...Where Itachi Learns to Be Part of a Family Thanks to Seina Uzumaki (Chapters 67–108): Part 1
The first letter caught him by surprise near Amegakure. Itachi, with his Sharingan activated, observed closely the dove carrying a letter—no, two letters—tied to one of its legs. He glanced around but was alone. Kisame, his Akatsuki partner, was a few minutes away washing his clothes and weapons in the river. He threw a kunai at the bird. He was so fast the dove couldn't dodge. The strange part wasn't whether the animal dodged it or not, but that it didn't die despite being pierced by the knife.
Totally intrigued, he caught the dove with his hands and realized it wasn't a real animal. It seemed like a fuinjutsu construct—except there was no fuinjutsu. He examined it for quite a while, finding no clear answers, until he finally took the two letters tied to its leg. The not-a-dove flew in circles above his head, clearly waiting for a reply. Itachi examined the letters in every possible way, but they were clean. There was no name written on the envelope, but he assumed they were for him. After all, someone had to have sent that… thing directly to him—especially since they were days away from the nearest village.
He opened one letter and quickly looked at the signature. His heart skipped a beat. It was from Sasuke. He opened the other to see who it was from. The Hokage? Kakashi? But no. It was from Seina Uzumaki, Sasuke's kunoichi teammate.
He heard Kisame returning, so he discreetly tucked the letters inside his red-and-black cloak and acted as though nothing had happened while removing the kunai from the dove. Kisame looked up at the animal above them but said nothing. Itachi, however, was more impressed that the hole he had left in its chest had completely healed, as if nothing had happened. What the hell was it?
"Shall we go?"
"Hn."
He stood up, ignored the dove, and they ran off. He didn't see the creature again that day or the next, so he assumed it wouldn't reappear. The letters in the chest pocket of his cloak weighed heavily on him. He hadn't read them yet. He could imagine what they might contain—but at the same time, he knew they couldn't be what he thought. If they were, Sasuke wouldn't have sent him a letter, let alone his teammate. So if it wasn't a threatening or hate-filled message, then what kind of letter was it? He knew there was an easy way to find out, but honestly, he was afraid to read his little brother's words.
Thinking about Sasuke inevitably brought back memories of his dead family. The family he had killed. He didn't like thinking about it, yet he couldn't stop remembering what happened. The pain reminded him he wasn't a merciless killer, it reminded him that he had once loved, and still loved, his family. Yes, he had killed them, but he loved them. His criminal facade remained intact as long as he didn't break character. But this letter…
One night, when Kisame was asleep a short distance away, he pulled the letters out with trembling hands. He debated whether to read Sasuke's or Seina's letter first, but finally, he gathered his courage and grabbed the short note from Sasuke.
"Itachi,
You might not believe this, but it's me, Sasuke. I'm writing this letter because my team and I believe you're innocent…"
Itachi stopped reading. Just 22 words were enough to knock the wind out of him. Sasuke thought he was innocent? How did he know? Had someone told him something? Had he figured it out himself? Did Sasuke still hate him even while sensing the truth? He stared at his brother's words with unfocused eyes and forced himself to keep reading.
"…I want to believe you regret it, that you were forced to do it. I want to have my brother close again. I want you to return to Konoha someday, for people to know you're innocent, even if we have to admit that our clan screwed up."
He didn't know how many times he read and reread those meagre lines. Sasuke would never know what it meant to him that his little brother wanted him to come home. Itachi noticed the words blurring. Stunned, he realized he was silently crying. He glanced at Kisame, still asleep, and hid among the branches so his partner wouldn't see him losing composure.
He stayed awake the entire night, thinking about Sasuke's letter. Sometimes he was tormented, sometimes relieved, sometimes overwhelmed by sadness... He almost didn't want to read the other letter, but since Seina Uzumaki's message was significantly longer, he decided he needed to know what she had to say before he cried like an idiot again.
"I think you did what you did because you had no choice…" he read. "You killed a lot of people. some surely innocent and you'll have to pay for that. That's what you're doing now, isn't it?... I know something you don't: Sasuke doesn't hate you… When someone spends so long pretending to be something they're not, they can eventually become it… Thanks to Sasuke, we're a family now, Itachi… My own little brother, Naruto, has taught me something I sometimes forget: you can never lose hope."
He reread Seina Uzumaki's wise words. Sasuke's letter had a tone of almost desperate longing, as if trying to make him understand that he believed in him and wanted him back. Seina's letter, in contrast, radiated empathy, hope, and resolve. She wasn't just certain he was innocent—she was sure he would return to Konoha someday. He didn't know why, but she managed to convince him despite his unwillingness to hope.
A small part of him, that 13-year-old boy from before the massacre, begged for it to be true. Another part of him, the guilty assassin who had killed his family, calculated that returning was nearly impossible. He looked up at the sky through the branches of a large oak tree. It was practically impossible but as Seina Uzumaki reminded him, you can never lose hope.
The days passed uneventfully. Even Kisame noticed he was quieter than usual, though aside from a "What's wrong with you?" he didn't press further. Itachi, however, couldn't stop thinking about his brother's and Seina's letters because they were concrete proof that something was changing in Konoha. Somehow, Sasuke or Seina—or both—had started thinking about him and his innocence, and that meant something must have happened that he didn't know about.
The last major event before the letters had been his brief return to Konoha after the sudden death of the Third Hokage. It was Kisame who noticed Itachi taking increasingly shorter routes toward the village and suggested they enter Konoha if he was so desperate to find out what had happened. Itachi didn't thank him but both knew why he wanted to get closer to Konoha. It didn't take long, with the help of his crows, to find out what was going on.
Sasuke, somehow, was living away from the Uchiha complex without the council seizing the clan's land. Itachi tried to visit the compound with no success. He couldn't find it. Nor could he locate Sasuke's new house. All he knew was that Sasuke was living with Seina and Naruto. He left Konoha with a distant expression. He didn't want to fight the jonin who pursued them, but they were persistent. He didn't want to harm Kakashi-senpai either, but it would've been odd for him to simply let Itachi go.
"Are you satisfied now?" Kisame asked as they left Konoha. He nodded.
"We should go after the Nine-Tails jinchuriki. Word is, they're going to move him out of the village as a precaution."
"Let's go."
He focused on his mission, though he didn't want to kidnap Sasuke's teammate. Naruto was with Jiraiya-sama, so he knew he wouldn't have to fake failure too hard. Even so, if he had really wanted to, it wouldn't have been difficult. Jiraiya might be a sannin, but he was still a total pervert, and Itachi never passed up a tactical advantage. He almost enjoyed tricking Jiraiya-sama with a genjutsu crafted just for him. The surprising part was that he couldn't find Naruto. It wasn't that he was pretending—he genuinely couldn't locate him. Just as he was trying to detect Naruto's chakra—something increasingly difficult—ANBU appeared.
"We almost had him," Kisame muttered, clicking his tongue.
"Hn."
For a second, he had sensed Naruto's chakra—but it was... flickering. He kept thinking about it, and all the strange things happening around Sasuke, until May arrived.
"Dear Itachi,
It's me, Seina again. I'm just writing to say the pendant is a gift for you. Try it. You might be surprised.
S."
It was, clearly, a teardrop-shaped pendant made of opal. Once again, he examined it in every possible way, but as had become the norm—nothing seemed off. Just an opal pendant. And yet, something told him it was more than that. Of course, he didn't put it on just like that. No matter how much it came from Seina, Sasuke's friend and teammate, it could still be dangerous. Then again… did he really care if it was? Itachi pondered that the real reason he didn't wear the gift wasn't fear. It was because… it was a gift. And a part of him didn't feel worthy of receiving one—not even something this simple. He kept it in his pocket, alongside the letters, and tried to forget about it until he could accept his emotions.
Days passed until his birthday—one he hadn't celebrated in years. He found himself staring into the distance before realizing what the hell he was doing and stopped looking in Konoha's direction. When… suddenly… he saw the dove again. Itachi leapt and caught it before Kisame could notice. Seeing it once had been strange. Seeing it again? That was questionable. The last thing he wanted was to attract Kisame's attention.
"Be right back," he said. Kisame nodded while eating his bento without looking up.
This time there were two letters, instead of the brief lines from Sasuke he occasionally received. Even before opening it, he knew one was from Seina.
"Dear Itachi,
Happy birthday. I hope we can celebrate your next one in Konoha."
S."
Sasuke's letter, besides wishing him well, explained very briefly what was happening in the village regarding Team 7. He read his brother's words, complaining about the occasional mission and the tough training, with a faint smile on his lips that no one saw. For a moment, he felt almost happy. It had been a long time since he'd felt anything positive, so it even hurt. Still… yes, it made him happy to understand, from Sasuke's own handwriting, that his brother was growing up alongside his team, whom he truly seemed to care about. That was all he had ever wanted for him.
As soon as he slipped the letters into his pocket, noticing it was already quite full, his fingers brushed the smooth opal of his new pendant. One he hadn't worn. He pulled it out, staring at it intently. If he put it on… he would be accepting that he wanted to return to his brother. He would be accepting the existence of hope when, most likely, he would die far from the village and his family. But, did he really want to lose hope?
He put it on.
The next month and a half was spent half-insane. Maybe insane wasn't the word, but definitely irritated and deeply curious to discover what the pendant was doing to him. Because it certainly had some strange power he couldn't decipher. Every time he wore it, he felt a wave of positive feelings and emotions so intense it left him breathless, crying, the first time he put it on. It was… too much for him. He had spent so many years feeling almost nothing because trying to feel always hurt—and now, thanks to that damn pendant, it was like suddenly waking up. Like being shoved into an icy pool instead of slowly easing in.
He realized that if he wore it over his clothes, hidden from view, the effect was slightly dampened. So physical contact seemed to amplify it. Since breaking into tears wasn't something he needed in the middle of an Akatsuki mission or while traveling with Kisame, he started wearing it over his clothes or removing it when even that was too much. Still, the more time he spent wearing the pendant, whether under or over his clothes, the more he adjusted to feeling again. Somehow, the pendant was helping improve his emotional state.
He began to notice that when he thought about his most traumatic memories, the pendant helped him process the trauma little by little by preventing him from forgetting the good feelings. That didn't mean, not at all, that he no longer felt the stabbing pain in his chest every time he remembered what he had done, but he no longer had to retreat into an emotionless mental state to deal with it.
He examined it closely with a magnifying glass and various lights, but nothing. He began to connect the dots, though, when he recalled his mental note about the disappearance of the Uchiha compound. To begin with, the issue wasn't that it no longer existed—it was that everyone seemed to have forgotten it. The same had happened with Sasuke's new house and his team. Not to mention the mysterious pigeon, which was neither an animal nor a fuinjutsu construct, but somehow could find him wherever he was. As if it had a compass pointing to him inside its scrawny body. And finally, the thing driving him mad—the pendant that triggered feelings. It sounded like the title of a cheap novel.
For weeks, he had a headache until a letter from Seina arrived—and this one came alone. He read it carefully, memorizing it with his Sharingan for future mental review.
"The only thing you need to do is place the mineral attached to this letter on your forehead. Then, close your eyes and think of your mother."
Itachi blinked as he took the mineral out of a black padded pouch. He examined it, knowing he wouldn't find anything. He was disappointed to realize he was right.
"What's that?" Kisame asked.
Itachi, having sensed him arriving just a second earlier, had already tucked the letter and pouch away. He turned the mineral between his fingers, as if that would reveal what kind of power it held—because it had to hold some. If it was part of a gift for Sasuke, that meant his brother had nothing to do with the stone, so the most logical conclusion was that the mysterious powers of both the stone and the pendant were Seina Uzumaki's doing.
"A stone."
"If you say so."
He pocketed the mineral with a serious expression. He decided to accept Seina's request simply because it was a gift for Sasuke. Also, part of him wanted to know if something would happen if he did what she asked. Nothing happened, except that he seemed a little… brighter. He didn't understand it, and that both amused and irritated him in equal measure.
Time passed after that without much change. Sasuke continued to send letters, and occasionally, so did Seina. Sasuke's letters were always like diary entries, explaining his life as much as he could. Itachi liked reading Sasuke's thoughts, though he couldn't quite picture his 13-year-old brother writing all that. It had been a long time since he last spoke to Sasuke, so it was strange not to picture him as the six-year-old he had left behind. It was interesting, and nostalgic, to realize Sasuke was becoming an adult. And he wasn't there to see it.
Seina's letters, on the other hand, were more personal, as if she didn't care or wasn't afraid to interact with a criminal like him. Still, Seina had more important information than Sasuke about the dangers they faced. Probably because, in addition to being a jonin, she seemed to be much more connected than his brother. The information network she had, which she passed along without compromising the village, was incredible.
What he didn't like at all was finding that bastard Danzo's name in almost every letter he read. It scared him to realize his brother was in more danger in the village than he had ever imagined. The Third Hokage had kept Danzo in check, but Lady Tsunade didn't seem to hold the same sway over the advisor that her teacher once did. He debated for days over what to do with the information Sasuke and Seina had given him.
The thing was, he knew better than anyone what awaited his brother's teammates. And he also knew that Sasuke wouldn't let them be harmed. Danzo—who received information about Akatsuki from him from time to time—was betraying him again. Had he not had Seina's intel on hand, he would never have known and would've believed Sasuke was still safe in the village. But now he knew Danzo was testing the waters around Sasuke. For what reason? He didn't entirely know.
He couldn't allow it, but at the same time, acting against Danzo's interests would put his brother in danger. But wasn't he already in danger? And he considered Danzo more dangerous than Orochimaru when it came to Sasuke. Still… if he made a single move against Danzo, there'd be no turning back. His cover in Akatsuki could crumble. Danzo could, at any moment, spread the rumor that he was his spy in Akatsuki. And it wouldn't even be a lie, no matter how much Itachi hated Danzo and the fact that he was his spy.
When he saw the pigeon with a letter from his brother, he caught it. With the pigeon in hand, feeling strange, he looked around to make sure he was alone. The bird didn't even try to defend itself or fly away. It really wasn't an animal. He brought it close to his face to examine it, impressed with how well-crafted it was. The pigeon looked at him like he was an idiot—if pigeons could express disdain.
"Could you deliver a letter to someone I name? I want you to take this letter to Shikaku Nara. Do you understand?" he asked the pigeon, feeling like a fool as it didn't even blink. Finally, he sighed. "I'm losing my mind."
Then, as if by magic, the pigeon extended its leg. Itachi prayed the information would reach its destination.
The rumours didn't take long to reach him through his informants. Seina confirmed that Shikaku had received the message, as had the Hokage, even though he hadn't signed the coded note. Still, for someone with Seina's level of information, it was obvious she could deduce the source.
Time passed, and he kept hearing and reading worse and worse things coming from Konoha. Until finally, something he feared happened. Sasuke and the rest of his team were temporarily relocated outside the village while Lady Tsunade dealt with internal issues. Itachi clenched the letter in his hands as he read Sasuke's words saying he had to leave Konoha because he was at risk of being kidnapped by Danzo.
"You've been even more antisocial than usual these past weeks," Kisame said suddenly one night.
"My brother had to leave Konoha for his own safety," he confessed.
Kisame jolted in his seat. He probably hadn't expected an answer to his implied question, but Itachi was tired of having to measure his words, his expressions, his actions. Sasuke was supposed to be safe in Konoha. If he wasn't, then what had Itachi risked everything for?
"For his own safety?"
"Yes. At least he's not alone," he sighed, and said no more.
Weeks went by with no news of Sasuke. All he knew was what Sasuke told him in his letters, so he deduced he was fine, accompanied by his team—practically his brothers—and Jiraiya-sama. He felt more at ease realizing that if his informants hadn't heard anything, it was because Sasuke was hiding well. For months, Itachi kept a close eye on everything happening in the Land of Fire, where Jiraiya-sama was undoubtedly hiding them, but nothing happened. He almost relaxed.
The next year came, and his birthday approached with little surprise. Kisame and he continued hunting bijuus, with varying success, even though it wasn't to his liking. Then he received a very different letter from Seina—and Naruto. It was the first time Naruto wrote to him.
"We're giving you until his birthday to gather the courage—and the balls—to see your brother again."
Naruto wasn't going to wait for him to return of his own accord. Itachi reread the letter, noticing how Seina was beginning to sound desperate while her twin brother clearly seemed irritated that he was ignoring Sasuke and his own sister.
Itachi had to admit he no longer wanted to remain in Akatsuki. In fact, he had never truly wanted to join, but he had done so in exchange for Danzo's protection of Sasuke. Now, staying made no sense—Danzo wasn't protecting Sasuke anymore, but doing the opposite. With no purpose, he questioned what he was doing with his life when he didn't want to be in Akatsuki, and being there served no purpose.
He spent several days thinking deeply. His goal in life was to protect Sasuke and the village—in that order. Therefore, if Akatsuki was no longer necessary or viable to protect Sasuke, that meant he could leave. The Hokage's informants—most importantly, Jiraiya-sama—had their own intel on the criminal organization. He knew this because Sasuke and Seina had subtly indicated as much. So, leaving Akatsuki wouldn't negatively impact Konoha. The only one losing a spy would be Danzo—and Itachi didn't care.
On the other hand, Sasuke and his team wanted him back, and Itachi wanted to be with his brother. So, what was stopping him from leaving Akatsuki and rejoining Sasuke? The logical answer: nothing. The real answer? Himself. He had to reflect for hours, days, weeks on why he was holding himself back—until he realized he didn't feel worthy of being by Sasuke's side. How could he look his brother in the eye after what he'd done? Maybe it wasn't by choice, but Itachi could have refused.
The pigeon brought him another letter from Sasuke while he was still debating, as he had been for days, what to do with his life. Until he read his little brother's final words:
"Itachi, please, come back."
His hands trembled as he seriously considered it. In the end, what made him decide to return was reading his brother's and Seina's letters in order. He had so many it took hours, but in each one, he could clearly read how much they wanted him with them. Not Itachi Uchiha, heir of the Uchiha clan, the clan prodigy. No. Itachi, Sasuke's older brother. Their teammate's older brother.
His reunion with Sasuke was completely different from how he had imagined it. First, he met Seina, now a full-fledged teenager, and then he arrived. He saw Seina's pleased, proud smile over his brother's shoulder and the nod she gave him, urging him to hug him. Itachi hugged his brother for the first time in nearly seven years. He couldn't believe it. Simply… he never would have imagined it was possible—but Seina had been right. You should never lose hope.