[The more he asks, the less he learns — or the less he understands of his brother and his brother's life in this place. The inspired feeling is dull and sulking, familiar to him from his childhood but one he hasn't felt in so long that it becomes utterly new. Surprising, if only because he'd thought all of that sentiment burned from him even if he should have known better, yet here it is now, irritated by Itachi's bare minimum. There is more there and he knows it. He is left out of the circle of his older brother's world; maybe that will never change.

Then again, the demands he is making when Itachi hasn't experienced the same future — he doesn't know whether they are reasonable. Nothing ever seems to feel reasonable between them.]

'Useful'. If I asked, I wonder if you would even tell me how. [Not if it bears any significance to his brother's interior thoughts, that much he can believe.] Fine. Then we work to collect these orbs through assigned missions.

[That reality isn't new or difficult; they are shinobi. If it means there is a chance to see his regret amended, to take Itachi back with him alive, he'll do whatever he needs to do.]

Give me time to read your notes. I'll do it here if you don't trust me to take them from this room.