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{Feel free to listen to the spotify playlist, or click the embedded YouTube links, or read along in silence.}
The air was cold in her small room and heavy with the metallic scent of blood. Bunny was slumped on the floor, crumpled and twisted, limbs tangled into herself. She’d fumbled her shirt up, sitting wetly under her bra. She could feel the back against her wall, but it was tilted. Her breath shallow and ragged. Her hands trembled and she clumsily tried to wrap bandages around herself. Had practiced this a thousand times. Pressing, with a little gasp, into the the darkness soaking through her fingertips, starting from the lefthand side. Shakily bringing it around, the fabric quickly soaking through. Her chakra was nearly depleted. At this point, every movement a reminder of her failure to heal herself properly as she tended to the others first.
Now sitting here alone, herself unwrapped, she had to focus on the major one first. There were deep punctures from enemy jutsu-- and she couldn’t seem to stop the bleeding. It was slippery. She was crisscrossed with superficial slice wounds all over, her hands. They stung, like a thousand little burns. She tried to focus, to summon her healing chakra, but it was like trying to catch smoke through her fingertips. Again,- no. Again. Her mind was foggy, her energy slipping away faster than she could replenish it. Emptied in all ways.
Focus, Bunny, focus.
The edges of her vision blurred, darkening in like a closing curtain. Her fingers fumbled once more, her whole arm trembling, the bandages falling from her grip. Her body felt so heavy, her eyelids drooping.
Awake. Have to stay..awake..
A soft creak sounded in the room, but she didn’t notice it, pre-occupied with her battle with consciousness. Not losing, but certainly not winning. Shadows shifted in the dim light, stretching longer, darker, until they seemed to envelop her completely. Bunny didn’t see him at first. But, he had been watching.
Itachi stepped forward silently, his presence so subtle, so controlled, that it felt like he had always been there, part of the darkness itself. His dark eyes, deep and unreadable, took in the sight before him. He took in her bloodied figure, the trembling in her hands, the way her breath uneven as she tried to hold herself together.
Something flickered in his gaze, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared. He knelt before her.
“Bunny,” he murmured, his voice soft, but it carried an authority that pulled her back from the blackness swirling.
Her eyes fluttered open at the sound of his voice.. when had they shut? She saw him come in, right? She barely moved. Just a shift of her chin towards him. “Itachi…?”
He didn’t respond. He reached out, reaching and pulling her forward to lay her flat onto the ground in front of them. The motion made her feel like the world was twisting around her, nauseating. His hands reaching for the bandages on the floor she could no longer hold, could no longer see. His hands were steady as he began to bind the wounds, starting with the one on her stomach. The touch of his fingers was cold, but she was too weak to pull away, even though it hurt, even though she was too disoriented to question why he was here.
Why was he *always* there? She could cry. It felt the same- the blood loss, her body trembling coldly. Like shaking from crying. She was sad, in a way.
“Itachi…” she whispered again, a hint of confusion in her voice. She had seen him on the battlefield earlier, hadn’t she? Or had she? Her memory was in bits and pieces. A thousand flashes. She whimpered as he tightened the bandage around a particularly deep cut.
“You shouldn’t be doing this alone,” he said, his voice low, almost chastising.
There was a softness in his words, but beneath it was a quiet command, a sense that he was in control here. Bunny shivered. “I-- I’m the medic,” she stammered, trying to straighten up, but she was flat on the floor and the effort made her head swim and she was lost in it all. “I thought if I got here- my supplies..” she took a breath, trying to get air, to focus. He didn’t interrupt. “that… I’d be fine-”
“You will be,” Itachi said, not taking his eyes off her wounds. “But not if I hadn’t been here. You’re pushing yourself too hard, Bunny.”
His tone was calm, but there was something else there, something she couldn’t quite name. It felt like an iron cage around her, unseen but closing in with every word he spoke. As if she was placed in a box and the doors starting to shut, safe and dark but closed. But the door was half open still.
Bunny’s vision blurred again, and she leaned with the gravity of the floor, her head heavy, struggling to keep her eyes open. She didn’t notice the subtle flicker in Itachi’s fingers, the almost imperceptible flare of his chakra.
But she felt it- what she knew had been coming, somehow, the sudden heaviness in her limbs, the fog that began to descend over her mind.
{ play shades of black - valous israfil }
Sleep.
It washed over her like a wave, irresistible, consuming. Bunny’s breath changing briefly in realization, but she was too weak to resist. She tried to speak, to ask what was happening, but her voice faltered, slipping away into silence.
Itachi’s genjutsu was flawless as always, gentle yet suffocating. Executed without hesitation, unflinching as she protested thoughtlessly, spiraling. He slipped through her mind’s grasp like smoke through her fingers, like incense, like steam from a teacup curling. He watched as her body relaxed, her breathing slowing, the tension melting away from her as she succumbed to the illusion he’d crafted just for her. Her eyes softly closed and for a moment, to him, she looked almost peaceful like a painting. Like someone who had been resting for hours, calmly in their bed- instead of laying on the floor half gutted like an animal, blonde hair matted.
Peaceful. But they both knew this wasn’t true peace. It was forced.
He began to tend to her wounds with more precision, his movements methodical, practiced. The bandages abandoned now as the most offensive bleeds were held temporarily. His eyes lingering on her face now. He had done this so many times before. Watched her fall into that perfect sleep. Watched her wounds heal under his care, hot under his flattened hands, searing closed with a ruthless precision. Scarless. Watched her awake the next morning with no memory of his touch.
It was better this way. She would never understand, could never understand, the lengths he went to for her. The nights he had spent in her shadow, the enemies he had quietly eliminated before they could even approach her. Before they could even talk to her. Look at her, think of her. She didn’t need to know. He wouldn’t let her know. His genjutsu had wiped those memories from her mind time and time again, leaving her blissfully unaware of just how tightly his fingers were woven into the fabric of her life. He stitched her mind back together after, gently, lining up it all up scarless just like the wounds on her body.
He wasn’t just protecting her. He was claiming her. She belonged to him.
He had tended to each mark, methodically like units on a grid, each section glanced over assessingly. It was only now on her face that his gaze lingered, as he closed the last small cut, weeping fresh red blood on her cheek. His hand stilled here. Her skin was warmer now, a flush returning to her cheeks, so delicate beneath his touch. Only for a moment. Then, once he was certain he hadn’t missed any wounds, he carefully washed her with a warm cloth, rinsing the scabs and soft pink blood from her hair and her skin, changing her into another cloak she had laying over the dresser haphazardly. He’d clean the cloak smattered in the remnants of her violence. He laid her on the bed, rustling the sheets around her, as if she’d tangled herself throughout the night, but left her still.
She was his, in a way no one else would ever understand. No one else could understand. He had kept her safe in ways she would never know. He had erased her pain, her fear, her knowledge of the darker forces at play. She had no inkling of the games cycling behind the scenes, the players on the board, and the memories he kept locked away. Hers once, but now his. Itachi’s gaze darkened, and his jaw tightened as he withdrew his hand.
Bunny stirred slightly in her sleep, a murmur escaping her lips. No longer pained. Softer. Itachi’s eyes softened briefly as he knelt closer, brushing a strand of now clean hair away from her face.
"You don't need to remember," he whispered, his voice barely audible. "I'll carry that burden for you."
He leaned back, watching her for a few moments longer, before standing silently. He allowed himself one last glance at her sleeping form before stepping into the shadows once more, his presence fading like smoke.
She wouldn’t remember this, just as she wouldn’t remember all the other nights he had come to her side, healing her, protecting her, erasing the truths she was never meant to know, or remember, or live through.
Itachi moved toward the door, his eyes cold, resolved. He would keep her safe- at any cost. He was getting tired of this- never of coming to her aid, never her. But of the suffering beforehand. He knew she was brave, and wanted to try, and he allowed her to have the facade of independence, but this time she had actually somehow slipped from his vision for barely moments. Had hid her injuries. And here they were. No. It was too much for her. Tonight was enough. And if that meant controlling every part of her world, then so be it. After all, she was his. She just didn’t know it yet.