I don't own Naruto. Beware a very human Itachi with questionable ethics and no immunity to mistakes. References to any quotes can be found at the bottom. Apologies for spelling and grammatical errors, this is currently un-edited. It's late.

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."- Albert Einstein

In the end Itachi never dies.

He feels his heartbeat slow, feels the wheels of fate turn in on each other, the mechanics that piece together reality. A reality, the reality? He can feel the end, almost taste it.

In that moment he stands on the brink on everything that ever was and has been.

Emotions slip through his fingers, are they his? He doesn't know, he doesn't even recall his own name. He is no one in this white space of nothingness, he is personal embodiment of nothing.

Yet there is a boy who is crying in the back of his conciseness, a misstep he has made. A part of his mind screams that he had done everything as he should have (though whatever this everything is he doesn't know) the edge of everything is not a practical place, it is not governed by the laws of physics, power, attraction, war. All those tentative laws that string together what we know, they are absent here. It is the antithesis to humanity, the anti-reality, the end and the beginning.

Then he sees it.

He knows it, could he dare to comprehend it?

"Sasuke" he whispers uncertainly, and the word is not unfamiliar on his tongue.

"Sasuke" he repeats with confidence. That's his tiny baby brother; he would separate the oceans from the earth to keep him safe. And Sasuke isn't safe.

He sees a tumbling of images, of hate and anger, he sees his brother spitting curses so furiously, his face twisted so bitterly, that it takes a moment for Itachi to recognise him.

Sasuke isn't safe.

He isn't safe from his most vicious enemy, his most devastating foe yet.

Sasuke isn't safe from himself.

Itachi reaches out and takes a steady hold of something in the whitespace. Leathery and dry, withering away in its old age.

He propels forward and his body takes a breath.

It has been months and Sasuke will still not speak to him.

Itachi has been given a liberal amount of freedom within the village walls, pardoned for all his outstanding crimes. Most Shinobi are outwardly polite. Cautious, as expected, but overbearingly so at times. It's that restrained politeness that's so obviously superficial it's nauseating. Shinobi struggle with forgiveness, and never forget. Like Itachi can never forget to detect and analyse every detail, every whisper behind a hand and malicious stare, from the corner of his eye. It's engrained into his reflexes to notice, as it is in theirs to fear and hate him.

Its fine, he reminds himself, Sasuke is safe. For now at least, with his two companions clinging to his shoulders with a seemingly unlimited desperate strength.

Even so, he retreats to his own private living space, to solitude. In the furthest corner of the village to the Uchiha compound and it's rotting hallways. He loves Konoha second to only Sasuke, and it's quiet though blatant rejection is starting to trouble him. He can forgive them for hating him earlier, when they thought he licked his mother's blood off his fingers and grinned into his father's fading eyes, but Konoha's memory is too long in these matters. And it does not forget this even after the sheet of ignorance had been pulled off their eyes. They will continue to blind themselves with prejudice, sink into the comforting familiarity of despising him. They will decide themselves what truly happened, they will construct their own reality.

And therein lies the answer.

Despite his love for it, Itachi is not blinded to his village's faults. Orphans hide in the crooks of every alley, abandoned and ignored by the heavy footsteps of passerbys. The prestigious and wealthy clans answer little to the mainstream laws and instead uphold their own, too often riddled with archaic bias. The Hyuuga clan extorts and brands its lower house members when they have barely passed out of infancy. It is nothing but decorated slavery and Konoha's rulers do nothing.

The reality is neglected for more familiar, agreeable discussions. Ones that warm the cheeks in pride for the country, that make the children's eyes glow with the promise of glory when they too become shinobi. They are not told that they will find their glory on the backs of rotting corpses who were once similarly minded children, or in the blood that's caked beneath their fingernails till they rub their hands raw.

A village built on the complete destruction of their competitors has an understandibly skewed sense of right and wrong. Their consciences dwindle while they let their children feast on ideals that hold assassination in distinction. A whispered promise of greatness to be found within the gore.

He cannot change this, Itachi knows, he cannot change everything.

But if he could reach out into the whitespace, twist the strings of fate once more. Perhaps there was someone to be saved in all of this.

The theory behind distorting reality is heavily documented, Itachi himself was born an illusionist, or at least labelled as one from birth by crooning dotted eyes. The piles of information he had acquired were useless, genjutsu had turned out to be the lest helpful application of chakra in what he is attempting to achieve.

Oddly enough it is while meeting with the Hyuuga heiress that he has his first major breakthrough.

He and Sasuke were on talking terms, but their meetings were strained with the years of resentment. Sasuke was damaged, he knew, finding it near impossible to wash away his loathing. Walking helped Itachi organise his thoughts, formulating the equations, analysing their theoretical outcomes. Calculating the amounts of chakra needed and avenues of doing so. It was late, too late for crowds of intrusive eyes, and he stopped to observe a young female in deep concentration. She was performing some form of what appeared to be a teleportation jutsu, nothing of particular merit; however her distribution of chakra and method of application struck him as bizarre. Focusing on her more intently, he waited for her to repeat the technique.

"Excuse me," he called out, and she spun around so fast he was surprised the momentum hadn't knocked her to the ground. Hyuuga, obviously, if those blank doe eyes were anything to go by, no branding, from main house, similar age to Sasuke, plain girlish features. "Hyuuga-san, I apologise for startling you" he began and observed her fingers twitch. "I was observing your technique and noticed the unusual application" He paused and she continued to stand there stunned, wringing her fingers together. "It is interesting," he prodded, expecting her to grasp his meaning.

"o-oh, Uchiha-san" bowing low, much to low for an heir of any clan, let alone the pretentious Hyuuga. He returned the gesture lightly, still waiting for an explanation.

It took a few minutes of fumbling, but she recognised his request. "It's, ah, well, not so much a different application as it is a d-different technique," her voice was soft and fragmented by pauses of nervousness. "I can't, well, I couldn't quiet," her eyes drifted downward "I couldn't master the traditional method." Her cheeks pink with embarrassment and shame, eyes downcast and heavy.

"So you understood your shortcomings, and designed a new technique that played to your strengths and achieved the same outcome."

"Well, um, I guess so"

"An admirable trait Hyuuga-san" he did not flatter, did not stroke the egos of power players in Konoha. Hyuuga or not, the praise was deserved, he thinks, and though her eyes held an amount of doubt, her lips were dangerously close to turning upright.

"Thank you Uchiha-san" her small voice was almost carried away on the wind, it might take her away with it, tiny thing that she was.

She begins to explain the fundamentals of the technique, and slowly the nervous edge to her voice drains away, a new flourish brought to her cheeks as she talks of the processes she had formulated. She speaks softly and quietly, at times Itachi strains to hear her, but he suspects she would speak in such tones regardless of his presence. The lack of thinly veiled hostility is refreshing.

"While most use speed as a propellant or sometimes a d-disintegrating and reorganising of components..." she stares up at him with wide eyes as if to confirm and he tilts his head in acceptance. " I guess you could say, well" she was struggling to explain it in words, "it's like you were always there, sort of, a manipulation of... um"

"Reality" he injects, his mind whirling with the theory, the practice, what this means for him. His respect for the girl-child soars, all along he, a genius by most standards, had taken the wrong approach to a problem that this girl had composed the answer for herself. The scale was different, incredibly so, yet here was the basis, the plan, she had drafted the framework for him to build upon.

"Ah- Uchiha-san?" his intensity had unnerved her again, but he couldn't clear his mind quite yet. The discovery had uncovered an excitement within him, an exuberance that he hadn't felt in years. How miserable was life, he thought, he could barely recognise it before, it was the normalcy, the reality.

"Hyuuga-san, may I request your assistance with a project of mine."

Hinata proves to be more then capable accomplice. Over the weeks her nervousness evaporates completely. He knows she is naturally reserved, demure, thoughtful. But she can stand her ground if she truly wants to, if she believes in something wholeheartedly. Yet can barely muster the strength if she not sure of herself. Incompetence was her greatest fear.

Since she rarely initiates conversation, he makes an effort to do so himself, a foreign act for him, but the ideas he can pick from between the mumbles are often compelling.

Itachi has an inkling that no ones bothered to engage her in any firm thought provoking discussions, over-shadowed by her sister and cousin as she is. Starved of such attention, her mind is abound with philosophical hypothesis and with practical myth. A bit whimsical at time, but it suits her, being so is probably what brought her here in the first place.

The two of them think so differently, yet end up in similar places. He imagines his mind a path of straight lines and equations, information stored categorically to be plucked up whenever needed. He takes a pragmatic approach to his dealings, even if the subject matter is not. Reversely, he sees Hinata's mind full of circles and stars, twists and turns, flights of fancy mixed with the rigorous facts. Separate pathways to the same destination. It's intriguing.

"... then it wouldn't be arrogant to presume that all human beings are living in their assumptions." It was a late, the sky long dark, much too late for a proper young lady. However Hinata's trust wasn't given half-heartedly and she had become almost as enthralled with the ongoing project as he was.

"Well, I guess knowledge and experience are ambiguous, but it's just," the word had escaped her, "just not right" she huffed childishly. "That's human psychology, it just so... different, it wouldn't affect anyone else."

"That doesn't mean they're mutually exclusive"

A firm knock at the door threw them from the debate.

Sasuke rarely visited, and Itachi urges him inside. Hinata took her leave, unwilling to invade what was so obviously a weak rekindling of brotherhood. For her delicacy around such issues he was thankful.

"Hinata-san and I are working together on a project concerning certain forms of chakra manipulation," answering his brother's bewildering stare. Sasuke continued to look doubtful.

"I'm just not sure," she inhaled deeply, a sign that she was about to say that she knew wouldn't coincide with his own path of thinking. "I'm not sure about the, well, ethics" lips pulled into a small frown.

"All ethics are subject to perspective."

She looks doubtful, he can tell in the way she blinks for a split second longer then usual, in the way her hands flutter at her sides, delicate fingers smudging the wet ink on her scroll. He's a relativist, and she is not.

"You don't even know if it's possible"

"I do." Her fingers still.

"I've done it before."

Hinata listens to him describe the white space, the nothingness, the end and the beginning, like a five year old would listen to a fairytale with wide eyes of awe. He speaks of the wheels that turn the world around, the edge of everything and the ropes cast off the edge, waiting to be pulled.

She's quiet for awhile, and he half expects her to of dosed off, till her gentle voice speaks out. "There will still be a re-action outside what you are directly trying to change," she speaks almost to herself, tone tinged with worry, "You don't know for sure if it will be good."

Months have passed, and while he believes it won't be long until the final stages of his project are completed, his relationship with Sasuke has refused to move forward. His dear baby brother still can't look at him without seeing their parents on the floor, he can't resist the flood of emotions that had been a reflex to him for so many years. Sasuke's relationship has barely improved with his old teammates either. They insist on being at his side constantly, expecting, praying, that one day he'll decide to pick up the broken remains of their friendship. But Sasuke continues to isolate himself, he can't look at the past for what it is and move on. Itachi mourns this more than anything, more than their relationship because he had forfeited it before.

He just wants Sasuke to be content, with all his being, and his brother is far from it.

"You've been distracted today Itachi-san." Hinata voice penetrates his less then pleasant thoughts.

Finally she convinces him to tear away from his work, and join her at a nearby restaurant for dinner. He cannot help but notice the looks they receive from every corner of it, their long selective memories over clouding their judgement. Fear, the kin-slayer is among us, he can hear the words they would never dare say. He thinks Hinata doesn't notice, but then he realises she does, in that subtle graceful way she knows things but never mentions them.

He wonders briefly what they think of their association. It has been common knowledge for some time now. Some, he believes, think they are developing powerful jutsu that only the wealthiest clans will be privy too. Others, he suspects, believe he has lured her like a blind puppy into some scandalous affair, but anyone that genuinely knew Hinata would (or so he hopes) disregard such hearsay.

He thinks perhaps he has found a friend in her, he knows she likes to see it that way, fanciful as she can be. He hasn't had a friend since Shisui, and he can still see his bloated purple corpse bobbing in the river. Up and down, up and down.

He visits Sasuke the morning their work is concluded. His brother's muscle is losing itself to skin and bone, Naruto says he barely eats. His little baby brother, mind and will so broken he steps on the shards of it scattered across the moulding floorboards.

"I'm still not certain this is the best idea" Hinata bites her lower lip, the skin dry and crackling, proof of her nerves. "I won't even know you, this would of never happened."

"We're both from the same village, both heirs of prominent clans, I'm sure we will be easily acquainted." He reassures her.

"There will be no motivation" she nearly sulks, hands wringing at their sides like the day they first meet.

"Perhaps I'll romance you," he smirks, attempting to lighten her mood, but her minds teeming with too much emotion and worry to be embarrassed by his light humor.

Perhaps I will, he thinks to himself, watching her eyes finally light up as she gives way to the excitement of knowing their hard work was coming to realisation.

"Good luck" she nearly whispers, notes caught on the wind.

He nods back in return.

He's back on the edge of everything, but this time he knows exactly what to do. The nothingness is less alluring, the calculations lined up in his favour.

"The gods decided to be generous" Hinata had said to him one day, her fingers drawing circles in the dust of his floor. Around and around, like the spiral in their village symbol, like leaves stuck in a shifting wind, like his mothers eyes as he cut out her throat. "To let you stare into the abyss."

He reaches out and leaps.

Konoha will never be perfect, human kind will always retreat to comforting illusions, the first of all pleasures. Itachi's mind fills with new information, he doesn't quite know everything that he should in this new reality, but he knows enough to be satisfied.

The Uchiha clan is alive and well. His brother, while an aloof and stubborn boy, has a full face and his eyes are not marred with years of agony. His parent's eyes are different too, there is something unrecognisable in them. A softness that never existed before.

Itachi knows the change he has forced onto this world occurred much further back than was necessary. The unlived memories flood to him as he recalls the Uchiha clan's firm loyalty to Konoha, the healthy politics between them. Decades of established annual meetings between the prominent leaders in Konoha. Issues between them soothed by the flow of words instead of blood.

It is slightly troubling, because the timeframe is so much wider, there is so much more room for other major changes to occur, although he had resisted them. He can't help but be at ease when he sees his father more concerned with Sasuke's well-being then his performance with a jutsu, can't help but feel at ease when they sit together as a family undaunted by the restrains of disagreement.

Itachi is not merely appeased, he is jubilant, he is delighted. He is so happy that he never believed it possible, never thought this feeling existed, burdened with the foul taste of deception as young as he was. However, something continues to naw at the back of his mind.

He inquires after the Hyuuga heir, whilst his mother serves their meals. A casual suggestion in a conversation, manipulating words to seek his answers like the ropes he's tugged and pulled.

"Hanabi-san?" his mother answers, confused by his sudden interest. His father raises an inquisitive eyebrow.

"No, Hinata-san, her..." Itachi pauses, pauses because he knows, those pesky memories, where do they all go when they are not with him?

His horror, his rising nausea, must have flashed across his face. Shadows of a girl-child dancing across his eyes.

Mikoto's brow wrinkles with concern, "Hinata-san was kidnapped some years ago now, while her father was attending the village's annual conference," those meetings, yes, those changes in fate. "That was well over a decade ago Itachi, you know this."

Pulled her eyes out right from their sockets, an empty corpse of a child was all they retrieved.

Itachi lost his appetite.

She's buried in the Hyuuga cemetery, not far from the Naka River where he never drowned his boyhood friend.

He visits under the guise of overdue respect for his counterpart within their clan, and the Hyuuga's pay him little notice. They are use to their silent paper hallways and to creaking wooden floors, they keep largely to themselves.

He stays for no longer than five minutes, a brief apology on the wind, carrying to where he thinks she may be.

"There will still be a re-action outside what you are directly trying to change" he recalls, her hushed words and down turned lips, fingers drawing circles in the ground.

She was an unknowing sacrifice for their work to be realised, her gods always demanding compensation for what she called their generosity. Or perhaps she not so unknowing, she did keep many fumbling whispers to herself. The life he had sculpted them all had no place for her, somehow he didn't think she'd mind. A life lost, to hundreds saved, a more than worthy reason to die for any ninja. He would not wish it back. Sasuke would always be his first concern, and he had opened up their world by the seams for him, to enter a place where the measure of time is absent, all things that ever were and would be resting upon the open plain.

The lure of control was increasing, that fabled land calling him to reach out. The temptation, the charisma of the pull. The great tug. Hinata's passing was no necessity to peace, merely a consequence of his dealings.

He thinks he could reach out one more time.

(and thus seals his own fate)

The conversation between Itachi and Hinata about humans living within their assumptions is taken from an canon Itachi quote. "illusions, the first of all pleasures" is a variation of a quote by Oscar Wilde. Any feedback is appreciated. :)

-ssapientia