Inkbound: Page 430
Chapter 2: The Court of Blood and Hatred
The moment Naruto and Alice stepped into Room 429, darkness swallowed them whole.
A cold pressure filled the air, heavy and unnatural, like stepping into a place long forgotten by the sun. The floor beneath their feet was solid, but Naruto couldn't tell what it was made of—stone? Metal? Ink? It didn't matter.
Naruto winced and hissed, yanking up his shirt. Just above the number etched into his stomach, something pulsed. Swirls, coiling, blackened spirals, hissed and smoldered against his skin before settling into a dull, stinging ache. He sucked in a breath between clenched teeth.
"Matching~" came the familiar, sing-song voice beside him.
"Heeheehee," Alice giggled, lifting her own wrapped hand. "Now we both have a little something."
Naruto looked at her, dumbfounded. "You're seriously okay with this?"
She tilted her head, still smiling. "It just means we've started moving forward."
He didn't have time to argue before Alice stepped ahead, raising her voice into the void.
"Excuse me~"
"…You're being polite to darkness?" Naruto asked, squinting.
And then the darkness answered.
With a deep rumble, black torii gates surged up from the ground ahead of them, one after another, as if dredged from the depths of something ancient and hateful. The air around them warped — heavy with malice. Naruto's eyes narrowed. These weren't just decorations. The very space between the gates reeked of bitter, lingering hate.
"Alice, wait," he said, noticing she had already wandered ahead, skipping without a care.
"Butterfly~
Butterfly~"
Her voice echoed softly through the path of gates, light and melodic.
Naruto sped up to walk beside her, glancing at the gates warily. They kept rising ahead, a forest of black arches leading endlessly forward. Alice's smile widened as she looked at him. Without a word, she reached out and took his hand in hers, tugging him along.
The gesture startled him. Her grip was warm. Light. Strange, but comforting.
She continued her song without pause.
"Stop on the canola flower leaf~
If you get bored with the leaves~"
Her voice was gentle, almost too gentle for this place. Naruto felt his shoulders ease. The hatred around them was still there — growing stronger — but something about Alice's tone grounded him. Even with rot crawling on his skin, even with reality unraveling in silence, he found himself smiling.
"Play with the cherry blosso—"
"THE COURT IS NOW IN SESSION."
The voice shattered the peace like thunder through glass.
It was massive, wrathful — booming with barely-concealed fury. The gates stopped rising. The floor rumbled beneath their feet.
And suddenly, they were standing at the edge of a strange street from another time.
Traditional Japanese homes stretched ahead, but they weren't normal. Each one was grotesquely tall, as if a child had stacked houses like building blocks without care for physics. The deeper they looked, the higher they climbed, all pointing toward the center house, the largest of them all.
From balconies and windows, an army stared down at them — hundreds of identical figures.
They were puppets, yet too lifelike to be dismissed. Long, greasy hair fell to their hunched shoulders, but their foreheads and backs were grotesquely bald. Their eyes were permanently shut, brows carved with two symmetrical dots. Their mouths were sewn into thin, unsettling smiles, and samurai shoulder pads draped over their mechanical frames. Through a hole in each of their chests, gears and wires twisted like intestines.
Naruto and Alice were utterly ignored.
The puppets all stared forward — toward the center house — as if drawn by an unseen force.
Naruto squinted into the shadowy interior of the central building. Something moved.
A puppet from above pulled a thick rope with both hands.
Gears ground into motion. From the shadows within, something colossal began to stir.
The sound of metal scraping against itself boomed across the alley. From the center darkness stepped a giant — a towering mechanical samurai.
He wore a kabuto helmet, immense horns protruding from his brow and curving skyward like blackened tusks. His armor was massive, ancient and cracked, stained with old blood and fresh alike. Mechanisms stuck out at odd angles from his joints, hissing steam. His throne was a grotesque monument — a mountain of bleeding cubes, twitching and glistening, as if they were still alive.
Naruto gritted his teeth. His instincts screamed danger. Chakra or not, he could still feel threats — and this one was screaming with rage.
He gripped Alice's hand tighter and stepped closer to her.
The giant didn't move much. His right hand rested firmly on his right knee, while the left hung lazily off his other leg. But even seated, he radiated the same authority as a battlefield commander.
And then, he spoke.
"Sinner, step forth."
His voice was laced with loathing, like fire forced through a flute.
From above, another puppet yanked a string. A massive wooden rafter groaned and extended from the shadows of a balcony. At its end hung a single person — a young man, possibly a high school student, limp and bound.
The wooden block around his head resembled an executioner's collar.
The moment the puppet gave another pull, the rafter released its burden.
With a sickening thud, the boy landed hard on his side in the center of the square. He groaned, clutching his ribs, barely conscious.
Naruto didn't move — just stared, uncertain.
Alice watched too, still holding his hand, her head tilted with that same small smile.
He didn't know what this place was.
But it was no ordinary page.
This was a judgment.
The boy hit the ground with a dull, heavy thud, air wheezing from his lungs as the wooden block around his neck groaned on impact. His arms were bound tightly at his sides, thick ropes biting into the fabric of his school uniform and forcing him into a kneeling posture. Panting heavily, the boy tried to lift his head. His breath came out in sharp bursts as he managed to find his balance and sit upright on his knees.
"I… I… I—" he stammered, eyes wide as dinner plates, darting between the puppets above, the giant samurai on the throne, and the endless walls of judgment staring down at him.
Naruto's brows furrowed. He shifted his weight slightly, still gripping Alice's small hand in his. There was a brief flicker of empathy in his chest, something instinctual in him aching at the sight of someone trembling and powerless. But it fizzled quickly. He didn't know this guy. And more importantly—he glanced sideways at Alice, standing calm and unreadable beside him—he couldn't leave her vulnerable. Not in a place like this.
Then, as though summoned by a final reserve of pride, the young man straightened. His voice cracked at first but carried a strange edge of defiance. "I b-bullied my classmate," he confessed.
Naruto blinked. That was… unexpected. What kind of place puts people on trial for that? Sure, it was scummy, but not execution-worthy… right?
The boy continued, lifting his chin a little higher. "And drove him to commit suicide."
Naruto's stomach turned. Whatever sympathy had remained was snuffed out instantly, a cold, ugly disgust replacing it. Oh, Naruto thought darkly. Well… never mind then.
The Judge, unmoving until now, slowly leaned forward. The massive humanoid face within the armor creaked, its voice like iron being slowly bent to the edge of breaking. "It says here that the man survived."
There was no questioning in that voice. It was a statement. A trap. And Naruto knew, even before the boy spoke again, that this wouldn't end well.
"A-ahh, did he? Hehe." The student chuckled weakly, his voice threading false bravado. "Oh, right. He hanged himself, but didn't die. Well, dead, alive—you couldn't tell the difference with him really."
A wave of something thick and invisible crashed through the court.
Naruto's breath hitched. The air turned bitter, as though it were soaked in grief and gasoline. That wave wasn't physical, but it felt heavy. Decades of hate. Like an entire lifetime of loathing pressed into a single moment.
Alice's hand shifted slightly in his, her fingers curling lightly around his. Naruto realized only then how intently she was watching—not with concern or fear, but with sharp-eyed curiosity. The puppets lining the walls began to stir, their mechanical limbs twitching with the sound of ancient gears groaning to life.
Naruto instinctively pulled Alice closer, one arm moving protectively around her middle. She tilted her head back and gave him her usual small smile, calm and unaffected.
"Why did you abuse him?" the Judge asked.
That wasn't a question. It was a provocation.
The boy barked a laugh. "Just one reason. It was fun…!!"
Everything stopped.
Even the puppets froze. The tension in the room twisted into a tight, silent scream. The boy had sealed his fate, and for a split second, Naruto almost pitied the fool.
"Guy was a pussy bitch, y'know?"
Naruto could scarcely believe what he was hearing. He expected the Judge to erupt, to crush the boy with his fist or call down some grotesque execution, but instead-
—he did nothing.
The puppets didn't move. The Judge remained still. The whole space paused in eerie, deliberate silence.
Naruto began to turn, tugging gently at Alice. "We should go," he whispered.
She didn't move. Her smile was gone, replaced by a slight downturn of her lips. Not sadness, not anger. Just… curiosity.
He looked back at the platform.
A puppet moved.
Then blurred.
It swung its blade with such impossible speed that the boy kept speaking a half-second after he had been cleanly decapitated. The sound came before the cut, and Naruto watched in stunned disbelief as fire licked the edge of the severed neck. The square wooden box containing the boy's head shot out like a bullet.
Straight at Alice.
Her eyes tracked it lazily, with no urgency, like watching a falling petal.
Naruto's instincts exploded.
He moved, faster than he thought possible without chakra, lunging forward and sweeping Alice into his arms in a protective scoop just as the projectile whizzed past where her head had been.
The box crashed behind them, sizzling against the floor.
"Oh?" a familiar voice slithered into the air.
Serpent appeared, coiling out of the shadows with that monstrous grin splitting his face. "Quite the speed, human. Color me intrigued," he said, the interest in his voice genuine before slipping back into playful mockery. "But really now—children watching executions? Tsk-tsk."
Before Naruto could ask what the hell Serpent was doing here, the puppet platform clanked again.
"Next sinner, step forth."
Another string was pulled.
The same boy dropped from the rafters.
"What?" Naruto muttered, clutching Alice close as she giggled softly in his arms. "Is this… a loop?"
Serpent leaned in behind them, his massive body snaking around with ease. "Ah yes, this room's little performer," he said. "He's been at it since the day he arrived. You see, he's the victim. The one who was bullied. This is how he fills his page…"
Naruto looked again at the massive Judge. His eyes drifted to the grotesque throne beneath the samurai—a throne made of countless identical heads.
"He's been killing the same guy… over and over again?"
"Indeed!" Serpent chimed. "Decades of revenge. A thousand deaths won't be enough."
Suddenly the throne shook. The Judge's voice cracked the air.
"I'M NOT A CHAIR!!"
Naruto's stomach twisted at the roar. This wasn't vengeance. This was obsession.
"Day after day, year after year!" Serpent cackled.
"MOTHERFUCKER, MOTHERFUCKER, MOTHERFUCKER, MOTHERFUCKER!!" screamed the puppets in warped unison. Their faces split, eyes snapping open to reveal black wood and glowing white pupils. Their mouths twisted into deranged grins as they raised their swords.
Alice's eyes sparkled with amusement.
"YOU'RE DEAD MEAT!!" the Judge bellowed, rising from his throne. More victims—random civilians dressed in school attire—fell from the sky, only to be slaughtered by the puppet horde.
Blood rained down in sheets.
None of it touched Alice.
"Ho?" she mused, lifting an eyebrow.
The puppets charged.
Naruto didn't hesitate. He dodged one slash and lashed out with a powerful kick, shattering a puppet's chest. He bolted forward, still carrying Alice in his arms.
"We need to talk about how not worried you are!" Naruto barked between breaths, leaping over debris and crashing through puppets with sheer momentum.
The throne of heads rose behind them, lifting the Judge even higher. He screamed, his body distorting, limbs growing—until six massive arms, each wielding blood-soaked swords, loomed above the battlefield.
Serpent hovered nearby, watching with disinterest. "He's handling it quite well, wouldn't you say?" he mused to no one.
The Judge leapt, one titanic blade aimed at Naruto and Alice. Fire and hatred trailed behind the arc.
"NO MATTER HOW MANY HEADS YOU HAVE, IT'LL NEVER BE ENOUGH FOR MY CHAIR!!"
Naruto turned, eyes wide.
There was no escape from that sword.
Then coils wrapped around them.
Serpent, with surprising speed and grace, coiled his massive body around the two and yanked them through the air. The Judge's blade smashed into the ground behind them, eviscerating puppets and terrain alike.
Serpent clicked his tongue. "Very dangerous room," he said almost cheerfully. With a flick of his hand, a glowing door manifested in the air before them.
Naruto didn't care about the mystery behind the snake's sudden helpfulness. He grabbed Alice's hand tightly and rushed through the door.
[End of Chapter 2]
(A/N): Should I skip directly to door 413, like in the manga? Or should I do a filler chapter in between? Also tell me if you hate this chapter and want it rewritten before I come out with Chapter 3
:)