Fish-Man Island: A Forced Deal / Fish-Man Island: Leaving the Palace

Hard-Shell Tower.

After Shirahoshi turned on the lights, she saw three people she had never met. Tears welled in her eyes as she asked fearfully, "Who are you? Why are you here? You came into this room to take my life, didn't you?"

The more she spoke, the harder it became to hold herself together.

Kaku was stunned by how enormous the mermaid princess was. Seeing that she was about to burst into tears, he drew Demon Spirit and pointed to the spike embedded halfway into the wall. "We mean you no harm. I don't know what's going on, but that spike seemed to be aimed at you. If we wanted to kill you, why would I have knocked it away?"

Shirahoshi glanced at the spike in the wall. The human before her did not seem to be lying, and her urge to cry eased a little.

"You really didn't come to take my life?" Shirahoshi wiped at the tears gathering in her eyes. "If you didn't, why did you come into this room?"

"Well..." Kaku rubbed his long nose and glanced at Lin Mo and Enel, neither of whom gave any hint of what they were thinking. "Your brother, Prince Manboshi, invited us to the Royal Palace as guests. We came here because we wanted to see the legendary mermaid princess for ourselves, nothing more. Don't worry. As long as you do nothing to threaten us, we won't hurt you."

"You're guests my brother invited?" Shirahoshi broke into a smile through her tears. "That's wonderful! If my brother invited you, you must be good people I can trust. Oh, I'm so sorry I misunderstood you."

Kaku smiled as though soothing a child. "It's all right. We've cleared it up."

"See?" Enel said smugly. "I told you the mermaid princess