"Storms brewing.", grunted the cook looking at the sea. "You better get her anchored.", he said to the First Mate, a burly man named Asuma.
"Wind ain't with us.", came the reply.
The huge choppy waves stumbled around the lower part of the ship, looking like grayish blue armies trying to scale a castle wall. The dragon head figure at the ship's front looked on grimly at the incoming storm, the peeling purple and black paint giving it a look of a weary veteran. The servant boy- rather lanky, was feeding the chickens when the crew gathered around the table, poring over maps and marked routes, deciding how the ship, Fearless, was going to brave the incoming storm. The boy slouched and slowed in his work hoping to catch a bit of the conversion. Nobody noticed that the dark-haired lad had slowed to a snail's pace.
"Let us divert 'er slightly towards the east. That should work, eh. Everyone to yer places !", barked out the Captain, with a gesture of his hand. The men murmured and went off with a nod of their heads. The silver-haired Captain caught the cleaning boy's eye. His one visible eye (They said that the other was gone in a sea accident, something about a shipwreck...) softened. He motioned to the boy. "Go help Yamato, you'll see 'im by the mast."
The boy made no movement to obey, continuing to pour seed into the coop.
"Sasuke.", warned the captain.
"Kakashi.", spat Sasuke. The Captain's eye hardened and he frowned. "Go!", he thundered. Sasuke angrily stomped over to the masts and uncoiled the ropes in angry, jerky movements and handed them to Yamato with pursed lips. The rough and fibrous ropes scratched angrily at his pale hands, turning them red. He had never handled such coarse things in his life before and he had ended up with calloused hands in the past two months, from working on the passenger ship, scrubbing every surface from morning to dusk.
The ship was supposed to carry a hundred passengers, making a journey from Fire Country to Waterfall Country over the course of five months, stopping at Wind Country and Earth Country along the way. The hundred passengers had all contracted a mysterious contagious disease around halfway of the journey and died. The first victims were Sasuke's parents. Blood on kerchiefs and basins. His mum would cough with a polite handkerchief over her mouth, and the cloth would come away stained red. The disease choked their throats, blood welling up as they gasped for breath, trying to get oxygen into their decaying lungs. And before Sasuke could turn them over so that they did not choke on their own blood, their white of their eyes had already turned milky and irises an empty stare. Sasuke hugged them, skin warm but lifeless, one last time before the crew covered them and bound their bodies, and tossed them into the icy sea before they stunk up the whole ship.
Their family had embarked on the journey because of the news of his brother Itachi's arrest in Waterfall Country, hoping that he was still alive. Itachi was a trader, a dangerous profession, especially since he traded in black market explosives, arms, drugs and poisons- because after all desperate times called for desperate measures, their poverty driving Itachi to vow to improve their conditions. So Sasuke was stuck in a ship that always shook, because he had nowhere to go and partly because when the Captain had asked for half payment Sasuke searched his parents bags, and came up empty. He had wondered how they had been able to afford Fearless, and it turned out they couldn't. Whether they were going to contact Itachi's friends for help or simply run away, Sasuke didn't know. A cold rage had come over the Captain and he had ordered for Sasuke to be locked into a cabin, and locked himself into the captain's quarters for the better part of two hours. When Sasuke's door was opened at last, he was informed that the Captain had allowed him to work in the ship in exchange for his meals out of pity. Sasuke had spat at the First Mate, who had delivered the message, and declared that he'd rather die than live because of pity. But he'd later forced himself to apologize because if he didn't live, who would tell Itachi that their parents had died ?
It was this same reason- Itachi, that prevented Sasuke from jumping into the salty sea, trying to swim against its current because his body had learned how not to drown, and failing, happily leading Sasuke to its bottom where two bound bodies rested, which were what he called his parents with waterlogged skin and cold bones, so that he may too join them in their sleep as his heart slowed to the pace of their stopped ones. He remembered his brother rotting, slowly dying behind iron bars, a family torn apart by heaven and earth and land and sea, and tore his longing gaze from the turquoise ocean and back to sweeping the dust from an unused room, as Sasuke reminded himself to endure a little more, a little longer.
The ship shook violently again, the waves almost up to the deck, spraying Sasuke with cold seawater. The crew looked worried, whispering and frowning amongst themselves. The captain shot everyone a look that clearly said to watch out and really concentrate on not letting the ship dash on some rocks and kill everyone on board. When the captain turned to his own job, the men look at each other, saying something with the quirks of their eyebrows and the jerky movements of their eyes. Sasuke had a feeling that they were gesturing towards him. He looked out of the corner of his eye to observe their movements. One man glanced worriedly towards the sea, the waves licking up the side of the ship, leaving wet trails over the peeling paint for the next wave to follow. Several men caught his eye and shook their necks slightly, turning towards Sasuke, the movement so small that if he were not observing, he would have missed it. One man took a gander at the wooden plank on the ship, around which Sasuke was always warned to be careful around because "The kid's a lubber. Can't know when he falls down the ship just because he decided that the plank needs washing!", this sentence usually accompanied by a round of laughter at his expense.
Sasuke was baffled by their furtive actions until the horrifying implication hit him suddenly. His knees started trembling slightly, his breathing sped up, and his senses made full use of themselves as adrenaline coursed through his body. It was the fight or flight response that heightened his awareness. He had apparently taken the coward's way out: flight. Sasuke tried to creep away unnoticed below the deck. If they couldn't find him, they couldn't kill him. He just had to wait them out, he reasoned. However, unfortunately, as much as adrenaline gave him energy and power, it didn't give him coordination and stealth, whick was exactly what he needed right now. His dark eyes scanned the surroundings and he slipped below the deck, which was dark. By sheer muscle memory, he stumbled into their store room, hiding behind the sacks of grain and pots of dried meat, the pungent smell of onions filling the small room. He desperately pleaded that the men would just forget about him, forget about the silent, angry cleaning boy, who went from a passanger to a servant. Sasuke really hoped that he had not made any noise slipping away, but truth was, that he had. For now, the only reasonable hope he could hold on to was that they wouldn't find him in the storage room, where he pressed into the old wooden wall of the ship, heartbeat quickened and sped up breathing, like a frightened rat who had scurried away, knowing that the farmer's cat was out there, searching, sniffing, hunting. That's what they were doing- hunting Sasuke, who stood out with his pale skin, which wasn't sun browned and the shaky legs of a landlubber, among the hordes of sailors.
He heard a noise, and pressed back even more behind the sacks, cowering, ducking his head, and drawing together his body to take up as little space as possible in order to remain unseen. His eyes darted around to see, but the darkness was too thick, leaving him to wonder what was happening above the deck as the pungent onion smell engulfed his nose, the sound of the sea slithering and crashing on the ship invaded his ears, and the thick, coarse fabric of the sacks rubbed and chafed his cheek. He soon heard a rhythmic sound that got louder and louder until the door of the storage room clicked open and a man, his movements erratic and wild, searched for something, someone, and that someone was Sasuke who tried to become invisible but knew that the man had already spotted him. The man, Sasuke recognized his voice, grabbed Sasuke's shirt by the back of the collar and dragged him mercilessly along the floor, uncaring as the metal boxes hit the fourteen year old boy in the head, their sharp corners swiping along his forehead as he was dragged past, leading to a jagged line of blood welling up on his forehead. Sasuke writhed and struggled to break free from his grasp, his legs kicking air and hands attempting to loosen the man, Mizuki's, hold on his collar that choked his neck rubbing against it tightly, strangling him, making him struggle for breath. Mizuki stopped suddenly, a momentary loosening of Sasuke's collar. As Sasuke tried to take a long gulp of air, the collar tightened impossibly and forcefully until he was begging for oxygen like a stray dog begging for a morsel of food. He felt himself being turned over until he faced Mizuki's cruel smile, a smile that said I will hurt you and nobody is going to care, a thousand times more clearly then words ever could. Mizuki whispered,"Listen you useless shit. You tried to hid from me. You son of a bitch wasted my fucking time. So plain and simple, you're going to pay, and not in money. "
The collar tightened more. Sasuke couldn't breathe, his neck was starting to hurt, and his voice came out funny, maybe it was quieter or desperate, he didn't know, because he was too blinded by the pain in his neck and the shimmering black spots that were appearing in front of his eyes, as he wheezed out one word, a plea.
stop.
His lungs burned like they had been set alight, like they had been cut open and salt was rubbed on them. The collar tightened even more, and Mizuki's hand joined in to press hard at the exact epicenter of the blinding pain on his airway, as Sasuke's hand fell limp, struggle ceasing when he was on the verge of passing out. Suddenly the grip loosened and he was able to breathe again, inhaling air slowly because it burned where the airway was stopped, then quickly as the burn subsided because the air was a salve for his lungs. He could feel where the shirt had dug in, leaving deep imprints, and the blistering pain on his neck bones where Mizuki had pressed his thumb, making it hard to swallow his saliva.
"Don't want you dying already. Can't offer the sea a dead landlubber. Come on you dog, follow master Mizuki. But first, I think you deserve a punishment. The Captain has been too kind in letting you stay as a servant instead of a prisoner for slave trade."
In the dark, Sasuke couldn't see what Mizuki was doing. He registered that they were near the steps leading up to the deck. And then out of nowhere, Mizuki swings back his arm and throws a punch at Sasuke's nose which makes a crunching sound as Mizuki's fist collide with the smooth slope of Sasuke's nose. Blood trickles down his face as Sasuke cradles his nose, not touching it, but covering it from further attacks and all his brain registers is pain, which takes over him, leaving him quietly whimpering. When Sasuke opens his eyes, he can just about see Mizuki's exuberant smirk as he looks with a satisfied gaze towards Sasuke's broken nose. Sasuke feels his collar being gripped again, feels the tightening and thinks not again, as he is dragged on the ship floor, his shirt riding up to his chest and the rough wood scratching against his lower back. The cut on his forehead throbs angrily but pales in comparison with the hell that is his nose. He is so tired and weak that he couldn't be bothered to struggle or tug his shirt down again. His arms lie limp at his sides, tossed around as if they are not a part of Sasuke's body.
They take a momentary pause at the foot of the stairs, and Sasuke assumes that he is going to be instructed get up and haul himself up the stairs. To his surprise his collar is released and his legs were grabbed so that they were pointing towards the stairs. Then he realizes what was going to happen, and he is too helpless to lift his head as Mizuki drags him slowly over the eight steps, his head hitting every board, and looking like a rag doll's half-severed one when there is nothing but air beneath it. Every thud sends a jolt of immense pain to his nose and he tries to hold it so that it doesn't move too much but before his arm is even halfway up it is crushed brutally under Mizuki's heavy boot which he grinds over his hand which makes Sasuke writhe in pain, screaming for him to stop, it hurts over and over. MIzuki grabs his other arm, so Sasuke is in a weird position with one hand trapped under Mizuki's shoe and the other held by Mizuki, who without any warning twists it and there is a painful crack and now Sasuke's pretty sure that his arm is broken too. Sasuke has slid down stairs in this tussle and he wishes that he hadn't because now he has to go through every excruciating step all over again, this time with the added agony of his broken arm being pulled over and moved. Those tiny eight steps had never seemed so long before.
Sasuke wondered whether the men heard his cries and sported the same satisfied smirk of Mizuki, or just heard and ignored them.
The trapdoor opens and Sasuke is finally, finally over that horrible staircase, with blood on his forehead and down his nose, shirt stained red and nose with a prominent bump that indicated that it was broken which was making it hard to breathe for him, leading him to use his mouth to breathe. His arm hangs limply at a weird angle from his shoulder socket, and there is a red line on his neck and his lower back smarts like hell. As he blinks in the light, he sees the men gathered near the plank, the sea spray still blowing up over the ship. Some of it gets on Sasuke's face and that cut on his forehead hurts and burns from the salt in the water. He is bound tightly, without a chance of escape, and even if he did, he can't hide nor does he know exactly where he is from mainland. Regardless it would be impossible to swim in such a stormy sea, he would be thrown against rocks and killed within a minute. That's why, he muses,they have tied me up. To make my survival impossible. As he is made to stand in front of the plank, his arm twinging in distress due the ropes cutting into it, he stares into every man's eye, his dark brown eyes boring into theirs, willing them to meet his eyes, he who is their sacrifice to a furious ocean.
Not one of them meets his eyes.
At last he looks at the one eyed Captain, his silver hair ruffling in the wind. Unlike the others, he seems sorry for Sasuke, sad to see him go, pity and regret and compassion swimming in his eyes. Kakashi is Sasuke's last hope and Sasuke asks him.
Why are you doing this to me?
Kakashi whispers softly and mournfully, though Sasuke has not died, he will soon be gone, gone, gone, lost to the cold bottomless depth of the cruel ocean.
I tried, believe me, but a sensible captain cannot override a superstitious crew.
Kakashi gives him an answer, he sees Sasuke nod, but he can see Sasuke's eyes drill into his and ask again and again, no matter how many times he explains, why. More importantly, why me?
And so Kakashi grants Sasuke his last wish, his answer and says-
I am sorry Sasuke, but an angry sea is no place for a landsman.
That was the last thing Sasuke heard before he stepped on the plank and walked to his death, a fourteen year old facing death like a friend because he had lived life and found it not worth living. He was abruptly pushed, which made him lose his footing and he slammed into the cold, cold sea, as he was immediately pushed along the current. The whiplash of falling with the whole body on water stung his skin but the coldness of the water soon made him forget it and left him chattering, his arms struggling hopelessly against the rope and legs trying to kick himself up to the surface as the weights tried to drag him underwater. His forehead stung from the salt in the water and his nose throbbed, his breathing difficultly amplified by the sea water invading his nostrils. For all the times he had considered throwing himself of the ship in order to die, stop his breathing and muffle his heartbeat, Sasuke found it ironic how much he struggled to breathe and keep his heart beating. The current pulled him along too fast and the weights tugged him down, his lungs filling with water as Sasuke spluttered, going under the icy surface. He flowed with the current, his still, sinking body swaying to the rhythms of the sea, uncaring as to whether it will smash him against rocks or the ship or deposit him in a place with no land for miles. He drowns and his lungs burn, when he inhales there is only water and the salt rubs against his lungs mocking them for the absence of oxygen. Truely the sea is the place for a seafarer, because it is unforgiving towards the ones that are not its own.
Sasuke closes his eyes because they burn because of the water. (Funny, isn't it? That the water that extinguishs fires, burns his eyes, his lungs, his everything, like they had been set afire after being doused in oil.) He feels himself passing out long before he hits the bottom. Joining his parents, just as he had imagined.
---
He registers cold before he opens his eyes. He looks around the dark and then looks up to the surface, which is moving impatiently and shining, letting sunbeams through. He is halfway up there, following the light, before he remembers that his name is Sasuke and he was supposed to be dead. He pauses and looks at his hands and wonders how the hell is he alive and breathing when he notices something black and shimmering.
Sasuke folds it up to take a closer look, it is big and the fins are huge, the scales shimmer in the dim light and they are actually dark blue, not black as he thought. He places his hand on his neck and feels his gills. Then he realizes that his arm is healed. He traces his nose and finds a bump there but it is painless. He examines his tail again and gives an experimental swish, and goes an abnormal distance considering the amount of force he had put into it. But it wasn't as if Sasuke was normal now, was it?
He was wrong. The sea was very kind, a family, a crutch for the victim to get up and the stick which helped them to beat their assaulters. Sasuke felt his forehead. No pain but a raised line which will scar. The sea is silent and unmoving around him, asking him what to do and where to lead him. Sasuke is alone in the greenish grey sea for as far as he can see. He swims up to the surface and emerges in the calm sea, the water providing no resistance. Sasuke finds himself alone and then he whispers his demand to the sea.
Revenge. I will rip open every man's throat as I drag him underwater, watch as his screams leave his mouth in air bubbles but no sound is heard, as I pour the salty water down hs throat. I will show them an unforgiving sea, and just how cold and cruel it can be.
The sea nudges him towards the direction of the long gone ship but his tail will catch up easily. Sasuke sets off without looking back, and vows to not stop until he sees the ship. The sea promises to help him, and shows him the tiny passages and tunnels for short cuts. It leads him through the undisovered straits, sharing its secrets with him, because Sasuke isn't just himself, he is the sea in all its glory when the waves rise to the zenith, he is the coral reefs that bloom and he is the shoals of fish that cut through the water. He is the sea running prettily across shining gloden sand at beaches and he is the quivering flow of it in the summer. He is the sea and every crystalline stream that joins it. The sea leads him through narrow channels, alongside ships and whales and jellyfish, shows him where to rest in calm rock pools, shallow water, deserted islands, undiscovered lagoons, and flat rocks before he swims towards Waterfall Country in search of a ship with Fearless written in peeling paint on her.
After he gets his revenge, stares every man in the eye as he rips apart their chests underwater and holds their hearts in his hand of inhuman strength and squeezes it as silent screams of agony leave their mouths, Sasuke will rise from the ocean to the land, dripping wet and walking on shaky legs up to the city, in search of his last family, whether Itachi be behind bars or six feet under.