Chapter Two

The Boy with the Sunset Eyes

Two days passed before Kou summoned me. Two days of panicky excitement watching patrols flow in and out like the tide.

At last, I woke up to find a note written in Kou's messy scrawl in the sand outside of my nook, 'meet me at the reef at midday'. Short and sweet, typical Kou. I looked around for Aoi, but saw no sign of her among the other merfolk mulling about their daily business. I stifled the worry that bubbled up inside of me, and headed to the reef. Today I would put my curiosity to rest.

The reef was a fair distance from the village. A forest of Ivory Bush coral and tiny pink Flower Trees, colorful butterfly fish and tangs flitted here and there like tricks of the light, bright orange clown fish peeped out of their anemone homes.

Mitsuba was already there, sitting in a small patch of white-gold sand, his tail tucked up under his chin. He lifted up his head excitedly when he heard me coming, but dropped it back down when he saw it was me.

"Careful Mitsuba-san, your excitement is showing," I said, settling down onto the sand across from him. He shrugged, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear.

"I thought you were Kou,"

"I know, your favoritism is pretty obvious."

Mitsuba flicked his tail at me, knocking me over.

"Shut up, fat fin," he huffed. I flinched, and self consciously tucked my tail underneath me.

It was a sore spot, and he knew it, most merfolk had fish tails, with vibrant, sparkling scales, and a lacy caudal fin. Mine, however, was thick and fluked like a porpoise tail, it was a slippery silver color, and utterly scaleless. Mitsuba peeked at me through the fringe of his bangs, he fidgeted with his fingers, spreading and unspreading the delicate webbing between them. We sat in awkward silence for a while, until he said:

"...kun"

"Pardon?" I tilted my head to hear him better.

"You can call me Mitsuba-kun, knock it off with that 'san' crap, I'm younger than you," he avoided eye contact, instead watching the steady progress of a hermit crab as it scuttled along the sea floor.

"How about Mii-chan?"

"Not on your life," he said, finally looking at me, the hint of a smile on his face. I grinned back at him, happy the awkwardness had passed. I was about to say something when I heard the sound of someone clearing their throat behind me, and turned to see Kou, struggling with a bulky woven rope bag.

"You guys are early," he said.

"No, you're just late," said Mitsuba, flicking the hermit crab away as it got too close, "what's with the bag?"

"Oh, this?" he opened it and began rummaging around in it, "I brought these just in case," he produced three small daggers, and handed one to each of us.

"Just in case we need to stab your brother?" asked Mitsuba, looking far happier about the idea than he probably should.

"No!" Kou gave him a disapproving look, "in case we run into enemies on the Island."

"Oh," Mitsuba handed his dagger back to Kou, "in that case, never mind. I'm not getting my hands dirty, if anything attacks us, you'll have to protect me." Kou sighed and put the dagger back in his bag.

"And you, Yashiro-san?"

"I'll keep mine," I grinned, "I'm not as delicate as Mitsuba-kun,"

Kou raised an eyebrow, "Mitsuba-kun?"

"She insisted," said Mitsuba with an exasperated sigh.

"Sure, we'll go with that," I said, he bumped me with his elbow. Kou shrugged his shoulders, and then dug out a stubby driftwood stick from his bag.

"So, this is my plan," he sat down, and drew an X in the packed sand, "if we're here," he tapped the X with his stick, "then Teru-nii and the patrol are over here," he drew another X to the east of the first. "Now, this part might get a bit tricky, but I've thought it out and it seems like the best way," he drew a line from our X to Teru's, "I think we should go under them."

"Under them?" asked Mitsuba, "are you soft in the head? They're a PATROL, if Teru's as amazing as you say he is then he'll catch us in a heart beat."

"You're forgetting one major thing," said Kou.

"And what's that?"

"He's patrolling the surface, not the sea floor, if we go through the valley, then we can get past them easily," he said, "that gives us an hour to check things out until they complete the circuit. That's plenty of time to look around and then get out of there."

"And then what?" I asked, "once we get past them, what do we do?"

"We should come up around here," said Kou, drawing another X a good way east of Teru's, "and that should be close enough to the island to observe it safely." he directed a pointed glance at Mitsuba, "we are NOT going onto the island."

"Like we could," Mitsuba scoffed, "it's not even close to night time."

"You have an endless capacity for mischief," said Kou, simply.

"Can we just go?" I asked, "we're wasting daylight."

XxXxX

I crept along the valley floor, shells, and pebbles scraping my belly, I was silent, barely even breathing, Teru was about 300 yards above us, far out of earshot, but still, caution was key. The water down here was cold, sunlight barely touched the place, rendering it a bare, flat monochrome, white crabs scuttled and clacked their way across the barren seascape, scavenging for bits of chum that sank down into the depths.

Kou led the way, and Mitsuba after him, we made slow, but steady progress, and soon we were climbing up hill.

"We're not too far now," whispered Kou, "just a little ways further."

Excitement prickled along my spine, accompanied by fear. I thought I was ready for this, the magnetic energy of the island had been pulling at me since I had seen it last, but now I wasn't so sure.

"Okay," said Kou, "we're past them, it's time."

"Already?" asked Mitsuba, he was trying to play it off, but I could tell by the way he fidgeted that he was as nervous as I was.

"Yep," Kou was grinning, "did you change your mind? You wanna go back?"

"No," Mitsuba frowned, "I just want to make sure we're not gonna swim right into the middle of a patrol."

"No worries there, we're way past them," he motioned towards the surface, "either come along, or head home," he said, "I'm not gonna wait all day." I nodded, steeling myself.

We made the ascension, Kou remaining in the lead, I was on high alert, looking for Teru to come barreling out of nowhere, fury in his icy blue eyes. Or worse an attack from the unknown forces above, but nothing happened, and we crested the surface safely.

The island loomed before us, closer than it had been just days ago. The castle was now plainly visible through the muzzy fog, tall and black, a cruel looking structure, with a spire so sharp it looked like it was impaling the sky. Just looking at it made me feel uneasy, like my belly was full of electricity. The air crackled around us, despite the fact that there wasn't a thunder cloud, or any clouds for that matter, in the sky. I looked back at the others, Mitsuba seemed unaffected, almost bored by the sight of the island, but Kou had gone a ghostly white, I watched as he slowly sank back beneath the waves, and followed him.

"Did you feel that?" he asked, as Mitsuba resubmerged.

"Feel what?" he asked, at the same time as I said:

"Yes!"

"That energy," Kou said, "This place is cursed, and I've never felt a more powerful curse in my life." then, quietly, and more to himself than anyone else, "how in the seven seas does it float?"

"You guys are crazy," said Mitsuba, rolling his eyes, "I didn't feel anything." Kou shook his head.

"Teru-nii is right, this place is dangerous, we should head back." This was the wrong thing to say to Mitsuba, his face hardened immediately, his mouth twisting into a mocking sneer.

"Fine then, you run back home to big brother, but I'm no minnow, I'm going to take another look." without a backwards glance, he darted towards the floating land mass, leaving nothing but bubbles.

"Damn it Mitsuba!" Kou swore, chasing after him. I floated in place, hesitating. I could still feel the disturbing pulling sensation coming from the island, and I definitely didn't want to get any closer to it, but I couldn't just leave Kou and Mitsuba to deal with it alone either. I clenched my fists at my side, cursing Mitsuba with everything in me, then I arched away into the blue abyss after them.

XxXxX

"Kou-kun? Mitsuba-kun? Where are you guys?" my throat felt raw from yelling for them, and my tail was beginning to cramp at the joints. I looked around, helplessly, I didn't recognize this place at all, and the boys were nowhere in sight. "Nene, you idiot, you knew this was a bad idea," I grumbled as I took a moment to orient myself.

I was in the shallowest water I had ever been in, and the sunlight filtering in was an acidic green instead of the familiar silver-blue of home waters, and the sand was a muddy gray. I spun in a slow circle, trying to retrace my passage, but every direction I turned was just as unfamiliar and nondescript as the last. My heart fluttered anxiously in my chest, and my gills flared, I clenched my fists, nails biting into the meat of my palms, I was beginning to panic, and that would do me no good. I closed my eyes, trying to focus.

The island!

My eyes snapped open, and I looked up towards the sun. If I could just go up there and look at the island again, I could use it to find my way back to where I had lost the others, in theory at least.

I wrapped my arms around myself, shivering despite the warm water. I didn't want to go up there again, I didn't want to look at that Island. It felt...wrong...somehow, like looking at a dead body, but I didn't want to stay lost forever either. "Alright Nene, you can do this." I covered my eyes with my hands, and headed back up. I didn't uncover them until I felt the air on my skin, and heard:

"Tsukasa! Slow down!" the unfamiliar voice nearly startled me out of the water, I blinked my eyes in the harsh sunlight, and saw that I was literally feet away from shore. I looked around frantically for cover, and found a small rocky shelf to my left, I scrambled for it.

"No way!" another voice answered the first, I peeked around the rock to see two human males, running alongside the waters edge. I rubbed the salt grit out of my eyes, not trusting what I was seeing at first. The humans were like mirror images of each other, at least from my distance, both rather short and slender, with shaggy black hair and mischievous, boyish faces. The one who had spoken first knelt down to poke at something laying in the sand, and the other boy, the one called Tsukasa doubled back. "What's that?" He asked.

"A jellyfish," said the first boy, "poor thing, we should throw it back into the water, it's suffocating."

"It's probably already dead," the other boy, slowly and deliberately stepped on the jellyfish, I heard the sickening squelch of it under his foot, and gasped despite myself. The boy called Tsukasa jerked his head in my direction. His eyes met mine, stealing my breath, they were the same red-orange color of sunset, and as flat and empty as an eel's eyes. He grinned, showing off two sharp canine teeth. I ducked back behind the rock, heart pounding.

"Why did you do that? It might have survived." said the other boy. I couldn't see him, but I heard the disapproval in his voice.

"I'm sorry," said Tsukasa, not sounding sorry at all, "I didn't mean anything by it."

I dove back under the water, I had seen more than enough, and I was fairly confident I could trace my way back now. I needed to get away, fast. There was no doubt in my mind that the human had seen me, and what's more I felt like he knew me, knew what I was, and why I was there. The thought didn't sit well with me.

I headed back, hoping that Kou and Mitsuba had made it home before me.