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He can never forget the first time he met her.
Although, he cannot for the life of him remember when exactly. Time is a construct that Kisame, God of Seas and Reclaim, hardly had any use for until she came along. Until he found himself counting the days to the first day of every spring. Until he vowed to her that he would one day take over the World in her name .
He can will never forget the first time he met her.
He is usually still until stirred. He is usually calm until provoked. And he is minding his own business when he somehow finds himself carried into yet another one of the other gods’ little arguments.
The God of Storms is quick to brew a tempest that rouses Kisame while the God of Winds flies above his waters so powerfully fast that it sends waves every which way.
Oh, how could he forget the first time he met her?
A tidal wave slams onto a cliff. The impact brings his waters higher than he could ever imagine them reaching and he rains down on a field of flowers dancing wildly in the Wind. Drops of Ocean—of him—touch the grass and the flowers like a light kiss on a stranger’s hand.
That is the first time he meets her.
He remembers himself clumsy and awkward and reluctantly pulling away as jealous winds pick up to carry away the droplets from the top of the cliff and back to the ocean. But carried with it is a single petal from a flower he could never be bothered to learn the name of.
As the petal touches the surface of the sea and sends ripples across the Water, he learns her name in a sweet, intimate whisper. She is Sakura, God of Spring and Forgiveness. The ripples from her touch quickly grow into giant waves he realizes himself unable to tame.
And he slams against the cliff once more and meets her at the top.
This becomes her favorite game. Whenever the God of Wind pays her a visit, she sends him away with so many petals so he is unable to carry all of them with him and is forced to drop them into the ocean below.
Her touches turn into ripples. Ripples turn into waves. And waves turn into opportunities to meet her on the cliff once more. However, not all the waves are high or strong enough to carry him to the top every time and he sometimes settles for hitting the side of the cliff.
“Come into the water,” he calls to her as the waves crash at the rocks on the bottom.
Kisame feels her smiling at him sympathetically. “You know I cannot. But perhaps someday.”
Time is a construct he hardly had any use for. But he wants nothing more than to hold on to her word. He wants Sakura to tell him when exactly so he could count the days.
“Is that a promise?” He bellows in laughter.
“Wise is a he who knows better than to make a vow to the God of Reclaim,” she tells him. “If you give me your trust and I do not make well of it, you will return to take it back and more.”
“And foolish is he who holds a grudge against the God of Forgiveness,” he throws back at her. “So, will you come into the water?”
There is silence before he hears her voice once again, a little more somber this time. “I wish I could.”
Spring does not stay. This he learns soon after they meet.
She does not fare well when the Sun climbs too high, when the air is too dry. She is not fond of the way the season plucks the trees and the meadows of her gifts. And she abhors how unforgiving the frost can be when the cold suffocates the land with snow.
Time is a construct but the Ocean learns to count the days nonetheless.
Because Spring does not stay but she always returns. When the God of Winter retreats from his purification (punishment) of the land, Spring is quick to take his place. Sakura fills the trees, meadows, hills, and the cliffs with life once more.
So he keeps track of the eternal dance between the Sun and Moon, the way the seasons hand over the land to one another until her return.
And when she does, he beckons her with his waves once more.
"Come into the water," comes his usual invitation, waves crashing against the bottom of the cliff. "And I'll show you that you can perpetually thrive in my arms, bring as much life as you want to my depths."
He feels her laughter in the burst of petals she sends flying with the Wind. "A generous offer but you are already full of life, Kisame," she giggles. It is the first time she says his name since they met a millennium ago and he feels the lightest of petals sending the highest tides on the other side of the World.
Another wave hits the cliff and her tone grows somber. "I cannot abandon the land and those who thrive off my gifts."
"I await your return every year," the Ocean sighs, the waters washing over the rocks hopelessly. Perhaps his loyalty would change her mind?
"As the living also do." Apparently not. "They need me more than you do." Oh, how is she so sure?
The God of Spring returns not because she is bound to her duty to the living. But because she does not do well with leaving those who need her to suffer. It is this benevolence that has him sitting calmly at the bottom of the cliff, waiting for her return each year.
The World is in pain.
The God of Mountains and Benevolence weeps as humans carve cavities in her bodies to scrape them clean of gold. The God of Wind struggles to clear the air of smoke and fumes, struggles to breathe.
And Kisame is no different.
He does not feel it at first. But as centuries fly by, he easily forgets that there was ever a time he could hear even the faintest cries of guppies born in the quiet of his waters. Now, there is a perpetual rumbling and constant explosions that echo across the waters for miles, forcing his creatures to speak louder, shout above the noise until their voices are raw.
Once upon a time, the ocean floor was as vibrant and thriving as the meadows of Spring. Now, the depths where he had promised Sakura could thrive are stripped of life. Reefs and corals muted and hollow versions of the palaces they once were to his children. Haunted and barely habitable, no creature can ever call them home anymore.
And while the creatures of the depths are magnificent, they are not mostly intelligent. And he does not know what pains him more—finding his naïve children feeding on man made wastes or being trapped in them. Kisame soon loses count of the children that had been drowned, suffocated, and poisoned.
All because the humans do not spare a second glance at the wake of their destruction—not when there is so much to be achieved for their kind. Not when they are too busy paving the road ahead of them.
It is not fair how the World is left to suffer (to take care of itself) all so that the humans (the creatures the World has done well to take care of) can thrive. So they make it fair.
The God of Storm is quicker to anger. The God of the Sun now is as punishing as the God of Winter, beating down on all of the Living relentlessly. And the God of Winter bites the land with a cold fiercer than ever.
Even the God of Spring (and Forgiveness) seems to take her sweet time away from it all before she finally decides to save the land from the sharp chill and the blanket that curses the land to seize all growth.
Spring does not stay angry for too long but with every decade passing them by, Kisame (along with the humans and the rest of the World) finds themselves waiting just a little bit longer for her forgiveness. For the return of Spring.
Sakura is weak and hurting, running out of places to grow. The weight of humanity’s unending expansion of civilization suffocates every god and there are less meadows and fields for her to paint. It is as if they do not want need her forgiveness.
How ungrateful.
“Come into the water, Sakura,” he presses. “While you still can.”
“They need me now more than ever,” is all she says. Petals kiss the surface of the water, an apology for refusing to leave behind the humans who have caused the World so much pain. “I feel punishment from the gods has only driven them further from us. They must be shown grace.”
“A grace they do not show us,” the Ocean angrily slams against the cliffside. It hurts but it is nothing compared to the agony that humans have brought upon him and his children.
The impact is powerful enough to send parts of him over it once more. And when he rains down on her, he is furious to discover that she is no longer the lush field of colorful flowers she once was. There is only a sparse growth here and there, and the meadow looks like an unfinished masterpiece.
Neither the grass nor the stems that hold the flowers she sends him stand as tall as they once did. They no longer rise to reach for the Sun and are instead bent over, as if looking down helplessly to the Ocean. Like she would like nothing more than to accept his invitation.
The God of Spring is tired of showing mercy. He sees it in the way it takes her longer to return by the decade. Perhaps it takes more time for her to find it in herself to sincerely forgive them for their abuse. Perhaps it is to indulge the God of Winter’s desire to punish them. Perhaps it was both.
Drops of the Ocean caress what he can of her growth for as long as he can. Before the Sun calls him and tells him it is time to return to the waters. Thankfully, when the Wind passes them by, he does not carry Kisame away. Instead, he gently blows over them, like a comforting pat on the back.
In the gentle breeze, petals snap off from the blossoms and weakly crawl across the small field until they fall at the end of the cliff only to be claimed by angry waves below.
“Come into the water,” he pleads. Witnessing her desperation stirs something within him. And he is usually calm until he finds a reason not to be.
When she doesn’t answer, he whispers a grudging vow—not against her but those that have abused her for far too long. “Then I will come to you.”
Time is a construct that the God of Seas had no use for. At first he grasps its fundamentals for Spring. Now, he counts down to something else—vengeance for his fellow gods, for the World, for Spring.
Unlike his fellow gods, he is at first subtle with his retaliation, creeping up toward the land to claim it inch by inch. It is barely noticeable—the way his waves claw at the shores, at the side of the cliffs, pulling them into his domain. When the humans finally recognize his and the other gods’ act of vengeance upon them, he cackles maniacally at their attempt to appease the gods once more.
The humans can try to protect what little they can of the land, the mountains, the sea. But it is too late.
It is the year that Sakura refused to return that had been the catalyst—the final straw. She is not the first to succumb to the effects of the humans' destruction but her abandonment of all that defines her as a deity is the sign that the rest of the World awaits.
Because when the God of Spring and Forgiveness turns her back on the Living, it can only mean that they are no longer worthy of mercy.
The God of Storms no longer holds back his onslaught across the lands, destroying what he can with his lightning. The God of Forests offers his trees to the God of Fire to faster spread unbridled flames across the land. The Wind offers his aid to Kisame, vowing to push his waters as high and as far as he is able.
When most of the World is in ruin, the God of Seas stops crawling modestly and begins devouring the land unapologetically, sending unrelenting waves monstrous enough to consume cities at a time. No human could escape his grasp as he pulls tens of thousands under.
“Come into the water,” he bellows, sending wave after wave to claim all they have built in a world they so selfishly thought was theirs and theirs alone. “And I will show you how you have suffocated my children. How you slowly drained life from the World.”
He is deaf to their screams and gurgles when he mercilessly squeezes their lungs of air, just as they turned a blind eye to the collateral damage—to his children and their homes—that they’d left in their pursuit for civilization, for greatness, for convenience .
The World does not belong to these humans. It is they who belong to the world. And Kisame is sure to do well to remind them of it as he engulfs everything he is able to touch, sea foam hissing ominous promises as it pulls back before the tides return once again with a vengeance.
The Sun and the Moon dance gracefully above them all in revelry. And Kisame keeps track of the way they circle around one another.
It only takes a decade to reclaim all that is rightfully the gods’.
It only takes a decade for his waves to finally pull enough of the land under that his waves now wash over mountain peaks (where his children find new homes in the crevices and hollows carved by humans).
It only takes a decade for him to make real his promise that he would come to her. And a small wave gently sweeps over the meadow atop the cliff where he met her aeons ago (where she hides away from the sight of gods unleashing their wrath upon the Living).
The God of Seas no longer settles for stolen moments, for quick caresses. Kisame embraces Sakura for the first time, a lone flower bending with the rush of the tide that comes to comfort her. And he feels how she is tired and weak and in pain.
“Come into the water, my love.”
His whisper and embrace carry promises of rest and refuge. The God of Spring and Forgiveness is a witness to Kisame’s commitment to fulfilling his promises (he has come to her as he vowed after all) and allows him to pull her under. And the cliff disappears below the surface of his water.
Kisame no longer counts the decades. The Sun and Moon may dance for as long as they please. The God of Storms may stir hurricanes that last for as long as he wishes. The rest of the World no longer exists to the God of Seas (they may as well be dead).
All that matters now is that Sakura eternally flourishes in his embrace, giving life that had once been stolen from his depths. And they no longer worry.