Shisui was a happy person, a crime to his family. He smiled too often, encouraging and sincere as any citizen trying their best to get by in the world that sought in war what it called a cure for kindness. His reputation preceded him with his curly hair and skin so unsightly, marred by a hundred thousand beauty marks that strangers cringed away from.
Shisui had nothing of his family in him, yet he had everything.
His hair was considered amongst the darkest in the village, even among his family, and his skin was still pale from genetics and night shifts despite his active job. He could admit that he thought highly of himself, having become a success in youth as was prided by his family, and he felt the telltale burning in his chest every time he lay eyes upon his young cousin, the ultimate genius and pride of his family.
And he had those eyes.
They burned, like the jealousy that raged as he saw his cousin win praise effortlessly. His head had pounded and ached and set the thumping tempo to a war drum as he'd watched all the death and destruction that surrounded the war, and his eyes were one of the casualties.
He could look in the mirror and smile, bring out all that was wrong about him, squinting as he beamed and radiated cheer, running his hand through his curly hair a million times a day in an unbecoming tic.
He could look in the mirror and he couldn't look away as the crimson pooled and stained his cheeks like mocking tears, dull in comparison to the glowing violence in his eyes. He ran his hands through his hair a million times a day, begging the complaints, all the women who refused to touch their hair lest it become flat, to come to fruition and give him the features of his family. Give him the face, the disposition, the drama. Anything to be looked upon with positive attention.
But here he was, standing on the edge of a cliff, taking his own eye out as he saw the last of his best friend - enemy - the boy he'd forever love and cherish and loath as he saw those Uchiha eyes he'd always desired widen in horror, still composed well for his age.
As Shisui backed to the edge of the cliff, he heard the silent begging for him to stop, could feel the shock and terror as he handed his eye to his cousin.
As Shisui backed into the open air past the cliff, stumbling literally blind, he knew he could've chosen not to die, but he knew better.
As Shisui felt the lack of ground underneath his next step backwards, he smiled his most un-Uchiha smile and agreed with the insanity of his own thoughts.
In the end, he may have hated himself, but it was for everything that was different about him, not because of his family.
In the end, Shisui knows he'd never choose the village over his family, no matter how much he morally aligned either side — and inaction is, within itself, action against your cause.
If he couldn't do it, he knew his cousin could. His genius cousin, who was years younger yet would do what he would never. He would entrust his baby cousin (not so much a baby anymore, he reminded himself as always) with a task that only constituted as a last resort.
He was just glad that he wouldn't be around to see the death of his family, that his last memory of them would be an uncle's kind words and a cousin's horror.
As Shisui began to fall, he smiled.