Itachi watched as one of the crows he had sent after Sasuke's team once again left, having successfully delivered a status report.

Without his Sharingan he could see very little, but the smear of black flying down the cliff and into the varying shades of green smudges beneath him was noticeable enough.

The cliff was certainly steep enough that a fall would kill him.

From this height, the force of his body hitting the ground would snap his neck or spine immediately on impact. Either that or the resulting hemorrhage would actually kill him. There would be a moment about halfway down when his body would try to reason with him, pump him full of adrenaline until his brain convinced itself to act, but the death itself would likely be quick, painless.

It was not, he realized, the first time he had considered ending his life in such a way. It would not be the first time he attempted it, either.

"Is it one of those days again, Itachi-san?" Kisame had joined him by the cliff's edge.

He did not reply.

Sasuke was dead and if there were words to explain that they were not within his possession.

Sasuke was dead.

Sasuke had died.

Deaths had occurred, Sasuke's among them.

Sasuke had been lost.

That one he thought he liked best. It was vague but also true in its possible meanings: Sasuke had lost his life and Itachi would not be able to find him. It cast the shadow of an additional party, the possibility that Sasuke had been lost by someone.

In this case, lost by him.

There was a hand on his shoulder. Kisame was rarely so careless in making physical contact with him. "Itachi-san, perhaps you should come sit and eat."

Perhaps he should.

He looked down.

He could not technically tell how high they were without his Sharingan activated. He wondered if being able to see it would somehow change his mind.

"Itachi-san," Kisame's tone was still light, casual, but he could sense a growing discomfort. In the past these incidents had been so easily resolved. "It would be a shame if you died so easily after coming this far."

Would it?

There was an implication in it, that by surviving this long he had accomplished something.

There was much Kisame had guessed about him over the years. There were, however, still many things he did not understand.

He might have had the chance to do something worthwhile with his life at one point. No longer.

His brother was dead.

He couldn't think of anything worth doing now if it didn't bring him closer to Sasuke.

Kisame fidgeted beside him, perhaps growing nervous. They had largely respected the other's personal decisions despite their many philosophical differences.

And yet, Kisame had always been strangely fond of him. He wondered if that respect would extend to a decision as grave as this.

"You told me once that the way we die says a lot about who we are as people, didn't you?" Kisame was no longer smiling. "What are you trying to say right now, Itachi-san?"

The time where anything he said might be effective had passed.

This was what he wanted; it had been what he wanted for a very long time.

This was what Sasuke had wanted.

And yet, there had been many things he assumed Sasuke had wanted.

"Kisame," he eventually replied, looking past him and towards the half-dead jinchuriki slumped against one of the trees behind them, "Forgive me."

AUTHOR'S NOTE

As always, Naruto is not mine; these characters belong to the one and only Masashi Kishimoto

This is a chapter from a multi-chapter fic I'm working on, but I saw a tumblr by the wonderful sakurasdivorcelawyer and got a little trigger happy on this section.

The WIP is essentially a canon-divergence AU where Sasuke dies against Deidara and the rest of the shinobi world has to deal with the consequences of that; I'm not anti-Sasuke (quite the opposite) but it's a train of thought I've enjoyed developing.

I have played around with the timeline a little (the jinchuriki referenced is Roshi, who had actually been killed prior to this in canon) but otherwise not much is different, except now Sasuke is dead. This occurs immediately afterwards, when Itachi gets the news.

Title taken from Anthony Hecht's Birdwatcher's of America.

Comments, questions, well-made parodies, and kudos are, as is tradition, greatly appreciated.