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Itachi curved his mouth into a smile that did not reach his eyes.
"I think one child in the Perfumed Court is enough, don’t you?”
He brushed one finger against his mother’s sleeve, hand pale next to the coral bracelets he’d given her on her birthday last year.
"It is better that our efforts are concentrated. You know how vicious inner court rivalries can be, mother. Better have the second child conquer the outside world.”
Back straight, moving as if he was gliding, Itachi stepped past his parents let dark lashes hood his gaze. He gathered his robes and allowed one of the footmen to assist him into the carriage. It was facing the great gates.
The carriage swayed as it set into motion, and he was carried out of the compound. He felt the weight of his parents’ gaze, piercing through the lacquered wood and thick brocade curtains.
He did not look back.
***
“What reason could I possibly have to ever want to leave the inner palace?” Itachi asks, voice cool and indifferent.
“But don’t you want to see what’s outside? Interact with the world again? Leave all the rigid rules and scheming and meaningless political maneuvering behind?”
Shisui is loud and cheerful as ever and leans too close as he demands answers with a wide grin and sparkling eyes.
“Don’t you miss your family? You have a brother don’t you? They say he’s -“
Itachi turns away.
He does not want to know how far his parents have pushed Sasuke along the conqueror’s path. He does not want to hear that his brother is rising amongst the ranks. Does not want to hear that his brother, too, is nearing the Emperor’s courts.
“Aww, Itachi, don’t leave,” Shisui whines as Itachi stands up. “I’ll stop talking about your family.”
Itachi cannot move without knocking away Shisui’s hands, which have tangled themselves in his sleeves. He is wearing robes with five borders now, a sign of favour if there ever was one, but Shisui wears seven. Yet neither of them have ever laid eyes on the Emperor.
He needs to work harder.
“- Hey Itachi, are you listening? Did you hear how Mitokado threw a fit again? Someone switched all the masks and ceremonial robes, and he’s been screeching about what he plans to do to the culprit whilst running around trying to find which outfits go where.”
Shisui is grinning again, extremely self satisfied this time, and Itachi can’t help but feel a headache coming on. If there is a Mitokado shaped storm coming for his roommate, the fallout is inevitably going to splash him too.
***
“HOW COULD YOU?” Shisui howls. “I THOUGHT WE WERE-“
His voice is abruptly cut off as the guards finally manage to gag him. He snarls and struggles viciously, clawing and tearing at hands and eyes and robes, nearly throwing off the one pinning him down, and there is blood running down the guards’ faces, but there are ten of them and one of him, and there is absolute silence in the courtyard as not one of the inner court stood watching Shisui, Shisui the Favoured, Shisui the God Step, raises a hand or voice to help him.
Itachi’s gaze is as cool as the rest of them. Expressionless.
He stands neither in the front ranks not at the back of the crowd, but his face is the only one Shisui focuses on as he is dragged away by the detachment of royal guards.
It feels like a thousand eyes are staring at him. Pinning him down. Burning. Accusing.
With this, his ascension is guaranteed.
The sun is too bright. Itachi heads back inside.
***
Danzo is speaking to him.
He thinks he should pay more attention, that the whispered words contain meanings he should try to pick up and decipher, but he also thinks that whatever he does, it probably won’t matter.
Danzo is beyond him.
He has been here five years, but Danzo has been here fifty. He wears borders of gold and blue, but Danzo was there at the coronation of the Emperor, knew him as a boy, fought by his side. Danzo is old, and wily, and has sunk his claws deep. Danzo belongs to the Greater Courts, but has no less influence in the Perfumed Courts.
Perhaps even then, Itachi might foil him. He is favoured after all, and he has always been talented at seeking and manipulating power. His rise through the Perfumed courts is unprecedented. He too is a force to be reckoned with.
But Fugaku has been moving outside the palace walls, calling for things he should not. Fugaku who he has not seen or heard from for five years. Fugaku who has always had more ambition than Itachi alone can satisfy.
He wonders, briefly, how Sasuke is doing.
He cannot move forwards, he cannot move backwards.
“Lord Danzo. As you wish.”
***
He finally sees Sasuke again.
He had not expected this.
That Sasuke would arrive at the head of an army, but not one bestowed by the Emperor.
There are already plumes of smoke rising from the outer palace walls, and the screaming started and then stopped a while back. The courtyards here are deserted, everyone hidden away, waiting for news.
As the inner palace’s lacquered gates burst inwards, he sees Sasuke thundering in on a great black warhorse, armour glinting, wind whipping the tattered Uchiha crest tied to his spear. Horse and rider barely slow as they bear down on him, hooves clattering loudly against stone. Itachi can’t help but raise his eyes, desperately seeking a hint of recognition in Sasuke’s own, but finds none.
Has he changed so much, he wonders, as Kusanagi glitters high above him, or is he so reprehensible that Sasuke just doesn’t care?
Sasuke’s sword flashes in the sun.