Chapter 625: Uninherited Will

The splintered ship of a World Noble sinks to the seabed and lodges against the kingdom's outer gate. Its lone survivor, a man named Mjosgard, sprawls injured and shouts for an air helmet and a physician, swearing he is about to expire. Both the townsfolk and a handful of the Sun Pirates refuse to obey him, and Hody Jones voices that the noble ought to die where he lies. Through a remembered scene, it emerges that Mjosgard's father had steered the vessel here to seize back former slaves who now ride with the pirates.

Surrounded by gun-wielding fish-men he once owned, the noble hears that his rank counts for nothing without Marine admirals close by, and that were he to perish here it could pass as a mere wreck. Egged on by the crowd, one pirate finally shoots, but Otohime flings herself across the noble, and the round scrapes the left side of her ribs, stunning everyone present. She then commands the fighters to cast down their weapons, since children are looking on. Moments later Mjosgard recovers his pistol and points it at her skull. Frightened, Shirahoshi screams her mother's name, and a burst of sound rides on the cry; five Sea Kings surge up from behind the wreck, one biting into the hull, before all of them slip away again.

Aladine treats both the noble and the wounded queen, and several weeks slip by before Mjosgard mends. Still nursing a grudge, he readies himself to depart and threatens the whole kingdom, which pushes Otohime to announce that she will accompany him up to the surface. She argues that demonstrating how even a frail person can survive among humans is the only proof that they need not be feared, brushing aside Neptune's objections and asking him to place his faith in her and in humanity alike. Watching all this, Vander Decken IX matches Shirahoshi's ability to an old family tale about a princess who could summon Sea Kings, and he starts plotting to take her as his wife, unbothered that she remains a small child.

Here Shirahoshi is drawn as a six-year-old, and the story confirms her Sea King summoning power as the very reason Vander Decken IX went after her. The chapter debuts the World Noble Mjosgard and discloses that the first Vander Decken had originally come to the kingdom chasing that same legendary mermaid. Zeff shows up on the cover for the first time following the timeskip. After the week she is gone, the citizens who had once tired of Otohime's speeches find themselves wishing to hear them once more, and she comes home carrying a paper that would later be called the merfolk kingdom's beacon of hope.