to make kakashi suffer as much as possible for no reason other than for fun. itachi is pure evil and utterly sociopathic with no empathy for anyone or anything but hismelf. also shown when he coldly ordered sasuke to murder his friends for power.
He's good at acting evil/bad.
he is evil so hes not acting
Hardly anyone knew the truth about Itachi, and Itachi kept it that way.
for no reason as peopel keep reminding me, no one would believe him even if he did try to tell them
And he wanted to beat up one of Danzo's pets to let him know he's still alive. He wanted him to know he was still out there and would kill him if he touched Sasuke
and mere hours after that, itachi completes the destruction of sasuke's mind by torturing him for 24 hours and beating him almost to death
It was either that or kill Kakashi.
death is preferable to sadistically torturing someone for several days. ask any captive of war.
He needed to incapacitate him,
no he didnt. he could have used a clone and retreated, he could have incapactiated him with a physical blow to the neck, he could have used a distraction like a katon blast etc. i find it funny that itachis hyped to be a genius yet his big ideas for avoiding killing people are wasting chakra and putting people in comas.
aybe he was subconsciously "teaching" kakashi so he could protect sasuke
how do you protect anything if your in a fukin coma. and hes not teaching anyone anything except that kakashi now knows how it feesl to be tortured for no reason by a psychopath
even Kakashi wondered why Itachi didn't kill him
immediately after he says that, he passes out and then itachi orders kisame to murder kakashi in cold blood.