"He -- what?" Itachi stared at her, completely dumbstruck and nearly speechless. He barely even heard the rest. Sasuke killed -- it must be a case of misinformation. After all, the same had been true of reports of Sasuke's death just before he had come to the Institute. But he couldn't stop Sasuke's voice echoing through his mind, "At what point in time were you taken?" Sakura. . . Sakura could be from a time in the future. A time when he was -- no, it had to be a false report. It had to. It had to, because he couldn't even think about this now. Of course he had to die at some point, and if Sakura played it safe she could easily still be alive at that time. That didn't change the feeling that a once-theoretical time limit had now become very, very real. Or the fact that Sasuke --

Sasuke. She was talking about Sasuke. He couldn't even think now; he had to give some sort of coherent reply, act normal, not display his confusion. He breathed in and out slowly, hoping she had noticed nothing. "There's no use being so loyal. Sasuke doesn't want you to follow him, and you would only be tying yourself down." He was not even going to touch her accusations, because as much as he knew keeping him from ever being happy to be objective fact, it was something new to hear it from someone else's mouth. Something that made it more real, though it really should not be anything he cared about. Especially not now, not here. He could not afford to care about anything other than getting out, so he could --

-- what? Die? Yes. Of course he was going to die, everyone did. He only had to accomplish what he had set out to accomplish. And for now, he had to ignore this.