Chapter 548: Explanations Are Not Absolution (Patreon)

Kenway Compound — Eastern Garden — Konohagakure

"Itachi Uchiha… tell me your story."

The request settled between them while the garden continued moving around two men who belonged to eras separated by generations.

Water stirred gently near the edge of the pond, where a fish disturbed the reflection of the surrounding trees before disappearing beneath the surface again. Somewhere farther inside the compound, a door slid open and closed, followed by the faint rise of Naruto's voice before distance swallowed whatever he had said.

Itachi remained seated across from Izuna.

For several moments, he said nothing.

Izuna did not hurry him.

The resurrected Uchiha rested one arm against the stone chair he had raised from the earth, his face turned precisely toward Itachi despite the empty darkness beneath his eyelids. Madara had already given him history through the eyes of a man who had spent generations removed from most of it. Now Izuna wanted the account belonging to the person whose hands had actually carried out the final act.

Itachi understood that distinction.

His hands settled loosely upon his knees.

"There are reasons for what happened," he began at last, his voice quiet enough that the sounds of the garden remained audible around it. "There were political pressures, failures in Konoha, failures within the clan, manipulation, fear, and people who deliberately removed alternatives."

Izuna's expression did not change.

Itachi looked toward the pond.

"None of those things absolve me."

That caused the smallest movement in Izuna's fingers.

Itachi continued before he could respond.

"I was the one who accepted the choice. I was the one who carried it out. If I explain what surrounded the massacre, it is because you asked how the clan reached that point. I will not use those circumstances to pretend the dead were killed by abstractions instead of people."

Izuna inclined his head by a fraction.

"Continue."

Itachi drew a slow breath.

"I was born after the Third Shinobi War had already taught my generation what peace cost."

His gaze became distant.

"My father took me to a battlefield when I was four."

Izuna's brow tightened.

"Four?"

"Yes."

For the first time, something close to irritation touched Izuna's face.

Itachi noticed.

"He wanted me to understand what being a shinobi meant. What war meant."

"And what did you understand?"

Itachi looked down at his hands.

"That adults could create reasons sophisticated enough to send thousands of people to die, yet none of those reasons mattered very much when you were standing among the bodies."

The answer quieted Izuna.

Itachi remembered corpses scattered across ruined earth, the smell of blood and smoke, and the unnatural stillness that followed battle after all the shouting stopped.

"I was too young to understand nations, military objectives, or why men who had never met one another believed they needed to kill each other. I only understood the result."

His fingers curled slightly.

"I became obsessed with preventing another war."

Izuna heard something beneath the words. "Afraid of it."

Itachi looked toward him. "Yes."

That admission mattered.

Not noble devotion to peace, but fear.

A child had seen too much death and decided the only acceptable future was one in which nothing resembling it happened again.

Itachi continued, "I was also talented."

Izuna's mouth twitched faintly. "So I have been told."

"The village noticed. The clan noticed. My father noticed." Itachi spoke without pride. "I entered the Academy younger than most. I advanced quickly. I became a genin while still a child, then entered ANBU before I had any business being trusted with the responsibilities they gave me."

Izuna's head tilted.

"How old?"

"Eleven when I entered ANBU. I became a captain later."

Izuna's expression slowly hardened.

"In my time, children fought because there was no village to protect them from clan wars." His fingers pressed against the stone armrest. "Your village existed, and it still placed a child inside its secret military."

Itachi did not defend Konoha. "Yes."

That answer seemed to trouble Izuna more than an excuse would have.

Itachi continued.

"There was someone else."

"Shisui."

Madara had apparently mentioned the name.

Itachi nodded.

"Shisui Uchiha. He was the person I trusted most outside my immediate family."

Something softened in his voice, barely perceptible but present.

"He believed in Konoha. He also loved the clan. For a time, I believed that made him proof the two loyalties did not need to conflict."

"What changed?"

"The Nine-Tails attack."

Izuna became still again.

Itachi knew Madara had already explained Obito's role, so he did not repeat everything.

"Konoha suspected the Uchiha because the Sharingan could control the Nine-Tails. The clan was pushed farther toward the village outskirts. Surveillance increased, political influence decreased, and resentment grew."

Izuna's jaw tightened.

"The Nidaime Hokage built the Police Force, and generations later the village still found another method of isolating us."

Itachi allowed the statement to stand.

"The clan began discussing resistance. Eventually, resistance became a coup."

"Your father?"

"Fugaku was clan head. He did not create every grievance, but he ultimately led the planning."

Izuna's fingers traced once along the stone. "And you informed the village."

"Yes."

"And informed the clan about the village."

"Yes."

Izuna gave a humorless breath. "A child serving as an intermediary between two groups preparing to kill each other."

Itachi's gaze lowered.

"That is what I became."

"Hiruzen?"

"He wanted negotiation."

"Did he act?"

"Not quickly enough."

Izuna's expression tightened.

Itachi did not soften the answer.

"The Third Hokage wanted a peaceful settlement, but wanting one was not enough. Danzō believed the coup could only end through force."

The name changed Izuna's posture; Madara had already told him enough. "So this Danzō is the one who cornered you."

"He helped create the corner." Itachi chose the wording carefully. "But not yet."

He told Izuna about Shisui's final plan.

"Kotoamatsukami."

Izuna's head lifted.

Even without eyes, the response was immediate.

He knew what Mangekyō abilities could mean.

"His eye could alter another person's decisions without them realizing they had been manipulated?"

"Yes."

"And Shisui intended to use it on the clan?"

"On the leadership, beginning with my father. He believed he could stop the coup before anyone died."

Izuna remained silent for several seconds. "I dislike the method."

"So did I."

"But compared with slaughter…"

"Yes." Itachi's voice became quieter. "Danzō took one of Shisui's eyes before the plan could be carried out."

Izuna's hand stopped moving.

"He attacked one of your clan's strongest shinobi while claiming the clan could not be trusted."

"Yes."

"And Hiruzen allowed him to continue operating afterward?"

Itachi looked toward the pond. "At that time, Danzō still possessed enormous influence."

"That was not my question."

Itachi understood.

"No. Hiruzen did not order what Danzō did to Shisui."

Izuna waited.

"But he failed to stop the structure that allowed Danzō to act independently."

Itachi did not need sight to know Izuna's opinion of that.

The older Uchiha's chakra had tightened.

"What happened to Shisui?"

"He gave me his remaining eye."

A faint wind passed through the garden.

"Then he killed himself."

Izuna's fingers dug into the stone.

Itachi continued only after several seconds.

"He believed his death might prevent his eyes from becoming another reason for conflict. He entrusted the other eye to me and asked me to protect the village and the Uchiha name."

Izuna's head lowered.

"That was the last solution you believed could save both."

"Yes."

"And after that came Danzō."

"Yes."

Itachi's voice remained controlled, though the memory had never become easy.

"Danzō presented the coup as inevitable. He told me that if the Uchiha moved, Konoha would enter civil war. Other villages would see the weakness and attack. The clan would die anyway, except Sasuke would die with them."

Izuna's breathing changed almost imperceptibly. "He offered an alternative."

Itachi nodded.

"If I eliminated the Uchiha before the coup began, Sasuke would be spared."

The garden became very quiet as Izuna did not immediately speak. When he finally did, his voice had lost what little warmth it contained. "And you believed him."

"I believed the larger war was possible."

"That was not what I asked."

Itachi met the darkness beneath Izuna's eyelids. "I believed enough of it."

Izuna's jaw flexed, but Itachi continued before the anger could simplify the truth.

"Danzō manipulated the situation. He destroyed Shisui's plan. He treated negotiation as weakness. He used Sasuke because he understood exactly which life mattered most to me."

Itachi's voice remained level.

"But Danzō did not take control of my body."

Izuna said nothing.

"He did not move my hands for me. He did not place me under genjutsu."

Itachi's fingers tightened.

"I chose."

The words remained between them.

"I was thirteen years old," Itachi continued, "and I believed sacrificing one clan could prevent a war that might kill thousands."

Izuna slowly turned his face away.

For someone raised during the Warring States Period, the arithmetic was not incomprehensible.

That was perhaps what made it worse.

Izuna knew what clan wars became when retaliation escaped control. He had watched children die because one Senju killed an Uchiha whose brother then killed a Senju whose cousins returned the following week.

He understood why a terrified boy might believe preventing civil war justified something monstrous.

Understanding did nothing to make the choice acceptable.

"What happened next?" Izuna asked.

Itachi did not hesitate. "I found the masked man."

Izuna turned toward him again. "Obito."

"I knew him then as Madara Uchiha."

A faint bitterness touched Izuna's mouth. "Nii-san mentioned that insult."

Itachi almost smiled, but the subject did not permit it.

"I believed the masked man held a grievance against both the clan and the village. I also knew I could not eliminate the Uchiha alone without some surviving or the fighting spreading."

Izuna's head snapped toward him. "You asked him to help you."

"Yes."

The answer was quiet and direct.

Izuna's chakra stirred through the stone beneath his chair.

"You went searching for assistance."

"Yes."

"Meaning there was time between accepting Danzō's choice and carrying it out."

Itachi knew exactly what Izuna was asking.

Time to reconsider, run, warn people, and choose differently.

"Yes."

Izuna remained completely still.

Itachi continued. "The massacre happened at night."

His voice did not become dramatic, as that would have cheapened it. "I entered homes belonging to people who knew me."

Izuna's fingertips trembled once.

"I killed shinobi who had watched me grow up. Men who trained beside my father. People who had eaten with my family."

Itachi's eyes lowered.

"Obito handled other sections of the district."

Izuna's breath came slowly.

Itachi did not describe every death; he did not need to.

"The last home I entered was mine."

Izuna's hand closed.

"My parents were waiting."

Itachi could still see the room... Fugaku seated with Mikoto, no weapons drawn, no attempt to flee.

"My father knew."

Izuna's expression changed.

"He knew what you came to do?"

"Yes."

"They fought?"

"No."

That answer struck harder.

Itachi's voice remained controlled with visible effort. "My father told me he understood that I had chosen my path, and my mother stayed beside him."

Izuna's fingers dug deep enough into the stone chair that cracks began spreading beneath them.

"They let you kill them."

"Yes."

Itachi looked down.

"I killed Fugaku Uchiha."

The first crack widened.

"And Mikoto Uchiha."

Izuna's chakra surged once before he forced it back down.

For a few seconds, the garden seemed to hold itself motionless around him.

Then he asked the question whose answer he already partly knew.

"And Sasuke?"

Itachi's eyes closed briefly.

"I could not kill him."

Izuna's mouth tightened.

"So you chose one Uchiha after killing the rest."

"Yes."

"Because he was your brother."

"Yes."

Izuna sat with that.

His own brother had preserved his bones for generations.

Madara had ripped out a Rinnegan less than an hour after Izuna's resurrection simply because he wanted his younger brother to see.

Izuna understood loving a brother beyond reason, but that did not make what came next easier.

"You spared him."

"Yes."

Itachi opened his eyes and said, "And then I hurt him in a different way."

Izuna turned toward him.

"I needed Sasuke to believe I had killed the clan for selfish reasons."

"Why?"

"Because I wanted him to hate me."

For the first time since the conversation began, Izuna looked genuinely confused.

Itachi continued.

"I wanted Sasuke to grow strong enough to kill me."

The confusion became disbelief.

"You slaughtered his family and then decided his future should be built around murdering you."

"Yes."

Izuna leaned back.

Itachi did not avoid the judgment.

"I used Tsukuyomi on him."

Izuna's expression hardened instantly. "He was a child."

"Yes."

"What did you show him?"

"The massacre."

Izuna did not move.

"I forced him to relive our parents' deaths."

The stone beneath Izuna's fingers fractured. "How many times?"

Itachi did not provide a number, but the silence answered enough.

Izuna slowly withdrew his hand from the damaged armrest. "That was your way of protecting him."

"At the time, I told myself it was."

Itachi's voice grew lower.

"I believed hatred would keep him alive. I believed that if he became strong, killed me, and returned to Konoha as the Uchiha who avenged the clan, he could inherit a life free from my crimes."

Izuna stared blindly toward him. "You intended to decide his entire life for him... what he hated, what he trained for, and who he became."

Itachi's jaw tightened before he nodded once. "Yes."

Izuna gave a slow, disbelieving shake of his head."That is not protection."

"I know."

The answer came instantly, stopping Izuna.

Itachi looked toward the pond.

"I loved Sasuke more than anyone." His eyes lowered. "That did not prevent me from abusing him."

Izuna remained silent.

"I destroyed his childhood, forced his identity to revolve around revenge, and expected him to thank no one because I planned to be dead before he learned the truth."

There was no self-pity in the admission.

"If my plan had succeeded completely, Sasuke would have killed me believing I was a monster. He would have returned to Konoha as a hero, and I would have carried the truth into the grave."

Izuna's face tightened. "You thought dying would fix it."

"I thought dying would make my usefulness complete."

That wording caught Izuna.

Inside the main residence, Haku was explaining to Madara that usefulness and purpose were not the same thing.

Out here, without knowing that conversation was taking place, Itachi described the opposite philosophy.

"I joined Akatsuki afterward," Itachi continued.

Izuna listened.

"Publicly, I became an S-rank missing-nin and traitor. Privately, I watched an organization that threatened Konoha while maintaining an arrangement with the masked man. My presence also gave him reasons to remain cautious about acting directly against Sasuke or the village."

"And your health?"

Itachi's eyebrow rose slightly.

"Madara told me you were sick."

"Very." Itachi rested one hand loosely over his chest as though remembering lungs that no longer hurt.

"My illness worsened over the years. My Mangekyō damaged my eyesight. Eventually, I could barely see clearly after serious use."

Izuna's empty eyelids shifted at the mention of blindness.

"You accepted that."

"I expected Sasuke to kill me before it mattered."

Izuna released a quiet breath. "Again, your solution was dying."

"Yes." Then Itachi's expression changed almost imperceptibly. "But Alaric disrupted that."

Izuna's head tilted as the impossible man's name surfaced again, the one who appeared whenever the rules stopped working. "How?"

"At first, with information." Itachi looked toward the distant residence. "He knew things he should not have known."

Izuna almost smiled. "That sounds familiar."

"He knew about Danzō. Shisui. The massacre. My arrangement with Konoha. My role in Akatsuki."

Itachi paused.

"He knew I intended to die by Sasuke's hand."

Izuna's brow tightened. "Did you tell him?"

"No."

"Did anyone?"

"Not that I know of."

Izuna was silent.

Itachi continued, "He also told me the masked man was not Madara Uchiha."

"Obito."

"Yes."

"At first you did not believe him."

"At first, I believed accepting impossible intelligence simply because the speaker sounded confident would have been foolish."

Izuna gave a faint nod. "Understandable..."

"During the operation involving Gaara's capture, I began watching Tobi more closely. Details that had once seemed unimportant stopped fitting the identity he claimed."

Itachi's gaze sharpened slightly.

"Alaric also warned me that Rin Nohara's death had been manipulated and suggested the Akatsuki itself stood inside a larger scheme."

Izuna slowly leaned back.

"Nii-san has been learning similar things recently."

"I know some of them." Itachi did not pretend to know more. "Alaric never told me everything. He still does not."

That distinction mattered.

Itachi continued, "What he did was remove certainty."

Izuna's head tilted.

"I had built my life around a fixed ending. The clan was dead. Sasuke would kill me. My secrets would die with me. Whatever remained would resolve itself afterward."

His mouth tightened faintly.

"Alaric kept introducing information that proved I did not understand the board as well as I believed."

"And you disliked that."

"Very much."

Izuna smiled faintly for the first time in several minutes."That may be the first thing about him I completely understand."

Itachi almost returned the smile.

"Eventually, Zetsu discovered enough of my contact with Haku to convince Akatsuki that I had betrayed them."

Izuna became attentive again.

"Kisame and Hidan were sent after me."

"The wielder of Samehada and the immortal cultist."

"You know them?"

"Madara explained Akatsuki to me on the way here."

Itachi nodded.

"The battle nearly killed me." He did not describe it boastfully. "My illness was already advanced, and my eyesight had deteriorated badly. I defeated them, but by the end my body was failing."

Izuna's head shifted.

"And Alaric?"

"I had been given a method of reaching him in an emergency."

"You used it."

"Yes."

Itachi remembered what came afterward more clearly than he remembered portions of the battle.

Alaric arrived, irritation beneath his concern, and a complete refusal to accept that Itachi's death was somehow a reasonable conclusion.

"I was dying."

Izuna listened.

"My lungs were failing. My organs had been damaged by years of illness and combat. My vision was nearly gone." Itachi's hand lowered again. "Alaric refused to let me finish."

A quiet humor almost appeared in Izuna's voice.

"He seems to do that."

"Yes."

"What technique?"

"I still cannot fully explain it."

Itachi glanced toward his hands.

"He reversed the physical deterioration. My lungs became healthy. The accumulated damage disappeared. My organs returned to proper function."

He lifted his gaze.

"My eyesight became pristine again."

Izuna remained completely still, and Itachi understood why.

For the blind man sitting opposite him, restored sight was no abstract miracle.

"What did he ask in return?" Izuna said.

"Nothing."

Izuna's brow furrowed. "No mission, loyalty, or service?"

"No." Itachi's answer remained calm. "He simply refused to let me die."

Izuna thought about that. "And you did not know what to do afterward."

Itachi's eyes sharpened slightly. "You understand quickly."

"You spent years constructing a death. Someone removed it." Izuna rested his head against the stone chair. "I imagine living became inconvenient."

Hearing this, Itachi almost laughed, but thought better of it.

"Yes." The faint amusement disappeared quickly. "For the first time since the massacre, I was healthy and did not have an approaching death to hide behind."

"Alaric gave you a future," Izuna's fingers loosened.

Itachi looked directly at him. "Yes."

That future had been harder than dying.

Itachi returned to Konoha.

He provided preserved evidence.

He brought forward information that helped become the foundation of what later came to be called the Danzō Files. Root facilities were identified. Records emerged. Danzō's crimes stopped being whispered suspicions and became documented facts capable of surviving political denial.

Some people reconsidered Itachi.

Others did not.

None of it resurrected the Uchiha.

"Your reputation was restored?" Izuna asked.

"Partially." Itachi's voice contained no satisfaction. "The truth changed how some people understood what happened."

"And Sasuke?"

There it was.

The only judgment that had ever mattered to Itachi more than his own.

"He knows."

Izuna waited.

"He has not forgiven me," Itachi said it without bitterness.

Izuna's brow lifted slightly.

"And you accept that."

"Yes."

"Even after he learned about Danzō?"

"Yes."

"Hiruzen?"

"Yes."

"The coup?"

"Yes."

"Obito?"

"Yes."

Izuna's expression became thoughtful.

"The truth explains why I acted." Itachi continued. "It does not restore our parents."

His eyes lowered.

"It does not restore the clan. It does not return Sasuke's childhood, and it does not erase what I did to his mind."

A faint breeze disturbed Itachi's hair.

"I no longer expect truth to purchase forgiveness."

Izuna remained silent for a very long time.

Itachi allowed it because there was nothing else he needed to sell.

He was not arguing a case before an ancestor; he was answering a question.

Eventually, Izuna shifted in the stone chair, "And Alaric?"

"What about him?" Itachi looked toward him.

"You remain close to him."

"Yes."

"His disciple?"

Itachi considered the title. "He increasingly treats me as though I belong somewhere within that circle."

"But you do not know everything about him."

Itachi's mouth curved faintly. "Not remotely."

Izuna seemed amused by the certainty. "What do you know?"

"That he knew enough about my life to infuriate me before we were friends."

A small smile finally escaped Izuna.

Itachi continued, "I know he does not consider me innocent."

The smile disappeared.

"He never told me the massacre was justified."

Izuna listened closely.

"He also never reduced me to it."

Itachi looked toward the water.

"He denied me the ending I had built for myself."

His voice became quieter.

"I intended to die as the villain Sasuke needed. Alaric forced me to remain alive long enough to learn whether I could become something other than the worst thing I ever chose to do."

Neither man spoke afterward.

The garden filled the space for them.

Izuna could hear water moving.

Birds shifting among the branches.

The nearly imperceptible rhythm of Itachi's breathing.

He had expected anger... and he still felt it.

He despised Danzō with startling ease despite never meeting him. He understood why thirteen-year-old Itachi had feared civil war because Izuna had lived through wars that consumed entire bloodlines. He understood choosing a brother above almost everything because he had once given Madara his own eyes without hesitation.

He also imagined Uchiha homes being entered one by one.

Children who never awakened Sharingan.

Mothers who had nothing to do with a coup.

Fathers who might have followed Fugaku because clan loyalty was the only political identity they had ever been allowed.

Fugaku and Mikoto sitting before their eldest son without resisting.

Then Sasuke.

Alive, but deliberately broken into a weapon pointed back at Itachi.

Izuna's hand moved slowly over the crack he had created in the stone chair.

When he finally spoke, his voice was controlled.

"I understand you better now."

Itachi waited.

Izuna's empty gaze remained directed toward him.

"That is not the same as saying I accept what you did."

"I know."

"And I am not going to tell you that being thirteen makes the dead less dead."

"I would not ask you to."

Izuna nodded faintly. "I believe Danzō cornered you."

Itachi said nothing.

"I believe the village failed you."

The breeze moved through the trees.

"I believe the clan failed you too, if it allowed a child to become the bridge carrying all of its grievances."

Itachi's expression tightened as Izuna continued.

"And I believe you loved Sasuke." His fingers stopped against the stone. "But you still made the choice."

"Yes."

There was no hesitation.

Izuna listened to that answer.

No excuse followed, no request for forgiveness, no appeal to necessity... just responsibility.

For the first time since Madara told him what happened to the clan, Izuna understood why the history disturbed him in ways simple betrayal would not have.

Itachi Uchiha was not easy to hate correctly.

He had been manipulated without being mindless.

Used without being innocent.

A child given adult authority who still made adult decisions.

A brother whose love became cruelty because he believed he had the right to choose another person's future.

A murderer who had intended his own death to serve as the final payment, only to be forced to live long enough to discover that consequences did not disappear when motives were revealed.

Izuna leaned back, letting several seconds pass before his mouth curved faintly, although there was little humor in it.

"Your generation made an impressive mess of the village my brother helped build."

Itachi blinked.

Izuna continued, "Madara's generation made an impressive mess of it too, from what I have heard."

A tiny smile touched Itachi's face. "That is difficult to dispute."

Izuna turned his face toward the main residence. "And apparently mine started the habit."

Itachi raised a brow, studying him for a moment, but remained silent.

Hearing the silence, Izuna sighed. "I still do not know what I think of you."

"That is your right."

"I may decide I dislike you."

"That would also be your right."

"I may hit you."

Itachi's eyebrow moved. "I would prefer warning."

Izuna smiled faintly. "No."

For the first time since the conversation began, Itachi almost laughed.

Izuna heard the breath change and recognized it.

His expression softened for only a moment before becoming serious again. "When I am ready, I want to speak with Sasuke."

Itachi's face changed.

"Of course."

Izuna rested both hands against the arms of his stone chair.

"Not because I want him to confirm your version." He turned toward Itachi. "I want to know what your story felt like from the other side."

Itachi's eyes lowered.

"That may be harder to hear."

Izuna nodded slowly.

"I suspect it should be."