A moment later, after the shared drink had momentarily cooled their tempers, Kaido slowly began speaking about the matter at hand.
The matter of his blood.
"Linlin," he began, his voice a low, gravelly rumble.
He gestured with a massive, clawed hand, as if trying to paint a picture in the air between them.
"You know as well as I do that the entire sea is buzzing right now. All anyone can talk about is the sale of Devil Fruits." He leaned forward, a sly, conspiratorial grin spreading across his face.
"This craze is like an unstoppable storm, and at the heart of it is the… sensitive topic of an ability user's blood. Blood is the new gold, Linlin."
Kaido paused, his gaze growing sharper, more business-like.
"Some folks out there have already started openly pricing their own blood, shamelessly selling the key to their power to the highest bidder." He let out a short, cynical laugh.
"In this pragmatic world of ours, profit is everything. Who would be willing to give something so valuable away for nothing? So, you see my problem. I can't just hand my blood over to you for free, now can I?"
Kaido grinned as he spoke, already calculating in his mind.
He was a bit short on funds lately, what with all the weapons manufacturing and the upkeep of his massive army.
If he could squeeze a few billion Berries out of the notoriously wealthy Big Mom, that would be perfect.
Thirty billion would be just right.
Some of his more ambitious plans could finally proceed smoothly.
But when Big Mom heard that Kaido, the man who owed her his very power, intended to sell his blood to her, she exploded like a lit powder keg.
"SELL IT TO ME?!!"
Her rage was instantaneous and absolute.
She shot to her feet, her eyes widening into fiery copper bells, her face twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated fury.
Zeus and Prometheus flared to life around her, crackling with homicidal energy.
"You've got some nerve, Kaido!" she roared, her voice shaking the very ground they stood on.
"Back in God Valley, I risked life and limb to snatch that Azure Dragon Fruit for you from right under the noses of the Celestial Dragons' dogs! Do you have any idea how much hardship, how much danger I went through for you, you ungrateful brat?!" Her voice rose with every word.
"Have you forgotten all of that? And now, you have the gall, the absolute audacity, to turn around and try to profit off of me?!"
Seeing that Big Mom was genuinely about to start their three-day war all over again, Kaido quickly waved his massive arms to calm her down.
"Wororo! Linlin, Linlin, don't be so hasty! Let's talk about this!"
He then tilted his head, his deep-set gaze drifting into the distance for a moment as he rapidly organized his thoughts, shifting his strategy.
A moment later, he refocused on Big Mom, his eyes now deadly serious.
He asked a pointed, unexpected question.
"Are you taking my blood for yourself, or for one of your children?"
"Huh?" Big Mom blinked, her rage momentarily short-circuited by the question.
A flicker of confusion crossed her eyes.
"What difference does it make?"
Kaido shook his head slightly but didn't answer directly.
He simply stared at her, his gaze seeming to wait, to prompt her to think deeper about her own ambitions.
After a brief, tense silence, Big Mom's expression shifted from anger to a greedy, manic excitement.
"Of course it's for myself, you idiot," she said, a wide, terrifying grin spreading across her face.
"With the enhancements from your Devil Fruit and my own Iron Balloon physique… it's hard to even imagine how strong my body could become!"
Her voice grew increasingly excited with every word, her eyes blazing with a fervent, hungry light, as if she could already see her own overwhelmingly powerful future.
Her hands clenched involuntarily into fists, her body leaning slightly forward.
As her excitement mounted, a trace of madness surfaced in her eyes, her pupils gleaming with a bloodthirsty crimson glow that sent a chill down the spines of her own children watching from afar.
She threw her head back and roared with laughter.
"MAMAMAMAMA! By then, even if that old fool Sengoku punches me with his biggest Buddha shockwave, it'll be nothing more than a scratch! I'll be truly invincible!"
Kaido frowned slightly with a flicker of annoyance on his face.
"The Azure Dragon Fruit mainly enhances one's constitution through absurd recovery and vitality, not just raw durability…" he tried to explain, hoping she would calm down.
Big Mom acted as though she hadn't heard him at all.
She stomped her foot, cracking the stone beneath it.
"Hmph! I don't care about the details! Just give me your blood! Now!" She wouldn't back down.
Not until she got what she wanted.
Kaido let out a deep, long-suffering sigh. He realized any further words were useless.
Slowly, he extended his massive, scaled arm, offering his wrist to Big Mom.
"Fine," he grumbled. "Take it."
Hearing this, Big Mom's eyes lit up.
She immediately turned and bellowed towards her ship.
"CHILDREN! BRING MAMA THE BUCKET!"
A moment later, her daughter Smoothie came trotting over, straining under the weight of a truly enormous metal bucket.
Big Mom took it with one hand and shoved it at Kaido.
"Hurry up, fill it for me!"
"..."
When Kaido saw the massive bucket—a container easily twice the size of the one Whitebeard had used, large enough to serve as a bathtub for a giant—his scalp went numb with a mixture of shock and rage.
"YOU OLD HAG, ARE YOU TRYING TO BLEED ME DRY?!" he roared, pointing an accusing, clawed finger at the enormous pail.
"You're even greedier than that old geezer Newgate! He at least had some restraint!"
"Hmm?" Big Mom stared at him, clearly unconvinced, but seeing his unyielding, murderous stance, she finally relented with an annoyed grunt.
"Fine. You don't have to fill it all the way. Just… give me some."
Kaido just stared at her.
"..."
Under Big Mom's piercing, impatient gaze, he reluctantly sliced open his wrist.
A stream of dark, potent blood began to drip into the cavernous bucket with a slow, echoing plink… plink… plink.
"Brat, are you messing with me?" Big Mom snapped, hefting the bucket.
It felt pathetically light in her hands.
"Don't push your luck, you old hag. That's more than enough for one person," Kaido retorted coldly, a flicker of deep displeasure in his eyes.
With that, he demonstratively began to wrap a bandage around his arm, the wound already steaming and closing up beneath the cloth due to his formidable regenerative abilities.
The whole ordeal was over in seconds.
"Hmph!" Big Mom snorted, clearly unsatisfied but knowing she wouldn't get any more.
She lifted the blood-filled bucket and strode purposefully back toward her ship, the Queen Mama Chanter.
Upon boarding, she scanned her subordinates before casually waving a hand to Smoothie, who understood immediately and retrieved a small, heavy money pouch.
As the Big Mom Pirates' ship began to pull away from the shore, ripples suddenly appeared on the sea.
The money pouch flew from the ship, tracing a graceful arc through the air before landing on the rocky shore of Onigashima with a light, almost insulting tink.
The moment the tiny pouch hit the ground, a dead silence fell over the island.
Queen waddled over, picked it up, and peered inside. His eyes went wide.
"Uh… Kaido-sama?" he stammered. "This is… a few million Berries. And… a two-for-one coupon for a wedding cake at Whole Cake Island."
Immediately afterward, a furious, world-shaking roar erupted from the depths of Onigashima, a sound of pure, volcanic rage.
The clouds in the sky seemed to be struck by a mysterious, violent force, instantly scattering as black and red lightning crackled, illuminating the entire island.
"LINLIN, YOU OLD HAG! YOU'VE GONE TOO FAR!!!"