The Illusionist
0
Gifted
It rained the evening after the end of Third Shinobi World War.
Itachi remembers the rain very clearly. There had been many bodies still lying around, in the varying stages of decomposition, and the rain had smelt like death, picking up and mixing the rot with the mud, the winds carrying the stench.
He's not sure why he went out. His mother had been distracted by Sasuke, trying to keep Sasuke safe from the diseases the wind could spread, so Itachi had been largely alone in the empty house, waiting for his father to return home. Maybe he had wanted to find his father; maybe he'd wanted his family together; or, maybe there had been some sort of cosmic force that drove him. Either way, he'd left the house with only his sandals and day clothes, and he had wandered in the rain until he was past the destroyed walls, into the darkness and the carnage.
He's not sure how far he wandered nor how long he stood out there, gazing out in the dim light of the overcast skies, damp and chilled to the bone. The rain had stopped at some point, but Itachi hadn't thought to move, standing in the wreakage of trees, rotting bodies, and pummeled stone. His father had found him like that, sometime afterwards. It's one of the handful of times Itachi can remember seeing his father frightened, and perhaps the only time in front of people not of the immediate family.
"Itachi. My boy. Itachi -"
His father had scooped him up, hugged him close. Itachi had wanted to hug him back, but everything felt numb and disconnected, his father's living, breathing body too stark a contrast to the world around them to be real. Nothing made sense, and, yet, everything did. People had done this; people had died; people had survived. Itachi isn't sure what he said when his father started to put him down, but he can't remember a time before or after when Fugaku hugged him so tightly.
"It will be alright," Fugaku tells him as he carries Itachi back to the village, away from the chasm.
That was the first of many times that his father lied to him.
Not long after the end of the war, his parents start fighting with each other, something they rarely did before. Itachi knows they think they're being discrete, but he can hear their hushed insults and snarls behind their bedroom door, finds the remains of broken dishwear and empty pots of healing salve in the trash. He wonders, secretly, silently, if it's somehow his fault.
He tries not to think too much about that possibility.
The clean-up of the war's carnage takes over a month; reconstruction of the village's wall and the buildings within over a year. Itachi observes the destruction being erased when he isn't playing with Sasuke. He sees much of the activity on the walks he takes daily to the library, picking large piles scrolls indiscriminately from the shelves rather than going to the librarian, who seems to have it in her head that he cannot recognize his characters yet. His mother comes every day around five in the afternoon to take him home, checking out the scrolls he hasn't finished without questioning him.
"Such a well-behaved and polite boy," the librarian praises.
"He's our pride and joy," his mother answers, beaming. "He's studying hard to be a great shinobi, aren't you, Itachi?"
Itachi nods, but it makes him feel nauseous. Him, a great shinobi. A glorious killer. He knows it's already written in stone that he will be that creature. His mother doesn't notice his unease as they walk back to the Uchiha Compound together, past the construction and new graveyard to the east. Itachi wonders if his mother even notices it, if all adults are so oblivious to things if it's not right in front of their eyes.
"I'm going to start making dinner. Why don't you play with Sasuke for a bit? He should be up from his nap soon."
Itachi nods and pads soundlessly to the nursery. It's in the best-lit part of the house and is probably also the most decorated and friendly room. Itachi likes the room; it suits his baby brother's generally sunny disposition. Sasuke is still asleep in the bassinette, eyes closed and breathing deep and evenly. For a moment, Itachi experiences a flash of jealousy; he hasn't slept well in months. But, as usual, the jealousy subsides, replaced by a sort of calmness that only Sasuke can awake in him, and Itachi simply stands over the bassinette, keeping a quiet vigil of his brother's breathing.
They call him a genius. He wishes they wouldn't. He doesn't like the way people look at him, the gleam in his father's eyes, the too bright smiles all around.
Shinobi arts come to him naturally, but that doesn't mean he doesn't practice. He practices in the time he has between Sasuke and reading not because he enjoys it (destruction: all he'll ever be good for), but because he doesn't have to associate with the children his father wants him to play with, to get to know better. He practices long and hard so he can kill the nightmares that come at night with black exhaustion, even if he can't block out the muffled arguments from his parents' room.
The one person besides Sasuke he does enjoy spending time with is Shisui. Shisui is patient with him, doesn't chatter about inane things like most of the other children, and can keep up with Itachi's training regime, at least most of the time.
"Ugh, I don't know why you read all of these things. I mean, even this girly stuff -"
"The Plum in the Golden Vase is a classic," Itachi answers, setting aside the scroll he's just finished and picking up the next in the series.
Shisui is quiet, much quieter than the other boy usually is, so Itachi takes a moment to look over. Shisui is holding the scroll Itachi had just rolled up and set aside, cheeks flushed as he stares at a particular passage. After a moment, Shisui scoots closer to Itachi, showing the passage and the pictures that accompany it.
"You know this is porn, right?"
Itachi blinks, looking over the passage and pictures again, before shrugging. "The story concerns the relationships between men and women. Sexual relations are usually very much a part of that."
Shisui gapes open-mouthed at him for a moment before leaning forward to examine Itachi, squinting. "How old are you, exactly?"
"You know how old I am."
"Well, you're more like an old man," Shisui declares, rolling the scroll up again but keeping a firm hold on it. "Can I borrow these as you finish them?"
"I thought you weren't interested."
Shisui just gives Itachi a disbelieving look before shaking his head. "Just let me borrow them. Please, cousin?"
Itachi nods once before turning his attention back to the new scroll, letting the story swallow him and gazing into the fictional lives both more complicated and much simplier than his own.
A few nights before he starts Academy, he comes home from having dinner at Shisui's house to his parents fighting.
He stands for a while in the hallway outside his parents' door, listening to the uneven pounding inside, the shouted words and curses, the occasional sound of something breaking, all muffled by a hastily errected silencing technique. Itachi swallows, closes his eyes, feeling strangely disconnected again, in that way he's started to experience on and off since those hours along on the rotting battlefield.
The sound of Sasuke crying brings him out of it, that horrible empty place. He pulls himself away from the door to his parents' bedroom and walks silently down the hall to the nursery, sliding the door open and sliding it shut behind him. Sasuke is sitting up in the crib and stops wailing when he notices Itachi directly in front of him, eyes surprised as he hadn't heard his brother approach. Itachi reaches down and picks his brother up, clutching the boy to his chest and letting Sasuke hide against the collar of Itachi's shirt.
Itachi stands, humming and rocking his body back and forth to keep Sasuke from crying out again. He doesn't know what their parents are fighting about (it never is very clear), but Sasuke doesn't need to hear them. Itachi surpresses a shiver, knowing it would disturb the calm he's aritifically created, instead closing his own eyes, focusing on his brother's heartbeat against his own and blocking the sounds of fighting and screaming down the hall out.
He breathes in, breathes with his brother, and makes the signs for silence over his brother's head.
It's the first time that he uses genjutsu on his little brother.