This really delves into the dark corners of Itachi's character. Great job on this.

I have got to say, this was a very nice introspection piece, especially in the light of recent chapters of the manga. :) I particularly liked the final lines: "He would have explained himself to Sasuke. He really would have." ;_; Very nice!

This is absolutely gorgeous. I really love how Itachi adapts his justification for the different people he addresses. The parentheses and repetition used were also very effective for emphasis. I also liked how you associated Fugaku and his love for rules/textbook cases with Itachi as the criminal and "rulebreaker."

The description of Orochimaru as "being further down the evolutionary scale with the reptiles" was great. XD

It's interesting to see how the relationship between Itachi and Kisame turns out; that Itachi likes Kisame because Kisame doesn't require an explanation from him for the massacre.

"only alive at all due to it's blackest blood magic." and "Madera needs a warm body with Uchiha blood in it. He needs to control that body, to feel that he has a firm grip on it's mind. He uses it's adolescent fury or it's cursed blood" "it's" should be "its" in those cases; also, I think the name is spelled Madara instead of Madera (but these are minor things :))

"He wants passion and distains it" "distain" would be "disdain"? :)

Anyway, I love how you've written Itachi trying to decide upon the reason he'll give to Sasuke, and even when he does decide it at the end... we still have no real clue as to the truth of the truth. We've only seen varying facets of the truth, but Itachi never reveals the entire whole. And that's a perfect way for the oneshot to end, it really is. :D

Thank you for writing this, it was wonderful to read. :)

O.O ...wow, that was quick! :D You wrote something right away! -jumps around happily-

Anyways...this work is just right. Can't quite arrive with any more right words than those two. Just right. The language is so stoic and yet full of emotion at the same time, which adds to the mystery of the character itself. Wonderful.

And the logic runs so darn well. I have to say, I can certainly imagine Itachi running his brain this way and all. It's great that you managed to capture that slight bit of emotion that he had for Sasuke from the manga (when I once thought that he didn't have much feelings to begin with). I especially liked the part where you said, "But for Sasuke it would have to be complicated."

Definitely going onto my list of recommended fanfics for the world!

Oh, wow, really nice introspection. I love all the different reasons given depending on who might be asking. There's some really gorgeous lines in this too, though I won't paste every one back at you as this will end up rather long. I enjoyed this very much though.

Ooh. I really like the idea of Itachi tailoring his answers for whomever he's addressing... it strikes me as very in-character for him, to be mysterious even when he's pretending to be honest.

/He could be as cold as snakeskin, as smoothly impenetrable, he could have a heart that was either fused to his backbone or lost to evolution entirely./

I love this line, and the idea of people seeing him as an evolutionary divergence into something capable of murder without passion. Especially since it's probably not true- it hurts, but it hits home, which is always a good thing when reading something meant to make one feel. _

Thanks for writing this, I greatly enjoyed it.

~Eia

Oh my God. That is one of the best Itachi-centric fics that I have read in a long while. Thank you for sharing it; it was just the sort of character introspection I was craving. The explanations he gave to all the people was very poignant and I liked it.

Not only am I adding this to my FFN C2, but I would like to nominate it for Naruto Choice (to keep links in order, I will also place this review over at LJ).

Again, thanks for sharing this! It really is an Itachi fanfic gem :D

-April

Good god... THIS was GOOD. Thank you for writing it.