An old monster!Saku prompt I found! Just in time for MerMay, too. Thank @thefreckledone and her Mermay prompts
The metal of the railings was cool against her forehead as Sakura leaned her face down and starred at the waters passing by underneath her feet. She sat on the edge of the yacht with her feet free to dangle as the rest of the people her own age laughed and moved about the deck. It was so close to twilight in the summer and the air was heavy with more than just expectation. The humidity had girls stripping down to the strings of their bikini’s and laughing at the boys until they followed suit and made it a swim party where no one touched the water.
Hinata’s family owned the lake, just like the yacht and half the town, but the superstitions and folk stories of the lake belonged to no man. No one would go swimming in the lake until they passed over the sunken town from the early 1900’s that was evacuated and flooded to make a dam later on in the decade. It had been a case of the government coming in and playing the ‘imminent domain’ card so they could use the lands for their own hush hush work. Or at leas they could until funds dried up in the mid 90’s.
The story was ridiculously famous among the youth with good reason. Local gossip flared and died in popularity, but the stories of the ghosts of the town of Mizu and the things ‘let’ into the waters would always be a hot button in a town of folks who had lived and died around the lake. Households spanning more than three generations would swear up and down that there was something wrong with the lake; weather that meant ghosts or lake monsters, almost everyone believed it was safer to avoid.
One of the girls squealed when a boy came up behind her and faked a move that made it look like he was going to throw her over. The rest of her friends slapped him away with giggles and friendly jokes. No one seemed too honestly freaked about going over, but Sakura knew they would all wait until they passed over the old dam walls before swimming. During the Monsoon season it was easy to pass over the wall, but when the water level went down, the walls seemed to rise up. Last year there had been a drought so bad the steeple’s point on the old church was visible, like a saber standing out of the water pointing to the sky.
“Where’s your sexy bikini?” a chuckling voice asked from over her shoulder. Sakura looked back to see Kiba holding out a bottle of sunscreen. He smiled wide when their eyes met and shook the bottle. “Need me to rub you down?”
Sakura made an effort to show how she rolled her eyes at his offer. “I have a spray, thank you, and I already applied before we left.” She turned around, facing the waters once more and leaking her back turned towards him. “But thanks for the offer. See if Ino needs help.”
“You’re not hanging out with us anymore,” Kiba pouted, crouching down alongside her.
Sakura just kept staring out across the lake, trying to see the outlines of the places they never bothered to tear down before the flood. When Kiba fidgeted she sighed. “Sorry, I’ve only been back a month. You’ve known each other since diapers. What’s seven childhood years in the face of that?”
When it looked like Kiba was going to open his mouth and say something in kindness that wasn’t necessarily true, she resolved to cut him off with another fake laugh. “Oh don’t make a face. I’m just tired. Finals, you know?”
Kiba grinned and it was an easy sort of grin. “Yeah, but who cares about those. I think you’re the only one.”
“Junior year is just as important as senior year. Collages look at those grades too.”
Kiba laughed again and said something about, ‘ah, that’s why we all love you,’ before standing up again with his sunscreen still in his hands. “You’re so driven. Don’t you think you need to relax and live life a little bit more. School is done, we don’t have to be back in classes for another two months. Enjoy!”
“I will,” she lied with an easy smile. “I just want to watch the water a little more. I’ve not seen it like this in years.”
Kiba frowned, good mood deflating a bit. “Ah, it’s in poor tastes that Neji is making us cross this section of the lake just because he doesn’t want to look like the rest of his superstitious family. I don’t like it, but it’s the safest place to shoot off fireworks.”
Sakura’s brows furrowed in confusion. “But it’s pretty to look at, like you can still see the roads and stuff,” Sakura hummed, eyes trained on the water.
There were plenty of long shadows, but not enough to make it hard to see. Every so often she’d spot a sparkling tail fin or school of fish gliding through what was left of the roofless houses and buildings. It was a destruction of sorts, but to Sakura it was still beautiful.
“Yeah, well take your good long look, we’re nearly out of it now, and none too soon. I plan on putting these babies to good use,” Kiba joked, turning his back to the waters and flexing his arms so every line of his stood out in tanned detail. He grinned and Sakura rolled her eyes at his bravado.
He might have stayed longer, but one of the girls called out to him with an encouraging woo hoo, and the young boy was off like a puppy, eager to please. Sakura recognized most of the kids along the railing, they had all been friends back in grade school, but when she had turned seven her parents had packed up and traded in the small old town for the big city. Sakura had been able to adapt easily enough, but coming back to the old town of Konohagakure was a different story. It didn’t help that she was coming back with just her mother. Dad had died a year ago leaving the women of the family to move in wither her maternal grandfather. No one else would take in such a broken woman.
A shrill cheer broke Sakura off from her thoughts and she looked up to see the dam walls. Neji eased their speed as they passed over the lowest point of the wall, the broken bit. The waters were high enough that no one had to be worried about scraping the bottom against cement. Still, it was neat to watch.
As soon as they were over, one of the girls ran to the tip and threw both her legs over. Someone yelled at her, but she hung by her friends until Neji cut the engine and let their vessel glide through the calmer waters. Sakura blinked at the sight, not at all surprised to see it was Inoi who drew the most eyes.
“Damn impatient woman,” the Nara boy grumbled, taking his time to undo the buttons to his loose cotton top. From beside him Choji chuckled in understanding.
Sakura tried to remember the two boys as anything other than Ino’s close family friends, but it was hard. Shikamaru Nara had little personality outside of his extreme laziness, or if there was a personality there, Sakura couldn’t see it yet. Choji, on the other hand, was shy and kind around his friends. With Sakura he was still gruff, but not as gruff as he was with those who he didn’t know anything about at all.
The girl on the end dropped off with a squeal and a splash. Seconds later a few of her friends joined in, screaming and hollering all the way down. The loudest was a boy named Rock Lee who Sakura tried her best to avoid once she recognized how lively and upfront he could be. He didn’t think anything about it when he hugged people or shook their hands or touched their shoulders because he was a boy built out of innocence. He was kind and polite and passionate about things like working out and exercise, but he was still a boy and she still didn’t like it when people touched her anymore.
About half the group was in the water now, with the other half pulling out food and drinks to serve now that they had stopped. Hinata tried her best to make everything nice looking, and Sakura could see the small girl was fretting about every little detail when it was obvious no one was going to care by this point. For an heiress, she wasn’t very confident in anything.
“Here,” Sakura said, taking a stack of napkins. She laid them out and then showed Hinata how she used her fist to flare them out in a decorative way before dropping a polished stone weight on the top to keep them from flying. “Anything else I can help you with?”
“Our cousin needs a girlfriend, you interested?” Hanabi asked, poking out from behind her elder sister. The younger girl’s smile was impish and wide.
Hinata blustered and Sakura mentally exhaled before faking another laugh. “I’ll get the plastic forks then. Let me know if the table needs any more help.”
Sakura took her time in the cabin’s kitchen pulling out all the things that had been specifically packed for the trip. Plastic forks, decorations, bowls, dry snacks, and in the very back was a stash of Jack Daniels Tennessee Whiskey. She put everything but the booze out, hoping it had been a mistake.
It took a few trips, but when she came back out from throwing the empty chip bags away she nearly ran into a solid wall of skin and jerked sharply backwards to avoid running into Naruto. He saw who she was at once and the way his eyes lit up was easy to catch.
“Sakura, I should have known you would be the smart one who put out the food!”
“He-hello Naruto,” Sakura said after a swallow. He was almost as touchy feely as Lee and just as just as loud, if not more so. Also, before she had moved away, Naruto had been her best friend along with Sasuke Uchiha-the boy no one talked about. With few others being able to stand the hyper active blond, the pair had been joined at the hit until her last day. It didn’t help that Naruto still had a little crush on her.
“Did you see me jump? I got a bigger wave than Rock Lee. Ha, you should have seen his face. He’s exhausted himself trying to keep up with this.” Naruto flexed comically.
“Somehow I doubt that is even possible,” a new voice interrupted. Naruto scowled when Sakura looked back over her shoulder to see Neji Hyuga carrying out a bowl of fruit jello. As stoic as he was, Neji had been close to Rock Lee and defended the overactive boy whenever he was being put down by others. Naturally, Naruto thought Neji was an ass.
Neji looked cooly past Naruto’s shoulder and then glanced sideways at Sakura before addressing Naruto again. “Where is he, anyway?”
Naruto shrugged, grin growing. “He was looking for Sakura, so I told him she’s somewhere in the water.”
“But I never went swimming,” Sakura said, watching as Naruto’s grin grew wider. Neji scowled.
“Yeah, I know that, but I don’t think he did.”
“You’re dishonest in the most frustrating ways,” Neji bit out before moving pass to put his food on the table and head towards the railing.
Naruto rolled his eyes before watching him go. Once he was almost out of sight, Naruto grabbed Sakura’s elbow, making her jerk. He didn’t notice, but took the chance to drag her away, back into the kitchen.
“What are you doing?” Sakura hissed.
“Neji’s family always has some booze stored away somewhere. We should find it.”
“Why?”
Naruto laughed. “To make sure it’s still good.”
“You’re going to get into trouble one day,” Sakura sighed, reaching up and running a hand through his wet hair, making it stick up. He stilled, looking up at her from where he crouched with eyes as blue as the lake around them. It was enough to make her remember how he had been a child with her, and forget how they were past all that now. She pulled her hand away and looked back at the cabin they were inside, ignoring the way he still looked at her.
“Yeah, but you’ll be able to save me from it, right? You’re not going away again.” He didn’t say it like it was a question, he said it like a wish.
“Where would I go like this?” Sakura asked around a yawn. Outside it was getting dim. Soon there would be fireworks.
“I’m tired of my favorite people leaving me, is all.”
Sakura looked over at Naruto again and understood what he didn’t say. No one talked about Sasuke, and she hadn’t asked, but she knew his leaving wasn’t a clean sort of leaving. Sasuke left something bitter in the memory of all his friends and now was her chance to find out what. Naruto would tell her, he probably wanted to.
Sakura almost opened her mouth to ask him for it, when she remembered how little she liked people knowing about her and where she’s been.
“How about we skip the Jack. I’ll go swimming with you instead.”
Naruto’s grin was bright enough to make something in her heart hurt. The pair approached the railing on one side of the ship just as a couple of swimmers were climbing up the opposite side. Naruto saw Rock Lee and cursed, making a dive for the water’s surface. He had reached for her, to drag her along with him, but Sakura weaved out of reach and dove in on her own, making her hands a cutting point that divided the waters in front of her.
The lake was crystal and cool all around her, and Sakura found her body moving all on its own as lack swim memories came back to her. She cut through the water and glided with ease, a little too in love with the feel.
When she looked back Naruto and Lee were water wrestling. The waves around them were foaming and loud, even with the muffled acoustics. Kiba was close, swimming closer to the boys with Neji trailing in his waves.
Sakura peaked for air and then dove back down, turning towards the end of the dam they had passed over earlier. No one swam past it, but Sakura had been a bit too fascinated with what she saw to follow their example. She had to peak for air once more before swimming over the submerged dam that separated one side of the lake from the other.
Sakura took a lungful of air from the surface and then bent into the waters again, pumping her legs to force her body down to the deep parts of the lake that had once been streets between houses. She could still see the stone outlines of where foundations were set from some of the most damaged buildings. Following the road she swam bast structures that were more intact than others. Some still even had doors hanging on crusted over hinges.
She swam up for air once more but then came back down, swimming past the steeple of an old church. She circled the bell tower, not surprised to find it void of the bell it had been suited for.
Sakura swam close enough to touch the church, feeling the wood as old as history beneath her fingers. With a kick she swam through an open window and out a hole in the side of the church. She laced through again, delighting in the sensation before having to swim up for more air.
She moved to kick up just as something caught on her ankle. She choked on a mouthful of lake water as she cried out in surprise. Water bubbled around her as her moves turned frantic. She caught sight of a fin and something silver and scaled. Her heart burned in fear, knowing she was the intruder in something else’s habitat.
Sakura kicked frantically and felt whatever was around her ankle slacken. It was enough for her to propel herself through another window and kick up off the sill up, up, up, up towards the glassy surface of the lake. She reached and the water broke as she came up, lungs gasping for air.
She didn’t stop. As soon as she could, she kicked off and swam with all the speed fear fed her, until she was over the dam’s wall and back in sight of the yacht.
The boys weren’t fighting anymore, but Naruto had Kiba on his shoulders while Rock Lee lifted Neji up to wrestle Kiba into the water. Ino and several others cheered from the railing, but no one seemed to have missed her.
All the better for her to not suffer the embarrassment of someone’s chastising.
Sakura turned around in the water and glanced back as far as she could see, into the ruins of the sunken town. It had been fun to explore and exciting to see. Her fear was still fresh enough to taste, but something else warmed her heart.
Maybe she had imagined it. She probably just got caught on some weed and saw a fish in her panic. She had over reacted after hearing the other kids talk about superstitions and curses.
‘The people who refused to leave were drowned when the dam was put in. Dozens died and were turned into watery ghosts who drown anyone who dares invade their home.’
“Silly,” Sakura said outloud to herself.
She turned and headed back to the party, pumping strong arms without fear or knowing what watched her leave. She didn’t look back, and she didn’t see the silvery body or wide, wounded eyes that watched her go.
