-Sh-
.
"Oh, my beloved child, your mother really does appreciate your interest in her work and loves having you follow on her rounds, but..."
Otohime hesitated.
How to word this the best way?
Her darling daughter was so determined and dignified in her own way, but, well. She was also a bit... overly sensitive? And very prone to breaking into tears.
Of course, everybody was too polite and adoring to mention it directly. Not when the young girl herself always appeared to be a mix of embarrassed and frustrated at how an emotional spike could result in the rained parade of unfortunate passerby.
Shirahoshi, obediently keeping close to her - as had been one of the queen's conditions for taking her along with her signature-collecting campaigns - swished her tail and cocked her head curiously. Her Bubbly Coral's flotation ring bobbed along with her.
The former movement caused a mild tremor in the immediate area.
She was... big for her age, but Otohime fiercely loved her daughter no matter her size. It was endearing, how every expression was magnified. A mother never stops worrying, and her only daughter's very mature outlook on life was good, but not what you'd expect from someone her age.
The fits of tears and her collection hobby were almost a relief, being a constant reminder that Shirahoshi was, indeed, still a child after all.
A... constant reminder.
Lurking just a tail-swish or two behind its mistress, the only one of her daughter's pets that would comfortably and safely fit in the narrowest of Fishman Island neighborhoods copied the already unusually sized smelt-whiting mermaid's actions.
This caused a… slightly larger tremor.
Suddenly Otohime found exactly the right words for what she wanted to say.
"... but did you have to bring a Sea King with you?"
Shirahoshi pouted.
One bat of those baby blues from their 'Genius Princess Poseidon' would send any adoring and proud kingdom subject instantly fawning, and the royal family was perhaps the most tenderhearted when it came to their collective 'treasure'.
She was far from being the literal runt of the litter, but she was the youngest of them, nonetheless. There were just certain people who inspired protectiveness despite being very much capable of handling themselves; the underwater princess was one of them.
The tears didn't help.
Otohime's maternal instincts allowed her to resist the dreaded 'otter pup eyes' better than most anyone else in the castle, but when Shirahoshi's eyes began watering… like they were doing now…
"Sorry, Mother. I know it must be a bother having me follow you everywhere, but I really do want to see how you convince people to forgive and change their minds about human prejudices. It's so inspiring, and it just means a lot to me, and I just feel a lot better having a Katsuya around…"
Watering, watering, watering…!
Well, the goldfish mermaid caved as fast as her husband and sons.
"You could never be a bother, Shirahoshi," Otohime hastily soothed. "I'm glad, I really am, that you're swimming so close in my wake. Our family has been so supportive of my endeavors, but I know it's still difficult for many to understand that there shouldn't be any distance between people's hearts when we all share the same sun, just… differently. Fishmen and merfolk, and humans: we can be friends. We don't have to live in fear and hatred of each other. There is another way."
"Something is only impossible if you believe it is," her so-smart daughter suggested, sniffling back more tears, and then posited more solemnly, "the cycle of hatred can be broken."
She beamed warmly. She loved that phrase, and had immediately resonated with it when she'd first heard of it after the conflict with the sunken World Noble.
It embodied her ideals so… perfectly. Although, she still didn't know if Shirahoshi had made it up or heard it from someone else herself. The girl gave no hint of the latter, but the former just seemed… not quite correct.
What were a few Sea Kings? They made Shirahoshi happy, and they were no danger to anyone with the immense control the princess showed. Nobody was even scared much, anymore, not after having had a while to adjust to the idea of neutral and even peaceful Sea Kings floating around the place, attracted by Shirahoshi's practice calls.
"Yes, exactly!"
.
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/ / Sakura secretly smirked to herself.
Hah, this alarming tendency for crying was good for something after all. She knew that learning to tear up on demand would be useful. That hadn't been a subtle guilt trip by any means, but it didn't need to be to pass muster in this form and with this audience.
She would pump a fist, but that was a bit dangerous in a crowded streetfront, so she settled for congratulating herself with a mental punch and triumphant shout of 'Shannaro'!
Hook, line, sinker. Mother 2.0 was distracted from Katsuya the Twelfth, easy.
She was going to continue having a not-so-tiny undercover bodyguard and a definitely-not-tiny implicit bodyguard escorting her around the public and she was going to like it.
It was exasperating but understandable how Otohime insisted on personally meeting face-to-face with the citizens she was trying to convince. It was more exasperating and less understandable that she refused to take along her husband's pet whale, Hoe, for transport and additional security.
But that was alright.
Sakura had her own pets for that.
(Admittedly, it was more like she had made amiable contact with all of the Sea Kings in the wide area, and then befriended most of them, with only a rather limited number consenting to staying on with her on a foreseeably permanent basis as 'pets'. But the differentiation was so slight most of the time that she didn't bother correcting anyone's presumptions, and soon the automatic generalization sank into her mental commentary as well.)
Otohime should not be, could not be, and was not allowed to die of anything preventable. Not on her watch. The woman was kind with kinder dreams and deserved that much for all the care she'd shown. Sakura considered each member of her new family to be pretty decent and one of her precious people to protect as fiercely as Naruto always preached, but she was especially vigilant on the safety of Otohime, who was the most fragile of the royal family. Neptune was in the prime of his life, after all, and Fukaboshi, Ryuboshi, and Manboshi were all naturally more robust than their mother. She bruised… with concerning effortlessness.
Sure, there were the actual palace guards flanking her, but the goldfish mermaid was whimsical and moody and fast.
And Ryugu Kingdom was big, without the sort of spread-out 24/7 security detail or surveillance of potential internal dissidents that any Kage would have in their home village.
And also the palace guards just weren't that good, to her jaded standards of running escort missions.
And also-also her somewhat smug standards of fitness.
She was still working on getting her new parents to approve official self-defense lessons for her, so that they'd stop treating her like a glass doll with the key to an oceanload of potential ticking bombs. But she was fairly confident, nonetheless, that she could take down any of the guards in a straight-up fight with just the retraining she'd been putting herself through on the sly.
(Sakura was still whiling away at retraining her stealth. Otherwise, she'd be even more confident in hypothetically picking off the royal army with traps and ambushes. She was more of a close-combat specialist at heart - favoring the visceral satisfaction of feeling the force behind your hits land - but stealth was included in the job description for a ninja. [Even Naruto had mastered the arts of trickery and diversion through his cheat-level Shadow Clones.]
It was difficult to practice going unseen, being the very high-profile and extremely attention-grabbing sight that she was, but Sakura remained optimistic. At the very least, it was a distracting challenge, and she liked her challenges distracting to be certain. What a waste it would be to spend a second chance at life utterly bored half the time, even after trying to speed through all the tedious repeated-again lessons.)
It said something about the circumstances that Sakura firmly felt Mother 2.0 was safer in the presence of her crybaby daughter and a known-to-be highly vicious wild animal than out of it.
Those circumstances being that the crybaby daughter was doubling for a kickass kunoichi (albeit shrinkified and, uh, some other things) and the known-to-be high vicious wild animal was perfectly harmless…!
Unless she wanted it to be otherwise.
Sunlight Tree Eve would go dark before someone managed to get a fatal jump on the combination of Otohime's innate Observation Haki and the current Poseidon's watchful eyes.
Many eyes, not all of them connected directly her.
Sakura leaned back a bit, and Katsuya the Twelfth - now there was the runt of the litter, but it was fine, the rest of its 'siblings' were dutifully patrolling around the underwater island or stationed nearby on her orders - immediately dipped forwards a bit to serve as a cushion.
The pretty pink princess fondly patted her loyal steed. And murder machine.
It seemed a little disloyal to think, but Sakura was beginning to find that she was preferring Sea King faux-summons over either slug or dog summon animal contracts.
Sorry, Katsuya Original. You'd still be more useful if I wasn't underwater in prime Sea King dominance, I swear, and I'll always remember your soft smooth squishiness. No other summon held a candle to you for healing, or communication. Unfortunately, the salt would probably still affect you.
Pakkun, your pads could never compare to Katsuya-sama's entire body, and the dog pack's slobber could never rival Katsuya-sama's clean and sweet-smelling slime, and also all of you stole food from us, like, all the time. Not as much as Kakashi-sensei himself actually did, but close. Plus, I've seen you all genuinely swim, and for dogs you can't pull off a great doggy paddle for long.
.
.
/ Otohime glanced back.
The blonde smiled. Her precious daughter looked so lost in thoughts, floating along absently with her head in the bubble clouds.
She wondered what deep things that child was contemplating with such an adorably serious expression on her face.
Suddenly, Shirahoshi smiled herself and giggled briefly.
Otohime's own smile widened and softened. She turned around, facing back to the front, to hide it before the other female became self-conscious.
Well, whatever it was, it was always nice to know her baby girl was growing up happy, despite the future expectations that would rest on her as the current Poseidon - and a rather prodigious princess in her own right.
(Although... she had a feeling that Shirahoshi would force those expectations to break before she ever bowed.)
Swimming along like this on a peaceful day, accompanied by her favorite child, progressing magnificently on the interspecies cooperation petition for a Reverie representation, and listening to the most wonderful music - the amused laughter of her loved ones - the queen of the merfolk and Fishmen felt quite lucky to be alive.
Indeed, she felt just golden.
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Sakura!Shirahoshi Part 3:
Security