๏ผ sasuke speaks as if to an effigy. itachi sits unmoving, his fingers curled around glossy, fired clay. he is looking at his brother as he speaks — it is the first time he has looked at him clearly since they were children, vision unmarred by the encroaching darkness of the mangekyล. he is not surprised to learn, that as the march of time cut baby fat from his face, that sasuke favours their mother.
finally, his gaze slants away. there is much to absorb here, and he wishes he were doing it alone. each word is a lash, he bears them out unflinching — but if ever there has been a time that an ability to bear pain has mitigated its intensity, it is not here and now. even his voice hurts to hear, too many sleepless nights sacrificed to the remembered cacophony of his screaming.
he draws his focus back to center.
what sasuke says of edo tensei does not surprise him. not too long ago, in a speculative conversation with wei wuxian, he had identified himself as a potential candidate for resurrection should someone covet his power dearly enough. he had said then, i do not enjoy the possibility, as if he spoke of rain. yet sasuke has no reason to lie. there is clearly a gap in their experiences that edo tensei would explain, and itachi is willing — within reason — to believe it while still holding space for the possibility of subterfuge.
(sasuke, after all, has learned from the best in that.)
the lion's share of budding disgust comes from what follows. obito. sasuke blurts out words with the ring of truth the way entrails spill from a slit belly, and he finds it all acceptably probable. he has dim recollection of the boy to whom they were distantly related. he attended his funeral, where his first impression of kakashi is of an ash-gray smudge in the rain, the whispered conversation about whether or not he should be permitted to keep the sharingan.
(he'd thought that kakashi's mangekyล ability was familiar—) ๏ผ
And?
๏ผ it is one word, said with a distant, dismissive curiosity. ๏ผ
no subject
finally, his gaze slants away. there is much to absorb here, and he wishes he were doing it alone. each word is a lash, he bears them out unflinching — but if ever there has been a time that an ability to bear pain has mitigated its intensity, it is not here and now. even his voice hurts to hear, too many sleepless nights sacrificed to the remembered cacophony of his screaming.
he draws his focus back to center.
what sasuke says of edo tensei does not surprise him. not too long ago, in a speculative conversation with wei wuxian, he had identified himself as a potential candidate for resurrection should someone covet his power dearly enough. he had said then, i do not enjoy the possibility, as if he spoke of rain. yet sasuke has no reason to lie. there is clearly a gap in their experiences that edo tensei would explain, and itachi is willing — within reason — to believe it while still holding space for the possibility of subterfuge.
(sasuke, after all, has learned from the best in that.)
the lion's share of budding disgust comes from what follows. obito. sasuke blurts out words with the ring of truth the way entrails spill from a slit belly, and he finds it all acceptably probable. he has dim recollection of the boy to whom they were distantly related. he attended his funeral, where his first impression of kakashi is of an ash-gray smudge in the rain, the whispered conversation about whether or not he should be permitted to keep the sharingan.
(he'd thought that kakashi's mangekyล ability was familiar—) ๏ผ
And?
๏ผ it is one word, said with a distant, dismissive curiosity. ๏ผ