Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. This is a songfic to Amaranth by Nightwish – lyrics can be found on the internet.

He didn't like being called a prodigy. There was nothing special about an innate ability to kill, brought on by unlucky genes and witnessing the horrors of war so early on in life. Crimson first bled into back irises when he was eight – a feat his brother later surpassed at the tender age of seven – as a mission came perilously close to failure. His sensei was down and he and his fellow Genin – both several years older than him but still too young for conflict – were frozen in terror. He was frozen, too, but then the blade came too close to him and his inheritance activated, forcing him to move and killing the ninja that wanted him dead. His family had been so proud of him and it was all he could do not to curl up into a ball and cry for the loss of the innocence he'd never had, and the loss of the illusion of innocence he'd been living. The crimson eyes he now sported had forced him to see the world in its true light and he didn't like it one bit.

People called him perfect but all he saw when he looked at himself was flaws. He was too weak to stand up to his family and tell them that no, he would not be their little genius, their 'pipeline to the village'. He never spent the time he should with his beloved brother, always forced to make empty promises of 'later' – a later that would never come. He tried to shoulder everything by himself and it led to his own destruction, as well as the destruction of everything he held dear. He was unable to save both his clan and his village, and yet people still murmured his name in a reverent fear – the boy that had single-handed killed his entire clan. They always missed that he hadn't quite killed them all – he'd failed to kill his younger brother, instead setting him on a path of darkness and destruction. But not even the same brother would acknowledge his weaknesses; even hated he was still the perfect one, the unbeatable one, until he was finally beaten, but by his own flaws – his fatal flaw.

The death of everyone killed him, too. Sure he was still breathing, could still see everything around him and react to it, but he was seeing through dead eyes that slowly darkened to black until he was entirely blind, just waiting for death to stop hovering and finally claim him. He was reacting on instincts driven home far too young. The only ones that had made him feel alive were dead to him now. His cousin, the one he called brother, was gone without even a body to bury. He didn't want to know what the older boy had done to himself as he sank in the river. His other brother – the one of his flesh and blood – was no longer the sweet, innocent boy that begged for him to play (train) with him, but rather a cold-blooded killer that viewed the world with a terrifyingly cold indifference, unless those now crimson eyes settled on him in which case hatred filled them. The loving younger brother was dead, just as his loving older cousin was. Without them, without his rocks, he was floating aimlessly in the sea of life, waiting for his lungs to fill enough to finally drown him. And when they did it was because his younger brother had held him still long enough for his breaths to consist of nothing of the bitter water of failure, the same way his cousin had left him all those years before.

The organisation he joined, somewhat unwillingly, promised peace. Peace was all he craved for – he'd killed for it, corrupted for it and failed for it – and seemed to be the one thing he was cursed to never experience. The red clouds' idea of peace was twisted until it was almost unrecognisable. They wanted to cause a war, to kill hundreds, even thousands of innocents – because everyone was innocent, really; life just threw the wrong things in their paths – just to prove what pain was really like and scare the nations into a watchful peace. But watchful peace wasn't true peace. Fear was unhealthy, especially in such large doses.

It wasn't difficult to pin the blame on one person. Some people would say it was the fault of his clan for being too power-hungry. Others would blame the founder of his clan for the war-like tendencies he liked to portray. Still others would blame the rift between two powerful clans driving them to ruin. He didn't blame any of them. The one to blame, pure and simple, was himself for being too weak. What was the good of being a prodigy if he couldn't even protect those he cared about the most? What was the point of being a loving older brother if he'd later twist that love to hate and force the innocent boy to kill him, after ripping to shreds any naivety or childhood the poor boy could possibly have retained, even in the profession of a killer?

He learnt the hard way, in the end, that he couldn't shoulder all the burdens himself. He'd tried to spare the village the guilt of being responsible for the death of their most powerful clan but that had backfired, with him needing to ask for help from a notorious criminal whose identity he never learnt, inadvertently drawing the masked man's attention to his brother. Yet another mark in his record of failures. He tried to keep his village informed on the movements of the organisation, but inevitably he – and therefore his information – wasn't trusted. He gave up, after a while, needing to be satisfied with just watching his brother grow. But his brother wasn't growing so much as transforming. Five years on from the self-imposed mission (it wasn't self-imposed but at least this way he could trick himself into calling the village itself blameless) and the boy was unrecognisable. His eyes were never designed to be so full of hate but they were, and it was all his fault. He died a failure and when he was resurrected, albeit temporarily, he sought to fix the damage, even if it meant relying on those that thought him a traitor.

He told his brother that reality was subjective, but really he was telling himself that. He didn't want to admit that this monster in front of him was his creation, rising from the ashes of his sweet little brother, but he knew that this was his reality. Just as his brother was convinced that the lies he had spun were the truth. It was what he supposed to believe, but that didn't make it any easier to stomach when their eyes clashed and the boy fought back with such hatred it left him shocked and in denial. But this was a truth he could not deny – his brother was a monster and it was all his fault.

In the same way he had no cause for blaming the young boy for his hatred. Fake it might have been, all he'd shown him for the past eight years was blank eyes and illusions of destruction and death. He'd made the boy believe he was evil, made him forget the loving older brother he'd once tried to be (he was, but sometimes he doubted that it ever really came across as such), and as such only received hatred in return. He deserved it, for the evils he had committed, but that didn't stop him from wishing that he could smile fondly at the boy and hold him when he had a bad dream.

He found it quite apt that his eyes bled when he used the techniques he'd gained from his cousin's death. It was a last bit of memorial – the only open grieving he could give because no-one recognised it as such – for the life he'd left behind and the bodies that clouded his consciousness. His heart never stopped crying, but real tears flowing down his face would have ruined everything and so he had to suffer in silence. The big man from the mist would laugh about their similarities – the death of multiple comrades by their own hands – but he would cry for the innocents that were cursed from the moment of their birth, because they were born into the wrong clan; the clan of hatred that consumed all its members. All but one, as curly hair and laughing black eyes sprang to mind. He could never keep such a happy image in his mind for long – all too soon it would turn to empty, bleeding sockets and a sorrowful smile before something slimy was pressed into his hand and the older boy turned his back, requiring his help to make the jump. He grieved every day and welcomed the darkness as it encroached upon his vision. Then he could feel the moisture on his cheeks and pretend they were real tears, and not blood leaving his body because of his abilities.

He had to be careful as he completed missions for the dawn. They wanted him alive, and believed him loyal, and any blip in that conception would lead to his ultimate failure as he had no doubt his younger brother would become their first target, as opposed to his younger brother's best friend – the one he refused to kill to obtain higher powers. He was proud of the boy for resisting that particular allure. He'd resisted it, too, but then the image of his cousin's death would force its way to the forefront of his mind and he'd be reminded that in the end he'd had no choice. It was an honour to have been trusted so by the one he admired, but at the same time it was a heavy burden, and one he would never be rid of, even after his eyes completely lost their sight. Most people referred to it as the losing of their light, a phrase he would have to coin to make those around him believe his intentions to be real (his false intentions that covered up his true thoughts of death and guilt), but his light was already gone, the night his clan had died by his own hands. Maybe even before then, when his cousin had given up. Even in his now-twisted state his brother would still bring a temporary candle to his darkness, but even that wasn't enough to keep the void completely at bay, not that he wanted to anyway.

It was not unusual for him to tell his large companion that he was going for a walk and did not expect to be followed. The isolation helped him, in a way, because he had always been isolated even within his family, aside from his closest relatives who insisted on grounding him. But they weren't grounded themselves, any more, and they were the main reason he now walked in this never-ending darkness. No-one from their organisation knew how to settle – indeed, settling made them vulnerable to being discovered and killed – a fate that still awaited them despite their best efforts as the puppet master and young bomber fell (the young bomber that reminded him what he'd done to his brother as both strived for his death, urged on by his perfect ocular powers). Their perfection made them imperfect to him, but most would not view it that way and sometimes he had to use another's eyes, another's perspective, just to keep whatever scraps of his sanity he could possibly hold onto.

People would rather flee than face him now – somehow he struck more fear into a person's heart than his companion, despite the inhuman features and the massive sword strapped to his back. Most of these people that cowered in fear could probably overpower him in an instant, if only they disabled his eyes, but they never seemed to realise this. He never wanted to be feared – he'd much rather be anonymous, hiding in the shadows like a true shinobi, according to his cousin. It saddened him to see so many brave people lose their composure at the sight of one young man who should still be with his mother for when the world got too much. But he no longer had a mother to hold him, or a father to confide in (not that he ever did) or even a younger brother to forget his worries with. No cousin to pull him from the impending darkness when his stoicism threatened to fall and no clan to support him through thick and thin. He was on his own now, and that scared him more than anything else.

As his sight grew ever closer to failing he realised that the darkness was what he wanted to see. He wanted to join his family in death, even if he didn't end up in the same plane of existence as most of them for his crimes were too great to not spend an eternity in eternal suffering, but then again maybe this was hell? Maybe he had died and his punishment was to wander the world forever more, cursing his inability to stand up for himself and everything he held dear. The only thing that could even begin to pull him out of the darkness was the darkness of his brother, the unnaturalness of it shocking him back into the light as he desperately tried to pretend that he didn't care, that the only thing he wanted now was to take his brother's eyes and restore his sight. He didn't want to see again. He'd rather live in the world of dark lies he inhabited now than be thrust back into the world of pale truths where he'd have to face what he'd done, and what he was responsible for.

Death came for him in the end and he was glad. It was a long time in coming but finally the monster that he had created from the ashes of his brother's innocence delivered justice to him and he fell, using his last actions as a safeguard because all he wanted was to protect his little brother, no matter how twisted he had become. It was time he got what he deserved and he was able to die with a smile on his face. But death wasn't ready for him and he was spat down to earth in a false body and with impulses to do things he didn't want to do. It made sense, though. He'd never given anyone peace, so how could he expect to receive it himself, even in the dark thrall of death?

His brother had worsened in the brief time since he'd died and it was all he could do not to weep as he heard the admission that the village would be destroyed for the pain it had caused him. He was touched by his brother's new-found loyalty, and pleased that he could now see some semblance of the child he'd destroyed years ago once again in the face that looked at him for guidance as he tried to find a way out of this hell once again. His failure to protect his brother from the masked man, even after all his careful planning, grated more than slightly, but at least his death had allowed for the boy (a man, really – he'd grown up years ago) to get stronger through nature – the nature of their clan, anyway – as he watched those eyes turn from black to crimson and a pattern that was unmistakably partially his own.

He no longer had his eyes (they might have his techniques, but they weren't his because his brother had them now), so crying was once again not an option, no matter how much his heart keened for the wrongness of it all. His brother wasn't supposed to want more revenge. He was supposed to go home, be welcomed with open arms for killing a notorious criminal and a clap on the back from the best friend that never gave up on him, despite the near-death experiences they had inflicted on the other. Maybe, maybe he could subtly convince his brother to change his mind… He scrapped that train of thought instantly. He'd tried to manipulate him before and what was standing before him was the perfect evidence of how well that worked last time (not at all). No, now he had to let go and allow the younger to make his own decisions without the bias he provided. It was best that he left his life for good, but he had to at least honour his brother's request for once in his life, just to alleviate his guilt ever so slightly. So he didn't lie. He showed him the truth – the truth he already knew but wanted to hear from the source – and was finally able to tell him the words he'd wanted to for so many years, but had never been able to ("I will always love you"). The barest hint of contentment on his face told him that the gesture was not unappreciated and gave him hope that all was not lost. Not for his brother, anyway.

Nightmares plagued him throughout his later life – ever since he'd had to kill what he held dear – nightmares where he was at home again, with his family and enjoying his life. Its true nature as a dream of evil was only revealed when he awoke and noticed the inconsistencies (his father had never laughed like that, his cousin had never been that mental), and remembered what he'd ruined with his own two hands. Living in the past never did anyone any good, and yet that was the only thing he could do. He couldn't live for the present, not when there was nothing to live for, except his own death when it finally deigned to come and collect him, so he had to live for the past that would never repeat itself.

Sometimes the nightmares were accompanied by hallucinations. He'd be deep in the thrall of a nightmare and his companion would wake him carefully, much the same way his cousin used to. Then there'd be the brief moment where he didn't know where he was as he thought he'd heard his cousin's voice, when in actual fact it was that of his partner in crime, whose voice had been distorted in his head until he thought it really was the older clan member reassuring him that everything was fine. But it wasn't him, and nothing was fine, nor would it ever be again.

The tears would never stop, not those cried by his heart, anyway, even after death and in his resurrected form they still plagued him; still taunted him for being too weak to recognise his flaws until it was too late to do anything about it. Finally he was allowed to succumb to the darkness for the last time and knew no more, save for the deep sorrow that somehow managed to cling to his soul even as it left the world.

But a smile from the one with curly hair and laughing eyes greeted him when he was finally able to rest and as he was swept up into the arms of the cousin he adored more than anyone else (save for his brother, but he still had a life to live before he could join them in the land of the dead) and he finally felt free from his burden.

So I got into Nightwish a couple of weeks ago and this song just seemed to fit Itachi so well. Sorry about the jumpy timeline, it's vaguely in chronological order but not really. Hope it didn't confuse you too much.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari