But this diary was anything but ordinary. It had fallen straight from the sky, appearing out of nowhere right in front of him.
Itachi was certain it wasn't any kind of space–time jutsu. No one could slip past his senses like that.
He opened it, but his vision blurred again. His eyesight had worsened. Even though he restrained himself from using the Sharingan unless absolutely necessary, decline was unavoidable.
In Akatsuki, they weren't assigned casual missions. The group had outer rings and subordinate units for that. Whenever he and his partner were called in, the job was something nasty, sometimes even recruiting Kage Level missing-nin. Nothing about those missions was simple.
No matter how careful he was, his eyes were still failing him.
The realization gave him a dull headache. He quickly took some medicine, forcing down the discomfort.
He couldn't collapse now. Sasuke was still too young, barely graduated from the academy. Without the Uchiha Clan behind him, Sasuke couldn't grow the way Itachi once had. He wasn't strong enough to protect himself.
Soon, Itachi needed to find a way to return to Konoha.
Partly to pass along the intelligence he'd gathered over the years, but also to intimidate certain people in the village. He couldn't trust Konoha's higher-ups completely. He knew exactly how dark a man whose name couldn't be spoken aloud, Danzo, truly was.
Sasuke didn't stand a chance against him. He couldn't even defend himself yet.
Kaede Kitahara.
Itachi focused hard until he could make out the name.
At first, the diary seemed like simple rambling, but soon he found something interesting.
Uzumaki Naruto.
Unlike Uchiha Sasuke, who had no idea that Naruto carried the Nine-Tails, Itachi knew exactly what was sealed inside him.
Akatsuki's goal was to collect all Tailed Beasts, and Naruto was the Jinchuriki of the Nine-Tails, the strongest of the nine.
But Konoha concealed this information extremely well. A random Chunin should not have known this.
Which meant Kaede Kitahara was suspicious.
Then he saw the key phrase: the Konoha Crush Plan.
Putting the pieces together, Itachi immediately understood. Orochimaru planned to invade Konoha.
He'd fought Orochimaru before. More accurately, he'd knocked out someone who dared covet the Sharingan in a single instant. In front of him, Orochimaru had been pathetically weak.
But Itachi also knew something was wrong. Orochimaru couldn't have been that weak. If he were a normal Kage Level opponent, Itachi shouldn't have been able to destroy him instantly. He wasn't that overwhelmingly strong, even with the power of the Mangekyo Sharingan.
If he fought using regular ninjutsu, the only people in the village who could fight him on equal ground were the Third Hokage and his family.
He didn't know what was up with Orochimaru, but the man never acted without purpose. If he had prepared such a plan, then he had accounted for every scenario.
This couldn't be ignored. Konoha needed a warning, or the village would be caught completely off guard.
If Itachi were still there, Orochimaru would have been no threat. And if Konoha were still in its golden age, with all its strongest shinobi still alive, Orochimaru wouldn't dare think of any Konoha Crush Plan.
The truth was simple. Konoha was weak now.
A moment later, he saw the video. Kakashi confronting Orochimaru. Under normal circumstances, that meant nothing.
But Sasuke was involved.
Orochimaru had boldly declared that Uchiha Sasuke would eventually come to him, as an avenger.
Itachi felt relief when Kakashi temporarily protected Sasuke, but dread followed immediately.
Orochimaru had set his sights on Sasuke. That meant he would act again and again.
And Itachi knew why. Back then, Itachi had crushed Orochimaru with a single Sharingan stare. That humiliation must have etched deep into Orochimaru's psyche. The only remaining Uchiha aside from Itachi now was Sasuke.
The thought twisted painfully inside him. Orochimaru wasn't just a threat to Konoha as a whole. He was a danger specifically to Sasuke.
For a moment, Itachi wanted nothing more than to hunt Orochimaru down and eliminate him, ending both of his goals at once.
But he knew it was impossible. Orochimaru was far too good at disappearing. Even Akatsuki's repeated attempts to track him down after he fled had yielded nothing.
Wait.
He recalled the forehead protector Orochimaru wore when confronting Kakashi. The symbol belonged to some village. Itachi had never seen it before. It had to be a small one, obscure or newly built. Such villages were common across the ninja world, barely worth noting.
Maybe that could be a lead. But he deflated again almost immediately.
He was under constant surveillance inside Akatsuki.
The organization's mysterious leader had never truly trusted him. He didn't say anything outright, but Itachi picked up on small things, like how he was never allowed access to the organization's deepest secrets.
He was an official inner member, far above the outer-ring operatives, yet he didn't have privileges that matched his rank.
That fact alone said everything.
He didn't even know anything about Akatsuki's leader besides the existence of those eyes, the legendary Rinnegan said to belong to the Sage of Six Paths. He didn't know what abilities they held, what made them special, or how they compared to the Mangekyo Sharingan.
So he couldn't act recklessly. Every move he made in the Land of Rain was monitored. If he tried sending a messenger bird or any other form of communication, he'd be discovered immediately.
And in the endless rainfall of the Land of Rain, he could even feel faint chakra pulses hidden in the downpour. Whoever created that was terrifying.
A monster with immeasurable chakra.
A presence that dwarfed human limits.