[Cross-posted from AO3; originally posted there on 16/08/2014.]
(A.N.: I'm just really weak to watery, shapeshifting young men with blond-and-purple colour schemes and a fondness for water guns; I have no other excuse for this at all. Slight vague timeline handwaving for the purposes of crack, and also for the purposes of sword acquisition.)
.-.-.-.
The laboratory lights are turned off when Sasuke enters, and the room is dark but for the glow of the still-running equipment; silent but for a low, electrical hum. The huge wide cylindrical water tanks are illuminated from beneath by pale blue uplights, so that the occasional burst of bubbles within is lit up and glowing as it rises. Shadows move across the walls in shifting, liquid motion.
The lab is eerie, but Sasuke has no time for eeriness. He crosses directly to the centre tank and slams the butt of his katana against it, and steps smartly back as the glass shatters outward and the water bursts free. There is nothing human in the torrent; nothing human, either, in the puddle growing ever wider across the slick laboratory floor. He waits. Still nothing human, though the flood of water from the tank has slowed to a trickle, and Sasuke's feet in their open sandals are thoroughly soaked. He waits a moment longer, reluctant to splash through the mess and discover after the fact that he's been standing on Suigetsu, but still nothing – nothing at all.
He smashes open the next tank. There's a goldfish in this one, which Sasuke discovers when the initial violent explosion of water expels it directly into his face – from where it rebounds into the ever-growing puddle, flaps its frills for a moment, and then stills – warps – stretches in a way even Sasuke's sharingan has difficulty understanding, and springs to its feet in the shape of a pale-haired, lilac-eyed boy who is certainly not the pale-haired, lilac-eyed boy Sasuke had been expecting.
Sasuke weighs his katana in his hand. "You're not Suigetsu," he says, his tone very level and his blade also very level.
"Ummm," says the boy, "um, um. Um." He tilts his head for a moment, as though giving this serious consideration, before flinging up his arms and declaring, in a voice so loud that the stone walls echo with it: "No! I'm Haru! I'm an alien! I like your big rope!"
Sasuke ignores this entirely. "I need to know where –"
"Why isn't your top on properly?" Haru interrupts, studying Sasuke with interest.
"It is," Sasuke says flatly. "I'm looking for –"
"It i-i-is not," says Haru, and splashes his way over through the puddle, making far more mess than necessary. "I can see your – um, your human button. Here!" He jabs Sasuke in the stomach and ducks away again, laughing. "Who are you? Do you like fishing?"
"Tell me," begins Sasuke, and raises his katana as he does so, "where –"
"Put that down," says Haru.
After a moment, Sasuke does. Why had he raised it? He's not sure. The puddle sloshes round his ankles, chills him through from the feet up.
Haru beams like sunshine, bright and delighted. It's not the beam of a kid who's been living in the subterranean medical labs of Hidden Sound for several years – or, if it is, it's the beam of a kid who's somehow naturally sunny enough to flourish in its darkness, which is a borderline revolting idea to Sasuke.
Haru jabs a finger at him. "Tell me about you!"
"Yes," says Sasuke. His thoughts feel slow. He's not sure they're even thoughts. His katana hangs loosely at his side. He's not sure he could raise it even if he wanted to – he's not sure he could want anything, even if he tried. "I'm… Sasuke. I'm an avenger."
"Do avengers like fishing?" Haru says curiously. He's splashed behind Sasuke; Sasuke can feel him patting with interest at his rope belt.
Sasuke doesn't know if avengers like fishing. He waits for Haru to tell him.
"Probably they do," Haru decides. "Pr-r-robably they do! Everyone likes fishing! Why are you here?"
This one, at least, Sasuke knows. "To form a team."
"A fishing team!"
"A team that will assist me in killing my brother and avenging my clan."
"A fishing team," Haru says again, insistently.
Sasuke hesitates. His katana is held so loosely it could slip from his hand at any moment. "A... fishing team."
"Okay!" says Haru. He seizes Sasuke by the elbow and proceeds to drag him to the laboratory door, which stands still propped open and leading into the darkness of the hewn-stone stairs, and Sasuke lets himself be dragged. His sandals splash with every step; the puddle is large enough to cover nearly the entire room, glinting blue in the low laboratory lights. "Okay-ay-ayyy! Come on, Sasuke! Sasuke, Sasuke, Sa-a-asuke, let's make a fishing team, Sasuke –"
"I'm going to – call it Snake," says Sasuke. He nearly slips, the floor too wet and his chakra control entirely gone. "My team. Team Hebi."
"Snakes are scary," Haru says, decisively. "Call it Team Fish!"
Snakes are scary. Sasuke's not sure how he didn't realise that before. It seems so obvious now. "Team Fish," he says.
"Mmmmm-hm!" says Haru.
"Okay," says Sasuke. "Team Fish. Okay. You, me, Karin, Juugo."
Haru jumps onto the bottom of the staircase; his flip-flops smack against stone. Moments later, so do Sasuke's. As soon as he's out of the water, his mind feels clearer – clearer than what? He's not sure. He shakes off Haru's grip and wipes his scowl into blankness, and keeps running, soundlessly, up the stairs.
.-.-.-.
.-.-.-.
It's a clear and sunny morning that greets them in Enoshima, and when Kate steps outside to affix a nameplate beside their new, bright-painted door she's blinded, immediately, by the dazzle of – of? She shields her eyes. A young man with pale hair and a rather mistrustful scowl is standing just before the doorstep, a fishbowl tucked beneath his arm. The fishbowl is empty, its glass reflecting dazzling sunshine: as is the remarkably large sword he has propped beneath his other arm, which is gleaming, blindingly bright, all the way down its very shiny blade.
"Good morning," Kate says, agreeably, and sets about tucking the nameplate into its slot. Her young visitor is still scowling when she's done, a suspicious and narrow-eyed scowl, so Kate shades her gaze once more and twinkles a smile at him. "It's a lovely day, isn't it? Are you out for a walk?"
The scowl gets, if possible, more suspicious still. "You a civilian?" her visitor demands.
"Well, I rather suppose I am," Kate says, thoughtfully. "Yes, I should say I am – but what a curious way to put it! How about you?"
"Me?" says her visitor. He sounds affronted at the very suggestion. "Fuck, no. I'm a ninja."
"A ninja!" says Kate. "Goodness me. That does sound exciting."
A pause. Then her visitor hitches up the fishbowl beneath his arm, and says, "Yeah, it's not bad. Pretty cool, actually." He seems at least a little mollified.
"Is that why you have such a very big sword?" Kate says, with interest, and the effect is immediate: her visitor's expression breaks open into what Kate supposes must be a grin, though it's rather more razor-edged than any grin Kate has ever seen outside of Kyoto Zoo, and he swings the sword away from himself so that both of them might admire it at once. Sunlight flashes from the blade, quick and dazzlingly brilliant.
"This," he announces, in the ostentatiously proud tone of a person expecting to be met with nothing less than awe, "is the Executioner's Blade."
Kate makes an appropriately impressed sound. "Is it, now?"
"You fucking bet it is."
"Language," she chides. He wrinkles his nose. "It's not very polite to swear at someone you've just met, is it?"
Her visitor looks at her blankly. "Whatever," he says, after a moment. "I need some water. You got any?"
"Just so long as you don't go executing anyone here in Enoshima," she says, and creases up her eyes to twinkle at him again: and he must catch on, because he laughs, and grins, and nods like he gets she's only teasing.
"Kinda already too late for that," he adds, still grinning, "if you know what I mean."
Kate laughs, hand to her mouth. "Oh, this really isn't something to joke about it, is it? Will you come in? I'm Sanada Kate, it's very nice to meet you."
"Suigetsu," says her visitor, "but I dunno who you think's joking. I'm not joking. This fucker down in your village stepped on my foot –"
"Language," says Kate, but she says it kindly, and she pushes the front door back and goes in, toes off her outdoor shoes, lines them neatly up beside the mat. After a moment, her visitor comes in too, and in the time it takes Kate to climb heavily back to her feet he manages – entirely, silently – to disappear.
Wet footprints lead down the hallway. Kate follows them, and finds him in the kitchen, sitting on the draining board with his feet in the sink and both taps running at full blast. His sword stands propped against the dishwasher. The fishbowl, in his lap, he has already filled brimful with water. "So I figure I can use this as a bed," he says, and pats its side. "Unless you got a better offer for me."
"You're planning to stay here?" Kate inquires.
"Yeah, no shit," says her visitor, and then he catches her reproving expression and rolls his eyes, heaves a sigh so exasperated that his shoulders sag. "No kidding. You got a problem with that?"
"Oh, not at all," says Kate. Her smile twinkles. "You and my grandson must be about the same age – I'm sure he'll be happy for the company. It's an awfully big house for just the two of us, after all."
"Is he a ninja?" her visitor says, optimistically.
"I'm afraid not," says Kate, and despite the fact he responds to this information with an irritated huff, and a complaint about something that might be dead weight or perhaps dead meat, Kate's smile only twinkles brighter still.
.-.-.-.
.-.-.-.
"Who the hell is that?" Karin demands.
"I'm Haru!" says Haru, possibly even more excited to be Haru now than he was to be Haru the first time Sasuke asked him. "I'm an alien! Your hair is, um, it's – really red!"
Karin narrows her eyes. "So what?"
"Red is my favourite," Haru announces. "It's pretty and, a-a-and it's tasty, and – my – favourite!"
After a moment, she sniffs – an unimpressed sort of sniff, and shoves up her glasses and turns away from the gate of the prison. "You may as well come in, then."
Sasuke trails a little way behind, gazing vaguely at the red of Karin's head tipped in conversation toward the damp, dripping white of Haru's. Something about this feels – wrong? He's not sure. Haru spent the trek across the desert pouring water over his head, scuffing up the dust and whining. Maybe it's nothing. It's probably nothing. Team Fish. He killed Orochimaru and liberated the inmates of Hidden Sound so that he could – start a team, a fishing team, and... take them fishing.
"Karin," blurts Sasuke. She glances round. "Do you – like fishing?"
"Fishing?" she says.
Why did he say that? – why wouldn't he say that? He scrubs the heel of his hand against his temple and forces his expression back into impassiveness. "Nothing," he says. Karin's still looking at him, a suspicious glare.
He bets she does like fishing, though. Who wouldn't, after all?
.-.-.-.
.-.-.-.
The first day of school was – it was what it was. It was what it always is. Yuki catches the train back to Enoshima and sits all the way with his backpack on his lap, hunched down over it with his eyes on the scuffed toes of his shoes, and trudges back up through the steep and winding streets to their new house, high on the island's highest hill.
The front door is unlocked; he pushes it open. "I'm –" home, he nearly calls, but a loud and unfamiliar voice is speaking in the next room and he shuts up instantly, heartbeat frantic and accelerating.
"Not even, like – one sword?"
"I can't imagine I'd have much use for it," says Kate, who sounds as though she's smiling.
"Yeah, but just one?" persists the stranger. "Not even just a medium-sized one?"
The high, musical sound of Kate's laughter rings out. "I can't imagine I'd have much use for any sized sword, really."
"Look, I got a ton of em – just take one of my spares, okay? You'll be grateful when bandits or whatever the fuck storm your village. Trust me. It can be, like. Payment. For the water, or whatever."
From the kitchen, a sudden hectic clash of metal, like a stack of saucepans overturned.
"Grandma –!"
Yuki hurls himself towards the kitchen, socked feet skidding on the tiles. Dread bubbles up so high it floods him, chokes his throat.
"Oh, my – Yuki! Welcome home," says Kate, and catches him by the shoulders before he can collide with her. "Suigetsu, this is Yuki, my grandson – Yuki, this Suigetsu. Our brand new housemate!"
Yuki wheezes. He's making the face. He's definitely making the face, for dumped unceremoniously out across the kitchen table is an assortment of swords with blades like nightmares – swords, real swords! – like a lethal game of pick-up-sticks, polished and dazzling bright in the sunshine that streams in through the window.
The brand new housemate is elbow-deep in rummaging through the pile, but he pulls his attention away for just long enough to bare his teeth in greeting.
With the absolute suffocating force of a tidal wave, panic crashes down on Yuki; it leaves him a little light-headed and very hot-faced, and he turns to Kate, mouth working silently, stare desperately appealing.
"Oh, it's nothing to worry about," Kate assures him, soothingly, and puts her hand against his back to steer him nearer, "– I'm sure he'll tidy up in time for dinner. Now, tell me – how was your day?"