Mirror, mirror. [Naruto] [Itachi Uchiha] (Complete)

Chapter 30

Thantophobia is the fear of losing someone you love. That stomach wrenching feeling of nausea that washes over a person when the possibility of loss becomes reality. It's hard. For some loss comes naturally to them, a friend who is constant in their life; for others loss can be unbearable and for the few – fatal. To be told that you will never see the person you love again is pain at its purest form. The moment is surreal. Everything around you begins to crumble at the seams; the air becomes thick, toxic, as it begins to fill every square inch of your lungs.
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The silence is overwhelming. It's replaced with a ringing that becomes constant and overbearing. The body switches between hypersensitivity and a tumultuary state, not fully knowing why the heart races or why the skin bristles. When the finalities have settled and gained a coating of emotional stability, it's then that the heart encourages the brain to conjure dreams of grandeur. Grandiose fancies of second chances and unspoken exclamations that would never happen.

A second chance with a loved one would be an unimaginable gift; a truly wonderful, inconceivable thing that exists solely in a person's most private desires. To have a second chance to tell them sorry or to simply hold them for a moment longer; that, in itself, would be a dream come true.

But what if it was too good to be true?

What if the hand that offered you the second chance was the same hand that snatched your loved one from you? Would you trust it? Would you trust them? The question that should be asked is: why are they doing it? And in the case of Izanami it was a very suspicious 'why?'; although the goddess of creation she was first and foremost the goddess of death. She was Death.

And when Death smiled, the future was never fruitful.

Why would Death offer a second chance? What could she possibly gain from it? She was a primordial entity. What could she want that a human soul possessed? But was it exactly that. As a primordial entity she lacked humanity; she lacked the warmth and compassion and confliction that made humans exactly that- human.

Itachi wondered if she understood the severity of her words; whether she fully comprehended just what she was offering him. He pondered if she felt the fear that he did, the extent of what was at risk should he accept and what he would be turning his back on should he decline. Had someone offered her a second chance would she have taken it? Then a chord struck him. Was the grey eyed deity bitter and twisted in her ways because there wasn't anyone to offer her a second chance?

Izanami's own husband, her lover and best friend turned his back at the very sight of her; Itachi could only imagine how that felt. To give your all to someone, to present your heart gift-wrapped and to have it discarded before your very eyes. It was obvious now that when Izanagi fled Yomi he took Izanami's heart with him- alongside her humanity. Izanami gave truth to the phrase 'hell hath no fury like a woman scorned'.


She was the ultimate scorned woman. It was this fact that made her offer so much more dangerous. It was an offer that was laced with a venomous spite, a rueful, reluctant offer that could only hide treacherous intentions and loopholes ready to ensnare. He had to be on guard. One wrong word could ruin his chances of escape or imprison him to a fate that was worse than death.

He was once again at the mercy of a higher power – a pawn in someone else's hands.

True to form a stony façade enveloped the elder Uchiha's face; regardless of the curiosity and weariness that laced his bones he remained placidly impassive before the amaranthine deity. Izanami, on the other hand, displayed no attempt to secrete her intrigue. Her eyes were alight despite the darkness that dwelled beneath her steel irises. Izanami could see Itachi's sang-froid was well practiced. A habit that had become second nature – she respected his strong will. But beneath she could feel that he wished to dismiss his lifetime of conditioning; his former existence was merely a shadow of what it could have been.