Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Bleach
Edited by operation meteor
Eyes of the Soul: Hanabi Interlude
Hanabi Hyūga was rather nervous, to put it mildly.
The Squad Two barracks she was in was nice enough, though it felt odd to her. There wasn't a trace of chakra in the air, and sensing spirit energy in its place had yet to become completely routine to her. No former Shinobi that she might've recognized had put in an appearance yet, and the Soul Reapers she saw were just going throughout their lives. She found that most of them stopped asking her questions about her situation after she told them that she was from one of the worst districts of Rukon. A bit crude, but it worked well enough.
She stared directly towards the door, and knocked on it.
The Hyūga was lost in indecision. A plethora of options and nearly seven dozen consequential ones were running through her head shaded with guilt from one decision after another, and how to say anything about the day all of it started.
But that was not the end, the girl, more aware and mature than she had ever felt before, reminded herself. Swallowing back a familiar lump in her throat, Hanabi took a single, long breath, filling her lungs to the brim, and then expelling slowly as she saw the door began to open.
"Can I help you with something, Hanabi?" Itachi asked.
"Ah, Uchiha-san, I hope I'm not interrupting you." The girl bowed first and then looked around the room.
I wonder what that's used for, she mused as she spotted a peculiar bottle with the Shihōin Clan crest sitting on top of a small and low table.
In addition to the odd bottle, there was also a kettle on the table with wisps of steam coming out of it. Two cups were set out; the tea in them was quite fresh if the steam emanating from them was anything to go by.
"You chose a fortunate time." Itachi said, his voice was deep and heavy with age but was sharp as any shuriken. "I was just meditating."
Itachi stepped aside to let Hanabi into the room and gesture at the table, which had two cushions place on opposite sides of it. "Please, have a seat."
Hanabi felt that she needed several more minutes to shake everything out of her head before moving over to the table and plopping down on one of the cushions. "Uchiha-san, I was looking to speak with you over...umm..."
"There's no need for formalities, Hanabi. Itachi will do just fine," the elder Dōjutsu user remarked with a small smile while the teen could feel a blush on her own face after hearing him suggest her use of only his first name.
"Itachi, I want to…to ask you about something…." Struggling, uncertain of which words to use, Hanabi kept her eyes down in her lap in a failed attempt to hide her awkward confusion.
"We are alone, Hanabi, so feel free to speak your mind." Itachi finally spoke up, and when Hanabi raised her head towards him, the Uchiha's expression had become much more serious.
"I…I see." Hanabi said while Itachi nodded, though she could feel how different this was compared to others that she'd spoken to about it. "How did you feel about the Uchiha Clan plotting against our village? I know about that first-hand after Naruto Uzumaki had publicly revealed to everyone that you had ended the Reanimation Jutsu during the Fourth Shinobi World War even after you had to…umm…"
"Killed my own clan and family when they rose against Konoha from the inside?" Finishing her sentence for her, Itachi stood up from his cushion and stepped away from the table before clasping his hands behind him and closing his eyes in thought.
….
I can't believe you just said that with a straight face, Jigoku no Joō remarked, clearly taken aback, Did someone lace the potion that Yoruichi gave you?
You know better than that. Still, I suppose being able to mention it so casually just shows how messed up I truly am, doesn't it?
That would be an understatement. Itachi, your brand of love and care for your younger brother involves mind fucking him, lying to him, severely traumatizing him, letting him spend almost half a decade with a mad scientist that screams "pedophile," and then mind fucking him again twice over. And not once telling him the real reason why. Jigoku no Joō listed Itachi's list of horrible life choices. When I'm the one being the mouthpiece of common sense and decency, you know you've fucked up something fierce.
Please… not now.
Okay. Okay. We're just, we're going to move on. But I think we can all agree, that purposefully mind fucking someone, repeatedly, is a very stupid thing. Right? And that you need to go through some extreme mandatory therapy before you are even allowed to consider having a family of your own? She asked hopefully.
"I understand what you may be suffering under, Hanabi." Itachi remarked while pointedly ignoring his Zanpakutō Spirit.
She did have a point, though. Was he really in the best position to help Hanabi deal with whatever personal demons were troubling her when he was still very much wrestling with his own traumas? He didn't know, but that wasn't about to stop him from trying.
….
Following his request, Hanabi watched Itachi prepare the tea, and soon each had one cup in front of them. He encouraged her to drink, and each of them had finished a single cup without sharing words.
"Now, Hanabi, to understand the present, the first stage is to trace it through the past. If you may bear to hear it. I will tell you of my thoughts about the Uchiha's planned uprising; what I felt in the midst of it, and now when I look back to it from the present. However, only if you consent to speak openly and with honesty about yourself for nobody's sake but your own."
Hanabi nodded, forcing her hands to squeeze shut around the hot teacup, ignoring the burning feeling on her fingers.
Across the next few hours, Itachi spoke of those times, working backwards from the present, relaying how the Uchiha's name was held, and what he himself had done to salvage it from the filth that their village had buried it under after the massacre. Next, his own role came, not only siding with Konoha, but as the singular person who had wiped out the Uchiha on that night, and even his own parents.
"I was didn't realize until it was far too late that my clan's pride and vengeance had grown to such an extreme length. My father pressured me to serve as a double agent after I enlisted in ANBU, and even spy on Lord Third. The conflict between them, myself, and others within the clan escalated rapidly."
Hanabi's hands flew to her mouth from the news, unable to comprehend something like that happening to her with her own clan.
Itachi, unfazed by her reaction, continued. "My younger brother, Sasuke, was so innocent then, and I often found it difficult not to step in whenever he grew upset. At the same time, though, I sought I keep him removed as much as possible from the conflict between our clan and the village. I didn't want him to have to deal with the darkness that was growing within the Uchiha Clan. I felt I was protecting him by doing so… although, in hindsight, I only made things worse for him. Had I come to him openly, been honest from the start… so much might've gone differently. Perhaps he would've swayed father where I could not. It's only a 'what if' now, though."
Hanabi somehow felt gravity pulled hard across her form, feeling the weight of her companion's words. More details continued, spanning to the Nine Tails' attack and how the village would blame the Uchiha. And finally, one day, when Itachi grew to detest war and bloodshed.
"When I was four-years-old, the Third Shinobi World War was ongoing. Battles would rage just about everywhere in that conflict, but none of them managed to directly reach our village. My mother, naturally, preferred to keep things that way, for me to be as far removed from the fighting as possible. My father did not share her views, though. One day, he took me to a battlefield in the belief that I needed to understand what being a shinobi really entailed."
Hanabi felt a fresh wave of horror from this revelation. "A battlefield? Wait, even before any bodies could be moved away?"
"Indeed. Weapons, blood, and both the dead and dying lay everywhere." Itachi's voice grew softer, distant, and slower now. "I found one man asking for water, a shinobi from the Hidden Stone Village. Once he recognized that I was a ninja, the man tried to attack me. Acting purely on reflex, I ended his life first. My father… he spoke of wanting to ensure I would understand what following the life of a ninja would really involve. In a way, he did succeed far better than his designs meant to be, but my conclusions were not those that he desired... and they would ultimately lead to the undoing of not just my father, but the Uchiha Clan itself."
"Hanabi, I learned there how terrible war may be, and I wanted to prevent it any way which I could. Gradually, my life continued from there, and avoiding war became a guiding rule in my life, motivating any decision I made. The night of the Uchiha massacre, I sided with Konoha over my clan despite my father leading the coup, and I killed all the Uchiha ninjas myself except for my brother. I believed that by killing them, I would prevent our conflict from encouraging those outside the village from making their own bid to acquire power while Konoha was weakened. Even if an Uchiha-ruled Konoha was doomed to fail, my clansmen failed to realize their dominance would never be accepted by others. Even the regular civilians would oppose them and begun a civil war, weakening Konoha from the inside, and give other villages an opening to start a Fourth Shinobi World War."
"In order to live up to my own beliefs, I had two separate choices to follow. For me, it was decided by consequences and the one that would end with greater bloodshed. Even though some might speak of it as a good decision, I would sincerely disagree. I still carry that burden, and for a long period of time, I believed that I deserved to suffer beneath it. Even with my life."
Hanabi felt her throat grow sandy, dry as a desert. The teacup in her hands rattled inside for a moment until she caught the rest of Itachi's words. "Wait, you believed that? And you…you no longer do?"
Itachi nodded towards her, and then took a sip of his tea. "I have shared my own past with you, Hanabi. Now if you would do the same, then I will lend you what help I might have. However, the choice to benefit or reject are only yours to make."
Swallowing to clear her throat, Hanabi took a different approach, talking about her past and her own choices so far back as she could recall. Of the day of her abduction by Toneri's puppets, and a promise to protect her own family. Of watching her sister and her friends escorting her home after rescuing her from Toneri's moon palace.
"At the time, I was pinned down by the enemy," Hanabi confessed. "But despite my inexperience back then, I still had a duty towards our village, my clan, and my older sister, but why should she have trusted me if I couldn't trust myself? And…"
More followed. More and more, the girl poured out her repressed guilt and harsh truths at once to somebody: a person like Itachi Uchiha who had shared his own past, and built a guide to follow and expel a large amount of pressure building inside the fourteen-year-old girl until said pressure eventually diminished.
"I can barely imagine myself even having anything to do with the Hyūga Clan now, or if I can keep my promises anymore after the trouble I've caused for my older sister and her friends. I cannot leave or punish myself without failing another promise, and I'm stuck!" Hanabi paused to take a deep breath, nearly out of air from how much she had spoken.
Itachi appeared eerily passive, save for a slight tilt of his head. "It seems to me that you are haunted by yourself more than anyone or anything. But that alone is not a terrible concept within itself, Hanabi. I understand, truly I do, how heavy this kind of guilt can be, worse still when you blame yourself all the more and few appear to disagree over how you were wrong in any form. After I killed so many of my clan, that did not excuse nor displace the guilt I felt for those actions, and how I could have acted differently to stop the clan before so many followed one person's vision and rebelled."
Itachi took a deep breath, and his eyes took on a fresh light while staring at Hanabi. He leveled a look at her and it was enough to make her physically take a step back.
"When Toneri Ōtsutsuki took your eyes…I knew exactly what you were going through." Itachi began, his tone soft and slow.
Hanabi tensed. "Maybe," she said, but a part of her thinks that Itachi doesn't know what it's like to have his own eyes ripped out of his head.
He could read her mind, she thought, judging by the look on his face, almost bemused but not quite.
"When you look into my eyes, you're not only looking at me." Itachi said quietly. "You're looking at my younger brother as well."
Hanabi digested those words, her eyes wide. The terrifying truth of those words hit her full force.
"Your brother's…eyes…?" She whispered, horrified.
Itachi nodded.
"…Why?" Hanabi dared to ask.
He inhaled deeply. He couldn't meet her gaze, and that in itself made Hanabi tremble with worry.
"Power." Itachi said, his voice sounding forlorn. "After my death, Sasuke took my eyes to replace his own."
Hanabi bit her lip and found herself at a loss for words. She lowered her head, her white eyes staring at his feet; he was stiff, and his one fist was clenched into a ball at his side. He wasn't shaking, but a clenched fist in itself was more emotion than Hanabi had seen Itachi express before.
In the end, she didn't come up with anything to say. He tensed—and made an odd sort of sound, one that made her heart clench.
Hanabi felt a sudden pulse inside of her. Her head was shuddering from the news, and then, without knowing—the girl caught herself, looking down at both hands and shaking. In her mind, she saw it all: Toneri's hand reaching for her eyes.
"No…no, no, no, I won't go through this again, not like that!"
….
Itachi, do something!, Jigoku no Joō anxiously demanded, You just triggered that girl's trauma!
"I-I apologize, Itachi, I—" Scrambling, the girl got to her knees first, then her feet and tried running for the door. Instead, she found it locked, refusing to open.
"Please stay." Itachi gently called towards her. "I apologize for this misunderstanding. I do not believe either of us were right, and now I understand that no matter which decision I had made, guilt would have come no different from which decision I made. However, those from the Ōtsutsuki Clan and mine made their own decisions, and we in turn made ours."
Hanabi finally stopped but stayed standing where she was, listening as Itachi continued.
"Furthermore, you carry guilt over the deeds you have made as I do, and that is what separates us from them. Strength does not decide who is right or wrong, neither can how much one has suffered justify their perceptions towards the world, and any choice that has been made carry certain consequences. Those outcomes are what we will carry in our lives, or decide they held no value or purpose, and throw them aside. Have you done that? Or do you want to forget every choice and decision you made?"
Hanabi shook her head, showing absolute rejection to what Itachi had described at that last part.
"And," Itachi continued as he studied her carefully, "Have you honestly failed entirely? Was violence your first response or the final option you had?"
"Toneri wanted my sister Hinata, and desired to enslave her along with me and possibly more others," Hanabi explained, her growing discomfort readily apparent, "What he wanted and what he would do to get it, it was sick and cruel."
The girl had been fighting back tears the whole time she was talking, and Itachi watched the cracks in the metaphorical dam finally broke open. Hanabi appeared to only belatedly realize that a small puddle had formed on the floor as tears now flowed freely down her face. As the girl blinked, more swelled up in her eyes. What was going through her mind right now? If Itachi had to guess, it was a mix of guilt, despair, terror, and disgust in one cruel concoction.
….
Her heart leapt into her throat.
She froze before slowly, agonizingly, turning around. All she could hear was the pumping of blood in her ears.
"Hello." A soft voice said.
Beautiful eyes stared into her own. They were blue…the color of the sky on an extraordinarily sunny day. One couldn't describe them as warm though. They were anything but that. As she looked into them, Hanabi felt a shiver run down her spine.
"W-who a-are you?" She stammered, taking a step back.
He paid her words no heed. Instead, he observed her with those beautiful, haunting eyes looking up and down her frame.
"You are not who I wanted." He said at last. "But I suppose you will do."
Toneri Ōtsutsuki lifted his hand.
There was a flash of light, and then everything seemed to vanish.
….
"The Ōtsutsuki Clan really are so much like the Uchiha Clan." Hanabi said quietly, wiping her tears away. "If Toneri is still alive, then maybe it will happen again in the future, or even happen to me and—"
"Hanabi." A command in her ears compelled discipline to assert itself. Hanabi pulled herself together, waiting and ready for orders, and Itachi was frowning. "You were inexperienced and outmatched when you fought Toneri's puppets. Each held their own options, and those they chose to follow were violent, oppressive, and uncompromising like Toneri. Similarly, the Uchiha's planned uprising happened for many reasons, but one element grew from Danzō's own suspicions about my clan and even when Hiruzen-sama had one plan to prevent it, Danzō foiled those efforts and hid away while the clan prepared to launch their rebellion against the village. However, Danzō made his own decisions and they were his consequences alone. The Third Hokage further expressed his own remorse, but in the end of everything, people will always act as they choose and nobody can take the complete responsibility of another on their own shoulders even for what another has done."
"So," Hanabi swallowed a bit, still one step away but no longer moving on the path before her, "Are you saying I shouldn't blame myself? Because I did more and they did not, I should forgive and stop thinking about them?"
Itachi's frown formed deeper on his face as he bit his lip in thought before he came to a decision. "No. What I spoke may be taken in that way, but it isn't the answer. Hanabi Hyūga…I would be reminded of my own actions every time I use my Mangekyō Sharingan. However, I gradually decided to forgive myself with time, or at least tried to. However, forgiveness can never be given or treasured if the reasons for it becomes erased. Between people, forgiveness often must be asked for, sincerely, before it can be given. If you or I attempted to forget or excuse what we have done, then that forgiveness would be hollow and without meaning. Do you understand?"
Hanabi fell silent. This time, though, it was far longer than before. Instead of regret or division, she started looking at all of her actions, all of her choices and her life together. It wasn't a clear answer, but it was a comfy start.
"Learn to forgive yourself." Itachi reminded her softly. "Those who can do that and are able to accept their true nature are the strong ones."
After hearing that, Hanabi smiled brightly, feeling her confidence back. "Thank you, Itachi. I… I feel a lot better now. I think this little talk really helped."
She bowed towards him and then she walked back to the doorway, but hesitated. "Umm, can you please unlock the door?"
Itachi didn't respond, even when Hanabi asked again until she took a real look with her eyes.
"I never locked it to begin with." Itachi finally answered. "It was my Genjutsu. I believe that running away from one problem would never end well. Also, if you have any further concerns, then you may seek me out at any time."
….
Really? We're just calling it a wrap here? Jigoku no Joō dryly commented as Hanabi left.
What else was I supposed to do? She seemed to find what she needed from that talk, and I did leave the door open for her in the future. What more do you want?
I was hoping for a bit more bonding between you two. I think you both really hit it off there. Feels like a shame to cut it off so soon.
Bonding?
You know what it's like to have a younger brother, but how about an adoptive younger sister?
Wait, that's what you're after here?
Come on, I think it'd be cute!
I hardly think she would want someone like me as a brotherly figure.
The way she hung on to your every word earlier says otherwise.
Itachi shook his head. Where the spirit of his Zanpakutō was getting these fanciful notions from, he didn't have a clue.
And yet…
Itachi cast his gaze towards the door that Hanabi had left through earlier. Would she return to him again in the future, seeking his help in wrestling with her inner demons? If she did so, would she see him in the same manner that Jigoku no Joō apparently believed that Itachi should see her?
See? It's not such a bad thought, is it?
Perhaps…
If you're still in doubt, then why not run it by Yoruichi? Or even your mother? I'm sure both would have quite a bit to say on the subject.
Itachi found himself smiling. "You know… maybe I will."
