Opening his eyes, Itachi quickly glanced at Pein and told him to wait for a moment while he talked to Imi.
He might have told him his whole plan, but he wasn’t sure whether Imi was up to it, and he didn’t want to get everyone’s hopes up if nothing was going to work. Pein paused for a second, but then remembered being told about her telepathy and gathered that was how Itachi was going to talk to her, and so nodded in acceptance, saying nothing as he closed his eyes and took a breath, thinking of Imi once again and trying to form a connection. He just hoped she’d answer; there were plenty of things that could have changed in the time it had taken for him to decide to do this, whether those ninja having knocked her unconscious or Imi simply having worked herself up to a point where she didn’t feel she could talk to him. Itachi could only hope otherwise—
And was rewarded when he felt the connection form.
Imi was a little confused. She hadn’t been expecting Itachi to contact her again, but now that he was she wasn’t sure what he was planning. She was torn as to what to do; desperate to help and to fight back, but unable to find the strength to do so. She tried to search herself to find the anger she felt at how these guys had killed her family all those years ago, but she couldn’t find anything. Imi had never been the kind of person to hold onto grudges—she preferred to move on with life, and it was what she had done then. Now, ultimately, it meant she didn’t exactly hold an inner fury towards them for what they had done. True, she would never truly forgive them, but it wasn’t enough for her to lose her temper and forget the fear that they had created.
But would Itachi try and force her to do something? The idea of fighting her fear seemed utterly impossible right now—these men represented not only Imi’s worst fears, but of what she considered to be her worst faults and shortcomings. There was still guilt left over from that night, feeling as if she had been the one to let her family down—that it was because of her that they had died. There was also a part of Imi that felt bad for causing trouble for Itachi now, and all in all Imi felt just as overwhelmed as she had done the first time. She didn’t know if she could do anything, as much as she hated it, and clenching her fists with the thought, she shut her eyes tight and lowered her head, trying to fight the tears that were now slowly making their way down her face. She hadn’t cried in years; since the last time these guys had appeared. Imi had never been a very tearful child, and after that moment, she hadn’t thought she’d cry again. Yet here she was. But it wasn’t a surprise, was it? It was her fault—like it always seemed to be. But what could she do? The moment she considered getting up and breaking free she froze up. Itachi wouldn’t ask her to do it…would he?
Maybe it was better they just killed her and got it over with. It would make it a lot easier on everyone else.
Though her dark thoughts were interrupted when Itachi's voice appeared in a head a moment later. Imi didn’t say anything to begin with, expecting him to try and coax her into fighting back, and in a way, she was warming up to the idea. Even if she just attempted it, then they would attack, and she could let that be the end of it. But Imi knew she wouldn’t be able to force herself to dismiss the paralysis of her fear. So it was a bit of a surprise when Imi realised that that wasn’t what Itachi was talking about at all. That, in actual fact, he was telling her that was the last thing he wanted her to do, saying softly,
“Imi, it’s ok. I’m not asking you to do anything. But you’re still conscious and able to use your abilities—is it possible for you to sense around for me? To sense where you are?”
Realizing he had no idea where she was, and that she still had the ability to figure it out and tell him, Imi took a deep breath, and pushing away the images of her past; all the bad memories that had been running through her mind the past couple of hours, she wiped away her tears. Regardless of whether or not she had the psychological strength to overcome her fear, Itachi was providing her with something she could do, and it was comforting to know that he wanted to know where she was. As such, it gave her the strength to release her abilities and stop blocking them off and to begin sensing around her to figure out where the ninjas had taken her. It was easier than she had expected it to be, however. Now she felt as if she had Itachi on her side, it wasn’t much of a struggle to push her memories aside and focus on the task at hand.
A task, which, in fact, didn’t take very long at all. They hadn’t taken Imi far, obviously still counting on the fact that as the Akatsuki were just using her for information, she wasn’t particularly valuable to them and they wouldn’t make too much effort to search for her and get her back. They must have thought that, in that case, they wouldn’t have needed to go far, and so they were only a few miles away, hidden in another stretch of forest in an abandoned building that must have been used as a prison at some point or other. But with this information now firmly implanted in her mind, Imi returned to the present and checked quickly to make sure they weren’t keeping an eye on her to stop her from using her abilities—though evidently they didn’t think she was up to that, either.
Safe in that knowledge, Imi connected telepathically with Itachi again and told him the location, using her abilities to give him the specifics just in case, causing Itachi to sigh inwardly with relief. For a while he hadn’t been sure Imi had been going to respond; though he had asked her to use her abilities to sense her location, he knew it must be difficult for her. He wasn’t about to rush her, true, but he hadn’t had any clue how she was feeling or what was going on there—the telepathy connection only allowed him to hear her voice and nothing more. For all he had known, she could have been struggling to deal with everything and not doing well.
So to hear her voice replying, and quicker than Itachi had expected, was definitely a relief, and Itachi listened carefully, committing it all to memory. He felt bad enough as it was with all that had happened; he wasn’t going to make anything worse by getting anything wrong. But once he was certain he knew it off by heart, he added softly,
“Thank you, Imi. I knew you could do it—them being there doesn’t make you weak. I promise you I’ll be there soon, alright?”
Before his voice disappeared from her mind—but suddenly the situation didn’t feel so desperate. With those few words, Itachi had managed to calm Imi, and a calm expression fell over her face. Now all she had to do was wait—something the Akatsuki weren’t willing to do as Itachi opened his eyes once more, questioning as to what was going on. Knowing they needed to hear the plan now Itachi knew more, he finally spoke up, explaining where she was and just who these guys were, but swiftly adding on afterwards as the others began to clamour to get going,
“There’s no point all of us going. It wastes time and resources. Trust me. I won’t be long.”
Pein might have protested, but the cold glint in Itachi's eyes made him hesitate and hide a smirk—Itachi was willing to kill everyone to get Imi out safe. As such, Pein relaxed, responding calmly,
“Take Kisame as back up—just make sure you bring her back.”
Itachi nodded and immediately turned and started to head off, Kisame following on afterwards, taking mere seconds to dissipate into the trees. The focus was on getting to the hideout of these ninjas and nothing else, meaning no words were spoken between Kisame and Itachi for now. But there was nothing to say; there had been no need to reply to Pein's words:
There was no way Itachi was coming back without her.
