Chapter Text
Death was cold. That was to be expected.
It was also wet. Which was not-as-quite-expected.
And it smelled quite salty.
Which was pretty confusing, when he thought about it. Death wasn't supposed to be anything at all; death was a void, a black hole in the fabric of life. It was an end, and empty. At least, that what he thought it was, during his time at the hospital, when the nights were long and the beeping from the machines around him made time stretch in agony, like a cramped muscle refusing to let go.
No one actually knew what death was, though, so maybe the salty smell was part of the routine.
Itachi opens his eyes, now out of habit, not practicality – and tries to register his current predicament.
"Took you long enough."
The unexpected sound startles him, and he jumps – then his lungs seem to remember they are on fire – and he starts coughing uncontrollably, spitting water and droll over himself and his surrounding, feeling a pang of embarrassment, even after all he’s been through.
Being made to feel helpless was the norm. He thought at least Death would spare him this.
It takes several minutes before he can breathe again. By then, he realizes he's freezing and his muscles are stiff and aching. He clutches at his chest with one hand, and subtly tries to find a wall to lean against with the other – but there's none in his immediate surrounding. Vague memories surface like out of tar into his mind; a cruise ship; the overbearing smell of sun-lotion, with the sun burning down on him as he tries to find his way back to his room.
There was a dinner. There were many dinners, but there was this one –
His head starts feeling as if it’s being drilled onto, and he groans quietly, trying to sort out the mess and focus on the dinner.
There was –
There was a waiter. He smelled, despite his deodorante, and had a tone Itachi found grating onto his nerves in a particular fashion.
That voice – it said –
There was a comment, slithery and spiteful, slithering into the polite conversation like a dagger snugly between his ribs–
The ribs around the lungs that burned the excess oxygen his vocal cords needed for him to raise his voice–
To shout at his parents –
To shout at Sasuke–
The memories are blurs that attack him relentlessly, and he lowers a feverish forehead to rest against a clammy-cold palm, feeling his heart-rate pick-up.
– Because Itachi knew what they all thought of him. He knew his mother’s pity. He knew his father’s shame. He knew his little brother’s unspoken grief as his strong, successful brother melted down into an invalid individual, no longer the impressive figure Sasuke still remembered. He recalls the consuming anger and shame that stormed off after him as he made his way to their quarters, throughout the docks –
– the floor, slippery from seawater –
His heartbeat picks up, filled with dread.
He should mind his step. He should be careful.
The sound of his dress shoe squeaking.
A stunned moment when the world is nothing but the painful impact of iron against his spine.
Then –
Then–
Then falling –
The unfulfilled regrets that he could not articulate, sinking to an unmarked grave, with the faces of his family before his eyes.
His lips open, and keep their unspoken apologies to themselves.
"Am I dead?" Itachi asks the darkness quietly.
"Not yet." It replies.
"Where am I?" He opts to ask instead of prodding the ominous 'yet'.
"Here."
"Where is here?" Itachi frowns. This line of conversation doesn’t benefit the pounding migraine he’s nursing.
"You ask a lot of questions."
"You don't give out much information."
The voice chuckles; the sound reminds Itachi of the ignition mechanism of an old truck, as someone turns its key for the first time in fifty years.
"I don't tend to talk to my meals much."
Itachi feels himself stiffen, automatically – but the dread he's expecting to wash over him does not come. Maybe the previous wave was all his brain could muster.
'Shock', he thinks to himself, and thanks evolution for this small mercy which slowly numbs him. He had many chances to think about dying, those last two years – at those long nights with those tedious machines, when his brain would not allow itself to shut up and shut down.
Those were the times he could feel himself losing his vision – both the one in his eyes and the one he treasured in his mind.
He won't inherit his father's company.
He won't be able to read a book, or paint, or see Sasuke's paintings that decorate an entire wall in his office, each one framed and bright.
Death, he concluded, his Death, would be much like his bleak future.
Only not as noisy, which Itachi counted as a good thing.
There's not much to say, after a statement like that.
"You don't seem very frightened." The voice inquires, sounding curious.
Itachi inclines his head, staring blankly at the voice's general direction. Rather than talk to what seems to be a psychotic cannibalistic murderer, he contemplates his life. He thinks of the harsh words he used when he confronted his parents, of the way he shook his brother's hand off his wrist.
It tinges the present with bitterness.
At least, he thinks, Sasuke would get to remember his brother as he was, before. When Itachi helped him with his homework, when they worked together on Sasuke's science project, when they worked on their katas, with Itachi gently adjusting Sasuke’s form.
When he could still see his little brother flushing when he admitted his first crush to him within their blanket fortress.
Sasuke would remember him as the big brother Itachi always strived to be; before he became a burden, a secret, a shame to his family's name. Before that company event when he fell on Akiyama-san, missing the last step, and caused him to spill wine over himself; before he knocked down Ogata-san’s ancient vase, a beloved family relic, and left the event with his father’s fingertips digging into his upper-arm and the loud whispers of pity stabbing at his wounded pride from every direction.
Nothing short of an actual roar cuts off his thoughts – he picks up his head and directs it to the source.
"What?" he asks.
"You're not screaming. Or crying. Or begging." The voice rumbles, sounding displeased and a little bewildered. "You're human, aren't you? I'm supposed to look scary to you guys."
"I wouldn't know," Itachi smiles bitterly, "I'm blind."
"Blind?" It inquires. "What does that mean? Is it like brave?"
"It means I can't see."
"But you have eyes."
"I do."
"What good it is to have eyes, if you can't see?"
Itachi laughs.
At first he thinks he became hysterical, but then dismisses it. In this weird place, with its frigid stone floor, salty smell and freezing air, he feels a small warmth blooming inside his chest. 'Stockholm syndrome, then,' he decides, surprised. He thought Stockholm syndrome takes longer than a few minutes. His would-be-murderer is the first to speak bluntly to Itachi about his condition, not tip-toeing around it, just barging right through an open door and breaking its hinges for good measure.
Even though Itachi waited for a long time, no one has walked through this door all during those last two years.
"No good at all." Itachi replies, and when he smiles, its genuine.
There's a contemplating sound, then a large splash. Itachi feels the vibrations through the stone and the small currents in the air. Over the smell of saltwater, a new scent coats the air; it smells like the fish-stands in the market, which Itachi always hurried past. The dead, blank eyes of the dead fish always gave him chills.
Itachi shudders when huge palms cup his face. The skin is rough and jagged; it feels like sandpaper. He keeps still as cold breath puffs over his skin, smelling like blood and corpses. He closes his eyes and tries not to gag. He'd rather his death be quick, and offending his captor wouldn't ascertain that.
"Oi, keep those open."
"What for?" Itachi asks; his lips brush against what he assumes to be wrists as he speaks.
"I want to see how blind looks like." The voice replies, sounding slightly aggravated.
"Haven't you seen enough dead things to know?"
"That's different. You're not dead."
"Yet." Itachi echoes back, and keeps his eyes closed.
There's a growl, followed by an unpleasant prickling sensation in the back of his skull. He feels fingers scraping around his eyes, trying to pry them open, and just squeezes them shut harder. Itachi’s face start feeling raw, on the verge of bleeding – but his body is exhausted, cold and worn. He picks small battles on his way to meeting death. He has given up on too much, forced to concede on things he didn't wish to, stripped from his independence and honour as he was treated through an algorithm of clinical, impersonal procedures; through countless of operations that could've been spared from him, could've saved him the false, useless hope. All if only his father could've seen him for himself, and not just as a tool – and a better heir than Sasuke.
His blindness is his own. He is not a puzzle, nor a puppet to be prodded and poked at to satisfy other's vapid curiosity, their dumb, invasive questions about intimate matters. The desires of this psychotic man do not matter to him, and he refuses to leave this world in nothing short of his own terms.
"How about," the breath of death ghosts over Itachi's lips, "we'd make a deal."
"What kind of deal." Itachi states, rather than asks. He has made plenty of deals, had dealt with dozens of lying, thieving weasels that tried to go for his throat while he wasn't looking.
(Back when that was still an option).
"You'd let me see, and I'll let you go."
"Go where?" Itachi's lips twitch. "I don't know where I am, or how I got here. Even if you do keep your word and release me, I won't be able to find my way back."
The growling is back, fiercer than before – it's only a moment later, when he feels pain pounding in the back of his head, he realizes he'd been slammed against a wall.
"I never," the voice sounds inhuman, "go back on my word."
Itachi can feel it looming over him, his head still locked between the massive, hurtful hands.
"It doesn't change what I've said." He states, calmly, even though he can feel the shock starting to fade – adrenaline is just starting to make his fingers twitch. He knows it's not long before panic would seize him – and the mere thought stresses him even more.
There's sniffing.
"You're scared, now." The voice mocks. "Good."
Itachi remains quiet. His heart rate picks up, and his pulse quickens. One of the hands trails downwards, slow, unpleasant – and places itself over his heart.
"A different deal, then." The voice says. "You'll let me see the blind, and I'll bring you back to where I've found you."
"You've probably found me in the bottom of the ocean, so I can't see how that'll help."
The voice snorts. "You're clever, for a human."
"I know." Itachi smirks humorlessly. "I'm a genius."
"A gena… genius?" it tests the word, sounding curious, again. "Blind and genius both," it mutters, "and you had to be some warm-blooded mammal."
It's probably an attempt to mess with him, and he tries to keep his composure – but the memories of choking in the ocean, the smell of salt and fish, his chaffed cheeks and the gritty voice are painting a picture Itachi's not sure he's willing to accept.
"What do they call you?" the voice asks; memories, dusty and pale, float swiftly and clearly before him, as Itachi recalls his grandmother's warnings, each time before she put him to bed. Reminiscing in his own personal world; he's nine and tells her he’s not a kid anymore, he doesn't believe in ghosts and demons and kappas and tenukis or kistunes. He doesn’t need a bedtime story. Grandma’s expression is blurry, in his memories, and Itachi fills in a loving smile upon thin lips when she kisses his forehead goodnight. She walks to the door and her eyes are sad when she promises to treat him like the grown up he is from now on.
Never give them your name, Grandmother warned him, for a name is a powerful thing, and you must never hand them such weapon. Itachi's heart clenches as he thinks of all the wisdom he'd missed in another fruitless attempt to please his father. At nights he spent hidden just outside Sasuke's door, listening to his Grandmother’s voice weaving tales he knew by heart, enriched with his beloved brother's laughter.
"It's impolite to ask before making an introduction, yourself." He avoids, knowing the creature would not give out its identity.
There's a pause. "I don't have one. Names are for you, humans. You name everything, don't you, even when it doesn't do you any good." It pauses again.
"My last meal gave me a name. Kisame, she said. Over and over, it was annoying, really." Then it chuckles. "Tasted quite good – haven't tasted such soft muscles before."
Kisame, Itachi thinks. Demon Shark.
"Kisame, then." He places his hand over the one still upon his heart, feeling slimy, cool skin.
"How about we'll make a deal?"
Death was cold.
Itachi didn't like the cold much himself, so he chose to live, instead.
Inside his cave, Kisame grins.
Having the heart of a blind genius was much better than a mere meal.
He looks up at the moon peeking through,
and waits.