In The Walking Dead as Itachi Uchiha ?! (TWD)

The screen flickered, casting a cold light across the desk. I scrolled back up, slower this time, eyes landing on the sentence.

'If accurate, we weren't treating a disease. We were watching someone weaponize it.'

I needed to find every single last detail about this.

So I kept going.

I read every log. Every buried message. Whatever the CDC had uploaded. One by one. Digging through file trees, archived transmissions, encrypted backups. I didn't stop. I couldn't.

I needed something—anything—to give me a lead.

Most of it was clinical. Reports about walker experiments.

'Cerebral reanimation initiated at T+2m31s. Motor reflexes low. Cognitive baseline: nil.'

'Decomposition accelerated post-turn. Tissue decay consistent with prior autopsy results.'

'Test group B showed no signs of reanimation after 18 minutes.'

'Complete brainstem necrosis confirmed.'

'Infection rate remains constant at 100%.'

Each file read colder than the last. The more I read, the more I could feel them slipping into despair. Logs got shorter. Typos appeared. Updates fell days behind, then weeks. 

And then I saw it.

A video file buried inside 'FINAL_TRANSMISSION_FR'.

Jenner appeared on-screen. Less tired. More hopeful. He was speaking into the camera, alone in the same lab I sat in now.

"I want to know more about these 'variant cohorts' you referred to in our last communication," he said quietly. "We haven't seen anything like that here at all—nothing close."

He tried reassuring them.

"I hope this finds you as well as you can be. I hope you don't lose faith. The day will come when we're going to beat this thing."

He smiled.

"At least, that's what the 'other Dr. Jenner' keeps telling me."

Closing the video, I rechecked all the timestamps. Over and over. Trying to piece together the order. Trying to make sense of it.

France had sent Jenner everything: files, behavior reports, neuro scans. They knew something was wrong. They knew it wasn't natural.

Jenner never saw any of it firsthand. He said so himself. "We haven't seen anything like that here at all."

And the last message from France… it said they'd detected artificial genome edits.

And nothing more.

I needed to find Jenner and get the information, one way or another.

There were too many pieces missing. And the more I looked, the less it made sense.

I shut off the monitor and made my way to Jenner's room. We don't have much time left before this whole place goes up in flames.

I moved through the halls without stopping, heading straight for his door.

Jenner's door was still unlocked.

I opened it and stepped inside.

He was still in the chair—head tilted back, a half-empty glass resting loosely in one hand.

I stepped closer.

"Wake up," 

He didn't react.

I spoke again, closer.

"Dr. Jenner."

His eyes twitched. Then opened.

He blinked a few times, confused. Trying to focus. His grip tightened slightly around the glass.

"What—?"

The glass slipped—clinked softly as it hit the floor.

His body jerked backward, breath caught in his throat.

"You—" he exhaled, shaky. "Jesus! What the hell—"

I placed one hand over his mouth.

"Quiet"

His eyes went wide. He froze, heart pounding wildly in his chest.

I leaned in, voice low.

"You'll wake up the others."

He nodded slowly, scared.

I slowly released my head from his face.

"I want to know everything about the variants. Every little detail France told you. Don't leave anything out."

He stared at me, still in shock.

"Wait—how do you—"

I pulled his keycard from my pocket and held it up.

That shut him up.

He exhaled slowly.

"If you read the reports… that's all we knew. At first, we thought it might've been a mutation, something natural. Or maybe other variables affecting the virus. But the last message they sent… it pointed to something else. Something darker."

I watched him for a second.

Then spoke.

"You said you haven't seen anything like this here. Are you sure?"

He nodded.

"Yes. I'm sure. Nothing we've seen even comes close. We've been collecting samples from across Georgia since the outbreak started. All standard behavior. No signs of coordination, no higher function. Just… the virus doing what it does."

I stared at him.

"When I was in Atlanta, I saw walkers trying to smash through glass with rocks."

His face shifted.

"They climbed fences."

Silence.

His eyes didn't leave mine.

"That's impossible..."

"But… but how?" he said, voice starting to crack. "I studied those files. The variant versions had to be injected with some kind of serum. It's not like the airborne strain. There's no way it could've traveled all the way from France—"

I didn't move.

"They're probably not the same," I said.

He looked at me, confused.

"The ones I saw… they only showed basic intelligence. Nothing about being stronger. Or faster."

Jenner leaned back.

"...Then someone else is doing it."

He looked away for a second, like the thought had just hit him.

"It's not spreading. That strain was never airborne. But if you saw walkers showing learned behavior…"

He trailed off, swallowing hard.

"Maybe there's another group. Trying to do what France did. Recreate it. Or push it even further."

His voice dropped lower.

"God help us if that's true."

"Who else might have had access to the variant data?" I asked.

Jenner hesitated.

"Everyone..."

He looked at me.

"Not the public, only the ones in a position to act. When things got worse, the data was shared with every major group. Medical facilities. Military units. Higher-ups."

He ran a hand down his face.

"We thought more eyes would mean a better chance of stopping it. But if someone twisted that information…"

I held his gaze.

"How far could they have taken it?"

He shook his head.

"Not far. If anywhere. Recreating what France did would be… practically impossible. The data we have on the variants is very limited."

I watched him.

His voice was steady, but I could see, how hollow it sounded. How much weight he was still carrying.

He didn't believe in anything anymore. Not the cure. Not the science. Not himself.

He just sat there, waiting for the clock to run out.

And now I needed him more than ever...

I stepped closer.

"Everything you believed in, your research, your hope for a cure, the woman you loved, it all feels meaningless now, doesn't it?"

"The world fell apart. She died trying to fix it. And you're still here… just waiting to follow her."

"You think death is peace. It's not. It's silence. And silence forgets."

"But if you give in now, everything she did, everything she died for, ends here."

"Your wife's name is already fading. But her work doesn't have to. You can still carry it. You can still make it matter."

"I don't care if you're broken. I don't care if you're tired. What matters is that you're breathing. That means you still have a choice."

"You say there's nothing left. But if you come with me… maybe her death won't be the last thing the world remembers."

"Carry her work with you. Make it matter. Don't let her dreams wither away. At least die trying to complete it, right up to your last breath.

Jenner didn't answer at first.

He just sat there.

Eyes low. Shoulders slack. 

Then quietly, he let out a breath.

"You don't understand..." he muttered. "I watched the world end in real time, files, calls, the screaming, then static. Every connection we had was gone. Just like that."

He looked up at me. There was something in his eyes now. Fear. Grief.

"She believed in it, the cure, the science. Even when the rest of us were ready to quit, she kept going."

A bitter laugh escaped him.

"I had to be the one to… to end it. To make sure she didn't come back. God, I—"

Tears slid down his face as he struggled to speak. His voice cracked, caught somewhere in his memories.

"She believed in it. In people. In the work. Even when this place was falling apart. The power kept cutting out, the bodies were everywhere… and she still thought we could fix it."

He wiped at his face slowly, like it hurt to move.

"I told her it was hopeless. That we were wasting time. But she wouldn't stop. She said if we quit, then it really is over."

"So I tried to push forward... tried to make her proud."

His eyes dropped to the floor. His voice was almost a whisper now.

"Every night, I'd sit in that lab, staring at the notes she left behind. Her handwriting... still there. Like she was just out getting coffee."

"But she wasn't... She never came back."

He suddenly snapped, voice rising, raw and cracked at the edges.

"Do you know how it feels to be stuck in this cursed place, day after day studying your wife's dead body?!"

His hands shook. His chest heaved.

"To watch the person you loved more than anything reduced to data points and time stamps?"

"To dissect her death like it's just another case study, because that's all I had left!"

He grabbed at the air like he didn't know what to do with his hands. Like grief had nowhere else to go.

"She died screaming. And I kept watching it... over and over and over again. That was my life..."

He dropped to the floor, sobbing now, loud, broken, no longer holding anything back.

And only then did I truly see it.

The pain he carried.

The weight of it all, crushing him long before the flames ever would.

I stayed there, seated on the floor beside him. I didn't speak. Didn't move.

Just let the silence settle between us.

For once, he wasn't alone in it.

The sobs faded, little by little, until only his breath remained, uneven, shaky.

He didn't speak. Neither did I.

After a while, he reached up with trembling fingers and wiped his face. His eyes were red, raw, but no longer wild. Just tired.

Then he turned, slowly, and looked across the room.

A small photo sat on the corner shelf.

He pulled himself up slowly and walked to it.

Jenner picked it up with both hands, like it might break if he wasn't gentle enough.

He stared at her face. And then the tears came again, but quieter this time. 

He stared at her face for a long time, thumb brushing over the glass.

"Even after she was bitten…"

His voice was hoarse, distant.

"She volunteered. Said it might help someone. That maybe… maybe her death could still mean something."

He gave a short, bitter laugh.

"And what did I do?"

He turned slightly, not looking at me.

"I locked myself in here. And waited for it all to end. God…"

He let the words hang there, trembling.

"I'm pathetic."

Another breath. Then, quieter—almost a whisper:

"But if there's even a chance… that I can still help someone..."

He looked back at me. Eyes still red, but a different kind of fire behind them now.

"Tell me what you need."

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🧪 Author's Note:

Hey everyone!Hope you all enjoyed the chapter! 

This one was a bit shorter, but that was intentional—I really wanted to focus on Dr. Jenner as a character. In the show, we never truly saw how broken he was. We saw what losing Lori did to Rick… now imagine being completely alone, trapped underground, and studying your own wife's corpse. 

So I tried to bring out the emotion, the weight of it. Just raw, human pain. Hopefully that came through.

As for why Jenner decides to help—it couldn't just be about survival. It had to be about his wife. She never gave up. Not even after being bitten. Even in death, she believed her sacrifice could help someone. That felt like the only reason that could truly reach him… and pull him back from the edge.

🧬 About the Variant Walkers:

You won't be seeing them again for a while—not until France. What I wanted here was to give a lore-based backstory for the strange walkers we saw back in Season 1. The ones that climbed fences, used tools, or remembered how to break windows with rocks. 

They're not everywhere. They're not spreading. They were isolated, possibly the result of early testing before everything collapsed. This chapter just plants that seed.

👉 So don't worry—this story won't suddenly become all about 'smart zombies.'It's a whisper from the past. A mystery for later.

( ← these are the ones I meant, if anyone's curious.)

Now a Question for You All:

I've been thinking about a possible future Itachi + Negan team-up

They'd unite to crush the more brutal survivor groups—without Glenn dying.

But what do you think?

Should they team up?

Or should Itachi and Negan stay enemies?

Let me know in the comments! I'm honestly open either way depending on how the story flows.

💬 And Lastly… Feedback Please!

I'd love to hear what you think about this chapter.Seriously, positive or negative, every bit of feedback helps me get better.

Did Jenner's breakdown feel real?

Was the emotion too much or not enough?

Drop your thoughts below. I read every single one.

😅 And sorry for the long-ass note!But hey, if you made it this far, you're a real one. Thanks for reading!