Question about Itachi's health

[000-hester-000.livejournal.com]

I feel like I ought to already know this, but.... So, uh, what exactly did he die of? Does anyone know? The only thing I can think of is that the sharingan put too much stress on his body, but that makes no sense, since Madara made it sound like he'd been severely ill in some way for months, and anyway, having the mangekyou kill you before it makes you go blind just doesn't... really... work.

Is it mentioned somewhere and I just missed it, or is this never explained?

Dude, if it's seriously never explained, that's going to make me nuts. I just know I'm going to be looking through medical books for "symptoms: coughing up blood while still being badass and pretty."

Comments

[hosh]

He had a terminal illness, thus the hacking up of blood during the fight.

[selenia-actimel.livejournal.com]

I just found out recently that he didn't give sasuke any power. He just triggered his eyes to release amateratsu upon seeing Madara.. If you notice (and I didn't lol) on that scene, it's Itachi's Mangekyou that appears on Sasuke's eye :) It's only later that he wakes his own mangekyou, and with it Tsukiyomi and amateratsu.

Really, I completely missed it XD

[rabid-fangrrl.livejournal.com]

bwahahahhaahahha!

[sanee-ftw.livejournal.com]

"Coughing up blood while still looking pretty."

Haha.

(Though really. It's weird not seeing you type in caps.)

[000-hester-000.livejournal.com]

I-it is?

[sanee-ftw.livejournal.com]

...Yeah. I've seen you post in capslock a few times and remembered your icon.

Sorry if I seem like some creepy stalker or something. (I'm not.)

[000-hester-000.livejournal.com]

No, you don't seem creepy, don't worry. You must be thinking of somebody else with the same icon though, since I never did get around to joining capslock.

[fuuma-konan.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, that would be me. Icon buddies -high five-

[oceanica.livejournal.com]

He has Japanese Dramatic TB. The kind that is non-contagious, has no symptoms other than the random horking up blood thing, and always hits the pretty ones.

[demondreams.livejournal.com]

::giglesnicersnort::

[hieronymousb.livejournal.com]

I've been wondering about that, too. Probably more KISHIFAIL, since that whole "Mysterious Illness" thing seemed awfully tacked on randomly. I don't know.

Maybe years of sharingan usage and all those crazy jutsu had put such stress on Itachi's body as to literally eat him alive inside. Or maybe he had "consumption"; TB. That's what the hacking up blood made me think of. Or perhaps Itachi just ate too much dango. Bad Itachi. fairy1234 is probably the most spot-on in her answer, though.

[000-hester-000.livejournal.com]

Or perhaps Itachi just ate too much dango. Bad Itachi.

Fatal, drama-inducing diabeetus?! Well, it's probably a more honorable death than kishifail, anyway.

[pictash.livejournal.com]

Kishifail \key- shey'-fayl\, verb. A disease characterized by gaping plotholes, angry cheap and rushed endings, and a horde of angry fangirls ready to choke a bitch.

Related forms-

Kishifailness, adjective

[sp-kathrine.livejournal.com]

You know, I kind of wonder if it was pre-planned. Kinda the way that Kishimoto had us believe that Sasuke first gained his sharingan during the Wave Arc only we find out he originally awakened it when he fought Itachi directly after the massacre, and the clue was that one of Sasuke's sharingan during the Wave Arc had two tomoe instead of one (like Obito's did when he first awakened his).

Could possibly all of the little "hints" we've seen, such as Kisame telling Itachi not to overstress himself by using Mangekyou too often, really have been about his terminal illness being aggravated by overuse of chakra and stress on his body rather than him going blind? And we just ASSUMED it was about his eyes and felt reaffirmed when Kakashi pointed out that Itachi was going blind.

[demondreams.livejournal.com]

Terminal Illness. MY question is, A)was it really preplanned, because it makes a bit of sense, when Sasuke confronted him and he said "still not strong enough" and such and B) (if it was planned) Would Itachi have known about it BEFORE he killed his family? sort of "this is my last chance to save my brother before I die" kinda thing?

[raisel.livejournal.com]

Umm... Tuberculosis?

[senior-witch.livejournal.com]

(Probably after a lot of fans came up with this suggestion. Tuberculosis seems far too realistic to me for such a phantastic manga. I would rather have guessed some Sharingan-related illness. (And, btw, nowadays tuberculosis can be treated, thought it is still complicated and does not always work. And it is of course rather difficult if you are on the run.)

[senior-witch.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I wonder whether they have even invented the wheel. (Though my friend spotted a carrycot for babies in one of the fillers.)

On the other hand, the medical technology is rather advanced.

But my real issue with tuberculosis is that this is a rather mundane cause of Itachi's death. Everyone can catch it and die from it, though it has become rather rare in industrialized countries due to better hygiene and nourishment and antibiotics. With Itachi I would have looked for something tragic that can be seen as a consequence of his actions. (Though living with Akatsuki instead of staying in Konoha where he could have been treated is certainly a consequence of his actions.)

[inner-angel.livejournal.com]

But my real issue with tuberculosis is that this is a rather mundane cause of Itachi's death.

I have a theory here. Itachi being sick seemed random to me until I thought that, if I was an elder responsible for the massacre, I would never allow Itachi to just leave the village for good with all that knowledge (and because I want all uchihas dead); instead I would make damn sure that once gone, he’d never returned to Konoha alive. Being the strong-ass ninja that he is, the poisoning/getting him sick strategy, completed even before he left, seems plausible. That would reinforce the need for Itachi to be seen in Konoha “alive” after the third’s death.

Well, at least I’m using this reasoning on a fic… 8D

[senior-witch.livejournal.com]

That makes sense! :-) Many thanks; I did not think of this myself, but of course you are right, a person with a mindset as Danzou or the Elders would not trust Itachi, first because he is an Uchiha, and then because even though they have transformed him into a puppet of theirs, they could never trust him to remain a puppet, all the more as he has already proven himself unreliable when he chose to spare his little brother and threatened Danzou that he would tell all of Konoha's secrets to any other nation.

P.S. I too use my speculations about the canon for my fanfics.

[vermelli.livejournal.com]

Never too realistic to make a world more reliable, imho. :3 It looks nicer to me when the manga doesn't have various strange "rules" and instead follows the reality. Kishimoto balanced his dose of strangeness very well, to me. New, invented rules are welcomed too, of course, but they still need to be realistic. Hard to explain. Ah, nevermind.

Surely Itachi could have been treated, but he kind of didn't have means to. He was a wanted criminal and couldn't just go to the hospital and require best medical attention. To that, the disease must have been eating him for a very long time. If things were different and he stayed in Konoha, medics (and in time, Tsunade) would provide him with everything his health needed, thus: a longer life. As you wrote yourself anyway :)

[madddds.livejournal.com]

holy shit where does it say Itachi has a terminal illness in the first place? I totally missed that >.>;

[helike]

Madara told that Sasuke but don't ask me in which chapter exactly >.> should be before ch. 403 for sure.

[madddds.livejournal.com]

sry messed up codes >_< ahem..

you mean here? (http://www.onemanga.com/Naruto/401/14)

After going back and reading some of these chapters I've generated a lot of questions... lol...

like, you know how Itachi says Madara awakened the 3rd anf final stage of the sharingan? Is that what Sasuke has here (http://www.onemanga.com/Naruto/402/17/)? I would assume so but I just wanted to be sure. If so, how tf did he get it?!!?!? Wouldn't he have Mangekyou cause he killed his BFF itachi? ?:|

[helike]

yup, that's what I meant.

If you were to ask me, I'd say that Sasuke doesn't have that 3rd level of the MS. He refused to take Itachi's eyes and he has got some problems with his eyesight already. I think they showed it in ch. 418. So... what he has is just a normal MS and he got it thanks to witnessing Itachi's death - at least that's what Databook 3 says (that part about how Sasuke got his MS). Technically, Sasuke didn't kill Itachi, because Itachi kinda killed himself. Hope it makes sense ^^;

[demondreams.livejournal.com]

Itachi died from whatever Kimimaru had, and Orochimaru is the "Typhoid Mary" of the Naruto-verse

[sp-kathrine.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I know some people say Tuberculosis, but there are various diseases that have coughing up blood as one of the final symptoms, and they wouldn't even be rare, "OMG HOW DID HE GET THAT?!" types. Coughing blood is a symptom of lung cancer for instance.

Madara claims that Itachi was using a lot of drugs to keep himself going towards the end, so we never saw any of the less critical symptoms, so it would he hard to label the disease on our own. If Kishimoto says that he died of Tuberculosis, then I guess the mystery is solved though. XD

[wings-on-fire.livejournal.com]

Broken heart (I think).

[love-izzi.livejournal.com]

makes me wonder if the TB vaccine exists in the narutoverse.

[winged-marks.livejournal.com]

I would hope so, since if Itachi was TBized, all that moving around wouldn't be good for the rest of the world. Plague monkey, anyone?