This is the fifth of the eight prints made for Arlingtoncon back in October.


There are prints available. Prints come without the barcode watermark.
Click here for more details.

Hopefully you've seen the mer-Sasuke: [link] and already have the back story on the inspiration for these designs. But why Hatsuharu from Fruits Basket?
After readind Dogmatix's fanfiction, there was only one other person I shared it with. ~jmercedesd is one of my main RP partners as of late. She's the other half responsible for the rather odd string of Sasuke/Hatsuharu fanart I've been caught on because of the huge crash crossover universe we're in. I expressed my interest to play with the mers, especially after my sequel idea, only instead we twisted it around for our own enjoyment.
Rather than Naruto being the prince of the sea, we played it backwards with Sasuke the youngest prince of his clan, and Hatsuharu - who hails from a seperate clan - was given in part of a treaty alignment to be a companion and guardian to Sasuke as they grew up together. And Sasuke would grow to seek a way out of his fate, knowing since he wasn't the crown heir of his clan that he would be bethrothed off as part of another treaty just like Hatsuharu was pawned off to his clan.
Then enters Naruto, heir apparent to the Hokage title yet unwanted because he harbors Kyuubi. His outlook on life isn't the brightest and when assaulted and desposited into the ocean, he doesn't fight back thinking this way is better for his country. Sasuke saves him, though not without protest from Hatsuharu, and the pair become close. Though what isn't revealed until the final moment is that Hatsuharu has always harbored an affection for his leige and acts on it only in hopes of distracting Sasuke from the curiousity of the mortal who is being taken care of on an island until rescue.
But Sasuke can't be swayed and ends up going to the dark witch [so played by Hanajima LOL] who gives him the ability to become mortal only at the price of his memories. So devoted, Hatsuharu joins him though his memories are intact. So what follows is a human Sasuke who remembers nothing and relearns not only his newfound love for Naruto but the deep loyalty and affection from Hatsuharu and must decide which pulls stronger on his heart.

I bet you can understand the melancholy expression Haru carries.

Now, the design for Hatsuharu was to be a different structure of tail, but due to time constraints I just kept it in similar fashion to Sasuke's, which was actually Dogmatix's design she had for Naruto. The only major differences were the higher placement of the dorsal fin.
And keeping with the same feel that Sasuke had, Haru ended up with the unusual skin tones. Though it was all ~jmercedesd who picked the color of scales and fins.
I added the red string mainly to create contrast because that's a lot of monotone colors.