Oden stepped across a field of corpses, Enma's blade dripping with thick, dark blood.
He was not fighting Kaido or Charlotte Linlin themselves. He knew his strength did not measure up to Whitebeard or Ritter, and he trusted his brothers-in-arms to clash with those monsters. His battlefield was elsewhere cutting down Kaido's and Linlin's officers one after another. At this time, neither Yonko's forces had reached their peak. Some of the so-called Flying Six were faces Oden did not even recognize clearly nobodies destined to remain footnotes.
He understood well: battles between pirates were always like this.
From the distance came the dying cries of his countrymen. Each scream stabbed into his chest like a knife.
He had to move faster, cut down more. Every second wasted meant more samurai perished. For each enemy he slew, hundreds of Wano's warriors might be spared.
"Found you, Kozuki Oden."
A voice rumbled through the smoke.
Out of the haze strode the towering figure of Jack, his mammoth's trunk swinging behind him.
And he was not alone.
On his right, Cracker wiped blood from his biscuit blade. On his left, Daifuku's genie materialized from the magic lamp in a billow of smoke. Behind them, Oven's hands glowed with a dangerous crimson heat.
The air thickened under their combined intent.
Oden did not falter.
Enma scraped against the air, sparks and fire spitting off its edge as his aura surged. He had expected powerful foes, but facing four at once was beyond what he had imagined.
Yet he stood in the heart of the battlefield, where the fighting was bloodiest. Here there was no place for mercy, no foolish kindness only the resolve to kill in order to protect his nation.
Perhaps only now did he truly bear the bearing of a daimyo.
Somewhere in the mist, Ritter's mocking voice chuckled. An old saying goes, 'under the cudgel comes clarity.' Eh-heh. Call Whitebeard your big brother if you like whatever keeps you moving forward.
Jack's roar split the air as his mammoth form fully emerged.
The four closed in, their killing intent pressing down like an iron cage.
"You dare think yourself fit to face Lord Kaido? Naked dancing fool, you're no warrior!" Jack snarled, heat radiating from his hands. "Let's see if you survive us together!"
Oden said nothing.
"Come then," he declared instead, raising both blades in his two-sword stance. "I'm short on time."
The moment the words left his mouth, the four struck.
Oden's pupils shrank. He knew this would be a death match. But there was no retreat. For every samurai still screaming in the distance, he had to finish this quickly.
Enma and Ame no Habakiri flashed from their sheaths.
Jack's trunk lashed out like a steel whip, tearing a gash across the ground. Oden twisted aside, his counterstroke aimed for the trunk only for Cracker's biscuit greatsword to intercept with a ringing clang.
Sparks burst. Oden's blade was forced wide just as Daifuku's genie barreled in from the flank, its steaming fist hammering toward Oden's skull.
"Paradise Flowing Flame!"
Crossing his blades, Oden unleashed a fiery shockwave that shoved the genie back. But before he could breathe, Oven was already at his back, his glowing palm slamming forward.
"Heatwave Impact!"
The searing strike caught his shoulder. Flesh burned, the smell of char filled the air.
Oden snarled, pushing through the pain, driving Oven back with a desperate slash only for Jack's ivory scimitar to descend toward his head.
"Die!"
At the last instant, Ame no Habakiri caught the blade, sparks exploding. Enma lunged forward in the same motion, stabbing straight for Jack's throat.
Jack stumbled back, narrowly avoiding death, but Cracker's biscuit soldiers surged in, their swords stabbing like rain.
Oden's blades became a blur, carving down soldier after soldier, yet for each one destroyed, more poured in from every direction.
Daifuku's genie blanketed the field with burning steam, hemming in Oden's movement. Oven circled the edge, waiting to sear him with a strike the moment his guard dropped.
It was a war of attrition cheap, dishonorable, but brutally effective.
"What's wrong, Kozuki Oden?" Jack taunted, his mammoth bulk looming. "Your blades feel slower already!"
Oden's breath rasped in his throat. Sweat and blood trickled down his face. He knew he could not hold like this.
A bitter laugh slipped past his lips. "Daimyo of Wano? At this rate, do you even deserve the title?"
His eyes hardened like steel.
Abandoning defense, he let Oven's burning palm crash into his left shoulder. Flesh sizzled, but at the same moment Enma drove through Oven's abdomen.
"What !" Oven's eyes bulged in shock as the blade burst from his back.
Oden twisted the hilt. Black flames roared down the edge.
"Paradise Ten Fists!"
The blast hurled Oven across the field, smashing him into a cliff face. His body slumped in the rubble, uncertain if he would rise again.
But the price was steep.
"Kh!" Oden coughed blood as Cracker's soldier thrust its blade into his back.
"Got you!" Cracker hissed.
Yet Oden's hand clamped onto his wrist. With a savage wrench, he pulled the blade through his own body, spraying blood, before snarling: "No. I've got you."
"What?!"
"Paradise Cross Slash!"
Both swords swept together, carving an X-shaped wound across Cracker's chest. His biscuit armor shattered, his real body reeling back, blood gushing from the terrible gash.
Jack bellowed with fury, charging in a full mammoth stampede that shook the ground. Oden staggered to dodge, but Daifuku's genie's fist caught him across the spine, flinging him into the ruins.
"End of the line!" Jack thundered, stampeding straight toward the rubble to crush him.
But from within the dust, a black-and-red blade-light blazed out.
"Paradise White Waterfall!"
Oden's figure erupted like a phantom. His slash sheared Jack's ivory blade in two, then tore a canyon through the beast's chest.
"Arghh !" Jack collapsed to his knees, blood spraying from the massive wound.
The genie roared in blind rage, charging, but Oden crossed his blades for one final strike.
"My last…!"
"Paradise Crescent Moon!"
A crescent of steel and flame ripped through the genie, cleaving it apart. Daifuku himself was hurled back, his lamp shattering in the chaos.
The battlefield fell eerily quiet.
Oden sank to one knee, his blades propping him upright. His left shoulder was charred black. Blood poured from the hole in his back. His right leg burned down to the bone.
This was One Piece had it been another world, he would have died a thousand deaths already.
Around him lay the fallen. Jack slumped unconscious, Oven buried in the cliff, Cracker barely breathing, Daifuku sprawled amid the wreckage of his shattered lamp.
But victory brought no respite. Already more pirates pressed in, eager to carve their names into glory by killing a wounded legend.
This was Oden now, gravely wounded, vulnerable to any blade. Anyone who struck him down would rise in infamy.
"Not enough…" Oden rasped, dragging himself upright. "I have to… kill more…"
From afar, he could still hear the cries of Wano's samurai, their voices carrying across the smoke.
He could not fall. Not yet.
Crimson mist seeped into his wounds, knitting flesh, keeping him alive by force.
Ritter's voice carried on the fog, amused yet approving. "That's more like it, Oden. You can be reckless, but you can't be a coward."
The healing was crude, barely enough to keep him standing, but it was all he needed.
Gripping his blades tighter, Oden staggered forward. Into the melee. Into the blood and fire. To fight once more alongside the warriors of Wano.
And so he roared back into battle, a half-dead man who refused to die.
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