Truly, the Sharingan was a curse.
Nobody knew that better than thirteen year old prodigy, Uchiha Itachi (or, thirteen year old killing machine, Uchiha Itachi), who was staggering away from the hospital, more in shock than in actual pain, after having dropped his baby brother for medical treatment.
When he was finally alone, away from the buzzing noises in his head and the screams he wasn't sure he made up – when he was finally alone in the thick of the forest, away from Konoha and his dead clan and Tobi and Sasuke – he held his hands before his face, stretching his fingers so, watching the dried blood cracking on the webs of his fingers.
When he was finally alone, and his hands and sword were stained as sinfully as his eyes, he understood, fervently, just how much of a curse the Sharingan was.
Years later, when he stood on a certain roof facing a certain rock, patterned beautifully with the Uchiha symbol, heading towards a certain child, the same one he left behind so many years ago, along with all his happiness and hopes, he was reminded once more of the lethality of the Sharingan's curse.
His vision was red, and blurry, and red. His Sharingan was a curtain of blood, draped prettily across his eyes. He could faintly make out his baby brother's silhouette. He roughly gauged the number of steps it would take from here to Sasuke, and he was fairly sure he could make it. He had enough breath, enough will in him to make it.
And so he walked, trudging forward even though his feet felt like pillars of lead and titanium and granite mashed into one impossibly heavy weight, fighting to lift his hand to caress Sasuke's forehead again – though, he supposed caress was too tender a word when the action was more suited to be referred to as a flick – and wasting his last thread of life on a smile and seven, eight words – he wasn't sure, he was too tired to count; had been too tired all his life, but he was finally able to collapse.
He supposed the words weren't wasted, though. It was meaningful. The spaces between the letters were stuffed with paragraphs of things he yearned to say but never could.
"Forgive me, Sasuke. This is the last time."
It was a good death, to be able to burn out and allow his brother's flames to take over.
It was a magnificent death.