"Luke, you’re amazing. You learned Ryuo so quickly. I thought I was already the fastest learner there was."
After getting back on her feet, Yamato stared at Luke in amazement.
Luke asked curiously, "How old were you when you learned Ryuo? And how did you learn it?"
Yamato tipped her head back and thought for a few seconds. "Let me think... I was probably eleven. Back then, I felt like I’d grown a lot taller and gotten much stronger, so I wanted to uphold Kozuki Oden’s will and defeat Kaido. Too bad I was still too weak then. We fought hard for a while, and he knocked me unconscious. When I woke up, I could use Ryuo."
Luke’s expression turned strange.
He had just heard Yamato describe an eleven-year-old version of herself as having "fought hard" against Kaido.
What level had Yamato been at back then, and what level was Kaido at?
Yet Yamato had supposedly fought Kaido for quite some time. Did she seriously not find that strange?
Luke almost wanted to say it out loud: Instructor Kaido... he really... I’m touched to tears.
"Did your father teach you Ryuo?"
Luke could not help asking. During their conversation, Yamato had mentioned that Kaido was her father.
Yamato shook her head repeatedly. "Of course not. That awful Kaido only wanted to kill me, but he failed because Kozuki Oden is watching over me."
Luke’s expression grew even stranger. "Then how did you learn Ryuo?"
Yamato answered as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Because I’m Kozuki Oden, obviously. I’m Wano Country’s hope, so naturally I can learn Ryuo."
Luke pressed one hand to his forehead. "Let me ask you something. When Kaido fought you for all that time, did he use Ryuo?"
"Yeah. He used Ryuo against me almost the entire time."
At that, Yamato’s face filled with indignation. "I’d only just learned Armament Haki then. That bastard must have been showing off a higher level of power just to mock me for being weak!"
"Uh..."
Luke was dumbfounded. He had never expected Yamato’s thought process to be this bizarre.
If he put himself in Kaido’s shoes, he felt Yamato would have driven him to death from sheer frustration.
What an iron man with a tender heart. Kaido might never say it aloud, but he truly cared deeply for his daughter. Even when his rebellious child came to kill him, he endured it and painstakingly taught her all three types of Haki through battle.
Thunder Bagua, Ryuo, Conqueror’s Haki Infusion—he had not left out a single thing!
"Yamato, you said before that you can use Conqueror’s Haki Infusion too. How did you learn that?"
Luke could not help asking again.
Yamato thought about it. "I think it was about a year ago. Under Kozuki Oden’s blessing, I felt my strength improve a lot again, so I went to defeat Kaido and make Wano Country open its borders. Unfortunately, even though we fought for dozens of minutes, he knocked me unconscious in the end. When I woke up, I could use Conqueror’s Haki Infusion. That was thanks to Kozuki Oden’s blessing too."
Luke felt that if Kaido were here listening to Yamato right now, he would probably throw up blood.
So Kozuki Oden really was a Devil Fruit user after all? A body-snatching Fruit user, perhaps?
"Let me ask—did Kaido use Conqueror’s Haki Infusion in that fight?"
Luke asked.
Yamato’s face darkened with fury. "Of course he did! I’m his biological daughter, but he showed no mercy when he swung that giant club. He coated it in Conqueror’s Haki and smashed Thunder Bagua straight at my head. He looked completely determined to kill me!"
Luke’s mouth fell open. He truly felt Yamato had lost her mind now. So she knew she was Kaido’s biological daughter, yet she still wanted to kill her father?
Could it be that, if Kaido had actually wanted to kill her, she would not have merely been knocked unconscious by that club?
What was her level, and what was Kaido’s level? How could she possibly fight him for dozens of minutes?
Instructor Kaido... he really... I’m touched to tears.
"I’ve heard of Thunder Bagua. It seems to be one of Emperor Kaido’s signature moves. Can you use it?"
Luke asked again.
Yamato nodded. "Of course I can. What’s so hard about that? He hit me with Thunder Bagua so many times that even an idiot would have learned it by watching."
"Wasn’t it your precious Oden’s blessing?"
Luke shot back.
Yamato looked at him in confusion. "What does ‘precious Oden’ mean?"
"Oh, don’t worry about it. It just means your idol."
Luke realized he had slipped out of character.
Yamato did not press the issue, taking it as some strange expression from the outside world. She explained, "Of course not. Thunder Bagua isn’t Kozuki Oden’s move. I learned it myself. That awful man probably never imagined that not only did I survive, I even learned his ultimate technique."
At that, a delighted smile appeared on Yamato’s face. "Whenever I imagine the look on his face when I use his own move to finish him off someday, I feel so happy."
Luke looked at Yamato and thought that this girl was beyond saving.
She ate Kaido’s food, used Kaido’s things, learned Kaido’s techniques, yet wanted to kill her own father. Everything her father did was wrong; everything he did to her was supposedly an attempt to kill her; and the only reason she survived was because the spirit of that so-called heroic manly man was protecting her from beyond the grave.
Luke felt Yamato’s condition could not be explained merely by witnessing Kozuki Oden’s heroic execution, reading his journal, and being brainwashed by the Three Samurai. Kaido simply had no idea how to raise children. This kid’s mind had probably been a little off since she was young.
In Luke’s view, Kaido was undeniably a cruel tyrant and a bad man, but he was absolutely one of the best fathers in the world of One Piece.
Just look at what the other so-called great dads in One Piece did.
Usopp’s father, Yasopp, went out to sea chasing freedom and adventure, abandoning his young son and seriously ill wife so he could live it up.
Luffy’s father, Monkey D. Dragon, devoted himself to revolution and dumped his son in Foosha Village from childhood. He had barely even met Luffy a few times.
Sanji’s father, Vinsmoke Judge, practically did not treat Sanji—the "defective product"—as a human being. In the end, Sanji only escaped with his sister’s help.
Those fathers did not seem to care about their children at all, yet Usopp worshipped his father intensely. Sanji hated his father, but still regarded him as family.
Then look at Kaido. He did not throw Yamato to someone else to raise. He kept her by his side, fed and clothed her well, gave her whatever she wanted, and even had his subordinates call her the Oni Princess. He was practically a model father by pirate-world standards.
Yet this good father had ended up with an extraordinarily unfilial daughter like Yamato. Luke finally understood why Kaido loved drinking himself into a stupor, then got depressed and kept trying to kill himself...
"Right, you said you’re a Devil Fruit user, which is why the cuffs leave you too weak to move. What Fruit did you eat?"
Luke asked even though he already knew. More than anything, he was now extremely curious about his roommate’s inner world.
"Oh, I ate the Zoan-type Dog-Dog Fruit, Model: Okuchi no Makami. They say it’s Wano Country’s guardian deity. But I’m Kozuki Oden, the person who’ll open Wano Country’s borders, so it’s only natural."
Yamato spoke with absolute confidence.
"A Mythical Zoan? That’s such a rare Fruit. Where did it come from?"
Luke asked curiously. He truly wanted to know exactly how Yamato had acquired the Fruit.
"That was a long time ago. I remember Kaido had locked me up, and I was starving. Then a Fruit fell through the hole in the skylight, so I ate it right away."
Yamato recalled, "Only afterward did I realize it was a Devil Fruit and gain this ability."
A smile appeared on her face. "Luke, let me tell you: Kaido came looking for me afterward. He said it was a rare Mythical Zoan Fruit that he had gone to great lengths to obtain. Isn’t that hilarious? Such an important Fruit, and he failed to keep watch over it. A storm blew it right off his cart. Isn’t he stupid? He couldn’t even keep hold of something that important."
She burst into laughter. "Then it landed in my cell. Kozuki Oden really was protecting me—making Kaido unlucky while giving me good fortune."
After hearing that, Luke fell completely silent. He looked at Yamato as though she were an idiot.
"You don’t seriously think that’s what happened, do you? That the wind just happened to blow the Fruit away, lift it into the sky, drop it onto your cell’s skylight, and then it just happened to fall through so the starving you could eat it?"
Luke felt it was utterly ridiculous that Yamato believed in a coincidence like that.
Afterward, Kaido had even gone out of his way to explain what kind of Fruit it was and how difficult it had been for him to find. Luke felt Kaido was rather tsundere too.
He wanted his daughter to eat an incredible Fruit, but had to go about it in such a roundabout way. Then, after Yamato ate it, he worried that she would not know how valuable it was and personally came to explain it.
He really... Luke was touched to tears.
"Isn’t that what happened?"
Yamato looked at Luke, puzzled.
"Don’t you think your father wanted you to eat a powerful Devil Fruit, but was afraid you wouldn’t take it if he gave it to you directly, so he used that method to get you to eat it?"
Luke said bluntly.
Yamato froze. Luke’s idea was a blind spot she had never considered before. "Impossible. Absolutely impossible! He wanted to kill me. Why would he give me such a powerful Devil Fruit? He even said it was wasted on me!"
"And yet, you didn’t die, did you?"
Luke truly could not hold back anymore. He wanted to set this unfilial daughter straight. Though he did not like Kaido as a brutal pirate, he felt Instructor Kaido had been treated far too unfairly.
More importantly, seeing Yamato fail to cherish a father who clearly loved her made him feel irritated.
When Luke had been little, he too had longed for parental affection. But he had no parents. By any measure, he was an abandoned infant. In truth, he envied children who had parents.
If Yamato wanted to resist Kaido’s tyrannical rule and were not Kaido’s daughter, then she would simply be a positive, inspiring person. But she was Kaido’s daughter, which made the whole situation feel deeply awkward.
It was like an emperor’s only heir shouting every day that he wanted to overthrow the current dynasty and restore the old regime. If the emperor did not execute him, that was already an extraordinary degree of affection. How else was he supposed to love the boy? By personally helping him overthrow the dynasty?
Even if Yamato wanted to oppose Kaido’s tyranny, Luke thought there were ways that made more sense. She could use the authority her identity gave her to improve Wano Country’s conditions. Once she inherited everything, would she not be able to liberate Wano Country herself?
Why did she have to insist on killing her own father?
"I didn’t die... because I’m Kozuki Oden."
Yamato paused inexplicably in the middle of her answer.
"But Kozuki Oden is already dead. He wasn’t some immortal god himself—he lost to Kaido. What makes you think you can escape death under Kaido’s hands so many times?"
Luke countered. "Or do you think you’re stronger than Kozuki Oden?"
This time, Yamato was completely stunned. Luke’s words made her fall into a logical contradiction.
Kozuki Oden was her idol and the person she aspired to become. Of course she was not stronger than Kozuki Oden.
But according to the facts, Kozuki Oden had indeed lost to her father, so she had previously believed it was normal that she could not defeat her father yet.
But Luke had pointed out the heart of the issue: why was she, who was not as strong as Kozuki Oden himself, still alive after challenging Kaido so many times?
After all, Kozuki Oden had challenged Kaido only once before losing and being executed.
That was right. Why had her father not executed her after knocking her unconscious?
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