Answered

The sky shook with the cry of thunder and lightning flashed like a serpent of brilliant light sent to bite the earth.

Dark indigo water enveloped Hidan, the incredible pressure compressing his chest, forcing his lungs to burn as if on fire. His head was pounding, every cell in his body screaming for oxygen. His throat seared in agony with the rising pressure of trapped air—now turned toxic carbon dioxide.

His white head pounded with panic, threatening to explode any second, so he gave into the pressure and took a breath of air. Icy cold water thrust up his nostrils, a stream cascaded into the back of his throat and nose, sending jets of pain through his body.

Slowly, the chaotic sounds of the storm and the creak of the ship's remains as it is gobbled up by the sea drowned out to a low hum. The buzzing at his ears gradually tethered into silence, one with the darkness.

He had no other choice than to give up thrashing and allow the water to hold his body in a sustained position beneath the sea.

As his vision blurred out and his consciousness faltered, his body became numb and he waited for the numbing hands of death to suck out what little life was left in him.

But it didn't come.

What he felt instead were human hands circling his waist, a body pressing into his back and himself being pulled to the surface.

His mind flashed with memory.

He had been at the helm, trying to turn the ship, when he saw that girl go down. After seeing her slammed into the deck, he had known she wouldn't have had the strength to hold on when the wave crashed down on them.

He had left his post and thrown himself around her, shielding her and holding on to the ropes securing the barrels to the side of the ship. He remembered the lash of the wave, as brutal as any beating he had ever been given. And the scent of cherries. Even in the raging storm, he'd somehow smelled her.

He smelled her still, even as his lethargic body emerged to the surface—to the harsh smell of salt and burning wood. Hidan didn't dare think about what must've become of her. At least one of his comrades survived he thought, brimming with relief as he felt something warm brush lightly across his brow.

He just hoped it wasn't Tobi. A sprained ankle was better company.

Slowly, he opened his eyes.

And there she was, pressing a glowing palm to his forehead. His felt the throbbing in his head and the stinging sensation in his nose and lungs receding. Before his scattered thoughts could gather into words, she retracted her hand. They shook violently as she did so and he knew it had nothing to do with the cold. In fact, he hadn't felt the cold until her touch was loss to him. It was strange.

"I'm sorry this is my fault," her voice was sharp and nervous. "I shouldn't have stowed aboard your ship. Now we're all in danger."

"In danger?" he grasped her shoulders. Her skin was soft and smooth beneath his hands.

Her lids were closed over her brown, expressive eyes, her lips slightly parted and the top of her breast quickly rising and falling above the low cut of the tank top she wore. It seemed to have materialized on her form. That wasn't what she had been wearing moments ago on the ship, he recalled.

"What are you talking about?" he encouraged throatily.

Her eyes fluttered open and she stared at him, wide dark pools of shocked horror and confusion. "You can understand me?" she asked, eyes as restless as her frazzled nerves now. "You shouldn't be able to, at least not when I'm in this form."

The wind arose, rippling the surface of the waters and crashing it against their bodies in angry waves.

Hidan frowned, "What form? what—" he swallowed at the sight of the huge wave rising behind her.

Except that it wasn't a wave.

Thick icy sheets of rain were obscuring his vision, but he was almost certain that what he saw could not be considered a thing either. It rose to about thirteen feet in the air.

Hidan didn't know which terrified him more: the sight of the creature that latched its arm around the girl's neck—yanking her out of the water and suspending her in the air—or the sight of the girl's tail. It thrashed wildly in the air as she fought to break loose. The glints of emerald and pink on her fins sparkled in the moonlight.

He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Mermaid weren't fucking real. Deidara must've slipped him something and he was stuck in some bizarre dream. That was the only logical explanation for the scene unfolding before him.

"The price on your head is high princess," the thing screeched.

Behind the pinkish-grey lips lay two rows of sharp teeth—those of a predator—undoubtedly used for ripping its preys apart. Its hands were webbed and its own powerful tail was covered in glistening scales of lilac.

"And I see you've brought me dinner as well—"

Shimmering silver scales framed its head like a mane of silver hair from an inch above its beady fish eyes, up over its head and down past its shoulders. It carried skin that was steely grey, not shiny like the scales and had a rubbery look quite like a dolphin. Its nose was small and flattened with small nostrils and a mouth so wide it stretched right around to where its jaw bone appeared to join its skull.

"—oh you shouldn't have," the monster gushed sarcastically. "He looks tasty."

Hidan's heart was in his throat as the creature advanced on him, hunger in its cold eyes. Every inch it moved towards him rattled his bones and struck his heart. He tried to dodge a swing from its massive hand, but it struck the side of his head, winding and dizzying him.

"Don't hurt him, Kabuto," Tenten spluttered. "It's me Orochimaru wants."

"Just one taste," it croaked. "I hear humans are particularly scrumptious when they're soaked in salt water and seasoned with fear."

"No," she gasped in horror. "Leave him out of this!"

"His bones would make fine toothpicks for Lord Orochimaru," Kabuto's laughter sliced through the air. Then he was stroking the length of her with his big, free hand. "And your pretty head would look lovely beside that of your mother's on our shelf."

Hidan felt a chill clutch his insides. "Put her down you fucking ugly beast," he growled, reaching down into the water and into the holster strapped to his hip.

Cruel black eyes snapped back to him, "Is that hair colour of yours natural?" he asked in an offhand manner. "Aged humans give me acid indigestion."

"I couldn't give less of a fuck about that," he drew out a pistol and fired.

Suddenly his hold on Tenten relented and he doubled over as if in great pain. She knew that pain. It tore inside like a sharp silver hook. She quickly swam over to Hidan, "Are you hurt?"

"What is that thing?" he demanded, looking at her sharply. "What are you?" Before Tenten had the chance to answer he fired a shot over her shoulders. "Get behind me," he ordered.

"You fool," she snapped. "A mere mortal weapon like that won't kill him."

"Then what will?" he asked urgently.

Her response was't immediately. She looked down for a second before bringing her head back up, her eyes intense. She seemed to ponder something for a while before finally taking an audible breath, "Get behind me."

Tenten didn't give him the opportunity to challenge the request. She forced him behind her and as Kabuto rose back to his full height—bleeding brown blood through the holes in his chest—she gave a wrenching cry and wove her voice into a chant.

She swept a graceful hand out in front of her, curving vortices out of the water. It seemed to bend at her will, folding over itself until it refracted light. Her voice was soaring by then, ranging up and down octaves effortlessly.

She bent the water again and again, and a dozen more times until it solidified, cracked and broke into sharp shards that shot straight in Kabuto's direction.

They speared the water shield he had conjured up and pierced his flesh. He released a shrilling wail.

When the fog and frost that resulted from the collision dispersed, blood was streaking from his lips and dripping from his nose. Bruises mottled a third of his face and he was panting.

"You think a little weak spell like that is going stop me?" he howled, yanking out the shards that had managed to impale him. "Is this what they teach you in Mer School? Your teachers are slacking off," he said, clicking his tongue.

Hidan's hand closed over her shoulders, as if he was bracing them both for something horrible.

Tenten shrugged him off and with a speed he barely registered, she dispossessed him of the knife in his pocket and turned to Kabuto, smirking. "They might've been, but my mother certainly hadn't."

"Your mother was nothing but a sea-witch—" he bit out; the mockery in his eyes was callous. "—an abomination."

Her eyes flashed, "My mother was the greatest queen that Konohapolis has ever seen," she declared tightly. Too tightly—as if her throat had suddenly narrowed. She felt a sting in the back of her eyes at his naked contempt. "She served her people well."

"Served them well?" his eyes rested on hers. "What she served them was a plate of lies. For centuries your family deceived our kind. They used their position and influence to restrict all merfolk outside the royal kin from wielding magic."

Bitterness was like gall in her throat. "It was for the sake of preventing power-hungry monsters like Orochimaru from being born."

His eyes darkened but a half a smile tugged at his lips. "Your family fed off the magic of their own people and tricked them into thinking it was a rarity to be born with special powers," he laughed. "You all made yourselves out to be heroes—unique. Who are the power-hungry monsters now?"

Having heard enough, Tenten held the blade in her right hand, and turned her left palm up. Without flinching, she drew it across her flesh. Her blood spiraled through the water, forming a huge crimson arrow-like mirage on the ocean's surface. Suddenly the image seemed to manifest—take on a form; sleek and black—and hurtled out the water to lodged itself at Kabuto.

"There's nothing hungry about wanting the power to protect," she told him. "Those who seek strength in order to oppress others are the true power-hunger ones."

His chest heaved, the arrow moving with every breath he took. It had shattered his breastplate and pierced his left side. He touched his fingers to the arrow in hopes of removing it, but immediately recoiled.

"You bitch! What kind of magic is this?" he stared horrified at his scalded hands.

"The kind that's forbidden," Tenten admitted and like the sea pulling the tide back to itself, her flesh summoned the blood's return. It seemed to bleed out from black of the arrow and flow back through the water, back through her wound—to the slashed edges of her palm—it closed and healed.

The arrow imbedded in his flesh changed colours. The white of it was so bright Hidan fancied that it was merely a beam of light. Then a sizzling sound filtered into the air followed by a howl.

Kabuto could only goggle as he felt a searing pain—his very last—before his body burned to ash right on the spot.

Tenten turned warily away from the spectacle, only to find Hidan's pistol aimed at her.

"Lower your weapon," she told him calmly.

He couldn't.

Shock and horror had paralyzed him. It froze the breath in his lungs, even as it made the beat of his heart jolt as if a lightning bolt had struck it.

"Have you lost your mind?" she asked.

"Oh, I hope I fucking have," he said.

His voice was clipped, impatient, as though her question was irrelevant and his answer nothing untoward. His jaw line was taut, as though under tension. His whole body the same. She could see a muscle working in his cheek, his eyes like steel. He was angry but most of all he was frightened.

"What the fuck are you?" his expression changed. Colour drained from his face, leaving it stark and gaunt.

She stared blankly. Not understanding. "You're hurt, let me heal you," she suggested.

He flicked his safety off, desperation for some answers scythed through him. "Touch me and I'll make fucking fish fillets from that beautiful tail of yours," he warned.

Tenten gulped.

A/N: The average word count for the chapters in this story is 1.5k so they are pretty short. Supernatural is not a genre I've really tested before and I don't think I'm doing it much justice…but we'll see how it goes. I know this chapter has probably left you will a couple questions, the most burning one is probably "What the fuck was that?" I don't know myself lol.

Reviews are always appreciated. I'll need the encouragement to continue this.