Uchiha Itachi (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
yourhatred) wrote2011-08-11 02:47 pm
yourhatred) wrote2011-08-11 02:47 pm
eighteen crows (朱) voice/action
[Early this morning Itachi can be found in the battledome in between sessions spent fighting various creatures from other worlds. If he's going to be here, he might as well make use of this facility.
Later, having gotten an acceptable amount of exercise, the ninja will be hitting up the grocers before heading back home. It's a typical day, basically.
He'll comment on the journals once all that is settled.]
It's been some time since I properly spoke up over this. I suppose you can consider this checking in, for what it's worth.
Later, having gotten an acceptable amount of exercise, the ninja will be hitting up the grocers before heading back home. It's a typical day, basically.
He'll comment on the journals once all that is settled.]
It's been some time since I properly spoke up over this. I suppose you can consider this checking in, for what it's worth.
[Action]
I'm not surprised. It's hard to keep a secret here.
[Action]
That's a small village for you. The mad experimentation doesn't help.
[Fixing his gaze upon the ocean. He's quiet.]
It's not alright, you know? What happened - what your leaders decided. All of it - it is what it is. It's not alright. I don't know what threat your clan's existence posed to motivate such an extreme order, and I don't know the consequences refusal would have brought. There's a lot of things I don't know. And a lot I probably wouldn't understand. ... I am not of your world. Not a shinobi.
Just a pirate.
[Action]
Not yet, though. Not ever, if he could help it, though he knew that might just be wishful thinking at this point.
He shakes his head.]
No. It's not.
[It was never alright regardless.]
I neither expect nor ask forgiveness for it.
[Action]
Then explain it to me. Why was this ordered?
[Don't tell him it was blood. Blood is not inherently evil. A people are not inherently evil.
...
...
Help him understand.]
I know you don't, Itachi.
But.
Do you want it?
[It is wishful thinking. The time for secrets is over.]
[Action]
Then he stops walking, turning his head to the other man.]
You must realize, none of this should be known. I took measures to insure the information remained only with those who'd ordered it. It's very difficult for me to just openly speak of it now.
[The second question is ignored.]
[Action]
yes.]
I realize that. [And he can get why it is so hard to speak of, orders aside. It's not like he's free with his own past.
He stops. Looks at Itachi.]
But secrecy or not, it's out there now, on the journals. [There's no point in keeping it quiet anymore.] It's going to keep coming up.
[Might as well address it now.]
[Action]
It's frustrating, because if he doesn't say it in his own words someone else is bound to get the message across differently.]
Negotiations had failed. They meant to throw a coup, which could possibly turn into war on a larger scale.
[Action]
But if there had been negotiations, wouldn't they have suspected that there might be a mole or something in the ranks? Negotiations suggest awareness on both sides about the developing situation, and certainly there would have been those in the Uchiha who could see where their activities might lead and how far people in the village would go to stop them. They were ninja too. Unless it was that unthinkable.
Troubling. Something smells a little wrong.]
In other words, the other ninja villages would smell blood in the water and move to take out Konoha while it was weakened due to internal strife. Which would not only effect the shinobi world but the civilian lands protected by them.
[Disturbed.]
So what were the reasons for the coup?
[Because this is important. There would have to be reasons... good reasons for this. He can't believe an entire clan would roll out of bed one morning and decide to plot a coup - not human nature. Especially not in a village where from nearly everyone Law's met has had such love and loyalty to the place. They had to have known the consequences of their actions... and what a coup would mean for them. Because if the other villages attacked while the Uchiha and Konoha were fighting, the Uchiha would certainly not escape unscathed either. Why be merciful to traitors? They could not be trusted... not if they turned on their own village. They would have known this. Should have anyway.
So what kind of grievance would inspire this?]
[Action]
[So much to explain, so little desire to do it.]
The Uchiha, as a whole, had been segregated to one part of the village in order to be kept an eye on. You have to realize a little bit about the clan to understand why. It was understandable that they felt the way they did, but the Uchiha are also often born with very powerful eye techniques capable of more than any one pair of eyes should rightfully be capable of.
[The Sharingan spins to life in his eyes.]
Around the time my younger brother was born, one of the tailed beasts of our world came and brought havoc upon our village. It was a repeat of a time in the past when the head of the Uchiha clan had fought the first leader of the village and been run out. Only the Uchiha had been known to be able to control it, and thus they speculated that they, or someone among them, might be responsible.
[Action]
... in any case, the flow of Law's chakra might be... different. Haki. It does that to a guy.]
... I see where there could be problems. [Dry. It didn't just stop at segregation did it?] They were already being treated like traitors before they decided on any real treason.
[...
... what is a tailed beast? Is it like a Sea King?]
Had there been? From the way you say it, it doesn't sound like this attack was a coincidence.
[Action]
[So few good ways to lay this all out.]
Uchiha Madara. He was the original leader of the Uchiha clan. It was he who shook hands with the leader of the Hashirama clan the day the two clans, originally hated rivals, joined up to create the Village Hidden in the Leaves. It was Hashirama and eventually his younger brother who would lead the village as Hokage. Madara had never wanted the union, after all - he'd gained his own brother's eyes in order to gain the most powerful form of the Sharingan for the sake of fighting their rivals, but the rest of the clan wanted an end to the years and years of fighting. He later fought the Hokage, controlling the nine-tailed fox, but was beaten and exiled. To try and mend connections with the Uchiha, the Hokage gave them control of the Konoha Military Police Force.
Unfortunately, this could also be looked upon, and possibly was, a way to keep the Uchiha under close watch and out of the affairs of the village government. After the nine-tails attacked again and they were segregated, the clan took this as a sign that Madara had been right about the way they would be treated all along.
Madara was responsible for the second nine-tails attack, so many decades after the first. It's perhaps his perfected Sharingan that allows him to live so long. He lives still, from what I hear of how he's been manipulating my younger brother.
I was the one who told the elders of the intended coup. When negotiations failed, I found Madara. He agreed not to attack the village in exchange for being allowed to help me destroy his own clan, they who had turned their backs on him.
We spared no one but my brother, and I went into exile while making them promise that Sasuke would never see me as anything more than an enemy. That the Uchiha name could continue to be respected after it's destruction.
That's how it is. And now you know.
[Action]
[He closes his eyes. It's a lot to take in.
-this tailed thing was a fox... kitsune?-
-the eye techniques are from the Sharingan... which is the state your eyes are in right now... and to get stronger you switch them? Are you people going to want to do that here-
-you didn't kill them alone. But... a deal... you had to know that wouldn't be honored... or only honored to the exact letter of the agreement-
-the discrimination is ancient.. the grudges ancient... and that's why they immediately looked at the Uchiha. Aside from their ability to control the fox.-
-this discrimination and these old grudges made it SO easy for Madara to manipulate everyone behind the scenes. All that was needed was a push and everyone would move exactly as he wanted. Even you, Itachi.-
-These deaths, this genocide... it's even worse than simple murder, simple massacre, isn't it...
In following these orders, you gave Madara exactly what he wanted...-
-You truly set up your own demise. Suicide by your brother.-
-You still want this secret, even here. Still want to be hated. You need to be hated for this, don't you, Itachi? It's better than the guilt. Being punished helps relieve that ache.
Tough.
You are his friend. He refuses to hate you. There's already been enough.-
You all were played.]
... so, in the end, it all boils down to revenge. An elaborate, ongoing plot for revenge against anyone who supposedly wronged him and their descendants.
[Magnificent bastard. If ever Trafalgar Law got his hands on Uchiha Madara, if ever time and space and Luceti delivered him to his clutches? He'd kill him slowly. By inches.]
...
Mother Ocean, it's a lot to take in.
[Action]
I had thought that once Sasuke had finished me he'd be able to return to Konoha. Restart the Uchiha line if he wished. Live the rest of his life.
But apparently that wasn't the case. Madara got to him first, and now I have to leave my hopes in the hands of another.
[Action] 1/2
[Action] Done
No. He thinks no.
Sighing:]
And that's there. Here... well, do you still plan on keeping all of this secret for one?
[Action]
I have the feeling that those who wish to know will find out at this point, but I have no intention of making a public broadcast of it.
[Action]
... and if they come asking?
[Action]
[As difficult as it might be.]
[Action]
[Silence for a little while. Just the sounds of the sea birds and the wind rustling through the sea grass. Peaceful.
Just the two of them, the beach, and the sea.]
I suppose you're wondering where we stand, huh?
[Action]
[If he has to relocate, then so be it.]
[Action]
I don't hate you, Itachi. [Because that needed to be said. And this? Between them? He's going to damn well tell it as it is... even if it might be one sided. Even if it is hard for him to give voice to it.]
You're my friend. And this is difficult for me to deal with by its very nature. My world has strong values when it comes to family and nakama among pirates, and captains are bound by them most of all. A pirate's existence is being crammed together on a vessel with little room, unable to escape each other while on the sea, and when we do make landfall or see another human soul? We're generally hated and despised. For us... we're all we have. We live together, laugh together, drive each other mad together, starve together, bleed and die together. For most of us, those bonds get very strong.
...
It's difficult. It's very difficult. It is what it is, and the guilt doesn't just lie with you. It was a damning situation any way it went. It's done and... [he quiets] prices paid.
So while it's difficult, I can deal with it. And then I'll move on from it. Only thing I can do. [In this place, each other is all we have.]
You're my friend, Itachi. That's not changing.
[Action]
He can't remember the last time someone called him a friend and really meant it. If he heard it from the Akatsuki, it was in jest.
Law says he can move on. Is that perhaps the only option left for him in this place as well? Moving on? He's not sure he's capable.]
...I see.
[For the moment, there's little he can offer in response aside from that.]
[Action]
...
Maybe. Maybe not. Moving on is hard. The hardest thing. And sometimes you can't, not really. There are some things Law's not moved on from. But... eventually, you learn to live again.
It just takes time.]
... and you? Where do you stand?
[It's not just about what Law feels about this, isn't it, when it comes to this. It's about what you want as well.]
[Action]
I consider you a friend as well, or as close as I have ever considered someone to be a friend for a long time.
I won't deny you further questioning, nor will I seek to make things more awkward between us.
[More awkward than they already were, anyway.]
[Action]
[Silence again. Comfortable silence. Funny how that is. The silences between them are never empty and they're never cold. They're just companionable.
Rare thing. Many people are comfortable interacting with each other, conversing with each other, but never simply being with one another. They seek to fill them with words and actions - they never let those silences be.
Perhaps it defines their friendship, this. This silence and quiet understanding. Perhaps.]
...
... you know, Itachi, one day I still have to take you sailing.
[Action]
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