He was on his way outside again, positively grinning by now, a bloodthirsty grin twisting his lips malignantly. There was death in his eyes, a dark look that would send even the hardest of his Craol running for the hills.
This was a look that drove Adelan Dragonriders to fall in their own swords. This was the look that Adela had so kindly posted up all over Ketra on his wanted posters.
Put simply, when he had this look, the reaper was coming. But he'd be awhile. A long, long while, if Itachi wanted.
He may be a criminal, a wanted man, a bandit. He may be considered one of the most dangerous mortal men in the entire province. But there was one thing that most people didn't consider when they thought of pain.
Itachi was also a doctor. He knew exactly how and where to hurt you. He knew how to bring you so utterly close to death that you could embrace it, and still wake up screaming in torment.
When he reached the man lying there unconscious upon the marble, Itachi stood over him for almost a solid minute, staring holes in his face. This man, this pathetic excuse for excrement had dared to hurt the woman he loved.
He reached down, down towards that mouth twisted in it's awkward pose with it's broken jaw, and grabbed at his lower teeth, curling his fingers and dragging him to a sitting position by his broken jaw.
That woke him up. The man absolutely screamed.
Itachi wrenched him forward, throwing him on his face in such a way that caused a snap as his jaw splintered further. He remembered the knife lodged in his kneecap, and grinned with glee as he stomped on that leg.
Then he hopped around to stand in front of him, two throwing knives already his hands. As the man on the ground whimpered and crawled forward, Itachi threw those knives straight down, penetrating the back of both palms and pinning them to the marble.
Oh, the screams, the way the echoed, the varying timbres that set his ears to singing!
He kneeled down, one knee on the ground beside the man's head. He grabbed his filthy, bloody hair, and lifted his head up.
"Do I got'cher fuckin' attention, friend? You an' me....we're gonna 'ave is a nice. Fuckin'. Chat. An' 'ow good ya are a' answerin' me questions determined jus' 'ow long th' chats gonna last, ya got me?"
The only answer was an unintelligible, whimpering loan.
"Oh, don'tcha go blubberin' at me now, I've barely started! Me an' you, we're gonna 'ave loads o' fun together."
"I'll 'ella anyfin a wanna-"
"I don' wanna 'ear anythin', me bleedin' li'l friend. An' besides, when I do wanna 'ear sommat, I wanna be sure I'm 'earin' every fucking thing, ya stupid sod."
Itachi stood, and slowly began walking circles around the man, grinning all the while.
"Now, b'fore we ge' started, there's sommat ya gotta know. Tha' girl ya stabbed? Th' pretty 'un ya jus' abou' killed? I love her. D'ya know wha' tha' means, boyo? I'm gonna fuckin' kill ya, I won' lie. Bu' I can make yer las' breaths fuckin' burn, mate. How bad depends on you."
He stepped out, and pushed on the knife in the man's palm, angling it sharply. The agonized screams in Itachi's ear made him smile.
"There ya be. Tha's a taste for ya. Now, then. Why are ya 'ere?"
"Was...huntin....dragon."
Itachi quickly pulled another knife from inside his coat, and plunged it down into his right shoulder, shattering bone and rending the muscle.
"Ain' no fuckin' dragons 'ere, ya...did you jus' fuckin' piss yerself? You li'l bitch!" He delivered a rough kick to the man's side, and kneeled down by his head again. After the man quit screaming for a couple seconds, Itachi tried again.
"Now....why were ya really 'ere?"
"Really....dragon. Black-Hearth."
Itachi blinked. That name stuck true. And if Kaida was a dragon...
"Why ya goin' after this Black-'Earth then?"
"....'angerous."
"I'm fuckin' dangerous. Me girl inside is fuckin' dangerous. Yeah, dragons 're dangerous, bu' I don' see an army comin' fer us, do I?"
"No....jus' the dragon...."
Tink! Another throwing knife found itself in thr man's other knee, not quite sticking into the ground. Itachi's grin looked like it could take off the top of his head.
"Yer gonna run me outta knives, frien'. Best be singin' s diff'rent tune."
Meanwhile, the screams continued to echo through the mountains. Doubtless, Jaela would be able to hear it inside.
_____________
It was another forty minutes before Itachi finally decided the man didn't know anything. He'd left the man there for a time to stride back into the citadel, surprising several Craol that had come to investigate the screams with his blood covered visage.
Wirelessly, he had walked in past them, and a couple minutes later returned with a large bowl full of salt.
Itachi's mind was in a dark place, inventing new means of agony for the screaming man outside. His latest involved stripping the flesh from his back in patches, covering said pieces of flesh with the salt, and then calmly placing them back over the wound, like bandages. The man's back had to be on fire, having had the flesh literally stripped from him, the raw muscle liberally salted.
At least he wouldn't bleed to death.
He was just having fun, now, but eventually it had to end. At the end, Itachi removed all the knives he'd inserted into the various places of the man's body, drug him still-screaming to the ledge, and dropped him over the side.
And then the others, one by one, collecting his two daggers and what darts he could save, and then dropping them over the edge as well for the carrion creatures below.
Then, he dragged his blood-soaked self back to the Citadel, tired and worn, but with an evil glint in his eye.
