It doesn’t look like there’s any way to stop the coup … Those were words he did not want to hear from Shisui’s mouth. Had his friend given up on everything? Did death make a person that weak and brittle? Itachi, still tied to the realm of life, couldn’t begin to understand what was going on inside Shisui.
“Just when I was about to use Kotoamatsukami, and stop the coup,” Shisui said, looking over his shoulder at Itachi, “Danzo stole my right eye. He doesn’t trust me. He intends to protect the village in his own way, regardless of how it looks.”
Having watched Danzo for many years, Itachi understood. That man trusted no one. Even his old comrade-at-arms, the third Hokage, was suspect somehow.
He protects the village in his own way … Itachi felt a chill run up his spine.
“He probably would’ve taken my left eye too.” Shisui moved his hand toward his still-intact eye. He slipped his fingers into the lids, and tightened his grip. “Before he does, I’m giving it to you.” When he pulled his hand away again, the lids of his left eye were closed, fresh blood streaming from between them.
Shisui’s eyes were Mangekyo sharingan. If he was entrusting this eye to Itachi, it meant that he was giving him permission to use the power lodged in it. The faith his friend had in him made Itachi’s heart hurt.
Shisui … he tried to say, but nothing came out. If he gave voice to his friend’s name, he felt like the tears brimming in his own eyes would spill out. He could not cry in front of another person. Even more so when it was his friend, talking to him like this, prepared for death.
“You’re my best friend. You’re the only one I can ask. This village … the Uchiha name … protect them.”
Face turned to his outthrust palm, Shisui kneaded his chakra. A single bird danced down from empty space, and stopped on his hand. The eye resting in his open palm floated up, covered the bird’s left eye, and merged with it, as if sucked in. Although he could no longer see now that he had lost both eyes, Shisui knew that he had entrusted his eye to his friend, and a smile of relief rose up on his face. Without a glance at him, the bird nodded its head, before flying up into a sky dyed with darkness.
“There’s one more thing I want to give you.” Shisui turned his back to Itachi once more. “But before that, there’s something I want you to know.”
“What?” It was all Itachi could do to get the word out. The words he really wanted to say would not come out: “Don’t die. Don’t give up.”
His friend was prepared to die; these were nothing more than words of convenience. It was pointless to say them. So he didn’t. Even still, Itachi screamed in the depths of his heart.
You can’t die. If you give up, it’s all over. A ninja fights until the end of the end. It’s not over yet.
But Itachi’s cries couldn’t reach his friend.
“I killed my good friend with this hand.”
Good friend? Who is he talking about?
At the sudden confession, Itachi’s thoughts stopped completely.
“It was a little before I met you,” Shisui continued, his voice flat, as if leaving his friend behind.
Itachi couldn’t see the look on his face.
“I met a boy at the academy I could call a friend. He fought alongside me after I became a genin too, on the same team. Back then, he was my best friend—we really trusted each other. But …” Shisui fell silent for a moment. “That didn’t last for even a year.”
The shocking confession continued further.
“This was right after the war ended. Missions were way harsher than they are now. We were in the middle of a mission with a few other teams to clean up after the war, and we ended up by ourselves in another land. Our luck was bad. We ran into more enemies than we could handle. We were staring right at death.”
This tale was from before Itachi became a ninja.
“Fortunately, some of the comrades we got separated from found us. They saved me, but my friend was slow to run. If I had just reached out to him, he wouldn’t have had to die.”
From what Shisui was saying, he had been quite close by when his friend was killed. The difference between life and death was determined by a slight difference in luck, and that bit of luck had divided the two boys. It definitely hadn’t been his fault. But Shisui regretted his friend’s death as if it were a crime he had committed.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“No.” Shisui said, as if to cut Itachi off. “I envied that friend. He was blessed with more talent than me. I was jealous of him, always running out in front of me. So that time, I could have reached out my hand. But I deliberately didn’t … I killed him.”
Itachi had never realized darkness like this slept in Shisui’s heart. He was his best friend. What had he been seeing up to that point? He felt dizzy.
“For several months, I was completely destroyed by the fact that I killed him. It was then. When I met you.”
Itachi remembered it clearly. He had been training alone in preparation for his entry into the academy, when Shisui had suddenly appeared. It had been Shisui who asked if they could be friends.
“I watched you, so intently motivated in your training every day, and I just called out to you without thinking. You were always so forward-looking, always running ahead, and spending time with you helped me pick myself up again, bit by bit. I’m really grateful to you.”
I’m the one who’s grateful …
Of course, the words didn’t come out.
“My friend’s death gave me a new power. That was the Mangekyo sharingan.”
For the nth time, the unexpected blow made Itachi dizzy. Paying no heed to his reeling, Shisui continued.
“Mangekyo sharingan are called up by a power that comes from a fierce emotional blow. Mine were probably awakened by my regret over killing my friend.”
“Regret over killing your friend …”
“Right.”
Itachi had a bad feeling.
“Kill me, Itachi. Then you’ll get the Mangekyo sharingan. And then you’ll get even stronger.”
“That’s—”
“I’m dead either way. So then, it’s better if I die after leaving you that power.”
Itachi felt something hot in his eyes. In his jumbled mind, he couldn’t calmly assess whether it was tears, or the rush of energy presaging the activation of some new power.
“All right—do it, Itachi!”
The words of an older brother to push his little brother forward … Almost staggering, Itachi took a step forward.
“That’s it.”
Something lukewarm, like blood, dampened Itachi’s cheeks. Tears … Stifling his sobs so that Shisui wouldn’t notice, he continued to move forward.
“With your abilities, something like the clan can’t contain you. I mean, knowing you, you’ll even be able to surpass the destiny of the clan. No … ”
“Shisui …”
“I think your abilities could even swallow up the ninja worldview.”
“My abilities?” Only once he heard his voice did Itachi understand that it was trembling. It was the first time he had heard himself weak like this.
“I’m glad I met you.”
Itachi reached trembling arms out toward the back of his best friend.
“I’m counting on you to handle the rest.”
Those were his friend’s last words.
Darkness …
A pitch-black night without moon or stars. The ebony clouds blanketing the heavens threatened to weep at any moment.
I killed my friend …
His hands on the ground where Shisui had stood, Itachi was slumped over, motionless. His exhausted body was heavy as lead; his tattered, wounded heart refused to pick up the thread of his thoughts. Tears fell one after another from his eyes, and even the dry feeling in his soul could not stop them. Everything was numb.
No …
Somewhere in his body, now one with the darkness, something smoldered. On dead earth covered in a layer of ice, small sparks crackled and burned. As if seeking out that faint warmth, Itachi dove into his own heart.
There. Two sparks. One in each eye.
In his wounded, exhausted heart, he held them.
Fwoosh.
In the blink of an eye, the sparks became massive flames, and enveloped his entire body. His eyes, the core of the blaze, were hot like magma.
“I did get it, Shisui.” A brilliant crimson light shone in his still-weeping eyes. “I promise you. I will stop the clan.”
Itachi let the voice of his heart ride on the darkness, with a prayer that it would reach the land of the dead.