But neither of those conditions applied here: here and now, Sasuke was tired, his chakra already, his otherwise sharp self-awareness dulled by the long hours of battle, his soul weary after the months of war.
And more importantly, I was actively participating.
...
I had performed something similar back when I first trained Ino, Chouji, and Shikamaru: deeply burrowed into Nature Chakra, I had led them to meet 'Failure'. I presented them in an illusion so encompassing, so terrifying, that they had been unable to spot the absurdity of that situation. Back then, I had depicted the perfect image of a Konoha in flames.
Now, Sasuke had a talent for genjutsu that none of my ex-students had, one that had been quickly refined during the war: but Itachi was in a wholly different league, and it had taken barely one try to get down this particular combination technique back in the Elephants' Plane.
Itachi's Tsukuyomi slid over Sasuke and Ino, who my companion had agreed would be the necessary leverage for the needed hurt our plan required.
I didn't know exactly what images my Uchiha companion painted, I didn't see what Sasuke saw, more importantly, I didn't believe what he was believing.
But I felt it when Sasuke's chakra pattern indicated a Chidori, I felt it when Ino was forced into a deep coma, and more importantly, I felt the twist in his very soul: everything he was screamed as he tore himself apart from within, I felt when he went from weary and burning, to shattered and dead cold. So cold, it felt like a wholly different person.
Is this what Itachi felt? It was revolting, bone-deep, nightmare-inducing.
I lacked Karin's natural empathy, but in Sage Mode, I could almost see it: a three-tomoe Sharingan spinning into something Other, something More.
"N-now." at Itachi's first-ever stuttered sword, I flung myself across the battlefield, walls giving in like they were made of cardboard while my Uchiha companion became like my shadow, unheard and unfelt, until I appeared in front of Sasuke.
Once more, proper planning brought us exactly where we wanted to be: I appeared behind the holder of the newly birthed Mangeyko Sharingan, a syringe containing a venomous yellow liquid was plunged into his uncovered deltoid while I landed a hand covered in medical chakra at the base of his spine.
Sasuke's eyes cried blood as he met the older Mangeyko of his brother, and within a single heartbeat, he fell unconscious.
For the last time, I flashed through handseals and used the summoning technique: "Kuchiyose no Jutsu: Hebitaberu!"
The now-familiar summoned snake appeared from under Sasuke in a puff of smoke, swallowed him, and disappeared immediately after.
Now we were exactly in the middle of a fight between a group of people that had been informed of our appearance after we kidnapped their Jinchuriki, and a group of people that just saw us somehow turn Ino unconscious, and kidnap the growing war hero Sasuke Uchiha.
Still, in Sage Mode and with the risky part of the operation now behind us, I grinned shamelessly as I rolled my shoulders: "So, what will it be?"
Itachi immediately made himself scarce, and with a flex of my chakra, I started to barrel through shinobi, kunoichi, summoned creatures, walls, and ninjutsu to reach the perimeter of the village.
...
Chakra flowed heavily into coils unaccustomed to such cold, powerful energy. From the heart through the gates, the invaluable life energy thrummed with a confused might: cells were revitalized, organs worked full throttle feeling none of the strain that a lethal malady had always imposed on them, and muscle groups were fully relaxed for the first time in many years.
More than that, there was an unfamiliar peace ruling supreme in the unconscious realm of Itachi Uchiha, kinslayer, missing-nin, and worst of all, unsung hero of Konohagakure no Sato.
Itachi woke with a deep breath from the deep coma that Daiki had put him under.
He didn't try to open his eyes, he felt the cool bandages that would have prevented the action in any case, and instead chose to focus on that first action he first unconsciously took: breathing.
For the first time since when his malady was discovered, for the first time since soon after his act of genocide, air entered and left his lungs causing no tightness whatsoever in his throat, his diaphragm didn't quake while trying to push beyond the added weigh of blood and pleuric liquid oozing thought his alveoli, he didn't feel the blood push within his veins as if too much for his body.
In the darkness caused by his bandaged face, he let his other senses guide him. He distantly perceived the warmness of a sun that rested just beyond where he was, informing him that he was under a cool shade for which he was grateful, a sun that had the ethereal quality that he had grown to know into the Elephant Summons' Plane.
There was the ever-encompassing rustling of a small outcrop of trees -and he could guess just who was responsible for those-, coupled with the smell of dry dirt and dried out blood with the bitter scent of herbs that had been likely refined ad hoc for his needs by the knowledgeable Daiki.
And speaking of Daiki, the chakra sensing that Itachi had unconsciously developed throughout the entirety of his career as a shinobi allowed him to tilt his head towards the not-far presence, who, immediately noticing the change in his last patient, spoke.
"How is your breathing? The eyes of both you and Sasuke are settling in just fine, and a side effect of your operation apparently will allow your chakra to settle within the week, instead of the planned two."
Itachi slowly pushed himself to a seated position, his exceptional mind elaborating the news while he kept breathing consciously, studying each minute variation that he could feel within himself: "I feel... I feel..."
A hand-coated with the now familiar feel of medical chakra landed on his back, while another hovered just above his sternum: "One deep breath please."
Itachi followed the instructions with the same stoic demeanor that had characterized most of his life, and fought down the part of his mind and heart that positively howled in anguish at the now near certainty that he would get to live despite his crimes.
"Do you smell fresh blood, by any chance?" the question of the medic-nin currently tending to the Uchiha was answered by a smooth shaking of his head, while his chakra sensing tentatively moved across the immediate surroundings, soon enough landing on the almost dim presence of his younger brother.
"He's perfectly fine." Daiki answered his unasked question while he continued his examination, "Now try to hold your breath for the next 60 seconds."
As the Uchiha kinslayer complied with the last request, the Elephant Sage kept talking in the steady, reassured tone of a man dealing with an easily startled beast.
"He'll need 2 weeks before we can safely uncover his eyes, but considering the situation, it's better for everyone if he remains unconscious: I've tweaked Sasori's method for jinchuriki in order to allow for a steady circulation of chakra, there will be no adverse effects."
At the running out of the 60 seconds he had been asked to hold his breath for, Itachi finally spoke: "Why is he here?"
A tired sigh was the prelude to the medic's reply while the healing chakra ran once more across the Uchiha's torso.
"I prepared extensively for these operations, so there was no problem with the eyes, but dealing with your lungs straight away, while the best course of action so that I'd need to boost your chakra system through only a single cycle of almost implosion truly wiped me out."
"You told me that you'd only swap our eyes now." Itachi frowned under the bandages, and he didn't have to open his eyes to perceive the smug grin of his companion.
"I really wasn't sure about your commitment to staying alive," the Uchiha felt the shrug reverberate through the air, "I preferred taking away the temptation of finding a convenient way to die later only so that your brother could have a second pair of Eternal Mangeyko Sharingan given your warped obsession about keeping him safe."
"It was my choice."
The objection fell on deaf ears: "We already had this discussion, haven't we? It matters not: dying won't be helping anyone now, on the other hand, it would weaken my position considerably."
"So you felt in the right when you put a new pair of lungs into me?" the displeasure seeped into the kinslayer's still unsteady and unsettled chakra, oozing into a distant echo of killing intent as he asked another question: "Who did you take my new lungs from?"
"Nothing so crude." the dismissal in Daiki's tone was clear as he bustled about the Uchiha, his hands hovering above him as he performed a battery of tests.
"You may have your ravens, but Sasori is an extraordinary bioengineer, and a dissected White Zetsu clone was surprisingly receptive to being manipulated through Nature Chakra: so you are now the proud owner of the first and only pair of lungs crafted by two S-rank missing nins."
"Sasori knows!?" for the first time, urgency seeped into the voice of the kinslayer, only for the extremely dangerous medic-nin to reassuringly deny that.
"I misspoke, I simply meant that Sasori and Deidara are extremely easy to manipulate when talking about art," Daiki finished his analysis by stepping behind the Uchiha and pressing his hands between his shoulder blades.
"nobody knows, of course. And I'd like to point out that any standard lung-swap, as you named it, would have bought you ten years in the best-case scenario: these beauties you've on will be a part of you like your old brain or new eyes."
Itachi lowered himself once more on his cot, his breathing coming easy and steady despite the weight that settled on his stomach, and while he parsed through the news, he turned back to focusing on the priority he had kept in his heart since he was a child: "And Sasuke?"
The question was loaded, and with only two words, he asked everything that ranged from 'what plans do you have for him?' to 'why did you allow me to know that you kept him?'.
"He's your trigger, doing anything to him that you'd see as harm will probably end up with me dead." Daiki explained openly.
"Frankly, the Sharingan makes the Uchiha unstable, and even if we have success or not in our primary and secondary aims, letting him go to eventually resurrect your clan is a potential danger to the Elemental Nations.
Also, given his Eternal Mangeyko and our future needs, he'd be dead useful, and he'd get to learn very quickly from the best with his fancy eyes, making him stronger and thusly safer, which is the warped logic that brought you to push him as hard as you did..."
...
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