Chapter 20: When the Villains Are Helpful and the Guards Smile Too Much
If Naruto had to describe the vibe of Nanohana in one word, it would've been: "Suspiciously chill."
The Azura Gale docked like a well-oiled machine (thanks to a puppeteer, a genjutsu expert, and twenty cranky shadow clones pretending to be spice handlers), and the "merchants" disembarked with crates, ledgers, and the fakest merchant smiles this side of the Red Line.
Naruto adjusted his straw hat—yes, he was absolutely wearing one—and whistled a little tune as he handed a small pouch of coins to the port officer.
"Pleasure doing business," Naruto said, his eyes sparkling with the energy of a man who'd just bribed a corrupt official and expected dark secrets in return.
The guard didn't flinch. He smiled. Smiled.
"Welcome to Nanohana, merchant-san. Hope your trade goes well. You'll find the east district busy this time of year—lots of nobles buying desert spices."
Naruto blinked. "That's... oddly helpful."
Behind him, Shikamaru made a small hmm noise. "Too helpful. He's either a fantastic actor or we're missing something."
Neji and Hinata were already scanning the area with Byakugan, while Kankuro's puppets unloaded fake goods and Tenten haggled aggressively with a confused spice merchant about peppercorn prices.
Even their surroundings felt... pleasant. Clean streets. Happy chatter. The smell of bread baking and spices roasting. Naruto expected at least one person screaming in an alley or a wanted poster flapping ominously in the wind.
But nothing.
Instead, what they got were cheerful vendors, healthy kids running past with desert fruit, and guards who actually seemed to be doing their job. The only oddity was the tattoos—the swirling, sharp-marked kind that screamed "Doflamingo's boys" to anyone who'd done their homework.
And yet... no one feared them. In fact, people saluted them. Kids gave them high-fives.
"What fresh Genjutsu hell is this?" Kurenai muttered from beneath her veil.
A merchant selling cloth smiled at Naruto. "You're new around here, huh? I'll bet you came because of Lady Viola. She's amazing—advisor to the King, you know. Ever since she came along, this place turned around. No more gangs fighting in the streets. No more pirates harassing caravans. We finally have peace."
"Viola?" Naruto repeated. "Advisor to the King?"
"Yup! Pretty, smart, and she's got powers. She knows when people lie. Some kind of eye technique or something. She's the one who cleaned house." The woman smiled proudly. "Now we've got order. Real strength. You ask me, she saved Alabasta."
Naruto glanced at Shikamaru. "Is it just me, or does this sound like the opposite of evil?"
Shikamaru sighed. "It's not just you. This is the most functional Doflamingo-backed town I've ever heard of. Which means one of two things: either this isn't Doflamingo's operation... or it is, and we're in way deeper than we thought."
"Either way," Naruto said, "let's smile, sell fake cinnamon, and find out where the cracks are."
Naruto had fought monsters, and teenagers with mood swings powerful enough to cause tsunamis. But this? This was way harder.
This was economic stability.
"This is weird," Naruto whispered, staring at a street filled with children eating sweet bread without a care in the world. "Like... where's the sadness? The fear? The broken stuff?"
"Unbelievably annoying, isn't it?" Shikamaru muttered as he jotted notes in a leather-bound journal. "I was hoping for at least one pirate burning a market or a shady guy selling fake elixirs in the back alley."
Instead, they got:
Organized markets with posted prices.
Guards patrolling politely and responding to actual citizens' complaints.
A merchant registry that required paperwork and a reasonable fee.
And—wait for it—taxes that weren't a scam.
Tenten had gotten so flustered by how fair her trade deal was, she almost handed the merchant double the asking price just out of habit. Kankuro's puppets were out of work because actual laborers came to help unload.
Even Gaara, who rarely showed emotion, raised an eyebrow. "This city functions better than Suna during the good years."
Hinata gently corrected a girl's stance at a local training yard while the girl's mother, an archer, explained with pride how Lady Viola had sponsored schools and training academies. "Before her, we had no way to fight back," she said. "Not against pirates, not against foreign merchants. Now, they fear us."
"Wait, so you're saying things are actually better?" Neji asked, deadpan.
"Oh yes!" The mother beamed. "Before, we were at the mercy of anyone with a sword. Even Crocodile let the cities rot. But now? Now we have backing. We have allies. Real structure."
Naruto leaned toward Shikamaru and whispered, "Okay, but what's the catch?"
Shikamaru shrugged. "The catch is we're the good guys... and they're doing a better job than us."
That stung more than a Rasengan to the pride.
They spent the rest of the day wandering Nanohana. Talking to butchers and bakers and yes, even candlestick makers. The story was always the same:
Before Viola? Chaos.
After Viola? Hope.
Sure, they paid tribute to Dressrosa—Viola's homeland and current 'protector' of Alabasta—but the taxes weren't insane. In fact, most merchants said the taxes were lower than what they lost to pirates in the old days. And now, no one messed with them. Not even Marines unless they had permits.
The biggest shock came at the central plaza, where a statue of Cobra stood next to a newer one—Viola, arm extended over the city, her robe swirling like a desert wind.
"People like her more than the King," Naruto muttered.
"Cobra was respected," an old man beside them said, "but he didn't have the power to protect us. Viola does. She may not be our queen, but we follow her."
And that... was the moment the ninja crew realized they weren't just infiltrating an occupied kingdom.
They were about to challenge a government that worked.
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If you've ever walked through a perfect garden and thought, "This smells too much like roses and not enough like manure," then congratulations. You have the instincts of a ninja.
Everything about Nanohana looked perfect. Too perfect. Which, in Naruto's experience, usually meant there was a monster under the bed or a political parasite burrowed somewhere unpleasant.
Shikamaru stood at the edge of the city square, leaning on a sun-bleached post with his arms crossed. "Dressrosa's king is a sociopath."
"Psychopath," corrected Neji without missing a beat.
"Either way," Shikamaru continued, "Doflamingo's idea of a fun time probably involves explosive collars and moral bankruptcy. So... I don't trust this."
Naruto was watching kids chase each other with sand-made kunai. "It feels wrong, but it looks so right."
"That's the trick," Shikamaru said. "You can polish a landmine, paint it gold, and call it a treasure chest—but the second you open it... boom."
Kurenai nodded. "Viola may be sincere. She might even be a good ruler. But Doflamingo isn't the type to share power. If she's helping Alabasta, it's because he lets her—for now."
Gaara finally spoke, his voice dry and absolute as the desert wind. "Gold."
Everyone turned toward him. He didn't blink.
"Gold," he said again. "Silver. Gems. Minerals. Maybe petroleum if they're drilling deep enough."
Tenten blinked. "Wait—are you saying this isn't about control?"
"Oh no," Gaara said, eyes narrowing. "It's always about control. But Doflamingo doesn't need to plant flags. He just needs to own the veins running through the earth."
"...Creepy," Naruto muttered. "Like mining a kingdom's bones."
"He probably is," Kankuro grunted. "If Alabasta's rich underneath, then that's the real prize. And if the people are smiling on top while he's carving out their future from below, then..."
"Then it's a trap with good PR," Shikamaru finished.
Hinata spoke softly. "There's more. My Byakugan saw a few storage warehouses with heavily armed guards. Too many for rice or fabrics. It didn't feel like merchant cargo."
Shikamaru sighed and pulled out his notebook again. "Right. So, we've got:
A happy population under a known monster's influence.
Unusual security in a town with zero crime.
And a local hero—Viola—who just so happens to be tied to Dressrosa's crown."
"I'm telling you," Naruto said, pacing. "Someone's suffering for this. Somewhere. Either here... or back in Dressrosa."
They all knew it.
Every smile, every bright fruit stand, every clean street—it was too calculated. Doflamingo wasn't the type to fix kingdoms out of kindness. He was the kind to burn them just to roast marshmallows.
"What's the play?" Kurenai asked.
Shikamaru tapped his pen against his chin. "We find the leak in the perfection. The part they're covering up. The mines. The silence. The resistance, if it still exists. Because if we're gonna fight Doflamingo's men, I want to know exactly what kind of hell they're hiding before we dive in."
"And if it turns out everyone's genuinely happy?" Tenten asked.
Naruto's eyes darkened. "Then we make sure they still will be... after we break the illusion."
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Infiltrating a tax office sounds boring. And believe me, it usually is.
But when you're a team of elite shinobi pretending to be government paper-pushers by hypnotizing actual government paper-pushers and locking them in the bathroom—well, it gets spicy real fast.
Team Kakashi had drawn the short straw.
"I can't believe this is what we're doing," Sakura muttered as she adjusted her ill-fitting tax officer uniform, which made her look like a pencil with anger issues.
"Honestly? This is better than fighting a dragon made of lava," Naruto said, sitting behind a desk while Kiba sniffed a file cabinet like it owed him money.
"You said that last time before the dragon melted your pants," Sakura shot back.
"I didn't say I was right last time!"
Kakashi, meanwhile, stood near the window, flipping through a thick folder labeled "Export - Class A." He looked way too calm for someone involved in tax fraud. "Focus, team. We're not here to debate lava pants. We're here to follow the money."
And oh boy, did the money not add up.
The files were too clean.
Export records showed massive shipments of gold, gemstones, and high-grade minerals being moved from Nanohana's port—except, surprise surprise—no payments were recorded. Not a single beri.
Kiba growled. "It's like they're giving it away for free."
"Worse," Sakura muttered. "They're giving it to Dressrosa."
Naruto frowned. "That little island off the trade route…?"
Kakashi nodded, tapping a map on the wall. "Here. An unmarked isle between Dressrosa and Alabasta. Barely large enough to support a village, but guess what's getting weekly shipments of high-value resources?"
The room went quiet.
"So," Naruto said, "Viola."
"Viola," Kakashi confirmed.
It was one thing to hear the people singing her praises. It was another to look at a shipping manifest and see her signature on it, right above a Dressrosa royal seal—Doflamingo's seal.
"She's part of the Donquixote Pirates," Sakura said slowly, as if saying it out loud made it worse. "And not just a member. She's royalty."
"Princess of Dressrosa," Kakashi said. "And sister to the former king—the one Doflamingo killed."
Naruto's fingers curled into fists. "So why is she helping him? She's the reason this kingdom even has peace!"
"Maybe it's not peace," Kiba muttered. "Maybe it's... debt."
They all stared at him.
He scratched his head. "I mean, maybe she cut a deal. Keep Alabasta calm and quiet, and in return, Doflamingo doesn't finish what he started. She gets to be a 'hero,' while the real plunder happens behind the curtains."
"Or maybe she's being controlled," Sakura said.
"Or blackmailed," Naruto added.
"Or," Kakashi said, "she's exactly where she wants to be."
That last one hung in the air like a poison cloud. They didn't want to believe it—not after seeing the good Viola had done for the people. But it was clear now: this wasn't generosity. It was strategic plunder. Resource extraction masked as diplomacy. A thief dressed in royal robes, calling it charity.
Naruto grabbed the folder. "We need to check out that island."
Kiba nodded. "If they're sending stuff there, someone's loading it. Someone's guarding it. That's our next lead."
Kakashi pocketed a few key documents. "Let's move before the real officers finish their bathroom nap."
Sakura rolled her eyes. "Remind me again how we're the good guys?"
"We didn't hurt anyone," Naruto grinned. "Just stole their pants and pride."
"Oh, perfect," she muttered. "Heroic."
As they slipped out of the office and back into the hot, cheerful streets of Nanohana, the weight of what they'd learned settled on them.
Viola wore the face of peace, but her crown sat on Doflamingo's bloody throne.
And someone was paying the price for that peace—on an island the world didn't even know existed.