Itachi Uchiha

XXX

The difficulty was that his eyes tended to work against him in this scenario, because everything she controlled was chakra. Every slip of paper had some tangent of manipulation behind it. It wasn't like Deidara, who unleashed a few bombs at a time that he could trace out, but that there were so many papers coming at him in shurikens, spears, flying cranes, enormous scythes that keeping track of everything with his eyes proved almost overwhelming.

At least, that's what he assumed would happen to any other Uchiha. He was humble, even to himself, but he knew he was perhaps the best in a generation, besides Shisui and Father. And they were both dead.

Maybe Sasuke, too. But not as he was yet. Not if he stayed Madara's pawn.

Itachi left a doppleganger in his place and vanished beneath the surface of the water for a moment, letting the clone distract Konan for a moment.

Every moment spent doing this fight is another moment wasted. Madara's convinced them I'm too far gone, he knows I could take him on in his diminished state... he won't even take the chance of fighting me head-on knowing I have the disease. He's turning Sasuke against me, and ernegy I expend here is energy I won't have later.

He detonated the clone on the surface, spreading steam and water in an ideal smokescreen. Above, he saw the main body of chakra- Konan's- take to the air, wisely avoiding an attack that could come from the smokescreen.

This needs to end fast. He gathered the chakra, forming the handsigns slowly in the water for maximum control. But Kisame... what is he doing? Is he going to turn on me for the Akatsuki?

His control wavered for a few moments. The two had been through much together- many moments where they could have turned on one another, many moments when their trust had been built ever further. He could have never trusted Kisame with his intentions with Sasuke... but there had been times when he had considered it. At the very least, he had trusted him enough to keep interference away from their clash.

Pain was their leader, however, and Itachi understood more than Kisame himself the other desired guidance. The talk with the woman, indigncant as she was, was proof of that. Kisame couldn't trust himself to make his own decisions; what would happen if he did? Devastation? Mass murder? It was simple self-preservation that demanded he attach himself to another, in one way or another. Some higher power to guide him in the right direction.

It would come down to what he valued more: his time with Itachi or the convincing words of the Leader.

Those worries would have to wait, though. First, he had to deal with the so-called Messenger of God.

In a flourish of spraying droplets, he dove out of the water gracefully, landing quite outside the smokescreen. Konan quickly saw him and sent a flurry of paper shuriken at him as she dove into a swandive-

"Fire Style: Phoenix Sunlight!"

The ball of chakra that left his mouth took the shape of a giant yellow phoenix that even shrieked as it took flight, aiming right for Konan. The paper shuriken did not incinerate on impact, not even catching flame as they tore through the creature. He easily ducked out of their approach, never moving his eyes away from the angel-shaped blue hue-

Konan couldn't miss it, and her swan dive turned into a sudden climb with an angle of her wings. The Sharingan watched it all in slow motion, and just as her body shifted into full exposure-

Thanks for the inspiration, Deidera.

The phoenix exploded into a blinding yellow light, giving one last loud shriek as its imaginary heart burst. It was not a particularly hot jutsu; he doubted even her wings would get very scorched as the burst cast over her. But it was beyond bright; he had already moved his hand to the front of his eyes. The glow seemed to cast shadows even in the stark sunlight. But while she was completely blinded by it, he could still see the blue hue between the cracks of his fingers-

But though she was dazed, she was still coming. She was an Akatsuki, after all; something as simple as that wouldn't finish her.

He knew it, too.

Her glazed-over eyes thought they made out the shapes of dozens of shuriken plummeting towards her, and she raised her hands to send repeating paper shuriken blindly back at them to knock them off course. In her vision, however, the metal changed course over and over again, dodging her own until they were on her-

Crows pecked at her face and chest, but most went for the far more juicy target of the wings. She howled and fended them off in a very human reaction, for the moment abandoning the fight to deal with the three dozen smaller ones occurring all around her-

It was all he needed. she must have seen him coming, even as a hazy blob, but with her wings so wreckedby the crows, all she could scarcely do was turn and face him defiantly. His foot collided with Konan's midsection with enough force to crash through a brick wall. For her, a rib shattered and whatever coordination she had broke alone with the bone. With one more indignant cry, she crashed into the water, her wings clumsily obeying their wielder. Itachi was quick to take advantage of it.

"Fire Style: Phoenix Nail Flower Justu!" He flung four kunai into the firebursts, and they plunged through her wings at their critical spots. The rest of the paper wings crumbled away at the much greater heat and tension, ripping its papyrus ligaments to shreds. By the time she was trying to make new ones, he was on her.

There was some rudimentary skill in the way she blocked his swings, jabs, kicks, and charges, but they had long since faded in her attempted mastery over long-distance fighting. She was strong, but one didn't win many battles by challenging all their opponents in their areas of expertise.

Not when there were greater challenges yet to be faced.

"Hey, no fair! You weren't trying!"

Konan's mature face and blue hair abruptly faded into a young Sasuke, and his next blow completely missed as he flinched. She dodged it and backed up, raising a hand for another long paper spear-

"Why would you want me to fight you full on?" Itachi questioned lightly, smiling down at him. "You've got less than a year at the Academy."

"You were already graduating at my age, so how come I can't do the same!"

Itachi sighed. "Fine. But only this once."

He narrowly avoided the incoming spear, knocking it aside with an angry sidehand. Why now, of all times? Does my conscience truly seek the death of me. He closed the gap again, and his foot swung high to slam into the side of Konan's head-

-Sasuke went tumbling away, their fight finished in the single blow. He immediately started to sniffle and cry, holding the hand he had vainly tried to block the strike with. To the young Itachi's horror, he realized he had taken an advanced fighting position and was smiling, as he usually did in his battles.

But this wasn't a battle. This was his little brother.

"Sasuke, are you alright?!"

"Itachi, don't give up on me now!" He blinked, his cheek stinging from a punch he had not even realized he'd taken. Konan was in the air, her wings small- a quick creation to take her out of the mirthless beating she had just sustained. One eye was swollen closed, but her face remained confident despite the damage. "You've always been one of the strongest ones, perhaps the strongest besides the Leader. I would hate to think since leaving us you've become senile."

"I don't disappoint," he said back, feeling sweat from the memories trailing behind his ponytail. "But I am disappointed in you. Pawns to Madara? After all that was said otherwise?"

She smirked. "He told us you'd try to barter your way out of this. But it won't work. You've betrayed everything you ever stood for, Itachi. From the moment you were born, perhaps. Who knows. You know what that makes you?"

"Significantly better than psychopaths intent on destroying the shinobi world."

Her eye twitched, and her smile turned tight. "It's people like you who've built such a world. Slaughtering your own family, your clan? All for the sake of personal growth and narcissism? By your own logic, you are no better than us." She pointed towards him suddenly. "But we still took you in. As we took in Sasori, Kakuzu, Kisame, and the others. Those who did the unspeakable, yet we gave you all the chance do right by the world."

"And they all died for it." He hand lowered, along with her voice. "They all died serving that cause. But not you, Itachi. You risked death for yet another selfish ambition, to flirt with fate with your little brother. What do you think you're doing in this world, that keeps turning with you not at its center? Have you no shame?"

Itachi was silent, but his chest ached. His vows to Akatsuki had always been a lie... but Konan had taken him in nonetheless. She had given him his robes, treated him with respect bordering on flat-out kindness. It had been that way for several years between them.

But it had just been another lie told by himself. And whether they were his enemy or not, they had believed it, and now hurt for it.

"I'm... I'm fine."

"No... I broke your hand, didn't I?" Tears leaked out of his eyes. "God, what I have I done to you?"

"Big brother..."

He took Sasuke by the shoulders, firmly, as they both wept. "Never again will I hurt you. You're my brother, Sasuke. Everything I do from now on... will only be to protect you."

"So one day, you can have the strength to stand up for yourself."

Sasuke perked up a little. "Maybe... stronger than you?"

He laughed, and the crying lessened. "Yes. Stronger than me."

"You looked down on Deidara for his envy of the Sharingan, Kakuzu for his warrantless desire for money, and who knows about the others. Did you look down on Pain and I as well, for our dreams?" She let out a bout of mirthless laughter. "Have you only ever been disgusted with us because we chose to all contribute our powers to something greater than ourselves? Well?"

"I have lied to you," Itachi agreed, looking down into his watery reflection. "But... I did not do it to spite you. Nor did I look down upon your goals. I just could not abide by such destruction in the end."

But she only laughed again. "Says the one who murdered his own clan by the hundreds! Perhaps you've always been a hypocrite, Itachi Uchiha. Maybe that's why I feel little kinship with you now. We tried to avert your death when we spoke to Madara, but I see that it's unavoidable now. You truly are the worst of the shinobi world!"

And with that she dove again, her wings breaking out into dozens of paper shuriken. It was a sacrifice of flight, allowing the momentum to carry her while the shuriken constricted his movements to be forced to take her head on-

His hand shot out and took her by the throat, with no hesitation. It was so sudden that her body shot forward ahead, nearly snapping her neck at the abrupt change of pace. He slackened his grip to prevent it, but it did not lessen. Her one amber eye widened as she saw how his mask of calm had finally given way to emotion.

"And what would you know of what I've done?" he hissed, the Mangekyo flaring in his anger. "You think one man could be so cruel as to be this way? For myself? How many lies have I told to get to his point, and lived with it? I don't know the answer anymore. But know this: they were told with purpose, and that purpose was not for myself. Damn myself if I ever become the egomaniacs you all did."

"Then who?" she spluttered, fighting his iron grasp. "You bastard- who?"

He tutted, the cruelty he had long strived to tuck away scratching the crust of his conscience. "Ah, but I'm a hypocrite, aren't I? So why start telling the truth now?"

"Damn you!"

"Damn yourself." He rose her slightly into the air before choke-slamming her into the surface of the water with all the strength he had. The impact of the flat of her back alone ended the fight, but he never relinquished the toxic hold over her neck as he pushed her beneath the water. Her amber eye froze and she struggled for air, writhling desperately just beneath the surface, clean oxygen only centimeters away from her lips...

"You're a kind child, Itachi." Fugaku Uchiha took the pipe from his lips, frowning despite the inherent compassion of the words. Itachi fidgeted in place, not understanding why he'd been summoned.

"Are you sure you want to stay with the ANBU Black Ops? They're the best, but..."

"But?" Some anger burned through. "I've joined the best, but you still don't think it's good enough?"

"I never said that. I only said you were kind." Fugaku looked at him, and the young Itachi was surprised to see there was a distant pain in his father's eyes. "You are far gentler at your age than I was. And that was because I soon had to learn the hard way what war was about." He eased in his chair, shaking his head and touching his eyes. "Things... happened to me there. But I fought it in hopes you wouldn't have to experience them. Yet here you are going into them on your own volition."

"I want you to be a good child, Itachi."

Itachi hesitantly approached Father and hugged him. "I will. I won't change. I'll always keep you, Mother, and Sasuke safe."

Fugaku returned it, one of the only times he had ever hugged his own son. "I know you will. Because... you are the gentlest kunai knife ever forged in this village."

He pulled Konan out of the water, where she gasped and choked for the badly needed oxygen. He rose to his feet and realized that his hands were shaking, and stilled them.

Pain shot through the Mangekyo Sharingan and he rose his hand to his eye, wincing. Where did I expect that to take me?

Konan rasped and turned onto her stomach, massaging her worn throat muscles. Itachi looked down at her, disbelieving. "You're not going to try and fight me again, are you?"

"I... have a duty... to Pain... and... the Akatsuki..."

He sighed. "I have no qualm with any of you. All I seek is to find my brother."

"I know."

He raised an eyebrow, then his lip curled. "Right. Madara told you, no doubt."

"No... but... *cough* ... I could figure it out. Your deathmatch... with him isn't... finished now... is it?"

Another lie everyone believed, and he ached from it. Was this worth it, to make so many people hate him towards the end? He'd started all of this willing to die the villain, even suspecting whatever he did would end in that way.

But that had been done assuming Sasuke would emerge the hero. What would the point in his sacrifices and pain be if that didn't come to be? Itachi was many things, but...

He grabbed Konan by the back and turned her around. Her face stared straight ahead, indignant in the face of death-

"Tsukiyomi."

"Big brother?"

"Hmm?"

Sasuke's legs kicked on their front porch, back and forth. It was a dead giveaway when he was antsy about something. It was also the first time in two years since he'd waited out front of their home for his brother to come back from his ANBU missions; he'd not done it since Itachi had broken his hand.

It was also three days before the planned massacre.

"Would... would you ever hurt me?"

"What?" Itachi stopped beside him, stunned. "Of course not. Why would you say that?"

Sasuke fidgeted, and Itachi could see his knuckles going white from digging into the wood. All of a sudden, the words began to spill out like a toppled glass of water "I... I remember those policemen coming to talk to us in the woods. The ones you beat up. And then Uncle Shisui is missing. And Father has been acting really weird lately. And I heard him and Mother talking that you were growing more distant from them. And... and..."

He held his hand, the one that had been broken. "Have... are you..."

Itachi's heart panged with the deep compassion he bore for his brother, but on the outside his facade remained intact. His eyes narrowed and his voice adopted an icy tone. "Am I what?"

And to his surprise, his little brother stopped trembling, stood up, and looked him in the eye. In his little brother's innocent face, there were the first signs of greater maturity; maturity Itachi had had to learn much earlier, but it was unforeseen growth nonetheless. "You'd never hurt us, would you?"

And again his heart pained, and again he remained aloof. Hiruzen had made him swear to never divulge the secret of what was to come to anyone, not even the little brother he intended to save. The same was true for Madara; who knew if he was lurking nearby, listening for what his supposed ally might give away or suddenly betray?

But even as the mission demanded it, he could not leave Sasuke with a cold answer. He just didn't have it in him. "If I were to ever do anything wrong in your eyes," he said slowly, staring into the very undeveloped Sharingan before him. "It would be so that you would continue to grow."

"I... I don't understand."

Itachi sat on the steps, patting for Sasuke to sit next to him. After a moment's hesitation, Sasuke did so. His older brother stared straight ahead, the familiar self-hatred for the lies he needed to tell making it to much to even look at his little brother any longer.

"Do you remember when I accidentally broke your hand in training?"

"Yeah, I remember."

"What happens to damaged parts of our body, once given time to heal?"

Sasuke frowned. "They... get better?"

"Not only that. They become stronger." He raised his hand before him and clenched it. "You tear a muscle for new, stronger ones to grow in its place. Bones broken heal and become tougher, less likely to wound the next time." He sighed and looked down. How could he be saying these things to the brother that, very soon, would have untold damage done to him?

He couldn't stop here though. It was the perfect opportunity to say everything while saying nothing. It would be the only way he could ease the enormous burden on his conscience. "The same... is true for our soul. We go through pain to become stronger people. It helps us mature, depending on how we deal with it. Can... can you understand that?"

Sasuke nodded slowly in the corner of Itachi's vision, and his innocent understanding was finally too much. He stood up and turned away before a tear could betray him. "I'm glad we had this talk," he uttered passably. "I'll be seeing you then, little brother..."

"...GAH!"

Konan lurched forward, holding her hands to her temples. "What... the Tsukiyomi?"

"It is."

"But... this is a torture jutsu! Why-"

"This jutsu can be anything I want it to be," Itachi said quietly, continuing to show her images and memories. Konan's eyes gleamed with an inner light as she stared blankly ahead. In them were reflections of other encounters with Sasuke, Father, and Mother, and the night of the Massacre, his talks with Kisame and other Akatsuki members- all from his point of view, all expressing his genuine feelings.

It was like running through twenty years of ones life in mere seconds- which it was. Time was fluid, clay in his hands. And as he cried a tear of blood from his right eye, a real one came out the other. He was experiencing it all, too- the lies and truths that had made him what he was now. Was he proud of all of it? No. But would he be able to rest in peace, once had had finished giving Sasuke the life he had always deserved?

Perhaps. But he was tired, so very tired, of being the only one to know that.

He allowed the Tsukiyomi to stop after seven seconds of reality had passed, and he collapsed to his knees. His lungs were feeling heavy and slippery in his chest, and his skull was crammed full of gunpowder burning slow and hot. But his heart, and his very soul... they felt extraordinarily light.

"All of this... for your brother?"

Itachi nodded between his breaths. "Of all the people here who might understand that I would do everything I could for another... it would be you, the so-called God's Messenger."

She bowed her head. "Besides the logic of that... the fact you've exhausted yourself trying to prove a point to me in a battle where I was sent to kill you seems adamant enough reasoning that you're serious. You're a strange person, Itachi."

"I never claimed to not be."

She extended a hand to him, but he looked at it suspiciously. Was it actually this easy?

Her hand gripped him by the wrist and heaved him up. He looked down at her, unsure of what to say.

"Your goals don't align with ourselves, and perhaps they never did," she said calmly. "I can see that. But you still helped us. And I think it's obvious that what you want right now is to give Sasuke a glimpse of a better world... one more than he's lived the past decade, at least." Her wings began to sprout out of her back, but Itachi could feel no ill intent from them. "Akatsuki will provide that for everyone... even if we don't agree in the methodology."

"You have me there," he joked lightly.

She chuckled slightly in turn. "But you won't have long to live; even if you to actively fight against us, there would be little you could do." Her face grew somber. "But with those remaining days, instead of challenging, all you can think about it Sasuke. Having devoted so much of your life and gone through so much trouble for him, I suppose that it only makes sense."

"Akatsuki releases you from your contract with us, Itachi. All I can give you now is good luck."

And although he did not truly mean it, the small white lie that left his lips was as close to an agreeable farewell they would ever get. "The same to you."

She smiled, very slightly-

It quickly fell away. "What the hell is happening?"

For the first time, Itachi became acutely aware of his more distant surroundings. The Hoshigake Village was in a state of chaos, with both flames coating roofs and water flooding the plateau. The lake had turned against its inhabitants- but why-?

"Is that... Kisame?"

He followed her eye, Sharingan tracking for the familiar chakra signature-

They never found it. Instead, it found a cancerous, toxic blot that only vaguely resembled the cool, large chakra pool that was normally Kisame.

It was far larger than even Kisame's remarkable standard. Far larger, and growing every minute. It was hard to tell if the signature was even human any longer.

"What's happened to you?" he murmured, cool water spraying his face. "Kisame, what have you done?"

What have you become?