Sink or Swim
Yeah it's another one. This one is a bit more SuiSasu than the last one even though Sasuke's only in it at the very in and only a brief glimpse of his back ^_^
I've been working on this for two hours straight. It's somewhat rambling and long but I thought I might as well put it up.
Title: Sink or Swim...
Rating: PG13
Characters: Mainly Suigetsu with a little bit of Sasuke. OC's but they're necessary.
Warnings: Mist style tests. OC death. Slash hints. Slight insanity. Rambling writing. Long. Quick edit.
Summary: They said in Mist. "Sink or Swim you have to do it alone." Like any good Mist ninja Suigetsu understands and lives by those words. He also thinks he probably much rather fly.
They were going to do an endurance and strength test out on the sea today.
At first Suigetsu and the other three genin he barely knew had been excited. It was a rare test only given to the most eligible of Genin. Chuunin even had a hard time with it! They had felt warm and proud of themselves and the brunette girl didn’t know why her father’s hand on her shoulder had suddenly grown so tight and the blonde twins hadn’t known why their mother was so pale.
Suigetsu hadn’t had any parent’s so his excitement wasn’t dampened and the silent bracing for the punch line had not been given and so it hit him the hardest.
They had been told the fatality record of the test.
One out of four. One out of fucking four survived.
Three of them weren’t expected to make it back alive. They would be lucky if any of them came back at all.
They had been told that they were being given this test because they were the best genin they had, the higher ups wanted to see if they’d be eligible for special placement. Those who survived would begin training under the Seven Swordsman.
That news almost softened the blow, but the shock still held the young shinobi. Suigetsu, the youngest of them all, had it worse. He was only nine and he didn’t want to die.
Suigetsu had left with orders to be at the dock at six the next morning. He was given the rest of the day to prepare for the likely fact of him not coming home.
He could still remember the sound of the brunette’s father yelling and the blonde boys’ mother crying as he shut the Mizukage’s door behind him.
He wondered what his own parent’s would have done.
The sound of the paddles in the water stopped and Suigetsu was brought back to reality as the jounin stood. He gazed at the children in front of him with cold eyes before quickly giving the rules.
“This test is one of endurance. You are allowed to use chakra to keep yourself afloat but no jutsu, you cannot stand on the water either.” there was a look of confusion on the girl’s and slowly the brunette lifted her hand. The jounin sighed. “Yes?”
“U-um if you can use chakra but you can’t stand on the water or use jutsu…then what are we supposed to use it for?” The girl looked timid and uncertain but refused to duck her head. She was a mist-nin; she’d seen worse.
The jounin smirked. “That’s your problem to figure it out then isn’t it?” The girl dropped her head and nodded. “Right,” he turned his attention back to the group in general. “You are also not permitted to swim more than a foot from where you are positioned in either direction. The place you begin at is your center.”
One of the blondes winced and Suigetsu began to feel a little uncertain.
“You will be here all day and all night, we will come back to fetch you at exactly six tomorrow.” Suigetsu was staring at the jounin with wide eyes and the twins exchanged startled glances. The girl looked nauseated.
“You didn’t expect this to be easy did you?” The jounin remarked at their startled gazes.
There was a mumbled reply of ‘no’ and the jounin nodded.
“Oh and another thing,” he was watched warily, “when one of you goes under nobody else is permitted to save them.”
This wasn’t really a surprise; this was rule they’d been born with after all. Still one of the twins opened his mouth but the jounin beat him to it. “Not even if it’s your brother or best friend.”
Suigetsu felt a slight bit of pity for the brothers, who looked horrified, before it was washed away as he began to think about a way to try and survive this test. He listened closely for a possibility of loopholes or a trick that might save his sorry ass.
The jounin looked at them closely before straightening with a sigh. “There is one other rule for this test.” He admitted and for once seemed reluctant to give it. “Tell each other your names, ages, dreams and hobbies. Now.”
They were silent under the strangeness of the request but a sharp glare got them moving. One of the twins on the opposite end of the row from Suigetsu started.
“My name is Kishimoto Shou,” he said softly, “I’m thirteen, I want to be the best genjutsu user in the whole village and I enjoy training with my brother and helping my mom in her garden.”
Then his brother. “I’m Kishimoto Kotetsu and I’m thirteen too. I want to be Mizukage one day and I enjoy training, hanging out with my brother and working on my taijutsu.”
The girl. “I’m Goichi Ayame. I’m twelve and I want to be the first medic-nin that’s known for her taijutsu. I like to help around the hospital and train with my dad.”
Then it was his turn and he didn’t know what to say. Not after all of those. “I’m Suigetsu,” he began; might as well start with the basics, “I’m nine years old and I don’t think I have a dream but I do want to live until my thirteenth birthday because I think it’d be cool to be a teenager…umm I like to train and drink water but that’s about it I guess…”
He could see the jounin’s suddenly searching gaze before the man nodded. “Right.” He closed his eyes and then opened them again.
“In the water!”
The genin quickly turned around and stepped over the railing, balancing on the outside edge of the boat
They all looked into the water and for the first time in his life Suigetsu didn’t want to dive into the almost black depths that he knew, with startling certainty, would be covered with ice if it weren’t for the constant movement. Now he just wanted to go home.
Ayame reached over and covered his pale hand with her own and Suigetsu sent her a startled gaze and she gave him a weak smile that was trying to be comforting.
Suigetsu wondered which one of them she was reassuring.
Then he jumped.
The water was as cold as he thought it would be and the shock almost sent him under but he kicked and remained afloat. He worried that if his head went under he wouldn’t be able to pull himself back up.
There were more splashes and he was startled when he realized that he’d been the one to jump first.
The jounin’s voice barely reached him. “Spread out! Arms length apart in a row facing the boat!”
They were quick to comply, easily cutting through the water with the ease of all mist-nin.
Settling into the same order as on the boat they all faced the jounin. “This is a warning!” The two elite who a previously been standing near the helm came up on either side of him and leaned down to place there hands through the railing bars and onto the water.
The musty, tangy scent of a summoning jutsu almost made Suigetsu sneeze.
And as the sharks began to circle the genin Suigetsu could see their dark shapes pass right beside him.
“These are here to enforce the rules.” Suigetsu turned his attention back to the jounin, “if you leave your allotted area they will kill you, if you break any of the rules they will kill you.” He paused and looked at their wide eyed faces. He took a breath, “We are not leaf ninja. We are of Mist and sink or swim… we do it alone.”
He watched them for a second and then took a step back. “We will come to collect any who survive tomorrow. Good luck.”
And then they were sailing away.
It was quiet, all of them were too concerned with forcing their bodies to draw in air, mark their positions to make sure they weren’t shoved out of them. They had to keep their legs and arms and anything else they could in motion or risk drowning… or becoming shark bait.
It became harder after the first three hours. Suigetsu tried to focus on the odd occurrence of the waves not going higher the three feet this far out before his numbed mind forgot what he had been thinking about. His body was shivering and he was having a hard time moving his arms.
So he started repeating anything he could think of in his head, changing thought when he forgot what he’d been thinking about.
The only thing that stuck was the jounin’s words. Sink or Swim. So he repeated those over and over and over until he drowned out the rest of the world and he could almost forget the cold in the marrow of his bones.
Evening came and their first went down. Suigetsu couldn’t see, didn’t want to see, but he could hear the sudden frantic splashing, that was a horrible sound. Especially when the boy’s brother started yelling.
The yelling one was…Kotetsu he remembered. That meant the one drowning was Shou…he was the one who liked to help their mom out in the garden right?
He didn’t understand how he could remember that when he hardly remembered anything else.
Then the splashing stopped and it was quiet. Kotetsu was still yelling and Suigetsu just wanted him to shut up.
And then he did.
Time went by pretty quickly after that. Suigetsu repeated his little phrase over and over in his head until he couldn’t remember what it meant. His breath came in gasps and he’d stopped shivering and he wasn’t really cold anymore but he didn’t notice.
He wondered if he hadn’t gone a little crazy. But he forgot that too.
It was around midnight when Ayame finally went down.
It amazed him that he could still remember her profile down to the last word when he could barely remember his own age.
Still he went through the only words he could remember-not. It went like this.
Shou, Kotetsu, Ayame, you gotta Sink or Swim.
Shou, Kotetsu, Ayame, you gotta Sink or Swim.
Over and over and over and then morning came.
The boat didn’t.
He didn’t realize it, being too out of it to properly tell what time it was but they were late by three hours.
When the boat finally did come he almost went out of his space it startled him so bad.
He watched dazedly as a man with tape wrapped around the bottom half of his ace dispelled the sharks he’d forgotten were there. Another ninja moved beside the strange new man. This one was dressed differently and had on a white uniform.
Ayame his mind supplied and he recognized a medic nin.
The medic kneeled and reached out a hand to the tired boy with blue tinged lips. “Suigetsu right?” The voice was low and soothing. “We’re sorry we’re late Suigetsu it’s time to go home now.”
Home the word was familiar but he didn’t recognize it. “What’s home?” He muttered under his breath. He didn’t move.
“Kid.” The gruff voice instantly drew his attention. It was the ninja with the face wraps. “Get outta the water kid I ain’t waiting all day on ya.”
Out of the water. That was good and he slowly tried to move to the boat. Suigetsu reached up to take the other nin’s offered hand but his own jerked oddly and he couldn’t control it. Then his whole body lurched and he went under.
Instantly panic set in and he couldn’t get his legs or arms to move right and he went farther and farther down.
Sink or Swim. And he felt blackness at the edge of his vision. Sink or Swim you havta…havta do it… alone.
He had to swim. He had to…he didn’t want to die; the sharks would get him.
It took everything he had to reach the surface and he would have gone under again if large, calloused hand hadn’t grabbed him under his arms and pulled him onto a dry surface.
“Good kid, good job.”
Then there were more hands on his chest and a heat ran through him.
And that was when he started to scream.
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Suigetsu opened his eyes quickly. His breathing hadn’t changed at all but he could feel the final dredges of terror easing away.
He wasn’t nine anymore and he wasn’t anywhere near the ocean. Zabuza was dead and the Mist was long in his past now.
The trees sheltered him from the wind on this warm night.
He didn’t know what had made him remember that living-nightmare from so many years ago. The one that made him an apprentice to Mist’s greatest band of Shinobi. The pale teen eased up and looked around the clearing, searching for the black eyes boy he’d decided to stick with.
The emotionless boy was on the opposite side of the campsite facing outward. Suigetsu watched him silently.
Sink or Swim.
That boy had saved him from what could be called hell. He’d killed the Devil like an avenging black winged angel and released the poor doomed souls trapped inside hell’s walls.
Sink or Swim. Do it alone.
His black winged angel savior. Who’d made a deal with the Devil and survived, no, lived without having to pay anything in return.
Sink together or Swim alone.
Suigetsu wondered if that was more a reason he’d stuck with him, besides Samehada of course.
Sink or Swim.
Sasuke may very well be the death of him someday, Suigetsu knew that. The Uchiha was too proud, too kind, too trusting, too much of a leaf ninja and Suigetsu knew that it would take him Mist ninja mind set to save the leaf’s ass one day. He knew he’d do it too for whatever reason. He couldn’t let Sasuke die. He wouldn’t let him go that easy.
Sink or Swim.
Sasuke reminded Suigetsu of a fallen angel. And angels, even ones with black wings, never drowned. They didn’t know how to swim so they could never sink. Suigetsu wondered what it would be like to fly and wondered if maybe Sasuke could show him.
Fight, swim, survive, or you will drown and nobody will help you.
In return Suigetsu wouldn’t let Sasuke crash like fallen angels are supposed to. Because Sasuke belonged in the air just out of reach of that simple rule Suigetsu had learned to live by. He’d keep him from getting his wings clipped and torn and broken while Sasuke tried to untangle his battered threads of fate. All Sasuke had to do was keep flying.
Survive or Die.
…Yeah, he could live with that.
I've been working on this for two hours straight. It's somewhat rambling and long but I thought I might as well put it up.
Title: Sink or Swim...
Rating: PG13
Characters: Mainly Suigetsu with a little bit of Sasuke. OC's but they're necessary.
Warnings: Mist style tests. OC death. Slash hints. Slight insanity. Rambling writing. Long. Quick edit.
Summary: They said in Mist. "Sink or Swim you have to do it alone." Like any good Mist ninja Suigetsu understands and lives by those words. He also thinks he probably much rather fly.
They were going to do an endurance and strength test out on the sea today.
At first Suigetsu and the other three genin he barely knew had been excited. It was a rare test only given to the most eligible of Genin. Chuunin even had a hard time with it! They had felt warm and proud of themselves and the brunette girl didn’t know why her father’s hand on her shoulder had suddenly grown so tight and the blonde twins hadn’t known why their mother was so pale.
Suigetsu hadn’t had any parent’s so his excitement wasn’t dampened and the silent bracing for the punch line had not been given and so it hit him the hardest.
They had been told the fatality record of the test.
One out of four. One out of fucking four survived.
Three of them weren’t expected to make it back alive. They would be lucky if any of them came back at all.
They had been told that they were being given this test because they were the best genin they had, the higher ups wanted to see if they’d be eligible for special placement. Those who survived would begin training under the Seven Swordsman.
That news almost softened the blow, but the shock still held the young shinobi. Suigetsu, the youngest of them all, had it worse. He was only nine and he didn’t want to die.
Suigetsu had left with orders to be at the dock at six the next morning. He was given the rest of the day to prepare for the likely fact of him not coming home.
He could still remember the sound of the brunette’s father yelling and the blonde boys’ mother crying as he shut the Mizukage’s door behind him.
He wondered what his own parent’s would have done.
The sound of the paddles in the water stopped and Suigetsu was brought back to reality as the jounin stood. He gazed at the children in front of him with cold eyes before quickly giving the rules.
“This test is one of endurance. You are allowed to use chakra to keep yourself afloat but no jutsu, you cannot stand on the water either.” there was a look of confusion on the girl’s and slowly the brunette lifted her hand. The jounin sighed. “Yes?”
“U-um if you can use chakra but you can’t stand on the water or use jutsu…then what are we supposed to use it for?” The girl looked timid and uncertain but refused to duck her head. She was a mist-nin; she’d seen worse.
The jounin smirked. “That’s your problem to figure it out then isn’t it?” The girl dropped her head and nodded. “Right,” he turned his attention back to the group in general. “You are also not permitted to swim more than a foot from where you are positioned in either direction. The place you begin at is your center.”
One of the blondes winced and Suigetsu began to feel a little uncertain.
“You will be here all day and all night, we will come back to fetch you at exactly six tomorrow.” Suigetsu was staring at the jounin with wide eyes and the twins exchanged startled glances. The girl looked nauseated.
“You didn’t expect this to be easy did you?” The jounin remarked at their startled gazes.
There was a mumbled reply of ‘no’ and the jounin nodded.
“Oh and another thing,” he was watched warily, “when one of you goes under nobody else is permitted to save them.”
This wasn’t really a surprise; this was rule they’d been born with after all. Still one of the twins opened his mouth but the jounin beat him to it. “Not even if it’s your brother or best friend.”
Suigetsu felt a slight bit of pity for the brothers, who looked horrified, before it was washed away as he began to think about a way to try and survive this test. He listened closely for a possibility of loopholes or a trick that might save his sorry ass.
The jounin looked at them closely before straightening with a sigh. “There is one other rule for this test.” He admitted and for once seemed reluctant to give it. “Tell each other your names, ages, dreams and hobbies. Now.”
They were silent under the strangeness of the request but a sharp glare got them moving. One of the twins on the opposite end of the row from Suigetsu started.
“My name is Kishimoto Shou,” he said softly, “I’m thirteen, I want to be the best genjutsu user in the whole village and I enjoy training with my brother and helping my mom in her garden.”
Then his brother. “I’m Kishimoto Kotetsu and I’m thirteen too. I want to be Mizukage one day and I enjoy training, hanging out with my brother and working on my taijutsu.”
The girl. “I’m Goichi Ayame. I’m twelve and I want to be the first medic-nin that’s known for her taijutsu. I like to help around the hospital and train with my dad.”
Then it was his turn and he didn’t know what to say. Not after all of those. “I’m Suigetsu,” he began; might as well start with the basics, “I’m nine years old and I don’t think I have a dream but I do want to live until my thirteenth birthday because I think it’d be cool to be a teenager…umm I like to train and drink water but that’s about it I guess…”
He could see the jounin’s suddenly searching gaze before the man nodded. “Right.” He closed his eyes and then opened them again.
“In the water!”
The genin quickly turned around and stepped over the railing, balancing on the outside edge of the boat
They all looked into the water and for the first time in his life Suigetsu didn’t want to dive into the almost black depths that he knew, with startling certainty, would be covered with ice if it weren’t for the constant movement. Now he just wanted to go home.
Ayame reached over and covered his pale hand with her own and Suigetsu sent her a startled gaze and she gave him a weak smile that was trying to be comforting.
Suigetsu wondered which one of them she was reassuring.
Then he jumped.
The water was as cold as he thought it would be and the shock almost sent him under but he kicked and remained afloat. He worried that if his head went under he wouldn’t be able to pull himself back up.
There were more splashes and he was startled when he realized that he’d been the one to jump first.
The jounin’s voice barely reached him. “Spread out! Arms length apart in a row facing the boat!”
They were quick to comply, easily cutting through the water with the ease of all mist-nin.
Settling into the same order as on the boat they all faced the jounin. “This is a warning!” The two elite who a previously been standing near the helm came up on either side of him and leaned down to place there hands through the railing bars and onto the water.
The musty, tangy scent of a summoning jutsu almost made Suigetsu sneeze.
And as the sharks began to circle the genin Suigetsu could see their dark shapes pass right beside him.
“These are here to enforce the rules.” Suigetsu turned his attention back to the jounin, “if you leave your allotted area they will kill you, if you break any of the rules they will kill you.” He paused and looked at their wide eyed faces. He took a breath, “We are not leaf ninja. We are of Mist and sink or swim… we do it alone.”
He watched them for a second and then took a step back. “We will come to collect any who survive tomorrow. Good luck.”
And then they were sailing away.
It was quiet, all of them were too concerned with forcing their bodies to draw in air, mark their positions to make sure they weren’t shoved out of them. They had to keep their legs and arms and anything else they could in motion or risk drowning… or becoming shark bait.
It became harder after the first three hours. Suigetsu tried to focus on the odd occurrence of the waves not going higher the three feet this far out before his numbed mind forgot what he had been thinking about. His body was shivering and he was having a hard time moving his arms.
So he started repeating anything he could think of in his head, changing thought when he forgot what he’d been thinking about.
The only thing that stuck was the jounin’s words. Sink or Swim. So he repeated those over and over and over until he drowned out the rest of the world and he could almost forget the cold in the marrow of his bones.
Evening came and their first went down. Suigetsu couldn’t see, didn’t want to see, but he could hear the sudden frantic splashing, that was a horrible sound. Especially when the boy’s brother started yelling.
The yelling one was…Kotetsu he remembered. That meant the one drowning was Shou…he was the one who liked to help their mom out in the garden right?
He didn’t understand how he could remember that when he hardly remembered anything else.
Then the splashing stopped and it was quiet. Kotetsu was still yelling and Suigetsu just wanted him to shut up.
And then he did.
Time went by pretty quickly after that. Suigetsu repeated his little phrase over and over in his head until he couldn’t remember what it meant. His breath came in gasps and he’d stopped shivering and he wasn’t really cold anymore but he didn’t notice.
He wondered if he hadn’t gone a little crazy. But he forgot that too.
It was around midnight when Ayame finally went down.
It amazed him that he could still remember her profile down to the last word when he could barely remember his own age.
Still he went through the only words he could remember-not. It went like this.
Shou, Kotetsu, Ayame, you gotta Sink or Swim.
Shou, Kotetsu, Ayame, you gotta Sink or Swim.
Over and over and over and then morning came.
The boat didn’t.
He didn’t realize it, being too out of it to properly tell what time it was but they were late by three hours.
When the boat finally did come he almost went out of his space it startled him so bad.
He watched dazedly as a man with tape wrapped around the bottom half of his ace dispelled the sharks he’d forgotten were there. Another ninja moved beside the strange new man. This one was dressed differently and had on a white uniform.
Ayame his mind supplied and he recognized a medic nin.
The medic kneeled and reached out a hand to the tired boy with blue tinged lips. “Suigetsu right?” The voice was low and soothing. “We’re sorry we’re late Suigetsu it’s time to go home now.”
Home the word was familiar but he didn’t recognize it. “What’s home?” He muttered under his breath. He didn’t move.
“Kid.” The gruff voice instantly drew his attention. It was the ninja with the face wraps. “Get outta the water kid I ain’t waiting all day on ya.”
Out of the water. That was good and he slowly tried to move to the boat. Suigetsu reached up to take the other nin’s offered hand but his own jerked oddly and he couldn’t control it. Then his whole body lurched and he went under.
Instantly panic set in and he couldn’t get his legs or arms to move right and he went farther and farther down.
Sink or Swim. And he felt blackness at the edge of his vision. Sink or Swim you havta…havta do it… alone.
He had to swim. He had to…he didn’t want to die; the sharks would get him.
It took everything he had to reach the surface and he would have gone under again if large, calloused hand hadn’t grabbed him under his arms and pulled him onto a dry surface.
“Good kid, good job.”
Then there were more hands on his chest and a heat ran through him.
And that was when he started to scream.
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Suigetsu opened his eyes quickly. His breathing hadn’t changed at all but he could feel the final dredges of terror easing away.
He wasn’t nine anymore and he wasn’t anywhere near the ocean. Zabuza was dead and the Mist was long in his past now.
The trees sheltered him from the wind on this warm night.
He didn’t know what had made him remember that living-nightmare from so many years ago. The one that made him an apprentice to Mist’s greatest band of Shinobi. The pale teen eased up and looked around the clearing, searching for the black eyes boy he’d decided to stick with.
The emotionless boy was on the opposite side of the campsite facing outward. Suigetsu watched him silently.
Sink or Swim.
That boy had saved him from what could be called hell. He’d killed the Devil like an avenging black winged angel and released the poor doomed souls trapped inside hell’s walls.
Sink or Swim. Do it alone.
His black winged angel savior. Who’d made a deal with the Devil and survived, no, lived without having to pay anything in return.
Sink together or Swim alone.
Suigetsu wondered if that was more a reason he’d stuck with him, besides Samehada of course.
Sink or Swim.
Sasuke may very well be the death of him someday, Suigetsu knew that. The Uchiha was too proud, too kind, too trusting, too much of a leaf ninja and Suigetsu knew that it would take him Mist ninja mind set to save the leaf’s ass one day. He knew he’d do it too for whatever reason. He couldn’t let Sasuke die. He wouldn’t let him go that easy.
Sink or Swim.
Sasuke reminded Suigetsu of a fallen angel. And angels, even ones with black wings, never drowned. They didn’t know how to swim so they could never sink. Suigetsu wondered what it would be like to fly and wondered if maybe Sasuke could show him.
Fight, swim, survive, or you will drown and nobody will help you.
In return Suigetsu wouldn’t let Sasuke crash like fallen angels are supposed to. Because Sasuke belonged in the air just out of reach of that simple rule Suigetsu had learned to live by. He’d keep him from getting his wings clipped and torn and broken while Sasuke tried to untangle his battered threads of fate. All Sasuke had to do was keep flying.
Survive or Die.
…Yeah, he could live with that.