"National responsibility?! I don't give a damn about that kind of thing at all!"
Kozuki Oden made an incredibly disgusted face, waving his large hands dismissively. "I'm already sick and tired of everything in this cramped, suffocating country!"
He suddenly changed the subject. His expression was once again filled with wild, unadulterated anticipation, looking exactly like a giant child craving candy.
"Hey! Tell me stories about the outside world! What's the outside sea really like?!"
Kaido rested his kanabo on his shoulder. He looked at the man who seemed to be going genuinely crazy from being confined and imprisoned by his own nation's borders, and he could actually somewhat understand his desperate longing for the outside world.
So, Kaido grinned, twirling Hassaikai in the air with one hand.
"Seeing how much you yearn to go to sea, it's not entirely impossible to tell you some news about the outside world."
Kaido's eyes narrowed, his killing intent flaring. "But! You have to physically defeat me first!"
"Uororororo..."
Kozuki Oden's eyes darkened instantly. His naive, childish expression vanished, entirely replaced by surging, razor-sharp battle intent.
"You said it!!"
Black-and-red Supreme King (Haoshoku) lightning began to crackle violently, spreading from his arms into his twin swords, Enma and Ame no Habakiri.
Kaido bared his fangs, raising his free hand and beckoning the Daimyo forward.
"Come and fight!!"
"Oden Two-Sword Style—"
"Thunder Bagua!!"
Port Itachi, which already resembled a barren, charred wasteland, bore witness to an unparalleled, apocalyptic clash of Haki in Wano Country that day...
Meanwhile.
While Kaido set up a grand, violent arena at the port to attract all the region's attention, Dragon had already changed into traditional Wano Country attire. Guided by a covert member of the Kurozumi family, he began to deeply tour the inner workings of Wano.
Dragon did not go to the seemingly prosperous, bustling capitals like the Flower Capital. Instead, he delved directly into the lowest, most destitute echelons of Wano Country to truly understand the lives of its most underprivileged people.
Thanks to the swift convenience of his wind-based Devil Fruit abilities, he covertly visited several remote villages across different regions in just a few days.
The Kurozumi guide questioned the locals on his behalf, while Dragon merely disguised himself as a silent, accompanying samurai, observing everything sharply from the side.
And in just these few days of grim observation, Dragon realized a horrifying truth: in essence, the rumored, isolated Wano Country was fundamentally no different from the worst, most corrupt nations of the outside world affiliated with the Celestial Dragons.
It was the exact same rigid, inescapable class system. The exact same blatant disregard for the lower class. The samurai elite held the absolute privilege to execute commoners at will without any legal repercussions whatsoever.
If it were just that, Dragon wouldn't be too deeply concerned. He had seen similar, tragic situations many times across the Blues; Wano Country was just one more corrupt monarchy to be dismantled.
But the key point was terrifying!
Even though the common people of Wano Country were exploited, starved, and oppressed to such a horrifying extent, they still didn't possess the absolute slightest thought of rebellion or resistance.
In their deeply conditioned minds, the Shogun and the ruling samurai were inherently, divinely noble. Their absolute authority was bestowed by birthright and the heavens.
Dragon had the Kurozumi guide ask these starving people a hypothetical question: Would they accept an outsider as Shogun of Wano Country, if this new Shogun was no longer from the Kozuki family, but an outsider who promised to distribute fertile land, reduce crushing taxes, and outlaw the samurai's right to arbitrarily kill them?
Facing this utopian question, the people of Wano Country showed an astonishing, fanatical uniformity.
"Are you kidding me?!" an emaciated farmer gasped in horror.
"If the Shogun of Wano Country isn't from the Kozuki clan, then he's a rebellious, evil traitor!!"
"The Shogun of Wano Country can only ever be from the Kozuki bloodline!!"
"What right does a piece of foreign trash without Kozuki blood have to sit on the throne?!"
"The current system of Wano Country is absolutely perfect! We live very happily under the divine leadership of the Kozuki clan! We don't need any outsiders to meddle in our sacred traditions!!"
...Such an extreme, self-destructive, and isolationist mentality truly exceeded Dragon's expectations.
At the exact same time, he profoundly understood Kurozumi Higurashi's absolute confidence in her geopolitical pitch back at the Crimson Empire.
Facing such a deeply brainwashed country, where even the most brutally oppressed peasants were extremely xenophobic and loyal to their oppressors, a pure, forceful military conquest would likely only lead to a perpetual, exhausting guerrilla war where countless heads would roll for decades.
Back to Kaido.
His explosive battle with Kozuki Oden lasted from the late afternoon until the bloody orange hues of evening covered the sky.
Since it wasn't a true, to-the-death grudge match, they fought to a high-intensity draw, with Kaido holding a slight, undeniable physical advantage due to his Mythical Zoan stamina.
Kozuki Oden was highly unwilling to accept this. He desperately wanted to wear down Kaido's stamina by prolonging the fight into the night, thereby eventually winning the right to hear about the outside world. Having never experienced any true combat setbacks within the borders of Wano Country, he possessed an arrogant confidence in his own endurance.
However, just then, Kin'emon and his group of retainers, who had been frantically searching for him all day, arrived at Port Itachi with hurried, panicked steps.
"Oden-sama!!"
The urgent, familiar shouts made Kozuki Oden flinch, exclaiming, "Not good!"
Oden frantically waved his swords at them. "Don't come over here!! I'm fighting a terrifying villain who invaded Wano Country! You are absolutely no match for him!!"
Unfortunately for Oden, Kin'emon and the others knew their lord well enough to instantly realize that this was just a pathetic excuse to avoid being dragged back to the castle to study.
Kaido gradually stopped swinging after Kin'emon and the others appeared. After noticing with his Observation Haki that their hostility was mainly focused on dragging Kozuki Oden away rather than attacking him, Kaido lowered his club and completely distanced himself from the Daimyo.
"Oden-sama! Please do not be so incredibly unreasonable!!"
Kin'emon, leading the group of retainers, pulled out a thick rope and unceremoniously began to tie the towering Kozuki Oden up.
"NO! I don't want to go back! Let me go! I want to go to sea!!"
Kozuki Oden, acting exactly like a naughty, overgrown child being restrained by his parents, lay on the dirt ground, screaming and flailing his two large, hairy legs, completely unconcerned that his loincloth was fully exposed to the world.
Kaido stood nearby, leaning on his kanabo and watching the embarrassing show. He couldn't quite articulate whether he felt good or bad about Kozuki Oden's behavior.
From the simple perspective of yearning for freedom and the sea, he felt that Kozuki Oden hadn't done anything terribly wrong.
But watching Kozuki Oden—the literal crown prince of a powerful nation—showing an attitude of being able to casually, whimsically abandon his entire country and its people just for the sake of a personal adventure, made a deep, ugly scowl form on Kaido's face.
He vividly recalled how much he had desperately loved and fought for his own homeland, the Vodka Kingdom, only to be cowardly betrayed and sold to the Marines by his own King for political favor.
Now, he was looking at Kozuki Oden, a man unconditionally loved and worshiped by his homeland, yet he regarded that love as a suffocating burden, treating his royal duty with absolute disdain.
"Hey! Pirate!!"
After finally dealing with the flailing Kozuki Oden, Kin'emon turned and looked at Kaido with a deeply serious, arrogant expression.
"Oden-sama is the Daimyo of Kuri and the destined next Shogun of Wano Country! He absolutely cannot go to sea with foreign trash like you!!"
Kin'emon drew his blade, pointing it directly at the Emperor's Vanguard. "Don't even think about continuing to mislead Oden-sama with your lies, or you will immediately become the enemy of the entire samurai nation of Wano!!"
"Uororororo... you dare accuse me and threaten me without knowing a damn thing about the situation?"
Kaido grinned, a terrifying, absolute hint of lethal killing intent flashing in his reptilian eyes.
"Who the hell do you think you're talking to, retainer?!"
CRACK!
With a single, violent stomp of his foot—which had instantly transformed into a massive, scaled dragon's claw—the bedrock completely shattered. Kaido vanished, instantly appearing directly before Kin'emon as if teleporting.
Kin'emon's pupils suddenly constricted to pinpricks. The retainer hadn't even remotely expected the massive pirate to attack directly without a word, let alone move with such untrackable speed.
The other samurai also looked on in sheer astonishment, clearly not anticipating the foreigner to be so audacious as to attack them while they had Oden.
"Thunder Bagua!!"
With an earth-shattering, demonic roar, Kaido furiously slammed his massive kanabo directly into Kin'emon's arrogant face.
Blinding bluish-purple lightning mixed with thick black-and-red Haoshoku lightning, wielded by Kaido with both massive hands, struck Kin'emon with absolute, unrestrained force.
Kin'emon's arrogant, scolding face was instantly, violently distorted. The sickening, undeniable sound of a human skull cracking echoed sharply across the port.
BOOM!!!
A massive kinetic impact exploded outward, creating a shockwave that sent Kin'emon flying backward through the air at supersonic speed like a broken ragdoll.
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