions were rhetorical; Shisui already knew the answer to them.

When he was presented with the finished version, Shisui's eyes bled into crimson, spinning lazily as it memorized the face on the parchment. The sketch, now in Shisui's hands, was promptly set on fire, flames licking Ashiko's face almost as though it were a grim predictor of events to come. Shisui felt no pain, the fire dancing in his palm until there was nothing but ashes. He watched in silence as the fire burned holes in the face first, then spread like a disease, engulfing her, and then the space around her-- a slow, ugly crackling following the edges of the charred remains.

For a long moment, there was nothing but ashes sitting in his palm that a sudden gust of wind ripping through the trees swiped off of him.

"What's stopping you?" His voice had lost the strained, tense bite to it.

What was she like, he wanted to know. Why was she special-- so much so that Itachi would choose her over Konoha...

Genius and madness go hand in hand

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ohman.... :c this is frikkin late...

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