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The apartment they provide him with is nice. Or Itachi assumes it's nice, since he can't actually see it.
He's escorted there by ANBU guards, his hands cuffed behind his back by the same type of chakra-inhibiting restraints that held him during his brief prison stay six weeks ago. They're for show, nothing more—he could break free of them easily if he wished, could break both his wrists and twist his hands free. He could probably even manage to steal the sword from one of the agents' belts, even sightless as he is, could probably kill them both and make his escape.
He is leagues above them. It is not arrogance to say this, it's proven fact. His blindness is the only thing that has evened the playing field, and even then, it's just barely.
But so long as the villagers believe it. So long as they believe he is truly caught, truly helpless.
He cannot see their stares, but he can feel them—the fear, the contempt, the wariness, the confusion. He bears the weight of them easily. They are nothing compared to the weight of Sasuke's when he looked at him that night five years ago—when he looked at him in that inn two months ago, in the prison seven weeks ago, in the hospital six weeks ago.
Nothing will ever compare to that broken look. Nothing will ever slice through him so keenly, a dagger thrust straight into his heart.
What a sight he must make to them all—one of Konoha's most notorious missing-nin, marched through the streets by armed guards with his hands and chakra bound. A white strip of cloth covers his empty eyelids, hiding them from sight, tied tightly at the back of his head. The material is rough and scratchy against his skin.
Blind! he hears them gossip to each other in incredulous whispers. I heard he's blind!
Sharingan no Itachi. Listed in the Bingo Book as the most skilled genjutsu user in the entire country—perhaps even the world. Now sightless.
It has been less than two weeks since Tsunade issued him a pardon for his crimes against the village. It was a personal pardon, and not one that has gone through official channels—not yet. Officially, his status as a rogue shinobi remains and the truth behind the Uchiha Clan's massacre remains a secret. To Konoha, he is still a traitor. Is still a terrorist.
Is still Clan-Killer Itachi.
(He is Clan-Killer Itachi. That won't ever change.)
He steps into the apartment, the four ANBU guards with him. The air is stale, dusty, like the space has been empty for a while. The hardwood floor beneath his sandals is firm and doesn't creak; a good, solid quality.
There's a light tug at his wrists. Then a soft click. The manacles fall away as one of the agents behind him unlocks them. Itachi feels the instantaneous surge of his chakra as the seal locking it down breaks, flooding his pathways. It feels like the first inhale of oxygen after being forced to hold your breath.
He rotates his wrists, sore from the metal cutting into them. "Thank you."
"This doesn't mean you're free." The voice is female, the tone sharp and caustic and aimed at him like a weapon. "You're under twenty-four hour surveillance. There will be guards posted just outside the door. If you try anything—if you attempt to escape—"
"And here I was told the guards were for my protection," Itachi says pointedly.
"Sure they are. Watch yourself, traitor."
The apartment door clicks shut as the four pairs of footsteps turn and retreat, leaving him alone. He hears two of them stop on the other side of the door, standing stationary, while the other two continue down the hallway. If he stretches out with his senses, he can feel the slightest brush of their chakra signatures.
Itachi steps farther into the apartment, his steps quiet against the floor. It's nice, he thinks to himself. It seems nice. It's probably nice.
He doesn't bother to switch on the light.
The only sound is his own breathing. He lets the bag he's carrying drop from his shoulders, and it lands at his feet with a soft thump. He stands there, in what he correctly or incorrectly judges to be the center of the room, darkness surrounding him.
And in the silence, in the dark, the thought comes to him again. As it has come to him dozens of times in the past six weeks.
I should be dead.
He clenches his jaw and attempts to shove it away. It clings to him stubbornly.
It's easy to lose yourself in a world like this—in this darkness and this quiet. It's easy to forget you're something that exists, that you're surrounded by other things that also exist. Itachi clings to the small but very real sensations: The smell of dust. The itch of the cloth around his face. The sting of his palm, where his first two nails are digging into his skin.
He is alive. He is real. He is a part of this world, despite not being able to see it.
He never anticipated he would have to deal with this—navigating the world without his sight. He's known for years now that use of the Mangekyou eventually results in blindness; he has felt the slow deterioration of his eyes over the past half-decade. He used the power sparingly once awakening it, only when he thought it vitally necessary (and in a couple instances of lost temper, when he was younger and less in control of himself). By the age of eighteen, his vision had become only slightly blurred.
He always planned on giving his eyes up to his brother. He doesn't regret his choice to have done so now. But—
I should be dead.
—but he never planned on having to live with that choice.
Selfish of him? Yes, perhaps. It's something he's only quite recently been forced to confront about himself—that he's possibly far more selfish than he's ever realized.
(He never thought so before. He never even considered it. Every decision he made, every action he took, was altruistic and non-self-serving in nature. Unswayed by personal judgements.
You're good at fooling yourself, Shisui told him once.)
A sudden noise from behind him breaks the swallowing silence. A knock on the apartment door. Itachi feels as if the world comes snapping back into place at the sound—or perhaps the opposite, perhaps he comes snapping back to the world. He doesn't jump, but it's a near thing.
"It's Kakashi," the person on the other side of the door calls out. "May I come in?"
Itachi doubts it's a question he can answer no to. It takes him a moment to recall how vocal cords work, then he calls out, "It's open."
He hears the turn of the doorknob, then the door being pushed open. Kakashi's footsteps against the wood floor are louder than a former ANBU operative's should be; he's doing it purposely, for Itachi's sake, and Itachi feels a flash of annoyance mixed with humiliation at the realization.
Gods, he hates this.
The door clicks shut behind him. "Nice place," the jounin says.
"I wouldn't know," Itachi replies.
There's a brief pause. "I could describe it to you," Kakashi offers, "if you'd like."
"No thank you. What are you doing here, Kakashi-san?"
"So formal. What happened to senpai?" The man's voice is deceptively light. Itachi is not fooled by it, his expression unchanging as he turns his body slightly in the voice's direction.
"I'm not sure you qualify anymore," he says.
"Mah, I suppose you're right. I'm not even a captain anymore."
There's a brief silence between them as the words settle in the air. Itachi imagines he can see them fade, in the darkness surrounding him. He thinks he'll be forced to repeat his question when Kakashi finally answers, "I heard they were moving you from the hospital today. I thought I would come see how you were settling in."
The eighteen-year-old frowns. "I just got here minutes ago."
Another pause, this one sounding distinctly concerned. "...Itachi. You were escorted here this morning. It's afternoon now."
Itachi feels himself jolt. What?
Alarm flashes through him. Impossible, he thinks. He can feel it show on his face before he quickly hides it from his expression. Losing time, since becoming sightless and remaining in the village, is an occurrence that has become unnervingly common. But never for this long—never for hours. He can't have lost that much time. He can't have.
And yet, there's an ache in his ankles. As if he's been standing for a while. But it's only been moments since he stepped through the apartment door—he remembers it as moments.
"Have you really just been standing here in the dark since this morning?"
"It's not as if I need the light," says Itachi, attempting to sound dismissive.
Kakashi doesn't respond to that, which the Uchiha hates. He has no way to judge his current expression without tone. He doesn't know what the man is thinking.
"You've been pardoned," Kakashi says. Not something he needs confirmed, but there is a lilting edge to the end of the sentence. He's looking for further information.
"It's conditional."
"To be determined further after the results of Danzo's trial, I'm guessing?"
Itachi's mouth feels dry. It takes him a half-second longer to answer than it should. "I believe that's what the Godaime intends, yes."
Danzo has been restricted to his home, held under armed guard, for the past six weeks; pending the date of the trial, just like Itachi, when everything will finally be revealed. It's set for a month from now, and Itachi finds himself becoming more and more anxious as it grows closer.
How Tsunade plans to reveal the sordid truth of the massacre—the coup, the orders, Danzo's deep-seated corruption—without causing massive civil and political unrest, Itachi can't begin to imagine. Undoubtedly, there will be differing opinions and conflicts; people who will lose faith in the village and its leaders, and others who will back Danzo and insist his orders were just.
(And you? a voice in his head whispers. Which do you believe?
Itachi shoves it away.)
"How are you feeling about that?" Kakashi asks him. "The truth being known?"
What a question. The short answer is I don't know, but it doesn't come close to explaining what's actually going on in his head. He doesn't think he even could explain it; he doesn't have the proper words.
"I think it's a mistake," Itachi says. "The village will be a political mess—it'll tear itself apart. And it's still not completely recovered from Orochimaru's attack. The Leaf can't afford to be divided, especially now with the Akatsuki plotting war."
"I don't think it will be as bad as you're imagining," says Kakashi. "Maybe it'll be a mess in the beginning, but we'll sort through it. This is what needs to happen to begin improving things here. Besides, if we don't tell the truth—I think Sasuke just might take the 'tearing apart' upon himself."
Itachi grimaces. He wouldn't, he wants to say. But he realizes he isn't sure if that's actually true.
"How—" Itachi pauses, working his jaw for a moment. A simple question shouldn't be so hard. "How has he been handling everything?"
And here they are, finally at the subject they've been dancing around getting to. Itachi knew, the moment Kakashi stepped inside and initiated a conversation, that this visit was about Sasuke—Itachi has wasted enough time on small talk, pretending it's not. What else could it possibly be? What else do he and Kakashi even share?
Less than a year on the same ANBU squad—too brief to matter. They were comrades, but they were never friends.
Kakashi's words to him over a month ago, as they both raced through the forest to rescue Sasuke and his two other students, echo through Itachi's head. Your lies are killing him. You're killing him. Don't you get it, Itachi? You fucked up.
Yes, Itachi thinks to himself, recalling Sasuke's expression in the hospital and the tears he refused to shed—recalling his seven-year-old self in the Tsukuyomi, curled in on himself in the corner. Yes, I really did.
The ensuing silence is so long, Itachi is certain Kakashi isn't going to answer him. It stretches between them unbearably in the darkness. He can feel the tell-tale prickle of eyes on him.
"He isn't speaking to me about it much," the jounin says finally. "It's still a sore topic of conversation between us, due to how I kept it a secret from him. I don't think he's decided how he feels yet. His entire worldview has been turned on its head. He's spent the past five years aiming to hunt you down and kill you, and now—that's gone. I don't think he knows what that means yet."
"Sounds familiar," Itachi murmurs.
It's something he didn't intend to say out loud. He represses a wince, feeling Kakashi's gaze sharpen on him even if he cannot see him.
"If he becomes a threat to Konoha?" Itachi asks, ignoring his previous comment and bidding the other man to do so as well. "What then? I won't let anyone lay a hand on him."
"Nor will I. No one's going to hurt him, Itachi. You have my word on that."
Danzo's warning—his threat—from five years ago still rings in his head. He recognizes it now for the manipulation tactic it was, holding his brother's life over his head to control him—but he also knows the warning was very, very real.
There are many people who wouldn't hesitate to strike Sasuke down, should he ever turn against Konoha.
Itachi thinks of Shisui's eye, in a crow miles and miles away from here. The command embedded in it, for if worst should ever come to worst. Protect Konoha. Less than two months ago, he knows he would have used it without hesitation. Now—
Now the thought that he was willing to do that to his brother makes him feel vaguely nauseous.
"I understand he hasn't been to see you," says Kakashi.
Itachi tenses. "No," he says shortly.
He thought his tone successful in conveying his wish not to speak of this. Apparently not. Or more likely Kakashi just doesn't care, as he continues, "Give him time. He'll come around eventually, once he's had time to put his head on straight."
"How much time?" Itachi asks, before he can bite the words back.
The words are a touch more frustrated than they should be.
It's unfair, for him to be frustrated. It's out of line. His younger brother owes him nothing, and if he doesn't wish to see Itachi, then he doesn't have to. Itachi needs to respect that.
But it's been six weeks—just him, alone with his thoughts in the dark. It's the worst hell imaginable. How is he meant to earn his brother's trust again if Sasuke won't allow him an opportunity to try? Why is Itachi even here, if Sasuke won't come anywhere near him?
The thought comes again, persistent and intrusive: I should be dead.
"As much time as he needs," Kakashi says, his tone hard, and Itachi resists hunching his shoulders. "Maybe it'll be another week. Another month. Another year. It doesn't matter."
Another year. The possibility of it being that long leaves Itachi's chest feeling tight. But... just the thought that one day... maybe...
"You really think he can forgive me one day?" Itachi asks. "After everything I've done to him?"
Kakashi is quiet for a moment. "Yes," he says carefully, but firmly. "I think he can. It's possible to forgive someone for their actions without forgiving the action itself. But that choice—if it happens—that choice has to be his."
"I know."
"Good." Itachi hears a rustle of movement and Kakashi says, in a voice far lighter and absent of the heaviness from before, "Well, I better get going now that I've checked in with you. If you need anything—ask someone. Not me, preferably."
"Kakashi," Itachi calls out as he hears the man turning. The movement abruptly stops.
"Yes?"
"Tell Sasuke... I'll be waiting, whenever he is ready to see me. And that I hope he's taking care of himself."
A pause.
"I will," Kakashi says.
Footsteps across the wooden floor. A door knob turning, the apartment door opening and then swinging closed.
Once again, Itachi is left alone in the darkness.
★
Kakashi is surprised, when he steps out of the apartment building into the view of the sun, when he finds his student waiting for him across the street.
"Sasuke," he says, walking up to the boy with his hands deep in his pockets.
The thirteen-year-old genin is leaning against a tree trunk with his arms crossed. As he becomes closer, the smaller details come into focus: the anxious set to his mouth, the shadows beneath his eyes. The straight-line scar between them, from where he dragged his own blade across his face to prevent Orochimaru from possessing his Sharingan.
"How is he?" Sasuke asks, his voice stiff.
Kakashi considers how best to answer the question. "He's settling in."
He decides not to mention the other small things he observed. The defeated, almost dead tone to Itachi's voice—and the sharp hint of anger beneath it, so similar to the boy in front of him, but choked down and hidden away instead of worn like mask and wielded like a blade.
The way he stood in the center of the apartment, stunned and undeniably shaken upon being told it had been hours.
There are parts of Itachi Uchiha that he will never be able to grasp, will never be able to understand. Other parts, he recognizes them the way he recognizes his own reflection in the mirror.
Sasuke shifts slightly. "Yeah, but is he—Did he look like he was..."
"He's okay," Kakashi says, gentle but firm, stopping the boy's struggle with his words. "He's adjusting." Kakashi watches him, gaze locked on his face, then adds, "He's worried about you."
Sasuke tenses. "You didn't tell him I was—"
"—The one who asked me to go check up on him? No, I didn't."
The genin relaxes, his shoulders dropping down from their defensive hunch.
"Heaven forbid he know you actually care for him," says Kakashi with a raised eyebrow.
"Shut up. Why should he? He certainly never let me know."
It's a fair point.
"He told me to tell you that he hopes you're taking care of yourself."
Sasuke looks uncomfortable. Dark, conflicted eyes flicker in the direction of the apartment complex, up to the floor level where Itachi's room is located.
"Are you sure you don't want to go see him?" Kakashi asks.
"No."
"It's been nearly two months."
Sasuke's mouth curves into a familiar, displeased scowl. "You think I should forgive him."
"I think you should stop avoiding him," Kakashi corrects. "Whether you forgive him or not is your decision—though if you want my personal opinion, then no. I don't think he's earned your forgiveness yet."
Sasuke looks briefly startled by the words. He hides the emotion quickly. “Whatever.”
The thirteen-year-old turns and starts walking. Assuming his student expects him to follow, Kakashi falls into step beside him as they begin walking down the sidewalk, away from the apartment building.
“How’s it been living with Naruto?” Kakashi asks him. “I trust you two haven’t killed each other since I last checked in.”
Sasuke grimaces. "I need my own place."
"Surely it can't be that bad...”
"You have no idea what I've had to live with. There are ramen wrappers in the fucking shower—"
"Language."
"Shut up—"