Naruto Fan Fiction

SI-OC!

(Title)

"The Weasel and His Cat"

DISCLAIMER: I do not own 'Naruto'!

WARNING! RATED M! For warnings of harsh language.

A biting rain pelted the Woman's head, flattening ebony locks against her skull as she climbed the rigging to fasten down their dinghy's sole sail in the midst of the raging storm. Tying off the knots, she made it back to the deck just as another large wave rocked the ship and nearly sent her careening over the aft. She caught herself at the last moment on the railing, slamming her head against it in the process.

"Fucking HELL!" she cursed, pressing a fist against her throbbing temple. That was going to be a colorful bruise. Yellow-green eyes cut through the rain to glare at the blonde man at the helm. "Dyin' from brain hemorrhaging is NOT a good way to go! Neither is drowning, by the way! Just in case you were gettin' any ideas!"

Lightning clapped in the skies, followed by a bellowing roll of thunder that made her ears ring. Rayleigh looked over his shoulder at her, slicking back loose blond hair from his eyes. "What was that?! I can't hear you over your complaining!"

"Just wondering what I did wrong in my past lives to be sentenced to die alongside a couple of damned fools!" she snapped, coming to stop beside the helm and clutching onto the railing with a white-knuckled grip. Rayleigh shook his head at her, steadying himself as he maneuvered the ship away from another large swell.

"I still don't understand why someone who's afraid of water would want to set sail! It just doesn't make any sense, Mary!"

"I told yah, that isn't my damn name so don't call me that! And I was KIDNAPPED by that idiot, you bastard! Get it straight!"

"But you always hate it when I call you by Mary-ann—" Rayleigh's head snapped towards her, eyes bulging behind his glasses as he registered the last of her sentence. "Wait, WHAT?!"

"ANNIE!"

From the bow of the boat where he was nearly hanging off, the Idiot Captain howled with sudden laughter. His dark silhouette stood out starkly against the tumultuous skies, black against the flashes of lightning hitting the waters. Hand placed securely on top of his beloved straw hat, he turned towards them with a broad grin on his lips even as rain streamed down his smooth face.

"I think I saw something really great!" he bellowed, grin nearly wild as he pointed out towards the water.

"Don't curse us with any more seabeasts, Idiot Captain!" she snapped furiously at him, eyes darting towards the endlessly black waves instinctively. "Or next time it'll be your ass tied to the log as the natives slow roast you! And I'll be bringing the fucking sauce!"

"Aw, come on Annie! You know you had fun after we got it all sorted out! Besides, they didn't even have you half-cooked by the time we found ya again!" he retorted, unbothered by her acidic words. Only to laugh again when yellow-green eyes flared at him and she aimed a scowl his way.

Roger threw his free arm out at his side and gestured to the wild and raging ocean around them, letting the wind and rain soak his clothing and plastered his short black hair to his face. He let his head fall back so that he could shout at the sky that looked as if it would smite him if it thought it had half a chance.

"Even the weather in the Grand Line wants to fight us every step of the way! I couldn't have asked for anything better! You can't say that you woulda experienced anything as exciting as this back in East Blue!"

"I specifically asked to NOT be involved with exciting things, you stupid man!" the Woman cursed before she began muttering to herself. "Should've just stayed in Lougetown and waited for some pleasant brigands to mug and gut me. I would've been in a different kind of hell, but I'd bet they had a shit-ton less of water there at least... "

The Woman's bitter mumblings were interrupted as the boat rocked violently again. Everyone aboard braced themselves suddenly as a large shadow covered the deck of the small vessel, blotting out what little light they had. A dozen wriggling tentacles following out of the waters soon after the sea monster's appearance, encircling their little ship on every side.

Rayleigh spat a curse, hurriedly turning the wheel to avoid a head-on collision.

Roger shouted with glee, climbing up onto the bow to get as close as he could without going for a swim.

The Woman could only stare slack-jawed as something ripped straight out of a Lovecraftian horror rose out from the ocean—

Tomomi paused during her tale, taking a moment to eat the small cup of cream placed in front of her. Itachi fidgeted in his seat. Since the beginning of the tale, he had given up propriety in trade for settling himself upon the small bed he had maintained for her through the years, though she had yet to lay upon it even once. The Feline took an indulgent time nibbling on one of his Okaa-san's tuna rolls and his impatience got the better of him for once.

"What happened next, Tomomi-san?" the little weasel asked eagerly, leaning towards her in his excitement. Lime-green eyes narrowed at him briefly before she looked off into the distance, glaring at some unseen thing.

"What do you think happened?" she asked rhetorically. "Roger, the damned fool, punched it square in it's face."

—"HAVE YOU LOST YOUR DAMN MIND!?" the Woman screeched, dashing across the wet deck towards the cabin. The monster she was certain was a sort of Kraken submerged back under the surface of the water after Roger's blow, taking it's slimy tentacles with it. But if she knew anything about unspeakable horrors, it was that they didn't die so easily.

She slipped once on the slick deck and landed harshly on her hip before clambering back up to where she'd stowed her Blunderbuss when the rain started up. Wet powder be damned. She wasn't going to face any damned sea monsters without a weapon in hand again, even if it's only able to be used as a blunt object. The thing with cockatrice they encountered at Waterfowl island the other week was a shit-show and a half that nearly ended up with her spit-roasted over a fire after the natives found out Roger had killed and eaten their so-called 'God'. She ended up with second-degree burns that were still healing in places!

Thinking better of it, she strapped on a wooden sword to her lower back as well. There was no such thing as over-preparation when you travel with idiots as she was learning. Even if all you have left is a sturdy stick.

Lord. This man was going to be the Death of her. The most excruciatingly painful one yet, she was sure. She really hated this world. It was like a free-roaming insane asylum where the crazy was passed around like Herpes. Don't even get her started on how these people looked.

"What?" Roger asked obliviously, a grin on his face and in his voice. He looked way too damn pleased with himself for her liking as she stepped back out, weapons at the ready. "He wanted a fight, so I gave him one! Oi, Ray! Where are we again?"

"Hell if I know," Rayleigh called out as he threw back his flask in hopes of nursing his sudden headache. His wrist was jerked down suddenly as the Woman looked at the Log Pose strapped to it. He made a noise of protest as she dragged him back into the cabin where she laid out the sea charts, ducking his head down when the muzzle of her blunderbuss came sweeping by as she tried to read their position.

"Charts say we're a day's travel from some place called: Dead Star Island, but we could have traveled closer in that storm!" the Woman answered out the door, turning back to scowl down at the maps. "Fuckin' great... Gotta love it when the names of the islands have 'Dead' in it. Probably home to more cannibals. It's fucking wonderful..."

Rayleigh huffed in amusement at her sour muttering as he gingerly tipped her blunderbuss to the other side, pointing it's muzzle away from his face. It would be just his luck that the one time she actually hits something with that hand-cannon, it'd be aimed at his face. He left her glaring at the sea charts and went back to the helm as the rain finally began to let up, the clouds parting only slightly to reveal traces of dusky orange skies. The blonde leaned forward on the wheel as the waters finally calmed down for the first time in hours, enjoying the relaxing moment.

Then a load of buckshot flew by his ear.

Rayleigh ducked to the floor with the intent of snapping at Mary-anne and Roger fell off the rigging he was climbing to crash into the deck, but both snapped to attention as a very feminine shriek filled the air. Both men turned towards the sound to see their sole female crewmate being dragged kicking and cursing by a long slimy pale tentacle, whacking it with her wooden sword as she was lifted high into the air by the leg. They scrambled to stand and ran over to the side where she was dangling, mouths gaping.

"MOTHERFUUUCCKEE—" the rest of her scream was swallowed by the ocean as she was dragged under it's surface, disappearing from view. Rayleigh and Roger stared at the deep blue waters for a stunned moment as a few bubbles rose to the top afterwards.

They shared a look with each other.

Then the bubbles stopped coming and they vaulted over the side of the ship in unison.

Now, if you were to ask the Woman, she didn't know exactly what had happened or how it occurred. One moment she had been reviewing possible upcoming ports where she could get off the ship and away from the two idiots she was currently trapped with, and the next something had bumped up against her ass. Instinctively, she had spun around to stick her blunderbuss into Rayleigh's face only to find he was standing all the way over by the wheel.

Then something wrapped around her ankle and pulled, causing her to fall over and fire off her one round of ammo as obscenities flew out of her mouth in nearly incoherent shrieks.

Everything that happened after that was blurred rush of shock, rushing adrenaline, cold water and painful sensation of smacking her leg with her sword half the time. She kept her eyes tightly shut the entire time after seeing the beaked maw of the Kraken and blindly swung her sword at the limb grasping onto her. At one point after salty water flooded her burning lungs and she lost the strength to defend herself anymore from the lack of oxygen, she actually had a moment of total clarity where she accepted this watery death and readied herself to move onto the next world. She really had.

When she opened her eyes for what was supposed to be the last time, it was to the sight of Gol D. Roger's maniacal grin a mere foot away from her face. His straw hat floated in the water beside him, held only by a string around his neck. His hand fisted into her leather duster before he kicked upwards, pulling them through the water before her body collided against the wooden deck of their ship once again.

She had not died, she realized as she retched up sea water and the remaining contents of her stomach. The pain she felt in her chest and limbs told her she was still alive as well, as did the chill of fresh air on her wet skin. Out of the corner of her vision she noticed Roger and Rayleigh pulling themselves back aboard the vessel. Both of them were soaked and clothes spotted with blotches of ink, Rayleigh's saber dripped with blueish ooze that she assumed was sea monster viscera.

"Annie! Are you sill breathing?" Roger asked earnestly as he ran over to her, slamming a heavy hand into her back to try and aid her. The Woman choked on a gasp as her body radiated with pain, yellow-green eyes shot to him in anger. She coughed a couple times, hacking up more seawater before turning a sneer up at the all-too carefree man towering over her.

She had not died this time, no.

Yet, she was sure she was still in Hell.

"I'm aces, Captain," she deadpanned, voice hoarse. "Fuckin' aces..."

"Great! I thought you'd might be mad!" he laughed, completely oblivious to her sarcastic tone. He clapped her back twice more and stars clouded her vision.

"Damn you both and damn this boat!" she spat, nearly whining. She was wet and cold and tired and sore, all she wanted to do was curl up and nap. Preferably not to wake up again, not to these two idiots.

Rayleigh sheathed his newly-cleaned saber and turned to her with an indignant look. "Don't talk about my ship like that! Unlike yourself, she's a lady and needs to be treated with respect—"

The Woman snarled, peeling off her wet jacket and throwing it down. "You STOLE this boat, you smarmy bastard! It isn't yours to begin with, so don't you go lecturing me about—"

Roger threw his head back, laughing like a depraved madman by her accounts as they sailed along their course without any particular destination in mind. The Woman and Rayleigh continued bickering until the sun went down and Roger did nothing to stop them. He only grinned at the horizon as the next island, and adventure, came into sight.

The Weasel and His Cat

TO BE CONTINUED

A/N: There we gooo~ Ah! Finally done! I'm so happy with how these chapters turned out. I wanted a notice for the passage of time since Itachi found Tomomi (roughly four years now) so we can get on with his life. Which, as some of you should know, things will be picking up as we get closer to his teen years. The next few chapters in fact are not going to be very happy or funny to read, really. Sorry for that in advance.

But, I just want you all to know that even though this is a tragedy, it doesn't mean this story has to have a tragic ending. I know that it will not be the happy ending people are hoping for, but I aim to make it satisfying. I promise. Thank you for reading and your continual support guys! I love writing for you!

Okay, I love you, guys! I'll see you next time!

-Nanami