Amid Yamato's growing tension and Kaido's quiet anticipation, Kurosaki Rei finally spoke.
"What I want to say is actually very simple. Even if you refuse to acknowledge it, within the Beasts Pirates you are still someone with status and respect. That's why they call you 'Young Master,' and why they don't dare lay a hand on you."
Kurosaki Rei placed the stones he had mined into the ore cart and continued, "And deep down, on a subconscious level, you know this too. That's why you could so naturally scold Alpaca. You knew that once you spoke up, he wouldn't dare pursue the matter any further."
Yamato froze for a moment. She had never expected that a casual act of helping Kurosaki Rei would lead him to drag her into such a troublesome line of reasoning.
But people were like that—once someone pointed something out, you couldn't help but think about it. Yamato subconsciously recalled what she had said earlier.
'Don't lay a hand on my friend!'
That sentence had ended the conflict outright, and it seemed to carry an unspoken premise.
Why had she assumed that once she declared Kurosaki Rei her friend, Alpaca shouldn't continue the violence?
Unconsciously, she had placed herself in a position of authority, someone who could order Alpaca around. But she was clearly Kozuki Oden—she shouldn't have been able to command a Beasts Pirates overseer.
"No… that's not it. I didn't think that much at the time," Yamato said. "I just didn't want to see Brother Rei get hurt. Seeing him rough up my friend so disrespectfully, of course I got angry."
She said the words, but her gaze lacked confidence, tinged with a trace of self-doubt.
Seeing this, Kurosaki Rei didn't press the issue. He knew full well that Yamato's actions had two sides to them. Even if she weren't Kaido's daughter, she would still have stepped in to stop it and said roughly the same thing.
After all, Yamato truly treasured him—her first friend in sixteen years. Her behavior could indeed be explained by simple anger.
"Hearing you say that makes me really happy," Kurosaki Rei said with a smile. "But while we were mining just now, I thought of another question."
The moment the word question came out of Kurosaki Rei's mouth, Yamato shuddered. She gave a bitter smile. "Brother Rei, can't we just mine in peace? Or you could tell me stories from the outside world. Anything's fine—just don't say 'question.'"
Seeing how resistant Yamato was, Kurosaki Rei could only resort to soothing tactics. "I've already thought of it. Let me say it, alright? After that, I'll tell you a story—this time, a myth from my homeland."
Hearing that there would be a story, and a myth from her friend's homeland at that, Yamato's interest was instantly piqued. She nodded. "Alright, then go ahead."
Kurosaki Rei thought to himself that Yamato was surprisingly easy to coax. After all, she was just a sixteen-year-old girl. He said, "Earlier you told me that ever since you started challenging Kaido, every time you failed you'd be thrown into prison. Most of the time, it was here. I don't know if it's just a coincidence, but I feel like this might actually be Kaido fulfilling your wish."
"Huh? Kaido fulfilling my wish?" Yamato was completely baffled. "What are you talking about, Brother Rei?"
"You told me about your idol before," Kurosaki Rei said with a smile. "Kozuki Oden was thrown into a quarry at age ten after making a mistake, and later even became the head stonemason. Isn't this basically giving you a chance to replicate your idol's path? After all, you call yourself Kozuki Oden."
"Huh? There's such an interpretation?" Yamato froze, then snapped back to her senses. "That… actually makes sense! I am Kozuki Oden—I should be becoming the head stonemason here! How can I just be mining all the time?!"
Clearly, the flaw her brain latched onto was that she hadn't been acting according to Kozuki Oden's behavioral pattern. She felt deeply regretful about it.
At this moment, over on Onigashima, Kaido—who was watching the live feed—wore a strange expression. "I never thought of it that way…"
He had thrown Yamato into Udon Prison simply because Wano only had two prisons. One was inside the capital, and if he were going to lock her up there, he might as well have kept her on Onigashima.
Following the principle of out of sight, out of mind—and with the added bonus that a quarry could reform people—Udon Prison had practically become Kaido's only choice. He had never intended for his daughter to reenact her idol's journey.
"How you thought about it doesn't matter," Black Maria said with a laugh from the side. "What matters is how Yamato is thinking about it right now. I feel like she's about to fall into another pit."
Kaido's mind didn't turn quite that fast. To avoid looking foolish, he could only keep his mouth shut and continue watching.
Back in Udon Prison, Kurosaki Rei said, "Maybe I'm overthinking it. But objectively speaking, Kaido really did cooperate with your role-playing game—and quite earnestly at that. I just think that doing this might lead you even further down the wrong path."
Yamato puffed out one cheek in displeasure. "What do you mean, the wrong path? Kozuki Oden was—"
"A heroic man, a great hero, right?" Kurosaki Rei cut in. "A hero who kidnapped women?"
Yamato was instantly stuck. She had thought about it all night after yesterday and still couldn't understand why her idol, Kozuki Oden, would do something so awful. Surely everything her idol did was supposed to be right?
But after Kurosaki Rei used her father as an example, she had truly realized that it was wrong—something that could even be called beastly.
"Continuing with the topic of this prison," Kurosaki Rei said, "you told me Kaido abused you, forcing you to hide and leaving you often unable to eat your fill. But just now you also said that the food in Udon Prison is pretty good, and that you often come here to freeload meals. So have you ever thought about why Kaido locks you up here instead of leaving you to starve on Onigashima?"
That question struck straight at her soul, leaving Yamato stunned once more.
She hadn't even sorted out the previous issue, and now a new one had piled on, troubling her further.
To be honest, the hunger had been worst back when she had first started calling herself Kozuki Oden. Back then, her father had confined her a few times and forbade anyone from giving her food.
Later, a kind member of the crew secretly gave her food—and was executed for disobeying Kaido's orders.
But after that, about a year later, things improved somewhat. And once she turned eleven and began challenging Kaido regularly, she would be sent to Udon Prison after every defeat. From then on, she was able to eat her fill.
It was also during those years that her body grew rapidly. She became taller and stronger, able to fight Kaido for longer periods.
"You… what are you trying to say?" Yamato asked hesitantly. Deep down, she had already vaguely sensed the answer.
"Though it's just speculation," Kurosaki Rei said seriously, "I think Kaido might have felt that you were at an age where you needed proper nutrition. You couldn't be starving all the time. So he sent you to Udon Prison, because he knew that with your strength, you'd be able to eat your fill here."
Kurosaki Rei wasn't making this up on the spot. Judging from Kaido's own life experiences, this seemed highly plausible.
After all, when Kaido himself was eleven or twelve, he often deliberately let the Marines capture him just so he could eat his fill aboard their warships—then break out afterward.
Given Kaido's way of thinking, it wasn't unlikely that he'd make such arrangements for Yamato, letting her eat properly and grow stronger.
The feeling was rather strange. In a more normal worldview, it was a bit like a father and daughter arguing, the daughter refusing to eat out of spite. Neither side wanted to give in, but the father still worried his girl might starve—so he secretly slipped more money into her piggy bank.
The carefree daughter wouldn't eat at home, but when hunger struck she'd go out to eat. Finding more money in the piggy bank, she'd think it was her own savings, never realizing it was all her father's quiet effort.
Of course, Kaido and Yamato's situation was far more complicated and awkward, and the method of finding food for his daughter was far more hardcore.
In Kaido's mind, prison was probably just another restaurant. Sending his daughter there was a safe bet—after all, that was exactly how he had eaten his fill and grown strong.
On the other side, on Onigashima, Black Maria's eyes curved with undisguised amusement as she looked at Kaido. "Is that how it is?"
Kaido turned his head slightly, unwilling to let her see the expression on his darkened face. "That kid is just imagining things. I only wanted to teach Yamato a lesson. Udon's rules are what they are."
"Oh~ then I suppose he's overthinking it," Black Maria drawled, smiling sweetly. She hadn't expected her lord to have such a delicate side to his heart.
Even she, someone so attentive, had never considered this. She had simply assumed Kaido wanted to reform Yamato through hard labor.
Kaido kept his face dark as he stared at the screen, eagerly awaiting Yamato's reaction.
At this moment, Yamato's expression was conflicted. "No way… that bastard old man actually… thought about something like that? I always thought…"
"Thought it was your idol Oden's spirit in heaven blessing you, letting you eat your fill?" Kurosaki Rei cut in teasingly.
Yamato frowned. "I wouldn't say something like that…"
Halfway through the sentence, she froze. She realized that if it had been her from just a few days ago, she absolutely would have said that—and truly believed it.
What was happening to her? Just now, her first instinct had been to refute Kurosaki Rei, which was essentially refuting her own idol, questioning her identity as Kozuki Oden.
"In any case," Yamato said stubbornly, "my father Kaido is a crude man. There's no way he'd think that carefully, treating prison like a cafeteria or something. He'd never use such a roundabout method to make sure I eat my fill!"
"Oh?" Kurosaki Rei smiled. "Then let me ask you—do you really know what kind of person Kaido is?"
"You know a stranger like Kozuki Oden inside and out," he continued, "yet you don't seem to understand your own biological father very well."
Yamato looked displeased. "Of course I understand him. Kaido is the greatest enemy of me, Kozuki Oden. As a samurai, I naturally have to understand my enemy to defeat him."
"Is that so?" Kurosaki Rei asked. "Then tell me—do you know what your father experienced before coming to Wano? Do you know what kind of legends are told about him on the seas?"
"Huh? When he brought me to Wano, I was just a few years old. I couldn't even remember things yet—how could I know about his past?" Yamato looked at Kurosaki Rei in confusion. "Don't tell me you know?"
"Wouldn't it be strange if you didn't?" Kurosaki Rei replied. "Your father is one of the Four Emperors—a figure of immense fame on the seas. Ask any member of the Beasts Pirates, or any of Wano's upper echelon, and they'll know his legendary deeds."
He wasn't deceiving Yamato. He couldn't vouch for all of Wano's commoners, but the Beasts Pirates certainly knew Kaido's legends—that was why they worshipped him and flocked to his banner. Pirates and adventurers of the New World were even more familiar with his exploits, far more so than with Kozuki Oden.
Kurosaki Rei continued, "As a pirate, Kaido challenged the Navy alone and was captured eighteen times. He endured over a thousand tortures and was sentenced to death forty times. Yet even hanging couldn't kill him—he'd snap the chains. Even on the execution platform, he'd shatter the guillotine. Spears would break before piercing him. He sank nine massive prison ships, and no one has ever managed to kill him—not even himself."
He briefly summarized Kaido's feats, then pointed out the key issue.
"There's a saying on the seas that Kaido is the world's strongest creature. So tell me—why would the world's strongest creature be captured so easily?"
Yamato's heart was in turmoil. This was the first time she had heard of her father's youthful exploits. The feeling was strange—during that time, she hadn't even been born, yet her father had already been active across the seas.
Kurosaki Rei's narration shook her deeply. Was her father really that strong?
"Why?" Yamato asked in confusion. "If he kept getting caught, then he shouldn't be called the strongest creature, right?"
"The explanation passed down on the seas," Kurosaki Rei said, meeting her gaze, then turning to push the ore cart toward the ration exchange, "is that he let himself be captured on purpose."
"Because he was hungry."
"Hungry. I'm going to get breakfast."
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