Chapter Text
It was Shukaku who saw them first. High up the wooden perch that had been carefully built all those years ago he had been sat, crunching through his fifth coconut of the day, when his beady yellow eyes spied the mast of large ship on the northern horizon. The sails had been torn through to shreds and flapped in the breeze which told the beast more than he would have liked to know.
With a shriek so shrill the wild birds on the island took off in ran the tiny sand demon through the bright tropical thicket that covered half the island, attracting his brother and sister that were out to come dashing in. Only Matatabe and Kurama followed him, a bright and electric blue cat chased by a dark red fox, while the rest streaked in from wherever they had been.Together they ran into a small clearing, darting up steps carved into the yellowed rocks to their home: a square but cozy hut made of cut branches, the inside containing nine little tunnels to nine little rooms for nine little tailed beasts (all in a row).
Their commotion was easily heard by the man they called their keeper. He met them in the center as all nine came to a dusty halt, paused, forced to wait as they reshuffled themselves into numerical order. They were all barely larger than your fattest house cat, give or take their various extra legs, tails, or tentacles, and the fattest, Shikaku, weighed less than a baker's sack of flour.
“I am Shukaku!” said, well, Shukaku, the first tailed beast, who somehow always had sand trailing behind him. He wheezed, completely not in shape. “And there is a pirate ship coming from the north! It looks like they plan to land here!”
A chorus of gasps went down the line until they got to Kurama who hissed and snarled instead with the look of murder in his eyes.
Iruka did not gasp. The news that had his murder beasts on edge now was good----maybe, potentially, hopefully. They had been marooned, in a sense, on this island hundreds of years ago, away from humans for their own safety and for the villages and towns. As part of the deal they always had a human come join them and Iruka had been the Land of Waves tribute, condemned to a life with no others except knee-high demons for company. When Iruka arrived he was barely ten, an orphan after a recent war, a child no one would miss. The beasts loved his stories about the newest cities and books, their last keeper barely cared to interact with them and thus they had lived the last 150 with no new news of the world.
And now their prayers may be answered. Iruka loved his island, his beasts, they love him back but they know they aren't human contact and besides, they told him, they can live inside him. A perfect escape and then, later, they could be released somewhere safe where he could still watch over them but maybe find a lover, take a family, enjoy life.
“What are we going to do?” whined Saiken, six tails dripping extra heavily with slime from the sudden stress. “Iruka-kun, please, we need to know!”
Iruka chewed his lip, absently rubbing the scar that ran across his nose. It helped him think better. “Alright, everyone. Listen up. Shukaku---yes, no, I know you're Shukaku stop that!--- will lead us back to the lookout point and I'm going to look. Kurama, stop pouting and go fetch me that telescope, please! Everyone else, follow your brother!”
Getting to the tree perch didn't take long. Iruka scrambled up with Shukaku and Son Gokū, the latter their red-coated primate king and the only other one with opposable thumbs so he was tasked with carrying up the old sailor's spyglass.
Snapping the brass and glass item out Iruka centered in on the pirate ship. It was maybe half a day away but very much on course for the island and very much a potential problem.
Climbing down Iruka dispatched the beasts with a plan: bring inside the cave anything they owned, clearing out trace that anyone inhabited the land and meet down on the far backside where a very shallow cave stood at the top, it's rounded back side faced north and looked dangerous, full of sharp angled rocks. The tailed beasts pooled their chakra together and made it so Intruders would be frightened away by a foreboding feeling that settled over their area. By human design Iruka had carved out a horizontal embrasure at the thinnest point in the rocks for a lookout; it provided him near perfect view of the white sand beach a half mile below. The beach itself stretched the whole northern half of the island, from eastern white cliff to western hard red rock, no more than mile wide; it ran two miles deep with a sharp cut of rock straight down the middle making the world's tiniest mountain range. The side they lived on was the south east, the flattest area big enough for Iruka’s vegetables and fruit trees. From above he imagined the island was shaped like a pear upside down, bottom north and stem south.
The ship made anchor a few hours before nightfall, tiny boats taking people back and forth. Iruka watched many little figures dart around, setting up a camp right at the sands edge. A rather important looking man arrived on the beach before sunset, his white hair escaping a cloth tied around it, fluttering in the breeze only match his billowing white shirt. Iruka had a feeling the man's shapely black trousers looked good in person. Sailors saluted or bowed before going back to task when he walked by them. A pink haired woman with a too-loud blond woman at her side led him around, pointing things out, gesturing towards an area on the island he knew had fresh water. The captain, Iruka decided that's who he was, seemed disinterested with the update judging by his hunkered posture, giving off an air of indifference. Kokuō raised his white porpoise-shaped head to watch with Iruka, eventually giving off a snort when he spied the captain.
“How rude! ” he chuffed. Iruka smiled, Kokuō was the king of manners. He gave his four-legged-five-tailed friend a patch and a scritch behind one of his four ears before shoving him back out of the way. Kokuō found this rude as well but had long since learned Iruka didn’t care.
The sun was almost below the horizon when he saw the captain turn towards the jut of rock that Iruka and his group hid behind. With breath caught suspended on an inhale, Iruka’s eyes widened when he realized that the captain’s face was pointed at them and an eyepatch he had previously missed flipped up. In the fading light of the day the eye shown a blazing bright red.
Iruka scrambled back from the rock to the other side of the cave, pushing himself up against it flat. No one moved in the cave for what felt like eons, not until the sun had fully dropped behind the sea and the moon rose high in the night sky.
There were two things Iruka know knew: that the captain may be the most beautiful man he has ever seen, and that the captain definitely saw him and he had no idea how. That glowing red eye unnerved Iruka and followed him in into his dreams.