"Reach out and hold me
Take me by the hand
Take me far away
Take me away
You are the only one
The only one
Across a thousand oceans
I call your name
Across the black fields
I call in vain"
(Ikon, I've Been)
First there is the encompassing, silent blackness.
Then, a primitive fear. The kind that beasts experience when they face danger.
He can't breathe.
He digs his way out of the dark suffocating womb; blindly, he claws at earth and rocks, until air fills his lungs and coughing and screaming like a newborn he is comes in the world of the living.
Later, only sensory impressions.
The chilly air.
The moonlight.
The distant cry of some animal.
The crows cawing.
The sun rising.
The heat on his skin.
The sandy ground under his feet.
He has no thoughts, no feelings, no memory, no direction.
He moves, like a leaf carried by the wind, unable to tell where he ends and the outside world starts.
Time doesn't exist in this primal state.
Sun and moon chase after each other many, many times.
Sometimes the moon doesn't show up and everything is dark but he is not afraid; it's not as black as the blackness he escaped from.
It's not as silent. Crows caw around him.
When his limbs are tired he rests. When his hands bring berries and roots to his mouth he eats.
Animals pass him by.
They are not afraid of him and he is not afraid of them.
He is not different from them.
Crows are always around him.
He is one with nature.
Tufts of grass gently tickle his fingers as he lies spread-eagled on the ground, looking up, unfocused, until there are no more fingers and no grass, until the starry sky becomes a sea he can float in like fine dust in a ray of light.
He is fluctuating through white puffy clouds in a sky-blue morning, when his heightened senses are alerted by noises that don't belong to the forest.
A crack.
High-pitched screams.
Low-pitched groans.
Farther away, feeble whimpers.
The crows stop cawing. They all head towards the same direction.
He rushes towards the latter. At the bottom of a steep slope there is a crib. Despite the fall it has no big damage; it landed on one of many leafy bushes.
Crows are flying in circles above it.
Inside the crib, a little creature with a little voice.
Yet his feeble whimpers are more powerful than any other noise or sound.
When he takes the baby in his arms he is hit by something powerful and unknown that cracks a deep opening inside him.
An opening that the baby fills with feelings.
Familiar feelings, even though for him nothing is familiar, except for the sky and the trees and the animals.
The familiar feeling of holding a baby in his arms.
The familiar feeling of protecting a precious life.
Suddenly he isn't a leaf dragged by the elements anymore.
Suddenly the appendages that pick berries and bring them to his mouth have a purpose.
Suddenly he has a purpose.
He easily climbs the rocky slope, making no sound, like a wild animal.
Or a shinobi.
On the upper side of the slope a woman is screaming the same thing over and over –her son's name –while struggling to lift a broken carriage and free the man trapped under it.
He never saw a carriage or a woman or a man but he knows what they are.
The baby makes him understand things.
He makes him know things.
When he approaches her –a young man whose long dark hair almost cover his face, whose ragged clothes barely cover his taut body –and places the bundle in her arms she stops crying.
He easily lifts the cart up. The head of the unconscious man beneath it is bleeding.
There is a piece of cloth on the ground but he feels that it's better to pick the one hanging from the wreck to clean the man's wound, before ripping it into strips and wrapping it around his head.
The baby makes him understand things.
He makes him know things.
When he's done the woman is up on her feet, ready to move.
He follows her, carrying the man on his back.
For the woman it doesn't matter that he doesn't utter a word.
To her he is the answer to her prayers.
A spirit of the woods, sent to rescue her and her family.
Life with humans brings clarity in his mind. Soon he is able to formulate thoughts.
Eventually he is able to speak, but there is nothing to say because he has no memory.
Only the feeling of holding a precious life and wanting to protect it.
They treat him with the utmost respect.
They still believe he is a spirit of the forest, he can tell from the way the woman asks him about future events he can't possibly know.
How can he predict the future of a baby when he doesn't know his own future, or his past?
He doesn't even know his own face: the only mirror they had got broken in the accident.
Despite their initial reluctance –whether a spirit or a victim of fate he was saved them thus he is their special guest –he helps the couple with farming and he takes care of the baby, a task he is particularly good at.
The only thing he's familiar with.
Sometimes, when he looks at the baby, his face changes. His skin becomes paler, his hair darker.
Sometimes he hears a voice; he doesn't understand the words but he is sure it's calling him.
Sometimes the voice is joyful. Sometimes it's sad.
Sometimes it's black and burning with deep anger and he feels crushed by its invisible weight.
Every time he turns around though, there is no one.
The family lives in a secluded area.
They leave their home only to go sell their products to the nearest market.
On seldom occasions, for it takes half a day to reach them, they meet relatives and other farmers.
Yet they don't feel lonely: their love for each other is all they need. It's all around them, from the way she laughs at his jokes, to his praises for her cooking even if she burned half of the food, to the light in their eyes when they look at their son.
Somehow he knows what it's like to love someone.
He feels it when he cradles the baby and the other one appears, only for him.
Once he is sitting cross-legged on the tatami floor, cradling the toddler.
The afternoon sun behind him is drawing figures with what he guesses is his shape.
A little hand reaches for him, grabbing a fistful of hair.
Suddenly he sees the other baby, his milk-white skin, his black hair. Suddenly he hums an unknown melody.
A gentle pressure on his shoulder shakes him out of his trance and the baby is no longer the same.
There is no melody on his lips.
There are tears in his eyes.
They keep saying that he can stay as long as he likes, even forever.
He is grateful to this young family; he likes helping them grow together with their land, yet he feels –he knows –that he doesn't belong there.
But where does he belong? Does he even belong somewhere?
The young mother is sure he will remember when the right time comes.
Should he not, it will be for his own good.
He wonders if she is right, every time he lays on the grass and becomes one with nature again, disappearing, melting in the moist soil, floating amid the clouds or in the sea of stars.
It's harder, now that there is a self to whom he pleads to remember who he is and where he comes from and where he is going.
It becomes even harder when someone sneaks up on him, shattering the remains of his blissful ignorant tranquility.
A pale, slender boy, clad in dark clothes.
His unruly, bluish-black hair like crow feathers.
A pale, slender boy, whose presence is unknown and familiar at the same time.
Blood-red eyes become onyx-black in front of him. Something tells him he should be more surprised.
A pale, slender boy, fighting hard against the storm raging in his eyes.
He doesn't understand his scarce words but he knows that voice.
The same voice that yells at him with burning anger. The same voice that cries at him with crushing pain.
The same voice speaking words he cannot understand.
He wants to ask him many things but he can't because the boy is suffering.
He can see it, he can feel it deep in his very soul.
He, who ignores everything, is sure of one thing: the boy must not suffer anymore.
Putting his needs aside seems natural.
Even though the pale young man muttered 'brother' before disappearing.
Even though when he does he feels like a part of his soul has been ripped away from him.
Even though that feeling is not new.
The people crowding the Hokage's office are positioned in a spiral-like shape, with its emanating point as Uchiha Itachi, while everyone else –shinobi, Tsunade, Kakashi, Shizune, Anbu officials –getting progressively away as they revolve around him.
Farthest of them all is Sasuke, the only one who changed the elder's countenance.
He has been patiently standing there for quite a long time, unfazed despite being surrounded by inquiring looks and being questioned about things he doesn't understand, until when the door opens and the boy appears.
Then he turns his gaze towards him. He's not hiding a mix of curiosity and uncertainty.
Sasuke has never seen his brother showing such emotions, a mixture of curiosity, anticipation and uncertainty; he's not even sure he is seeing them right.
Maybe it's just wishful thinking, maybe he is projecting his own emotions, and this is bad because he must think straight. He must be rational and detached if he wants to protect his brother and his family.
Even if it's his fault if Konoha got Itachi, who looks puzzled because he doesn't understand the mess he is into.
A mess once again caused by Sasuke.
One of the guards repeats what they already declared.
The stranger showed up at the gates without the obligatory authorization, a scroll that shinobi from other villages are given by their Kage, while civilians by their local authority.
It's rare for them to come to a shinobi village anyway.
Most civilians don't even know where Konoha is; it's called Hidden Village In The Leaves for a reason.
They questioned him about how he found the village and he replied:
"The crows showed me the way."
The crows were there when he was born from the grave.
The crows were always there for him.
His cryptic words sparkled a suspicion, even moreso his looks, once he took off the hood of the cloak he was wearing, revealing his face.
Wasn't he dead? Was that a clone? Could a clone have the same deadly abilities as the original?
The two chuunin promptly jumped out of the guard post and got ready to fight, averting their gaze from the man's eyes and hand and only focusing on his feet.
The shinobi lowers his voice, casting a nervous sideways glance at Sasuke, for old mindsets are hard to destroy.
The boy has no interest in them: he doesn't even see them. He sees only one.
To their surprise the stranger didn't attempt to fight back.
Nor did he cower or try to escape. He simply wasn't afraid.
He didn't even complain when they took him into custody.
All he did was ask if they knew him.
"What are you doing here?"
Sasuke didn't mean to sound so aggressive. Not against him, whose presence illuminates the room, brighter than the sun filtering from the window.
He means to attack the flicker of hope suggesting that his brother came all the way from Takigakure to Konoha for him, implying that maybe…
No maybes: Itachi's new life is not meant for him to meddle with.
He has been granted with a new existence, free the burden of a lifetime spent protecting him from afar.
He doesn't allow that hope to set his heart on fire, cutting it –and the heart that carries it–off with his blunt question.
"I wanted to see you again."
Itachi's earnest reply is astounding for Kakashi and one of the guards, who remember the formal, impassive shinobi from his Anbu days, and the cold-blooded killer he impersonated until he died.
Besides Sasuke, the only ones who witnessed the real him were Naruto and Killer Bee.
They described a man with a brilliant mind, a deep insight on the human heart and an unexpected dry humor. An excellent fighter and an inspiring leader who would do anything to protect his comrades and for whom his comrades would walk on fire.
As Edo Tensei he didn't have to obey to anyone, he didn't need to pretend anymore.
Nevertheless he was a dead man, whose only purpose was to stop the Reanimation Jutsu before returning to the peaceful nothing he came from.
He wouldn't allow himself to want something. He wouldn't allow himself to even think of seeing Sasuke.
When it happened, he kept the boy at a distance on purpose. He didn't even look him in the eyes.
Until he did, pouring everything he felt for his brother in his last words, in his last affectionate gesture.
Everyone freezes when he bypasses the guards with silent, graceful steps, to reach Sasuke.
Everyone thinks that he is the same lethal weapon who became Anbu captain at 13 and wiped out his entire clan.
They need to remind themselves that he is also the one who stopped the Edo Tensei, even redeeming Kabuto who cast it.
It's hard, for Sasuke, to keep his emotions under control and speak with a low, firm tone that is appropriate for a shinobi, an Uchiha, the brother of a hero.
It's hard, so hard to keep that mask on, for he is not perfect like his brother, but no matter how close Itachi is standing, he has to keep his distance.
No matter how intensely he is staring at him, he can't break his resolve.
No matter what Itachi says, he has to set him free.
"Is your family doing well?"
Itachi seems confused by the boy's polite yet cold inquiry.
He came all the way from Takigakure only to see the pale slender boy with the stormy eyes, whose voice talked to him, whose words he couldn't understand.
His lips are slightly parted as he tilts his head.
"They are well. But they are not my family…"
Sasuke's heart is on fire again.
With uncharacteristic hesitation –he always touched him with confidence. Or he didn't touch him at all –Itachi brushes Sasuke's arm.
His voice is barely more than a whisper.
"Is your name…Sasuke?"
The younger Uchiha can only nod.
Too many times he heard his late brother's voice at night.
Childishly, he used to rise from the bed and search for him, as if they were children playing hide-and-seek again, silencing the awareness that it had been just a dream and the house was empty, before he surrendered to the bitter truth and the shame that came with it.
Now his brother is alive, standing in front of him, saying his name.
Is it daytime for real or is he still asleep?
In the crowded room where everyone is silent, holding their breath, Itachi whispers again:
"Are you my family, Sasuke?"
His words –proof that the bond he has with the boy is stronger than memory, life and death –are more powerful than any jutsu. So much that they steal Sasuke's voice.
His eyes wide open are an eloquent answer.
His look is that of someone who wandered in the dark for so long that he's not used to the light anymore.
His look is that of someone whose deepest wish has been granted by a benign god.
His look is that of someone who found his very reason for living.
Suddenly all the suffering and anger, all the hopelessness and desperation Sasuke went through seem to him like a price to pay to arrive to this very moment, where he and his brother are alive, facing each other, in the Hokage's office, in a Konoha where Itachi's name is cleared from shame, in a peaceful world.
With the utmost daintiness Itachi comes closer, hugging him softly and slowly, as if he were afraid of breaking the one whose incorporeal substance came to his soul even before he came to him in flesh and bones.
Sasuke can't help but tense at first, for he spent the last days ordering himself to let his brother go, but now said brother is hugging him like he only did when they were children, and his arms are strong and his scent is familiar and his chest is warm and his heart is beating at the same rhythm as his own and without even realizing he is melting in the elder's arms, eyes closed shut as if he were afraid of waking up from a dream.
A/N: I enjoyed writing this chapter very much. Itachi's "non-human" impressions were really interesting to describe and so was his "evolution" to the next level, so to speak.
And of course it's Sasuke who takes him to that next level, even if he doesn't know him yet.
Even though, from a different perspective that has nothing to do with this fic, I'd say that being one with nature is definitely not a lower level of existence.