Prompt: [S]he desperately wanted to breath/Myth/Fairytale - for KakaSaku Month

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of characters. I am making no profit off of this and am only writing it for my entertainment.

A/N: My very first KakaSaku fanfic! I heard Pirate Sakura and Mershark Kakashi was a thing in this fandom? I'm going with the myth about mermaids/men being able to turn human.

Unbeta-ed.

It was chaos. They'd known well enough not to try to outrun the pursuing ship. Not when cannon-fire was already raining down on them. Better to return fire and fight than to run and be gunned down by the faster ship. It happened so quickly. Splinters of wood sprayed into the water. The Will of Fire rocked violently while the crew struggled to stay on their feet. Soon the ships were upon each other and The Will of Fire was being boarded. Swords were drawn. Metal clashed. Of course they'd be attacked days away from shore leave. Fleetingly, Sakura wondered how long her rival had been following them, waiting for an opening. It didn't matter now. All that mattered now was finishing this fight with as many of her crew members alive as possible.

She let her instinct kick in as the fight heightened. She was vaguely aware of being stabbed in the side, not because she'd felt it, but because she'd watched the knife go into her. Her body felt numb to everything barring the adrenaline that coursed through her veins. In the blink of an eye, she'd drawn her kunai to put an end to her attacker while the katana in her right hand held off another. She muscled the enemy near the railing, with the intention of pushing him off over the side when she felt a sudden pain in her head. For a moment, her ability to think was stalled. All she could register was the throbbing pain at the back of her head. Someone had come up behind her and hit her with something, she observed vaguely and slower than she normally would. Hard. The impact had thrown her body into the rail, and stolen her breath from her. Then she was falling.

Sakura hit the water hard. She tried to cry out, but all that escaped her were bubbles of precious air. She hadn't felt the stab wound before but now it felt like her entire side was ablaze with pain. Any place she'd been cut or scratched felt like it was on her lungs nearly empty, even they burned, but the surface kept getting farther and farther away. Her heavy coat dragged her down, and she squirmed until she was rid of it. She'd always loved the sea, even as a little girl. It was part of the reason she'd decided to become a pirate, but she was not ready for the sea to take her yet.

When she broke the surface, she gasped for sweet air. Between her throbbing head and burning wounds, it was the one bit of relief available to her. She struggled to stay afloat between her waterlogged clothes and heavy lids. Her mind wanted to keep fighting, but her body felt sapped of energy by the cold water and rough waves. It took considerable effort to keep treading water. Debris filled the water around her. The ships were already beyond her reach. Whether she'd drifted away or they had, she didn't know, nor did she have enough energy to contemplate it. It was all she could do to pull herself halfway onto a piece of floating wood torn from one of the ships by a cannonball. It was a miracle it held her.

The second her torso was out of the water, she began to shiver. Her hands clawed so tightly to her makeshift raft that her knuckles were white. Her cheek pressed into the rough wood. In the distance, she thought she saw a land on the horizon. They had only been sailing just beyond it. What were the chances that she'd still be on the driftwood when she washed up on it's shores? What were the chances she'd still be alive? She didn't have the energy to kick. She didn't even have the energy to keep her eyes open any longer. She just wanted to sleep. Maybe in her sleep, her head would stop throbbing, her wounds would stop stinging, and the cold would stop creeping into her bones. Not even the pain could keep her alert.

A low groan escaped her lips, in a last ditch effort to rally herself, but it was no use. As unconsciousness sank in, her grip on the wood loosened, and her body slipped back into the icy water. It drew her into it's dark depths, and this time she didn't have the energy to fight back. The pirate's eyes fluttered open one last time, and through the murky water, she could make out something coming at her fast.

She didn't have the energy to care anymore. She could feel the pull of the water as it sped past her, grabbing hold of her roughly as it did. Her last thought before she surrendered fully to the sweet painless darkness was of her crew's survival.

…

The first time she awoke, it was only briefly. She was surprised to find herself awake at all. Her entire body felt the aftermath of the battle. She must have grunted or made some sort of noise, because the next thing she knew, a man was kneeling over her. All she could register was a shock of white hair before her body succumbed to sleep again.

The next time she awoke, she felt much more alert. The pain in her body was still there, but not quite so overwhelming. It was brighter this time. Daytime. She was surprised she hadn't registered it was night when she awoke the first time, considering she'd been sleeping under some sort of makeshift tent. It was very crude, held up with branches and palm leaves, but it protected her from the sun.

She tried to sit up so she could look around better, only to grimace as pain shot up her side. Right. The stab wound. She allowed herself to collapse back onto her bed, which she noticed was made of more palm leaves laid out on the sandy beach. Carefully, she began to take stock of herself, testing what range of motion she had and where else she was hurt. The wound on her side was wrapped with what looked to be seaweed, and the throbbing in her head had dulled considerably, though it was still there.

Just outside her makeshift shelter lay the still warm embers of a fire, and next to it was a fish laid out on a leaf, but her savior was nowhere to be found. With a little—mildly painful—maneuvering, Sakura reached for the fish, ignoring the strange punctures along it's back in favor of sinking her teeth into it. It wasn't until the first bite that she realized how hungry she was, and by the time she'd devoured the entire thing, sleep began to cloud her vision again.

Every time she awoke thereafter, a new fish or an open coconut with fresh water would be waiting for her. Her bandages would be changed, but there was never any sign of her rescuer to be found.

Finally, days later, she awoke in the middle of the night to see him hunched over the fire with his back to her. She was silent as she observed him. The hair she'd thought before to be the white hair of an old man was actually closer to silver in the flickering firelight. There was no shirt covering the man's back which was far to muscled and smooth looking to belong to an old man's, but to scarred and worn to belong to someone just learning to navigate the world.

She tried to be silent as she sat up so as not to spook him, but his hearing was impeccable. Even the quiet rustle of fronds beneath her had him spinning to look at her. His body was tense as though he were ready to run at any second. Warm charcoal eyes pinned her to her spot, but it was the long scar over his left eye that pulled her attention.

For a moment they were silent as they sized the other up, trying to gauge what the other might be thinking.

Finally, "You saved me." It wasn't a question. "Thank you."

The man's mouth opened as if he might say something, then shut again, but not before Sakura noticed two rows of finely pointed teeth.

"Who are you?" It was only then that Sakura remembered the shape she'd seen hurtling towards her in the water right before she'd passed out. Again, the man floundered for words.

She wasn't the superstitious sort, but over her years at sea, she'd heard tales of the creatures that lurked below. Stories of beautiful women who sang like angels and led men to their deaths, giant squids that pulled entire ships to the depths of the ocean, or creatures who were part sea animal, part human circled pubs once sailors got enough liquor in them.

She'd never been one to believe in them, but now as she looked at the man before her, she began to notice other oddities. His ears were more pointed than any human's she'd ever seen. If she looked closely, she could see shallow lines along his neck where a fish's gills might be, and of course the teeth. The teeth that would explain the strange punctures she'd seen in the fish left for her.

"I'm Sakura," she tried again, moving from her propped up position to try to sit up.

What came next, happened in the blink of an eye. Before she'd even sat up fully, the man was retreating into the nearby water.

"Wait! I'm not going to hurt you! I just-agh," She tried to go after him, but the lingering pain in her side stalled her. By the time she looked up again, all she could see was the end of a shark tail splashing into the water and disappearing into the night.

A/N: This is meant to be a oneshot but I might go back and add to it down the line when my writing mojo is working with me a little more.