Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, It would have turned out very differently and I would be able to pay for any college I wanted.
Itachi dreamed.
He dreamed that his ship had sunk in flames and rain and lighting and that bodies had littered the water. He dreamed that he had begun to sink, and that the water began to seep into his lungs and that the flashes of light and color grew steadily more and more distant as he sunk further and further beneath the waves.
He dreamed a hand gripped his hair and halted his descent. He dreamed a strong, muscled arm wrapped around him and lifted him to the surface and to air.
Light.
Light was shining through his closed eyelids.
Where was the darkness? He had drowned, hadn't he? Shouldn't it be dark underwater, where the sun's warm rays couldn't comfort him?
Something scratchy grated against his back. Almost like sand...
Which brought to his attention that his back hurt like salt had been rubbed into a wound there. Perhaps it had been-there was a cloth bandage wrapped around his upper torso, the back of which was wet.
He could hear the sea. There were gulls screaming somewhere near here, and he could hear water gushing and slapping rocks and swishing over sand. It was a methodical sound, a comforting sound. But it was not a sound he should be hearing. Perhaps he was on a beach? That was the only explanation he could think of for the sound and the sand. But the ship had been so far from land, no one could have swum that far. Certainly not Itachi; he was not really a water person, and only knew the bare basics of swimming.
And he had never heard of someone swimming while they were unconscious.
He had been unconscious, that he was sure of. He remembered light fading and his thoughts slowing. He thought that had been death, but apparently not. So he must not have been conscious.
There was a soft sound coming from his right. Was someone singing? Yes, that was it. But it was more beautiful than any singer his parents had ever invited to court. Was it a siren singing? Had a siren saved him? No, all the stories claimed sirens tempted you into the sea so they could drown and eat you. He had most certainly not been tempted into the water, and he was breathing so he most certainly wasn't drowned.
That, and sirens, merpeople, any form of humans living in the water didn't actually exist.
Was this all a figment of his imagination? Had he hit his head on something when he fell off the ship? Was he breathing in water even now, eyes closed and unaware that he was drawing steadily closer to death's door? If he was, was that a bad thing? Surely going to your death lounging on sand with an angelic voice in your ear was a good way to go.
That had to be the voice he could hear. An angel was here for him.
A hand touched his bandages, and he flinched. Shouldn't an angel's touches be, oh, like caresses? Someone chuckled and whispered to him that he needed to fix the bandage.
So he wasn't alone, and he wasn't with an angel.
The soft singing resumed. Really, whoever this was, they were very good.
A male. It was a male's voice singing him out of dreamland. Had this person saved him? He tried to remember. He tried to remember, but he was coming up blank. Most of his memories were already taking on a dream-like quality anyway, like looking at a spiderweb through a rain-splattered window. He couldn't totally discern fact from fancy. But he felt he could be pretty sure that the hungover sailors on the ship had both lacked this velvet voice and the ability to swim prolonged distances with a prince-sized dead-weight in tow.
He knew the ship sank. He knew there was a storm. He knew he had been sailing with an incompetent crew. But the storm his mind supplied his memories with was not black and grey with white lightning interludes, like storms he'd seen at the palace. This storm was a storm full of satin clouds with sequins of splendid colors twinkling at him like fireworks. The ocean didn't look like a steely cold thing as it was whipped into a frenzy, it looked like wine being swirled in a glass.
Like blood.
Perhaps he had hit his head.
But the indisputable fact remained that he was alive, and it was only in storybooks when people went overboard in a storm in the middle of the ocean and were saved.
Perhaps if he could fall from a flaming ship in the middle of a storm miles from any land and live, then storms clouds could spit colored lightning and the sea could run with blood.
Perhaps sirens could exist.
Why was he on that ship, anyway? He had been going to see someone...a girl. A princess. A princess with pink hair that he had danced with when he should have just left well enough alone.
He didn't want to go.
He didn't ever want to reach land, because that meant having a girl he knew nothing about thrust at him ceaselessly. He hadn't ever wanted to reach land, but he hadn't wanted to drown.
So where was he, anyway, and did he want to be there? He wasn't on the ship, he might be far away from the princess's kingdom, and he could only hear one other person here with him, who had already proved that he could change bandages, so Itachi felt okay about guessing that he wasn't surrounded by morons. These were all pros. However, he had no idea who this man was, he had no idea where he was (he could very well be right outside the palace of that little princess), he wasn't in much of a position to do anything about his current situation. These were all cons.
All he could do was look around.
He opened his eyes.
So, sirens do exist.
A man sat on his right, singing softly. His skin was tinted blue, as were his eyes. Eyes that were like a summary of the ocean-wild and untamed, but not particularly villainous or beastly. More curious. Thick, dangerous-looking muscles like ropes circled his arms. He had no legs-a fish tail extended from his hips down. It's surface shone with millions of tiny scales that shimmered in the sun. But somehow they didn't look delicate at all. They looked cold, hard. Like diamonds. Like nothing could break or scratch them.
The man looked up and saw Itachi looking at him. He smiled.
It was like looking into a shark's mouth. Rows and rows of wicked sharp teeth glinted dully in the sun like the blades of throwing knives.
This was a merman that sat before him with his tail dangling in the surf, but it was not a storybook merman, or one of those mermen in the royal paintings. Those ones were soft and fragile looking, almost ornamental, and female almost without exception. Like ladies of noble birth stripped of their fancy clothes and their legs. This man looked like he could go head to head with a shark.
But Itachi couldn't say he minded. It was like the difference between looking at a painting of a forest and standing in the branches of the tallest tree. One was limited, generic, and forgettable. The other had dew drops accentuating it, movement, explosions of color. One was a dead thing glorified. The other was something that lived and thrived and fought to survive. One was a house cat, the other a leopard.
"So you're finally awake, huh?"
Itachi struggled to get his arms under him, to push himself up. He should at least sit up while he was talking to this person. But his arms were like dead fish-so heavy and floppy. His muscles didn't want to sit up, they wanted to lie in the sun and sand and be glad that they hadn't drowned.
A hand pressed against his back, steadying him and helping achieve an actual upright position rather than a half-slumped flop.
"You're a real fighter, you know. Most of those other humans were hopeless. Sorry about your shirt, by the way."
Itachi glanced down at his shirt, or what was left of it. The cloth had been ripped right off his body to make the bandages constricting his chest. Oh well. It wasn't like he was emotionally attached to that particular shirt.
"Who are you?"
"Interesting that you ask who, rather than what. I like you."
"That doesn't really answer my question."
The merman threw back his head and laughed. "No, it doesn't. My name is Kisame. And who do I have the pleasure of meeting?"
"Itachi Uchiha. Where are we?"
The man chuckled again. "I was hoping you'd tell me; it all looks the same to my eyes. If it helps, there's a city a couple miles south of here. The sailors at the docks call it Konoha. Ring any bells?"
Itachi nodded. "I live in this country." So that answered the 'where the heck am I' question. He had actually been hoping that he was in some country allied to his. Then he wouldn't have to fake interest in a princess he had no interest in, and wouldn't have to deal with his parents and his own court, but would still have a means of getting home eventually. Oh well. At least he didn't have to meet that little princess yet. Always a plus.
The merman smiled, showing those vicious teeth again. "What good luck."
Everything seemed peaceful for a few precious seconds. So peaceful and undemanding that something amazing was able to take place.
A small smile graced Itachi's face.
Alas, it was not to last.
Voices rang out down the beach. Itachi recognized one of them as the voice of the new captain of the guard (since the whole Sasuke episode, the palace had been needing a new one), Hidan. His swearing could easily be heard above the more proper voices of whoever else was with him.
He opened his eyes just in time to see Kisame turn and leap into the ocean as Hidan and several guards rounded the corner.
"Wait, Kisame-"
It was no use. The merman had disappeared, probably forever.
The small smile slipped away. Why couldn't those idiots have waited a little bit longer? Obviously Kisame had started at their appearance, and that was the reason he fled back into the sea. What were they doing here, anyway? It wasn't like they went out of their way to go to the beach. Why come walk along it today of all days?
Itachi closed his eyes and massaged his temples.
He had started to like that Kisame, too.
Itachi made a habit of coming to that very stretch of beach every so often, hoping to see Kisame. He knew it was unrealistic that the merman would ever show himself again, but he couldn't help it. Hope springs eternal.
For the first few weeks, it was just as he had expected-waves, varying beach sizes depending on the tide, dangerously slippery rocks near the low tide mark where armies of barnacles lay in wait for any unwary beach-walker whom they might draw blood from. Itachi often returned to the palace with scratched up feet and legs from walking right out to where the ocean met the rocks at the edge of the beach. After the first couple times he limped back up to the palace and bled all over his mother's fancy rugs, Queen Tobi had approached him about why he spent so much time down there. He had been unable to give her a definitive answer, but kept on going. She eventually sent Hidan to talk to him, but she obviously didn't know Hidan very well, as having Hidan ask Itachi what he was doing on a deserted stretch of beach was synonymous with Itachi waiting for Hidan to get tired of swearing at him.
And still he returned, day after day.
One day, after about a month and a half, there was a change.
Itachi came to that stretch of beach and found that someone had carved something into the rocks at the edge of the water. Closer inspection revealed it to say 'curious, are we?'
His visits grew more frequent.
Sometimes he found little messages, many of which made little sense, and sometimes he didn't. He wasn't even sure if Kisame was the one writing them.
But a little hope was better than utter hopelessness.
He found more carved rocks over the next year-he even found a lovely little bracelet of alabaster pearls tied to one of these rocks. From that day on he never took it off; he rubbed it as a nervous habit, he worried the pearls unconsciously when he thought about that day on the beach, and took hope from it when weeks, then months, then a year passed without him ever catching a glimpse of Kisame.
His parents had pestered him for days after his miraculous survival wanting to know how he alone had lived. He gave them no real answer, and eventually they began to ask questions themselves. They eventually unearthed that the very princess he'd been sent off to see had been in his home country the whole time, and that on the day he had been found she'd been on the beach. His parents concluded that she had saved Itachi and Itachi didn't answer their questions and acting oddly because he was head-over-heals in love.
Itachi suffered their wild misunderstanding only because once they came to this conclusion they stopped trying to talk him out of his near daily trips to the beach.
Kisame really should have left well enough alone. But where was the fun in that?
Despite Chiyo's constant lectures on why he was being an idiot, he returned to that stretch of land where he had parted ways with Itachi Uchiha. After a few days searching, he'd found that Itachi's proper title was 'His Magnificent and Esteemed Royal Highness, Prince Itachi Uchiha, Flame of Konoha.' Small wonder he hadn't given his whole name-what a pain it must be to have a name like that. It took much longer than necessary to write, and sounded so pretentious.
However, once knowing his proper name, it was much easier to find him.
There was a magnificent marble and glass palace with a view of the ocean a few miles south of where he had beached Itachi. The sun glittered on the white marble and the glass windows-the thing was like a beacon, and Kisame was drawn to it like a moth to flame. If he was to find a 'His Magnificent and Esteemed Royal Highness,' he would probably find them there.
He observed the prince from the sea as best he could. From what he saw, his prince was just as wonderful as he had seemed when Kisame first saw him on the doomed ship. He didn't boast, or womanize, or squander his obvious wealth. He made an actual effort to keep from turning into another one of those nobles who also resided in the palace, the squishy looking ones with the large bellies and short legs. He went for walks, left the palace to go to the actual city, didn't stuff his face with rich food.
He was fair with people, and honest.
He was competent, and confident.
And, though he rarely saw it in such a relatively safe place as the palace, he was right about the fighting spirit. That must be why they called him the 'Flame of Konoha'- when his fighting blood was raised, his eyes seemed to burn.
Eventually Kisame caught on that he wasn't the only one who remembered their little meeting on the beach. The Prince took time out of most days to come down to that very same stretch of beach and just look at the sea.
Curious, are we?
When Chiyo found out about the rock, she just about had a stroke. What was he thinking, was he trying to be stupid, do you honestly think a silly human would love someone they couldn't even speak to, he must never do anything of the sort again, was he just doing this to get attention, how was one human any different from the rest of the lot, Kisame was too young to know what real love was, this was just a passing obsession, what would his poor mother (may she rest in peace) think if she were here. All of his siblings had sided with her, unable to understand the appeal of a human. Kisame just shrugged the who incident off. Rather than heading Chiyo's words, he ventured to the surface again the next day just as dawn broke to leave Itachi a little present-a bracelet made of perfect white pearls like tiny moons.
Over the next couple months, Kisame did something very stupid, something that significantly shortened life and flavored what little time left to him with nearly endless angst.
He fell in love.
And so began to plan.
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Note: I will not be including very many scenes with Hidan actually in them as my Mom has explicitly said that I am not to use swear words in my writing on this site and you really can't write Hidan without swearing. So, regrettably, he will have to be a peripheral character.