Chapter 20: The Blind Queen
Two days bled away like water through broken fingers, and then he stood upon Sabaody.
The island greeted him with color and noise, a carnival painted over rot. Lights and laughter spilled through the streets, but beneath the glitter lay the same stink he had known in every corner of the world—greed, cruelty, fear. His armor, black from helm to heel, drank the sun and spat it back in shards of reflection. Around him, the crowds gawked. Men nudged their wives. Mothers pulled children close. Here, on an island of silk and bare skin, he was a shadow carved in iron.
He ignored them. Always forward. Always purpose.
His senses crawled across the Archipelago like a plague of spiders, feeling the life that pulsed, the sickness that festered. The corruption struck him like a blow. He tasted the cruelty on his tongue. Every scream left unvoiced, every whip of power cutting down the weak—it soaked the very air. His hands trembled against his gauntlets, fire lashing inside his chest. He wanted to burn it all, to drag these streets down into ash and silence.
Not yet.
Purpose before rage.
He walked, the crowd parting before him like grass before a scythe. His destination loomed soon enough: a mansion-turned-fortress, walls draped in banners and guarded by men drowning in ornament. Soldiers stood before the gates, their armor heavy with gold, their weapons studded with jewels. They looked less like protectors and more like baubles dressed for sale. Wealth as a uniform. Power as a parody.
But it wasn't the guards that caught him. It was them.
The Nobles.
He had imagined demons, and yet the truth was fouler. Figures of mockery, swollen with entitlement, their every twitch exaggerated into theater. They waddled rather than walked, pranced rather than stood. They didn't wear superiority, they bled it, their veins swollen with the belief that all things living were theirs to own or discard. Naruto looked at them and wondered if the word "human" was wasted here.
And then—one face broke the pattern.
Mjosgard. The name passed to him in a whisper of memory, but the man stood apart. His gait lacked the oily arrogance of his peers, his eyes flickered with something dangerously close to sincerity. Strange, almost unthinkable. A Noble without poison in his step. An anomaly among parasites.
Naruto's gaze slid past him and caught the other. Axel.
If Mjosgard was a faint ember of something human, Axel was the pit where fires went to die. Arrogance cloaked him like a second skin, every word and gesture sharpened to humiliate, to grind others beneath the heel of his polished boots. His contempt was constant, a steady rain of bile upon all who came within reach. Naruto could smell it—hatred, not hidden, not restrained, but flaunted as if it were a crown.
He studied Axel as a butcher studies a pig before the cut.
That one's death will be slow.
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The guard's voice carried the weight of someone who believed he mattered. Naruto let him carry that weight. Better that than strip him of it. Men with nothing left to cling to became dangerous, and not in the useful way.
"Yes. Uzumaki Naruto reporting for duty." His voice was steady, measured, a tone that fit into military order the way a knife fits into the ribs.
The guard, a man with half a scar and none of the courage it should have bought him, gave him one more look before nodding. A twitch of the chin, authority reduced to muscle memory. "Good. Get in line. We're heading down to Fishman Island, and I don't want to see any trouble."
Trouble. A word people spat out when they were too blind to see that it already sat at their table, hands folded, patient.
Naruto moved without comment. Silence was its own answer. He stepped into formation, boots grinding grit into stone, the line of men shuffling into a crude order that smelled of oil, salt, and the faintest trace of fear. His eyes moved too, sharper than the armor that caged his frame.
He counted heads. He counted weapons. He counted weaknesses. Every shift of weight, every twitch of a wrist, every nervous scratch at the back of a neck fed the ledger in his mind. If he had to—if the world demanded blood in the next breath—he could kill them all. He saw it as plain as daylight. Blade through the tendon there. Elbow strike to crush a throat. A twist, a pull, and half the line would be dying before they even saw him move.
But they weren't Godknights. Not yet. Not the ones who made even Z pause in thought, shadow thickening in the folds of his brow. No, these men were little more than sharpened tools—useful until the edge dulled, discardable when it did.
Naruto rolled his tongue once against the small bulge tucked in his cheek. A thin paper packet. Bitter medicine folded small enough to swallow quick, potent enough to matter if things went sideways. He always carried contingency, because the world always carried betrayal.
The line shifted, men falling into uneasy silence as the command to march was barked. Boots struck in rhythm, the sound harsh, hollow. The air pressed damp against the skin, heavy with salt, promising the weight of water soon to come.
Naruto walked with them, step for step, but apart in every way that counted. The black armor clung to him like a shadow made flesh, its presence too sharp for the men beside him to ignore. He was a stranger in their ranks, and strangers are always dangerous.
Dangerous, and useful.
Fishman Island awaited. A descent into the dark. And in the dark, men learned what monsters looked like.
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"Okay, Axel." Mjosgard's voice held that brittle balance between command and plea. Stern, yes, but too careful. "We're meeting Queen Otohime. I trust you'll conduct yourself with restraint."
Axel's smile bloomed like rot. Harmless to the casual eye, but Naruto had long since learned how masks smelled. This one reeked of venom. "Don't worry yourself about it, Mjosgard. I'll behave." Words dipped in honey, but in his mind the man spat bile. Disgusting filth lover. The thought curled behind his eyes like smoke, heavy with contempt.
Mjosgard watched him longer than courtesy allowed, something in him whispering caution. But faith is the most treacherous armor—it convinces a man to stand still when he ought to run. In the end, he let himself believe Axel had too much sense to destroy a diplomatic mission with the world watching.
Naruto followed the group in silence, black armor swallowing the light, his presence carving a shadow among the glitter and gold of the noble entourage. He listened to them breathe, to their steps, to the ugliness they carried like perfume. It clung to them—this arrogance, this belief in their untouchable divinity—and it soured the water around them before they even reached the depths.
Still, the sights drew his eyes despite the filth in their company. The descent into the sea carried with it a strange majesty. Great beasts moved in the blue gloom, leviathans with eyes like lanterns, their slow grace echoing a world older and truer than the corruption above. Do the Fishmen war with Sea Kings, or do they find a way to share the tides? A question he rolled in his mind like a stone in the hand—useful to consider, even as other thoughts whispered blood.
Then the city revealed itself. Ryugu Kingdom bloomed before them, coral palaces rising like jeweled fortresses, light fractured into shards that danced across its surface. The currents hummed, alive with unseen voices, a song of the deep that made the nobles seem all the more obscene—parading through wonder draped in cruelty.
At the head of the welcoming line stood Queen Otohime. Her presence struck like sunlight breaking the surface, warmth woven into her very being. Grace tempered with strength, a kindness not feigned but lived. Around her, soldiers stood taut, scales glinting, eyes sharp with suspicion. Naruto felt it—the hatred coiled in their chests. Not blind hatred, not the foolish kind that festers in weak men. This was clean, edged, forged by injustice. The kind of hatred that earned its right to exist.
Compared to these nobles, the Fishmen are honest in their bitterness. If I wore their chains, I'd not stop at resentment. I'd drown the world in their blood.
His gaze flicked to Axel, catching the sneer plastered openly across the man's face. No mask now. No need for it. Contempt dripped from him like venom from a fang.
Naruto shifted his weight, the armor whispering against itself, his hand brushing the curve of Obelisk at his side. A cursed weapon for cursed men.
This mission would stretch long, he knew. Long, and stained.
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The entrance to Ryugu Kingdom opened with all the pomp of a courtly gesture, though Naruto smelled steel beneath the silk. A tall Fishman met them there, scales shining faintly in the filtered light, posture regal, voice carved with diplomacy. His smile was polite, carved too cleanly to be real.
"Welcome to Ryugu Kingdom. Our Queen awaits your presence." He bowed, shallow enough to keep his pride intact.
Mjosgard stepped forward, warmth spilling from him like a man desperate to prove sincerity. "Thank you for receiving us. I'm grateful my request was accepted."
The Fishman's words returned flat, professional, but with a small fissure in his mask: "It is the Queen and King's decision to welcome you. But I am glad to see you again, my friend." The title sat heavily on his tongue, yet something genuine flickered in the eyes.
Naruto caught it. Filed it away. A noble had bent this Fishman's hatred into something close to respect. A feat worth noting. This Queen… she must be extraordinary. His armor whispered with each step as he fell into line, patience thinning already at the slow pace. Too close. Too long. Axel's arrogance stank beside him, enough to choke. His fingers itched for violence.
The city unfolded around them as they walked deeper—coral towers, bridges of shell and stone, glowing gardens in hues no surface artist could dream. Life moved everywhere, luminous and alive, yet Naruto's focus never wandered far from his companions. His mind mapped the choke points, the hiding places, the quickest ways to kill them all should necessity demand.
Then light walked toward them.
A figure glided through the water with a grace that silenced thought. A mermaid—smaller than the great armored Fishmen, but radiance made flesh. Golden hair caught the light and scattered it like sunlight breaking waves. More than beauty—it was the calm she carried, the impossible warmth that spread through the group like a balm.
Mjosgard bowed low, sincerity blooming across his face. "Queen Otohime. It is a pleasure to see you again."
"And you as well, Mjosgard," Otohime answered, her voice carrying music into the water, a tone that seemed to still even the soldiers' bitterness. "I hope this visit will help bring our shared dream closer to reality."
Naruto narrowed his eyes. Her hope cut like a blade into old scars. It was too clean, too naïve, too much like the boy he'd been once. A boy who believed hearts turned with words, that injustice could be soothed with kindness. He'd buried that boy deep—because dreams without power only fed the wolves.
She doesn't understand. Change doesn't bow to hope. It comes when you break the world's teeth and demand its respect.
His Haki stirred, pressing at the edges of control, yearning to unmask her illusions. He strangled it back down. Axel would bare enough ugliness on his own. No need to hasten the storm.
The Queen led them on, her smile guiding the way, the city itself bending to her presence. Naruto noted every detail: the citizens' devotion, the reverence in their eyes, the weight of belief placed on this single woman's shoulders. They loved her, that much was clear. Loved her enough to forgive ideals that tasted of weakness.
And yet—one absence screamed louder than the praise around them.
Where is the king?
Naruto's gaze lingered on the empty throne within his imagination, a puzzle left unsolved. A kingdom built on two pillars—yet only one walked among them. The omission stank of politics, or cowardice, or worse. Whatever it was, he would not forget it.
Not all silence is peace. Some silences only wait for the blood to fall.
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The palace of Ryugu rose like a cathedral grown from the bones of the sea, halls cut with reverence and history. Coral burned with its own soft light, throwing shifting shadows across carvings that whispered the pride and sorrow of the Fishmen. Every arch sang of victories, every pillar mourned a defeat. Beauty, but beauty bent beneath centuries of chains.
Servants ushered them like cattle, smiles honed into obedience. The nobles drank in the courtesy as though it were their birthright. Naruto walked among them in silence, though his eyes lingered longer on the cracks—the stiffness of the servants' bows, the tightness at their mouths. Respect could be demanded. Reverence could be staged. But hatred never truly drowned.
His quarters were no palace. A cramped dormitory of ten guards, all polished like baubles, armor lacquered to blind rather than protect. They laughed too loudly, boasted too much. Their swords gleamed, but their hands were soft. Ornamental soldiers, peacocks masquerading as hawks.
Naruto smirked beneath his helmet. A gift. If blood spilled tonight, I'd need only lift a finger. Ten useless corpses as cover, and my hands still clean. Sometimes the world arranges itself in my favor.
The thought settled warm in his chest until a knock cracked it. One of the peacocks leaned through the door, voice casual, unaware of how close he stood to dying. "Mjosgard requests you. His chambers."
Naruto rose without a word, helm turning slowly toward the man until he shifted under the weight of silence. Then he left.
Mjosgard's room belonged to a different kingdom altogether—spacious, richly adorned, a display of comfort that spoke of privilege even at the ocean's bottom. The man himself sat in a chair like a priest in confession, book open in his lap, eyes soft when they found Naruto.
"Come in, boy. Sit. Remove the helmet—you won't need it here."
Naruto complied, setting the helm aside with deliberate care, as though it were another face he could choose to wear or discard. His own face—sharp angles, unreadable eyes—met Mjosgard's study in silence as he sat.
"No need for formalities. Your teacher, Z, is a friend of mine."
The words explained enough. A name opened doors. A name placed him here. Naruto's nod was slow, eyes narrowing faintly. "Then speak plainly. What is it you require?"
Mjosgard leaned back, gaze curious, weighing him like a jeweler inspects a flawed gem. "Not what I expected. I thought Z's student would be… larger. More imposing. Are you strong, boy?"
"I have been trained well," Naruto answered, his voice even, calm as a blade resting on a table. "But I know my limits. There are many stronger than me." The humility was a lie, but it sat well enough on his tongue.
"You're not afraid, are you?"
Naruto tilted his head, eyes narrowing as if the question itself were foolish. "Afraid of what?"
A chuckle, tired but genuine, slipped from Mjosgard's lips. "The fact you asked means you don't even consider it. Most men live in terror of the World Nobles. They are nightmares given flesh."
"My duty is to protect the nobles," Naruto said, words clipped, soldier's creed. "What they do is not my concern. My life is theirs to command."
Mjosgard exhaled, long and weary, as though the boy's words carried the weight of chains. "Don't give it all up for duty. Even a sword must choose its master. The guards we brought with us… they're ornaments, nothing more. If trouble comes, it will be on you."
Naruto inclined his head, the shadow of a smile ghosting across his lips. "Then I will do my best."
He rose to leave. Mjosgard's eyes followed him, sharp with thought, suspicion gnawing at the edges of his trust.
This boy… there's something hidden behind those calm words. He feels more like a noble, calculating and cold, than the soldier he pretends to be. But I need him now. God help me, I need him.
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The night was heavy with the perfume of salt and the hushed currents of the deep. A court of scales and pearls gathered beneath the weight of chandeliers wrought from coral and bone, nobles whispering into fins and silk-slick sleeves. The Fishman royalty moved among them with the sort of grace born from a thousand years of drowning out dissent in the cradle. The wine ran cold, the smiles ran colder.
Naruto drifted through it all like a shadow in plain sight, eyes sharper than any spear gripped in those jeweled hands. He saw the masks, the politics, the endless parade of courtesy that tasted of blood beneath the tongue.
And then he saw her.
Shirahoshi.
A child of the Queen, though "child" was hardly the right word. She was a bloom in the depths, skin pale as seafoam, her gaze too wide, too fragile. But fragility is often a lie, a silk curtain that hides the guillotine's edge. There was an aura around her—something that twisted the flow of the hall, bending it like tides bending to the moon. He could feel it pressing against him, faint but undeniable.
It wasn't power in the loud sense—the crack of thunder, the roar of flame. No. This was something deeper. Old. The kind of thing that waited.
Naruto narrowed his eyes, lips curving not into a smile but into that expression he wore when the pieces began to align in his mind. He didn't know what she was, not yet, but his instincts—honed sharp enough to cut immortals—told him she was important.
A secret written in water.
"I'll figure you out later," he murmured to himself, turning his attention back to the nobles. He'd seen enough to know that curiosity had to wait—wars are lost by men who chase whispers while knives are drawn behind their backs.
But still, when the night finally broke into the silence of corridors and the lull of guarded chambers, her image lingered in his mind. Not because she was beautiful, but because power never hides in plain sight without reason.
And Naruto had learned one thing: every reason, every hidden truth, eventually bleeds into the open.
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The morning crawled into being beneath the drowned glow of Ryugu's coral veins. Streets bled light like open wounds, and the kingdom dressed its scars in color, as if painting decay could make it beautiful. Naruto followed at the rear, a shadow stitched in black steel, his armor drinking the light and giving back nothing. He let them forget he was there. Shadows are most dangerous when ignored.
Queen Otohime led the parade—her voice soft, her hands too clean, her eyes too kind. She stood tall in the square, a fragile figure before her gathered people, speaking of peace as though the word itself could ward off blades. Her voice rang with the sweet madness of hope, promising unity between men and Fishmen, between predator and prey.
Naruto listened, jaw tight, fingers flexing against his gauntlets. He'd walked through fire, drowned in rivers of blood, and he'd learned what her kind never had: the world does not barter with words. It takes. It devours. And anyone who preaches otherwise is already half-dead.
He saw the rot festering at the edges of her dream. Axel—draped in silk, smiling like a slit throat—watched with narrowed eyes. A World Noble, crowned by cruelty, his expression no more real than the mask of a corpse. Even the Queen's guard, dressed in loyalty, stank of treachery. Naruto's gaze slid over them, one by one, peeling back the pretense. Wolves dressed in fish-skin, circling a lamb too busy singing to notice the snapping jaws.
The crowd cheered her words, desperation clinging to their voices. But Naruto saw the undercurrent: fear masquerading as faith, hope wrapped in chains. He wondered if Otohime ever looked beyond her own reflection long enough to see the teeth closing in.
He felt the weight of her blindness press on him like a sickness. She speaks of tomorrow, he thought, but tomorrow belongs to men like Axel—and men like me.
The Queen smiled as though her dream were already carved in stone. Naruto smiled too, but his was sharper. He'd seen too many dreams shattered underfoot to mistake hers for anything but glass. And glass breaks.
Naruto's senses bled red with warning. A thousand whispers pressed at the edges of his mind, the hush before a storm. Queen Otohime's words still spilled like honey across the square, but behind them came the stench—malice thick and undeniable. Axel's smile twitched wider. And beyond him, buried in the crowd, a spark of killing intent lit up like a beacon.
Smoke erupted—sharp, choking. The gunfire followed, ugly and loud, shattering the illusion of peace.
Naruto moved before thought could catch him. A black shadow vaulting, armor singing as it cut through the air. He stood before the Queen, body angled into the storm. Bullets spat from the smoke, silver death hammering toward her—he caught them, one after another, the metal screeching against his palms, impotent. The crowd screamed. The world burned in panic.
With one contemptuous sweep of his hand, he birthed a gale. Wind howled. The smoke shredded and fled, leaving him exposed, tall as judgment, his figure a stain of darkness against the chaos.
"Protect the Queen!" His voice rang iron. No plea, no request—command.
He didn't waste a heartbeat watching fools scramble to obey. His senses had already chained the sniper. A flicker in the corner of vision. Breath betraying fear. He was running, but distance was a lie.
Naruto cut it down. He was there, in front of the fleeing Fishman, the world folding beneath his speed. Black armor loomed, faceless and merciless, an executioner in the guise of a man.
The Fishman froze, terror wide in his eyes. Naruto's voice came like frost cracking in winter. "Do not resist. Or it will hurt."
The cursed gauntlets slithered and struck, binding him with the ease of a spider pinning a fly. Resistance snapped out of him, leaving only despair. Dragged like prey, he was hauled back into the square.
The crowd parted, silent but for their suspicion, eyes sharpening against the human who had shielded their Queen. Naruto ignored them, his grip iron on the bleeding captive.
"This is the culprit, Your Majesty." His words dropped heavy, like stones in a grave.
Otohime's gaze broke when she looked upon the man. "Vander Decken…" Her voice carried sorrow, not rage. "You are hereby sentenced to lifelong imprisonment."
Lifelong imprisonment. Mercy painted as justice.
Naruto's jaw tightened behind the mask of his face. She would keep building dreams from sand, even as the tide rolled in. He looked at Vander Decken bleeding at his feet and thought only one thing:
Too soft. Far too soft.
The guards dragged him away. Blood marked the coral streets, a trail of failure, and the Queen's dream trembled like glass in a storm.
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The Queen's gaze lingered on him like sunlight through deep waters, soft but inescapable.
"Tell me, young hero. What is your name?"
"Uzumaki Naruto." He spoke without flourish, without hesitation. Names are banners, and he carried his like a blade.
Otohime let the syllables roll in her mouth, tasting them like a vintner weighing the worth of wine. "A fine name," she murmured, though in her tone it sounded more like a judgment than praise. "And what would you claim as reward for your service?"
Naruto bowed, not low but enough to mark respect. His voice was steady, stripped of greed. "I require nothing. To help was enough."
A ripple passed through the crowd, skepticism and awe, like the surface of a pond stirred by stone. In a world where favors are currency, he had thrown his coin back into the mud.
The Queen's smile brightened, her eyes gleaming with something dangerous—hope. "No. That will not do." Her words rose, carrying on unseen currents, spreading to every ear in the square. "Then hear this: you shall be known as Friend of our Kind. If you should call, we will answer. If you should fall, we will rise to meet your enemies."
Her voice lingered in the air like the toll of a great bell. Titles bind tighter than chains.
The Fishmen shifted, restless. Some scoffed under their breath. Others let their stares sharpen, as though recalibrating what they saw before them. No longer merely boy. Something else. Something larger than flesh.
Axel stood among them, his hands folded, nails cutting crescents into his skin. He bled quietly and wore civility like a mask. Beneath it, rage festered. Again. Again this brat steals my fire, douses my plans with his cursed light.
Naruto felt it—the heat of Axel's loathing brushing against his senses like a blade dragged across stone. He didn't turn. Didn't need to. Hatred has a weight to it, and Axel carried enough to crush himself.
The Queen departed with her retinue, programs postponed, ceremony aborted, leaving behind her words like blood spilled on white cloth.
Naruto stayed still, hand brushing the hilt at his side. His eyes scanned nothing and everything, already certain where the next threat would rise.
Let him try, he thought, the whisper colder than steel. I'll cut the hate out of him before he finds the courage to bare his teeth.
The square exhaled, and the story moved forward, dragging both saint and sinner with it.