3/4 Desolate Unfolding
Characters: Itachi and Shisui(healthy side-dish of Madara).
Summary: A plan starts to unravel. Decisions are made. What will you miss most?
Rating: Mature for character death, and mind games with a minor.
I'm holding onto you, I'll never let go
I need you with me as I enter the shadows--Shadows by RED
And he took me to the river
Where he slowly let me drown
And is it worth the wait
All this killing time?
Are you strong enough to stand
Protecting both your heart and mine?
Heavy in Your Arms by Florence and the Machine
It had been ages since Shisui and Itachi had actually had a fight. A screaming, hateful, hurt filled fight that involved words and not fists or feet.
"That doesn't even make sense!" Itachi was standing behind the counter, his hands pressed against it like he might launch himself across it at Shisui. Shisui would actually welcome that. Maybe if they fought it out, they could come to a better understanding of eachother.
"It does, look--" Shisui gestured to his face. "What do you think is going to happen when people figure out I've lost an eye? They'll swarm us. They'll wonder who has the other eye, and they'll realize two things. One, that I can be defeated and that they can take my eye. Two, that there's only one eye left and they have to hurry before someone else takes it. They'll also want to know who has the first, so then there's torture, and when it gets out what happened....our stories won't hold up. People will think we were genjutsu'd with my jutsu into killing the clan.
"Even if someone doesn't get me, what do you think some will think after we massacre our clan and I turn up with only one eye? Out of the thousands of ninja pondering the problem, at least one will decide my missing eye plus our clan's death means there was genjutsu involved. If Konoha is blamed, there goes everything. The other clans will get nervous and hostile and pull away, and we'll be back where we started."
"So we fake your death!" Itachi shot back. He was frightened, under the anger and betrayal he was terrified, and Shisui knew it. He hated himself for this. He hated that he couldn’t find another way.
"Finding a suitable corpse, planting it, and doing all the genjutsu we'd need would take too long. Also, it's too risky. Danzou, at least, would suspect I was still alive. He'd assume I'd have a grudge, and the only power to counter his. He'd be constantly searching for me and trying to decide if I was really dead, or plotting my revenge on him and Konoha. He’d use Sasuke and the kids as a shield, and they wouldn’t be allowed to grow as we wanted. He's too afraid of me and what I can do." Shisui slowly moved towards the counter. "Stop thinking with your heart and use your head. This is the easiest way to simplify things."
"I can't do this without you." Itachi's hands shook on the counter. "There's your logic, Shisui. I can't do this without you. I need you to keep me on the right path."
"You think you'll fall apart without me? Itachi, you're stronger than that." Shisui reached his hands on the counter. Itachi jerked his back.
"I'm not like you. I'm like them. I want revenge and murder just as badly as they do. I want Danzou to suffer for what he did to you." Itachi spat the name out like poison, and his red eyes turned sharply at the thought.
"But you didn't--"
"Because you were there to stop me! If you had died, nothing would have stopped me from killing everyone involved in your death." Itachi looked heart-breakingly like Fugaku in that moment, his teeth bared, anger and hatred lacing his words.
Shisui leaned across the counter and grabbed one of Itachi's fisted hands. "No, no you wouldn't have. You don't want revenge. You want justice. You want the world to be fair, but you know there won't be justice unless you hand it out yourself." Shisui squeezed Itachi's wrist. "That's just as dangerous for us as wanting revenge. We're not the ones who take revenge or decide on justice. We're the tools serving from the shadows."
"I can't do this without you. You promised you'd be with me." Itachi struggled to keep the anger in his voice strong.
"You're so quick to believe the worst about yourself." Shisui sighed. "Do you think I'd create a plan like this that hinged on a shaky variable? I know you. I raised you, I've fought you, I know you better than anyone else. You can do this. You won't get lost in the anger. I know you won’t.”
"I can't kill you." Itachi's face was set
"You need the Mangekyou."
Itachi jerked his hand away from Shisui's. "There are other ways to get it! Just look at yours."
"Madara said that was the way to get the strongest Mangekyou. He could be lying, but why else would that have been the preferred method of gaining the Mangekyou? Without me, you're going to need every advantage you have against Madara and Danzou and everyone else."
"Oh, so now you're going to give me a powerful technique, then turn me loose without my conscious after I've killed the person who matters most to me? That sounds like a great idea for keeping Konoha safe," Itachi folded his arms and looked away.
"Call it a safety measure. You can't use the Mangekyou at full strength for long, so at least I'd be putting a cap on your reign of terror." Shisui stepped around the island counter. He could see Itachi’s resistance faltering and breaking down. He could see all the points and reasons.
"I can't kill you. I can't kill you, Shisui." Itachi held his arms and looked off into the distance.
"I could make you."
Itachi looked at Shisui sharply. His eyes were grey and red now. At the sight of Shisui's face, something broke down. Itachi dropped his gaze. "Are you that determined to die?"
"I'm that determined that Konoha should be safe. What's one more death, Itachi?"
Itachi's shoulders convulsed in a smothered laugh. "There's got to be another way."
Shisui touched Itachi's cheek and pushed his thick bangs back behind his ear. "Then help me find it." Shisui, feeling the warmth of his cousin's cheek under his hand, didn't want to die. He didn't want to leave Itachi alone, and the very thought of it tore him apart inside. Shisui leaned his forehead against Itachi’s.
“Help me find it, love. Show me the way.”
---
Itachi and Shisui talked until they were hoarse. Finally, there was nothing more to say. If Shisui had noticed Itachi trying not to cry, he hadn't mentioned it. Itachi sat in Shisui's place on the bed, his head in his hands. It was late afternoon now, the sun was climbing down from the sky, and the day was ending. So much was ending.
"Hey, get some sleep."
Itachi looked up, vision blurry, at Shisui. The patch was off, and the swelling of his eye was almost gone thanks to some chakra laced salve. They wanted to leave as little evidence of the wound as possible. Itachi scoffed. "Sleep."
Sleep, on the last afternoon his cousin would be alive?
"I know you didn't get much last night, idiot. Can you sneak into a morgue on no sleep?" Shisui closed the curtains and plunged the room into almost darkness. "Get a few hours, at least. I'll wake you when it's time."
"And what will you do?" Itachi could hear Shisui's steps ruffling the papers still on the floor. He'd been over those papers until he thought his eyes might start to bleed, and they hadn’t bothered to clean them up. Maybe Itachi would burn them. They hadn’t been much help in the end.
"Think." Shisui's foot caught Itachi in the chest and shoved him back onto the bed. "Just in case we missed anything." Itachi let himself flop back onto the bed. He stared at the pale ceiling, one he knew like his own calloused hand. He was never going to sleep under it again. The thought hadn’t seemed so terrible until this afternoon. Now it felt like something that could strangle the life out of him.
"Nothing's going to change, is it? If there was another answer, we would have found it by now." Itachi closed his eyes. He didn't really need an answer. Shisui didn't give it. He sat down instead, placing his hand on Itachi's shoulder. His hand was warm. It didn't shake. It was strong.
"Get some sleep, Itachi. I'll be here when you wake up."
Itachi's eyes snapped open, and he stared in the darkness at his cousin. He could vaguely see Shisui's face--not that he really needed to see his cousin. His mind knew the curve of Shisui's face, the tilt of his eyes, and the mass of his wild hair. He'd seen it with the Sharingan so many times there was no way he could forget it. Still, the fear that he might forget Shisui’s face struck Itachi. Would Shisui become just another water stained photograph in his mind, one of the faceless dead of Itachi's life?
Shisui caught Itachi's groping hand before Itachi even realized what he was reaching for. "Sleep." The soft whisper was husky and warm. Itachi felt his eye lids flutter shut only to open again. How could he sleep? He gripped Shisui's hand, aware of how much larger Shisui's hands were. Shisui was five years older, already nineteen. An adult in every way. He was stronger, smarter, more capable.
"You should kill me and take one of my eyes," Itachi suggested slowly.
"It wouldn't have the Mangekyou. People would still know." There was a musical tilt to Shisui's voice now.
"They'll come after me for my eyes too." Itachi blinked heavily, cursing their eyes. Why were they born with devil's eyes?
"No, no they won't. No one will know what they can do, and it's not your eyes that make you great. No one part of you is anything but exceptional, but, together, you combine everything to be extraordinary. Me, I just have my eyes and my flicker step. You've got everything, and by the time someone decides they want your eyes, they'll be too afraid of you to even try.
"That's what I'll do for you. I'll make you untouchable."
Itachi felt the heavy pulse of his heart in his chest. Shisui's words whispered to him like blood in his ears. Every syllable, every personal twitch and quirk of voice, Itachi stored away. He packed them into his black soul to keep it from rotting away, and he hoped that would be enough.
"That's what I'm going to miss most."
Shisui pressed his wet lips to Itachi's knuckles. "Not seeing you grow up. You would have been great--will be..." Shisui chuckled. "Tenses. . .I wish I could see that. You in five years, finally reaching your peak. I wanted to see what you'd become."
"You can't miss people when you're dead." Itachi hardly realized that he was speaking.
"Can't you?" Shisui's voice was a softer whisper, as if he realized Itachi was falling fast asleep and didn’t want to rouse him. "What happens to ninja when they die? Do they go to hell? Who would want the protection of a killer spirit? Will I get another life to redeem myself in?"
"You deserve another life." Itachi sighed. "A safe one filled with...with love and life...and goldfish."
Shisui’s laugh sounded hysterical; Itachi was too far gone to realize it. "Go to sleep, baby cousin, please just go to sleep." Shisui's voice almost cracked on the last words, and Itachi realized then his cousin's voice was laced with a genjutsu. There was no fighting this sleep.
---
Shisui left Itachi sleeping to make sure he had things ready. He felt like he didn't have enough time, but he found himself wandering around his apartment, looking at things he hadn't noticed in ages. Little knick-knacks from missions. Smooth river stones he and Itachi had found--the old blunted kunai he'd first given Itachi in the trenches. So little time, but the seconds dragged as the dark crept into the apartment. Itachi slept, trouble and twitching from time to time in his sleep. Shisui leaned against the doorframe and watched him, going in from time to time to sit by Itachi and just watch him sleep. Watch him breath.
Shisui thought of killing himself before Itachi woke up. He thought of taking that burden from the child's frail shoulders, but he didn't dare. For now, they still had things they needed to do. Maybe he was afraid to kill himself. Maybe he was clinging to every second of life he had. Maybe he was hoping the guilt of killing his cousin would be another chain holding Itachi to the path Shisui had started him on.
Nothing was simple. Every notion was filled with deceit and multiple meanings and reasons.
Itachi slipped out of the genjutsu after dark. He started twisting and turning, his breathing erratic. He actually started mumbling. Itachi had always been a quiet sleeper as a child. Crammed in some bomb shelter or wherever else, Shisui could always rely on Itachi to be silent and still as he fell asleep. Now, ten and more years from those days, Itachi still slept heavy and silent whenever Shisui as around.
Shisui knelt down beside Itachi and let the boy's roaming fingers catch his own. Itachi opened his eyes, foggy with sleep. Shisui could barely see them.
"Nii-san." The childish mumble brought to mind easier times. Shisui pushed Itachi's bangs back from his face. His thick hair was tangled. Shisui had always loved Itachi's hair, and loved to tease him about it. It was the only thing Itachi was vain about. Shisui wondered if his cousin's childhood prettiness would fade, or if it would intensify over the years. Would he be the man who walked down the street and everyone stared? Would his cool reserve melt into charm? Would he even need genjutsu to bend people to his will?
"I'm here." Shisui smoothed a hand over Itachi's forehead. He wanted to see it. He wanted to live his life with his cousin, entwined and inseparable as they always had been. He didn't want anything to change. Maybe there had been some excitement in their plan, running off from unjust persecution to live as missing-nin. Maybe it had been a romantic fantasy too childish to live in the harsh reality of their lives.
"Had a dream." Itachi rubbed at his sleep clotted eyes. His fingers curled against his palm.
"A dream?" Shisui traced the curve of Itachi's face--his sharp, high cheekbone, the socket of his eye. "What dream?"
"The sky was on fire. The village was burning." Itachi's head shifted and he looked up at Shisui. "I fell in the river." Shisui's fingers traced Itachi's jaw, still childish in shape, but he could feel the firmness growing in it. You will be amazing, Itachi. The way you come together...You will be the most amazing thing the world has ever seen.
There was dangerous pride in raising someone like Itachi. "You fell in the river." Shisui touched Itachi's lips, worried and cracked. Itachi still chewed on them when he was alone or behind his ANBU mask. He chewed on the inside of his cheeks when he wasn't hiding behind something. His mouth was probably covered in scars. Such a bad habit. A ninja shouldn’t have a nervous tic, but it was endearingly human for a child.
"You pulled me out. The water was red. I couldn't breathe....you..."Itachi blinked heavily. His eyes came into focus, his cousin's fingers stroking his face.
"Did you think of another way?" Itachi asked. His voice sounded older, tired, broken.
Shisui shook his head. "No."
Itachi nodded. He stretched his arms above his head and then relaxed. One of his arms fell over his eyes.
"You died." Itachi took a sharp breath. "And I pushed you into the river and watched you sink." Itachi's lips twisted into an ugly shape. His jaw clenched.
Shisui leaned down. "I'm right here." The crack of Shisui's head as Itachi grabbed Shisui's hair and pulled him down wasn't just pain, but a conformation of life as his cousin's nails dug deep into his skin.
---
Three hours. Itachi leaned against Shisui's side in silence as they went over the hospital blue prints. Three hours. Three hours. What could you do in three hours? What could you change? What could you fix?
Not enough. Not damn near enough.
"One more time." Shisui was dragging his nails up and down Itachi's bare arm, raising goose bumps. Itachi didn't bother protesting. He didn’t mind it. He leaned his cheek against Shisui's shoulder and kicked the map away.
"I know it already. I know what to do." Itachi closed his eyes, and the image of the hospital blueprint burned into his eyelids so that he saw it even with his eyes closed. He smelled Shisui. His scent was just a little off, soured slightly from pain and stress and something else. Itachi expected Shisui to reach for the map and demand they go over it one more time.
Shisui sighed. The loss of air seemed to leave him frighteningly depleted. His hand never stopped moving up and down Itachi's arm. This waiting...this game of patience was killing them both. Itachi tottered back and forth between his resolve. He knew, in his head, that in the next four hours or so, he would kill his cousin. The thought was hollow dread, but nothing more. He didn't actually believe it yet. He couldn't. How did you believe something like that?
"Is there something you want to say?" Shisui asked.
"I hate you for being right all the time." Itachi felt the soft 'huff' that was Shisui's obligatory laugh. Silence crept over them. Itachi felt his eyes glaze. Did he think time would stop for them if they did nothing? If they said nothing?
But what more was there to say?
"Are you sure? No long kept secrets or things you've always been afraid to tell me?" Shisui asked. The silence seemed to rattle him. Itachi breathed out. He searched his mind for anything he’d ever kept from his cousin. It was hard. His thoughts were lethargic, and he really had never kept much from Shisui to begin with.
"I poisoned Megiku."
"You little brat..." Shisui actually snickered. "I liked her."
"She was a snob." Itachi felt Shisui pinch his arm hard enough to bruise. Itachi opened his eye and looked at the red mark. When it faded...when it was gone...
"You were jealous," Shisui countered. His fingers smoothed over the to-be bruise, not really in apology. Silence again.
"I think I might have fallen in love with you if we'd gotten older." Shisui's knuckles went up and down Itachi's arm. The repetitive motion was soothing.
"You can't measure anything by how you feel now. You know that." Itachi closed his eyes again. Touch had never been so electric, speech so complex. There were so many different parts that wove together to make the whole. Everything felt richer, but at the same time grey and bleak. This was the end. The final act in their tragedy.
"I was already obsessed. How far is love from that?" Shisui drew a hand through Itachi's hair. The tangles were gone now. Shisui had braided it back and tied it with a ribbon when they'd started going over the maps. The little bell was trapped between Itachi’s back and the couch.
"Far. You're a narcissist. I'm you. You're the one who made me what I am."
"No...no, you made yourself. I just watched and held your head above the water." Shisui's fingers curled in Itachi's hair. He buried his face in it. Itachi let the silence slide back in until it had filled him up to all his corners and crevices. It was a good silence, like a sweet meal or heavy drink. There was nothing more to say, but a lifetime of things that wouldn't be spoken. How did you live a lifetime in less than three hours?
"One more time?" Itachi asked.
"Okay." Shisui's hand slid from his hair to brush his neck as it fell down. "One more time."
---
"Here." Itachi set the jar with its two eyeballs on the counter.
"Do they match exactly?" Shisui moved with a nervous energy now. His calm was destroyed, and Itachi struggled to keep his. While if Itachi broke down, he knew it would be anger and despair that leaked out, Shisui seemed consumed with a starkly manic cheer that made him smile like a skull.
"No, but they only have a slight variation in central coloring, which is good enough for the purpose. I don’t think anyone but me would notice." Itachi pulled off the lab coat he'd worn, dismantling the henge of a doctor.
“Aaaaw, you spend a lot of time staring deeply into my eyes, don’t you?” Shisui reached out and pinched Itachi’s cheek.
“Yes, because I like to live dangerously that way.” Itachi swatted Shisui’s hand away. This was absurd. It didn’t even feel real anymore. Shisui wasn’t helping. Itachi loved him for it. "Are you ready?"
Shisui nodded. "I've got the Kotoamatsukami set up. You remember what I told you?"
"It will take ten years to recharge--why is that?" Itachi tried not to think about what he was going to do. He had the eyes--two of them. Now...now...
"Because, my chakra ticks in increments of ten. I started using ten years after Dad’s death, but could only use it every ten months, then every ten weeks, ten days, ten hours..." Shisui shrugged. "It's a genjutsu, so it's more linked to my mind and the limits I put on it than anything else. Without my chakra to feed it, or my mind, it will take ten years for the jutsu to remember itself after you use the stored jutsu I put in it. You won’t be able to reset the purpose. It will only ever make someone protect Konoha."
"How are you so sure?" Itachi asked. He turned the jar, and the eyes bobbed obscenely up and down.
"Trust me, I'm sure." Shisui sat down and looked up at Itachi. "Do you have everything else?" Shisui smiled, but it seemed gruesome. Had his face always been so gaunt, or had the flesh melted off him in the past day? Maybe he was sick. Maybe his eye had gotten infected. Maybe he was being burned from the inside out by the fever fire in his flesh.
"I have them." Itachi pulled the roll of metal instruments from his shirt. They clanked and rattled. They sounded like metal bones. Bones ripped from children. Itachi swallowed and sat down across from Shisui. Shisui pulled out a glass case and a scroll he'd already inscribed with both his blood and Itachi's. It was only a temporary container, but the sight of it sent shivers down Itachi's spine.
"Ready?" Shisui's voice was breathless. Itachi wondered if he was frightened or excited. He wondered if there was a difference in this situation--this sick and morbid situation.
"No." Itachi opened the roll of instruments and looked down at them. "You're drugged, right?"
"As much as I can be and hold the jutsu." The Mangekyou was alive in Shisui's eye, burning and crawling all over Itachi skin as it spun. It held the most powerful genjutsu Itachi had ever heard of, and he looked at it without fear. Did he think Shisui would never put a genjutsu on him? Not entirely. He knew if Shisui did put a genjutsu on him, then it would be for his own good. Shisui always did the right thing.
Itachi swallowed.
"Try not to damage the eye at all, and cause as little trauma to the surrounding tissue as possible." Shisui's lecturing tone reminded Itachi of the hours Shisui had spent teaching him, as if this was just another technique to master. There was nothing odd about all of this.
Nothing at all.
"I know." The medical instrument in his hand looked like something for torture. Someone had kept it clean and wickedly sharp. In the right hands, this was no doubt deadly. In the wrong hands too, come to think of it.
"Try to seal the left eye in as soon as possible. They're dead, but they might graft better if you try soon," Shisui flicked his fingers towards the sealed jar of plain grey eyes. Itachi nodded. Swallowed.
"I'm not a medic."
Shisui nodded.
"It will hurt."
Shisui's lips curved into a wider smile. "I swear not to scream."
Itachi rose to his knees and shifted the instrument in his sweating hand. He reached out and pried Shisui's eyelids open, holding his breath and he looked down into Shisui's red, burning eye for the last time.
---
He'd connected the eyes imperfectly. While a skilled medic could replace lost eyes and make the new ones function, Itachi couldn't. He'd blinded his cousins. Now Shisui saw with his feet and his hands as he groped along the ground. Now he was wracked with the pain of his missing eyes, plagued by phantom images of light and faces.
Getting Shisui down to the river--the Nakano, their river--was hell. Itachi's heart was in his throat the entire time. They moved with awkward slowness, stumbling down streets like drunken lovers, weaving in and out of the light and patterned darkness of the compound. At moments, time seemed to drag and stretch, then it would snap, rushing past Itachi and almost throwing him to the ground.
They slid down the muddy bank, Shisui slipping and falling, pulling Itachi down with them. They rolled across the flat, shoving away from each other. Itachi fell into the river. For a moment, the water closed cold over his head. He tasted the green fish rot in his mouth and then came up coughing. He realized Shisui was calling his name, scrambling his hands over the wet ground, looking for his cousin, afraid to come to close to the water's edge.
Afraid to drown.
"I'm here. I'm okay." Itachi coughed and floundered out of the water. Everything felt fragmented. He wiped his wet hands on his shirt and stared at the pattern left behind. The smell of the river seemed to overcome him. Itachi took a deep breath and moved to touch Shisui's shoulder, glad his cousin couldn’t see his face or the sick expression on it.
"Are you okay?" Itachi feared the eyes had come loose, but they twitched impotently in Shisui's skull. He couldn't see, he couldn't properly move them. Itachi wanted to pop them out and throw them in the river. Itachi's hands were now shaking as he touched Shisui's chin. Shisui managed a smile. Managed it as if it was easy. Itachi was falling apart, but Shisui still stood strong enough to hold up them both.
"Better than ever." Shisui gripped Itachi's wrists, and Itachi pulled him up. Shisui walked close to Itachi, slowly down the river bank to one little bend they both knew very well. It seemed fitting.
"You don't have to lie to make me feel better." Itachi hissed.
"If I lied, would you feel better?" Shisui nudged Itachi with and elbow. "I made this decision for myself, Itachi. You had nothing to do with it."
"No, I'm just the grim executioner. Your accomplice. I’m completely innocent." Itachi stopped. There was no moon, but all the stars were out. Dew covered the grass, and the summer air weighed heavy on Itachi's shoulders. He breathed it in through his nose, each breath viscous, crawling down his throat and sticking in his lungs. Shisui slid his arm from around Itachi and took three wobbling steps. He sank down into the grass and sighed.
"Make sure my eyes stay open, so the deterioration won't be so odd." Shisui turned his blind face towards Itachi. It was unnerving.
"And don't let them keep my body too long. You'll have to carry out the massacre soon, so they don't have time to figure out about my eyes--and after that destroy my body. Make sure no one ever gets any of my body, okay?" Shisui reached blindly for Itachi. Itachi offered his hand and let himself be pulled down into the grass. It soaked into his knees. He imagined he could smell the rot of Shisui's fake eyes from where he knelt. The swelling wasn't bad. People might believe it was all true. They had to.
Shisui pulled Itachi's forehead to his own. His hand was steady. His breathing was calm. Itachi could almost taste it in his own mouth. Shisui squeezed the back of Itachi's neck. Itachi closed his eyes, just as blind as Shisui for a moment. Let him be blind instead. Let him drown instead of his cousin.
Let Shisui live.
"Tachi."
Shisui breathed out. His hand fell away from Itachi's neck.
"The longer I'm in the water, the better it will be."
Itachi swallowed and nodded. He allowed himself to lean against Shisui for a moment longer, then he pulled away. Shisui stood again and walked towards the water. He slipped down the banks into the river, splashing up to his knees and almost falling before he regained his feet. Shisui steadied himself and turned to Itachi. He held out his arms and smiled.
"Come on. It's time."
Itachi placed his hands on Shisui's shoulders; Shisui gripped Itachi’s hips and lifted him. Shisui stepped back into the current. His arms folded up, lowering Itachi down into the water. It was cold. The current pulled at his legs, trying to drag him down. Shisui led him unerringly out into the deeper water. The river bed fell out from under Shisui. His head dropped to the level of Itachi's collarbones.
"Deep enough?" Shisui's hands gripped Itachi's sides sharply. Itachi still had his hands on Shisui's shoulders. The river current was strong. The water came only to Itachi's hips. Itachi breathed in, listening to the flow of the water around them. Itachi slid his hands in, placing his thumbs over the double pulses of Shisui's carotid arteries. His hands shook. His body quaked and his mind suddenly realized what he was doing. He was killing his cousin. He was murdering Shisui.
He couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t There was no way he could go through with this. He couldn’t He couldn’t. It wasn’t physically possible.
"Don't freak out on me now, Itachi. Don't you dare." As always, Shisui knew what was going on in Itachi's head. "It's too late for that."
Shisui was a blind ninja, soon to be missing-nin. He was as good as dead. Shisui gripped Itachi's shirt and pulled him down. "If you make me kill myself for you, this won't mean anything. Don't do this for Konoha, don't do this for yourself. Do this for me."
Shisui pulled Itachi down further, rising from the water, his blind lips pressed into Itachi's. It was warmth and love. The soul was in the breath, Itachi remembered in that instant and discarded his view that the soul was in the eyes. The burning press of his cousin's mouth to his own suffused his entire body with a hot flush of assurance and ate away at the dread and disgust in him. He could feel Shisui resolve. He could drink it in and make it his own. He opened his mouth to do so, or maybe it was to cry. For me. Do it for me.
Itachi’s lips felt cold as Shisui’s slipped away.
Shisui went under the water without a sound. Itachi's hands held him in place, and Shisui's hands held Itachi's firm on his throat. While Itachi pressed his thumbs hard into the double pulses in Shisui's throat, Shisui opened his mouth and gulped down the first breath himself. His body convulsed once in a spontaneous cough, but nothing more as he gulped down more water. He passed out in under ten seconds, but he body never broke the surface. He never struggled.
Uchiha Shisui died silently.
The burning pain started after Shisui had been under water two minutes. Itachi blinked away the sudden blur across his vision. He made sure Shisui's sightless eyes were open, and then turned Shisui face down in the river. Itachi gripped the back of Shisui's shirt with white knuckles and stared down at the body the river tried to pull out of his grasp.
The body.
His cousin.
His Shisui.
Itachi choked, and his body convulsed. He fell under the water, and his hands spasmed, letting Shisui drift away. Itachi's wide open eyes caught a glimpse of Shisui's body floating away, carried by the current far away from here. Away from Itachi. Another convulsion ripped through Itachi. His body curled in on itself, and the water tumbled him head over heels. His head was on fire. Someone had driven a spike through his skull. Someone had gouged out his eyes. He tried to scream, but only choked. He was drowning, and Shisui's death had been for nothing. He was dying...
He was vomiting on the river back. His limbs gave out, and only the strong hold on his hair kept him from falling face first in his own filth. Another hand grabbed his shirt and pulled him away from the vomit. Itachi couldn't move. Even the darkness seemed too bright to his eyes. Tears were coursing down his face. Shisui was dead. Shisui was dead. Itachi had killed him. Drowned him in their river.
Madara dropped Itachi in the grass. Itachi lay and almost smothered before he weakly flipped himself over. He found himself looking into the bare face of his teacher. Madara's red eye took him in, the covered socket of his other eye glaring down like an ill omen.
Itachi felt the withered old hand on his face. "Aaah, the Mangekyou. I always knew you would be my best protégé, little one." No cripple. He'd never call Itachi a cripple again. "Now that you've broken your cage, how high will you fly?" There was greed in that voice, and the promise for more power than Itachi could imagine. This man...this terror would teach Itachi to be just like him.
Itachi caught Madara's wrist in an iron grip. Something thicker than tears ran down his face. "You’re going to help me kill them."
"Beg pardon?" But a wicked grin split the man's face, vicious teeth still sharp enough to rip and tear out a man's throat. His lips weren’t blackened with poison at all, but pink and mobile.
"You want your revenge? What could be better than helping the clan's own genius kill them all? What better way to show them how soft they are then to let your protégé kill them." Itachi voice was hoarse. He heard Shisui's own rasp in it, the deep husk of a voice matured. Itachi had come into himself tonight. He'd come into murder.
"So much anger for Konoha's righteous little warrior, what would your cousin say?" Madara's bass chuckled shook his wrist, vibrated into Itachi's arm.
Itachi didn't smile. He didn't think he could. "I think it would be an excellent test of my new power." Itachi slid his hand from Madara's and stood. He felt the burning pain of the Mangekyou, and how it greedily tugged at his chakra. "I want them to see what happens when they try to control something stronger than themselves." Itachi rubbed at his face and looked down at his bloody hands.
Madara looked up at him with a mix of pride and wicked delight. How fun would this be for him? How would he enjoy twisting another young mind into his own image?
"We start tonight." Itachi rubbed the tacky blood in between his fingers. He didn't have much time. Shisui rotted in the river tonight. "You'll teach me how to control it tonight, and tomorrow night, we kill them." Itachi took a deep breath and hoped the weakness running through him didn't show.
---
Itachi supposed, if he were generous, he could say Shisui’s plan lasted almost twenty-four hours before things had fallen apart. They hadn’t counted on poison. Those with children had grown up during the War, and had all the paranoia to go with it. When an unknown figure threatened, what did they do? They saved the children.
Itachi had seen a mother no older than Shisui slit her two year-old’s throat to keep it out of his hands. Maybe, if Shisui had been there, he would have been faster. Maybe someone would have survived. Maybe. Maybe-
None of it mattered. The plan was in motion. The children were dead. It was time to salvage what could be saved.
Hours later, Itachi sat in the streets, clutching Sasuke’s limp body to him. He rocked back and forth, humming under his breath. Humming a lullaby as he smoothed Sasuke’s hair under his hand. He’d done it. He’d made Sasuke hate him. There was no way Sasuke could doubt that Itachi had killed their clan, and that he was a demon. He’d done it all. Almost.
“Regrets?” Madara’s blood covered hands brushed over Itachi’s head. Itachi tipped his head back and looked up and Madara. The man’s orange mask was smattered with blood. Itachi looked past him to the sky. There was no moon. The stars were out. Itachi could hear the rush of water in his ears over his own humming.
“Regrets are for the dead.” Itachi felt the curl of the ancient’s hand on the back of his head. Itachi slowly rose to his feet, his little brother still in his arms.
“Ah, you saved your future.” Madara’s voice was cracked with a wicked smile.
“Yes, my light.” Itachi looked down at Sasuke’s slack face. He looked into the face of his killer, and all he felt was love. Love and sorrow. Had Shisui felt this way? Had he wanted to cry and laugh all at once?
“My hope.” Itachi whispered those words and turned from Madara. He carried Sasuke softly across the blood soaked ground and back to bed. The ANBU would find him in the morning before he woke up. The massacre had been accomplished. The Uchiha were cleansed.
Itachi was the demon to be hated and destroyed.
Summary: A plan starts to unravel. Decisions are made. What will you miss most?
Rating: Mature for character death, and mind games with a minor.
I'm holding onto you, I'll never let go
I need you with me as I enter the shadows--Shadows by RED
And he took me to the river
Where he slowly let me drown
And is it worth the wait
All this killing time?
Are you strong enough to stand
Protecting both your heart and mine?
Heavy in Your Arms by Florence and the Machine
It had been ages since Shisui and Itachi had actually had a fight. A screaming, hateful, hurt filled fight that involved words and not fists or feet.
"That doesn't even make sense!" Itachi was standing behind the counter, his hands pressed against it like he might launch himself across it at Shisui. Shisui would actually welcome that. Maybe if they fought it out, they could come to a better understanding of eachother.
"It does, look--" Shisui gestured to his face. "What do you think is going to happen when people figure out I've lost an eye? They'll swarm us. They'll wonder who has the other eye, and they'll realize two things. One, that I can be defeated and that they can take my eye. Two, that there's only one eye left and they have to hurry before someone else takes it. They'll also want to know who has the first, so then there's torture, and when it gets out what happened....our stories won't hold up. People will think we were genjutsu'd with my jutsu into killing the clan.
"Even if someone doesn't get me, what do you think some will think after we massacre our clan and I turn up with only one eye? Out of the thousands of ninja pondering the problem, at least one will decide my missing eye plus our clan's death means there was genjutsu involved. If Konoha is blamed, there goes everything. The other clans will get nervous and hostile and pull away, and we'll be back where we started."
"So we fake your death!" Itachi shot back. He was frightened, under the anger and betrayal he was terrified, and Shisui knew it. He hated himself for this. He hated that he couldn’t find another way.
"Finding a suitable corpse, planting it, and doing all the genjutsu we'd need would take too long. Also, it's too risky. Danzou, at least, would suspect I was still alive. He'd assume I'd have a grudge, and the only power to counter his. He'd be constantly searching for me and trying to decide if I was really dead, or plotting my revenge on him and Konoha. He’d use Sasuke and the kids as a shield, and they wouldn’t be allowed to grow as we wanted. He's too afraid of me and what I can do." Shisui slowly moved towards the counter. "Stop thinking with your heart and use your head. This is the easiest way to simplify things."
"I can't do this without you." Itachi's hands shook on the counter. "There's your logic, Shisui. I can't do this without you. I need you to keep me on the right path."
"You think you'll fall apart without me? Itachi, you're stronger than that." Shisui reached his hands on the counter. Itachi jerked his back.
"I'm not like you. I'm like them. I want revenge and murder just as badly as they do. I want Danzou to suffer for what he did to you." Itachi spat the name out like poison, and his red eyes turned sharply at the thought.
"But you didn't--"
"Because you were there to stop me! If you had died, nothing would have stopped me from killing everyone involved in your death." Itachi looked heart-breakingly like Fugaku in that moment, his teeth bared, anger and hatred lacing his words.
Shisui leaned across the counter and grabbed one of Itachi's fisted hands. "No, no you wouldn't have. You don't want revenge. You want justice. You want the world to be fair, but you know there won't be justice unless you hand it out yourself." Shisui squeezed Itachi's wrist. "That's just as dangerous for us as wanting revenge. We're not the ones who take revenge or decide on justice. We're the tools serving from the shadows."
"I can't do this without you. You promised you'd be with me." Itachi struggled to keep the anger in his voice strong.
"You're so quick to believe the worst about yourself." Shisui sighed. "Do you think I'd create a plan like this that hinged on a shaky variable? I know you. I raised you, I've fought you, I know you better than anyone else. You can do this. You won't get lost in the anger. I know you won’t.”
"I can't kill you." Itachi's face was set
"You need the Mangekyou."
Itachi jerked his hand away from Shisui's. "There are other ways to get it! Just look at yours."
"Madara said that was the way to get the strongest Mangekyou. He could be lying, but why else would that have been the preferred method of gaining the Mangekyou? Without me, you're going to need every advantage you have against Madara and Danzou and everyone else."
"Oh, so now you're going to give me a powerful technique, then turn me loose without my conscious after I've killed the person who matters most to me? That sounds like a great idea for keeping Konoha safe," Itachi folded his arms and looked away.
"Call it a safety measure. You can't use the Mangekyou at full strength for long, so at least I'd be putting a cap on your reign of terror." Shisui stepped around the island counter. He could see Itachi’s resistance faltering and breaking down. He could see all the points and reasons.
"I can't kill you. I can't kill you, Shisui." Itachi held his arms and looked off into the distance.
"I could make you."
Itachi looked at Shisui sharply. His eyes were grey and red now. At the sight of Shisui's face, something broke down. Itachi dropped his gaze. "Are you that determined to die?"
"I'm that determined that Konoha should be safe. What's one more death, Itachi?"
Itachi's shoulders convulsed in a smothered laugh. "There's got to be another way."
Shisui touched Itachi's cheek and pushed his thick bangs back behind his ear. "Then help me find it." Shisui, feeling the warmth of his cousin's cheek under his hand, didn't want to die. He didn't want to leave Itachi alone, and the very thought of it tore him apart inside. Shisui leaned his forehead against Itachi’s.
“Help me find it, love. Show me the way.”
---
Itachi and Shisui talked until they were hoarse. Finally, there was nothing more to say. If Shisui had noticed Itachi trying not to cry, he hadn't mentioned it. Itachi sat in Shisui's place on the bed, his head in his hands. It was late afternoon now, the sun was climbing down from the sky, and the day was ending. So much was ending.
"Hey, get some sleep."
Itachi looked up, vision blurry, at Shisui. The patch was off, and the swelling of his eye was almost gone thanks to some chakra laced salve. They wanted to leave as little evidence of the wound as possible. Itachi scoffed. "Sleep."
Sleep, on the last afternoon his cousin would be alive?
"I know you didn't get much last night, idiot. Can you sneak into a morgue on no sleep?" Shisui closed the curtains and plunged the room into almost darkness. "Get a few hours, at least. I'll wake you when it's time."
"And what will you do?" Itachi could hear Shisui's steps ruffling the papers still on the floor. He'd been over those papers until he thought his eyes might start to bleed, and they hadn’t bothered to clean them up. Maybe Itachi would burn them. They hadn’t been much help in the end.
"Think." Shisui's foot caught Itachi in the chest and shoved him back onto the bed. "Just in case we missed anything." Itachi let himself flop back onto the bed. He stared at the pale ceiling, one he knew like his own calloused hand. He was never going to sleep under it again. The thought hadn’t seemed so terrible until this afternoon. Now it felt like something that could strangle the life out of him.
"Nothing's going to change, is it? If there was another answer, we would have found it by now." Itachi closed his eyes. He didn't really need an answer. Shisui didn't give it. He sat down instead, placing his hand on Itachi's shoulder. His hand was warm. It didn't shake. It was strong.
"Get some sleep, Itachi. I'll be here when you wake up."
Itachi's eyes snapped open, and he stared in the darkness at his cousin. He could vaguely see Shisui's face--not that he really needed to see his cousin. His mind knew the curve of Shisui's face, the tilt of his eyes, and the mass of his wild hair. He'd seen it with the Sharingan so many times there was no way he could forget it. Still, the fear that he might forget Shisui’s face struck Itachi. Would Shisui become just another water stained photograph in his mind, one of the faceless dead of Itachi's life?
Shisui caught Itachi's groping hand before Itachi even realized what he was reaching for. "Sleep." The soft whisper was husky and warm. Itachi felt his eye lids flutter shut only to open again. How could he sleep? He gripped Shisui's hand, aware of how much larger Shisui's hands were. Shisui was five years older, already nineteen. An adult in every way. He was stronger, smarter, more capable.
"You should kill me and take one of my eyes," Itachi suggested slowly.
"It wouldn't have the Mangekyou. People would still know." There was a musical tilt to Shisui's voice now.
"They'll come after me for my eyes too." Itachi blinked heavily, cursing their eyes. Why were they born with devil's eyes?
"No, no they won't. No one will know what they can do, and it's not your eyes that make you great. No one part of you is anything but exceptional, but, together, you combine everything to be extraordinary. Me, I just have my eyes and my flicker step. You've got everything, and by the time someone decides they want your eyes, they'll be too afraid of you to even try.
"That's what I'll do for you. I'll make you untouchable."
Itachi felt the heavy pulse of his heart in his chest. Shisui's words whispered to him like blood in his ears. Every syllable, every personal twitch and quirk of voice, Itachi stored away. He packed them into his black soul to keep it from rotting away, and he hoped that would be enough.
"That's what I'm going to miss most."
Shisui pressed his wet lips to Itachi's knuckles. "Not seeing you grow up. You would have been great--will be..." Shisui chuckled. "Tenses. . .I wish I could see that. You in five years, finally reaching your peak. I wanted to see what you'd become."
"You can't miss people when you're dead." Itachi hardly realized that he was speaking.
"Can't you?" Shisui's voice was a softer whisper, as if he realized Itachi was falling fast asleep and didn’t want to rouse him. "What happens to ninja when they die? Do they go to hell? Who would want the protection of a killer spirit? Will I get another life to redeem myself in?"
"You deserve another life." Itachi sighed. "A safe one filled with...with love and life...and goldfish."
Shisui’s laugh sounded hysterical; Itachi was too far gone to realize it. "Go to sleep, baby cousin, please just go to sleep." Shisui's voice almost cracked on the last words, and Itachi realized then his cousin's voice was laced with a genjutsu. There was no fighting this sleep.
---
Shisui left Itachi sleeping to make sure he had things ready. He felt like he didn't have enough time, but he found himself wandering around his apartment, looking at things he hadn't noticed in ages. Little knick-knacks from missions. Smooth river stones he and Itachi had found--the old blunted kunai he'd first given Itachi in the trenches. So little time, but the seconds dragged as the dark crept into the apartment. Itachi slept, trouble and twitching from time to time in his sleep. Shisui leaned against the doorframe and watched him, going in from time to time to sit by Itachi and just watch him sleep. Watch him breath.
Shisui thought of killing himself before Itachi woke up. He thought of taking that burden from the child's frail shoulders, but he didn't dare. For now, they still had things they needed to do. Maybe he was afraid to kill himself. Maybe he was clinging to every second of life he had. Maybe he was hoping the guilt of killing his cousin would be another chain holding Itachi to the path Shisui had started him on.
Nothing was simple. Every notion was filled with deceit and multiple meanings and reasons.
Itachi slipped out of the genjutsu after dark. He started twisting and turning, his breathing erratic. He actually started mumbling. Itachi had always been a quiet sleeper as a child. Crammed in some bomb shelter or wherever else, Shisui could always rely on Itachi to be silent and still as he fell asleep. Now, ten and more years from those days, Itachi still slept heavy and silent whenever Shisui as around.
Shisui knelt down beside Itachi and let the boy's roaming fingers catch his own. Itachi opened his eyes, foggy with sleep. Shisui could barely see them.
"Nii-san." The childish mumble brought to mind easier times. Shisui pushed Itachi's bangs back from his face. His thick hair was tangled. Shisui had always loved Itachi's hair, and loved to tease him about it. It was the only thing Itachi was vain about. Shisui wondered if his cousin's childhood prettiness would fade, or if it would intensify over the years. Would he be the man who walked down the street and everyone stared? Would his cool reserve melt into charm? Would he even need genjutsu to bend people to his will?
"I'm here." Shisui smoothed a hand over Itachi's forehead. He wanted to see it. He wanted to live his life with his cousin, entwined and inseparable as they always had been. He didn't want anything to change. Maybe there had been some excitement in their plan, running off from unjust persecution to live as missing-nin. Maybe it had been a romantic fantasy too childish to live in the harsh reality of their lives.
"Had a dream." Itachi rubbed at his sleep clotted eyes. His fingers curled against his palm.
"A dream?" Shisui traced the curve of Itachi's face--his sharp, high cheekbone, the socket of his eye. "What dream?"
"The sky was on fire. The village was burning." Itachi's head shifted and he looked up at Shisui. "I fell in the river." Shisui's fingers traced Itachi's jaw, still childish in shape, but he could feel the firmness growing in it. You will be amazing, Itachi. The way you come together...You will be the most amazing thing the world has ever seen.
There was dangerous pride in raising someone like Itachi. "You fell in the river." Shisui touched Itachi's lips, worried and cracked. Itachi still chewed on them when he was alone or behind his ANBU mask. He chewed on the inside of his cheeks when he wasn't hiding behind something. His mouth was probably covered in scars. Such a bad habit. A ninja shouldn’t have a nervous tic, but it was endearingly human for a child.
"You pulled me out. The water was red. I couldn't breathe....you..."Itachi blinked heavily. His eyes came into focus, his cousin's fingers stroking his face.
"Did you think of another way?" Itachi asked. His voice sounded older, tired, broken.
Shisui shook his head. "No."
Itachi nodded. He stretched his arms above his head and then relaxed. One of his arms fell over his eyes.
"You died." Itachi took a sharp breath. "And I pushed you into the river and watched you sink." Itachi's lips twisted into an ugly shape. His jaw clenched.
Shisui leaned down. "I'm right here." The crack of Shisui's head as Itachi grabbed Shisui's hair and pulled him down wasn't just pain, but a conformation of life as his cousin's nails dug deep into his skin.
---
Three hours. Itachi leaned against Shisui's side in silence as they went over the hospital blue prints. Three hours. Three hours. What could you do in three hours? What could you change? What could you fix?
Not enough. Not damn near enough.
"One more time." Shisui was dragging his nails up and down Itachi's bare arm, raising goose bumps. Itachi didn't bother protesting. He didn’t mind it. He leaned his cheek against Shisui's shoulder and kicked the map away.
"I know it already. I know what to do." Itachi closed his eyes, and the image of the hospital blueprint burned into his eyelids so that he saw it even with his eyes closed. He smelled Shisui. His scent was just a little off, soured slightly from pain and stress and something else. Itachi expected Shisui to reach for the map and demand they go over it one more time.
Shisui sighed. The loss of air seemed to leave him frighteningly depleted. His hand never stopped moving up and down Itachi's arm. This waiting...this game of patience was killing them both. Itachi tottered back and forth between his resolve. He knew, in his head, that in the next four hours or so, he would kill his cousin. The thought was hollow dread, but nothing more. He didn't actually believe it yet. He couldn't. How did you believe something like that?
"Is there something you want to say?" Shisui asked.
"I hate you for being right all the time." Itachi felt the soft 'huff' that was Shisui's obligatory laugh. Silence crept over them. Itachi felt his eyes glaze. Did he think time would stop for them if they did nothing? If they said nothing?
But what more was there to say?
"Are you sure? No long kept secrets or things you've always been afraid to tell me?" Shisui asked. The silence seemed to rattle him. Itachi breathed out. He searched his mind for anything he’d ever kept from his cousin. It was hard. His thoughts were lethargic, and he really had never kept much from Shisui to begin with.
"I poisoned Megiku."
"You little brat..." Shisui actually snickered. "I liked her."
"She was a snob." Itachi felt Shisui pinch his arm hard enough to bruise. Itachi opened his eye and looked at the red mark. When it faded...when it was gone...
"You were jealous," Shisui countered. His fingers smoothed over the to-be bruise, not really in apology. Silence again.
"I think I might have fallen in love with you if we'd gotten older." Shisui's knuckles went up and down Itachi's arm. The repetitive motion was soothing.
"You can't measure anything by how you feel now. You know that." Itachi closed his eyes again. Touch had never been so electric, speech so complex. There were so many different parts that wove together to make the whole. Everything felt richer, but at the same time grey and bleak. This was the end. The final act in their tragedy.
"I was already obsessed. How far is love from that?" Shisui drew a hand through Itachi's hair. The tangles were gone now. Shisui had braided it back and tied it with a ribbon when they'd started going over the maps. The little bell was trapped between Itachi’s back and the couch.
"Far. You're a narcissist. I'm you. You're the one who made me what I am."
"No...no, you made yourself. I just watched and held your head above the water." Shisui's fingers curled in Itachi's hair. He buried his face in it. Itachi let the silence slide back in until it had filled him up to all his corners and crevices. It was a good silence, like a sweet meal or heavy drink. There was nothing more to say, but a lifetime of things that wouldn't be spoken. How did you live a lifetime in less than three hours?
"One more time?" Itachi asked.
"Okay." Shisui's hand slid from his hair to brush his neck as it fell down. "One more time."
---
"Here." Itachi set the jar with its two eyeballs on the counter.
"Do they match exactly?" Shisui moved with a nervous energy now. His calm was destroyed, and Itachi struggled to keep his. While if Itachi broke down, he knew it would be anger and despair that leaked out, Shisui seemed consumed with a starkly manic cheer that made him smile like a skull.
"No, but they only have a slight variation in central coloring, which is good enough for the purpose. I don’t think anyone but me would notice." Itachi pulled off the lab coat he'd worn, dismantling the henge of a doctor.
“Aaaaw, you spend a lot of time staring deeply into my eyes, don’t you?” Shisui reached out and pinched Itachi’s cheek.
“Yes, because I like to live dangerously that way.” Itachi swatted Shisui’s hand away. This was absurd. It didn’t even feel real anymore. Shisui wasn’t helping. Itachi loved him for it. "Are you ready?"
Shisui nodded. "I've got the Kotoamatsukami set up. You remember what I told you?"
"It will take ten years to recharge--why is that?" Itachi tried not to think about what he was going to do. He had the eyes--two of them. Now...now...
"Because, my chakra ticks in increments of ten. I started using ten years after Dad’s death, but could only use it every ten months, then every ten weeks, ten days, ten hours..." Shisui shrugged. "It's a genjutsu, so it's more linked to my mind and the limits I put on it than anything else. Without my chakra to feed it, or my mind, it will take ten years for the jutsu to remember itself after you use the stored jutsu I put in it. You won’t be able to reset the purpose. It will only ever make someone protect Konoha."
"How are you so sure?" Itachi asked. He turned the jar, and the eyes bobbed obscenely up and down.
"Trust me, I'm sure." Shisui sat down and looked up at Itachi. "Do you have everything else?" Shisui smiled, but it seemed gruesome. Had his face always been so gaunt, or had the flesh melted off him in the past day? Maybe he was sick. Maybe his eye had gotten infected. Maybe he was being burned from the inside out by the fever fire in his flesh.
"I have them." Itachi pulled the roll of metal instruments from his shirt. They clanked and rattled. They sounded like metal bones. Bones ripped from children. Itachi swallowed and sat down across from Shisui. Shisui pulled out a glass case and a scroll he'd already inscribed with both his blood and Itachi's. It was only a temporary container, but the sight of it sent shivers down Itachi's spine.
"Ready?" Shisui's voice was breathless. Itachi wondered if he was frightened or excited. He wondered if there was a difference in this situation--this sick and morbid situation.
"No." Itachi opened the roll of instruments and looked down at them. "You're drugged, right?"
"As much as I can be and hold the jutsu." The Mangekyou was alive in Shisui's eye, burning and crawling all over Itachi skin as it spun. It held the most powerful genjutsu Itachi had ever heard of, and he looked at it without fear. Did he think Shisui would never put a genjutsu on him? Not entirely. He knew if Shisui did put a genjutsu on him, then it would be for his own good. Shisui always did the right thing.
Itachi swallowed.
"Try not to damage the eye at all, and cause as little trauma to the surrounding tissue as possible." Shisui's lecturing tone reminded Itachi of the hours Shisui had spent teaching him, as if this was just another technique to master. There was nothing odd about all of this.
Nothing at all.
"I know." The medical instrument in his hand looked like something for torture. Someone had kept it clean and wickedly sharp. In the right hands, this was no doubt deadly. In the wrong hands too, come to think of it.
"Try to seal the left eye in as soon as possible. They're dead, but they might graft better if you try soon," Shisui flicked his fingers towards the sealed jar of plain grey eyes. Itachi nodded. Swallowed.
"I'm not a medic."
Shisui nodded.
"It will hurt."
Shisui's lips curved into a wider smile. "I swear not to scream."
Itachi rose to his knees and shifted the instrument in his sweating hand. He reached out and pried Shisui's eyelids open, holding his breath and he looked down into Shisui's red, burning eye for the last time.
---
He'd connected the eyes imperfectly. While a skilled medic could replace lost eyes and make the new ones function, Itachi couldn't. He'd blinded his cousins. Now Shisui saw with his feet and his hands as he groped along the ground. Now he was wracked with the pain of his missing eyes, plagued by phantom images of light and faces.
Getting Shisui down to the river--the Nakano, their river--was hell. Itachi's heart was in his throat the entire time. They moved with awkward slowness, stumbling down streets like drunken lovers, weaving in and out of the light and patterned darkness of the compound. At moments, time seemed to drag and stretch, then it would snap, rushing past Itachi and almost throwing him to the ground.
They slid down the muddy bank, Shisui slipping and falling, pulling Itachi down with them. They rolled across the flat, shoving away from each other. Itachi fell into the river. For a moment, the water closed cold over his head. He tasted the green fish rot in his mouth and then came up coughing. He realized Shisui was calling his name, scrambling his hands over the wet ground, looking for his cousin, afraid to come to close to the water's edge.
Afraid to drown.
"I'm here. I'm okay." Itachi coughed and floundered out of the water. Everything felt fragmented. He wiped his wet hands on his shirt and stared at the pattern left behind. The smell of the river seemed to overcome him. Itachi took a deep breath and moved to touch Shisui's shoulder, glad his cousin couldn’t see his face or the sick expression on it.
"Are you okay?" Itachi feared the eyes had come loose, but they twitched impotently in Shisui's skull. He couldn't see, he couldn't properly move them. Itachi wanted to pop them out and throw them in the river. Itachi's hands were now shaking as he touched Shisui's chin. Shisui managed a smile. Managed it as if it was easy. Itachi was falling apart, but Shisui still stood strong enough to hold up them both.
"Better than ever." Shisui gripped Itachi's wrists, and Itachi pulled him up. Shisui walked close to Itachi, slowly down the river bank to one little bend they both knew very well. It seemed fitting.
"You don't have to lie to make me feel better." Itachi hissed.
"If I lied, would you feel better?" Shisui nudged Itachi with and elbow. "I made this decision for myself, Itachi. You had nothing to do with it."
"No, I'm just the grim executioner. Your accomplice. I’m completely innocent." Itachi stopped. There was no moon, but all the stars were out. Dew covered the grass, and the summer air weighed heavy on Itachi's shoulders. He breathed it in through his nose, each breath viscous, crawling down his throat and sticking in his lungs. Shisui slid his arm from around Itachi and took three wobbling steps. He sank down into the grass and sighed.
"Make sure my eyes stay open, so the deterioration won't be so odd." Shisui turned his blind face towards Itachi. It was unnerving.
"And don't let them keep my body too long. You'll have to carry out the massacre soon, so they don't have time to figure out about my eyes--and after that destroy my body. Make sure no one ever gets any of my body, okay?" Shisui reached blindly for Itachi. Itachi offered his hand and let himself be pulled down into the grass. It soaked into his knees. He imagined he could smell the rot of Shisui's fake eyes from where he knelt. The swelling wasn't bad. People might believe it was all true. They had to.
Shisui pulled Itachi's forehead to his own. His hand was steady. His breathing was calm. Itachi could almost taste it in his own mouth. Shisui squeezed the back of Itachi's neck. Itachi closed his eyes, just as blind as Shisui for a moment. Let him be blind instead. Let him drown instead of his cousin.
Let Shisui live.
"Tachi."
Shisui breathed out. His hand fell away from Itachi's neck.
"The longer I'm in the water, the better it will be."
Itachi swallowed and nodded. He allowed himself to lean against Shisui for a moment longer, then he pulled away. Shisui stood again and walked towards the water. He slipped down the banks into the river, splashing up to his knees and almost falling before he regained his feet. Shisui steadied himself and turned to Itachi. He held out his arms and smiled.
"Come on. It's time."
Itachi placed his hands on Shisui's shoulders; Shisui gripped Itachi’s hips and lifted him. Shisui stepped back into the current. His arms folded up, lowering Itachi down into the water. It was cold. The current pulled at his legs, trying to drag him down. Shisui led him unerringly out into the deeper water. The river bed fell out from under Shisui. His head dropped to the level of Itachi's collarbones.
"Deep enough?" Shisui's hands gripped Itachi's sides sharply. Itachi still had his hands on Shisui's shoulders. The river current was strong. The water came only to Itachi's hips. Itachi breathed in, listening to the flow of the water around them. Itachi slid his hands in, placing his thumbs over the double pulses of Shisui's carotid arteries. His hands shook. His body quaked and his mind suddenly realized what he was doing. He was killing his cousin. He was murdering Shisui.
He couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t There was no way he could go through with this. He couldn’t He couldn’t. It wasn’t physically possible.
"Don't freak out on me now, Itachi. Don't you dare." As always, Shisui knew what was going on in Itachi's head. "It's too late for that."
Shisui was a blind ninja, soon to be missing-nin. He was as good as dead. Shisui gripped Itachi's shirt and pulled him down. "If you make me kill myself for you, this won't mean anything. Don't do this for Konoha, don't do this for yourself. Do this for me."
Shisui pulled Itachi down further, rising from the water, his blind lips pressed into Itachi's. It was warmth and love. The soul was in the breath, Itachi remembered in that instant and discarded his view that the soul was in the eyes. The burning press of his cousin's mouth to his own suffused his entire body with a hot flush of assurance and ate away at the dread and disgust in him. He could feel Shisui resolve. He could drink it in and make it his own. He opened his mouth to do so, or maybe it was to cry. For me. Do it for me.
Itachi’s lips felt cold as Shisui’s slipped away.
Shisui went under the water without a sound. Itachi's hands held him in place, and Shisui's hands held Itachi's firm on his throat. While Itachi pressed his thumbs hard into the double pulses in Shisui's throat, Shisui opened his mouth and gulped down the first breath himself. His body convulsed once in a spontaneous cough, but nothing more as he gulped down more water. He passed out in under ten seconds, but he body never broke the surface. He never struggled.
Uchiha Shisui died silently.
The burning pain started after Shisui had been under water two minutes. Itachi blinked away the sudden blur across his vision. He made sure Shisui's sightless eyes were open, and then turned Shisui face down in the river. Itachi gripped the back of Shisui's shirt with white knuckles and stared down at the body the river tried to pull out of his grasp.
The body.
His cousin.
His Shisui.
Itachi choked, and his body convulsed. He fell under the water, and his hands spasmed, letting Shisui drift away. Itachi's wide open eyes caught a glimpse of Shisui's body floating away, carried by the current far away from here. Away from Itachi. Another convulsion ripped through Itachi. His body curled in on itself, and the water tumbled him head over heels. His head was on fire. Someone had driven a spike through his skull. Someone had gouged out his eyes. He tried to scream, but only choked. He was drowning, and Shisui's death had been for nothing. He was dying...
He was vomiting on the river back. His limbs gave out, and only the strong hold on his hair kept him from falling face first in his own filth. Another hand grabbed his shirt and pulled him away from the vomit. Itachi couldn't move. Even the darkness seemed too bright to his eyes. Tears were coursing down his face. Shisui was dead. Shisui was dead. Itachi had killed him. Drowned him in their river.
Madara dropped Itachi in the grass. Itachi lay and almost smothered before he weakly flipped himself over. He found himself looking into the bare face of his teacher. Madara's red eye took him in, the covered socket of his other eye glaring down like an ill omen.
Itachi felt the withered old hand on his face. "Aaah, the Mangekyou. I always knew you would be my best protégé, little one." No cripple. He'd never call Itachi a cripple again. "Now that you've broken your cage, how high will you fly?" There was greed in that voice, and the promise for more power than Itachi could imagine. This man...this terror would teach Itachi to be just like him.
Itachi caught Madara's wrist in an iron grip. Something thicker than tears ran down his face. "You’re going to help me kill them."
"Beg pardon?" But a wicked grin split the man's face, vicious teeth still sharp enough to rip and tear out a man's throat. His lips weren’t blackened with poison at all, but pink and mobile.
"You want your revenge? What could be better than helping the clan's own genius kill them all? What better way to show them how soft they are then to let your protégé kill them." Itachi voice was hoarse. He heard Shisui's own rasp in it, the deep husk of a voice matured. Itachi had come into himself tonight. He'd come into murder.
"So much anger for Konoha's righteous little warrior, what would your cousin say?" Madara's bass chuckled shook his wrist, vibrated into Itachi's arm.
Itachi didn't smile. He didn't think he could. "I think it would be an excellent test of my new power." Itachi slid his hand from Madara's and stood. He felt the burning pain of the Mangekyou, and how it greedily tugged at his chakra. "I want them to see what happens when they try to control something stronger than themselves." Itachi rubbed at his face and looked down at his bloody hands.
Madara looked up at him with a mix of pride and wicked delight. How fun would this be for him? How would he enjoy twisting another young mind into his own image?
"We start tonight." Itachi rubbed the tacky blood in between his fingers. He didn't have much time. Shisui rotted in the river tonight. "You'll teach me how to control it tonight, and tomorrow night, we kill them." Itachi took a deep breath and hoped the weakness running through him didn't show.
---
Itachi supposed, if he were generous, he could say Shisui’s plan lasted almost twenty-four hours before things had fallen apart. They hadn’t counted on poison. Those with children had grown up during the War, and had all the paranoia to go with it. When an unknown figure threatened, what did they do? They saved the children.
Itachi had seen a mother no older than Shisui slit her two year-old’s throat to keep it out of his hands. Maybe, if Shisui had been there, he would have been faster. Maybe someone would have survived. Maybe. Maybe-
None of it mattered. The plan was in motion. The children were dead. It was time to salvage what could be saved.
Hours later, Itachi sat in the streets, clutching Sasuke’s limp body to him. He rocked back and forth, humming under his breath. Humming a lullaby as he smoothed Sasuke’s hair under his hand. He’d done it. He’d made Sasuke hate him. There was no way Sasuke could doubt that Itachi had killed their clan, and that he was a demon. He’d done it all. Almost.
“Regrets?” Madara’s blood covered hands brushed over Itachi’s head. Itachi tipped his head back and looked up and Madara. The man’s orange mask was smattered with blood. Itachi looked past him to the sky. There was no moon. The stars were out. Itachi could hear the rush of water in his ears over his own humming.
“Regrets are for the dead.” Itachi felt the curl of the ancient’s hand on the back of his head. Itachi slowly rose to his feet, his little brother still in his arms.
“Ah, you saved your future.” Madara’s voice was cracked with a wicked smile.
“Yes, my light.” Itachi looked down at Sasuke’s slack face. He looked into the face of his killer, and all he felt was love. Love and sorrow. Had Shisui felt this way? Had he wanted to cry and laugh all at once?
“My hope.” Itachi whispered those words and turned from Madara. He carried Sasuke softly across the blood soaked ground and back to bed. The ANBU would find him in the morning before he woke up. The massacre had been accomplished. The Uchiha were cleansed.
Itachi was the demon to be hated and destroyed.