Chapter Text
The second, the very next second, after Madara disappears using that dimensional jutsu of his, Itachi’s knees buckle and hit the cold metal sheeting of the rooftop he stood on.
His momentum catches up to him, and the reality of what he’s done begins to sink in. He had fully understood the gravity of his choices going into this. However, truly experiencing the aftermath of having acted on them and the effect it had on him is something else entirely. No amount of comprehension of the theory could have prepared him for this. A line had been crossed, there was no turning back. He feels dizzy and sick.
First it was Izumi. Sweet, brave Izumi who yelled at their classmates to leave him alone when they’d thrown rocks at him. Izumi, who sat on the dock with him, offered him her food, and assured him that he’d awaken his Sharingan soon. Izumi, who persevered when the death of her father unlocked her own Sharingan, and she found out the bitter reality of that power. Izumi, who comforted him when he found out too.
He shared his first kiss with her a few years after that, many years after the one they’d abandoned on the dock as children.
After what he’d seen during the Third Great Ninja War, Itachi had always been a contemplative and somewhat morose child, deeply misunderstood by those around him. Izumi had been a beacon of warmth that he felt he could return to in a world that, with the exception of Sasuke and Shisui, only felt cold and detached from him most of the time.
That is, until things became too complicated.
As the situation between the Uchiha and the village progressed, he forced himself to stay away for her benefit, not wanting her to be brought down with him if he was labeled a traitor by either side. He spent less and less time with her until they didn’t see each other at all, checking in silently from the ANBU tower instead.
She had not understood.
“Itachi, what’s wrong? I know you…you aren’t yourself. Don’t push me away…hey, you can talk to me.”
He desperately wanted to believe her. There were countless times that he thought about telling her everything, but he brushed it off as stress from his promotions, saying he didn’t want to talk about it. He knew that she knew he was lying, but she didn’t press the issue, patiently giving him his space.
“Itachi…is this about Shisui?”
It wasn’t, but at the same time, it was. She was the only one who dared to speak the man’s name to Itachi since the incident in the street that day. His father, who had witnessed the tail-end of things and averted Itachi’s near-arrest, acted like it had never happened, leaving Itachi alone with his grief. Often, he felt like everyone had forgotten his best friend except for him.
Shisui had gotten involved with Itachi’s predicament, and he paid for it with his life. He had not wanted the same fate for Izumi. At the time, he hadn’t known that she would die either way.
“Itachi…do you just not like me anymore?”
She said this with tears in her eyes, and this was the one that nearly broke him. He loved her, he was certain. He had never told her in so many words, was never sure how. He admired her for her cheerfulness, steadfastness, and grace, and time he had spent with her made up many of his fondest memories. She was so wonderful, even now when he was treating her so terribly, all she did was reach out over and over, offering him solace and a life line that he couldn’t accept. He could not bring himself to lie and tell her that he had no feelings for her, but she took his (painstakingly) emotionless look and his silence as an answer in the opposite, accepted it with as much dignity as she could, and left.
He didn’t see her much, after that.
In the chaos of the night, as bodies fell all around the Uchiha distract, as the element of surprise wore off and panic rose, he had broken into the home she shared with her mother. She cried out then, the sound desperate and blood-curdling.
“ITACHI!”
He didn’t know how she had recognized him, he was still out of her line of sight, even with her Sharingan. It was then that he realized she hadn’t called his name because she’d identified him.
After everything, when she was terrified and thought she was going to die, the first name Izumi cried out for help…was his own.
The significance of this stole the air from his lungs and felt like a crushing weight in his chest. From his hiding place he let out a shaky breath.
But he was not here to be her savior; he was her assailant.
In an act of mercy that felt too little too late, he put her under the Tsukuyomi. He appeared in front of her and startled her, and before she could even register that he had indeed answered her call, or get over her shock, his Mangekyo Sharingan spun, and she collapsed into his arms.
He showed her decades that they could’ve spent together, if fate had been kinder. It took a great deal of effort to turn his Mindscape from its apparent default black and red to normal color, but Itachi didn’t think it was a wasted one, he had enough chakra to complete what he needed to do.
He showed her their wedding; the weather was perfect and the trees were in peak bloom. He smiled down at her softly as they stood, now adults, in their wedding kimonos, ready to walk out and be pronounced husband and wife, and she was so so beautiful.
“Are you nervous, Itachi?” she asked, and her voice sounded far away and odd in this world, but he knew that it was still her ; her personality, speaking of her own free will, although her mind was filled with memories he’d manufactured leading up to the one they were currently in.
It caught him off guard, and his breath hitched for a second, which only served to confirm her suspicions as she giggled at him.
“I’m not,” she said confidently, “I’ve known for a long time that it was always you.”
He was so moved by the sentiment that a slight blush rose in his face. “I did, as well,” he murmured honestly, before manipulating his chakra within the Tsukuyomi again.
Next, they were in the home he imagined for them. She was sitting on the couch contentedly watching their children, an older girl and a younger boy, play together. Itachi settled an infant, another boy, into her arms.
“They look more like you,” he told her.
It was true, the two boys had Izumi’s brunette hair instead of the raven black of the Uchiha head family. Their eldest daughter, even with her darker hair color, was the spitting-image of Izumi in her facial features.
“Itachi, you’re not about to flatter me and say something like ‘thank goodness’ or ‘it’s for the best’ or something like that, are you?” She teased him.
“I would never,” he replied, but the smile on his lips gave him away.
“Hey, I’m back from my mission, dropping in to visit,” someone called from the foyer.
Sasuke, as Itachi pictures him when he’s a young man, still wearing his jonin uniform, entered their home only to be swarmed by his niece and nephew. A mischievous grin broke out on Sasuke’s face as he picked up their squealing middle child easily by his armpits and swung him around playfully while the boy laughed with glee.
“Sasuke has really grown up, he’s a wonderful uncle,” Izumi commented next to him, pride shining in her eyes. Itachi had to agree.
He showed her graduation ceremonies, anniversaries, birthdays, and grandchildren.
The last thing he showed her was the two of them, now in their eighties, an age many shinobi don’t reach unless they retire early, are extremely cowardly, or extremely skilled. For them, it’s the last.
They sat in their rocking chairs on their porch, and even as her elderly self Izumi is still so beautiful.
She didn’t say anything that time, just looked at him, smiled, and took his hand as they watched the sunset together. The genjutsu world around them faded to black.
When she woke up, only a moment had passed in the real world, and he was still holding her, closely and tenderly. Blood streamed down his cheek from the exertion of using the Mangekyo, but it was thinned by his tears.
Izumi, ever insightful and aware of the plans of the Uchiha clan, as well as Itachi’s involvement in ANBU and her concerns for him, was able to put together a semblance of the truth in her mind.
“Ah, thank you for showing me,” she said. She reached a hand up to cradle the side of his face, and the contact caused his eyes to fly open as he attempted to calm his unsteady breathing.
Perhaps Izumi did not want to spend her last moments on a fight she knew she couldn’t win, and that’s why she never struggled. It was too late for a lot of things, but she chose to give him the one small bit of peace that she could by forgiving him. Itachi knew he did not deserve it, and that his conscience would not allow him to be absolved so easily for this, but in her infinite kindness she offered it to him anyway.
“It’s ok, Itachi, really,” she assured him softly, “it was a beautiful life, I wish you could’ve stayed in it with me…,” she said with a slight frown. Maybe even she herself didn’t know if she meant the Tsukuyomi or the real one. He forced himself to look her in the eye and nodded.
“Thank you…for loving me…the way…that you did,” he told her between sobs. She made a sound like she was going to say something, but he didn’t wait for her response before squeezing his eyes shut and plunging his katana up through her back before he lost the nerve.
After removing his blade, he lay her body down gently, and took the time to close her unseeing eyes.
Izumi lived all those decades in his Mindscape as if they were real before her death. He had lived them just the same as her, but now he had to go on with his life in the real world with all its cruelty…
On the subject of cruelty, there was also his very last meeting with his parents.
He did not wish to fight his father, he did not wish to do any of this, but somewhere along the line the importance of ‘Fugaku, the Uchiha clan head’ vastly outweighed the duty of ‘Fugaku, husband and father’, cultivating short-sightedness and ignorance in both roles.
To have to face the man in combat now would only be a violent end to a relationship that had been adversarial where it should’ve been nurturing.
His pulse pounded in his throat when Fugaku confronted him in the street, criticizing his ideals once more; something Itachi had long since closed his heart off to, feeling only numbness where it should have stung.
But it was only a Shadow Clone.
When he entered their family home for the last time, his parents were already kneeling in their tea room, ready for their execution.
Everyone else in the clan, save for Sasuke, was already gone, their bodies growing cold at this point. Perhaps his proud father thought all was lost already, that it was better to die with some dignity than to live with the desolation of his clan, and be the head of nothing.
Regardless of any other reasoning, he told Itachi, “ I do not want a deathmatch with my own son. ” Maybe it was true.
His mother was quiet, as was her usual way.
In some perverse form of closure, Itachi’s father told him that he was proud of him, and Itachi could not recall another time that his father had said he was proud of anything besides his son’s fighting prowess, power, and strength.
The proclamation “y ou truly are a gentle child ” rang hollow in his ears. Itachi knew he was nothing short of monstrous -
Itachi’s eyes finally refocus and begin to see the metal roof beneath his palms again. His breathing is shallow, and he doesn’t know how long he’s been lost in his recollections for. He picks himself partway up, kneeling back on his heels, looking up at the blood red moon. The solemn promise he made to his parents before he cut them down repeats incessantly in his mind.
“Itachi, just promise me this, that you’ll take care of Sasuke.”
“I will.”
How his father had known that Sasuke had been spared, he didn’t know. Maybe that was one of the few things his father had understood about him; his deep love for his brother.
Itachi would flee the Leaf Village tonight, leaving Sasuke behind in the hands of the Third Hokage, keeping tabs from a distance.
But no, that didn’t seem right…did it?
As much loyalty as Itachi had for his Hokage, he wasn’t blinded by his respect for the man’s position, at least not enough to overlook his failings. The Sandaime’s actions, or rather his inactions, had contributed largely to the shambles they now found themselves in today. Despite his talk about using words to find peace, Sarotobi Hiruzen had never shown up at the clan meetings to address their concerns, nor on Itachi’s father’s doorstep to talk of resolutions.
The Hokage had the power to prevent the seclusion of the Uchiha clan, orchestrated by councilman Danzo Shimura and one of the largest contributors to the ostracization and growing discontent of the Uchiha. Arguments had been raised by Itachi’s angry clansman, but the Third had not intervened, passively parroting that his childhood friend knew best.
On the subject of Danzo, his presence gave Itachi more reason to be disconcerted leaving Sasuke in the village.
To prevent upheaval within the Leaf, and potentially instigating the coup early with the Uchiha, Itachi had hidden the matter of Shisui’s eye from both sides. Danzo had not hesitated to commit such a violent act against Shisui, ripping his eye out of his skull, obliterating his plans for a peaceful resolution and forcing him not to return to the Leaf Village, lest questions begin to be asked. Of course, the plan had most certainly been to take both his eyes and leave him for dead. Even if he had chosen to take his own life in the end, Shisui’s blood was on Danzo’s hands.
His beloved cousin had told him that Danzo already had a Sharingan in his right eye, hidden under those bandages, which he sacrificed in the forbidden technique Izanagi to escape Shisui’s genjutsu. Heaven only knows where he got that one from, but Itachi doubts that it was a willing gift, freely-given like in the Kakashi Hatake incident.
Even if it weren’t for Shisui’s death or the Sharingan issue, Itachi didn’t trust the man on principle. He knew from personal experience that Root was an organization designed to handle more unsavory missions that normal shinobi would refuse or not be able to stomach, and therefore due to its nature worked somewhat independently of the Hokage. But Danzo seemed to think himself above the law of Konoha, an assumption that was often proven correct by Lord Third. What would a man like that care about breaking a promise to keep Sasuke safe? Itachi imagines not much.
Leaving his precious little brother in a village that was heavily influenced by a Kekkei Genkai thief who the Hokage was unwilling to stand up to did not appeal to Itachi at all.
But…even if Sasuke were safe in the Leaf, what kind of a path was this for him to walk?
Itachi had a plan, of course; Sasuke would stay in the Academy and become a formidable and accomplished shinobi, a valuable asset to the Leaf, capable of protecting their birth village that Itachi still loved and cherished. He hoped that love had been ingrained in Sasuke as well, and that he would cling to the Leaf in the wake of the massacre.
Sasuke certainly had the talent to become great, despite their father overlooking it, and Itachi was about to give him the motivation.
The line between immense love and absolute hatred became very thin once one was betrayed.
He had resigned himself to do it, to put Sasuke under the Tsukuyomi, and show him every gruesome detail of the demise of their clan…but now…he finds his resolve wavering.
Itachi was willing to sacrifice everything, even the love of his most treasured little brother, in exchange for peace and Sasuke’s life.
However, if Itachi did what he intended to do…what kind of life would it be?
If he cruelly ripped from Sasuke’s hands the last meaningful relationship his brother had, told him he had merely pretended to be the older brother Sasuke wanted and had never truly loved him (something Itachi was not certain even now that he could bring himself to lie about convincingly), if Itachi was still alive, but gave Sasuke reason to despise him, and played the antagonist of his existence…
Sasuke would be sacrificing a great deal too, without ever knowing or agreeing.
Itachi hoped that Sasuke would make friends and allies within the Leaf, and grow to find happiness there. But at the same time he couldn’t afford for Sasuke to become too content in his life in the village and abandon the pursuit of avenging their clan. What would he do if Sasuke did find peace and acceptance? Would he return to ruin any shred of happiness that his younger brother did find in order to provoke him further?
And after everything was said and done, if Sasuke did find happiness, would he be such a broken person by then that he would not be able to accept it?
No. If Itachi did this, Sasuke would be pushed to live his life for one singular purpose; revenge. No love, no friendship, no sense of having somewhere that he belonged; only cold, vicious hatred would fill Sasuke’s previously innocent heart.
Wasn’t that far too high a cost to inflict on the little brother he loved so dearly?
Hadn’t Itachi done everything he’d done in part so that Sasuke could have a brighter future?
It is worth asking, why did he really want Sasuke to come after him? To rid the world of himself, is the easy answer that comes to mind. Itachi could only pretend to serve the Akatsuki for a limited amount of time before he was asked to contribute to something that would harm Konoha or the world as a whole, at which point he would either be forced to do it, or betray them. The latter might poke holes in Itachi’s carefully crafted false-persona, and raise questions that he didn’t want asked, since they might jeopardize the future of his village. In the public eye, he was forced to play the part of a ruthless criminal. He needed to be dealt with, it made sense for him to be stopped.
But he had to admit to himself it was not the truth, at least not entirely.
Deep down, in his heart-of-hearts, within the places he’d refused to acknowledge until this moment, Itachi knew that what he was really looking for was absolution from his guilt…and he’d been desperately clinging to the idea that dying by Sasuke’s hand would bring it to him.
But on some level it would make Sasuke satisfied…wouldn’t it? All the blame for the loss of his clan, neatly wrapped up in one person to take his revenge on. No complex politics or cloak and dagger schemes to worry about. It would be over, and Sasuke could move on.
…But when Itachi looks at the scorched path that would lie behind Sasuke on that journey, he can’t help but think that it would never be over for his little brother.
No, he’d been wrong, wrong and selfish and a coward to try to use Sasuke as a means to that end.
Itachi’s ideals were not Sasuke’s, and he couldn’t force them to be. Human beings were too unpredictable. Far more important than that, Sasuke was a valuable person with his own thoughts and feelings, not someone to bend to Itachi’s will. Perhaps Sasuke would protect Konoha in the aftermath of the Uchiha clan being wiped out, but perhaps he would not. Sasuke did not know what Itachi knew, and although Itachi planned on playing the part of a cold-hearted villain, acting of his own volition and accepting sole responsibility, if in Sasuke’s traumatized mind he somehow still placed blame on the leadership of the Leaf for not protecting the Uchiha, all was lost.
Itachi was…manipulating him. In some part of his mind it had registered before, but never consciously until this moment. Itachi had thought that, despite the pressures he was under and the reprehensible and unforgivable choices he had been forced to make, he was in control. With clarity he hadn’t had in some time, in the middle of his breakdown on the roof, he realizes he hasn’t been thinking straight.
He fists his hands in his long bangs, grits his teeth, and squeezes his eyes shut again as he rocks forward.
It wasn’t right.
How could Itachi uphold his final vow to their parents if he went through with this? How could he leave his little brother in a den of thieves while he himself was a world away? How could he live with himself if he psychologically tortured Sasuke at only seven years old just to accomplish some ultimate, and truthfully self-indulgent, plan?
There were no children in the shinobi world, but how could he himself be the one to put an end to his brother’s naivety? How could he live with himself knowing that on top of everything else, he had broken Sasuke’s spirit too?
How could he, how could he, how could he??
That was just it.
He couldn’t.
He wouldn’t.
The epiphany hits Itachi with enough force that he physically lets out a gasp.
But somehow in this decision he feels lighter, more certain, than he has in some time.
Danzo and his conditions be damned, Itachi was going to protect his brother and keep him close.
Sasuke would be leaving the Leaf Village with him, tonight.