Takanori was panting, completely done in. Sweat trickled down his face, off his arms and down his legs. His hachimaki, vest and shorts were soaked. He could even feel his hair underneath the bound cloth, sticky and matted. Even the wrist bands Kujo had given him hadn't done anything useful. The foam of his flipflops were squelching and the sun was still searing its rays, unrelenting. He was sweltered.
He watched Kujo and Shinya making tea through the cabin window, chuckling at his expense of being left with the second net. Five minutes they had bet amongst themselves before he'd be asking for their help.
Rubbing his forehead with his arm, hoping to mop it against his soggy wrist band he stared at the hoisted net. All he'd been left to do was empty the catch and start processing. Takanori tugged against thick sturdy roping, hearing it creak. He wasn't quite sure if he remembered how to get the net released but his pride wouldn't see him asking for help.
Looking through the rope he took in the sight of bulging squashed sea creatures, mainly fish. Many little eyes blinking and mouths opening and closing, the sun shining on their wriggling scales, straining fins and slick rubber bodies..
"Sorry about this," Takanori murmured as he pressed a fingertip to trace the scales of a fish bulging against the roping, the sticky slime alluring his curiosity.

"If its any consolation, you wont be wasted, we love eating fish here in Japan. You'll make many tummies very happy and my pockets very full."
Takanori wasn't sure if it was something he said but there was a larger rumble and scuffle within the bulging netted mass. Standing back slightly, Takanori stared as creatures shuffled and shifted, completely caught off guard when a tentacle pushed through the roping, snatched his wrist and dragged him flush against the rope netting and scale slime.
"What the-...what the-!?"
Panic caused him the loss of his voice and he tugged to get away. Many more tentacles came poking out around him, gripping him to the netting. One taking the knot of his hachmaki and pulling it off, releasing his long wet hair to stick to his face, before it slapped his face with it.
"Kraken! Its the Kraken!" he stammered trying to strain himself away from the slimey rope.
A face pushed out through the mass to stare at Takanori, who open and closed his mouth like the many netted fish before him, staring back at the young girl trapped within his net.
Her face was pale with orangey freckles, heated cheeks and peach iris eyes, lips dark and teeth bared, hissing at him.
"Uh? Damn it! ..Um?" Struggling to look behind himself Kujo and Shinya were still enjoying their short tea break.

Tentacles still gripping him, Takanori tried to release himself and back away.

"Ipt'lu jvar, ...Jjar!"

"What are you doing in there?"

Confusion and fear ran through Takanori's mind. Was he hallucinating a Mermaid? Had he rescued a cast away? Could Shinya and Kujo have somehow planted a trick on him as a new recruit?
The girl continued hissing, growling and even shouting at him and the octopus that clung to him was unrelenting in its grip. Takanori couldn't quite believe what was happening but when the girl started in deep breaths as if she couldn't breathe, understandably from the compacted squash, he knew he had to do something.
"Ok, ok, I'll get you out. Just let me untangle from these gooey legs."

Not let go and unable to escape, while the girl gasped stronger, he fumbled his hand to his pocket, reaching past his slim wallet, hoping to reach his All-in-One tool for the little knife to cut the net where he stood and release everything inside. The knife he had wasn't suitable for the rope he was having to cut but determination and fear of saving a suffocating girl pressured him into acchieving results.

Takanori jumped back as the bulging net crashed down and spewed a rolling ripple of stench musky fish and sea creature in a mound upon the decking. The girl flopping out amidst everything else, panting and wretching, holding her ribs, causing Takanori to widen his eyes in disbelief at the revealed creature she was. Like a mermaid she was half girl, but instead of a fish's tail she had a skirt of Octopus legs, longer than seemed proportionate for her upper body. The loud thumping hit of the spill on wood pulled shouting from inside the cabin, a start of multiple running feet alerting Takanori to grab the girl's hand and drag her from the fish pile around the opposite side of the fishing trawler away from everyone else.
"What the hell has he done!?"
"Has it fallen atop him? Is he underneath?"
"Nah, he just bolted, saw his head go running off. But someone's going to have to tell his Dad he's wrecked the netting!"

"That'll cost all of us."

"Joke's backfired, huh Shinya?"

"I showed him how to do it, I thought he was paying attention."

Struggling with a half girl, half Octopus, that kept trying to grab everything they ran past, was a chore to say the least, but Takanori somehow managed to get them both around the Trawler out of sight and down into the frozen Fish hold among piles of boxed fish where they could hide.

Taking a moment of silence, Takanori let his breathing calm while the girl distanced herself away pressing into boxes and glaring at him.

"Can you talk? What's your name?"

The girl hissed and Takanori shivered for his safety and the trouble he was in. His Dad was going to kill him if Shinya and Kujo didn't first.