Author's Note: This is the first of the series of "Season's Greetings," the autumn portion as suggested by patty, though it is probably not what she expected. This is most likely the only chapter that will get up before the New Year, and since no one bothered to come up with a summer, I decided on one myself: Kiba/Hinata, a restaurant, summer, if only because I have never written them before.
With the estate bereft of souls, everything seemed to echo. The leaves crunched unpleasantly loud under Itachi's feet. While this should have made him scan the area more thoroughly, on the lookout for those who might have heard, it was unnecessary; even if the Sharingan didn't thrust upon him the gift of unparalleled vision, the estate was abandoned. Shinobi cannot afford to be superstitious, but even to them, it seemed likely that a myriad of ghosts with bloody, pinwheel eyes haunted the site, searching for a justification to their abrupt and inexplicable deaths. With the last of the Uchiha gone, having left Konoha forever in his search for strength, the rumors of spectral apparitions were perpetuated further. The dead thrive in the absence of the living.
Kisame was pragmatic. If he knew of the myths that surround the genocide, it was as probable as not that the he would scoff at the legend with so little basis in reality, but the former mist-nin had not been in Konoha long enough to hear them. So he simply wanted to leave. Kisame lacked the ability to wax nostalgia, if only because his own childhood wasn't worth talking about, but he was aware of his partner's tendency to brood and made allowances for it. They have known each other long enough to know and accept each other's eccentricities.
This was again proven to Itachi when, after a cursory search of the area, Kisame left him to his thoughts, standing in the middle of the courtyard. This was appreciated. The garden had deteriorated in his mother's absence, and it was obvious Sasuke hadn't bothered with its upkeep. The majority of the plants had died; the hardier ones grew wild. Weeds for the most part, though even those were withering, with the coming of the snow. The estate was fading. Though it would not disappear as quickly as its former habitants had, all things were temporal; it was only a matter of time.
Itachi knew there were theories, wild speculation, as to why he so casually murdered his entire clan with no apparent motive. There were some who believed that it was a family matter, reasons concealed from the rest of the village. Others think that there was no reason, and they were the most accurate. It wasn't passion that had driven Itachi, but apathy. If there was no motivation to kill his clan, just as simply, there was no reason not to. Despite being one of the more revered families of Konoha, genius among the Uchiha was as rare and sporadic as elsewhere. His parents had not understood Itachi, had not tried to. They had thought him beyond them, so did not attribute to him the normal range of human emotion. In retrospect, there had been no emotional connection, only biological, and in a profession that dealt mostly in injury and death, it was easy to trivialize such a tie.
It was emotion that led him to spare Sasuke. Not any obscure desire to have someone as a measure to his own power, but sentimentality. Sasuke did not have enough inborn talent to ever really be a rival to Itachi, which was what had probably led his little brother to seek out Orochimaru to begin with, since he could not achieve sufficient power on his own merits. Itachi had known even then that he would have other challenges. It would have made no sense to try and make an enemy out of an seven year old.
Sentimentality. Sasuke hadn't understood him any more than their parents had, but he had loved Itachi regardless, and in his imitation of his older brother, he had achieved a greater degree of empathy than any before him. Itachi could not honestly say that he had returned his brother's feelings, but neither had he resented the attention their parents had lavished upon the younger Uchiha. Sasuke had been loved, but not respected, Itachi respected, but not loved. Neither of them had received the better end of the bargain. Itachi had never been shown enough emotion to feel anything to any great degree, though he had always felt something was missing whenever he witnessed their father's pride in his younger son, or the hugs his mother lavished upon her smallest child. Not enough for anything to grow out of it.
Sasuke's adoration for his elder brother, on the other hand, would have eventually turned to bitterness for being overlooked, though most likely not the outright hatred that manifested after the murder. His younger brother was only aware enough of himself to know what he was being denied, and not what he already had been given.
Sentimentality. It was what led him back here, to Konoha, to this estate, the place of his childhood, though the only thing of interest here to the Akatsuki was six months gone, and would remain away for years. At present, there was nothing to do. They were playing a waiting game, could only strike down threats to their power when such threats appeared, and not before. And so Itachi's thoughts had wandered, and as always when he was without a focus, they had pinpointed that which least pertained to the situation.
The bodies were gone, though there was no smell of decay, so they must have been carted away and buried. The blood was swept off the streets and floor. The Uchiha clan symbol remained cracked, defaced as it had been five years ago with the burying of a kunai in its center. Sasuke had always been rather visual, and it is probable that he had insisted on leaving the symbol as is. Sasuke lacked physical scars to remind him of the encounter. Without this, the boy could all too easily reason away the nightmare as simply that; a bad dream, fading away as easily as it came. Symbolism of a clan that no longer truly existed, and the man that made it so.
"Oy, Itachi-san. You ready to go?" Kisame did not truly startle him out of his thoughts. Itachi was always aware of what happened around him. Acknowledging distractions was another matter, but the sun had sunk below the horizon. They had been here longer than he had thought.
"Yes." There was nothing left to see. Even with Itachi's eyes, he could not gaze upon the dead. And in this place, the dead were all that was left.