Blinded

A/N: This is a terrible idea.

A story about a minor character in a power fantasy harem fanfiction coming back to life and repairing what went wrong.

If you have never read Sealkeeper, this story will make no sense to you. The only reason I use it, is because Itachi, assuming he is still a good guy, got done dirty.

He was killed and seduced (Read: inadvertently groomed in his most vulnerable and hormonal years) by his own mother.

His brother's soul was destroyed by Orochimaru.

And the people who led to both were both allowed to do so, and have both fucked Uzumaki Naruto.

It also occurs to me that Naruto is an awful person in the story of sealkeeper. In that story however, it doesn't really matter. Morals don't really exist, and the story and character struggles can be summed up as what they want and what they have. Naruto wants the wolves to be fine, Mikoto wants a family(?), Orochimaru wants Naruto (disgusting but I digress) and Itachi doesn't actually do anything of worth aside from kill part of the Uchiha clan. He is an NPC, not even a player in this Game of Thrones.

But if you take Itachi seriously in this scenario, what ends up happening?

I also like to see a calm man angry, a person who has dealt with everything finally breaking. I want to see the Itachi that tortured his brother, that killed so many, created and made by the actions of a narcissist motherfucker.

Anyway, this story isn't really a continuation of Sealkeeper or is even an attempt on alternative take on it. The only reason I wrote this is because of a sudden burst of motivation, to create this story based upon revenge, hate and grief.

Hopefully you enjoy.

The story starts with him dead.

In Yomi

And I, Uchiha Itachi was dead, and free in some cursed way.

I looked at the promised free lands, with the black fire of Amaterasu mingling with the pale bright light of the sky, shadowy wisps playfully dissipating across the overpowering whiteness of it all, and realised that I was in the domain of the gods.

I walked, and walked, and walked some more, aware that my legs did not tire, and my stomach did not ache, and my mouth did not feel dry, and I was not blind. I was dead, and so I was given perfection. I wondered if I deserved it.

Eventually I came across an Uchiha. He was sat under a tree, the shade sharp and stretched, the blackened shroud looking detached from the tree supposedly casting it. He opened his eyes at my sensed presence, and for a moment he must have forgotten he was already dead, the wide eyes and fear making it look like he had seen the end of days, and maybe I was for him. He looked more then, and realised I was not a dream or alive, I was dead like him.

I expected him to laugh, to rejoice, and though his eyes did look happy, elated, he walked over to me, and pulled me into a hug. A punch, a grab, maybe, but a hug.

"I am sorry, but you are here with us child. I am sorry for what we put you though, and I do not blame you."

And I started to cry with him.

…

I met with every Uchiha after, and that included my father. I saw him eating some Uchiha delicacy, saffron spices and boiled vegetables, with a man that I recognized as my paternal uncle. His stern face that had become so memorable throughout my younger years, broke, and when he turned and saw me I saw the man underneath, and I knew, more than I had ever known, that he was like me. That he loved so much that he couldn't let anything get in his way. He loved everyone in the clan, and he was willing to bulldoze through the village for them.

We hugged, and though I thought I would have gotten sick of them after so many hugs, I didn't. I hadn't been touched affectionally for years, except for in death. I supposed it was what I deserved.

We walked then, away, from the group. We needed quietness, piece. "I have something to tell you, son. We can see how those who are still alive fair, a gift that we cherish, and used to look at your life."

I looked down. "I don't want to think of what happened in my life."

My father grabbed me by my shoulder, and gave me a look that told me to stop running away from the truth, to face it, to face what my mother had done.

"Son, ignoring what happened will only hurt you. You need to confront it, to admit it. To say what you think of it."

I took a deep breath, and began.

"My mother seduced me, over years, so she could kill me. She didn't reveal herself to me, she didn't try to help me, she hated me, and so she killed me. I understand it."

My father didn't agree though, rage evident on his still somewhat stoic face.

"No son! You do not know the depth of her depravity."

I asked what he meant, feeling more confused by the moment, and so he showed me how to see into the physical world, and showed me what she had done.

I saw her escape, and her with the Uzumaki child, and dread pooled in my gut. He had somehow become like a child to her, yet I saw only devilish ambition in those amethyst eyes. He looked like the creature I had created to torture Sasuke, the fake Itachi, one who would kill whoever he wanted, whoever crossed him. Then I saw my mother sleep next to him, and I was affeered, both for what my mother would do with a child, which thankfully didn't occur, and for what that child could do to her.

Yet she left, recruited by Madara, where her tenure as Tobi began. I could fill in the story from then. She wanted me dead, and she employed the necessary tactic to do so, but my father pushed on, and showed her thoughts steadily forgetting more and more about Sasuke in her letters to Naruto, until they were only about him, him, him. His red hair and white skin, and I almost vomited in her fetishism of a child. My father's features were grim, and I would expect such from a man watching his love debase herself so.

And then, he told me to prepare myself.

And she fucked him. Only 14, and though it wasn't young for the world we were in, the Uchiha clan always taught to raise out children to a certain age to marry. It disgusted me, how she took advantage of him, and him her.

"Where is Sasuke?" I asked my father, and though my question was one of hope, his face of loss destroyed that.

Orochimaru got him, and I didn't do a fucking thing. He was captured and used as breeding stock, and oh gods, his children were going to be Orochimaru's vessels.

And then Orochimaru took his body, and I wept. Wept and wept and screamed. Because I had lost. I had left my brother in the dark and destroyed him and betrayed him, and Orochimaru had killed him. And I didn't do a damned thing to stop it.

And the worse thing was, that Uzumaki did it. He sold my brother to the worse person in the world, and had done it for no real reason. Maybe to further himself with the snake, but the only think I would have given that filth is a sword through the neck and a roasting on Amaterasu's flame.

Then I realised something.

"Father, if Sasuke is dead, why isn't he here with us?"

His face looked like stone then, and my heart fell a thousand meters.

"Orochimaru destroyed his soul."

I heard no more.

I walked away, in some direction, and my father did not pursue.

It was then, the first time in my life that I felt true hate, true anger. I thought I held it before, hate for my enemies, hate for my clan, hate for everyone's hate of peace. Hate for Shisui leaving me (though I had forgiven him after we met and he flashed that smile and said I had finally gotten taller than him, and I called him my brother), yet they were all truly disdain. I had never felt the fire in my stomach rage out, destroy everything, I had never found my throat to want nothing else but to open up and scream, I had never wanted someone dead so badly in my damned life!

I hated them! I hated the Uzumaki, I hated my own mother!

I screamed hate and pain and everything. I screamed until my throat went sore, and my face ran red with tears of blood, and my body felt sore from the bleeding flaming hatred tunnelling through my veins. I though my hate so strong I might die again, rip a hole through reality to create a place where only hate may exist.

And then I saw a figure. His back was to me, and he sat aside a withered tree, brown hair falling down in bunched soft spikes. He got up and turned, sharingan wheel spinning into a mangekyo, as he looked upon me. His earings, though the beautiful magatama did pique my interest, was not my focus, his face reminding me of Sasuke. Though he wasn't, he was too old and his hair too brown, too mature and too wise.

"My name is Indra Ōtsutsuki. I am the first son of the Sage of Six Paths, and the progenitor of the Uchiha clan. What is your business here?"

I stood, stunned somewhat by the man in front. He was so like my brother, yet so different.

"Grief, and hate."

He chuckled.

"I was very much consumed by them both as well, at one point in my life at least."

Upturned, regal features looked nostalgic, and I realised the man in front of me had to have been thousands of years old, most of them dead.

"Well, young Uchiha, How I dealt with them then, as I did even after my death, was by fighting."

Then he was in my face, a fist slamming into it. I flipped thrice then rolled backwards on the ground, standing up.

I tried to tell him he was fast, but since my jaw was broken, it came out as a mumble.

I flashed through hand signs as did he, his speed outstripping mine by 3 times. I finished a fireball by the time he had finished 3 different jutsus. My fireball, big as it was, was smothered by a wave of water, from which a lightning dragon tore through, charging straight at me, whilst a geyser of flame erupted from beneath my feet.

My eyes spun with an emphatic power, and my Susanoo sprang to life. It came quicker than I remembered it, the red glow surrounding me with a 5 fold shield of hardlight fabric under an armour of flowing free fire.

"Ah, a Susanoo. If you have to use it this early though, you might have to rethink your strategy."

Then his own Susanoo, purple glow majestic, sprang to life in an instant, at least 5 times the size of mine. Its bow was pulled back, and a lightning arrow shot at me, the power so immense it would have destroyed a mountain. I tried to use my Sword of Totsuka to seal it, but it wasn't there, neither was the gourd. It reached me, and the world went white.

…

I awoke to the sky above painted with a dark fiery brush like the day before, though the sky was painted a deep blue rather than a stark white.

My father was sat with Indra, the two noticing my revival but letting me approach them.

"I offer my condolences."

I nodded to him, though I did not smile, not out of some learnt performance of my past life, but out of a pain from the burning hurting hate in my gut, and the hellish grief marking my heart.

We sat, and ate, and joked and told stories, though mine were of Kisame and how even though he wasn't really a friend I considered him as such. It hurt, his

"I so wish I could go back, change what happened, or at least kill them, but I cannot."

Indra looked at me conspiratorially.

"I cannot send you, but I know someone who can. My father."

I could tell, with the faded venom that he spoke of him with, that their relationship wasn't fully repaired, even after all this time. A son and father often argued, that was expected, but I questioned that part of him. Couldn't he simply enjoy his time with his father, as I could mine?

He sent for him, a bird spirit flew off and followed the black sun rising, as marked the transition from night to day. Blue dark bled into white light like a menagerie of coloured wisps, a painter's mix of light blue undisturbed.

It must have been a few hours, before a man came. He looked alien, impossible. If Indra was an otherworldly beauty, this man was an otherworldly monster, flesh horns and a third eye ripping through his head, wrinkles and a sour dour face leading into a long strand of light brown hair at his chin. His eyes though, they were stunning. Steel grey and a vibrant purple glow around each blackened rim. They were Pain's, I realised, but more powerful, brighter.

"Son. Tell me why you sent for me. I am powerful yes, but I am not omniscient yet."

His son shook his head, a grin on his face.

"I was wondering if you could grant one of our descendants a favour."

My turn.

"I want to return back to life, to stop Uzumaki Naruto and kill my own mother, Orochimaru, and the akatsuki."

"For revenge?"

"I hate them, but I do not do this for me. I do this for the pain they have already caused, for the destruction they would bring. I do not need eyes to see that. I was hoping my brother would stop the Akatsuki, yet he is gone. I need to go back, to make things right. To repair the world I left behind ruined."

The man scoffed.

"If I gave every man a chance to make his mistakes right the afterlife would be empty. Do you believe yourself to be the only one who deserves a second chance?"

"No, but fairness doesn't matter in this scenario. They need to be stopped and I do not ask for much, I do not need your help aside from coming back. And if that stops them, you will have helped the world more than you or I could know."

He looked at me hard and serious, somehow more meaningfully than he did before.

"I will bring you back, but only if you let something of your own go. Let go of your birthright, your eyes, and I will grant your request."

My eyes? A small price to pay, but a big one at the same time. I had already sacrificed so much, losing my eyes wouldn't mean much compared to that, but it meant a lot to him. He disdained how chakra had been misused, and I assumed that removing them demonstrated that I wouldn't win by what I had been born with, but by what I learnt over time. It reflected his philosophy, even years after, to gift knowledge for the purpose of peace. Maybe he realised peace needed war, I don't know.

"I agree, but I need to do something before I leave. I wish to use these eyes to see the faces of every member of my clan. I do not deserve it, but I want my last memories of them to not be their deaths, but to be their joy. Secondly, I wish for Indra to show me as many justus of his to learn with my eyes."

He stroked his beard in a well learned movement.

"I will let you see your clan, but you will only get to see 1 technique from each of my sons. I will summon my other, and they will get to reunite, as you see your family."

And so I went, and the faces of so many went before me. I felt so much grief at these people's loss, at their sacrifice, and how it was wasted. They all forgave me, and their faces were filled with joy, and I understood that they had come to terms with their death a long time ago. They said they would have died anyway, and that seemed like a blasé attitude for their own lives, but it comforted me, and it made sense.

And then there was Shisui again, and he apologised again and again, for what he forced me to do, for not being strong enough, but he was still so young, still a child, so I told him he wasn't to blame. He told me back that I was younger still, so why did I still blame myself? I didn't have an answer.

Each face I memorized with my sharingan, and the faces which I only knew to be stoic or screaming, now soared with hope and love and happiness.

Then came my father. He had gone through so much, and yet he still wanted to help me, to comfort me.

"Don't blame yourself son. Blame me, blame the Leaf, blame everyone for not wanting peace, but don't blame yourself. In a way, we killed ourselves. The whole thing was done because we didn't want to be oppressed anymore, and we would rather die standing than live kneeling. Even if we survived, you think they wouldn't imprison us? Enslave us? Indoctrinate our children into hating us, or gods forbid, join root? We could only hope that the one who killed us were merciful, and that you were."

I agreed, but there was a part of me that denied my innocence, denied that my killings, my choices weren't my fault.

"I will not blame myself then, but I will not forget. I will never forget. Never again will I make the same mistake, kill thinking I could save the world. Sacrifice myself."

"Promise me this Itachi. After your mission, do not try to join us. Do not die again, find a wife, and marry her and have children and live a happy life. I do not care if you build up the Uchiha, I just want you to be happy."

My father's sharingan were spinning I realised, as were mine. I loved this man when he let me kill him, and I loved him now, yet I didn't understand just how much he loved me. He cherished me, even though I failed, even though I ruined his plans. Even though I killed him.

He still loved me.

…

I re-joined the Sage and his two sons. The second, Asura as I was told, had broader features and a wider smile, and I realised he had a resemblance to the first Hokage. I didn't need him to say he created the Senju for me to put it together. He was bombastic, picking me up in a hug, affectionately calling me nephew and swinging me around before putting me down. He smiled more and more brightly than any other man I had met in my life, and he, even in death, had a feeling of life around him, as if the nature around him blossomed just a bit stronger.

"Itachi, nephew, before I let you go, and give you my super special technique, I need you to tell me something.

Is this entire thing for revenge?"

Ah the ploy then. As if on cue, the Sage turned and agreed.

"Ah yes, that was one of my concerns too. Revenge is a circle really. Violence begets violence, not to mention the man who creates it. How am I meant to know you will not go massacring to sate your bloodlust? The vices of men proliferate more and more yet I am meant to believe you will not exceed that threshold?"

I sighed.

"I do not have a guarantee, no. But I would let you kill me if I failed to abstain from pointless murder after the death of my mother. In fact, unless killing is needed for my mission or self-defence, I will never do so again."

The Sage stared for moments.

"That is acceptable. I will monitor you, but I would rather see you try to not kill when there is no consequence. I will not kill you for stepping out of line, but if your heart is pure, then you will not anyway."

"My heart is not pure; I am a murderer."

"Yes, but even the blackest of hearts can have virtue hidden deep within."

This stern, maybe even cruel man was perhaps an example of that. He looked like he has more hidden hatred than even me, yet he keeps it locked behind, preaches peace and good and forgiveness, and forgave even my actions.

"Ok then. I will not pursue revenge. I promise that."

Indra and the Sage looked at Asura, who laughed and clapped, sun smile stretched on his face.

"Well, why not let my brother go first? He created ninjutsu, he should get to teach our budding student."

Indra looked dismissively at his younger brother, scoffing and walking over to Itachi. His hands went through signs quickly without care for me being able to keep up. My eyes allowed me to copy them perfectly though.

Then he teleported.

Only a short distance, but it was instant, he couldn't even track it with his sharingan.

"Try it."

And so I did, 3 hand signs, like so, and.

It was like I simply stepped forward and skipped space.

"I never named my jutsus, so you can call this whatever you want."

I was never one for complexity in names, I preferred to call something what it was.

"Step. I will call it Step."

The younger Ōtsutsuki clasped his hand on my shoulder.

"Well, he may have made ninjutsu but my clan made thousands. You'll be blind though, and you'll need something to get past that, so I gift you, this!"

He clasped his hands together, and I was blasted with a sense of love and acknowledgement and pride and positivity.

And then it stopped.

"Now, if you watched correctly, you would be able to receive others emotions and let others receive yours. Neat, huh?"

I was stunned. It was a dangerous tool for sure, yet I was mainly concerned with the way it was so clearly a genjutsu yet it felt peculiar, like the purpose wasn't to effect the opponent, to change their mind, manipulate and fool, but rather to inform, communicate and gift.

"That, is the starting steps to ninshu."

The Sage informed me, somewhat stunned at his son's actions.

"I give him an actual ability, and you let him talk to others with an outdated system."

Indra stated, his unimpressed face telling more than his derision filled tone ever could.

"Yeah, it isn't as grandiose as the great gift of the greater Indra, but hey, it'll let him meditate better, and that is what he needs more than power."

"I thank you both for these gifts, I am sure I will use both on this journey." I said.

"Well, if your goodbyes are done, I will prepare to send you down. If you fail, I will not send you back up, and the only reason I do this is to stop the apocalypse that would be caused by the 10 tails. If you fail to stop that, then nothing else will matter."

I nodded, and took his outstretched hand in mine.

Then darkness.

…

I thought I was drifting in a void for a time, until it became hard to breath, and my oxygen starved brain nearly started to panic. It calmed itself though, mantras and learned instructions keeping my sanity in check in the completely black space I found myself in. My hands roamed the walls of the box I was in, as I pushed bit by bit. I tried to use my sharingan but it didn't activate. The walls didn't budge, so I punched.

Left, left, left, left. I punched into the wooden wall, until dirt came pouring through onto my chest. I began to dug with both of my hands, etching out a small hole from which my hands dug more and more, until I could sit upright, and I kept digging up and up, until one of my hands burst through. It grabbed onto the side, and with one final push, I burst through the soil.

I sucked in breath after breath, my lungs working overtime as it supplied blood to my dying brain, yet I was safe, and I saw only black.

I placed my fingers on my eyes, and they were gone. Holes. Absent, like they had been ripped out forcefully.

My harried thoughts reached back to what seemed like a dream but had never felt more real, the Sage saying my eyes would be gone, and he was right, though it seemed someone, maybe him or maybe not, stole them. My fingers felt the absence again, prodding and groping for a few moments.

And then I fell to my knees, and I screamed. Screamed at it all. At my life, at my death, at my failure. At Sasuke. At every damned bastard I would kill with my own bare hands!

My blood was fire, hate poured into every part of my soul and every part of my flesh. I hated so much, I knew it. My chakra, my soul died with my body, with my decaying lungs, but it died with my loss of hope too. I wanted to die for a long time, and Sasuke would kill me, and nobody else. I would keep that promise, I cried to nothing, whilst my fire burned even deeper. Nobody would hurt me for as long as he was gone.

I thought back to Orochimaru, and my mind drifted to the inevitable drug of what ifs and half formed self hating fantasy. What if I let him take my body? Sasuke would have been taken, but that's a lie. Sasuke would have been taken as breeding stock, and his body used in 3 years. He may have killed the snake by then, but killing myself for a chance is foolish. And how foolish I had been.

I wanted to heed my father's words, to say I wasn't in the wrong, say that it was all needed, but that isn't true. I was a fool, and I will never make that kind of mistake again.

But first things first. I needed a shower and a change of clothes. I stank of death.

…

Sneaking into a store was like child's play, even for a blind shinobi. I stole some black clothes (old habits die harder than people it seems), sandals, nail polish (I like it alright?), money, and made it out of there.

Sneaking into an onsen was even easier, and I let the shower run down my body, as I thought on my next actions. I could go back to the Akatsuki, but I was done being their pawn. Madara would destroy the world if I didn't stop him, and my messages about them hadn't done anything. The new hokage was weak, and would be preoccupied with the Uzumaki's wolves. I needed, more than anything to take them out alone, but I would be hard pressed to do so without my vision or eyes. And I really wanted Danzo dead. He had Shisui's eyes, had more in his arm, and was the cause for too many of the worlds problems, as well as Naruto's unofficial sponsor. He was by all means scum, and killing him would not only give me some eyes, as well as an Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan if I could do them with Shisui's eye, but also rid the world of one of its biggest issues.

Speaking of Shisui's eyes, I tried summoning my crows to get it from them, but they didn't appear. The contract ends with death, and I had died. A shame, as I wasn't sure how to get it back. I could simply try to reverse summon to them, but if I ended up somewhere dangerous, I didn't want to be caught without being at full strength, and there were no crows here to reverse summon me back. I would be trapped.

So slitting Danzo's throat would be the best option, at least until I managed to get the scroll from..

Mikoto. That woman. No longer my mother. It hurt to even think of her, but not because my heart aches but because my blood boils, my teeth grit my ears hear only static as my thoughts run through 100 ways of killing her.

And her consort, that psychopathic, morally corrupted harem owning mass murdering imbecile!

How I hated him, hated his luck, hated how so much was gifted to him, and how much he took from me for no reason at all.

Hated how much he was like me. A prodigy, young, gifted, strong. His Bloodline limit making him a lethal force yet him going past it, more powerful still. Shutting himself from people, that want to defend someone, the sacrifice of everyone else for it.

He was like a version of me if I really had become evil.

I checked something. I ran chakra into both of my eye sockets, then ran the chakra back into my body, all of it rushing out of my body. I took care to not summon it all, just a wisp of cloth, but my Susanoo was still with me, yet I knew it lacked the mirror and the blade. Madara must have took it when he found my body, dead.

I knew little about him still. He was Obito Uchiha, yes and a bastard definitely, but why does he do anything? It is an enigma. His love Rin died, but he seems to not care for her, wanting the ten-tails to take over the elemental nations for nothing else but his ego and fragmented vision of peace.

His motivations, like Naruto's were a mystery, though Naruto at least had the excuse of being a weak willed hormonal teenager (I am slightly stronger willed) whilst Madara was a stone cold mass murderer capable of killing his former teacher and destroying the Leaf village.

And so with a river of warm water running down my back, I decided Danzo would die first.

…

How to kill him though?

Simple. Sneak into the hidden Leaf and stab him through the throat. He wouldn't be able to reveal his Izanagi in time and Indra's technique had proven an invaluable assassination technique. It made no sound, couldn't be sensed, and couldn't be reacted to, from up to 20 meters. The issue was it had a cool down of sorts. It wasn't like shisui's body flicker, which moved you around. Instead, the world was compressed so you could step across it, and anyone who used something that stretches knows there is only so much you can pull on it before it snaps or you can't move it anymore. Stepping twice in quick succession is like trying to pull a rubber band so that it both stretches up and stretches to the side. It just isn't possible.

But I could still use it once, and that meant I could kill him in a single blow, remove his limbs, eye, and leave. In a short time. All I would have to do is survive until I could use it again and I would vanish.

Infiltrating the village was a difficulty but it wasn't impossible. It had been weakened after the disastrous war in Kiri, and the occupation of Suna split their forces. In effect, the greatest time to strike would be now. Good.

I prepared to move, and burn everyone who wronged me.

…

A/N: If you are seeing this, I have lost my mind. I wrote most of this in a creativity fuelled haze in a single day, and I most likely will not continue this or even upload this. To Erahzid, I love you man, you do you, I like you stuff even though I haven't read it in like 2 years.

To people expecting other stuff, I wrote this on 23/04/2023. So depending on when I release this, It only took 3 days for this chapter, I will continue on Firestorm's 5th chapter.

Also, angry Itachi? I like the idea, it is compelling. He is this calm and considerate guy playing at being a calm sadistic sociopath. Imagining him breaking is interesting to me. I read a fanfiction about it once, Sasuke dying and Itachi just deciding to burn the whole world down.

He is an interesting character because you never know just how much he is lying to you. Is he really a loving older brother? He treats Sasuke like shit, nearly kills him several times, yet claims to love him. Does he really just resent him for his weakness, his emotion, and as such punish him? I don't know, but that is one of the most interesting things about Itachi. The series presents him as perfect, yet when you say "That can't be right" and peel away the paint, you can find any one flaw hiding underneath. Self-loathing. Sadism. Obsession.

So why not take a crack at him?

Also, the image of Yomi was part inspired by some other interpretations of the Naruto afterlife and also the video game Trek to Yomi. It is a good game (I beat it on the hardest difficulty without knowing it) whilst being a nicer take. I wanted a place where people and their souls could go to rest, where you would be reunited with your family, with their souls, and you wouldn't want for anything, but also that the world wouldn't really matter as much. Itachi knows there is nothing he can change in this world, so he desires to go back, even though anything he could ever need it here.

I could have had a moral question here (Why leave when everything you could ever need is here?) but Itachi is a shinobi, he endures, and he is willing to endure even his death if it means he can achieve peace.

Anyway thanks for reading, if anyone ever does.