NARUTO BELONGS TO KISHIMOTO. My first Naruto fanfiction, hope you enjoy!
When he slept, he dreamt.
He hated it. He had always hated dreams, annoying mixtures of illusions and reality.
He hated them because they muddied lines, boundaries, between the real world and the imaginary one. He hated them because they were tendrils of reminders, things that crept unwanted into his mind, or was it his mind that was unwanted?
He was seeing things in them, strange, melancholic scenes of the past. Nostalgic, he would have called it, if not for the layer of thin red mist that insisted on veiling his vision no matter how hard he squinted, hard enough for tears to moisten his eyes. Except the viscous liquid that dripped down from them was not salty and clear but metallic and red.
And then, only then, did he see the moon hanging overhead, bloody-or was that just his eyes playing a trick?-and hanging like a steak from the butcher's shop.
Then he woke up, always, just before what he knew was coming appeared-a child's horror-twisted face, dark eyes that burned with hatred, eyes that once mirrored his own.
Before they had gone and betrayed him.
He did not look into the table mirror the inn provided when he woke up, he did not want to see red so early in the morning. Funny that he, a genjustu master and an Uchiha, would be scared of his own trade tools. Except he was not scared, not of his own weapons, not as a ninja. It was more revulsion and disgust mixed in with dislike, a sort of vindictiveness towards eyes that had so easily destroyed him.
People used to call them crimson, remarkable, they said, amazing, they exclaimed.
They were not crimson, crimson was too bright for them. Crimson was the colour of Sasuke's eyes, no, of his Sharingan; the colour of something pure and brilliant. His eyes were red, the plain, dark, colour of blood, tainted and nauseating.
Only one person had called them beautiful, she had said that they were like jewels. She forgot that people did not call jewels red, they were carmine or ruby. His eyes were like the liquid that pooled beneath her on that night.
He clenched the banister as he descended down the stairs.
He heard laughter, a little boy was running around his grandfather. He shuddered as the face turned towards him. He knew that strong, clenched jaw, the deceptively angled eyebrows, the hard mouth. It was all painfully familiar except for the blurry edges, like a photograph that was taken too fast. He stared at the boy. He had dark eyes, but it was too dim to make out what colour they were.
It was only when he got closer that he realized the old man had white hair with saggy flesh and the boy's eyes were brown.
He could not see quite so well anymore. His eyes were no longer able to pick up movement as acutely as before and his head hurt from squinting to make out the outlines of objects. Slowly but surely, the world was fading away from him like yellowed newsprint in the sun.
He was going blind.
He had known that of course, the consequences of placing such strains on his eyes from the constant pulsing of chakra. He had not expected those accursed eyes to turn on him so soon.
The first time he had woken up in the middle of the night and found that he was surrounded by blackness was the worst. He was frightened, a foreign, chilling, feeling he had not experienced in years. It grew better as his night vision grew worst, to a point when he could hardly even make out the light of the moon. He had never been partial to the moon, so that was fine.
Now he was losing his daytime vision as well. He was not frightened anymore.
It was a strange feeling, losing sight, like watching sand slide through his fingers, so slow that he felt almost detached, but continuous and unstoppable.
He approached the outskirts of town. The old lady was there as usual.
She sensed his approach and reached into her worn sack, holding out a packet wrapped carefully in paper. He reached out his hand and she immediately pulled back, a sly smile on her face.
"Forgetting something?" Her voice was uncommonly strong for such a frail looking body.
He threw the coins into the tin can beside her with a satisfying clatter. She clicked her tongue. "So little respect for the elderly, boy."
He pushed back the sardonic grin that was threatening to stretch his lips, if only she knew what he really was.
But she did know, or at least had a good guess, good enough to prepare what he wanted. He hid the square of paper in his palm and turned to go before she spoke again.
"You are losing the light."
It was such an ironic statement to him that he stopped in his tracks, tempted to laugh. With surprising ferocity, she seized his wrist, forcing him down with unexpected, but not uncommon, strength.
She traced her fingers over the lines in his palm, resting on his pulse.
"How long has it been?" she asked.
"Six months, maybe six and a half."
She whistled, puckering her wrinkled lips together. "You've held out longer than most," her lips twitched, "you've done enough."
She was almost tender, he wanted to laugh even more.
"How long?" He was surprised at how shaky his voice came out.
She considered, almost hesitant to answer, "Three months usually, for you, maybe four."
He was not surprised, he had expected that.
She let his wrist go, and the words tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them, "How is it, being blind?"
She was amused.
"Bad, at first anyways. You get used to it in a few years, not to say that it gets better, you just get used to it."
"I don't have a few years." He was glad his voice came out even, but there should not be any reason why it would not. He had already accepted this fate when he chose his path.
"I know." Her reply was equally as steady. For a moment, she worn an expression almost skin to pity, but it was hard to tell with the sun stinging his eyes.
"How long do I have left?" He was shaking, he could feel it, hard as he willed himself to stop.
She did not answer for a moment. Lost in thought, her head wobbled like bird's, a bird with a broken neck bone. He stood up to leave.
"Half a year at the most, you won't last long without those precious eyes of yours, not in your line of work." She licked the chapped skin on her lips, revealing toothless gums.
He felt her unseeing gaze on her as he walked back to town.
He was not disappointed, not really, he just wished that he had more time to plan things out.
He swallowed the bitter medicine with a grimace and rinsed his mouth with cold water.
It was time to get back.
The sun was setting, it would be dark soon. He would not be able to see anything once the sun set, but the others did not need to know that, he would travel by night.
On his way out the door, he accidentally caught a glimpse of his iris in the bedside mirror; they looked the same as always.
He walked through the drowsy neighbourhood, the sunset dying the landscape a bloody red.
Red like Itachi's dreams.
Reviews are appreciated!
Author's Note
I actually hated Itachi when he was first introduced in the series. But in the end, his death was so tragic that he became one of my favourite not-so-evil villains. He is one of the best developed manga characters I've ever encountered, cheers to the author! I'm just messing with him in this fanfic :).