Title: This Place Is A Prison (9)

Author: tsubaki-hana

Series: Naruto

Rating: T

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi.

Summary: Strongly, then kindly forcing a decision. (Itachi will do anything to complete his mission. Itachi/Naruto.)

"Now that you're subdued

I begin to weaken you

Rise and fall we decompose."

-10 Years, "The Recipe"

"I'd give a lot to complete my goal."

It is not Naruto that speaks, of that he is certain.

He is a non-age now, too small of body to be an adult, yet too wise to be an adult. There is an awkwardness in the way he breathes, in the way he chews his lips and feels each crack out and tastes the blood from them. He knows that licking them will make it worse (Tsunade told him so) but all the same he does it and winces when another rip is made.

While he does not know his age right now, he knows that his hearing has not left him. And that hearing voices has not been good, no matter how mad you are perceived to be.

"You do understand, right?"

Naruto looks to the right and then to the left, but finds no one there. The voice is familiar, but isn't. There's some dust on it, as if it might have belonged to someone years ago, but doesn't hold quite the same timbre and meter anymore. ("The music box never does sound like it used to when you're older, does it?" asks Sakura, and in her hand is a key, rusted and knicked. It lies like a broken thing in her palm, glinting.

He finds himself saying yes, and it sits on his tongue, almost as tangible as a coin, every bit as metallic and bitter against the roof of his mouth. The word is so cheap, it must only be a 5 yen coin.

He swallows, angry that he was going to speak to shadows. He has done that long enough, and if a lifetime (A childhood? A century?) has taught him, it is that speaking to shadows is the same as wishing on stars: worth absolutely nothing, but feels good all the same.

"I'm not sure I understand myself." says the voice, and in the waves it creates, Naruto would like to think that he can see the form it takes, the sound bending to move around the speaker. Tall and lanky, he thinks, but elegant, far more elegant than myself. "I'd like to think you know how it feels."

He knows the voice, but with a secret smile, he hides it in his heart, and it beats against his hear like a living thing. His mind grinds against his spirit, insisting that it is not hope.

"If nothing else, I want everything to turn out, but it can't. It never does. Until that man dies, I will not be able sleep, to eat, to think without seeing my parents on the floor."

Naruto smiles thinly, not because he is happy, but because it pulls his face taut, no sot edges for venom and steel to catch on.

"I will not think of you any longer, you know. I will forget you. You should do the same."

Naruto laughs lightly, because he knows this can't be real, because he knows that he is miles from the nearest civilization, that he is on the forest floor looking up to the sky (which will be grey, like the lining of his futon), and that Jiraiya is waiting in a nearby post town. He knows quite pointedly that Sasuke is not here, and that he must be making this up, because there is no other explanation.

No more words pass between his ears (or perhaps his mind?) and for a moment Naruto panics, his body too heavy to lift. He has wondered at the sound of Sasuke's non-existent voice, and he wonders if he is so cruel as to deny himself this one thing.

He strains his ears, because no matter how crazy people think him, or how different it is, the voice is something comforting.

It is a key to someplace, somewhere, and behind whatever door that it contained would be Sasuke, and some measure of peace that would destroy the hatred he felt toward Itachi for driving Sasuke away.

He goes to sleep, nursing that scornful emotion in his chest (and how he HATES it right now, how he despises how it makes his heart beat faster and his mind anticipate more), feeling as though no matter how dark the words, they could never challenge his will.

Against his hand, he crushes a leaf, and smells fire.

There are not words between them as often as there were before (and even then, it was borderline never) and every time Naruto wakes up, lying on his futon, face up, he feels the dark eyes of Itachi. There is always a silence that follows after, and it is not from the lack of sound, but a complete cessation of thought as well.

Naruto doesn't know how he knows, only that he does.

He is grateful that the ropes are gone, he is grateful that he can walk again, and he is grateful for every opportunity to talk to others that he is given. Naruto would show his gratitude, but he cannot contain his relief in any action and his smiles are a lot cheaper than they used to be. Itachi must notice, because whenever Naruto smiles, he frowns.

Naruto is frustrated, and he cannot understand this completed steel facade, as if the Uchiha had just been waiting for the moment to turn in on himself. It is the perfect armor, and he is vulnerable to it, unable to mask his despair every time that the impenetrable gaze of Sharingan falls on him.

Emotion, he thinks to himself, is a predetermined traitor.

Nothing else could possibly explain his unhappiness at Itachi's withdrawal.

He lies on the floor again, arms off to his sides and his legs twined with each other, and with a childish fancy, he wiggles his toes against each other, happy to feel something other than numbness, even if it is cold toes on the soles of his feet. He has learned to appreciate more, and savors what he can get. He won't get much anymore.

Next week, the leader of the Akatsuki will return, and the group will be in full assembly. Deidara has told him this flippantly, and Naruto is grateful, because Deidara will not neutralize a conversation with cool words. Honesty is the best policy, and Naruto rather see the sword before it strikes.

Nausea hits him hard in the gut, and with an errant hand, he brushes against the rice paper of the seal, listening to it whisper against the harshness of his own fingertips. He could rip it off right now, he could if he really tried, and there's really no reason for hm to stay either. He is simply drifting in a world with no purpose.

He is existing in order to die, and this fills him with aggression again.

"At least you're not smiling this time."

Naruto is perceptive enough to not startle at this, because Itachi has never really used conventional means to enter a room, instead appearing.

"Then are you pleased that I am unhappy, or perhaps you simply do not like to see me smile?" he says, and feels a victory and loss all at once when Itachi looks at him and then dismisses him with his eyes.

"You wear a mask."

"So do you."

Itachi almost glares, and Naruto grins, content with that.

"But yours is not natural. It is grotesque."

Naruto smiles again, and this one is deliberate and slow, one that faces Itachi and that he can see the deep lines and curves that make up the older man's face. It is spiteful, he knows, but that faint twinging in his chest feels a vague sense of satisfaction from it.

"You said that I was too obvious. That I was easily read." he speaks flippantly, and he thinks of Iruka-sensei explaining the answers on a test. "And now, you cannot tell if I am happy or not because I will never stop smiling." It is an arrogant statement, one that is not meant wholeheartedly, and he cannot keep the hurt from his voice. Itachi recognizes it, and he knows this by the way that the Uchiha shifts on his feet, looking quietly at him.

Itachi always looks weary.

"Naruto."

He turns his head away, because Naruto recognizes this tone.

"What did you think would change when you reached for me at that time?"

There is only one time, and even Naruto cannot feign ignorance of it. He also cannot say that he wholly understands it either. What had he been thinking, allowing himself to do something so foolish, even foolish for him? Lips pressed together can mean a lot of things, and Naruto has not decided on what reason he chose. He is almost angry that Itachi even brings it up.

"Nothing."

"Liar." The way Itachi says it makes it sound more like a curse, something dreadful and forbidden. Itachi has no use for lies, and has no patience for wasted words.

Naruto turns away, and ignores the persistent glare directed at him. I won't fight this fight, he thinks, because it is unfair. He is right. Itachi has armor and he does not, and Itachi has power where he lacks.

From above, Naruto is aware that he lays on the floor like a crucified man.

Three days have passed, and Naruto is painfully aware that he has four more to live, and that there is nothing left to live for. Long term goals look silly next to the ephemeral nature of his time remaining. He wonders how many times he has felt four days pass, and how quick they seemed. What was four days out of a life, anyway?

From underneath his sheets, he kicks irritably, torn between anger and immense fear.

("Saying you're not afraid to die and then being faced with the prospect are two very different things." The words are muffled, and Naruto nods, watching Kakashi's mouth move underneath the mask.

"And then being faced with the prospect and knowing for a fact that you will die...well, they aren't alike at all.")

He swallows, extremely hard, and feels each of his muscles flex. The persistent nausea that is caused by the seal has gotten progressively worse each time Naruto has felt the Kyuubi, and now he feels quivers run down each piece of his body, shaking the reserve out of him like some broken toy.

On accident, he bites his tongue and grunts, calling attention from the other side of the room. Itachi looks up from his book, but obviously isn't impressed by what he sees. Naruto blushes, ashamed to be shaking like some helpless child on the floor, getting dirt on the side of his face and in his mouth.

Naruto does not want to taste a grave before he needs to.

In four days time.

"Naruto-kun. Are you ill?"

He wants to say yes, to shout it to Itachi and scream that this place is getting to him, that the walls are closing in and that above all else he is aware that they are one of the last things he'll ever see. He wants to break every bone in his body, to curl in on himself like the serpent consuming its own tail.

Instead he continues to shake, looking at Itachi from twitching eyelids. They seem strangely white and veined in the lamplight. Opening them, he can see his face reflected in Itachi's own mirror gaze, placid and horrifying.

"Naruto, stop it."

He can't and he is offended, mostly with himself, that his body is non-responsive and desperate, his fingers slowly dragging across the dirt (dig deeper, surely there will be somewhere to hide). He is NOT afraid, and nothing around him is willing to agree.

Finally, from across the room, Itachi sighs, and closes his book (and the paper hisses with a dying fall), rising to come and walk over. Naruto feels his fingers dig a little deeper, but says nothing, instead focusing on the lump in the back of his throat that just doesn't seem to want to go away. Itachi is unperturbed, but shifts until he is on his knees, graceful and dark next to him.

"You are afraid."

Naruto wants to call him an idiot, because nothing seems more evident by the way his fingers twitch.

"It is very unlike you, after so long of not caring."

"There were no dates then." he says from between a bleeding and a cracked lip.

"Ah." Itachi says, as if this explains everything, and for a moment Naruto sees the glint of something torn between amusement and concern, but it disappears into itself before it can show in the impassive face. He thinks of Jizo and Buddha, but does not say so. Itachi does not seem to be a religious man.

His prayers are a ritual, not faith.

"It's very different," he mutters, "to know the date of your death versus living day by day with the hope of another." Naruto turns to see Itachi directly, and gets no response, predictably. His instinct tells him to reach for the other man, to evoke a reaction, something of a feeling or thought. His mind reminds him what that got him before, and Naruto falls still, disappointed with everything.

"Then you would prefer to not know?" Itachi asks, and there is an earnest question in there somewhere. "And if you died right now, by my hand, would you be displeased because you were supposed to have a few more days to yourself? How very selfish of you, Naruto."

He smiles again, but this one is real.

"Then I would thank you. What is life when everything is a science or a measurement? That's the way you think, and that is the way that Sasuke thinks." Next to him, he feels Itachi stiffen a little but stay passively still. "I'd like to live thinking there was something to look forward to. Knowing when you die is leaving you to live knowing the exact moment you cannot live any longer."

"And that is very cruel, having the remainder of your life overshadowed by the knowledge that you will die on a predestined date."

Naruto looks over, startled by Itachi. They do not look at each other, but Naruto suspects that Itachi is not thinking along with him any longer. He is perhaps thinking of the other person he has taken the joy of living from. Naruto finds himself wondering if Sasuke ever feels this miserable, so wretched and loving every time that Itachi looks his way.

("You must live with what you are given." says Tsunade, and she is a deity in the sun, her hair coppery in the sunset. It is unusual to see her, but Naruto is well pleased that he does, because looking at her now, all he can see is the enlightenment of those older than him. "While pain may be forgotten, and happiness fleeting, you must live with what you feel. It will never leave you, not for a moment."

Naruto still wishes the feelings away, because if they won't leave, he might just abandon them.)

At last, Itachi looks at him.

"Then why have you not tried to die by honor?"

Naruto, unwittingly, curls in a little and shudders again, thinking of the glint of sharp blades and angry red wounds he has seen on the bodies of the honored dead. He has heard of Kakashi's father (by rumor, something he rarely gave heed to but considered a base of truth to.) And especially, he has met people that would willingly take their lives in order to keep clean their name.

Honor, he knows, is just another word for hollowed.

"Maybe I'm just selfish as you said." He says it tightly. "I'm not afraid of pain, but I am afraid of being nothing anymore. Maybe I want to live whatever I have left."

It is a small mercy when Itachi finally gives him something to relax his body. Each muscle unclenches tentatively, and even though anxiety still beats against Naruto's veins, he is comfortable. To his further surprise, Itachi stays next to him, and when he awakes (hours?minutes?) later, remains unmovingly (unlovingly) next to him.

He isn't sure if this devotion is false or honest.

Either way, it seems like a funeral present.

"Life isn't kind to you, but there will always be at least one person you can count on."

It's nighttime, and near his head he can hear the cicadas still humming next to the crickets chirping. He has never been very fond of the hotel futons, but he buries his head in it, ignoring his teacher who has dawned his pipe and another round of sake. The scene is familiar, and the words are as well.

"Psh, well that's what I thought until about two years ago."

He is bitter now, and he is not in the mood to hear one of Jiraiya's optimistic speeches to cheer him up. They don't work very often.

"Now my errant student, let's not have any complaining. I'm only telling what this old man has learnt. After that, we'll get on to more exciting topics...Don't roll your eyes at me." says Jiraiya, and the pipe smokes ominously as Jiraiya chews on the bit, eying him speculatively. "Now you're just being the snot-nosed brat that I remember from a couple of years ago."

With a wry smile, he buries his head again, covering his nose from the smell of tobacco. It is very strong, because the hotel is cramped and the futons are close together. Jiraiya does not have the good grace (or good manners) to step outside.

"Does this lesson have a point, or are you filling up the gaps between us?"

Jiraiya snorts and then laughs good naturedly. He has not had much sake yet, even if it is late into the evening. Naruto is weary of sobriety.

"No, because that's your job." says Jiraiya, but his smile doesn't reach his dark eyes. Naruto knows that the moment ought to be funny, but for some reason he doesn't see any humor in it at all.

He snorts, covering his neutrality.

"I feel so honored."

"Of course, and you should. But that is neither here nor there, and students ought to listen to their teachers when they talk."

"Then talk, " he says cheekily, rolling over in his futon. He'd much prefer it if Jiraiya would just reach over and hit him for being insolent. Two years have not been full of tolerance, and Naruto knows that he can be abrasive at times. He regrets it when he looks over a his quiet teacher, who blows a wisp of smoke between his lips and sighs.

"I wish you trusted me more." says Jiraiya. "There are so many people in the world, and hiding amongst them are people who want to help you. One just can never tell where help is coming from."

Naruto disagrees, and despite his optimism, he can see more dark faces in a crowd than kind ones. The corners of the room waver in his vision mockingly.

Two days, and Naruto no longer shakes, but very quietly suffers, staring at the ceiling of the cave, counting crystals as though his life depends on it. Each facet seems interesting now, and where he might have once consider the dull grey stone boring, he now sees a hundred colors that change with each flicker of the candles.

Itachi's eyes are not a swirl of black and dark blue, but full of careful striations, and Naruto sees where it looks like an artist's brush has painted on glass. It is beautiful in its lines and grains. He sees them more often now, because Itachi never leaves him alone. At first, he thinks it is to make sure he doesn't take advantage of his newfound freedoms (and how useless they are now, knowing that he did not get to keep them long.)

He does not expect sympathy, and he does not believe that it is there. If nothing else, Itachi is a creature of habit, and regret or sorrow for another would be wasteful of his time.

"You're thinking about irrelevant things again."

"I won't have time to do it for too much longer."

"Hn."

They are both quiet, Naruto sitting on a cushion, Itachi across form him, and neither one with anything relevant to say. (There is a lot he would like to, but he feels foolish for even considering it. With a grimace, he rips his mind away from it.)

Itachi is the first to speak again.

"Suppose you used your remaining time for something more beneficial?"

Naruto laughs, and it sounds old, all joy sucked from it and left rattling like empty rice shells. "To what, become a better ninja? I didn't have much to live for to begin with other than the shinobi way. No, Itachi, I might has well enjoy what I've got, because it's all that there is left to exist for. If I want to think in circles, I will think in circles."

"You act so sure that you know when you are going to die. Is there anything certain about the time of your death?"

"A date." he says, picking at the corner of his pants, where he can see it unraveling in patches. He had two other pairs with Jiraiya, but he doesn't know where they are now, or why they are significant. "I've accepted that there's nothing left to do other than make my last hours memorable, if only for something as stupid as how many times the diamond pattern repeats on the incense dish or how you wear your hair a quarter inch lower when you are not expected in battle."

He deliberately ignores how Itachi watches him, with something akin to exasperation or frustration, but he leaves it nameless. It would be much too upsetting to find out otherwise.

Now he looks at the cracks in the ceiling again, tracing the sharp corners and soft slopes with his eyes.

Little things are amazing now, he thinks, because his ungrateful human nature is leaking out, like a vessel with cracks.

Tentatively, he wonders if he could count his own facets.

Itachi counts them for him.

He wakes groggily, and he isn't sure where he is, bu tit's not on the ground because he feet swings beneath him, but his arms are above him, wrapped carefully around someone's neck. Breathing softly, he smells camellia and funeral incense from the fabric beneath his chin.

Someone talks to him, but there voice is far away, and he can do little other than try to move closer to the sound.

"I know you're awake, if only for a moment."

Naruto nods, though he doesn't know why. He recognizes it as Itachi's voice, but doesn't recognize the softer note to it.

"You've been incapacitated."

It explains the numbness of his legs, the angle of his arms, and why his head doesn't seem to want to obey anything that he says. He also wonders if he has fallen asleep and woken up only to be on the way to death (God). His heart beats a half-second faster, but doesn't fill him with the usual anxiety.

"It won't make sense to you now, and it doesn't need to either."

Why, is what he wants to ask. This Itachi he feels against his cheek is not warm (a damp cold, like Naruto imagined a corpse would be), nor is he kind (he always speaks gruffly, as though explaining were tedious.)

It's all very confusing to him, but there is one thing he realizes, and it makes his heart stop dead in his chest and his fingers curl softly into Itachi's raw silk hair.

He is leaving.

Naruto finds his voice somewhere between sleep and anger, a drowsy thing with slow movements. Each word is torn, forcibly, by desperation and he hopes that somehow Itachi will be able to understand what he is saying.

They have no sound, so he mutely moves his lips in the shape of them.

Somehow, Itachi understands.

"Just because everything seems like it will turn out one way does not mean that it is written in stone," says the Uchiha, and the words are whispered into the night air. (And it is night, because now he can pick up the sounds of leaves as he struggles to open his eyes, the smell of monsoon decay swelling in his head.)

Naruto manages weakly to look at Itachi, but only sees the side of one pale cheek.

"You will return to this place in time, and then you will be stronger, more focused. You will become a worthy opponent. For now, it is a waste to destroy someone for something I have no use for... yet."

It is a command and a promise, and he knows that it will one day be fulfilled. Itachi never speaks lightly, and Naruto has learned to value it. when Naruto looks into the Sharingan, he is trapped by its hypnotism and falls asleep, listening to the vibrato of Itachi's voice.

"Go find your peace. I am a patient man, and I will not kill dead men twice."

He wakes up on the ground, a plank poking into his back and the taste of ashes and fire in his mouth. The ceiling is broken up by charred wood, and Naruto can remember the flames that fell from them not so very long ago.

He can also remember bloody bandages that were wrapped around his legs skillfully but painfully, red eyes always watching him.

Turning his head, and much to his shock, he sees Jiraiya, clutching a curtly written note in Itachi's careful script. It is gripped between aging fingers, cut and bruised from handling too many kunai. It looks as if there has been a fight recently. Jiraiya, eyes tired and clothes looking worse for wear, smiles a little more fragile than he did before and says, "Welcome back from hell."

"Yeah, I guess." he says, but only to let Jiraiya know that he is alright (he's not, but to say so would be cruel.)

"We've got another couple of months until the Akatsuki start moving again. I don't know how he did it, but that crazy Itachi seems to think you are useless until you finish training. Can't say that I'd blame him though," says Jiraiya, "after all, you really messed up this time. I suppose this is another lesson learned, but it's bought foolishly." He laughs. "I suppsoe this means you can start practicing your shinobi arts."

They both look at each other for a moment.

Naruto sees it all, an entire period of time before his eyes in a matter of seconds, every hateful and loving feeling that he had, rushing out of him and into a restive calm that he has been looking for forever. And he further knows that it is in Itachi's placid eyes instead of Sasuke's dark ones that he finds it.

"You are fortunate that Itachi was merciful enough to give you a grace period. He didn't seem to think the Akatsuki would know what to do with the Kyuubi at present anyway."

Naruto laughs, because Itachi's mercy is not mercy at all.

It's a sentence with no definite end.

Two months later, when he hears that Gaara has been taken, he feels a little thrill inside, because now, he has two things to fight for. To save his friend.

And to prove his worth to Itachi, not physically because that is nigh impossible, but to show that he has purpose again in life.

Living, after all, is synonymous with learning.

End.

A/N: I am unrepentantly ending this. This ending had been prepared and written for a while now, and it was always the intent to stop at the number nine. THIS is how it was intended to be.

The fact that it is abrupt is simple. Itachi is not going to sit and angst over whether or not to let Naruto go for a while. He's either going to say, yes let's do it, or, no that's stupid. For him to carry on with it for chapter upon chapter would be a waste of your time and my time. Remember, it's a story told in moments, and there are things that happen that we don't see. The story starts covering most moments is because it needed an initial basis.

Also, this is a tragedy story. Naruto and Itachi really don't merit a love story so much as an understanding. The kiss at the end of the previous chapter was not a sudden turn in a relationship so much as an act of desperation between the two, Naruto trying to destroy the dependency he had, and Itachi trying to understand Naruto. What happens is that Itachi finally understands where Naruto is coming from, learning to appreciate what you have. Naruto learns that there is a certain degree of disappointment and sadness in life, and learns not to take for granted what he has.

There will be no sequel, and there will be no further chapters.

Much thank to The Engine Driver for egging me on and keeping me working on this when I would have preferred to stop. Chances are, I would have never finished at all without it. To my reviewers, I lvoe you all, but I have been unable to respond to everyone. I will answer any questions in reviews from this chapter, because otherwise I'll be answering all of them for days. XD.