In Greater Depths ║ A Kacchako Story

Chapter 2.

「 Uraraka's POV 」

As I made my way away from the docks, my whole body ached. It was true that I had been reckless and let myself get stuck in a fishing net and then pulled out of water, but I had never expected the fishermen to shove a spear right through my tail. This was one of the reasons why I was terribly afraid of fishermen with their large hooks, fishnets, spears, boats- All of it just scared me. Maybe because I had so many bad experiences with them, that they had just made an impact on my mind that was impossible to steer out.

As I worked my way through the current, the blood continued to seep out from where that man had pulled out the spear. My mind kept wandering back to him, he was a human who had the heart to help me. Wouldn't I be a sea-creature in their eyes? Just, something to eat and put up as a trophy? Yet he helped me, he was nice, even though his expression terrified me, he still had a gentle voice. At least at times.

My lips curved upwards into a soft smile when I saw the rest of my pod swim around, I sped up, no matter how much it hurt, they were my family, and I needed to be close to them at all times. Kind of like dolphins, how they keep together, hunt together, care for eachother, well, that's what mermaids do as well. Although, we have a bad past with mermen and never let them into a pod, which made me feel kind of bad for them. Considering how necessary they were to the survival of merfolk, yet we still drive them away. There were so many questions that raced through my head on the rules that the Queen had presented to us.

"Yaomomo!" I called out when I saw one of the mermaids with black hair and an opal blue tail with hints of black touching it here and there. She turned around and smiled at me.

"Uraraka! Oh-" her cat-like eyes focused on my seafoam green tail, "how did you get out of the fishnet..?" she asked, concerned and swam up to me, putting her hands gently on the spot where the spear had been yanked out of me, I winced and looked at her as she inspected my tail, "we need to get you some seaweed for this.." she muttered.

I looked at her, "well.. a human helped me-" 

Her eyes widened and she looked at me, a few other of the girls turned their eyes towards me, "a human?" she asked, "oh dear.."

"H-he was nice..!" I tried to counter.

"He? You know what the queen thinks about humans, especially males- it's the same with mermen-" Jirou muttered as she came swimming with her deep purple and black tail, she had a serious expression plastered on her face, "our pod is already on bad terms with the queen, we don't need to get banished-" she continued.

I sighed as Tsuyu came swimming towards me with seaweed, starting to gently wrap my tail in it. Tsuyu was the only one of us who weren't directly a mermaid, she was classified as an amphibian and had fins on her calves and underarms, as well as webbing between her fingers and toes, she was by far the most acrobatic one of us, but not the fastest.

"well.. I suppose it wouldn't be too bad.. except loosing our moon-stones, we would still have each other.. ribbit.." Tsuyu pointed out, toying with the moon-stone that she had made into a necklace.

"The moon-stones are what gives us our abilities- we wouldn't want to loose them though," Hagakure frowned as she came swimming towards us, Kendou, Shiozaki and Mei following close after, in the distance the rest of our pod came swimming. 

"Well, I'm sure I could figure out a way to get us to keep them if we decide to rebel against the queen!" Mei said proudly and fidgeted with the ring she had her moon-stone in.

"But for that you'd need the sun-stone, wouldn't you?" Kendou countered, crossing her arms over her chest as her orange hair flew beside her shoulders. 

"Yeahh.. Unfortunately.."

"You can't steal the sun-stone from the Queen though.. She is guarded like every second of the day!" Jirou replied, her tone was frustrated.

"I can't alone, but if we work together, I'm sure I can! I already have a theory on how it'll go!" Mei said proudly, holding one finger up in the water.

"So you want us to get banished, is that what you are saying?" Shiozaki asked, furrowing her brow and giving Mei a cold glare.

"Technically, yes," she admitted, crossing her arms over her chest and frowning.

"You're insane!" Jirou burst out, the frustration building up in her voice.

"Hey hey, let's calm down and not do anything irrational just yet- maybe if we focus on not getting banished first and getting back to our island, maybe we can come up with something else..?" I suggested where I was idling behind Yaoyorozu, her long hair basically blocking my face out.

"Yeah.. I agree with Uraraka, let's just focus on getting back home- We shouldn't have ventured out in the first place-" Yaoyorozu sighed, holding my hand and starting to swim through the current and towards the direction of the island that our pod resided in and around.

Each pod had their own island that they had been handed from the Queen, even the banished pods were still assigned their island, as the Queen didn't want any trouble from the banished mermaids, she had set up a system of handing out new mermaids to the different pods, that weren't banished that is. It was Yui who was our new extension to the pod, she had been taken away from a few fishermen and placed in our pod, even though this rarely happened due to our bad reputation with the Queen and her royal family.

How we had gotten the bad reputation? Well, mainly because of our tendency to take in and care for young mermen, amphibians, and other creatures that may live underwater. For example, we had cared for one of the Queen's own sons, when she banished him as a young child. We raised him as one of our own until he was ready to go off on his own. We had also taken in Tsuyu after she had been abandoned by her own family of amphibians, which gave our pod an even worse reputation. But it couldn't be helped, we believed that everyone deserved a chance to feel loved, even if they weren't one of our own, or if it was against the rules.

After maybe half an hour of swimming through the open ocean, playing with whales, sharks, dolphins, other fish that might come up to play, and birds, we finally saw the entrance to the moon-pool that was placed inside the volcano that loomed over the relatively small island, the moon-pool ran out into a large underwater cave where we could sit on the edge of the stone and talk, sleep in peace, store things, and eat without being seen by scuba-divers, fishermen, or any normal human in general. Some humans had found the entrance to the moon-pool but had been too scared to enter, since they considered the cave "unstable" due to it being inside of a volcano, even though it was perfectly fine. But I suppose they were a bit more cautious at the thought of the exit collapsing, since they cant live underwater, or go for long periods of time without food.

I let go of Yaoyorozu's hand and swam forward and in through the entrance to the moon-pool, swimming past the main pool and into the large cave where we always liked to sit and chat, or do whatever we wanted in. Once I got to the cave, I pulled myself up on the side and sat on the cold rocks, scooting a bit further in so that only my fluke was touching the water. I sighed and looked up at the ceiling that was lined with luminescent algae that filled the cave with a gentle blue light. There were also vines that were covered with the algae that hung from the ceiling, making it a very comfortable space to sit in. I breathed out and closed my eyes, hearing the splashing from the rest of my pod's tails break the surface of the water, I had to thank that human for saving me, if I could find him.

WOOP! Another chapter out! 

Hope u enjoy it! Have a good day everyone! :3