Chapter Twenty-one: The Serpent in Silk
Moonlight bled silver across the royal gardens, painting the stone paths and coral groves in pale fire. The world had softened, as though trying to convince itself of peace. Queen Otohime sat beneath the glow like a saint carved from faith alone, while beside her, Shirahoshi's giant form hunched low, timid as a shadow, playing with jeweled fish that danced at her fingertips. It should have been a scene for poets. To Naruto, it looked fragile. Fragile things break easiest.
"You look a lot better without that dark armor," Otohime said, her voice warm, motherly, dangerous in its innocence. She offered a smile that had pacified crowds, disarmed cynics, and reshaped noblemen into something less monstrous. It washed over him like sunlight on iron—pleasant, but incapable of bending steel.
Naruto bowed his head slightly, gloves flexing against his knees. "Thank you for the praise. How may I be of service?" His words were respectful, though the garden air felt close, thickened by unspoken tension.
Shirahoshi peeked at him between golden locks, wide-eyed and trembling. He let his gaze rest on her for the span of a heartbeat. Too much softness in her. Soft things rot quickest. He would learn what made her different. All strange things carry weight.
"How do you see Fishmen?" Otohime asked, breaking the silence with a question sharpened by hidden urgency. She smiled still, but her eyes betrayed the strain—the eyes of one searching for the crack in her fragile dream.
Naruto met her gaze, unflinching. "The same way I see humans." A truth stripped bare, offered without ceremony.
Otohime clapped her hands lightly, like a mother hearing a child's clever answer. "Good. Then tell me—what do you think about the possibility of friendship between our kind?"
Naruto tilted his head, a predator's patience in the motion. "Am I allowed to answer freely?"
"Please. Do not hold back on my account." Her words invited honesty, though she did not know the shape it would take.
Naruto's voice hardened, the steel edge slipping through. "It's possible—but only if your people can stand as equals. Without power, there is no peace, only submission. And submission is just another word for chains. You dream of harmony, but harmony without strength is a lullaby sung before the slaughter. Humans in power understand only one language—force. If you keep teaching your people to trust blindly, they will bleed for it."
Her smile cracked, just faintly, and silence pressed close around her. Words she had heard before from warriors, from cynics, from Jinbe himself. But from a stranger—a human boy—those words cut deeper. She looked down, fingers twisting in her lap, a saint struggling against her own sermon.
"You're right," she whispered, each syllable weighed in sorrow. "But how do we gain strength without drowning ourselves in violence?"
Naruto allowed a faint smile, one without warmth. "Not easily. But the path exists. First—you must control contact with the surface. Send only trained male fighters; the nobles crave beauty, not strength. Deny them their sport."
Her eyes lifted, listening, searching.
"You already have Fishman Karate," he pressed, his tone like a general mapping war. "Make it compulsory. Teach it from birth. Hone the masters. Innovate. Water covers the world—you are born with the sea as your ally. Use it."
The words came sharper now, driven with conviction. "Earn respect. Fight pirates where the Marines cannot. Become the shield they need, the sword they'll call upon. That will force recognition, earn leverage. But above all, bide your time. Grow teeth. Hide them. And when the day comes, bare them. Only then will you meet the world as equals."
Otohime sat still, eyes clouded with thought, her gentle faith colliding with the cold stone of reality. The weight of his words pressed down on her like the ocean above their kingdom. Her dream demanded wings, but Naruto had handed her claws instead.
"I will consider your recommendations," she said at last, the words hushed, almost reluctant.
Naruto inclined his head, satisfied. "That is all I ask. I don't like seeing innocents suffer."
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Naruto's voice dropped a shade lower, the weight of iron settling into every syllable. "But there's another issue."
The Queen, too quick to hope, snapped her gaze to him. "What is it?" Her words trembled on the edge between command and plea.
He didn't soften the blow. Mercy dulls the knife, and truth was meant to cut. "Vander Decken wasn't alone. Two others played their part. One of them was your own guard, Hody. He cast the smoke and fed him your secrets. The other…" His eyes hardened, unblinking. "…was the noble, Axel. I could feel his malice the way men feel a knife's edge in the dark."
Otohime paled. For all her composure, the name struck like poison. Hody—the man who swore oaths in her presence, bowed his head, drew steel in her defense. Betrayal is sharper when it wears the mask of loyalty. She looked away, as if she could hide from the wound Naruto had laid bare. "I will… I will have my guards investigate Hody," she said, voice fraying like old rope. "But Axel—he is a World Noble. Without evidence, any accusation would shatter the fragile ground we stand on. I cannot risk it. I dare not."
Naruto gave a single nod, the gesture clipped, soldierly. "Fair enough. Just be cautious." The words tasted hollow even as he spoke them. A saint's caution was no shield against knives in the dark.
The silence that followed pressed heavy, like water thick enough to drown. When Otohime finally spoke again, her tone lifted, desperate to escape the gloom. "Is there anything you wish for, young hero?"
Naruto scratched the back of his head, wearing the expression of a boy caught in modesty. He could play harmless when it served him. "It'd be rude to decline twice, so… I'm interested in martial arts. If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to learn as much as I can while I'm here."
The Queen chuckled, a sound like glass chimes in a storm. Too delicate to last. "Is that all? Consider it done. Tomorrow, I'll take you to the Royal Dojo. I'll even speak to your superiors. You shall have your wish."
Naruto grinned, bright, almost childish. "Thank you so much!" he said, his voice a flare of enthusiasm.
But when he turned from her presence, the mask cracked, and his face set into iron again. The boy's smile was gone, replaced by something colder, sharper. Even those old games come in handy, he thought. Lies were tools; innocence was just another blade in his arsenal.
His gaze slid back to where Shirahoshi had lingered in the garden earlier, playing with her fish. A timid girl with a secret stitched into her blood. He had seen it. Felt it. The way the creatures bent to her will. Not tricks. Not coincidence.
She commands the Sea Kings.
The thought burned bright, dangerous. An army born from the deep, strong enough to crack the world. Strong enough to tip every scale.
His lips curved, though no warmth touched his eyes. That girl is special. More than she knows. If she can truly wield that power… then all problems have their solution. I just need to get closer.
The moon shone down on the garden, pale and watchful. And beneath its silver light, the serpent began its coil.
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Naruto lay back on his bed, steel cradling him like an iron coffin. The dim light scraped along the edges of his armor, each reflection a reminder that he wore war as others wore skin. His thoughts refused rest, circling tighter and tighter around the nobles who prowled like wolves in borrowed crowns.
Axel. The man's hatred bled too openly to be dismissed as wounded pride. The noble's mask was brittle, stretched thin over something older, deeper. This isn't just anger… it's inheritance. Blood feuds. Secrets that stink of old graves.
Naruto's hand slowed in its work, the cloth stilled, his grip closing hard enough on the gauntlet to make the metal groan. His face remained calm, but inside he had already passed judgment.
"Axel's a dead man walking," he muttered, voice low, deliberate. "Too dangerous to leave alive. His death will be quick. He isn't worth the luxury of suffering."
The words hung in the air like a sentence carved in stone.
Mjosgard, by contrast, lingered at the edge of his thoughts—less venom, more restraint. That one still walked the line between enemy and reluctant ally. Complicit, yes, but cautious. Measured. That bought him time, though not mercy.
"He'll live… unless he chooses otherwise. I don't mourn unnecessary sacrifices," Naruto whispered to the empty room. "But if he plants himself in my path, I'll cut him down just the same."
He forced his breath slow, dragging discipline over the heat of his anger. Rage was a useful thing, but only when leashed. Left untethered, it burned wild, and wildfires didn't care whose bones they blackened. He needed his mind sharp, every edge honed. Too many eyes watched him here, too many knives waited for a slip.
The gauntlet gleamed under his hand, polished, perfect. He set it aside and let the weight of tomorrow creep in. The Royal Dojo awaited—a chance to learn the fighting arts of a people who ruled the sea as men ruled the land. Strength earned, respect bargained, allies tempered in practice.
And then there was the girl.
Shirahoshi. Too shy to meet his eyes, too clumsy with her power to understand what she was. Yet she bent fish to her will with the ease of breathing. He had seen the truth hidden in that timid frame. Sea Kings. Monsters vast enough to shatter empires. And she calls them as easily as a child calls for mother.
Naruto's lips curled, though it was not a smile. "She's the key. More than the Queen's speeches. More than soldiers or steel. With her power, Fishmen could stand on equal ground—or higher."
The pieces scattered in his mind: Axel's schemes dripping poison, Otohime's dream built on glass, Shirahoshi's hidden gift gleaming like a crown beneath the sea. A puzzle laid before him. And he would be the one to solve it. No other hand deserved that victory.
He lay back, eyes narrowing into the dark, thoughts sharpening into blades.
"Weak little maggots like Axel always overreach," he said, the words cold enough to frost the air. "And it'll be satisfying to watch him crumble."
Naruto closed his eyes. Sleep never came easy, but the promise of blood tomorrow was enough to carry him into its arms.
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Mjosgard sat alone in the dim-lit chamber, swallowed by shadows that clung like mold to damp stone. His chair creaked under the weight of a man unmade, a noble stripped of certainty. He pressed his palms hard against his temples, as though he could wring out Axel's words before they rooted too deep. But venom lingers. It doesn't bleed out with sweat or sighs—it festers.
Axel's accusations had been dressed in silk, the way poison sometimes hides in honey. "Naruto is dangerous… reckless… too willing to bleed for causes that aren't his own." The words looped in Mjosgard's skull, a snake devouring its tail.
"No," he rasped, his voice a whisper meant only for the dust. "Naruto's actions have been nothing but honorable."
But honor is a word, and words break easier than bone. He had seen the gleam in Axel's eye, the smile that stretched too far across his face. A man like Axel didn't waste breath unless he was planting seeds. And seeds, given time, grow into nooses.
Mjosgard shifted in his chair, his knuckles whitening on the carved arms. Doubt is a coward's disease, but it seeps into every wound. Naruto had been a blade in the dark, cutting down lies, carrying truths that most men flinched from. Yet still… what if Axel was right? What if this stranger in black armor had his own game, one yet to be revealed?
"What if…"
The words trembled out before he caught them. He slammed his fist against the armrest. The sound cracked across the room like a pistol shot, startling him with its finality. He wouldn't. He couldn't. He wouldn't let Axel's venom hollow him out.
"No," he growled, louder this time, as if the walls themselves might conspire against him. "I won't let his paranoia infect me."
The shadows shifted with the flicker of a dying lantern, and for an instant the carved faces on the stone walls seemed to leer at him, each one whispering doubt. Mjosgard's breath caught. He looked away, clinging to the one thought that hadn't rotted in his skull.
Naruto had proven himself. He had stood tall where others bent, had bled where others bartered. That was worth something. That had to be worth something.
"I will stand by him," Mjosgard muttered, though his voice carried the tremor of a man shoring up walls already cracked. "Until the day he gives me reason not to."
The room pressed in tighter. The lantern guttered. Somewhere in the silence, the ghost of Axel's smile lingered, sharp as a blade across the throat.
The dojo smelled of sweat and brine, of wood rubbed smooth by fists and blood wiped away before it could dry. The morning sun bled through slatted windows, cutting the wide hall into blades of light and shadow.
Naruto walked beside the Queen, the whisper of her silk a strange contrast to the clamor of warriors driving their fists into the air. The Fishmen moved with a kind of cruel grace—power tethered to precision, strikes designed to crush a man's ribs one heartbeat and drown him the next.
Naruto's eyes caught everything. The little hitch before the kick. The pause too long between strike and breath. Weakness wasn't in the form itself—it never is—but in the man who carries it. And Naruto had spent a life making note of weakness. It was the one map worth memorizing.
"Are you satisfied?" Otohime's voice drew him back, calm as a bell struck under water.
He inclined his head, respectful, though his gaze never left the fighters. "Affirmative. I am very thankful for this opportunity."
Her lips curved into the hint of a smile. "Would you like to fight?"
A smile tugged at Naruto's mouth, sharp at the edges. "Would it be alright? They might get hurt."
The words landed like sparks in dry grass.
"The nerve of this human," one spat, voice low but sharp enough to cut.
"He thinks us weaklings." Another's knuckles cracked like gunfire.
The Queen, unbothered, turned her steady gaze on them. "Will you be fine?" Her tone was soft velvet, but it carried iron beneath.
A senior warrior stepped forward, muscles carved from years of current and combat. His gills flared as he bowed stiffly. "We'll be fine, Your Majesty. There's no battle without pain."
"So be it," Otohime said, her eyes returning to Naruto. "Do as you wish, but no permanent harm."
Naruto nodded once, already unclasping the black weight of his armor. Piece by piece, it left him, set aside with the care of a priest laying relics upon an altar. His body beneath was lean, honed to violence, and for the first time the gathered Fishmen saw him unshackled by steel.
From the corner, the nobles watched. Axel with his viper's grin, every flicker of Naruto's movement feeding the venom in his heart. Mjosgard stood beside him, thoughtful, but a tremor of unease traced the line of his jaw.
Naruto stepped barefoot onto the training floor, the wood cool beneath him, and stretched his arms as though he'd only just woken from sleep. His stance was loose, easy, almost bored. But his eyes—those cut like shards of glass.
"Hope you can give me a challenge," he said, voice light, tone dismissive, every syllable a blade dragged across pride.
The senior warrior bristled, teeth flashing. "You'll get more than a challenge." He stalked into the ring, shoulders squared, gills pumping. He planted his feet, every muscle promising violence.
Naruto smirked, a ghost of mockery. He didn't move, didn't rush. He just waited—patient, still, the way a storm waits beyond the horizon.
And for the first time that morning, the dojo fell quiet.
Even the air seemed to lean forward, eager for blood.
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The Fishman moved first, as Naruto knew he would. Pride is always quicker than wisdom. The warrior's fist shot forward like a spear of iron, the air splitting with the promise of broken bone. Naruto shifted—no more effort than a man brushing away a cobweb—and the strike carved empty space.
Still, the air itself shivered, the echo of the blow rippling in invisible teeth across the dojo. Not just strength, Naruto thought, eyes narrowing. Power that doesn't end where skin does.
He answered in kind. His own fist—a straight, clean thing, no flourish—drove forward and ripped the air apart. The shockwave cracked across the floorboards, shoving the Fishman back a step, his balance briefly stolen.
"Interesting," Naruto murmured, head tilting. "You weaponize the air itself."
The warrior spat blood from bitten lip and grinned wide, a mouth full of sharp teeth. "That was just a warm-up. I hope you're not all talk, human."
Naruto's lips curled in a smile that held no warmth, no humor—just the promise of cruelty. "Keep the jokes. You're not strong enough to fight me."
The words struck deeper than any blow. The Fishman snarled, fury stoking his limbs, and rushed again. His fists blurred, a storm of strikes. Wood groaned beneath his feet, the dojo trembling with each thrust.
Naruto flowed through them, a shadow slipping between raindrops. He didn't block, didn't meet power with power. He evaded—and each time he passed, his eyes weighed, measured, and discarded. Then, in a heartbeat, he moved.
A leap, a twist, and his foot smashed across the Fishman's face. The crack of bone carried through the room, sharp and final, and blood spilled in a crimson arc across the polished wood. The warrior staggered back, clutching the ruin of his nose, but he did not fall.
Not yet.
He rose, trembling, teeth bared in something half between rage and shame. Strategy, form, training—all stripped away. He charged, wild and rabid, fists like hammers desperate to kill before dignity bled out of him entirely.
This time he landed one.
A palm strike, brutal and true, slammed toward Naruto's heart with enough force to stop it in his chest. Naruto's hand caught it—redirected, but not enough. The blow slid off-center, slamming into his abdomen.
The sound was ugly. Flesh yielding. Something inside tearing.
Naruto dropped to his knees, breath gone, blood spilling hot across his tongue. He coughed crimson into his glove, the taste of iron filling his mouth, his vision fracturing at the edges. The dojo froze. The queen's gasp was a blade of silence. Even Axel's smirk faltered.
The Fishman, panting, stared at his own hands as if they belonged to a stranger. His fury died in a heartbeat, leaving only horror behind. "No…" he whispered, then louder, desperate. "No! Please—get him to the doctors!"
He knelt beside Naruto, trembling hands reaching but never touching. "I didn't mean—"
But Naruto's gaze rose, cold and unbroken despite the blood that painted his teeth. And the look in those eyes made the Fishman wish he'd struck his own heart instead.
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Otohime's voice cracked the air like the crack of a whip, all honey burnt down to ash.
"Take him to be healed. Now."
The guards didn't hesitate. They bent low, lifting the boy in their arms as if they feared touching him might curse their skin. Naruto didn't fight it. Why would he? What fool resists the tide when the tide carries him exactly where he intends to go? His body sagged, broken in the ways men understand, but within—beneath sinew, behind ribs, wrapped in the marrow of him—he was whole. Whole and laughing.
Pain is fleeting. Healing is inevitable. Let them see the weakness they crave… and let them choke on it later.
He let blood drip like a signature, crimson stains spelling out his patience across the polished floors. His eyes shuttered, but not closed—never closed. The corner of his mouth tugged upward, a smile meant for no one, a secret smirk carried on a stretcher.
The queen's gaze snapped back to the fallen Fishman warrior. Otohime, the sainted voice of mercy, the gentle flame in the deep sea—her eyes now cut like winter glass. "Take him away," she said, and her tone was stripped clean of kindness. "Let him rot in reflection."
The man bowed his head, defeated not only in the flesh but in the spirit. Shame weighed heavier than the guards' hands. His steps dragged as they pulled him away.
The chamber thickened with silence, broken only by the breathing of men too nervous to breathe too loudly. The nobles stirred, their fine clothes whispering secrets of silk.
Axel wore his arrogance like armor, grinning at the scene as if it had been staged for his amusement. "Think nothing of it, Queen Otohime," he said, the words light but dripping with disdain. "He's just a guard. Replaceable."
But Mjosgard didn't smirk. His lips pressed together, tight as a miser's purse. His eyes followed the trail of blood that glistened on the dojo floor like scattered rubies. He leaned forward slightly, as though drawn by something deeper, something ugly that gnawed beneath the surface.
"It wasn't your fault, Your Majesty," he offered, his voice too careful, too measured. "An unfortunate incident… the strain of our relations made manifest."
Yet even as he spoke, his thoughts betrayed him.
The boy. That smile—I swear I saw it. Not the smile of a beaten dog but of something else. Something waiting. If I were paranoid, I'd call it a predator's grin. He bleeds like prey but moves like the knife in your ribs. Otohime doesn't see it. None of them do. But I… I feel it.
Mjosgard's eyes lingered on the door through which Naruto had been carried, unease coiling in his gut like a serpent that refused to be charmed.
And serpents smile too, just before they strike.
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The healers had fussed over him as though he were porcelain cracked down the middle, their hands shaking even as they daubed herbs and pressed poultices into his flesh. They left satisfied, proud in their craft, blind to the fact that he was never theirs to save. When the door closed behind them, the room softened into silence, lit by the dim, uncertain glow of coral lamps that painted shadows across his armor stacked neatly in the corner.
Naruto lay still on the bed, eyes half-lidded, breath measured. Inside, his mind whirred like a blade in motion.
The door whispered open, and she entered—Otohime. Grace draped her shoulders as surely as the silks she wore, but the curve of her lips spoke sorrow. She carried apology in her posture, guilt in the fold of her brow.
"I apologize for what has happened," she said, her voice carrying the weight of sincerity.
He turned his head, and the smile he offered her was painted with warmth, though beneath it his teeth were bared to himself. "No problem, Your Majesty. These things happen. I don't blame you or the fighter. I can understand his anger. Until they see humans worth trusting, suspicion is natural."
Hope cracked through her like dawn across black waters. She smiled, fragile and bright, as though his words alone could buoy an entire kingdom.
"Thank you, Naruto. That means more than you know. I would stay longer, but duties call me."
He inclined his head, the picture of respect, all deference and courtesy. "The honor is mine, Your Majesty."
Her giggle was a drop of sunlight in the gloom. "Hehe, see you later, Naruto." Then she slipped from the chamber, her fragrance lingering longer than her presence. The latch clicked, and with it the mask fell from his face.
The smile rotted away into something colder. He sat forward, the lamplight catching in his eyes. "She'll be surprised when she sees what I can really do."
From his pack, he drew a small vial, swallowing the pill within. Its fire spread through him instantly, knitting muscle and sealing what no ordinary healer could mend. Bones, blood, breath—his own body obeyed him better than it ever obeyed their medicines.
He thought of the fight again, every strike, every ripple of force mapped against his mind with the neatness of a surgeon's cut. "They weaponize the water itself. Strength carried past skin, past armor, past pride. A style built to break the unseen. Just like the Hyuga clan… the Gentle Fist. And now it's mine."
He leaned back, arms folding, a general surveying ground he already owned.
"The queen… she's softening. Her eyes hold belief, dangerous belief, the kind that moves people. If this were her court, if her word was law, seduction would be the knife I'd use. But it's her king who sits the throne. Still—she bends his ear. Influence wears many faces, and hers may yet serve me."
Naruto closed his eyes, though not in rest. Within him, plans grew teeth, and even silence felt like the prelude to blood.
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A knock at the door cut through his thoughts like a blade dragged slow across skin. Naruto blinked, the half-formed schemes and ghosts in his head scattering like rats from torchlight.
The door creaked open and Mjosgard stepped in. The nobleman carried his body as though every movement was painted with courtesy, but the eyes—ah, the eyes gave him away. Sharp. Calculating. A hunter dressed in silks.
"Hello, Naruto. How are you feeling?" His voice was soft, genial, the kind that hid knives behind its smile.
Naruto let the silence stretch a breath too long before answering. "I'm doing well. Thank you for asking." His tone was even, the words weighed and measured. "How may I be of service?"
Mjosgard waved a hand, dismissive, as if swatting away a bothersome insect. "No need for formality. Just rest. Take a day or two. You're free today. Rejoin tomorrow."
Kindness, dressed neat in authority. Naruto inclined his head, a bow just deep enough to acknowledge without surrender. "Then thank you for the kindness."
"You're welcome." Mjosgard smiled, faint as the ghost of a storm. "And I must commend you. The way you handled the incident… you didn't escalate. Not even after what happened."
Naruto's face didn't change. He wore neutrality like armor, tight across his skin. "I understand them," he said, voice steady, almost soft. "So I'll give them a chance to change."
The nobleman studied him. A pause hung, stretched taut as a bowstring.
He understands them… Mjosgard thought, though he kept his expression mild. What does that mean? Just words? Or does he truly see something the rest of us cannot?
The silence grew teeth. Naruto didn't break it.
"Well," Mjosgard said at last, forcing words into the gap. "Rest now. We'll meet again tomorrow."
He left as he had come—quiet, controlled, with the weight of unspoken things trailing behind him. The door closed, and the room returned to its stillness.
Naruto sat in it, listening to the silence breathe.
The words he had spoken still clung to him. I understand them. True enough. He did. He understood too well what it meant to rot in chains of hatred, to claw against walls built by men who believed themselves untouchable. And he understood the price of second chances, the gamble of believing monsters could turn human again.
His lips curved into something not quite a smile.
Understanding is not forgiveness.
The silence agreed.
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