Аннотация: Itachi and Shisui's conversation in the shelter.
Part 1. Chapter 8. The Phantom Phoenix
Itachi opened his eyelids. For some reason, the blurry spots on the ceiling turned into cat's paw prints.
"I'm sorry I knocked you out...." The familiar voice made my heart stop and beat twice as fast. Slowly, very slowly, Itachi turned his head to see the face of his older brother, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring at him with red eyes. Remarkably, they were whole.
"Sh-shisui?" The voice trembled. "B-but... Did I die too? Is this a Clean world?" an obvious thought came to mind.
"No, you're alive, and I'm... alive too. I'm sorry that I had to deceive you, but otherwise it wouldn't have worked," Shisui held out his hand, and Itachi took it, feeling the warmth. And immediately the current of the chakra in the body was interrupted to make sure that this was not an illusion. His brother just smiled knowingly, noticing his manipulations. But I stayed where I was and helped him sit down. As it turned out, Itachi was lying on some kind of low sofa.
"But..." the last thing he remembered was killing his parents.
They were standing with their backs to him, on their knees. The father said in a calm voice:
"So you've gone over to their side? Clear."
"Father... Mom... I..." Itachi tried to justify himself. Despite everything, despite all the promises, threats, and rejection of his father's policies, his heart was bursting with pain. Anyway, he was preparing himself for this moment. I understood that this would happen.
"I know, Itachi," was all the woman who had given him life said. Uchiha Mikoto was a Jirnin wuman and accepted her death with dignity.
"Itachi, just promise me...." There was a strange warmth coming from him father. "Take care of Sasuke."
He promised, whispering through his tears. The katana in his hands was shaking.
"Don't be afraid of anything," his father said softly, as if sensing his uncertainty. "It's your choice. Compared to you, our pain will only last a moment. Even if our life positions differ, I'm still proud of you, son. There is real kindness in your heart..."
"I love you, Itachi," Mom whispered.
He killed them with one swing. Both of them. He raised his head, taking his eyes off the two prostrate bodies in the spreading black puddle, and saw Sasuke's face, and then...
Darkness.
"Sasuke!.. Did you save Sasuke?!" Itachi remembered about his brother. Immediately, his arrangements with Danzo and the guy in the mask came back to mind, and he was ashamed. "I'm sorry, I... they... Your sister... I..."
"Itachi," Shisui shook him by the shoulder, forcing him to look into his eyes. "Calm down. The children escaped. We... saved the innocents."
"How many?" Itachi exhaled, still unable to believe the reality of what was happening.
"Nine Uchiha and one more." Sasuke's friend. Naruto Uzumaki. The boy decided to come with us.
"Naruto?!" Itachi exclaimed. "But he's a jinchuuriki"...
"I know," his brother grinned. "But it seemed fair to me. The Uchiha was accused of our clan releasing and controlling the nine-tails eight years ago. Currently, there is no subject of dispute, so to speak. And with sharingans, Danzo broke off."
"Danzo... damn..." the memory of the last conversation with the elder and the head of the "dark ANBU" burned Itachi with a new dose of shame. During this last conversation, he realized that he was being purposefully trapped like some kind of animal. And he thought he was so smart and brilliant. "Sharingan?!" Itachi almost hit himself on the head. And how could he not have guessed that the sneaky cripple needed clan dojutsu!
"He's in league with the Hokage." Shisui's lips tightened. "But hopefully, at least for a while, we managed to break away and cover our tracks."
"Speaking of which" Itachi stopped self-flagellating and looked at his best friend. "How?! How did you do that?!"
Shisui sat down next to him.
"I was naive. I admit it. And stupid. I believed that I could save our clan, that everything would work out, that we were the younger generation who believed in Konoha and the Will of Fire... the smartest and most astute. It's now that I realize that all this is a fairy tale for idealists like me... and you.... And this bunch of gullible followers are controlled by two spiders, pulling the right strings. One of these spiders hides in the dark, waiting for prey, and the other... You know, the ones that sit in the middle of beautiful flowers?" Itachi nodded. "These spiders are almost transparent, beautifully sprinkled with flower pollen, and attracted by the sweet nectar, the insects do not notice the trap."
Shisui paused meaningfully, then closed his eyes and continued.
"A few months ago, I recklessly told the Hokage about "Koto Amatsukami." A special gift from my Mangekyo sharingan. Do you know that you need to be pretty close to a person in order to use them? Up to five meters. Since then, I wasn't supposed to get closer to the Hokage than six.... And then... You could say that the gods sent me a vision....
"A vision?" Itachi interrupted. "Some new property of sharingan?"
"Maybe," Shisui muttered uncertainly. "They say that sharingan can make you feel like your opponent sees the future. And I... saw my future. I really should have died. But it seems he was able to deceive the Shinigami. I died, but not for long."
"So it's there, on the bend..." He grabbed Itachi's brother's hand, and he nodded:
"Yes, the illusion wouldn't work on you. Your awakened Mangekyo would see the falsity. I stopped my heart and chakra flow and fell into the water. The current carried me out about fifty kilometers from Konoha.
"But your eye?! I saw it!.. I felt the chakra..."
"Yes, that was the hardest part of the plan." Shisui acknowledged. "But I turned away, sleight of hand, and here my eyelids are stained with blood, and in my palm is a real sharingan, although it was not mine..."
"And whose?.." Itachi felt his throat go dry.
"Our grandfather, Sawada. We have a similar chakra. And he... volunteered to help me. He gave away his eyes," Shisui paused, biting his lip. "You know, he said that it's hard for him and the old generation to change, just like it's hard for someone like Danzo to change, but we can revive the Uchiha clan anew, like a ghost phoenix. Also, my grandfather's friend lived in the Land of the Whirlpool and was a master of fuinjutsu.... I was planning something like this myself, I wanted to poison that sharingan or do something like that. Danzo, as I found out, did not let anyone near him, checked the food, did not go anywhere unnecessarily, he was always guarded by a bunch of ANBU. In general, it was almost impossible to make an attempt on his life. And then he himself... decided to use other people's dojutsu. Perhaps this will be a good lesson for those who want to hunt Uchiha because of our eyes.
"So what did Sawada-sama do?" Itachi asked.
"After I extracted the sharingan to give to you, it activated the internal seal on the back of the retina. After this sharingan is used, imbued with chakra, the eye will explode. "The last Revenge" is called."
Imagining Shimura Danzo's head exploding, Itachi couldn't help but smile. He felt sorry that the implanted sharingan could not be used immediately, the chakra channels had to fuse first. But if the Third was in league with Danzo, then the death of his right hand would not have changed the plans for the Uchiha clan.
"So, in a few days, the head of the "Root" will lose his head?" He clarified.
"Yes. And I plan that in the coming years, the rest of the elders who gave you the order will honor the Pure World with their presence." Shisui said harshly. And Itachi promised that they would revive their clan. And they'll whitewash his reputation.
"How did you manage to save all the... children?" Itachi went back to questioning Brother.
"When I was on a mission, I contacted Grandma the Cat. He asked me to provide shelter and put me in touch with your old acquaintance."
"So that's where the cat footprints on the walls come from as patterns." Itachi voiced his thought. "No one will find us here for sure. Could you really sign the Contract?"
"Am... yes..." Shisui hesitated. "Something like that. More precisely, it's something like a temporary agreement. You know they don't really like " pyople." I used the call and the callback to pick up the children, and then you, Sasuke, and Naruto.
"I killed my parents, and Sasuke saw it." Itachi muttered. The guilt that had receded filled his heart again. "I wanted to... I wanted my brother to hate me and, when he grows up, kill me for this crime...."
"Itachi," Shisui pulled him by the neck to himself, resting his forehead on his forehead, "You had no choice. Now is not the time to think about it, okay? We'll tell Sasuke and the others everything. But let's agree right away that we won't become like Danzo and we won't just pull the strings, shaping the avengers or personal punishment. We'll deal with more pressing issues now, okay? And then we'll figure it out calmly."
Itachi was embarrassed: his brother rarely showed his feelings. Carefully freeing himself, he looked at his hands and asked.
"Did that guy in the mask kill the others?"
"Speaking of which," Shisui chuckled. "This is Uchiha Obito. The one who was presumed dead ten years ago."
"I realized that he was an Uchiha. Because only the Uchiha know where the secret stone table is. He said he hated our clan. I agreed with him that he would not touch Konoha and Sasuke, but in return would carry out his revenge..."
"When he finished and left, I destroyed all the sharingans of our clan, printed out the "missing bodies" that were made here, and mined everything. And besides, I gave Konoha a big and fat clue for the official version of who is responsible for the death of the clan.
Shisui looked at Itachi, as if waiting for him to analyze what was said and figure it out for himself.
"Hatake Kakashi? My former senpai? But... to deceive him..."
"That's right, I used my "Koto Amatsukami" on it."