The fish-man opened his eyes before he realized he was conscious. There was something very, very wrong, but he couldn't quite place it. Suspended on the border between his dreams and reality, his mind struggled to cover even the most basic items. Perhaps half a minute was spent realizing that he was actually seeing what was around him with his eyes, and not simply dreaming his sight. Another minute spent recovering who he even was. Another ten seconds after that to go from peaceful, if confused, drowsiness to a spike of adrenaline that had him shooting up in bed.

Kisame reached for his sword by reflex, only to find that it wasn't where his muscle memory expected it to be after awakening from a disturbed sleep. Realizing he had lost his weapon, he leapt out of bed and tucked and rolled along the ground, hoping to dodge any attacker who had managed to steal his sword from him. Instead of the smooth, acrobatic maneuver he had practiced thousands of times, however, he face-planted into the ground.

He pushed himself up as his eyes slid sideways. Samehada was propped up against the far wall, and there was no one else in the room.

So Kisame took stock. The room itself was… unusual. There was something like a bed that he had been sleeping on, and it had something like furniture pressed up against the porous, rough stone-like walls. There was something like a blinded window set in the walls, through which shone something that was like, but not exactly like, midday sun. The pressure in the air was different, and everything around him was humid and cool.

Samehada was mostly unwrapped from his battle with Roronoa Zoro, although someone had very clearly repurposed the few remaining scraps of cloth to cover the hilt. The sword had largely shrank back to its normal size, and seemed relatively unperturbed. Unusual. It must have liked whoever had carried it here quite a bit to let itself be wielded without causing a violent ruckus.

"Hmm…" he hummed, gently stroking the sword's scaled blade. "I wonder what it was that you saw."

He remembered how the fight had gone. He had endured many indignities as he ground his Straw-Hat opponents down to a loss, and his own victory had been a sure thing… until those pirates had dropped the bridge out from under him. Then he had fallen.

He remembered that moment well. Falling from the very top of the Red Line, disgraced, undone. Kisame was perfectly capable of using water jets to blast himself to the side of the mountain, then run back up into the ongoing battles, but…

In a way, he had been looking for a sign that he had been on the wrong track. He had been lost, and perhaps this loss had been that sign? So instead of struggling to the top of the mountain he had fallen to the ocean, abandoning his duty in a fit of disgraceful weakness. Supposedly there was a city of 'merfolk' and 'fish-men' hidden beneath the Red Line at the Sabaody Archipelago. Perhaps now was the time to meet those who were like him.

He had been diving deep beneath the waves when the Divine Fruit had struck the water. The brightly-colored lightshow was the last thing he remembered.

It was time to figure out what was going on here. He himself was dressed in something loose and colorful that looked absolutely dreadful on him, though the clothes he usually wore underneath his Akatsuki robe were washed and folded upon what might have been a dresser carved from coral. He changed, then began exploring the house he had awoken in, for a house was what this was. No one was home, and the strange aquatic theme continued throughout the small building.

Downstairs, the first floor was half-submerged in seawater, replenished in some way that wasn't immediately clear to him. Someone had put a lot of effort into keeping the place suited for the amphibiously-minded, which didn't bother him in the slightest. The ocean had always pleased him. He put up with his fellows' need for dry accommodations far too often for his own tastes.

There was a table in the small living room just inside the entrance, upon which rested a waxed paper bag, stuffed nearly to bursting with something that managed to get grease through even the wax's protections. Next to that was a note.

If you're up, don't be! I left some food out for you!

I guess it would've made more sense if I had left it in your room, huh?

I didn't do that, though!

I'll be back later tonight! Rest up!

There was no signature. He opened the bag. It was full of takoyaki… and nothing else.

"Hmm… no point in poisoning me if whoever this was dragged me all the way here," mused Kisame. Shrugging, he dug in.

It was stupendous.

Something was rotten in the city of the merfolk. It festered beneath the surface, and perhaps he wouldn't even have noticed it if he hadn't gone looking for the stench of it right away. It was a sad habit of his upbringing and occupation that it was far more useful to seek out the flaws in any new place he visited, rather than searching out what might attract him. Looking for what appealed was a useless and selfish luxury. It was the weaknesses and ugly truths that you must understand first.

Still, even though his ingrained habits taught him what must be done, the allure of this place was like nothing else in the world. Suspended inside a bubble of air deep beneath the ocean waves, an entire city of Fish-men and mermaids awaited him. They walked, swam, and floated about on bubbles, going about their business among the colorful city. Everyone was… like him.

Well, no. Very few would be like him. They all stank of peace. He had imagined, somehow, that the threat of being the only isolated stronghold of their race in a world full of humans who wished to exploit and enslave them would drive them to a more martial bent, but… well, clearly that wasn't the case.

Most of them didn't even seem to acknowledge his presence. They walked right by him, not realizing he could kill them with barely a thought. Several talkative types even approached him in the street, not because of his strange appearance, but simply because they didn't recognize him as being from around these parts.

It was astounding. He had no words to describe the feeling of wrongness that this sense of… belonging gave him. He waved any concerned questions away, saying that he had been born elsewhere. His standoffishness repelled the old men and women who were simply curious, but occasionally some of his fellows refused to take the hint.

"I'm just saying, brother," said a fish-man with a puffy, spined face, "I take one look at you and I say to myself, 'this is a guy who gets it. This is a guy who's seen some shit out there in with those humans. This is a guy with a strong arm who should be looking into joining up with the people who've got the right ideas about keeping our home safe, right?'"

"And those people… are you and yours?" asked Kisame, well aware he was being sold a pitch of some sort.

"Hey, I'm not the guy who gives the speeches, man. I'm just the guy who sees an opportunity and can't let it walk away, you know what I'm sayin'?" The spiny man's smile was wide, puffy, and entirely friendly, as if they had known each other for ages. "Listen, if you've been wronged by the people up there, and if you wanna get some of your own back, then trust me, you agree with us even if you don't know it yet. Drop by the Fishman District sometime. Someone sees you come by and you'd better believe they're gonna say hello. Just tell 'em Johnny Slowpoke sent you."

The fellow left soon after, giving him an excited wave as he retreated off towards a distant plaza.

Something was definitely rotten in the city of the merfolk… but Kisame was a fairly rotten guy himself. Perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to check in sometime. Get the lay of the land, so to speak.

If he liked what he saw, then things could start changing pretty quickly. If these people proved as adept at water-based ninjutsu as he had, then a few years might be all it took to get a few skilled apprentices.

He smiled, revealing his sharp teeth for all the world to see. Why, with the right attitudes, a city like this could turn into a true terror of the seas…

Something to think about, at least.

He suppressed his normal instincts to avoid patterns, returning to the place he had woken as the evening began to wear down. All things considered, he found that he was actually tired. Whatever had knocked him unconscious in the ocean above had hit him hard.

So he stepped inside the house, already aware it was now occupied. There was a smell of cooking wafting from the inside, but that was secondary to the octopus who was waving his arms wildly as Kisame stepped in.

"Nyuu! What did I say in my letter?!" exclaimed Hatchan, looking at Kisame in full-blown shock. "Eh? Wait, no, seriously, what did I say in my letter again? I forgot."

Kisame considered the octopus-man's presence with bewilderment. "You… said I shouldn't get up, if I recall correctly."

Two tentacled arms shot up in the air. "Ah! Right! I said that, didn't I?! And yet, here I am, up and about and everything!" He paused. "Why did I say I shouldn't get up, again?"

Kisame shook his head. "It… probably wasn't important. I met you near the archipelago. Your name was… Hachi, yes? Are you the one who found me?"

The octopus-man's earlier confusion was forgotten in an instant. "Oh, yep, Hachi, that's my name! Good timing coming home when you did, too. We're just about done with food."

"…I see." Kisame took in the presences in the house, hearing the sound of plates and pans being moved about in an interior room he knew was the kitchen. There was someone else home. "I appreciate what you left for me when I awoke. I appreciate more being rescued from the waters. Speaking of, you didn't answer my question. Are you the one who found me?"

Hatchan had already turned around to head back to the kitchen, tying a headband around his forehead with two limbs as several others wiggled about. "Found you? No, I didn't find you, though I'm glad I could help repay you for saving my life back then. No, someone else found you and they called me." Hachi looked over his shoulder. "Me? Hachi. My name's Hachi. You called?"

A feminine voice called out from the kitchen. "Hacchin! I think they're almost ready, but I can't tell! Are you saying something out there? I can't hear anything with all this sizzling! Oh!"

Just like that, with no warning whatsoever, she swam out from the kitchen and into his life. She shot forward like a graceful minnow, surprisingly swift, scattering water in a tremendous spray, and such was his stunned shock that he didn't even defend himself. The green-haired mermaid collided with him, wrapping his chest in a tight hug. Her tail was clad in a shimmering mail of pink scales and she smelled, for some reason, of fried food.

"Ahhh! I'm so glad you're safe, whoever you are! There were all these pretty lights, and then I heard the sea-creatures smelling blood, and then I had to investigate, and then you were just floating there, and I was so worried, and then I screamed and got Hachi, and then—"

Kisame stared down at this vision of loveliness, open-mouthed.

Something was definitely rotten in the city of the merfolk… and yet the more time he spent here, the more he liked what he saw.