Chapter Text
A lone ship lazily rolled over the waves, leisurely making its journey across an endless expanse of cerulean. It was almost eerie, there wasn’t much life to anything, just the one, slowly moving ship and the lazy ocean. Not even the winds escaped the lifeless calm that seemed to envelop the ocean.
The unusual relaxation spread even to the people on the ship, who lazed about in various spots about the ship, basking in the sun like lizards on rocks. Only one of them seemed to be awake at all, she stood atop the crow's nest that was situated above the bright red sails of the boat, looking out across miles of absolute nothing. It was entirely futile, but she kept searching, determined to be thorough.
“Umi, what’re you doing up there?” Honoka called, confused as to why she was still working, despite the opportunity to relax.
“I’m on lookout!” she replied, once again examining the landscape and finding absolutely nothing.
“But there’s nothing out there, nya…” Rin commented, fiddling with a knife, she twirled it in her fingers gracefully, the blade always narrowly missing her skin. It was like second nature to her, she didn’t even look at it.
“How do you know that? An enemy could be upon us at any moment.” she shot back, once again fruitlessly scanning around them.
“So what? If it’s some other pirates you’ll just take ‘em out with the cannon before they even get a chance to fire back. And if it’s the navy, I’ll just get Tsubasa to let us off the hook.” she responded cheerfully, perfectly confident and at ease.
“You can’t be that certain…” Umi grumbled. “Just because one admiral likes you, it doesn’t mean we’re completely safe.”
“What? Umi, we’re basically unbeatable! Nothing can stop us!” she beamed, sitting up excitedly, her movement inspiring Rin to do the same.
“Yeah! When was the last time anyone gave us any trouble?” she cheered, Honoka’s enthusiasm spurring her own.
With a sigh, Umi gave up on them. At this point, they were lost causes, she understood their confidence, but their inability to consider any danger at all was merely foolish and irritating. As much as she respected Rin and Honoka, they certainly weren’t the most intelligent. She thanked god they had their captain, without her, they’d be utterly ruined. Somehow, she managed to control them, she didn’t really get how, but she somehow did it.
Yet more time passed with essentially nothing happening, Umi continually scanned the horizon, finding nothing, while the other two merely lay around. They didn’t speak too much either, mostly getting caught up in their own thoughts. “Hey, Umi. What’s the captain doing anyway?” Honoka questioned.
“Sleeping.” Umi replied, offhandedly.
Those were the only words spoken for a long while.
The next time a voice piped up, it was none of theirs. It came from afar, as beautiful and as delicate as a rose. It seemed to surround the ship, swirling around and enveloping them in a calming aura. Before they knew it, they had began steering their ship toward the sweet sound, growing closer and closer by the second.
The barren ocean they had once been travelling was suddenly gone, in its place a rocky mess that only got worse as it went on. Yet still, the boat went on, its red sail and cat-like insignia standing proud as it marched mindlessly toward the dangerous waters.
The voice only grew louder as they approached, yet it wasn’t enough to satisfy them. They needed more, they needed to discover the source of the hypnotising force. The rocks grew ever closer, the waters grew rougher, the once smooth journey was gradually becoming treacherous. If they weren’t so consumingly compelled by the voice, they would’ve realised that the sweet allure of the song was a facade, like the nectar of a carnivorous plant, it lured them into a deadly maw that threatened to shut at any time.
With a crash, the door to the captain’s quarters burst open! The Captain emerged, examining the situation around her. She had heard stories of sirens and how they’d reduce even the greatest crew to a group of mindless zombies with just a song, but it was something else entirely to see it in action.
She had to act quickly, their path was rapidly growing rougher and rockier. She rushed over to the wheel of the ship and examined her options. She couldn’t turn the ship around, the winds and waters were pushing them in too quickly. Her only option was a narrow path, rocks on either side. It was a big risk, if she went too fast into it, she could hit the rocks. She had to go perfectly down the centre of them. She was effectively walking on a knife’s edge.
Stilling her breathing and held the wheel tight, her focus intense. She harshly pulled it to the right, sending the ship on its way toward her path. However, that was only the first part. She grabbed the wheel hard, stopping it dead. The boat straightened, jerking suddenly, the captain struggled to stand, barely keeping herself upright. Her hypnotised crewmates, however, fell, being knocked out of their dazes momentarily. “C-captain?” Umi questioned, confused as to how she managed to get from the crow’s nest to near the wheel. All she remembered was hearing a song, after that, it was all blank.
She didn’t respond at all, it seemed she hardly heard Umi. The ship sailed out of its rocky corridor, but the waters were still rough and unsafe, but it was manageable, hardly anything out of the ordinary for them. Effortlessly, she maneuvered the ship, sending it on a path back toward safety.
The singing faded away, returning her crew to consciousness. They stumbled about, struggling to get their bearings. “Wh-what was that, nya?” Rin questioned, looking over the side of the ship, she swore they weren’t here before. After examining her surroundings, she turned to face the captain, quickly she seized up and stood to attention, the captain wasn’t one to shout, but Rin figured she had probably done something wrong.
The Captain didn’t respond, shifting her attention to the other two. Umi was stood to attention, but Honoka was still on the floor, clearly not noticing the captain.
“Captain? Y-you saved us! But how? Surely the siren was getting to you too? Or could you resist it?” Umi questioned, amazement and admiration dripping from every word she spoke.
“Wow, that’s amazing, nya!” Rin added, beaming at her. Once again, the captain didn’t respond at all.
“Hm? What?” she asked, taking out a pair of earplugs, revealing that, no, she had not conquered the siren’s allure through any merit of her own, but through just a mere coincidence. It was simultaneously disappointing and hilarious at the same time. Honoka and Rin burst into laughter, Umi merely stared in disbelief.
Eli stretched, her joints clicking loudly. She yawned, lamenting her prematurely slaughtered nap. “Oh, you look confused. Let me explain.” she paused for a moment, collecting her thoughts and letting her mind settle after the sudden adrenaline. “You three got hypnotised by a siren that made you sail the ship into those rocky waters over there. So I had to get it out of there. Nothing too bad.” she explained, severely downplaying the severity of the incident. Her crew couldn’t tell if her confidence was feigned or if the life threatening situation really meant so little to her.
In reality Eli had been panicking the entire time. She had probably thought more swears in those few minutes than she had spoken in her entire life (Which was a lot, to say the least.) But she needed to keep up the image of a reliable captain, it meant a lot to her crewmates after all. “Now we’ve gotta figure out where we are.” she mumbled, looking around the ocean, aside from the rocky area they had come from, there was very little, none of it being recognisable.
“Ooor, we could find that siren and get them!” Honoka proposed, an eagre grin forming on her face.
Everyone but Honoka turned to Umi, expecting her to dismiss her idea as foolish, as she always did, but instead she was silent, with a serious, contemplative look. “That might be a good idea actually…” she mused. “Sirens go for a lot, and we’ve been running low on finances lately.” she shot a sharp glance at Rin, who jumped back as if she had actually stabbed at her. She was referencing a recent event, where Rin had commissioned new sails and hats for everyone, depicting a skull and crossbones where the skull was that of a cat’s. Granted it was a far more unique image than their previous one, and the sails were actually quite good, her impulsive spending was something that Umi just couldn’t get over. “And since this one has crossed us, we might as well go for it.” she said, shrugging. “That is of course, if you want to, Captain.”
“Well, what do you three want?” she asked, looking over the three of them. Personally, she didn’t really care, but she wanted to consider all of her crew’s opinions.
They each nodded, Honoka and Rin responded with excited yeses, whereas Umi was the only one to actually elaborate on her opinion. “I think it’d be for the best, it makes these waters safer to travel and it gets us the money we need. There’s a lot of good to come from it.”
“I suppose it's settled then.” Eli concluded, walking over to the ship's wheel. “Let’s go find that siren. Umi, you get on the crow’s nest. Honoka, Rin, go get a net and get ready to capture it.” she ordered them around, all of a sudden transforming them to a competent crew. Eli looked over them as they worked, they were almost admirable. With a smirk, she turned the ship, heading off to where the siren was likely to be.
Nozomi lazed about on the rocks, now tired of singing. It was fun, but doing nothing but sit on some rocks and sing got boring fast. Examining the area around her, she concluded it was just as boring. There was no one around, all her friends were probably busy catching some fish or something. She wasn’t quite sure. It didn’t bother her anyway, she was accustomed to being alone.
“Maybe I should just sleep.” she thought, taking another quick look over the area. As she expected, there was still nothing interesting. With a shrug, she lay back and closed her eyes. Letting herself drift off.
“She’s just sleeping…” a voice said, pulling her from her slumber and back into the world of consciousness. “This’ll be easier than we thought!” it exclaimed.
Before Nozomi could even open her eyes properly, a net was around her. She was rising up away from her rocky perch and toward a looming ship. It should’ve been terrifying, but Nozomi was too tired to feel anything more than curiousity and mild irritation.
“Captain! We got her, nya!” Rin jumped up excitedly as she called Eli over. “Come see! Come see!”
Eli strode over, doing her best to play up her intimidating captain persona. She couldn’t risk coming across as weak to this siren. If she wasn’t careful it could take advantage of her weakness. There would be nothing to stop her from singing, crashing the ship, and killing all of them, if Eli didn’t intimidate her enough. She stood by the net, doing her best scowl and looking down at the net.
Nozomi sat up, hearing the footsteps grow closer and closer. She took a brief glance at the orange haired girls who had caught her. They were nothing special.
Their eyes met almost simultaneously. Eli’s scowl immediately disappeared, becoming a look of shock and embarrassment. Her cheeks grew hot and pink. She had heard stories of sirens being beautiful, but Nozomi was so beyond her expectation, so beyond any woman she had seen before, that she couldn’t help but blush. Nozomi responded similarly, but with a lot more composure. Her eyes widened, so full of amazement that you could practically see stars glistening within them.
Their moment was cut short by Eli suddenly realising her crew was staring at her. It wasn’t the time to be staring romantically at their cargo. “She’s just something we need to sell. Don’t forget that.” she told herself, turning away from the siren. “Alright. Take it away.” Eli said quickly, returning to the wheel of the ship.
Nozomi snickered as she was taken away. Her day had just gotten a lot more fun.