Ch 171

For all the attention Itachi received throughout his childhood, very few people ever truly understood him.

The clan viewed him as a prodigy separated from others by talent alone. Teachers praised his intellect while resenting how effortlessly he surpassed expectations.

Fellow shinobi mistook his distance for arrogance or superiority, believing isolation naturally accompanied brilliance.

None of them understood the truth.

Itachi was not detached because others failed to reach him. He was detached because he could not reconcile himself with the shinobi world at all.

From an age far too young, he had witnessed enough death to poison his perception of conflict permanently. Violence disgusted him. Not in the naïve way civilians condemned war while benefiting from its protection, but in the intimate way only a soldier could understand.

He knew precisely what shinobi were capable of. He knew how casually people justified atrocity when duty demanded it.

Most people simply accepted this reality. Itachi never could.

Ishi, however, understood without explanation.

She never interpreted his silence as pride. Never mocked his exhaustion with endless bloodshed.

When others praised battle or romanticized sacrifice, she reacted with the same dissatisfaction he carried within himself.

Yet unlike Itachi, she did not retreat inward. Ishi disliked violence deeply, but she never avoided hardship when confronted by it. She faced suffering directly, stubbornly refusing to abandon her ideals even when the world gave her every reason to.

Itachi admired that quality more than he ever admitted aloud.

Being beside her often felt dangerously easy. They agreed on most things naturally. Politics. Morality. The ugliness beneath Konoha's carefully maintained peace.

Conversations with her lacked the performance he endured everywhere else. Around Ishi, he did not have to pretend.

Which only made the future awaiting her more unbearable.

Itachi carried the burden of betraying the clan alongside Shisui for years. Together they pursued compromise relentlessly, hoping diplomacy might avert catastrophe.

Yet with every passing month, the divide between Konoha and the Uchiha only deepened.

Eventually, the truth became impossible to ignore. Peace would not come peacefully.

The order given to Itachi remained carved permanently into his mind. If negotiations failed, he would exterminate the clan himself.

Everyone. Including Ishi.

That thought haunted him constantly afterward. It followed him into every conversation with her, every quiet evening spent at her side, every fleeting moment of normalcy he selfishly allowed himself to enjoy.

Even when he smiled at her, dread coiled beneath it.

Ishi noticed, of course. She always noticed. Though she could not discern the true cause, she recognized the sorrow living inside him and responded with characteristic gentleness.

She never pressured him for answers. Never demanded explanations he could not bear to provide. Her kindness only deepened his affection. And over time, affection became love so gradually he scarcely realized it had happened.

He suspected she noticed that too. But neither of them acted upon it. Because even if she had reached for him first, Itachi did not know if he could have accepted her feelings without becoming monstrous.

How could he allow her to love him while carrying the possibility of her death in his hands?

How could he be selfish enough to want happiness from someone he might one day be ordered to kill?

So he devoted himself entirely to preventing that future instead. It was the only form of love he believed he deserved.

Shisui had intended to save the clan without bloodshed. Even at the very end, he had clung to the belief that peace could still be salvaged if someone possessed the courage to seize it.

His Kotoamatsukami had been their final hope, a power subtle enough to alter the course of history, without massacre or civil war.

He planned to use it upon the Uchiha leadership and compel them toward negotiation before the coup could fully ignite.

But Danzō stole his right eye before he had the opportunity.

Just like that, the future collapsed.

Itachi still remembered the look in Shisui's remaining eye afterward. A man standing before the ruins of every option available to him.

With nowhere left to turn, Shisui entrusted his remaining eye to Itachi and begged him to protect the village and preserve the Uchiha name as best he could. Then he leapt into the Naka River.

Itachi had witnessed death before. More than enough to numb most people permanently. Yet Shisui's death carved through him differently.

It destroyed him from within so violently that the Mangekyō Sharingan awakened in response to the anguish consuming him.

But even that evolution felt meaningless. Because Shisui's death had not merely taken his closest friend. It had destroyed the last possibility of peace alongside him.

Afterward, there remained only inevitability. Only death.

By the following day, suspicion within the clan had already twisted into accusation. Several Uchiha confronted Itachi openly, claiming he had murdered Shisui and fabricated the suicide to conceal betrayal.

Ordinarily, he might have endured the insults silently. This time, he could not.

The grief festering inside him erupted without restraint. He attacked them immediately, dismantling them with humiliating ease.

Years of discipline fractured beneath the weight of everything collapsing around him. Part of him understood why they distrusted him. That did not lessen the bitterness.

What disturbed him far more was the fact that Ishi witnessed the entire outburst. He had spent years unconsciously preserving a gentler version of himself around her.

Not false exactly, but softened. Controlled. He never wished for her to associate him with the ugliness saturating shinobi life. Never wanted her gaze upon him to become fearful or disappointed.

Yet as the confrontation unfolded, she merely watched. Calmly. Without surprise. That unsettled him more than the accusations themselves.

And irrationally, it angered him.

Because if she was unsurprised by his violence, then perhaps she had understood him far more deeply than he realized. Perhaps she had always seen the darkness inside him despite his efforts to conceal it.

The thought struck some wounded place within him.

Acting on impulse alone, Itachi drew a kunai and hurled it toward her. The blade embedded itself violently into the Uchiha crest behind her shoulder.

It was not truly an attack. He would sooner turn the weapon upon himself than harm her physically.

Some part of him merely wanted a reaction. Fear. Shock. Anything proving she still perceived him as dangerous.

Instead, Ishi did not even flinch. She neither moved nor recoiled. Her expression barely changed at all.

Because she had never believed he would hurt her. 

 Honestly, it did make Itachi feel better for a moment. That Ishi trusted him enough not to fear him. That she had not even flinched at the threat.

The kunai had buried itself into the clan symbol behind her with enough force to crack the rock, yet she had remained perfectly still, looking at him with complete disinterest.

It soothed something ugly inside him. At least with her, he was still Itachi. Not a weapon. Not a prodigy. Not the clan's future. Not the village's spy. Just Itachi.

But the comfort lasted only briefly before reality forced itself back into his mind.

The trust in her eyes became unbearable the longer he thought about it. She trusted him completely, and soon he would betray that trust in the cruelest way imaginable.

He had to kill her.

Itachi did not know how he could ever bring himself to do it, but he had to find a way.

The village had already decided her fate long ago. Danzō would never allow someone like Ishi to live, not with the knowledge she carried and the mind she possessed. 

While making the final preparations for the massacre, Itachi discovered a masked man sneaking through Konoha's outskirts. The man moved carefully, watching the village from the shadows with familiarity that immediately alarmed him.

After observing him further, Itachi came to believe the man was truly Madara Uchiha, alive somehow and bent on provoking another conflict.

Itachi understood almost immediately what that meant.

Madara hated both the village and the clan that had abandoned him decades ago. If left alone, he would eventually attack Konoha regardless. The massacre would become meaningless if the village was destroyed afterward.

So Itachi approached him personally. He offered Madara a bargain. In exchange for assistance wiping out the Uchiha clan, Madara would leave Konoha untouched.

It was simple logic. There would be no point in sacrificing the clan for peace if the village burned anyway.

Madara agreed easily. Yet even with help, Itachi found himself unable to ignore his greatest grievance.

Ishi.

For one terrible moment, he considered allowing Madara to kill her instead. It would distance his own hands from the act. Perhaps it would even make things easier.

But the idea was discarded almost immediately.

Madara was driven by vengeance alone, and vengeance was never kind. 

Itachi could not allow Ishi to suffer that fate.

A/n Long chapter! Well, not that long. But to be fair, I always made them around 1000 words but for Itachi he is gettting 1500! I was writing about the Uchiha massacre but when I saw I wrote 3000 words I decided to split it and make it another chapter. So you're getting the next chapter in two day, no doubt. Enjoy~