Author's Note: Of the River and the Sea is well written and a blessing to my Mondays, and chapter 83 partly inspired this.

Eh…let's go with their current ages. Like Shippuden ages. Yea. Also Siren and Sailor AU, snippets, heck of a lot of dialogue, lots of liberties made, weird friendship, some character cameos , and anticlimactic slice of life.


It's a sticky summer day in July when Kisame meets a siren where the peaked rocks meet the deeper part of the ocean.

The encounter is completely unexpected, just a chance meeting when he decides to wander down the beach, for he only hears about the mythical creatures by the occasional retired sailors who ramble on about it at the bar.

Alluring. Something about them draws you in once you hear their voices. And it's marvelous.

Of course, in between his duties for the Red Dawn ship and his services as a mercenary, Kisame has little time to dwell over legends of creatures he has never seen before, and his mind can't properly process what's going on when he sees eyes peering up at him from the edge of the rocks.

Long dark hair snaking over the surface of the water, tan arms resting on the jutting stone where his feet are, scales edging underneath her eye before curving down. She looks very much human besides the outline of her tail submerged underwater, but her sclera and iris are a pitch black, showing no whites, and easily tells of a being that's not quite human.

He stares for a bit more, not quite sure where to put his eyes first, before her expression twists into one of irked impatience.

"What, you've never seen a siren before?" she scoffs, words husky and sensual.

Alluring. Something about them draws you in once you hear their voices. And it's marvelous.

Kisame thinks he could understand where those old sailors were coming from.


"You're naked," Kisame says blankly.

Unlike the first time they met with the ocean veiling most of her from view, she is sprawled out all over the rocky shore, her torso stretching, her hair spread out behind her. Her tail is halfway into the water, and her skin shines with some kind of….oil? The fancy bottle next to her is half empty, if that's not telling.

She shoots him an unimpressed look while flicking her tail lazily, splashing water over his bare feet

"Sailors these days. Never seen a siren. Never seen a naked woman. What has the world come to?" she says dramatically, rolling over on her back. The oil is present there too, and Kisame can smell something distinctly flowery

He pinches the bridge of his nose, ignoring the provocation. "Aren't you going to dry up if you're out here?"

"I like looking good, so I'm sunbathing."

"…Sunbathing?"

"Yep," she pops the 'p' at the end. "Sunbathing."

"You're odd."

"Who said that's ever a bad thing?"


He visits the rocks every afternoon, sweat sticking to his nape, and she's always there whenever he goes, doing something odd. Braiding rope. Doing the backstroke. Piecing sea glass. Combing her hair vainly. She drops curses casually, and Kisame has to think again to make sure that he heard her right.

But he never hears her sing.

"There's a reason why mermaids and sirens are different," she tells him when he asks. "Sirens can bring down a fuckton of shit: ships, cargo; hell, even a warship if we want to. We wreck everything if we sing."

A wistful look crosses her face then, a hint of regret and longing. "But even humming is difficult without some fish floating up dead. It sucks."

Something in Kisame's blood boils as he imagines a torrential wave crashing on top of a glorious warship, bringing it down into the depths of the ocean, and a lovely voice shrilly singing high notes like an opera singer, causing the whole chaos.

"That sounds neat," he comments idly.

She hits him so hard when he leaves her he sports a blooming purple bruise on his face.


Once the Red Dawn is out on the sea again, Kisame doesn't expect to see the siren again until they dock back into that port for supplies.

Then again, he's on sea, and the sea is her home.

Which is why he probably shouldn't have yelped when he saw her bob to surface on his watch duty.

After she laughs rich as honey and he tells her to stop in vain, her head tilts up to see him up, up, up, the boat's height making distance between them.

"You didn't tell me that you were leaving," she says…petulantly? She slithers aimlessly on the surface, swaying back and forth on the lazy current.

Kisame sighs, a more common occurrence these days. "It would have been harder, and I don't know when I would have seen you again. Heck, we don't even know each other's names."

"You are a total fucking idiot, aren't you? No tact or brain at all."

"What?"

"You heard me."

"No. Why am I the one in the wrong here?"

She sighs dramatically, and Kisame absently wonders how such a simple action could be so infuriating and charming at once. Her webbed hands clap together in a wet slap, calling his attention.

"Listen closely," she says. "First off my name is Ryuishi. Watanabe Ryuishi if you want to be all formal and shit, but if you do that it's going to be uncomfortable. So fuck that."

"Ryuishi," Kisame tries in a daze.

"Good job," she says firmly, nodding her head. "Secondly, with the fucking tail and the eyes and the scales, you really should have gotten that the sea is kind of my home? I mean, really, was it that hard to figure out?"

"Ryuishi."

"Yeah?"

He flings a cleaning rag down at her face, and she squawks indignantly, spitting profanities by the second, but the easy smirk that curves around her lip is telling.

So the unusual friendship transcending beyond the land and the sea makes its foundations. Or something like that.


"Kisame. Explain to me why there is a swordfish sitting on deck."

"Captain Pein, sir, why do you ask me?"

"Because there is a note that is addressed to you."

"Well you see…"


"Ryuishi, you don't have to bring a swordfish to me."

"It was terrorizing my home, and I got rid of it."

"So you gave it to me?"

"We don't eat that kind of shit down in the ocean, Kisame."

"Erm…thanks?"

"You're welcome. It was a pain in the ass to chuck it up to your ship, you know."


Itachi as the sanest member of the Red Dawn feels like it is his duty to lead his not so sane partner on the right path, so when he sees Kisame conversing with a siren with a rich and lovely voice he knows he has to do something.

"Kisame, I don't think it's wise to make friends with a siren," Itachi says placidly while idly flipping a dagger in his hands.

"Why not?" Kisame retorts easily from his comfortable position on his bed. He doesn't ask how Itachi knew about his acquaintance with Ryuishi, because to ask would just get some smarmy comeback of how he just knows.

"There is the fact that they use their voices to drown sailors into their untimely deaths. It would be inconvenient if you were to die."

"Ryuishi isn't like that."

Itachi stops flipping the dagger to take a thoughtful look at his partner. "Have you fallen in the depths of love?"

"No I haven't," Kisame cuts in before Itachi could get attached to the idea. "She's…just nice company, you know? Doesn't judge based on looks."

There is a long pause where the only sound is the waves swaying the cabin room they're in and the swish of a knife being flipped in the air again.

"She sounds interesting," Itachi concedes, breaking the silence.

Kisame hums back in agreement, and the peace continues again. More waves. More metal cutting through air.


Meanwhile, Zabuza and Haku similarly feel the need to guide their wayward friend and guardian.

"You've been meeting some land shark, haven't you?" Zabuza grumbles as he hovers around Ryuishi subtly. His slit pupils dilate in and out as he circles her, sleek tail moving with panther like grace.

"So what if I have, Zabuza?" she retorts. "You can't do anything about it."

"Yes he can," an androgynous boy adds while smoothly entering the cavern. "Remember the time he trapped you into the cave because you wouldn't stay put after you got that fishing hook gouged in your tail?"

"That was one fucking time, Haku," she murmurs in exasperation, throwing her hands in the air. "And no one seems to forget it. Once out of all the times I beat Zabuza up."

At that point, Zabuza seems to cough out ninety nine wins from between his bandaged face, and Ryuishi shoots him a venomous glare which he ignores with practiced ease.

"But we're worried," Haku soothes as he swims over where Ryuishi is sitting. "We don't want what happened last time to happen again."

"Hatake and Tree Boy were fine. I just thought we were closer than we actually were."

Zabuza looks as if he is about to say something, but Haku smiles carefully towards him, and he shuts his mouth.

"Then can we meet him next time?" Haku pleads eyes wide and lips parted.

As Zabuza watches Ryuishi's resolve falter, he briefly wonders how Haku became such a skilled manipulator.


It isn't as chaotic as expected the next time Kisame and Ryuishi meet, their respective partners in tow. There is pleasant conversation and intrigued questions, but all ends well, and everyone leaves satisfied.

And Haku secretly puts away the thought of murder from his mind.


"But like, Kisame. Itachi is really fucking pretty."

"I'm telling him you said that, Ryuishi."

"Go for it, I don't care. It's the truth."