Notes: Because tragic-heroism isn't always that pretty. Here are some little dirty deeds done for the greater good.
Yes, it's another one of those let's-all-angst-over-the-Uchiha-massacre drabbles. XD
Because I had been wondering if all that crack had impaired my ability to write angst.
Warnings: Picks at Itachi's golden glow - if he has one.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Five Deaths
One.
Madara has already finished his half of the clan.
A centuries-old vendetta, consummated in only a portion of the time it takes Itachi to clear out a street, and even then Madara must have been wantonly taking his time crushing out his descendants.
It had been mercifully… easy… so far. His katana had so far gored only five men, all of them Sharingan-eyed shinobi, as if the slow-bleeding-spin of tomoe makes what he is doing okay, makes it forgivable, makes it duty.
The next slays would be far more unbearable.
Already within reach is a third cousin – chuunin, can't quite sing a tune to save her life, grew irises on her windowsill, just last week taken off active duty for maternity leave –
Fuck.
She turns around as he stalks closer, cheeks rosy, smile at the ready –
He slices her – them – to halves.
He does not have the time nor luxury to feel shame.
Two.
Itachi remembers this house well, the cold grey walls and its military cleanness, the tricky latch, the cellar deep underground that housed him during the most heinous times of his life, when the world above was rendered to bone and ashes.
He does not spare these fixtures even a glance, does not look also at the articles on the walls – a prized kunai from the Fourth, a family portrait in charcoal, a headband that would never be slashed – he goes straight to the sickbed.
The couple is old – fragile bodies and loose translucent skin – and the wife is too slow to look up at him from when she was keeping vigil.
Once upon a time she'd been the quickest kunoichi in the clan, quick enough to grab two insignificant little boys before shrapnel of Iwa could steal them away, bring them to where her medic husband was huddled with scarcely-washed bandages and blackmarket chocolate.
Age has plucked away her deftness, and she does not even notice the killing blow come.
Three.
Itachi knows he must, must, must conserve his chakra, for everything that comes after this night will be a tribulation that he must, must, must survive.
But what he knows does not stop him from weaving this child – this child who has Sasuke's face, his eyes are playing tricks on him – into a deep blissful genjutsu where sunlight shone over green fields, where Hokage mountain was made of spun sugar, where he was allowed to bug his brother for shuriken lessons – where his parents weren't sprawled out bleeding on the floor because Itachi-niisan of the head family had decided to sell them all out.
The genjutsu is potent enough that the cold, merciless blade is only the sliding of hair over skin – ticklish.
Four.
There was once a family, an epitome of a family.
A hand at the shoulder. His mother looks imploringly at him.
"Itachi – love –" He grinds the blade in harder, knowing Sasuke is near – he does not need to witness this, even if the aftermath is not much better – and whatever his mother wants to is lost to the abyss. You.
His father is still in the throes of a tsukiyomi, clawing at the bitter illusions with a skill worthy of the Uchiha clan head, and Itachi can read, if not hear, his croaks – my son, my son – and whatever he means to allege by that, Itachi does not give him a chance to elaborate. His father dies without waking from the nightmare.
Five.
He looks away before Shisui dies, does not give his closest friend even a last parting glance – a selfish look of heartbreaking apology Shisui does not deserve to have as his last sight on earth – for he cannot lose what little advantage he has.
The sharingan works through the eyes, and so does clemency. One look and Shisui will live. Konoha will burn.
He turns his back to Shisui, the Uchiha emblem like a condemnation.
He knows, however, the exact moment death rips away the breath and life and sparkle from Shisui and he hates him for dying so easily, too easily.
His eyes sting with the Mangekyou.
But then it might be tears.
End.