The accusation hung in the air, thick and poisonous. An explosion of unimaginable anger and humiliation erupted from the samurai. The Nine Red Scabbards, in particular, looked as if they had been struck by lightning.
"Damn you, Kaido!" Denjiro roared, his face contorted with rage. "You are not allowed to insult Lord Oden or the Kozuki Clan!" He brandished his sword and lunged forward, ready to charge the dragon again, but a firm hand from Shimotsuki Yasuie stopped him.
Denjiro looked at Yasuie, his eyes wide with incomprehension. Yasuie's expression was grim and serious. "Don't be impulsive," he commanded. "You must stay alive to protect Princess Hiyori."
Only then did Denjiro retreat, his face a mask of bitter unwillingness.
After calming his comrade, Yasuie looked up at the colossal dragon in the sky and roared, his voice filled with defiance. "Kaido! Is this the great honor of the Governor-General of the Beasts Pirates? To stand there and humiliate a dead man?"
"Wororororo… You think I'm humiliating him?" Kaido's voice boomed across the sea, laced with amusement. "I'm just telling the truth. Since you don't agree, Shimotsuki Yasuie, let me ask you something. If I remember correctly, Orochi was nothing more than a servant in your own mansion, wasn't he? Can you tell me how you people, who value bloodlines so much, allowed a mere servant to become the Shogun of Wano Country?"
"!!!"
Yasuie froze, his face turning pale. It was true. Orochi had been a servant under his own roof. By all logic and tradition, he had no right to rule. But he had done it anyway. From being inexplicably recommended by Oden to serve Shogun Sukiyaki, to somehow becoming Oden's sworn brother, and then seizing power as the acting Shogun… none of it made any sense. Yasuie had suspected something was wrong at the time, but he had never investigated. He never asked the hard questions. If he had just been a little more careful then, perhaps none of this tragedy would have happened.
It was all his fault.
"Damn it!" Yasuie clenched his fists, his knuckles turning white.
Seeing their leader unable to answer, the confidence of the other samurai began to crumble. Hana no Hyogoro, trying to salvage the situation, quickly interjected, "This was all Orochi's scheme! Lord Oden was just a victim!"
"Exactly!" Denjiro added, finding his voice again. "Orochi has an ally who can transform into anyone! She transformed into Shogun Sukiyaki and deceived all of us!"
"Wororororo… So, you just believed it?" Kaido retorted, his voice dripping with scorn. The samurai were stunned into silence. "Such an obvious lie, and none of you thought to verify it? Or do you really think Shogun Sukiyaki was foolish enough to disown his own son and hand over the country to a lowly servant like Orochi?"
The Nine Red Scabbards had no answer.
"That's not true!" Kozuki Hiyori could not listen anymore, her voice ringing out with defiance. "It's because my father wasn't in Wano during that time! If he had been here, he would have known something was wrong!"
A sly, cruel smile spread across Kaido's draconic face as he looked down at them. "So, you loyal samurai of Oden? Are you listening to that?" The samurai looked up, confused by his question. Kaido pressed his advantage, his words striking at the very heart of their loyalty.
"As the ruler of a country, the Daimyo of Kuri, and the future Shogun, he abandoned his duties and his people to run off to sea chasing some childish dream. That's how much you meant to him. He never cared about you. He could even abandon his wife and children, so what hope did you subordinates have?"
"Nonsense!" Hiyori cried out. "My father never abandoned my mother and us!"
"Is that so?" Kaido countered. "He left his sick wife and his newborn son and daughter to go sailing with Gol D. Roger. Is that not abandonment? And if I remember right, when he finally came back, Orochi was already the acting Shogun. Oden knew what was happening to Wano, yet he still turned his back on all of you and stubbornly went back out to sea. Wororororo… What a good husband and a great leader he was."
This time, it was the Nine Red Scabbards whose faces turned grim. How could they deny it? They had all wondered, deep down, what might have been. If Lord Oden hadn't left that day, if he had chosen to stay and fight for Wano, perhaps all this suffering could have been avoided. They had begged him to stay, but Oden had walked back to that pirate ship without a second glance.
"Damn it…" they muttered, their bodies trembling with a mixture of anger and a terrible, creeping doubt.
Looking down at their shaken forms, Kaido spoke in a deep, damning voice, "You see? Your foolish lord never cared about you, did he?"
The other samurai on the ship exchanged uneasy glances. Logic told them that Kaido was right—if Oden had stayed, things would have been different. But their hearts, their unwavering loyalty, refused to blame him.
At that moment, Hiyori spoke again, her words sounding weak even to her own ears. "Father… Father had more important things to do."
"A dream!? Wororororo…" The word echoed from Kaido's throat, dripping with sarcasm. He wasn't finished twisting the knife. "A dream is a wonderful excuse. Let's say, for argument's sake, that it explains everything he did before. But what about after he returned to Wano for good? Even now, I don't understand it. He had so many powerful samurai at his side and the support of nearly every Daimyo, yet he chose to submit to Orochi and become the Foolish Lord, dancing naked in the street every day."
Hearing this, Shinobu, who had regained consciousness, pushed herself up and shouted with grief and indignation, "That's because Orochi threatened the lives of the people of Wano! Lord Oden had no choice but to endure the humiliation to protect the hostages!"
"Is that so?" Kaido asked, turning his massive head toward the kunoichi. "Then let me ask you another question, ninja. The fool danced for five years, didn't he? In all that time, did any of you ever think of rescuing the citizens Orochi was holding hostage? Or did you simply not care? Or was it that your foolish lord didn't care?"
"!!!"
Shinobu's face became impossibly grim. Of course, they had thought of it. But without a command from Oden, they, as his retainers, were powerless to act.
"What's wrong? Can't answer?" Kaido mocked.
The other samurai on the ship now looked at Oden's closest retainers, their eyes demanding an answer they knew would not come.
"So, you see, I understood it from the very beginning," Kaido concluded, his voice a low, final judgment. "Your lord, Kozuki Oden, was the biggest idiot in this country. Even with me here, his strength back then was considerable; he was strong enough to scar me. My Beasts Pirates were nothing like they are now, with only King and Queen at my side. He was a former member of both the Whitebeard Pirates and the Roger Pirates. He had powerful allies. And yet, he refused to ask for help to save you. So, tell me, am I wrong? Was your foolish lord just an idiot… or did he simply not care if you lived or died?"
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