Yamato looked at Luke and instinctively felt uneasy.
She had noticed that whenever Luke wore that look, he was about to raise some bizarre question. Then her worldview would be shattered, and she would spiral into a depressive shutdown.
"Brother Luke, the Great Sage Sun—"
Yamato spoke first.
But before she could finish, Luke raised a hand to stop her. "Yamato, I just thought of a question."
"But I don’t want to hear your questions, Brother Luke..."
Yamato wore a bitter expression. She was starting to doubt whether she really was Kozuki Oden.
"Do you still want to hear what happens next to the Great Sage Sun?"
Luke smiled, looking exactly like a creepy old man luring a little girl in with candy.
Yamato’s expression twisted in conflict. She desperately wanted to know what happened next, but she did not want to hear Luke’s question.
After a fierce internal struggle, her desire for the story overcame her fear of his questions. She reluctantly nodded. "Fine. Go ahead, Brother Luke."
Luke raised a hand and pointed at the prisoners suffering from exhaustion and hunger. "Yamato, these are all citizens of Wano, right?"
Yamato had not expected such a simple question. She nodded. "Of course they are. Otherwise, why would they be locked up here?"
The corner of Luke’s mouth rose. "Then let me ask you this, Yamato. Do you think they’re pitiful?"
"Pitiful?"
Yamato tilted her head. "Not especially. At least they can eat here. The people who aren’t imprisoned still have to work to earn food. The old, weak, sick, and disabled people who can’t get enough to eat here wouldn’t get enough to eat in Wano either."
Luke froze. He had not expected Yamato’s simple mind to produce such a philosophical answer.
Or perhaps it was precisely because Yamato was an innocent lunatic that she could see through appearances to the essence of things.
Thinking it over, she was right. People in places like Kuri did not even have the option of selling their labor for food. And in present-day Wano, those supposedly living normal lives were merely selling their labor—or something else—in exchange for the necessities of life.
"Do you think they’re pitiful, Brother Luke?"
Seeing Luke fall silent for a moment, Yamato turned the question back on him.
"What I think isn’t important. Yamato, does it hurt when you’re hungry?"
Luke approached it from another angle.
Yamato thought for a moment. "It hurts a lot. When you put it that way, the people going hungry really are pitiful."
As she said that, the way she looked at the old, weak, sick, and disabled prisoners changed. Until now, she had subconsciously believed Udon Prison was a place where people could at least eat their fill.
Every time she came here, she focused on recovering from her wounds and stuffing herself. Once she was healed, she escaped. She had never noticed that so many prisoners here were going hungry.
By using her own experience as an example, Luke immediately brought back her memories of the pain of hunger. At once, she began to empathize with the prisoners.
"Yamato, don’t you always say you’re Kozuki Oden? Let me ask you: what was Kozuki Oden’s status?"
Luke continued.
"He was the man who would become Wano’s Shogun—the hero who would open Wano’s borders and overthrow Kaido’s tyranny."
Yamato answered without hesitation.
This time, Luke did not rush to refute her. He merely nodded. "So he was Wano’s hope. You also said that he was loved by the people of Wano."
"Of course he was!"
Yamato nodded excitedly, thinking Luke had finally acknowledged her.
But Luke’s next words plunged her into deep thought. "Then, as Wano’s leader, if you believe these people are pitiful, why don’t you help them?"
Yamato was stunned. Her mind went completely blank.
After a while, she took out Kozuki Oden’s journal and quickly flipped through it. Her eyes became even more confused.
"I’m Kozuki Oden..."
Yamato’s voice was vague. "So I don’t need to help them."
"Yamato, do you even know what you’re saying?"
Luke’s expression turned solemn.
Yamato’s body trembled. She failed to hold onto the journal, and it fell to the ground. Yet she did not rush to pick it up. She looked at Luke in terror. "I... I don’t know. I... I’m Kozuki Oden, but Kozuki Oden wouldn’t personally help pitiful citizens. He wouldn’t help the country when it was in danger, either. All I need is for the people to adore me."
Luke knew Yamato’s psychological defenses were collapsing, so he pressed his advantage. "You must find it strange too, right? Kozuki Oden abandoned the people who trusted him to go adventuring when the country was in crisis. After returning to Wano, he never did a single practical thing for its people. Do you really think that was right?"
Yes. Although the original story did its utmost to portray Kozuki Oden as a heroic, manly figure beloved by the people, from beginning to end, all he did was reckless and stupid things. He never did even one concrete thing for the people.
The hungry did not become full because of him. The freezing did not become warm because of him. Never mind the absurd things he did in his youth—after returning to Wano, all he did was compromise with Kurozumi Orochi and play the fool in the streets every day.
Yes, he was not enduring humiliation while secretly organizing and nurturing a resistance. He was simply dancing around naked and acting like a clown, giving Kaido six whole years to grow stronger.
Even King Goujian of Yue, while sleeping on brushwood and tasting gall, knew to build up his strength while enduring humiliation. Kozuki Oden simply wasted time and still lost with four twos and two jokers in his hand.
While he danced around as a clown, he not only failed to secretly organize resistance—he did not do a single practical thing for the people. He did not even hunt to give hungry children in impoverished regions a meal. That was why Wano’s people hated Kozuki Oden during that period.
They had been enslaved by their own countrymen for years, clinging to hope as they waited for Kozuki Oden to return and save them. Yet this man compromised and stripped naked to dance in the streets every day.
Then Kozuki Oden was defeated and died in a pot of boiling oil, and someone revealed that he had endured it because Kurozumi Orochi held hostages. Everyone immediately burst into tears and was deeply moved...
Well... Luke found the whole thing pretty surreal. Kozuki Oden and the people of Wano alike were both pretty surreal.
The only things Luke could appreciate about Kozuki Oden were his strength and his straightforwardness.
"B-but Kozuki Oden has always been like that."
Yamato’s voice grew softer and softer. She felt something inside her collapsing at a frantic pace.
"Has it always been that way? Does that make it right?"
Luke countered, pointing at the old and weak prisoners who were tearfully grateful just to receive leftovers. "Yamato, you think they’re pitiful too. You shout about defeating Kaido and liberating Wano, but aside from challenging your father, have you ever helped Wano’s people even once all these years?"
Yamato was left speechless. Her eyes even glistened with tears as she anxiously said, "I... I feel like I should help them, but the journal never says Kozuki Oden personally helped the people."
"The journal doesn’t say it, so you won’t do it? Do you think people will adore you if you never do anything for them?"
Luke said. In truth, he felt that Kozuki Oden might indeed have done nothing at all, but that did not stop the people from adoring him.
The people of Wano did not so much worship Kozuki Oden as hate Kurozumi Orochi and Kaido. By comparison, they believed the Kozuki family was good. Their loyalty was to the Kozuki family, not solely to Kozuki Oden himself.
To put it more bluntly, it was bloodline worship. Wano was a feudal nation, and its people naturally believed the Kozuki family’s rule was justified. So even if a ruler like Momonosuke were presented to them, they would bow their heads and worship him, tears and snot streaming down their faces.
But objectively speaking, if Kozuki Oden had truly become the nation’s ruler, would he have governed Wano well?
Not necessarily...
Just look at his life: visiting prostitutes at six and forcibly abducting women at fifteen. He had no administrative experience whatsoever. For all anyone knew, he might have become a tyrant after taking the Shogun’s seat.
As for Momonosuke, who became Shogun at the end of Wano’s arc in the original story, there was even less to say. Letting a lecherous child barely a few years old govern a country as Shogun—sure, that was just great.
"Isn’t that how it works? Since I’m Kozuki Oden, of course the people will adore me."
Yamato said hesitantly.
Luke smiled. "Then go take a walk around and shout that you’re Kozuki Oden. See whether they adore you or worship you."
Yamato fell silent. It was not as though she had never done that before, but everyone only looked at her as if she were crazy and ignored her.
"Wake up, Yamato. You aren’t Kozuki Oden. They are merely people numbed by a feudal social order, naturally submissive to bloodline worship. Even if you perfectly inherited Kozuki Oden’s spirit, gained his strength, and did exactly as he did, no one would adore you."
Luke’s words were like sharp blades, repeatedly stabbing into Yamato’s heart. "In a sense, over the long run, his contributions to this country may not even measure up to your father’s."
Luke’s verbal assault left Yamato utterly lost. She could only seize on the one point she felt she could use to fight back. "How could he possibly be worse than Kaido?! Kaido has brought nothing but pain to this country!"
Luke looked up at the distant factories and the smoke pillars reaching into the sky. "Kaido has done immense environmental damage, but you cannot deny that he has brought this country into the industrial age. That is progress. He is simply too brutal and knows nothing about management, which is why the country has become like this."
Based on his earlier observations and analysis, Luke believed that while people in certain areas—places like Kuri—were desperately poor, residents of the core cities lived fairly decent lives.
And the country itself did not truly lack food. There was simply a massive problem with distribution.
Overall, Luke felt that present-day Wano might very well have a better economy than it did under the Kozuki family’s rule.
It was easy to understand. Kaido wanted an intact country, so he had not pillaged and slaughtered across Wano. He served as the ruler’s backing—the guardian king protecting the nation.
After Kaido arrived, weapons factories were built. Artificial Devil Fruits were produced, and Wano’s craftsmen created Seastone goods. Exporting these products brought enormous economic gains to both the Beasts Pirates and Wano.
Kaido was certainly a villain, but he broke open Wano’s borders and pushed its closed, backward society forward.
A hundred years from now—or perhaps only decades—once the Beasts Pirates no longer ruled this land, Wano would undoubtedly enter a period of rapid growth. Its industrial and economic foundations would already have been laid.
If Kaido understood even a little about management, he could govern Wano very well right now. He could guarantee his people’s happiness while greatly increasing his factories’ output.
But Kaido was an uneducated pirate. All he knew was how to drain the pond dry to catch the fish.
And the two greatest crimes Kaido committed against this country were, first, allowing someone like Kurozumi Orochi to govern Wano—backing a filthy little man and letting Kurozumi Orochi oppress Wano’s people however he pleased.
Second, his factories paid no attention whatsoever to environmental protection, directly destroying the local river ecosystems. It had not been long yet, but another ten years and the surrounding farmland would likely all be dead. Famine would spread, and even safe drinking water could no longer be guaranteed.
As for whether the products from Kaido’s factories were "inhumane"—setting aside the Seastone and weapon production lines, artificial Devil Fruits did indeed have side effects. But they were far from cheap when sold overseas.
There were countless people on these seas willing to take risks for power, which was why Kaido’s artificial Devil Fruits sold so well.
And Kaido did not have Kurozumi Orochi’s twisted hobby. He simply threw away the fruits that had been eaten. Situations like Kuri’s were caused by Kurozumi Orochi’s perverse psychology.
Besides, even if he shut down the Devil Fruit business, selling weapons and Seastone industrial products alone would still bring the Beasts Pirates more than enough revenue.
There was one more thing Luke wanted to complain about: artificial Devil Fruits were pathetically weak, all right? Kaido’s shoddy products could not compare to Dr. Vegapunk’s at all. They made people ugly, came with a mountain of side effects, and did not necessarily grant much of a boost in power.
Kaido had so many subordinates eat artificial Devil Fruits, but could those fodder troops really be useful? They were all the kind who would collapse in waves under a single burst of Conqueror’s Haki.
Luke seriously suspected that Kaido had been conned by Doflamingo into partnering up in such an unreliable business. It exhausted the people and wasted wealth, most of the products were consumed internally, and it ruined many crew members who had originally possessed real potential.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register