Chapter Text
Itachi could not help his smile. This was it. This was what he had been striving towards since the massacre. This moment. His only wish was to maybe have gone out a little more gracefully. Regardless, he felt content...peaceful. A warm numbness had begun to spread throughout his body. He felt weightless as he drifted towards the most magnificent array of lights he’d ever seen. All the pain from the sickness. All the grief. Gone. It was beautiful.
Something lingered though. An anchor that kept him from finally floating into the beyond. What was it? What else could possibly hold him now?
‘That noise.’ Itachi strained himself to pick up the faint sound. He just wanted to leave. He could see the outlines of his parents. His family was waiting for him! He finished his job.The truth was dying with him. The sound continued, distracting Itachi from his musings. ‘What is it?’ What ever this gravity was that stalled his passing perplexed him.
“Sta...” the sound grew. He focused harder on it. It was almost like a rustling of trees. Maybe he began to cross over and he just hadn’t realized it.“...lease...with...nii,” The dazzling lights above him began to fade. As if someone had dropped him into the ocean and it was swallowing him rapidly.
‘NO!..No please.’ He knew it sounded weak. His silent pleas. But he could almost touch his absolution. His true freedom. He felt himself drift further downwards until the light was nothing more than a moon shadow forever beyond his finger tips. The rustling sound persisted, however. Itachi sighed.
‘Of course. What a fool I was to think I would join them up there.’ He laughed softly watching the noise physically drift in the darkness around him. Then he heard it.
“STAY!” The word slammed into him harshly leaving a rhythmic pounding and resounded around him. It pulsated brightly filling his head up with it’s noise.
‘This is nothing like how they say dying is like.’ Itachi murmured to himself pushing himself to think about the voice. He felt it had to do with the anchor that kept him from passing on. His biggest contrition.The blissful numbness from earlier began to fade leaving only the warmth in it’s wake.
“Come on niisan! You stay with me!” Why was the voice so familiar! I was clearly female he just could not place a name to it. Itachi had concurred that he had clearly fallen into limbo much closer to hell then any heaven he could hope for. It would explain the rushing, the drumming, the confounded voice he just had rememberance for at the tip of his tonge! All of it was such an almighty sound.
‘WHO ARE YOU!’
A gasp.
‘WHY CAN’T I REMEMBER YOU!’
A watery laugh followed. Maybe they could hear him. He wondered if he could move on his own. The numbness diminished to nothing leaving the dying...dead man’s body so much freer feeling. He straightened his body out feeling his feet touch down on an invisible ground. He ran. Towards the voice and the drumming that had become clearer, sharper.
“I’ll save you! Just you watch!” the voice reassured him.
‘I’m dead! You can’t save a dead man!’ He thought back running faster. He felt a solidity come back to him. He hadn’t even noticed how airy and fluid he had been before that moment. It was almost like someone was making him real again.
“Imouto-chan won’t let you go.” The voice whispered now. The familiar nagging grew.
‘Chi.’ Was all he thought as he now charged towards what seemed to be a massive crack in the all encompassing abyss in front of him.