Otohime and Tiger

Jinbe begins the flashback: "Let us take a step back in time... This is the Fishman Island of sixteen years past." In a busy street, a thief races away as the crowd screams, "Stop that thieee eeeef!!!" The thief shouts, "Outta my way!!! I've got a pistol here, you know!!!" and someone cries, "Somebody stop that thief!!! He just stole a small fortune offa me!!" The situation worsens when he grabs a child: "And a hostage, too!! So stay back, all of ya!!!" The royal guards panic as Queen Otohime rushes after him. "Your majesty!!!" "Please reconsider!!" "Please, stay back!! Your majesty!!!" They plead that it is their duty, not hers: "It is not right!! You cannot personally involve yourself in these matters!! That is our job, not yours!!"

The thief yells, "Don't say I didn't warn yaaa!!!" as he fires and runs. A pursuer pants, "Who is it now?!!! *Pant*... *Pant*..." but Otohime closes in without hesitation. The thief sees her and gasps, "Ehh?!" A shot cracks through the air with "WHOOSH," and Otohime is hit. The page turns chaotic: people scream "AAAAHH HHH!!!" while Otohime falls, blood and motion lines cutting across the street. Even wounded, she is still moving toward the criminal rather than away from him, and the people around her can only watch in horror as their queen throws herself into danger for a stranger's life.

Otohime's hand is badly injured, and she cries, "My hand!! AAAAAH HHHHH HHH!!!" The crowd shouts for a doctor: "Docto oor!!" The king's men are furious and someone says, "It's a compound fracture!!" Otohime answers, "I care not!!" The thief is stunned by the queen's refusal to think of herself. She is introduced formally as "Wife of King Neptune, Queen Otohime (Goldfish Mermaid)." The crowd whispers, "Queen Otohime!!!" and "It's the queen!!!" while the thief pants and asks, "The queen?!" The image establishes Otohime as physically fragile yet morally unyielding: she has been shot and crushed, but she still faces the man responsible.

Otohime cries out not in anger for herself, but in grief for what drove the thief to this. "Why would you stoop to committing such a vile act as thievery?!!" The thief snaps, "Shaddup!! I don't expect pampered royals like you to understand meeee!! I've got ten crying kids at home to provide for!!" Otohime keeps advancing despite the guards' pleas: "Your majesty!!! Please stop assaulting the criminal!" One guard warns, "You know how exceptionally weak your body is!!!" She answers, "I care not if my hand shatters into a thousand pieces! It is for this man's sake!!" Then she demands the truth from him: "Tell me!! If your children are raised on stolen money... Can they truly be happy?!!" She adds, "A man should only live a life that he can speak to his children of with pride!!" and then bows through tears: "And yet... I too must apologise ...!!"

Otohime breaks down before the thief and the crowd: "I am so sorry!!! Forgive me for failing to notice your suffering, even though we dwell in the same country...!" She takes his pain into herself, saying, "The pain that dwells in your heart ... is as a knife through my own ...!!!" The thief sobs, "Uuurghh...! I never... never wanted to do this...!!!" and another voice cries, "Ahhhhh!! Aaaahhhhh!! Truly, the ordeals that drove you to this were terrible!" A ruined shopkeeper says, "My shop was burned down by arsonists...!! All the money I had was stolen...!! I'm clean out of work...!! My debts just keep rising...! And I can't stand to see my children going hungry...!!! But I...!! I had no choice! There was nothing else I could do!!!" Otohime refuses revenge as a solution: "You cannot respond by doing the same yourself, or the chain of suffering will continue!!!"

Otohime's compassion transforms the crowd. The thief promises, "I'll turn over a new leaf!! Make a new life for myself!!" Others cry, "Thank you so much... for shedding tears for the likes of me!! Your majesty!!" Otohime answers, "Think nothing of it!! I wish you all the luck in the world!!" The people explain why she is beloved: "It's unusual enough for members of the royal family to even leave the castle and walk among the common people... Yet Queen Otohime cries genuine tears for her individual citizens and even slaps them around the face... She certainly is a most unusual queen..." Children adore her too. "They don't call her the queen of love for nothing..." someone says, while another laughs that she has snot from only one nostril. Otohime's reply is practical and emotional at once: "Your nose is running!! This smack is for your own good!!"

The flashback names her fully: "Otohime, the passionate 'queen of love'..." Every day she descends from the palace to mingle with her subjects. Standing before the people, she declares, "We must raise our Ryuuguu Kingdom above the waves!!!" She tells them, "Their skin may be of a different colour... Their bodies may differ from ours... But it is not enough for us to wait for the day when the humans come to understand us!! We must take action ourselves, and strive to understand them!!!" Otohime's dream is not passive coexistence. She asks the fishmen and merfolk to move first, to choose understanding even after generations of fear, anger, and separation from the surface.

Otohime explains the distance between cultures: "Ten thousand metres of ocean water... This is the distance between our culture and theirs!! Please do not misunder-stand!! The humans that visit our island are a specific type known as 'pirates'!!" She insists that Fishman Island has not seen humanity as a whole: "No, those humans who purchase from the slave traders are an elite minority known as nobles!! The humans with whom we are familiar are but a tiny fraction of their society!! We still know next to nothing about humanity as a whole!! That is why we must move our kingdom, so that our societies can live together under the same sun!!" At the coming Reverie, she wants to present that wish to the world: "Citizens of this kingdom, I ask for each of your individual signatures!!!" Some still resist: "I dunno..." "Hmph. It's useless." "History has already made the answer clear..."

Otohime returns home to the palace and greets her children: "I'm home, children!" They answer, "Welcome home, mother!!" Shirahoshi sobs, "Waaah hhh! Waaah hhh!" and Otohime embraces her tenderly. "Ah, Shirahoshi, my haven of tranquility... I am sorry I could not return to you sooner... Ahh, even with snot dripping from only one of your nostrils, you are so adorable...!" The children reassure her that Shirahoshi was safe: "Don't worry about Shirahoshi, mother! We've been with her the whole time!!" Neptune thanks them: "Thank you, my princes." In private, Otohime admits, "My princes... I will ensure that the future you grow up in will be very different from the world of today!" Her ministers worry that she is too close to her subjects and that human pirates still remain on the island, but she cannot be stopped from pursuing her dream.

The ministers discuss Otohime's danger. One says, "Certainly, the support of your friend, the pirate Whitebeard, grants us a measure of protection... But even that is not absolute!" Another adds, "She is quite aware of the dangers." The older minister reflects, "The world that Otohime dreams of, minister... ...has a history spanning hundreds of years. It is one and the same as the dream that our distant ancestors fervently pursued..." He admits, "I cannot stop Otohime from pursuing her ideals. I can only ask you to keep her safe...!!" Then, on another day, Arlong attacks her petition drive. "Give it back!! How many people's signatures do you think are on that piece of paper?!!" someone cries. Arlong laughs, "Do I look like I care? Shaha haha! What's the point in collecting these scraps of paper, anyway?!!" The crowd shouts, "Hey!!! Stop this at once!!! You're Arlong from the fishman district, aren't you?!"

Arlong introduces himself with pride and contempt: "Hmm? That's not quite right. I'm Captain Arlong... ...of the Arlong Pirates!!" He is formally labeled "Captain of the Arlong Pirates, Arlong (25), sawshark fishman." He mocks the idea of protecting humans: "We make our living hunting in these waters for inferior pirates who can't even breathe underwater. Basically, we're doing the worthless army's job for it. So why don't you fork out some cash as thanks, eh?!" When someone pleads, "Don't just sit there watching! Help me out, please!!" another recognizes the person approaching: "JIMBEI ...?" A subordinate stammers, "B... Boss Jimbei!!" Arlong's aggression is now placed directly against Jinbe's authority and the old bonds between the men who came from the same district.

Jinbe arrives as a soldier of Neptune's army, labeled "Jimbei (30), whale shark fishman." The people are relieved: "It's Boss Jimbei!" "From the Neptune Army!!" Arlong laughs, "Shahahahah!!! 'Boss', is it?! Well, that's a new one!! I've never seen a soldier who looks like some kind of mafia boss before!!" Jinbe sighs and tells him, "You heard the rookie, punk. Put him down! That's my subordinate you're manhandling." Then he adds, "And though I can't say I'm interested in those signatures myself... The same can't be said for the queen. Give it back." Arlong resists, but Jinbe orders, "Just do as I say, Arlong!!" Their old friendship shows through the anger: "It's been too long!! Don't you remember the good times we used to have... ...back in the fishman district?!" Arlong snaps back, "Don't lump me together with you. Are you still devoting your life to the likes of piracy? Piece of trash."

The flashback turns to Fisher Tiger's return. People in the Fishman District cry, "Big bro T?!" and "The big bro's back?!!" Someone calls out, "Hey, everyone!! Fisher Tiger the adventurer is back!!" Tiger arrives huge, scarred, and alive, and people shout, "Jimbei!! Arlong!!!" "It's Tiger-san!!" "Tell us about your travels!!" One voice teases, "Damned if you two aren't looking well!!!" Tiger says this last trip certainly took him a while, then admits he has business at the palace. The narration identifies the Fishman District as a gigantic institution that began to care for orphaned children, but over time descended into chaos when those in charge could not control their charges. This lawless place became home to rebels and outcasts of Fishman Island.

The narration lays out where the central figures went after the Fishman District fractured. Fisher Tiger, once the de facto leader of the district, ultimately left the country to find adventure and "at once earned him the title 'Hero of Slaves,' and marked him as a terrible criminal." His second-in-command Jinbe found a place for himself in the royal army. Arlong, "the wildest of all the rebels," became a pirate and wreaked havoc across the ocean floor. Some, such as the coward Macro, entered the slave trade. Then a shocking event occurred: "Fisher Tiger's attack upon the holy land of Mariejoa..." People cry, "Tiger-san stood up against the Tenryuubito!!!" The page frames Fisher Tiger's rebellion as the event that made every one of them dumbfounded.

Upon hearing of Fisher Tiger's rebellion, his former comrades from the Fishman District gather. Tiger says, "I would like to submit my resignation!!!" and the narrator explains that he does so "to protect him from the government against which he had rebelled." The Marines pursue relentlessly, shouting, "Take the head of Fisher Tiger!!!" while each attacking vessel is sunk without fail. Tiger's men refuse to accept the world that still permits slavery: "And still you tell us to love these humans... Queen Otohime ...?!" "Slavery is permitted... and to grant freedom a crime...!!!" "The guy's not conscious!!!" "That's enough, bro!! Put him down!!!" To avoid discrimination between former slaves and those who gathered freely, everyone brands their bodies with the "Mark of the Sun," covering the old marks of slavery. "And thus began... ...the fishman crew known as the 'Sun Pirates'...!!!" They continue their advance, with Arlong laughing, "Shahahah!! Well, ain't this something!!"

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