Chapter 24: The Missing King of Kaiyo

The girls and I swam out of the house quickly, hoping to catch up with Uo. Nami led the way as she knew where to go. We flew by many disgruntled merpeople, some of which shouted angrily at us. We paid them no heed. We were on a mission. I had a bad feeling about what we were going to find. If Uo was right, then something is extremely wrong. I hoped Uo was wrong.

Soon, we were floating in front of a huge sapphire blue castle. I might have found it beautiful if I wasn't so worried about what we'd find inside its coral walls. I saw Uo talking to a guard outside the big blue doors. We swam over to him, hoping to learn more of the situation.

"Why can't I see the king?! He never turns down a visitor! I can't tell you how many times I've gone to see him! I need to see him now!" Uo shouted, visibly angry.

"The king is not taking any visitors now. That is all I know," the buff merman guard replied, unmoving.

"C'mon, Uo. Let's just go. We can try tomorrow," Nami said, swimming in between the two mermen.

It looked like Uo wasn't going to leave when he finally said, "Alright. Let's go home."

We all swam back to the sibling's house and sat down in the living room.

"Something is definitely wrong. If only I could have seen the king!" Uo shouted, frustrated.

"Calm down, Uo. We'll try to get an audience with the king tomorrow. He might be sick is all," Nami said, trying to calm Uo down.

He nodded, but his eyes were still lit with frustration. I had a feeling he was planning something, but didn't want to let any of us know about it.

That night, after a hearty dinner of seafood, the girls and I crashed in the living room since there were no spare bedrooms in the house. I chose to sleep on the floor near the hallway, just in case Uo tried to leave in the middle of the night. It took me a long time to fall asleep since I kept trying to answer all the questions we had. I was almost asleep when I heard a noise. Cracking my eyes open, I saw Uo swimming out of the front door. Alarm bells went off in my head. What was he up to?

I got up and woke everyone else up.

"Uo just left the house. I don't know where he's going, but I have a pretty good idea," I said to them urgently.

"Where… do you think he's going, Hana?" Nami asked between yawns.

"I could be wrong, but I think he's going to break into the palace."

That got everyone's attention.

"What?!" they all exclaimed, looking at me with wide eyes.

"We have to stop him! He could get hurt!" Nami exclaimed, tearing up at the thought.

We swam out of the house as quickly as possible. It was hard to keep up with Nami since she could swim a lot faster than us, but we somehow managed. I guess it was adrenaline. Finally, we made it to the beautiful blue castle. We scanned the building, looking for Uo.

"Where is he?!" Nami said loudly, almost hysterically.

"He probably already got in. We''l have to go after him," Touwa said, already formulating a plan. "Akino, can you distract the guard so we can get in?"

"Sure! I'll talk his ears off!" Akino replied happily.

"When we get in, we should probably split up. Hana, go with Nami, Yuri, and Mari. Kiku, go with Yoko and Suno. I'll go with Shitai and Kosai. We'll all meet back up here in an hour. If somebody doesn't make it back, we'll all go back in to find them. Sound good to everybody?"

We all nodded, though I could tell Mari was not too thrilled about being paired up with Yuri. She'd have to get over it if we wanted to find Uo.

Akino swam over to the guard. I could hear her say, "Guess what? C'mon, guess already!"

I shook my head. Touwa chose the best person to distract someone.

The rest of us swam up to an open window. We quickly went inside so the guard wouldn't see us. We ended up in a hallway that split off into three directions. Touwa, Shitai, and Kosai went to the left and Kiku, Yoko, and Suno went right. Nami, Yuri, Mari, and I went straight.

"I know how to get to the throne room from here. We should probably check there first," Nami said, taking charge.

We followed her down many hallways, taking lefts and rights. Pretty soon, I lost all sense of direction. Nami seemed to know where she was going so I followed without question. Eventually, we reached two big doors.

"This is it. It's strange that there are no guards. What do you think is going on?" Nami asked us.

We shrugged. We didn't have any idea either. After taking a deep breath, Nami opened the large doors. What we saw inside made us gasp. If we were on land, we would have collapsed. We had found Uo all right, but Uo was laying on the ground, bleeding from a large wound in his chest.

"UO!" Nami screamed as she swam over to him, crying uncontrollably.

The girls and I followed her, fearing the worst. When we got over to the siblings, Nami had propped Uo's head on her lap. His eyes opened slightly, looking unfocused.

"He… he's… gone… The… king… is… gone," he whispered softly.

Then, the merman closed his eyes and fell limp in Nami's arms.