-Broadcast-
Eighteen years—neither particularly long nor particularly short in the grand sweep of history. Yet in that span, the Kurozumi clan represented by Kurozumi Orochi had completely eradicated the Kozuki family's influence. Ninjas and samurai who once served the old regime now swore loyalty to the serpent Shogun. The transformation of Wano Country's power structure was total and irreversible.
But the most insidious change wasn't political—it was cultural.
After years of systematic propaganda, Kozuki Oden's image as a heroic samurai had been thoroughly inverted. The man who'd sacrificed himself to save his retainers had become a cautionary tale, a symbol of everything Wano Country should reject.
In the streets of the Flower Capital, children played their games with new villains and heroes.
"I'll be Shogun Orochi!" one boy declared, puffing out his chest. "You have to be the cowardly Oden!"
"No fair!" his playmate protested. "Nobody wants to be Kozuki Oden! He's the fool who let our country burn!"
The first child grinned victoriously. "Then you better run, because Shogun Orochi catches all traitors!"
They chased each other through the streets, laughing, while adults watched with carefully neutral expressions. No one corrected the children. No one dared suggest that Kozuki Oden might have been anything other than the villain the Shogun's regime portrayed him as.
Through deliberately compiled textbooks and mandated curriculum in every school, children who hadn't yet formed complete worldviews learned that Kozuki Oden was a great villain—a buffoon whose incompetence had nearly destroyed Wano Country. The samurai wasn't worth remembering except as an example of what not to become.
An entire generation was growing up believing the lie.
Kozuki Momonosuke stood hidden in an alley, watching the children play. At only eight years old, he barely understood the full weight of what he was witnessing, but he understood enough to know it hurt.
Tears streamed down his face—silent, constant, impossible to stop.
His retainers had given him a hat to hide his distinctive features, warned him never to speak his true family name. Even his surname "Kozuki" had become taboo, something that would bring death if spoken aloud to the wrong person.
For a child, this future world was full of malice. The name he'd been born with, the family he'd loved, the father who'd died trying to protect everyone—all of it had been twisted into something shameful. In Wano Country, admitting to being Kozuki Momonosuke wouldn't just invite trouble—it would guarantee execution.
Around them, the idyllic Wano of Momonosuke's childhood memories had been completely obliterated. Where once rice paddies and cherry blossom groves had dominated the landscape, now massive factories belched black smoke into perpetually gray skies. The industrial complexes ran day and night, their machinery never silent, their chimneys never ceasing their pollution of the air.
Many workers who'd labored in these facilities for years suffered from respiratory diseases—hacking coughs that grew progressively worse, lungs deteriorating under constant assault from toxic fumes. The meager wages they earned barely covered food for their families. Medical treatment? That required money they didn't have.
When illness struck, parents faced impossible choices: watch their children die, or sell them to someone who could afford treatment. Usually to someone who would use them in ways the parents preferred not to imagine.
Ordinary people living in modern Wano Country would work themselves to death as long as something else didn't kill them first. The weapons factories were perpetually short of labor—bodies broke down, workers collapsed, replacements were needed constantly. And because the nation had always been closed to the outside world, most citizens couldn't even conceive of escape. They could only work until they died, contributing to the comfortable lives of those who fed on their suffering.
Kurozumi Orochi had never truly loved Wano Country. Eighteen years as Shogun, and he'd shown his people no mercy whatsoever. Perhaps he was simply extracting revenge—punishing the descendants of those who'd once persecuted the Kurozumi clan.
Whatever his motivation, the result was methodical cruelty.
Though Orochi appeared incompetent on the surface—a buffoon who hid in his mansion indulging in pleasures—he'd been systematically crushing resistance movements throughout his reign. When he caught someone supporting the Kozuki restoration, entire families were executed. Men, women, children, elderly—everyone with even distant connection to the traitor died.
Orochi believed that physical elimination of Kozuki sympathizers would ensure the Kurozumi clan's rule continued indefinitely.
He'd also never forgotten Lady Toki's prophecy before her death. While others might dismiss the ravings of a dying woman after eighteen years, Kurozumi Orochi remained vigilant. His instincts screamed that the missing Kozuki children would return someday.
For that reason, he'd implemented two complementary policies: domestically, he'd systematically hunted down anyone resembling a traditional samurai. Internationally, he'd offered enormous bounties for anyone dressed in samurai garb or matching descriptions of the Kozuki children.
During this period, many innocent people were implicated—travelers who happened to wear traditional clothing, wanderers who fit vague physical descriptions. Some were killed on sight. Others were detained and tortured until they confessed to crimes they hadn't committed. The paranoia created an atmosphere of suffocating surveillance.
Yet despite his precautions, Kurozumi Orochi had underestimated the remaining resistance forces' determination.
Right under the noses of both the Shogun and the Beasts Pirates, restoration loyalists managed to smuggle Kozuki Momonosuke and several retainers out of Wano Country entirely.
A small, inconspicuous vessel slipped through Wano's treacherous waters in the dead of night. Aboard were four individuals: young Kozuki Momonosuke and three of his father's most loyal samurai—Foxfire Kin'emon, Kanjuro, and Raizo.
"Keep your head down, Momo—I mean, Momoko," Kin'emon corrected himself quickly, glancing around to ensure no one had overheard. "Remember, you're my son now. We're just a father and his boy traveling for work."
For safety's sake, to prevent Kozuki Momonosuke's identity from being exposed, Foxfire Kin'emon and the young master had agreed to pose as father and son. The deception would help them avoid minor troubles and suspicious questions. Momonosuke had even adopted the alias "Momoko" for the duration of their journey.
"I understand, Kin-emon... father," Momonosuke whispered, stumbling over the unfamiliar term. Calling his retainer "father" felt wrong, like betraying Kozuki Oden's memory.
Their vessel had avoided Beasts Pirates patrol ships through carefully cultivated intelligence networks—resistance members who'd infiltrated Kaido's organization at great personal risk, feeding information that allowed this escape.
The original plan was simple: sail to the Whitebeard Pirates' territory and seek Edward Newgate's aid. Oden had been Whitebeard's sworn brother. Surely the World's Strongest Man would honor that bond and help reclaim Wano Country.
But as they sailed further from their homeland, doubts began gnawing at Momonosuke's mind.
"What if..." the boy ventured quietly, "what if Whitebeard-san doesn't remember Father? What if eighteen years has changed him? What if he doesn't want to help?"
The question hung heavy in the salt air.
Kin'emon had no reassuring answer. Eighteen years was long enough for alliances to shift, for memories to fade, for priorities to change. Walking into Whitebeard's territory without confirmation of his current disposition could be walking into a trap.
After lengthy discussion, they made a difficult decision: split up.
Raizo volunteered to sail to Zou, the ancient elephant that carried the Mink Tribe's civilization on its back. Two of Kozuki Oden's retainers—Inuarashi and Nekomamushi—had remained there. Perhaps they could be convinced to honor their old loyalties and support Momonosuke's cause.
Meanwhile, Momonosuke's vessel would continue toward Whitebeard's territory, proceeding cautiously while gathering intelligence about the current state of his father's old crew.
It was a reasonable plan.
It failed almost immediately.
Without a proper navigator aboard, Momonosuke's vessel drifted off course. Instead of reaching Whitebeard's waters, they mistakenly entered Dressrosa's territorial seas—the kingdom ruled by Donquixote Doflamingo, a close ally of Kaido himself.
"Ships approaching!" Kin'emon shouted as pink-sailed vessels surrounded them. "They're flying Doflamingo's flag!"
Kanjuro moved to the vessel's stern, drawing his brush. "I'll hold them off! Young master, Kin'emon—run!"
"Kanjuro, no!" Momonosuke cried.
"This is my duty!" The samurai's face was resolute. "Protect our lord! That is what the Nine Red Scabbards exist for!"
One of the Nine Red Scabbards chose to sacrifice himself so the young master and Foxfire Kin'emon could escape. This loyal samurai became trapped in Dressrosa, and it would be five years before rescue came.
Kin'emon grabbed Momonosuke and ran, the boy's protests dissolving into sobs as Kanjuro's figure disappeared behind them.
In the chaos of escape, the unthinkable happened.
Foxfire Kin'emon, leader of the Nine Red Scabbards, became separated from his young master during the flight. An eight-year-old boy, heir to Wano's rightful ruling family, was left to escape alone. It was perhaps the most catastrophic failure of duty imaginable.
Momonosuke ran blindly through Dressrosa's port district, heart pounding, lungs burning. Kin'emon's voice calling his name faded into the distance as the crowds and chaos swallowed them both.
When the boy finally stopped running, he was utterly alone in a foreign land.
"Kin'emon..." Momonosuke whispered to the empty air, fear threatening to overwhelm him. "Father... what do I do?"
Survival instinct took over. The eight-year-old spotted a ship preparing to depart—a large vessel with Marine markings. Marines meant safety, didn't they? They were supposed to protect people.
Momonosuke snuck aboard and hid himself deep in the cargo hold, praying the ship would take him somewhere, anywhere away from Doflamingo's territory.
To survive, young Kozuki Momonosuke boarded a vessel whose true purpose he couldn't have imagined. In the following days, he would be completely separated from his retainers, his plan to seek Whitebeard's aid indefinitely delayed. This small accident would lead the boy toward another life entirely—beginning his journey to become something very different from what his father had been.
-Inside the Ship's Hidden Cargo Hold-
Momonosuke's first realization was that he wasn't alone.
Dozens of children filled the secret compartment below the cargo hold—boys and girls ranging from perhaps four years old to early teens. They sat in clusters, some crying quietly, others staring at nothing with hollow eyes.
"You're new," a girl about Momonosuke's age whispered. "Did the Marines tell your parents you were sick too?"
"What?" Momonosuke's confusion must have shown on his face.
"That's what they told all our parents," another child explained, his voice flat with resignation. "Said we had serious illnesses. Said they'd treat us for free at a special facility. Our families believed them."
Ice settled in Momonosuke's stomach. "Where... where are they taking us?"
None of the children answered. Perhaps they didn't know. Perhaps they knew but couldn't bear to voice it aloud.
Kozuki Momonosuke was both fortunate and cursed. Fortunate that the ship carried many children, so his presence wouldn't immediately be noticed. Cursed because these children were experimental subjects.
They'd been tricked from their families by Caesar Clown and Vice Admiral Vergo, using an excuse desperate parents couldn't refuse: free medical treatment for serious illnesses. The parents had believed the Marines—after all, who would suspect the World Government's peacekeeping force of evil intentions? They'd sent their children willingly, thinking they were providing care their families couldn't afford.
They didn't realize they were pushing their own flesh and blood into the abyss.
-The Hidden Laboratory, Punk Hazard-
When the ship finally docked, the children were herded into a facility that looked medical on the surface but felt wrong in ways even young minds could sense. Too cold. Too sterile. Too much like a prison.
Caesar Clown watched the new arrivals through observation windows, his grotesque form floating above the ground as gas leaked constantly from his body.
"Shurorororo! Fresh materials!" The mad scientist's laughter echoed through the corridors. "Let's see which ones are suitable for gigantification and which should go toward the artificial Devil Fruit research!"
Caesar Clown was a scientist who had lost his humanity long ago. In his eyes, humans were no different from laboratory mice—expendable resources to be used up in pursuit of knowledge and profit.
Some of these children would undergo gigantification experiments—a project funded by the Big Mom Pirates, who desperately wanted to create a giant army. The research was progressing slowly, approaching failure, because the experimental subjects were too weak. Their bodies couldn't withstand the toxicity of the gigantification agent. Most died within months, their bodies grotesquely enlarged and then rapidly deteriorating.
Other children served as Caesar's personal experimental materials. He conducted inhumane tests observing how artificial Devil Fruits transformed their bodies. Data was accumulated step by step across mountains of small corpses.
Eventually, the pseudo-Logia users who would become Caesar's greatest achievement—the artificial Admirals known as his "masterpieces"—would emerge from this research. Their success would be built on the selfless sacrifice of hundreds of children who died screaming in agony, their bodies rejecting the forced Devil Fruit powers that tore them apart from the inside.
The Marine branch base had become a cover for a demon's workshop. Mass graves dotted the facility's grounds—shallow pits filled with small bodies wrapped in unmarked cloth.
"Experimental waste," Caesar would say dismissively when disposing of another failed subject. "Various races, all too weak to produce useful data. They've lost their lives and their value. Discard them."
In the face of "science," human life became just a number. Children's screams were acoustic phenomena to be noted in reports. Their deaths were data points on graphs tracking survival rates and mutation progression.
The secret laboratory had never been exposed, thanks entirely to Vice Admiral Vergo's protection. The Marine spy had covered for Caesar's operation for years, easily deceiving multiple inspections from Marine Headquarters. His position ensured that Caesar would never lack experimental materials—there were always more desperate parents, more sick children, more opportunities to promise hope while delivering death.
The crimes they committed together were innumerable. Mass murder. Human experimentation. Child torture conducted under the banner of scientific progress. And it would continue for years more before the truth finally came to light.
In one of the holding cells, Kozuki Momonosuke huddled in the corner with the other children, finally understanding the true horror of his situation.
He'd escaped one nightmare only to fall into another.
And unlike in Wano where at least he'd had retainers to protect him, here he was utterly alone.
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