One Piece is a series that puts a lot of weight on bloodline.
Or rather, most Japanese manga are obsessed with bloodline.
During the Onigashima incident, Kaido declared that Haki was the power that stood above everything else. Then he got beaten by Luffy using the Nika Fruit.
Of course, that is not the main point.
The main point is this: if Kaido truly believed that Haki was the most important, why did he bother eating the Azure Dragon Fruit?
The answer went back to his days on Rocks's ship. After seeing Whitebeard use the Gura Gura no Mi to raise a tsunami, Kaido developed the idea of finding a powerful Devil Fruit for himself.
Because the truth was, it was not Haki in general that stood above everything else.
To be precise, only Conqueror's Haki was the power that sat at the top.
The problem was that Conqueror's Haki could not be trained into existence.
Look at all the users of Conqueror's Haki.
Garp, Dragon, and Luffy, three generations of monsters, all had top tier Conqueror's Haki. That was obviously a bloodline thing with the Monkey family.
Figarland Garling, Shanks, and the rest of the Figarland clan were the combat specialists among the Celestial Dragons.
Kozuki Oden came from the daimyo family that had ruled Wano for generations.
Loki was the crown prince of Elbaf.
Rocks, Teach, Roger… all of them carried the Will of D.
With Kaido's background, if he did not rely on a Devil Fruit, at best he would reach the level of someone like Rayleigh, Gaban, or Benn Beckman, a top tier "silver medalist."
Which led to the real question.
Which company makes the best excavators?
Lame meme. Delete that.
What gave Tenryū Yuto the confidence to try and fish in troubled waters during the final battle between the Sun God and Imu, hoping to walk away with all the spoils?
The answer was simple.
He had a cheat.
As soon as the words left his lips, Yuto's consciousness appeared in a deep blue space.
In front of him floated a sci fi looking screen.
There were ten slots on the screen, each set with a card.
Each card held the portrait of a different character along with their name: Borsalino (young), Monkey D. Garp (young), Shiki (prime), Charlotte Linlin (child)…
Beneath the cards sat a box glowing with golden light.
"Same as always. Draw first."
Yuto pressed his hand down on the box.
The box trembled, and a card shot out from within.
The portrait on the card was a woman.
She wore a rose colored office suit with a Marine coat of justice draped over her shoulders and a pair of dark purple gloves on her hands.
Her pale pink hair was styled in that classic "looks like she is good at basketball" side ponytail, with a pair of purple sunglasses perched on her head.
Hina (prime).
"Hmm. Hina, huh. That is actually doable."
Yuto rubbed his chin.
"I choose to enter."
The moment he spoke, his figure vanished. In the blink of an eye, he appeared on a deserted island.
"An island terrain this time? That should count as home field advantage for her. Looks like I will need to be more careful."
Thinking that, Yuto began walking toward the center of the island.
At the same time, he pushed his Observation Haki to the limit, staying alert for the enemy who could appear from anywhere at any moment.
Suddenly, within the range of his perception, a valiant looking woman stepped out of the dense forest ahead.
It was Hina.
The only difference was that this Hina's eyes were utterly lifeless, holding only a cold indifference.
Yuto's gaze sharpened. He charged straight at Hina, moving at terrifying speed.
His right fist drew back into a bow, and a layer of pitch black Armament Haki coated his knuckles.
However, even with Yuto's speed, Hina still managed to react without the aid of Observation Killer techniques. She crossed her arms in front of her, wrapping them in Armament Haki as well.
Yuto's fist smashed into her forearms and sent her flying backward.
"Soru."
Yuto refused to let the advantage slip and chased after her.
Still in midair, Hina spread her hands and aimed them at Yuto.
"Black Spear Formation."
In an instant, iron bars appeared out of thin air and shot toward Yuto from every direction.
Relying on his sharp Observation Haki, Yuto dodged every single iron bar, but his speed dropped in the process.
Hina hit the ground, spun, and drove a roundhouse kick straight toward Yuto's head. Her long leg gleamed in the sunlight.
Yuto had no time to appreciate it.
In order to avoid Hina's Devil Fruit ability just now, his center of gravity had already shifted off balance. Right now he could not dodge. All he could do was meet her attack head on with his fist.
There was a heavy crack as their attacks collided.
Normally, a kick generated more power than a punch. But Yuto's physical strength outclassed Hina's. This exchange ended in a draw.
In that brief stalemate, Yuto lifted his right leg and kicked toward Hina's waist.
Hina retreated to dodge, and Yuto stepped in, closing the distance and forcing her into close quarters combat.
That was exactly what Yuto wanted.
Judging from the way Hina fought in the anime, her Devil Fruit development leaned heavily toward ranged attacks, wide area control, and binding techniques.
When the difference in Haki between two fighters was not large, the one with a Devil Fruit usually enjoyed a huge advantage.
Yuto's personal strengths were his physical durability and the fact that his Observation Haki allowed him to detect openings before his opponent.
After trading several exchanges, Yuto had a clear grasp of Hina's level.
"Her Armament Haki is a bit stronger than mine, but not by much. If I rely on my body and drag this into a war of attrition, I can win."
With that conclusion, Yuto's confidence surged, and even his attack speed seemed to pick up.
…
An entire night flashed by in an instant. Yuto once again appeared in the deep blue space, a card in his hand.
Armament Haki (Hina, prime).
"Use."
As he spoke, the card in his hand vanished. A surge of power rose from deep within his body. Both the quality and quantity of his Armament Haki multiplied.
This was Yuto's system, a completely mute and rigid external plug in.
First of all, Yuto could draw one card every month.
The card's character was random. It could be a well known figure from the original story, or it could be a total nobody who never even got a name.
The chance of drawing a named character from the series was much higher than that of drawing cannon fodder.
However, the strength of the same character varied greatly depending on the period.
Yuto could choose to challenge any character he had drawn.
If he won, he would obtain an ability card from that character.
An ability card might contain one of the three types of Haki, or it could be a Devil Fruit power or a special physique.
If he failed the challenge, or if he did not want to challenge yet, he could store the drawn card in the card pool above.
The card pool had ten slots. It could only hold ten cards, and Yuto could decide when to challenge them once he felt confident enough.
After sixteen years, Yuto's ten slots were already filled with ten cards he had carefully selected.
All of them were abilities that were relatively strong while still being relatively easy to obtain.
Aside from the Golden Lion Shiki and the Red Count, Baroque Redfield, whom he had only drawn once each, the rest were versions that were easier to deal with.
Take Garp for example. Young Garp was obviously much easier to fight than Garp in his prime or old age.
Of the ten cards, the most precious one was Charlotte Linlin in her childhood.
Among the ten, child Linlin was the weakest. As a child, she had no Haki and no Devil Fruit, only a single special talent.
The iron balloon.
As long as Yuto could defeat her, he was guaranteed to obtain the Iron Balloon ability card.
The tragic part was that even at sixteen, Yuto still could not beat Charlotte Linlin as a child.
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