Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of its characters.

Warning: There's rather a lot of character death in this one, so...consider yourself warned.

A Ceremony of Innocence Drowned

As expected of my child

These are the words Itachi has heard since he could walk. For any other child, graduating from the Academy at seven, being promoted to chuunin at eight, and joining ANBU at thirteen would be remarkable accomplishments. But for him, they are merely what is expected. He is a prodigy, so of course he will excel at what he does. How could it be any other way?

And he is the Uchiha heir, so of course he will obey every order from his father, he will carry on the proud and noble tradition of his family, he will see the clan as the be-all and end-all of his existence, because that is also what is expected.

Unfortunately for the Uchiha, things (and people) don't always turn out the way you expect them to.

A house divided

The secret meeting room under the Nakano Temple was stifling with the body heat of so many people gathered together. This was where the clan elders met, but tonight, every Uchiha who had mastered the family's signature Grand Fireball Technique was present. At the front of the chamber, Fugaku was laying out his case for an uprising against the Hokage and village elders.

"We have been patient for too long. We have been silent for too long. Konoha has no trouble asking us to sacrifice our lives for the village, but do they trust us in return? No. They treat us with suspicion and fear for no other reason than that we are Uchiha. As clan leader, I say that we should no longer tolerate such treatment. I say that we owe no loyalty to a village that shows us none!"

Itachi looked around, measuring his kinsmen's reactions. Many people were whispering to their neighbors, some were frowning, and some were nodding. Clearly, not everyone agreed with Fugaku--but not everyone disagreed with him either.

A stout older woman who taught at the Academy was the first to speak up. "It's true that Konoha has not always been fair to us. But I've known Sarutobi-sama since we were children, and I know he's an honorable shinobi. If we're honest with him about our concerns--"

"We have been!" The strident interruption came from one of Itachi's uncles, a high-ranking member of Konoha's police force. "The Hokage knows full well what's been going on, and he has done nothing about it! We are far past the time when 'talking to the Hokage' would do any good!"

"But we have to consider the consequences," a cousin whose name Itachi couldn't remember pointed out reasonably. "What if we end up worse off than we are now? Can we afford to take such a risk?"

"Can we afford not to?" Itachi's eyes widened at his mother's voice. It was quiet, but everyone ceased their murmuring to listen. "What about our children? I have two sons, and I don't want them to grow up being treated this way. Itachi deserves to be treated like the hero he is, and Sasuke deserves to be given the same chance as any other child. They'll never get that if we just let things keep going the way they are."

The undercurrent of discussion resumed now, and the clan leaders didn't interfere. They knew that they would need the backing of the whole family to do what they were planning. Fugaku glared at Itachi, silently willing him to say something. Itachi was the Uchiha's prodigy--if he spoke up, most of the rest would follow him. But he said nothing, profoundly disturbed by what he had heard.

Then the clan's other prodigy spoke. Shisui's quiet voice, like Mikoto's, captivated everyone in the room.

"Fugaku-sama is right. The time for negotiations and compromise is over. If the leaders of the village won't willingly change their policies toward us, we will have to force them to."

Fugaku's eyes swept the room. "What do all of you say? Do you agree?"

Itachi could see that Shisui's words had had an effect. The gathered clansmen were almost unanimous in their gestures of assent now.

The heir to the Uchiha clan bowed his head. No good can come of this.

The end justifies the means...

"Will you do this, Itachi-san? Will you act to preserve Konoha?"

Itachi could feel the eyes of the Hokage, his advisors, and Danzou on him. But although they were not in the room, he could also feel the heavy gazes of his father, mother, and clan elders. He had been pulled between them for so long, like a piece on a game board that both players are struggling to control. Now he would have to commit himself to one side or another.

Images ran through his mind. Danzou's cold, calculating expression. Sarutobi's compassionate face--for once, he looked his age. His father's stern glare. His mother's gentle smile. Shisui's infectious laughter.

His brother's trusting, wide-eyed hero-worship.

He closed his eyes. I don't want Sasuke to grow up in a war-torn world. I don't want him to face the horrors of a civil war. Sasuke deserves to live in peace.

His fists clenched and his throat tightened. Somehow, he managed to force out the words.

"I will do it."

...But not all the means

As Danzou walked past him, Itachi caught hold of his one remaining arm.

"Is there something you want to say to me, Itachi-san?" Danzou asked. His voice was perfectly polite, but Itachi could sense the chakra humming through the other man's body, ready to strike out at a moment's notice.

"I am concerned that you may have misunderstood some of the statements I made during our meeting. In particular, when I said that Sasuke's safety is a condition of my acceptance of the mission, I did not simply mean that I will not harm Sasuke. If this mission is to go forward, Sasuke will not be harmed by any person or organization affiliated with Konoha, ever."

Danzou's eyebrows raised. "Once the mission is completed, you will cease to be a shinobi of Konoha. As such, you will have no say over what happens in the village."

"Technically, you are quite correct."

Now Danzou's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "'Technically'?"

"As part of the deception, after leaving the village, I will immediately join the most powerful criminal organization that is currently active. Such organizations tend to have spies in all of the major villages. Thus, if anything were to, hypothetically, happen to Sasuke, I would most likely hear about it. And if--again, this is merely hypothetical--if that were to happen, certain secret information about the village might accidentally be revealed to the aforementioned criminal organization. The consequences of such an accident might, I suspect, be rather unfortunate for Konoha." Itachi released his grip on Danzou's arm. "But of course, such a thing will not happen, I'm sure. You are an honorable shinobi, after all, and would never take advantage of my absence to violate the terms of our agreement. So long as that remains true, the village will come to no harm." He paused slightly. "Have I succeeded in clearing up any misunderstandings that may have arisen?"

Danzou glared at him, and Itachi could practically see his mind working, turning Itachi's statements over and over in search of a loophole. Finally he said, with apparent reluctance, "Yes, Itachi-san."

"I am glad to hear that," Itachi replied, inclined his head respectfully, and took his leave.

A true friend stabs you in the front

Shisui watched Itachi warily. "Why are you telling me this?" he asked. His hand hovered over the hilt of his katana, but he hadn't drawn it yet.

Itachi, on the other hand, had drawn his weapon. He had drawn it as soon as Shisui arrived on the banks of the Nakano River. Itachi had sent him a message, requesting a meeting with him at this spot, at a time when the rest of the clan would be in one of their meetings. When Shisui showed up, Itachi had lifted his sword and proceeded to tell Shisui everything. About the fact that the village leaders knew the Uchiha were planning a revolt. About how they had asked him to destroy the clan. About how he had agreed to the mission, on the condition that Sasuke's life be spared. The chakra that emanated from him, and the way he held his ninja-to, made it clear that he intended to go through with it.

Which left the question Shisui had asked. "Why are you telling me this? I mean, if you try to kill me and fail, I could warn the clan. And declaring your intentions openly makes it more likely that you will fail. Damn, Itachi, didn't you learn anything about stealth and tricking your enemy in the Academy?" This last question was accompanied by a bitter smile.

"Because you are my best friend, and I will not dishonor that friendship by denying you a chance to defend yourself."

"And if you do lose this fight?"

"Then my last mission will have failed. You will be free to warn our clan, and the planned rebellion will go forward."

"You'd risk that just to fight me honorably?"

"You are my best friend," Itachi replied simply, as if nothing else needed to be said.

And nothing else did.

Now Shisui drew his own sword, and the two boys charged at each other as the moon came up over the river.

Love conquers all. Except when it doesn't.

This was one of the murders Itachi had been dreading the most. He and his distant cousin Fujiko had been engaged by their respective parents the year before. It wasn't uncommon among Advanced Bloodline families--children would be promised to each other in childhood, and married when they came of age. Like most children whose marriages were arranged in this manner, they hadn't known each other very well before their engagement. Over the past year, Itachi had learned that Fujiko was a chuunin who had been trained by a new jounin named Asuma, that she had been trying (and failing) to achieve mastery of wind chakra nature, and that she loved pocky. Fujiko had learned that Itachi doted on his younger brother, that he had earned his promotion to chuunin at the age of ten by defeating a promising young genin named Mitarashi Anko, and that he ate as much dango as he could sneak past the watchful eyes of his father. Gradually, they had discovered (to their great relief) that they didn't hate each other. Even more gradually, they had discovered (to their emerging hope) that they actually liked each other.

And now, he was getting ready to kill her.

Her parents were visiting relatives on the other side of the Uchiha compound. Madara had offered to "take care of" Fujiko, but Itachi had refused. "I will not avoid the consequences of my choice," he had said. So Madara was somewhere across the compound, and he was here.

She stood on the stairs in front of him, kunai held lightly in one hand. She was standing on the balls of her feet, holding a ready stance. She had come to trust him, but she could see the blood on his sword and sense the killing intent in his chakra.

"Is it really going to be this way, Itachi?"

"It's the only thing I can do. Our clan cannot be allowed to betray the village."

"They betrayed us first! Think about your baby brother, for the gods' sake! Do you want him to grow up treated like a second-class citizen just because he's one of us?" Her face hardened, and she raised her weapons. "Are my parents dead, Itachi? My brothers? Have you killed them already?" Itachi opened his mouth to answer, but couldn't bring himself to say anything. "I thought that you were a good person, Itachi. I thought...that you could be a good husband and father. I thought you loved your family...I guess...maybe I was wrong."

Itachi moved first, darting around the kunai she threw. They both drew their ninja-to, and exchanged a flurry of blows. Itachi could see in her face that she knew she was outmatched, despite having the higher ground on the stairs. She had never awakened the Sharingan, and her eyes couldn't predict his movements the way he could predict hers. In desperation, she formed the series of seals he had seen her practice a hundred times before--the wind jutsu that Asuma had worked tirelessly to teach her.

And this time, in her last-ditch attempt to stay alive, it worked. The air around Itachi congealed into razor-sharp blades that whipped towards him. But his eyes could see the normally invisible chakra that animated the wind-blades, and he effortlessly dodged between them. In an instant, he was behind her, one arm pinning both of hers to her sides. She shivered at the feeling of him pressed against her back--they were too young and too shy with each other to have ever done anything more than hold hands.

Itachi placed his other hand under her chin, turning her head so that she was forced to look back over her shoulder and into his eyes. "You won't feel any pain," he assured her, using a genjutsu to dull her physical sensations as he placed a kunai at her throat.

"Itachi...I know we're too young to really love each other. But if you ever thought that maybe you could love me someday, don't do this."

Itachi's breath hitched, but his hands remained steady. "I...do think that I could have loved you. But duty is more important than love."

"No," she whispered, "you're wrong. When my parents first told me that they wanted us to become engaged, I said that I wouldn't give an answer until I'd met you. I agreed to our engagement because I thought there was potential for us to love each other one day. If I hadn't believed that, I would have said no, even if it brought shame to myself and my parents. I wouldn't have accepted you just out of duty. In the end, nothing is more important than love."

Because of the genjutsu, there was no pain. Only a sense of warmth spreading across her throat and dripping down her chest, and then nothing.

Visions of what could have been

"Is this what you want our home to become? Well, is it?"

Trapped in the illusionary world of Tsukiyomi, Fugaku and Mikoto looked around. They seemed to be in the center of Konoha, but not the Konoha they were used to seeing. The Hokage Tower had been almost completely demolished, and Sarutobi's body lay pinned under a fallen steel support beam. Several of the surrounding houses were on fire, and the smoke made them cough. Somewhere, a small child was crying inconsolably. The Hokage Monument had been blasted to pieces. Nearby, Asuma crouched by the side of an unconscious young woman, one arm hanging uselessly at his side. He shook the woman desperately, calling her name. "Kurenai! KURENAI!"

"I...I don't understand. What kind of trickery is this?" Fugaku sounded angry, but there was an undercurrent of fear in his voice.

"This is no trickery. This is what will come to pass if the plans of our family are allowed to go forward."

"Why are you showing us this?" Mikoto demanded.

"Because I want you to understand why I'm doing what I'm doing. I don't hate you, but what you're doing is wrong."

"Don't you understand that we're doing this for you?" Mikoto asked. "For you, and for Sasuke, and for the other children of our clan."

"Really? And do you think they'll be better off if you start a civil war? Do you want to see what would really happen?"

The scene shifted to a street in the Uchiha Compound, near where the Nakano River passed through the district. There were bodies here too, both Uchiha rebels and Konoha's defenders. Gai's prone form lay in the street, which had been demolished by the impact of a Lotus. Beside Gai was the victim of that forbidden jutsu: Uchiha Shisui.

The scene shifted again, now showing the roof of a building. Ibiki stared sightlessly up at the sky, body cut to pieces by blades formed from the wind itself. It had been Fujiko's last act, as she died from a poisoned senbon needle that had pierced her throat.

And again: here were many bodies, nearly a dozen men in ANBU uniforms, plus the legendary Copy Ninja, Hatake Kakashi--and Mikoto and Sasuke. Fugaku, skilled as he was at decoding crime scenes, could easily see what had happened. Mikoto had been fighting Kakashi, and he had resorted to use of the Raikiri to kill the former jounin. Sasuke, who still held a kunai in his hand, rushed forward without thinking to protect his mother, and Kakashi had been unable to stop in time. The Raikiri had gone right through Sasuke and into Mikoto, killing them both. And then...Itachi had shown up. Consumed with rage at the sight of his dead mother and brother, he had cut through Kakashi and the ANBU squads accompanying him as if they weren't even there. Now the illusionary Itachi knelt by his mother's side, tears running down his cheeks.

The illusion faded, and Mikoto and Fugaku found themselves standing in their living room. Both of them slowly fell to their knees, overwhelmed by what they had seen.

"Now do you see?" Itachi asked quietly. "If we go to war against the village, most of us will die anyway, and many others will die as well." He stepped behind his kneeling parents, and drew his sword. "This...this will cost fewer lives than the alternative. It is not right. But it is necessary. I won't ask you to forgive me, only...to understand."

He killed them both with a single strike.

To speak the truth is a painful thing. To be forced to tell lies is much worse.

Not everyone Itachi killed on that night asked him, "Why?" Not all of them got a chance. Where he could, Itachi killed quickly and cleanly.

To those who couldn't be killed in a single blow, who did get a chance to ask, Itachi gave an honest answer. He might be murdering his own kinsmen, but he liked to think he had enough honor left not to lie.

And then there was Sasuke. The one Uchiha whom Itachi would leave alive.

The one person Itachi would not be able to answer truthfully.

For Sasuke to be happy, he must never know the cursed history of the Uchiha clan. He must never know the means by which an Uchiha could reach the full potential of their bloodline, the story of how Madara had unleashed the nine-tailed demon on the village, the conflict that had arisen between the Uchiha and the rest of Konoha. He must never know what his parents and other relatives had been trying to do.

So Itachi would have to lie.

He had already worked out exactly what he would say and how he would say it. He knew Sasuke well, knew what would enrage the boy, what would convince him that this was no trick or illusion. What would make him give up any hope that Itachi might not really be evil.

"It was necessary to test my capacity." I just wanted to see how far I could go. I wanted to see how much power I really have. I didn't hate our clan--I never even cared enough about them to hate them.

Even after all he's already done, it's not until he lies to Sasuke that his heart truly breaks.

Stranger in a strange land

Amegakure was the one place where Itachi could have found acceptance. In a country that's been at war with itself for almost a decade, everyone has done terrible things, and many have had to fight members of their own families. Somehow, though, their lack of condemnation didn't comfort Itachi the slightest bit. In truth, he would have felt better if they had turned away from him, muttered behind his back, steered their children away from him in the street. Each time he entered a tea shop or grocery store, he expected to be deliberately overcharged or told that the place was mysteriously out of everything he wanted (even if it was clearly visible on the shelves), and was disappointed when it didn't happen. He didn't deserve acceptance or respect, and wished that someone would treat him like the criminal he was.

Walking down the street one day, he saw a group of construction workers rebuilding what looked like a school, directed by a foreman in one of those glaringly orange hard-hats. He stopped to watch, causing Kisame to look confused. It was a perfectly ordinary scene in this village, after all.

"I wonder..."

"Hmm?" Kisame blinked, waiting attentively for Itachi to finish his sentence.

"I wonder what it's like to build things instead of tearing them down?"

Silence is golden

Kisame is the only one who doesn't bombard him with questions like "So, why did you do it, anyway?" or "Do you want to be saved by Jashin-sama?" or "What are your views on art?" In some ways, it's odd. Kisame is usually loud and boisterous--he taunts his enemies in battle, and taunts his comrades the rest of the time. Deidara has tried to kill him at least three times for making fun of his feminine appearance, Hidan has tried to kill him at least eight times for making fun of his rituals, and Pain once blasted him off the roof of a building with Shinra Tensei for playfully hitting on Konan.

But when he's around Itachi, he's different. When they're walking from one village to another, Kisame is content to travel in silence, speaking only to ask if Itachi wants to stop for a meal or to comment on weather conditions that might force them to stop for the night earlier than they'd like. When they're in the Rain Village, Kisame keeps his discussions with Itachi relevant to the task at hand: "Do you want to spar for a while?" or "I just gave Pain-sama our mission report" or "Stay away from Kakuzu-san, he's pissed off about something again." He never mentions Itachi's past, Itachi's eyesight, or Itachi's increasing tendency to start coughing up blood at awkward moments.

The only time he even comes close to addressing a sensitive topic is when he asks, "When your brother shows up, I assume you want me to stay out of it?"

Itachi nods silently, and Kisame says nothing more.

The birth of a god

"What's going on?" People are rushing past Itachi on all sides, hurrying towards the plaza in the center of Amegakure. In the middle of a civil war, it's not uncommon to see crowds of people running away from something. But these people are running towards something...what could it be?

"I don't know," Sasori says. As usual, he's completely calm, unaffected by the chaos around him. "Perhaps we should follow, and see what is happening."

By this time, hundreds of people have gathered in the plaza. It's obvious what they're all looking at--Pain and Konan are standing on the platform in the center.

"Do you smell smoke?" Itachi asks. In the middle of a civil war, this seems like an absurd question to ask, because there's always something (or occasionally someone) burning. But there's something big going on here, and Itachi's finely tuned ninja senses are picking up on every detail of his surroundings, trying to figure out what it is.

"My gods!" Sasori exclaims, and Itachi thinks that this is the first time he's heard any significant emotion in the puppetmaster's voice. Following Sasori's gaze, he sees the source of the scent he had noticed earlier. An entire district of Amegakure has gone up in flames. It's the last stronghold of Hanzou's supporters, who have been steadily losing ground for some time now.

Others have noticed the raging inferno as well. People are pointing and shouting, realizing what the destruction they're witnessing means.

Pain raises his arms and calls for quiet. The citizens of Rain respond, turning towards their leaders.

"For over a decade, our nation has been split in two. Those of us who were dissatisfied with Hanzou's rule rose up against him, only to see him desperately cling to power by any means necessary. Everyone here has lost family, or friends, or comrades, to Hanzou's depredations. But his reign of terror has come to an end."

A murmur runs through the crowd. "Has Hanzou surrendered?" one young ninja--a genin, by the looks of him--calls. Others are glancing back and forth between Pain and the burning ruins of Hanzou's hideout, wondering if there is some connection between the two.

"Hanzou has not surrendered," Pain replies. "But nevertheless, his rule is over." He gestures to Konan, whose hands are hidden behind her back. She brings them forward now, holding the object clenched in them aloft.

It is Hanzou's head.

Instantly, the crowd erupts into a mixture of shouts and cheers. People are clinging to their neighbors, asking each other if this can possibly be real.

"And there is more!" Pain yells, gesturing again. Five other men, who have been hidden in the shadows, step forward, each one carrying the decapitated head of one of Hanzou's generals.

The noise from the crowd swells again, washing over Itachi and Sasori like a wave. Somehow, someone (probably a shinobi with a voice-amplification ninjutsu) manages to make herself heard over the jubilation. "But what of Hanzou's other supporters? Won't this just make them even more desperate to destroy us at any cost?" There are some mutters of agreement--one of the first things every shinobi learns is that the most dangerous enemy is one with nothing left to lose.

In response, Pain points toward the smouldering ruins of what was once Hanzou's lair. "These five men were only the highest-ranking of Hanzou's subordinates. They are by no means the only ones whom Konan-san and I have killed. All of Hanzou's family are dead. All of his friends are dead. All of his allies are dead. All of his subordinates, from the mightiest jounin to the lowliest rookie genin, are dead. All those citizens of this village who have openly declared their allegiance to him are dead." With each sentence, Pain's voice rises, until it rings throughout the plaza and echoes off the walls of the surrounding buildings. "Hanzou's stronghold was fortified beyond any other part of the village," a chuunin standing next to Itachi says. "His fighters were fierce and ruthless. How could any man and woman bring all that down, all alone?" He shakes his head. "They say the Rinnegan are the eyes of the gods, and they truly must be, if Pain-sama has really done what he says."

Pain unties his forehead protector and holds it up, displaying the symbol of Amegakure to the watching people. "The old Amegakure died with Hanzou. Today marks a new dawn for our village!" Pulling out a kunai, he slashes it across the Rain symbol.

As one, all the shinobi in the crowd make the same mark on their forehead protectors. Even the civilians draw the new symbol on their foreheads, cheeks, or the backs of their hands with markers and pens. The chaotic cheering begins to resolve into a single chant of Pain's name, repeated over and over until Itachi's eardrums throb and it's the only sound he can hear.

"How many people did he kill to bring this about?" Itachi asks, watching the adulation being showered on Pain and Konan. He can't even hear his own voice, and the only way Sasori knows what he's saying is by reading his lips. "Dozens? Hundreds? All for this place and these people. All for the home he loves." He turns and pushes back through the crowd. Trailing behind him, Sasori can't see his face to read the last thing he says before he reaches the edge of the horde and vanishes into the night. "I hope they appreciate it."

Too many memories

Sometimes, there were sights in Amegakure that tormented Itachi. Like the time he saw two brothers sitting at a ramen stand. The younger brother had ordered far more than he could possibly eat, and the older brother was scolding him, telling him that he would surely get sick if he ate all that. "But nii-san!" the younger brother protested. "I need lots of food if I'm going to get big and strong like you!" Itachi remembered the time Sasuke had done almost exactly the same thing when Itachi took him to Ichiraku's ramen shop. He had eaten four bowls of ramen and spent most of that evening being violently ill.

Or the time he'd seen a small child run towards an older man who was obviously his father, waving a report card. The father glanced at it and said, "Exactly what I would expect from my child."

He had traveled halfway across the continent, yet he was still surrounded by memories of home.

I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it

Over time, Itachi finds that he can't cope with the psychological effects of what he's done. Or rather, he can't bring himself to employ the coping methods that some of the people around him have used. He could either become so cold and ruthless as to feel no attachment to those he has killed, as Pain and Sasori have done, or he could warp and twist himself so much that he actively takes joy in killing, like Hidan and Deidara do. But neither of those options is within his character.

He can't even do what the Amegakure shinobi do to live with the things they've done in Pain's name. They can destroy his enemies without a second thought because they firmly believe it's for the good of their village and the world. That works fine when the people you're killing are nameless ninjas from another country whom you've never laid eyes on before. It doesn't work so well when they're the parents who raised you, the best friend who stood by you through thick and thin, or the grandmother who gave you cookies to cheer you up when you were sad. Some have fought relatives, yes, but they've killed in self-defense, and none have been put in the unenviable position of having to annihilate their entire clans. He's fairly certain that none of them could. Theonly ones capable of such a thing are those whose minds have been thoroughly and completely broken by the long years of civil war.

None of the sane ones could do it, which makes Itachi wonder if he is, in fact, insane.

Let there be darkness

The first time it happened was after Deidara's "recruitment" into the Akatsuki. Itachi and Kisame were walking behind Deidara and Sasori, who were engaged in a debate about art. Itachi blinked, and the world suddenly blurred, as if he were looking at everything through an out-of-focus camera lens. He stumbled, and Kisame cast him a questioning look. Without a word, he recovered himself and strode onward. Neither Deidara nor Sasori had noticed anything.

Later, in his room at the Akatsuki base, Itachi stared into his bathroom mirror. The red of his eyes seemed the tiniest bit less vivid than it had before.

It's only fair, he thought. Whenever I look inside of myself, all I see is blackness. Why shouldn't my external sight match it?

With friends like these...

As soon as Itachi leaves the Leaf, they start sending ANBU teams after him. People would start getting suspicious, after all, if hunter-nin weren't sent to track down the most notorious mass-murderer in the village's history. The fact that these ANBU are being sent on what is essentially a suicide mission doesn't seem to occur to Konoha's leaders. Either that, or they don't care.

Itachi knew this would happen, and has dreaded having to kill the ANBU who try to "bring him to justice," because he has never wanted to kill fellow Konoha shinobi. When the first hunter-nin shows up only a week after Itachi arrives in Rain, he steels himself to murder the man--whom he vaguely remembers from his own time in ANBU--only to see him cut down by three chuunin kunoichi of about his own age who've teamed up against this superior opponent. "Leave Itachi-san the hell alone, outsider!" one of them yells (rather pointlessly, since the target of her anger is already dead).

Itachi soon learns that he doesn't have to kill the various ANBU unlucky enough to be assigned to assassinate him, because the Rain kunoichi will do it for him. At first, when he's thirteen and they're all genin and chuunin, they have to gang up on a single ANBU. But as he gets older, the members of what Kisame calls "The Fangirl Brigade" get older and stronger too, until they can take on the would-be assassins one-on-one. Sometimes he wants to scream at them--not in anger, but in anguish. Don't put yourselves in harm's way because of me! Don't kill for my sake! Whether it's infatuation or lust or love, I'm not worthy of it! Don't you have any idea what kind of person I am, what I've done? But of course saying that would blow his cover, so he has to bite his tongue when the Assistant Director of the Torture and Interrogation Division hands him yet another cracked and bloodied ANBU mask like some kind of trophy. "Can't take full credit for this one," she tells him. "Akisane-chan packs one hell of a punch with that prosthetic hand of hers--I swear she scattered his teeth over half a city block." He pretends that he's trying to hold back a smile, when he's really trying to hold back tears.

One man's curse is another man's blessing

When Orochimaru tried to take control of his body, Itachi had to resist an urge to laugh. Do you really want my Mangekyou Sharingan so badly? This power that corrupts its vessel, corroding it away over months and years? I thought you wanted to live forever? It amuses him to think that the man praised as one of the Legendary Sannin is, in fact, an idiot. Who else would want a bloodline limit so tainted and tarnished? Who else could mistake a curse like the Mangekyou for a blessing?

Foolish little brother

Reliving the massacre in Tsukiyomi is as painful for Itachi as it is for Sasuke. Back in the real world, he can feel his younger brother screaming and writhing in his grip, sense Naruto's fury and Jiraiya's concern. Here, tears leak from Sasuke's eyes as he sees his beloved clan slaughtered around him, over and over and over.

But at least he can show the agony he feels. At least he can cry and scream, curl up in a ball with his hands buried in his dark hair.

Itachi knows exactly how Sasuke's feeling, because he feels it too. But unlike Sasuke, he can't let any trace of those feelings show. His face must remain an impassive mask, his hands must remain steady, his voice must remain even.

"You are weak," he admonishes the nearly-unconscious Sasuke. "Why are you so weak?" His tone hints at nothing more than mild curiousity, perhaps a slight hint of disappointment. "It is because you lack hatred." As he leans in close to breathe this last line in Sasuke's ear, he can feel the boy's wildly fluctuating chakra. Sasuke's breath is shallow and uneven, and there are tears gathering in his eyes.

He wishes that he could break down in the same way. Through the whole seventy-two hours of the Tsukiyomi, he had felt like crying, like collapsing to the ground, like putting his fist through a wall and screaming.

(Later, in the forest on the border of the Fire Country, while Kisame is off gathering firewood, he does. He sinks to his knees and lets red-tinged tears stream down his face, shoulders heaving and breath coming in gasps. Chakra builds up in his hands, tingling and stinging, until he rams one fist through the trunk of a nearby tree. It's a copy of the jutsu Sasuke tried to use on him, and blue electricity rips through the leaves and branches of the tree that's acting as a subsitute for--what? Danzou? Madara? Himself? By the time Kisame returns, Itachi is composed and serene. Kisame quirks one eyebrow at the sight of the demolished oak, but, "I guess you got tired of waiting for me to come back with firewood," is all he says.)

The walking dead

Madara is an elusive creature, hiding behind his mask and his incorporeality and the inane persona of "Tobi." Most of the Akatsuki members don't even know that he exists--like everyone else, they think that Uchiha Madara died long ago, in battle with the Shodaime Hokage. To Pain and Konan, he is mysterious, the puppetmaster pulling their strings. At least neither one is stupid enough to actually trust him. No one knows exactly how much Zetsu knows about Madara, but Itachi suspects that it's not much more than Pain and Konan know.

Itachi, however, knows exactly what Madara is. Uchiha Madara is a ghost.

Not in the literal sense, of course. Madara is very much alive. But his power is far less than it once was, and most of the world has forgotten him. He struggles to affect the course of history once more, insisting that he is stil relevant, still important.

Itachi is quite certain that all three of the other people who know about Madara's continued existence fear him. In their minds, he is an immortal warrior, whose fearsome power is cloaked in the shadows he surrounds himself with.

But Itachi knows the truth about Madara, and in his mind, Madara is no mystery, no terrible man-o'-war, no godlike immortal.

In his mind, Uchiha Madara is a ghost, and a pathetic one at that.

And Abel slew Cain

Fingers trembling, reaching out one last time as his vision starts to fade to black around the edges, Itachi remembers all the other times he's made this gesture.

"I'm sorry, Sasuke. I have a mission today."

"I'm sorry, Sasuke. I'm very busy right now."

"I'm sorry, Sasuke. I have to prepare for my ANBU entrance examination."

"I'm sorry, Sasuke. I have a meeting with Hokage-sama."

"I'm sorry, Sasuke. Maybe another time."
He reaches out, and his fingers touch his younger brother's forehead. It's hot and feverish--Sasuke has burned a lot of chakra, and Orochimaru's final emergence put a great deal of stress on his body. Sasuke's face is pale, his eyes wide, his fingernails trying to dig into the rock behind him.

Itachi's arm muscles spasm, and his fingers slip off Sasuke's forehead, leaving a trail of blood down one cheek.

One last time. He has to say this, just one last time...

"I'm sorry, Sasuke. This is it."

Nirvana

There are four people sitting side by side on the park bench, talking and laughing. They seem like a happy family, sharing a day at the park. Maybe they'll go to get ice cream later, or feed the ducks in the nearby pond.

Itachi blinks, momentarily confused by the lack of fire and pitchfork-wielding demons.

The people on the bench notice him standing there, and turn to look at him. He recognizes their faces--has seen them in his dreams every night for years.

Shisui. Fujiko. Mikoto. Fugaku.

"I'm sorry," he tries to say, but can't get the words past the lump in his throat. (And vaguely, he thinks about how odd it is to feel as though there's a lump in his throat when he doesn't even have a throat anymore.)

Mikoto rises from the bench and comes over to him. He struggles to say the words again, knowing that they would be hopelessly inadequate anyway. Mikoto reaches out and places one finger over his lips, and Itachi realizes that they don't need to hear him say the words, because they already know.

Mikoto gathers Itachi into her arms, and like a small child waking from a nightmare, he cries on his mother's shoulder.

A/N: So, I've been working on this story for about a month, and I finally finished it, just in time for the end of the year. A lot of the section titles are quotes or paraphrases--the title of the story itself is a paraphrase of a line from W.B. Yeats's poem "The Second Coming," "A true friend stabs you in the front" was said by Oscar Wilde, "A house divided" is from Abraham Lincoln's famous statement that "A house divided cannot stand", and "To speak the truth is painful, to be forced to tell lies is far worse" is an anonymous quotation. The phrase "stranger in a strange land" is from the Bible, and "Let there be darkness" and "And Abel slew Cain" are both reversals of Biblical lines.

In "...But not all the means," I was trying to have Itachi do the whole Mafia-style veiled threat thing with Danzou ("This is a real nice village you've got here--it'd be a shame if anything happened to it.") Basically, I wanted him to be badass and intimidating without actually fighting.

Regarding "Love conquers all. Except when it doesn't.", Madara tells Sasuke in Chapter 401 that Itachi killed his girlfriend during the Uchiha Massacre. So while Fujiko is an OC, her presence is canon-justified, and I tried to avoid giving her the dreaded disease of Mary-Sue-itis. Some kind of arranged engagement was the most likely reason I could think of for Itachi to be dating someone within his own clan.

On "Visions of what could have been"...yeah. Remember that character death warning at the beginning? This is why that's there.

"Silence is golden": I've always liked the portrayal of Itachi and Kisame as friends (or at least trusted comrades) in fanfic, so I tried to capture that dynamic here.

"With friends like these...": Poor Itachi. He has a horde of fangirls and can't even enjoy it. The "Akisane-chan" who's mentioned briefly is an OC who appeared in a couple of my really early fics.

"Nirvana": I almost made myself cry writing this.

Anyway, Happy New Year to all!