Trigger warning for suicide mention in the third segment of this chapter

"Sakura… Sakura, where are you?" Amelia called out to her friend. She was in the same reef that Sakura had told her that she would go to, before mysteriously disappearing without a trace. "Sakura, these games aren't funny anymore, I mean, not that you were the type to play them in the first place, being always serious all the time, but still, where are you?"

Amelia swam around the area one last time in search of Sakura, but with no success. Man, this really wasn't what she wanted to report to Yao. Ever since his daughter had gone missing, the old merman had a bit of a fit, yelling at Amelia for not bringing her back. Yao usually never made any sense when he was upset, but it was enough to make Amelia sigh and apologize for what she had done, not thinking it to be of any importance. However, after searching for a while, she realized that Sakura's disappearance was probably not something that could be resolved easily. Disappointed, she started her way back towards her tribe.

As soon as she reached the tribe's shelter territory, Yao approached Amelia. "Have you found my precious daughter Sakura?" he asked.

Averting her eyes away from the older merman, Amelia answered. "No… sorry."

"Curses!" Yao exclaimed. "It must be that Cateralian tribe to the East who actually wants that hunting territory. Amelia you are very smart for realizing this. They probably took her prisoner and are only keeping her alive by feeding her month old seaweed and-"

Amelia stopped listening to the delusional old merman at that point, nodding her head ever so often, but where could Sakura actually be?

After a while, Yao seemed to be finished with his ramblings, Amelia swam away from him. Usually, at this hour, merfolk would retire to the holes in the rocks called "cavedens" which usually contained one per family of merfolk. Unfortunately, she knew that Yao's caveden would have one spot cold and empty without the warmth of life this night, just like last night.

However, Amelia didn't have a family that she knew of. One day, she was found as a tiny infant near the tribe's territory, and only someone cruel and heartless would abandon her, and she was taken in, raised by another of her tribe. Amelia wasn't jealous of the other merfolk for having a blood related family. She felt as though the whole tribe was her family, and she would treat them as her brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, for her whole life. So, she glided through the water to her own special caveden, the smallest, as she was the only one in it. The only thing special was a shiny piece of metal she had found at the bottom of the ocean one day, probably something or other from some human boat. She didn't really care, as long as she could see her gift.

She closed her eyes, clearing her mind. She was nothing. There was no world around her. Only darkness. Void. When she opened her eyes and looked into the shiny piece of metal, she was no longer there. Instead, the face of Sakura stared back at her, koi scales glittering in the reflection instead of her usual bright blue ones. Amelia smiled, and Sakura's soft smile was what she saw instead of her own. She tilted her head, and Sakura's head became angled slightly as well.

With a sigh, Amelia released the illusion, her familiar face staring back at her again. Her warm up was always was the top thing on her mind, of course this time being Sakura. She continued to practice her illusion skills, making many strange things. She saw herself as all sorts of different fish and different types of life. She played with the color of her scales, making them gold and green and black. Once, she even tried to make herself look like a human. She was told that below the waist they split up into two separate pieces called "legs" that were used for walking outside of the water. Her interpretation of what a human would look like was probably not accurate at all, but it made her giggle at the ridiculous new tail she had.

Eventually, she had no more light to see herself with, and all of the illusions had tired out her mind, begging her to go to sleep. So, she did, her mind still stuck on what possibly could have happened to her best friend.

Alice had an apprentice, a kind young man named Toris. He often came along with her on her maiding trips, helping her find good locations or deal with the haul they had most recently captured, transferring them to the transportation cells from the capture box or chaining their limbs. He was also rather good at "siren's imitation" as Alice liked to call it, and had even caught a few merfolk himself on days which Alice was too sick or tired to go into the water herself.

She also had a ship captain, a laid back man named Feliks, as it was rather hard to steer a boat while under the water or chaining up merfolk. He was, coincidentally or not, Toris' best friend, even with their contrasting personalities and Toris' inability to understand any jokes. Still, to Alice, the two of them were all she needed to bring many merfolk back from the ocean.

Today was the perfect day for maiding. The sun was shining and not a single cloud could be spotted in the sky. Toris nodded at the coordinate tracking device, then back at Alice. "We've arrived in the same place as we did last time, where we caught the mermaid resembling a koi and the other mermaid with the red orange scales," Toris stated, smiling up at Alice.

Alice nodded. "Stop the ship," she called back to Feliks, and indeed, the hum from the engine stopped. Toris and Alice set up all of the gear and equipment they needed to haul the catch back onto the boat once Alice had trapped them. After that was done, she jumped into the water, her dive hardly causing a splash.

Sakura's days were a haze, if they even deserved to be called that.

She could hardly breath, the current against her gills being little to nothing. Everything she saw was a blur, and so was everything she felt. There was something rough and cold scraping against her wrists and her back was against something equally chilled. She felt as if life was being drained out of her, drop by drop, each one sending waves of icy heat through her body.

When Sakura eventually came to her senses, she was in some sort of tiny cell, chained to the wall by the cold metal she thought she had felt in her haze. There was no light in her cell, only pitch black, but she knew it was tiny as she could touch the other side with her head, even with her neck fastened in place and both other sides with her hands, even though those too were being held by the chains.

She dreamed of the aquamarine glimmer of the water as it flowed softly and freely through her gills, and the beautiful expanse of colorful wildlife she could swim among. She thought of her family, her old but loving father Yao, and her little siblings, Leon and Mei, and how she wished to be with them again. She remembered her best friend and all the amazing and fun times she had experienced with Amelia. But now all of it was gone, and she was kept here alone, without her family, or her friends.

Without the ocean, and all of who she was, Sakura wanted no more than to scrape her sharp tail blade across her throat and end it all right then, but as she felt cold surface against her the scales of her tail, a cold ache pulsed in her heart. She was stuck like this.

And there was nothing she could do.

A/N: This is a really fun concept to wright, and on my profile I said I'll update once every two weeks which I hope is true. If you chose to skip the third segment because of the above posted trigger warning, basically the plot is that Sakura is chained and contained in a small tank and longs for the ocean. I hope you all enjoy!