● ●

The first time he saw her, she was teary eyed, plucking the strings on a harp like she feared it would shatter.

The world around him had fizzled away as if it had all been unreal, and the chatter drowned out, revealing a dark skinned girl behind the white fog.

Chords were strung into existence, filling the space between them and reaching a part of him he had never known. He watched, unmoving, as she played what Itachi thought was the saddest ballad ever, with the notes sounding like an ode to a dead mother. Her hair spayed out all around her, defying nature's pull—as though it wanted to touch the marble ceiling above it. She was draped in linen cloth, bearing an expression he was all too familiar with...pain.

Albeit unsure why, he wanted to run his hand across her forehead to smooth those wrinkles; catch the tears cascading down her eyes; and thread his hands lightly through her hair. 

He wished he could speak.

please save me

there is still hope

He didn't know who had said that, but he let himself think it was her, begging for someone to set her free.

He closed his eyes.

And when he opened them, she was gone.

"Itachi. Did you hear a word I said?" He was back to reality, where his father wore his never-changing, stony expression.

Itachi shook his head slowly, still a bit dazed from whatever he had just come back from. Was it a genjutsu? Or was he finally going crazy?

(Whatever it was, he wanted to go back.)

"I said repeat the standard Fire Style training ten times, then kunai, and afterwards meet me at my study so I can teach you Advanced Elemental theory."

With those instructions, he briskly walked off, and Itachi was left alone in the training grounds, staring at the blank space he left for a few moments before he got to work.

At the age of five, Itachi was tagged as an Uchiha prodigy.

(At the age of five, Itachi was no longer a person.)

He graduated at six, became a genin at seven, and passed his chuunin exams at eight. While his peers were still learning the Will Of Fire and how to make one shadow clone, Itachi could recite every bingo book edition by heart and took down his enemies with four shadow clones.

The people called him a prodigy, a genius, a monster...whatever they thought could rationalise sending a child into the battlefield. But truth was, he was just a boy, a boy who spent every moment since he could walk, training.

His father had once told him that nothing in a shinobi's life was constant, but Itachi didn't agree. Because everyday he would train till his bones screamed stop and his eyes bled out, then he'd head over to the hospital to heal everything he'd destroyed just to repeat it again the next day.

Training was his constant, and somehow, it was what kept him going.

At least at first it was.

Until the weeping musician appeared once again, and the next day, and the next, until every night he would stay awake seated near the moonlight just so he could be enveloped into her world without distraction.

Over time, she became his constant.

● ●

take me away, please
i wasn't born for this life

● ●

The ANBU mask was suffocating and itchy, but Itachi figured he'd get used to it.

Just like he'd get used to only seeing his family three to five times a month, for Danzou wasted no time in filling up Itachi's schedule with missions, a lot of them requiring that he'd be away from home for at least two weeks. Itachi couldn't complain, after all, it was exactly what he'd signed up for.

He hadn't remembered actually signing up for it though, or even planning for it. All he knew was that one day the higher ups  told him he was too gifted to just be a jounin, and his father had pushed him to accept the offer for whatever political reasons.

When he went for the short orientation, Cat mask had said this-

"No friends. No family. No identity. Life begins and ends with the ANBU."

Idly, Itachi wondered why other shinobi would need to even think about family and friends... and had he ever even seen that happen? His father never regarded him as anything other than a tool to hone and perfect, and Itachi understood. 

Life began and ended with being shinobi; with serving the village.

What else would he think of? His mother? He'd erased his love for her the first time he took a life.

Sasuke?

The cold winter's air bit his cheeks as he sludged through the mountains, one hand empty, the other bloody. Itachi stopped for a second, staring at the crimson on his palm. A young shinobi, probably around his age,  had been tortured by him in a bunker nearby until there was nothing left for her to give. Once he had squeezed out all the information he could, she was killed with one slash of a kunai and burned to crisps.

No relationships. Sasuke wasn't of importance anymore.

But...

"You promised to teach me, big brother!"

"Till next time."

Why was it so hard to accept?

why won't you save me?
you know you want to

Itachi flinched, expressing emotions for the first time since he put on the forsaken mask.

She was there. She was always there when he went back home or closed his eyes for a night's sleep, but never in the middle of a mission. Never when he was done with a murder.

The song she played never changed. It was slow, drawn out, haunted sounds that struck the depths of his soul. But unlike the last few times he had seen her, she wasn't crying.

Even when she plucked a string so hard it drew blood, the numb look on her face didn't change.

Itachi placed one foot in front of the other, slowly, thinking the slightest movement would pull him out of this imaginary world and back to the snowy mountains. When he saw that two steps hadn't done anything, he took two more, then three, and then a few more until he was so close to her he could reach out and touch her.

He stretched out his hand, waiting for her to react, but as always she kept playing, unaware of his looming presence.

Itachi dropped his hand, and perhaps his mind was playing tricks on him, but he thought he heard her sigh.

● ●

He was back, not in the mountains, but at his house, seated at the dining table. When had he gotten back home, cleaned himself up and gotten ready for dinner?

Why don't I remember?

After a few minutes of thought, Itachi dismissed it as some sort of trauma response. He had been informed by the Shinobi psychiatrist that memory loss was a common response to stressful situations, and he had been on a lot of torture missions lately.

To him, it didn't matter as long as he had completed his mission, and if he wasn't dead, that meant he had.

(At the back of his mind, he wondered how long it would take before it was all too much for him and Danzou saw it fit to dispose of him.)

  Itachi focused on the dinner conversation, listening to Sasuke rave about his first day at the Academy and his mother laugh and smile when needed, like an accessory to Sasuke's tales. His father was as quiet as ever, but Itachi could tell from the way he closed his eyes and nodded that he was indeed listening.

"Itachi san! Are you going to show me?" He didn't realise Sasuke had been speaking to him

He plastered on the most family friendly smile he could manage, just to keep up appearances.

"Of course Sasuke." he lied.  "Tomorrow."

Sasuke wasn't a prodigy. There was no need to train him  like one.

● ●

you have every chance
to be freed from  it
why won't you take it?

"Am I schizophrenic?" Itachi was sure he had asked this once, she never answered before.

And she wouldn't answer now, but this time, she craned her neck ever so slightly upwards to meet his shocked eyes.

And let out a croaked, "I-I'm...d-dy...ing."