A Merfolk's Tale

Chapter Twenty Four

Shoto kept a keen eye on Touya as he and Shouta snuck around the castle walls and indicated to the rest of the group to follow their lead one by one so as to not attract the attention of the guards that roamed around the castle premises.

They all knew that Shigaraki had been expecting them for weeks now, thus the reason why kept on tormenting Izuku in public to try and lure at least one of them. But with no trace of Shoto or any of his companions, they knew they had to come and rescue Izuku before it was all too late.

The group continued to run around the castle until they reached the northern part where they stopped at a specific space where vines crept up the castle walls and piles of rocks that were blocking an old sewage system. It was a passage that Shoto found a few days before there voyage and decided to make it a secret escape route when he needed to sneak out the castle without being caught.

"Is this the place?" Shouta asked as he turned to Shoto who nodded as he walked towards the wall and brushed a few vines away.

"Lend me a hand," Shoto said as he started to remove the pile of rocks, the others helping the hasten up the process.

"Where does this lead to, Shoto?" Momo asked.

"I'm not so sure," Shoto said, "I just found this, and I haven't had the time to explore much so I don't know what's on the other side."

"It has to be the bath area," Eiji said, "Or the dungeon,"

"Let's hope so," Tenya said, "Or else we'll all be in trouble,"

"Either way we just have to be prepared to fight," Katsuki said as he removed rocks to clear their path.

It took them a few minutes to finally clear their path and once they did, they didn't waste any more time and walked up to the sewer which was thankfully dry and looked like it hadn't been in use for a long time.

Their footsteps echoed along as they blindly searched for the other side of the tunnel until Touya, who was upfront, saw a faint light coming up ahead. Touya ran up ahead to make sure that the coast was clear and when it was, they carefully got out of the drain which thankfully did not have any bars that would've taken forever to move.

"What is this place?" Ochako asked as they looked around.

The room they were in was dimly lit and the only source of light they had was from the moon that shone over the small windows.

"It looks like some sort of secret room," Eiji said as he looked around the place. "I didn't know this part of the castle,"

"Neither do I," Shoto said then he noticed Touya looking around with so much familiarity and sadness around the room.

"This used to be mother's secret room," Touya said when Shoto threw him a questioning look. "When you weren't born yet, this was where I often hid to escape father's training. Mother showed this to me and we had been keeping it as a secret ever since... but he soon found out and had it blocked, especially when you started to grow and he decided to start your training at the age of four.

Shoto knew that before him, his father had tormented Touya as well since he was second in line and that Natsuo was starting to fall out from their father's choice from inheriting the kingdom. But when Shoto was born and Touya disappeared then Natsuo got disowned, Enji's attention was focused on Shoto the whole time-- not even giving a damn about Fuyumi and was given away as a gift to their neighboring kingdom to strengthen their alliance.

"Come on," Shoto said, "We have to keep moving,"

Shouta was the next one to lead the way since seeing the old room seem to have disoriented Touya a bit-- it had been a while since he came back home. Taking the stairs up and silently opening a secret door, they were finally able to enter the castle halls.