69I do not own Naruto.
Hey, everyone! I promise the OC will not be overpowered. She will have a consistent personality. This story will also not be mission or mystery heavy. The plot is Itachi returning to Konoha 19 years after the war. Mostly Itachi-centric.
Please enjoy!
Chapter 1
Uchiha Itachi's eyes opened. Twisted black figures within red irises faded into one pupil. All it took was one blink for the red to disperse. He lay on a bed of daises and his line of sight consisted of branches spiraling up, their sprouted leaves swishing in the cool of the breeze. Autumn was near.
There were many things he observed as he awoke under the flickers of sunlight, not all of which were his surroundings. One was that he was truly alive and not reanimated. Two, his lungs were not on fire. In fact, his body held no morsel of pain or ache. But despite these noteworthy observations, what he perused with great alarm was that his eyes were not his eyes. The world was clear.
Had the war been won? Who had brought him back to life?
And why did the memory of death escape him? He closed his eyes and for a moment he smelled fire and ash. Itachi turned on his side and curled within himself, tendrils of nothingness lining his thoughts.
Who had done this?
Whoever it had been left him a traveling pack with essential provisions: cloak, sleep roll, ryō, map, compass, a week's worth of rations, and a note that explained nineteen years had passed since the Fourth Shinobi World War.
Nineteen.
In the woodland, Itachi made a clone to examine his own appearance. They sat crossed legged, facing one another. His chakra network was fully functional and undisturbed. His clothes were plain, light in color but useful for traveling. Long tresses of raven hair fell down his back and over his shoulders. Its ends touched his elbows. He was the age as when he had died, nearly twenty-two, and yet the healthiest he had ever been. There were no scars on this body. And he knew this gaze well.
These were his brother's eyes.
It stirred in him a sense of grief. He suppressed the tremors by recalling that Sasuke had taken his eyes and it didn't matter if Itachi had his. Sasuke's eyes must have been harvested. This did not mean he was dead. The pad of Itachi's fingertip touched his bottom eyelashes. The clone mirrored the movement. At present, if alive and well, Sasuke should be thirty-five.
These eyes meant that the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan was within Itachi's capabilities. New, terrible power lurked within the obsidian depths. He would not test activation. Why would he? With every fiber of his being, he knew its existence was true and readily available to him if only he but reach out and take it.
Itachi dismissed the clone.
He decided it was time to return to Konohagakure and face long-awaited judgement by their hands. Because even now, with this second life, he wanted to verify if the village survived the war. Or Sasuke's hatred. And, doubtlessly, Itachi needed to unearth what had become of his foolish little brother. Had he returned home? Or had the tide of revenge been too pervasive to resist?
More potent than in his last life, Itachi lamented past arbitrations. He had taken it upon himself to carry a burden that should not have been his to carry alone. Dearly, he had paid for it—dearly, he always would.
So why—why had he been brought back?
Thank you for reading!