not-so-terrible:

21tailsofwoe:

uchihasavior:

21tailsofwoe:

Now I just have two questions about Itachi

1. What the fuck did he do in Akatsuki

2. Why did he still called himself a shinobi of the Leaf if he hated both shinobi and the Leaf

1. What the fuck did he do in Akatsuki

[[ Ran missions selected for Akatsuki like the rest of them. Akatsuki in canon is a group of mercenaries who does the jobs no other country wants their own shinobi to do for fear of immediately inciting a war (since they are high risk and involve stealing weapons, killing important figures, etc), and for much cheaper. Of course, most of these jobs were for collecting funds and eventually they started their real jobs, which is hunting down the nine Bijuu. He wasn’t just wandering with Kisame all day. ]]

2. Why did he still called himself a shinobi of the Leaf if he hated both shinobi and the Leaf

[[He calls himself a Leaf Shinobi because he is. Itachi never actually hated the Leaf and while he disliked the shinobi system’s effort to pit them against each other, he knew it was those skills he would need to eventually end the fighting. You’ve phrased it here like Itachi is inherently misanthropic (IE, he hates people), when that is fundamentally not true. Itachi’s loyalty lies in the bright future he sees for the Leaf, and he will readily admit the system is frought with issues. Perhaps you took his earlier statements when he was pretending to be a calculating mass murderer at face value? He’s had plenty of development since then, and characters do not always speak the absolute truth. It’s unreliable narration because it’s either through the lens of a characters’ beliefs, morals, code of ethics, etc, or they’re just lying. He never hated the Leaf.

**Edit based on some of the replies, in no order.

“What was he doing for a decade?”

It was eight years, not a decade. He was 13 when he fled the village, and about to turn 22  when he died to Sasuke.

“For whom was he spying?”

For Hiruzen, primarily. This is the only time Itachi was a true double-spy. He was working for Akatsuki but passing on information about them to Konoha. If Akatsuki was to become too big of a problem, Itachi would have tried to intervene. He died before he saw the bigger scope of Obito’s plans. He outright states to Hiruzen his intention is to join and to spy. He was never loyal to anything Akatsuki stood for. ]]

Oooh I didn’t really think someone would actually respond to my silly post which was more-or-less created to provoke myself to find the answers to these questions on my own, but thank you so much for replying! 

Perhaps I should have framed my questions properly, but I did type them out without much thought, in a state of half-sleep. What I meant by the first question was that he joined Akatsuki as a spy, yet he chose to do those missions for the organisation. Was there a particular instance in the story where him being a spy fetched any information for Konoha to retaliate? Considering Akatsuki was a criminal organisation, it’s not far fetched to assume that there were some not-so-ethical missions. Given that Pain’s goal was to create war, Itachi was, in a way, contributing to that very cause by carrying out these missions and capturing Jinchuuriki. So, in what way was he fulfilling that role as a spy under Konoha?

Well, I have been thinking about these answers myself. Itachi only really answered to Hiruzen and Hiruzen died before the Akatsuki started making any significant moves. That link of passing information about the organisation to Konoha had been cut off. What you pointed out about the Akatsuki not being too big of a problem for Itachi to intervene makes some sense, but then again, capturing even a single Jinchuuriki meant giving significant power to the Akatsuki. I think there’s the fact that the Akatsuki did have powerful members, not to mention Obito himself, so Itachi couldn’t really match up to that with his own power. His job was, after all, to be a spy. I have no doubt that he would’ve stepped in if things got out of hand, but as you said, he died before any of Pain’s and Obito’s plans came into play. One other thing that I can come up with was that as Itachi got older, there was the added risk to his life due to his illness. His time being limited, his thoughts and actions became a lot more Sasuke-oriented than anything else. But that’s just my speculation.

And I agree with you on the second point. He didn’t actually ‘hate’ the Leaf, but was skeptic of the ways of the Council, especially Danzo. In the end, his actions were for the people of the Leaf, and his sacrifices were for the future of the Leaf and its people. It was, again, an ill-phrased question on my part, the answer to which I’ve now gotten.

But yeahh…thank you so much for your addition! Much appreciated.

I also only just realised myself that for his final arc, Itachi has essentially brainwashed himself with Shisui’s crow, so for his actions for a vast majority of his reanimation, ‘Protect Konoha’ is running through his head and informing his every action (since I doubt the mind control simply stopped at breaking out of Kabuto’s control). So while I think he still had loyalty towards Konoha, or at least what he thought it could become, there’s possibly another layer to it – either as saying it to protect the village from Sasuke, or as a reaffirmation/alteration of his own loyalties.

[[ In response to the Protect Konoha thing, he’s not completely brainwashed. Not in the sense you’re implying. 

Itachi still had an incredibly amount of autonomy concerning his actions when it came to being released from Kabuto’s control. If we are to take the command of “protect Konoha” at face value, nowhere in that statement is “and also Sasuke” included.

We have to remember that the crow was designed in the event that Sasuke, with Itachi’s eyes, would eventually fight Naruto.

Sasuke, to Itachi’s face, says he’s still going to destroy the Leaf. IE, that he is an active threat to it. If Itachi is blindly following the command of protecting Konoha, he would’ve attacked and possibly killed Sasuke.

However, Itachi doesn’t react to this threat at all. Nothing is done to prevent Sasuke from taking the course of action he’s threatened. Itachi is himself fully and completely, this is Itachi without any secrets, who would’ve protected Konoha anyways. 

The crow merely stopped Kabuto from controlling him. The command was meant with Sasuke as the target, not Itachi. 

TL;DR: If Koto was in control, Itachi would’ve killed Sasuke for threatening the village. He did no such thing and was in full control of his mind and actions. ]]