"Beastly father and Rebellious son?"
"Mutual destruction out of love?"
Yamato froze for a moment. With her single-minded way of thinking, she clearly couldn't process it all at once. Still, she glared and snapped:
"No! I don't believe Kaido would kill me!"
"You don't believe it?" Luo Yu chuckled. In a flash, his right hand shot out, grabbed the explosive collar around Yamato's neck, and casually flung it at the gazelle-man.
The sudden move made the gazelle-man's pupils shrink in shock.
In their minds, once an explosive collar was locked on, it was a death sentence—only a key could remove it.
They never imagined someone could just rip it off barehanded.
Seeing the collar flying toward him, the gazelle-man panicked and turned to flee.
BOOM!
A massive explosion erupted.
The gazelle-man, barely eight meters away, was blasted off his feet by the shockwave.
Everything within dozens of meters was reduced to rubble.
Yamato stood frozen, stunned.
In the original story, Yamato had always dreamed of defeating Kaido and fulfilling Oden's will to open Wano's borders.
She believed Kaido's threats to kill her were just bluffs.
That's why she had so brazenly declared herself Oden and constantly challenged her father.
It wasn't until she discovered the truth about the explosive collar that she realized Kaido might actually kill her.
Otherwise, when Ace came to challenge Kaido, Yamato wouldn't have fought in Kaido's place.
In her mind, she was just a rebellious child—not someone worth killing.
But this moment shattered that belief.
Kaido really did want her dead.
"Damn you, Kaido! You really want to kill me? No—of course you do. I'm Kozuki Oden. Of course you want me dead!"
Yamato's face turned pale as she roared in fury.
"Fine then! This just makes it easier for me to open Wano's borders without hesitation!"
"Please—help me break these seastone cuffs. I'm going to teach them a lesson!"
"He broke the collar with his bare hands… Who the hell is this guy?"
The rat-man was stunned.
He glanced at the gazelle-man, who was struggling to rise from the rubble.
Without thinking, the rat-man shouted:
"Bat! What are you standing around for? Move! Cover us!"
"If Kaido finds out we let Yamato escape, we're dead!"
The gazelle-man, bloodied and bruised, also scrambled to his feet.
Seeing Yamato freed from the collar, he knew how serious this was.
Ignoring the pain, he tensed his muscles and looked to the bat-man for the signal.
As soon as the bat-man moved, he and the rat-man would attack.
But then they saw something that made their blood run cold.
The bat-man—usually calm, capable of holding his own even on missions with the Flying Six—was now trembling.
And then… he ran.
Without a word, he flapped his wings and bolted.
"Bat! Are you insane? Why are you running? If Kaido finds out Yamato escaped, we're dead!"
The gazelle-man and rat-man shouted in panic.
But the next words they heard shattered their nerves:
"We're dead either way. Better to die later than now. That guy—he's the Marine Admiral who wiped out the Flying Six and defeated Jack! What's he doing here?!"
The revelation made their faces go pale.
They turned to look at Luo Yu—his face now vaguely familiar.
Without hesitation, they turned and fled.
Letting Yamato escape was bad.
But a Marine Admiral appearing in Wano?
That was a catastrophe.
Maybe, just maybe, they could redeem themselves later.
But right now, survival was the only goal.
"You… you're the Marine Admiral who defeated Jack?"
Yamato blinked, clearly surprised.
Watching the Gifters flee, she couldn't hold back:
"Aren't you going to chase them? If they get away and report to Kaido, that'll be a disaster!"
"Chase them?"
Luo Yu took a sip of his earthy liquor and smiled.
"Relax. They're not getting away. Let's get those cuffs off you first."
He drew his blade, and with a flash of cold steel, the seastone cuffs shattered.
Meanwhile, kilometers away, the three fleeing Gifters looked back in fear.
Seeing nothing behind them, they hesitated.
"Bat, was that really a Marine Admiral? He's not chasing us. Maybe he can't catch up?"
The rat-man asked.
"Maybe he's not as terrifying as the rumors say. If he can't catch us, we should report this to Kaido right away. Who knows what that Admiral might do in Wano?"
As he spoke, the rat-man pulled out a transponder snail.
But before he could activate it, a massive shadow fell over them.
They froze.
Looking up, their eyes widened in horror.
A colossal warship hovered in the sky above them.
The Marine Admiral hadn't come alone.
He had brought an entire battleship.
On the deck stood figures radiating overwhelming power.
The rat-man dropped the transponder snail, his face pale with disbelief.
"Is this… an invasion?"
The bat-man and gazelle-man were equally stunned.
All thoughts of escape vanished.
Their instincts screamed: no matter what they did, death was inevitable.
Back at the battlefield, Yamato stared at her broken seastone cuffs in shock.
"You… are you the great swordsman mentioned in Kozuki Oden's journal?"
"No one but a master swordsman could cut through seastone like that!"
"Wait—did you come to Wano like me? Are you also someone who follows Oden's will? Are you a swordsman who worships him too?"