（ the silence that follows is hollow, like bones scraped of all their marrow. with the additional context of obito, né madara having spoken to him, and amaterasu having failed... nothing as he planned it, but nothing surprising. people follow predictable patterns of behaviour, even — especially, perhaps — his little brother. as soon as sasuke made it clear he knew the truth behind the massacre, itachi could have charted his reaction as surely as a sailor can navigate the sea by the stars. sasuke could have done nothing else. could have reacted in no other way.

the only reason sasuke had hated him so much was because he once loved him in equal measure. if you remove the barrier to that love, he would have swung like an unsettled pendulum, hitched the wagon of his suffering to some other cause and driven forwards like an arrow loosed from catgut string. itachi had built him to be single-minded in his determination, he has no one to blame in this but himself.

he is resolved not to dwell on i hated them for what they did to you. sasuke lacks the intentional, deliberate cruelty to have said it to wound, but nevertheless it tightens like a garrote. ）

I thought often of what might follow my death.

（ it was an easy, idle thing to dwell on. his focus was always the horizon of all the tomorrows to come in his brother's life, which could not truly begin until itachi was no longer in it.

but there was one constant, in everything. ）

Ultimately, I wanted you to live. And you have. I don't care about the rest.

（ another lie. it is habitual, that everything said to his brother be sieved through a web of mistruths. ）