A Fish in an Asylum

"Now calm down, Mr. Uchiha…"
"NO! I WILL NOT CALM DOWN!" The boy was in the asylum director's office, balanced precariously on the edge of one the couches. His eyes were wide and his blue tinged hands were frantically fiddling with a stress ball.
"Everything is going to be fine, just-"
"Everything is not fine! Thank you!" Sasuke's eye twitched as he crushed the ball in his fist. The director sighed, leaning back in his chair with an exasperated look on his face.
"Now, tell me exactly what happened."
"I've already TOLD you! They turned me into a fish!" He half-screamed, shaking uncontrollably. The doctor looked at the new inmate over his glasses, his look simply stating 'you've got to be kidding me'.
"They turned you into a fish."
"YES!" Sasuke cried, burying his pink hair in his hands and shaking. Turning to the assistant standing next to the boy, the director said,
"Tranq him." Sasuke's head shot up and his eyes went wide until the "nice sleepy dart" plunged into his arm, filled with heavy sedatives. His eyes drooped drastically and the fish boy wavered for a second, then dropped fast asleep on the couch.

Sasuke stirred in his bed, then suddenly noticed that he hadn't fallen asleep in a bed in the first place. Sitting bolt upright, the second thing he noticed were the two faces staring at him intently. Screaming and scooting back towards the padded wall, Sasuke watched in horror as their faces lit up with sadistic joy. The Hyuuga girl was sitting right next to his pillow, while the blond was hanging over the top bunk upside down. They were a lot scarier unrestrained.
"Why hello, fish boy." The brunette grinned, the blond now interrupting.
"I assume you remember us?
"S-S-Sabaku no Anna and K-K-Katie Hyuuga." The Uchiha shivered, gills rapidly opening and closing. Looking down at her partner, Anna smiled as she said,
"Amazing. He remembers us." Sasuke wanted to scream about how he couldn't possibly forget them, but abject terror had seized him by the throat and refused to let go.
"Now, now, Anna. Let's not torture him too much before the guards come in."
"Fine fine." Sabaku no Anna pouted as she leapt down from the top bunk, landing next to Katie, both of whom were grinning manically. Fish boy calmed down slightly, intrigued by what he heard. There were guards here? He had only seen doctors and the like so far. Getting carefully out of his bed, Sasuke walked over to the sink, turning on the faucet. After a few quick glances over his shoulder, the boy cupped his hands under the water and took a quick sip. At a click and squeak of padding on tile, Sasuke jolted around, staring at the door like a starving man would a banquet. A set of doctors were standing in the door way, two with loaded syringes.

"Alright then, breakfast time you three." The kunoichi rolled their eyes, pulling up their sleeves for the needles.
"I still don't know why the guards do this." Katie grumbled as the needle pierced her arm, not even acknowledging the pain. Oh, these were the guards they were talking about, Sasuke thought glumly. They wouldn't be able to help him at all.
"Come on then." Each of the inmates were accompanied by a doctor, filing into a line of other inmates as they walked down the hall. After passing through the waiting room, the group entered the dining hall, the size of which surprised Sasuke. The entire left wall was a serving line, with group tables as well as solitary seats. All of the inmates were herded towards the beginning of the serving line, with Katie in front of him and Anna behind. Needless to say, this made Sasuke very nervous. But the tranquilizer in their arms seemed to calm them down just slightly and he was able to focus on finding food for himself. But the farther he went down the line, the slimmer his options became. Although his torturers were amusing to watch as they ducked, crawled and stole their food from the counters, by the time he reached the end of the line, he was forced to accept defeat.
"Excuse me?" He timidly asked the doctor at the end of the line after Katie and Anna had both taken their place at one of the tables. The doctor looked at him, thankfully showing no surprise at his strange appearance.
"Yes, can I help you?" The man asked, looking him straight in the face, which reassured the Uchiha and gave him the courage to ask his question.
"Do you have any fish food?" There was silence, a silence that half made Sasuke want to kill the girls who were now grinning as they watched him and half want to collapse in the corner and giggle like mad.
"Fish food?" The doctor repeated, the surprise obviously masked behind his face. The blue skinned boy almost screamed.
"Yes. When I…turned blue, I lost the ability to eat food like this. Do you have any fish food around here?" He asked pleadingly, hiding his twitching hand beneath the plastic tray. The doctor looked stunned, but asked him to sit down with his inmates and went off towards the director's office. The boy breathed a large sigh of relief then carefully made his way over to the kunoichi's current lair. They were staring at him, a sort of subdued glint in their eyes that made Sasuke want to very, very carefully leap from his seat and run through the doors of this place. Placing his empty platter on the table, he watched them alternately shovel food in their mouths and glance around like meerkats on the lookout for danger. They were definitely different from the girls who had thrown him over a bridge and turned him into a fish, but only by a few degrees. Those degrees being their increased paranoia and apparent madness.
"Here you go." The doctor had returned with a jar of goldfish flakes, placing them on the table next to Sasuke and returning to his post. Having caught sight of it, the kunoichi's smiles widened, only putting the Uchiha more on edge. Taking his plastic spoon, he slowly ate the flakes from the jar, internally despising the barbarity of it all. Normally he would have eaten from a bowl, complete with milk, for breakfast. Now that the doctors knew, they would be ready for tomorrow. That is, if he wasn't driven insane by tomorrow. Suddenly Sasuke noticed that his tormentors had disappeared. Immediately he froze and frantically glanced around the room, searching for the telltale gold or brown hair. He couldn't see them among the sea of faces and the Uchiha immediately became paranoid. Twisting the cap back on the fish flakes, Sasuke instinctively reached for his weapons pouch which, of course, wasn't there. He was at a mental facility. They didn't allow weapons through the door lest they land in the hands of someone like Sabaku no Anna or Katie Hyuuga. Picking up a whisper in the corner of the room, Sasuke heard one of the doctors say,
"Someone tell the director that Katie Hyuuga and Sabaku no Anna have gone missing in the dining hall. Again." Doctors around the room began gathering their patients and although the boy had been collected by his caretaker, the fish was freaking out. Suddenly noticing the large shadow that appeared over him, Sasuke looked up to see Katie dive-bombing him from the ceiling, where she had apparently been lying in wait. Her eyes were alight with a manic fire and the last thing out of the boy's mouth was,
"AAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

Sasuke sulked into the exercise garden, glaring daggers at Katie Hyuuga who had just received another dose of tranquilizer. Nursing his now sore shoulder from where she had tackled him to the ground, he looked up to see the high walls that surrounded the yard, covered in ivy and vines. Thankfully his two tormentors were not allowed outside without caretakers right next to them and the Uchiha was free to wander the yard on his own. It was very large, with many flower beds and wooden benches. The boy walked past a large trellis of purple and white flowers, his only goal to forget his crazy inmates and his own appearance. He succeeded in preoccupying himself with watching water trickle down a stone fountain into a shallow pool. A small waterfall lead down into a deeper pool, filled with white and gold koi fish. Fish always calmed Sasuke down, despite his own condition. They were related to him in a twisted evolutionary way. He stared at his hand, covered in miniscule scales that allowed his the flexibility of movement normal scales wouldn't. Taking a swig from his water bottle, Sasuke only looked up when a black haired woman sat next to him.
"Hello." He said, blinking in surprise. No one had ever sat next to him since his academy years. His voice seemed to startle her from her trance and she stared at him with her wide blue eyes.
"Oh hello. Who are you?" Pleased that word of his arrival, and subsequently condition, hadn't spread too far, the boy continued,
"Sasuke. Sasuke Uchiha." He responded, offering his hand. The lady stared at it with a sort of repulsion.
"Verakan Kekino." She hissed, baring her teeth in a threatening manner. Sasuke scooched backward, the same fear he encountered from the kunoichi rising up in his throat. But her face soon snapped back to normal and he did the same, although keeping up his guard.
"Do you like watching the koi?" She asked, looking back at the pond, which was only two feet away. Getting up and crouching over the fish, she watched an almost invisible black koi circle the edge of the water.
"Yeah." The human fish said, resettling into watching his evolutionary friends. But his blond inmate shooting past the pond, cackling in a loud and manaic manner with her caretaker sprinting frantically behind, shattered the serenity. Sasuke went rigid and watched with a horrified face as she ran past.
"You know her?" Verakan asked, watching the psycho run down another isle of flowers.
"My inmate." He shuddered. The woman nodded understandingly.
"I have an inmate similar to yours." She grumbled, indicating to a black-haired man who was dancing in a flower patch, surrounded by butterflies. Her eyes narrowed into a very scary visage and Sasuke watched as she began mumbling to herself, only occasionally catching words like "blood", "sword", and "murder". Suddenly she snapped back to reality and an almost relaxed look came over her face.
"She and her friend were real basket cases when they got here." Now Sasuke was intrigued. Why were his two most hated people here to torture him? It wasn't just coincidence.
"What happened to them?" He asked, turning his attention momentarily from the koi to his visitor's face.
"From what I heard, their sensei left them in a survival mission in one of the training grounds for longer than expected. When the mission ended, they thought they were still inside. Even now, they consider this a training ground during their endless survival mission." Verakan mused, watching Katie attempt to create a vine rope, which her caretaker was desperately trying to wrestle from her. It made sense when Sasuke thought about it. They were almost stalking their food in the dining hall this morning, and they didn't recognize the doctors as such. At that moment Verakan's face twisted, like there was some annoying bug hovering just above her head. She glared at it for a few more seconds, then whacked her head a few times, the same annoyed look on her face.
"Are you alright?" Sasuke asked, moving to get up.
"Yes yes, I'm fine. Reando and Yaroso are just arguing again. Shut up shut up shut up!" She growled under her breath, punctuating each phrase with another whack on the head. Just then Sasuke's caretaker came over, taking him by the shoulder and telling him it was time for lunch.

Sasuke picked up a crayon with a look of despair, reminding himself that however nice it would have been to have a pencil to defend himself with, they were too sharp to be allowed in the asylum. Although his time in the garden and his second meal of fish flakes had helped him keep his sanity, arts and crafts was going to be hell. Anna and Katie were sitting across from him, drawing frantically with their own crayons. The blond was sketching out what seemed to be a map of the asylum, complete with little rivers and Xs marking the food line. Several trees marked some of the hallways and gardens, and Sasuke made a mental note to avoid them. Looking down on his red crayon, he began dismally doodling an Uchiha symbol on his paper. After a few more minutes of sober drawing, he heard a murmur, something that he had quickly learned to be a sign of trouble. Looking up, he saw Katie giggling as she sketched, a silver crayon in her hand quickly being rubbed down. Suddenly noticing that he was watching, she grinned evilly and showed him the picture. It was of sushi being made, a large knife cutting up a roll of salmon. A large caption on the bottom pronounced, "Fish are food." Gripping the table like a lifeline, Sasuke's eye twitched as his mind frantically tried to calm down. Don't kill them, that will get you in more trouble. His rational side argued, only to be countered by the newly growing insane side. That's right, it'll get you solitary confinement. No more dealing with those horrible kunoichi. Just when insanity was starting to sound like a good option, Katie's attention was distracted.
"Katie, check out what I've drawn!" Sabaku no Anna called, waving the map to her companion. The Hyuuga put her picture back on the table, diverting focus to her partner. Sasuke panted in exhaustion as they commiserated over the map, thankful for his short reprieve. He listened as they discussed the safest place to set up base, arguing over whether it was their cell or the director's office. The fish boy was able to guess that was what they were talking about through the veiled speech.
"Look, if we keep our base at the warehouse, we won't be able to access the river and food supplies as well as we could from the forbidden area." Anna argued.
"But the forbidden area is highly guarded! Constantly!" It's much to dangerous to even try investigating the area, let alone live there." Katie countered. Their heated argument caught the attention of Katie's caretaker, who then hurried over and grabbed the map from the psychos, who complained loudly. She handed it to Anna's caretaker, who left the room to presumably take the drawing to the director for filing. Sasuke sighed, putting his head down on the table. Only another 15 minutes until dinner time, he repeated in his head. Just 15 more minutes.

If Sasuke could dance without losing any of his dignity, he would have. Free, free! Sasuke's brain was out to lunch, dinner more precisely, as he walked down the hall towards the dining room, surrounded as usual by his two inmates. But he paid them no mind as the fish boy practically skipped past the double cells. Just a bit longer with these psychos and he would be able to pass out on his bed, and forget these crazies until tomorrow. No more dive-bombing from the ceiling, no more eating fish food from a jar, no more crazy women drawing pictures of him being turned into sushi. Just him and the wonderfully welcoming blackness of sleep. Sasuke waited patiently as his inmates snuck food onto their trays, secretively tiptoeing past the lunch ladies. When he hit the end of the line, he picked up the jar of bloodworms waiting for him and made his way to their table, determined to ignore the troublesome kunoichi. But a few minutes in, this proved to be impossible.
"Oh Sasuke…" Even without looking up, Sasuke could tell that it was Katie taunting him, and that any sort of avoidance was impossible. Looking up as slowly as possible, Sasuke stiffened when he saw what Katie had in her hand. It was a fish stick, which she was holding above her water glass. Mental barriers began to snap as the boy's eye began to twitch. She held it over the glass for another few seconds before dunking it in the glass and eating it. The final two barriers snapped and Sasuke lunged across the table, aiming for her throat. This only succeeded in making the Hyuuga laugh, and throw the rest of her fish sticks across the room. One of the first ones hit Verakan, who angrily flung the rest of her food at Sabaku no Anna, who hid behind her food tray. Yelling erupted from all over the dining hall as food was flung from one corner to another, Sasuke in the middle of it. The two kunoichi had disappeared again, and he was frantically searching the crowd for them. Everything but his hate for them had drained and even the agitated cries from the other inmates were just white noise behind his thoughts. The doctors didn't take long to act, bringing out their constant companions, the syringe. But even sedatives act a bit slower against adrenaline, and that was running full force among the inmates. A hand on Sasuke's shoulder spun him around, bared teeth and clenched fists in all. But it was just his caretaker, trying to drag him out of there. The man's voice was barely audible over the racket of the food fight.
"Sasuke, come on. It's time for therapy."

Therapy was apparently held in the Director's office after-hours after he had gone home for the night. There were only a few therapists on call constantly, with homes in the facilitated town right next to intensive care. This was his first meeting with his, a surprisingly young man with only a few other cases behind him. Sasuke was seated in the seat in front of the director's desk, the therapist making short notes on his clip board. This was not going to end well, the fish boy thought. He didn't particularly want therapy, but it was another excuse to get away from his inmates, always a worthy cause. The young man finished his last note, then turned to his patient.
"Alright, Sasuke. Tell me how you like Kure-Ji-Taku so far." The first thing that came to mind was the kunoichi, the vicious crazy women who took every chance possible to make his life miserable.
"Do you want the beginning?"