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“Thirty-eight bottles of beer on the wall, thirty-eight bottles of beeeeeer, take one down, pass it around, thirty-seven bottles of beer-on-the-walllllllll. Thirty-seven bottles of beer on the wall, thirty-seven bottles of—”
“Yamato, if you don’t shut the fuck up this second, I am going to feed you your fucking teeth,” Mitsuki snapped, a threat made all the more impossible by the distance of his cage from Yamato’s.
“Feed me my teeth, I’m hungry. —Thirty-seven bottles of beeeeeer, take one down, pass it around, thirty-six bottles of beer-on-the-walllllllll. Thirty-six bottles of beer on the wall, thirty six—”
“Do you think anyone’s noticed we’re missing yet?” Riku asked.
“No,” said Iori.
“How long do you think it’ll take?”
“Probably a little while after they’ve finished dealing with the fact that the princess turned into a human and drowned on our watch,” said Iori. “So it’s cages or execution. Pick your poison.”
“We don’t know that she drowned,” said Riku. “What if when she disappeared she ended up on land?”
“That didn’t happen.”
“This cave connects to the land, so it could have!”
“How do you know,” said Iori. “There’s no underwater exit here at all—what makes you think there’s an exit to the land?”
“Um, because it’s the Sea Witch’s cave, obviously?” said Riku. “So he’d have to have access to both humans and mermaids!”
“Is there any way we can get to the land so that we can’t hear Yamato’s singing anymore?” asked Mitsuki. “It’s driving me a little insane.”
“Bad news, sugar,” said Yamato. “I’m technically a human, if we get up there I won’t need to ration my breathing at all. Nothing you can do can stop me. —Thirty-four bottles of beer-on-the-walllllllll. Thirty-four bottles of—”
“What do you mean you’re technically a human,” said Iori. “You’re obviously a mermaid—”
“I made a deal with the Sea Witch to annoy my shitass dad,” said Yamato. “Presto poof, I’m a mermaid now. I mean, at the time I was pretty pissed at suddenly becoming a fish, but I like it now. Usually. Except for being stuck in this tiny cage after watching our princess possibly get turned into a human and drowned, that kind of sucked.”
“Only kind of?” said Sougo. “Yamato, she might have died!”
“Emphasis might have,” said Yamato. “Like I said, I made a deal with this guy before. I seriously doubt he’d kill her so quick. Probably she vanished either to the land or to somewhere she’d easily get on land. So we’ve got time, and we probably won’t be beheaded. I mean, unless we broke the treaty.”
“If you’re a human, then we all broke the treaty already!” said Mitsuki.
“Twice!” Nagi added cheerfully. “Since I’m a human too. Other than those of us who rescued humans last night.”
Sougo made an extremely stressed, high-pitched noise that started as a squeak and then turned into a groan as he pressed his head against the bars of his cage and said, “Three times.”
“How?” said Tamaki. “How do you know that, Sou-chan?”
“Tamaki, don’t tell me—you too—”
“No, I’ve always been a mermaid,” Tamaki said. “But Sou-chan just said that we’ve all broken the treaty at least three times. Which means that somebody else is a human, and Sou-chan knows about it.”
“Wow,” said Mitsuki. “Then, who is it?”
“…It’s me,” said Sougo quietly. “But—I never made a deal with the Sea Witch! My uncle did, for a charm that would turn him into a mermaid in exchange for erasing the memory of his existence from the human world so long as he lived. But…he drowned soon after making the deal. I found the charm in his belongings when my family was going through them, so I…I tried it out. There’s nothing for me in the human world anymore, and I don’t intend to ever return. Technically speaking…much like Yamato and Nagi, everyone who has interacted with me since I left the human world has broken the treaty.”
Three counts of treason for all of them, more if they had recused humans last night—and all of them had. At this point, even if the king were willing to turn a blind eye to the existence of humans amongst the honor guard (and, Iori thought, he almost certainly was, since nearly half of them were human) there was no way he could ignore that on top of their rescue last night and on top of allowing the princess to nearly die in some deal with the Sea Witch. The international treaty itself would demand their heads.
“So, Sougo, you can turn from mermaid to human at will with your uncle’s charm, but you’ve never been in this place before and have no experience with the Sea Witch,” Iori said. “Yamato, Nagi, what about you? What sorts of deals did you make, and have you been in this cave before?”
“Sort of,” said Yamato. “I mean, when I was in it, it was dry land, but yeah, I’ve been here. I think it changes based on the species of whoever makes the deal. My deal was different from Sougo’s uncle’s, though. I came in and I asked to embarrass my father, and to put him in a position where he would have to be honest with me. Next thing I knew, I was flopping about with gills and a tail and, uh, the other mermaid biological differences.”
“Scales?” asked Tamaki.
Yamato’s face went very red. “No,” he said. “Human males don’t typically, uh, have. Um. Did you notice anything strange about the humans you helped last night.”
“Yeah,” said Tamaki. “They had very flat chests. I was wondering how they lured in their prey like that.”
“Their prey?” said Sougo.
“Yeah,” said Tamaki. “Sailors? You sit on a rock and show them your chest, and they wreck their ship on it and you can take your pickings. Or you used to, anyways. They teach us all about it in school. It’s fun.”
“In ancient times, mermaids would even eat the sailors who crashed alive,” Iori added. “As diplomatic relations were established, we switched to just taking the food and treasure from the ships, and now we only take that and bodies from shipwrecks. Are humans not taught about it?”
“Humans are taught that women mermaids are the hunters and diplomats, and men mermaids stay underwater,” said Sougo, his face very red, “because in humans, breasts are sexually dimorphic, and usually only women have them. Especially large ones, which, uh, all mermaids seem to have. I was really shocked too when I first transformed, but then I realized that they’re not breasts. They operate both like as bait for a mermaid’s preferred prey—humans—and as a defensive structure. They’re full of poison, so if a predator bites a mermaid’s torso, it dies.”
“Or a if a pervert tries anything weird,” said Yamato. “Anyway, yeah, crazy as hell and I was extremely shocked in so many ways after I made my deal. How about you, Nagi?”
“Oh! I wanted to be able to put on a realistic Magical Cocona costume,” he said cheerfully. “In the country I’m from, Northmeir, mermaid is a delicacy, and so I already knew about the venom sacs. And then I liked it so much here I decided to stay!”
“Jesus Aquatic Christ,” said Yamato. “And what about your deal?”
“Sorry, I didn’t make it with the Sea Witch either,” said Nagi. “I made it with a witch named Sakura Haruki, and the price was that he would be sent to where Zero went. I don’t know where that is, and I don’t know anything about this Sea Witch.”
“So basically, Sou and I wanted to escape the human world, and Nagi wanted a pair of fat tits,” said Yamato. “Great. Can you work with that at all, Ichi?”
“It’s not ideal,” said Iori, “and human biology sounds strange, but yes, I think so. Yamato, Nagi, can you change back into humans at will?”
“Abso-fuckin-lutely not,” said Yamato. “If I could, sorry, but we literally never would have met. I hate having boobs. Don’t know how mermaids and human women stand it, it sucks so bad. I mean, now if I were given the chance to change back I wouldn’t, because you guys are here and not in the human world, but I do kind of want to scrape these bitches off my chest.”
“Alright, when we escape you can pop them as a distraction,” said Iori, “and if you get poisoned enough they might not heal properly and then won’t grow back. Nagi, what about you?”
“I don’t know!” said Nagi. “Let’s find out.”
“Right now?!” said Sougo. “What if you drown?!”
“Well, it might lure the Sea Witch back and we could make our own deal,” said Riku.
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then I’ll have died as beautifully and nobly as I have lived,” said Nagi. “Here goes!”
“Wait,” said Iori, “not ye—”
There was a flash of yellow light, and suddenly Nagi had legs and was thrashing in his cage, and everyone yelled, and then his cage was empty.
“…Fuck,” said Yamato. “Where the hell…?”
“Maybe he went to the land cave,” Riku said hopefully. “The one where you made your deal, Yamato.”
“Uh,” said Yamato. “Yeah, maybe.”
“I can check,” said Sougo.
“You can what?!” said Mitsuki. “Sougo, if you drown too—”
“I won’t,” Sougo said. “I can change back and forth at will. I have my uncle’s charm, remember?”
“Yeah, but Sou-chan—”
“Sougo,” said Iori, “if you do, and you end up in the…land cave with Nagi, and you two aren’t in cages, please see if you can get back here and break us out.”
“I can do that,” said Sougo. “But…then what?”
“What do you mean, ‘then what’?” said Yamato. “Obviously, then we haul ass to the human world and find our princess. There’s enough fishermen out there that we can rig up some sort of tank for the five of us without legs to get around sort of. Or, you know, we can swim over to some port or other and fuck the treaty up the ass a little bit more.”
“Or we could try to break the treaty less!” said Sougo.
“Nah,” Yamato said. “We’re all screwed anyway. Why quit while we’re behind? We can at least help Tsumugi out if we keep on breaking the law.”
“How,” said Sougo. “How can we possibly help her out if we are constantly and flagrantly breaking the law.”
“Well, you and Nagi can go around on land, and you can use that to get some contraptions for the rest of us to get up there,” said Yamato. “I still know a guy up there who isn’t my shitass dad’s lackey—he’s got his own shitass dad and we used to go out to annoy them both—and I could ask him for a favor or five. You know, to really get on his dad’s nerves. Or we can contact one of my dad’s guys—there was one of them who was like, way, way too cool for him who’s hopefully got his head out of his ass now—and ask him for help. I think he’d be down for breaking the treaty. He seemed the type.”
“How do you know?” asked Mitsuki. “I can’t imagine that treason was a—a regular conversation topic in your household.”
“Well, yeah, my dad and I weren’t on speaking terms,” said Yamato. “But he’s the one who told me about the Sea Witch. So.”
“Really?” said Mitsuki. “How did he know?”
Yamato shrugged. “Dunno, never asked. He was my dad’s…something, so we didn’t talk much. He mentioned that he hated the Sea Witch’s guts, so I thought teaming up with the guy would annoy him and my dad, and…here we are. Anyway, he might be down with treason. Hard to know unless we try, though.”
Mitsuki sighed, and Iori sympathized with him entirely. Today had been terrible and crazy in more ways than one, but he couldn’t help but feel like Mitsuki might be at present more annoyed with Yamato than he had been with the Sea Witch who had captured them.
“…Okay,” said Sougo. “I’ll give it a shot too. I don’t know if I’ll end up wherever Nagi is, but whatever happens, I’ll do my best to get the rest of you out too.”
Mitsuki smiled at him. “Thanks, Sougo,” he said. “We believe in you!”
Sougo smiled at him tremulously, and then he tugged the bracelet he’d always worn off of his wrist. Like Nagi, he transformed into a human immediately; unlike Nagi, he did not vanish at all. He remained floating in his cage, bubbles escaping from his mouth, as the other boys watched, hoping that he would either get out of the cage or turn back into a mermaid before he drowned. He was dressed in human attire, and he fumbled around with his belt before pulling out a metal dagger and jamming it into the lock on his cage until it broke and fell out, and then he stuck his head out the door and exhaled. Bubbles poured up and vanished out of sight above them; Sougo’s eyes narrowed and he pulled the bracelet back onto his wrist.
“Riku was right,” he said. “This cave directly connects to the surface. I don’t know if it’s a ‘land cave’ or not, but there’s a way out for anyone who can breathe air consistently…that is, me and Yamato. As long as a mermaid’s gills are wet, they can survive on the land—but if you’re a transformed human, you don’t need that. For some reason, above water our lungs work just the same as they used to. I don’t know where Nagi went when he vanished, but if Yamato and I can get to the surface, then we might have a shot at finding the princess. Right?”
“Right,” said Iori. “It’s the ideal risk that you two must take…is what I’m sure the princess would say, were she in our situation. We’ve broken the treaty enough times now that our very existence is a joke, and on top of that we’ve lost our princess, whose safety we are to assure above all else. Our heads are on the chopping block already. We can’t turn back. So Yamato, Sougo…once you get out, don’t turn back for the rest of us. Don’t search for Nagi, either. Your priority has to be finding our princess and reversing her transformation as fast as possible. If we can find a way out too, we’ll try to meet up with you, but we can’t bank on that.”
“Wait!” said Tamaki. “I want to go with Sou-chan too!”
“You can’t,” said Iori. “You’re a mermaid, and he’s a human.”
“But—”
“Physically, you can’t take this on. Only he and Yamato can. The rest of us must necessarily find our own way out. Do you understand?”
“No,” said Tamaki petulantly.
“Don’t worry, Tamaki,” said Sougo. “I promise we’ll see each other again. Everything will be alright, okay? And when you guys get out too, we can meet up.”
Tamaki definitely was not fine with this, but Sougo slipped out of his cage without another word and picked up the broken pieces of the lock from the seafloor and then used it to savagely attack Yamato’s cage. Soon enough that lock fell, too, and Sougo helped pull Yamato out through the door.
“Aw, man, finally,” he said, stretching. “God, it feels good to be out of that cramped thing. You guys sure you don’t want us to bust you all out too? Those cages, damn…you don’t realize how uncomfortable they are until you’re out. Look, Sou and I’ve got red marks all over from where the bars were pressing against us.”
“No, thank you,” said Iori. “We would only be hindrances to you at this point, especially since Yamato hasn’t fulfilled the conditions to regain his legs at will.”
“…Conditions?” Riku said.
“Yes. Isn’t it obvious? The Sea Witch’s powers aren’t absolute. Humans remain humans and mermaids remain mermaids no matter what it is you look like, so obviously the endpoint of a deal to change your species isn’t actually to change it. Instead, you gain the ability to switch forms as you please, presumably once all the conditions of the deal are fulfilled. Sougo’s uncle fulfilled his conditions already, so Sougo’s charm will change him without reserve. Presumably Nagi has done so as well. But Yamato’s deal isn’t finished—his conditions aren’t fulfilled—his father, presumably, remains un-humiliated by him. So he can’t change back and forth as he pleases. I would assume Sougo’s uncle faced the same dilemma. After all, you clearly still remembered him at his time of death, Sougo.”
Sougo looked down, shame-faced. “Yes…that is true,” he said. “But I didn’t learn of his deal until the reading of his will. For a time I was the only one who remembered him…”
“Your uncle must have really loved you then, right?” said Mitsuki.
“We…we were very close,” said Sougo. “I hope he loved me…but I don’t know for sure…”
“No, he must have,” said Mitsuki. “Being forgotten is the ‘condition’ of that charm, right? So if Iori’s right, in order for it to really work, your uncle must have had to choose to be forgotten by everyone who knew him, but he couldn’t accept you forgetting him, and so he drowned. Right up until his last minute, he must have been thinking of you fondly and wishing you would know him. And now the charm works for you without restrictions.”
“I hope not,” said Sougo. “If my father’s remembered me all this time, then I’m dead for completely non-treasonous reasons. But…that makes sense. So our first step is humiliating Yamato’s father so that Yamato gains the ability to shapeshift between human and mermaid, right?”
“Assuming that’s the only unfulfilled condition, yes,” said Iori. “Or you could make straight for the princess, wherever she is. It’s up to you.”
“Understood,” said Sougo. “We’ll see you all on the other side, then.”
“Sou-chan…”
“Don’t worry, Tamaki,” said Sougo. “This will definitely work out. Wait just a little more, okay?”
Tamaki huffed. “Fine. But you’d better come back safe. And don’t get arrested for treason or killed by your dad or anything. Okay?”
Sougo smiled at him. “Okay. I promise. Goodbye, everyone. We’ll see you again soon.”
“Yeah, later,” said Yamato. “Take care, alright? Don’t you dare go getting executed without us.”
“We would never dream of it,” said Iori, and he and the three other mermaids watched their groupmates swim up, away, and out of sight.