Chapter 206: The Last Rebellion!
The air inside the dimly lit tatami room felt as though it had completely solidified, pressing down on the occupants with the weight of a physical stone.
Denjiro, the man who had lived a double life as the Yakuza boss "Kyoshiro" for two agonizing decades, kept his forehead pressed firmly to the woven floor mats. He didn't look up, but he knew with absolute certainty that Princess Hiyori had absolutely no room to refuse his request.
For twenty long years, he had meticulously spun a suffocating web called "righteousness."
He had woven it from his own bottomless patience, his agonizing loyalty to Oden, and the blood of his fallen comrades. And now, at this critical juncture, he was ruthlessly draping that heavy web—and the inescapable, historical weight of the Kozuki Clan name—directly over her slender shoulders.
He needed a banner, and she was the only one left.
Behind the thin bamboo screen, the delicate figure, blurred by the slow, curling blue smoke of the incense burner, remained absolutely still for a long, torturous minute.
Finally, the silhouette gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod.
Permission granted.
A dark, fanatic gleam instantly flashed through Denjiro's usually calculating eyes.
He rose slowly, the fabric of his expensive kimono rustling softly in the quiet room. The deferential posture of a loyal retainer vanished, and the arrogant pride and dangerous swagger returned to the handsome face of "Kyoshiro" once more.
"Please rest your heart and await the good news, Your Highness," Denjiro said, his voice smooth and filled with a terrifying, absolute certainty. "The ghosts of Wano have not yet been laid to rest."
He turned on his heel and strode purposefully from the luxurious, gilded cage he had kept her in for years, leaving only the lingering scent of heavy incense and a deeply bewildered, trapped princess sitting alone in the dark.
Night deepened rapidly over the land.
Outside the bustling, newly liberated Flower Capital, deep within the overgrown woods, lay a derelict, long-forgotten Shinto shrine.
The light from the full moon above was pale and biting, casting a glow like white frost on the crumbling, moss-covered stone lanterns that lined the broken pathway. The air was thick with the smell of damp earth and rust.
In this desolate place, hundreds of samurai had gathered without making a single sound.
They were a wretched sight. Their traditional armor was heavily tattered, rusted, and bound together with frayed ropes. Their clothes were little more than rags, but their eyes—burning brightly in the shadows beneath their helmets—were as fierce and desperate as starving wolves.
They were the hidden remnants. They were Wano's very last shred of stubborn, aristocratic backbone.
Under the brutal, iron rule of Kaido the Beast and the treacherous Kurozumi Orochi, these men had chosen to go hungry, living in the dirt and shadows, rather than bend the knee and let their precious blades grow dull.
Their decades of enforced silence had compressed their anger into a volatile core; they were a collective volcano that was absolutely ready to erupt and consume everything in its path.
Clack... clack... clack... The sound of measured, confident footsteps echoed against the stone courtyard.
Kyoshiro the Yakuza boss was gone.
Denjiro of the Nine Red Scabbards, his hair wild and his eyes burning with the manic fire of a zealot, stepped up onto the ruined steps of the shrine to stand before them.
"My brothers in arms!"
There were no wasted words, no pleasantries. His deep voice cut through the heavy hush of the forest like a freshly sharpened blade.
"For twenty agonizing years! We endured that monstrous beast Kaido's trampling of our sacred land! We endured that pathetic rat Orochi's endless spite and humiliation! We starved, we hid, we sharpened our steel in the darkest corners, and we swallowed our bitter tears of shame—and for why?!"
Denjiro's voice rose, echoing off the trees. "For what great purpose did we suffer?!"
"To free Wano!" a grizzled samurai in the front row roared, raising a rusted katana.
"To slay Kaido and avenge Lord Oden!" another screamed, the veins bulging on his neck.
A muffled, terrifying roar of agreement burst from the hundred-strong crowd, their suppressed killing intent finally spilling over.
"Exactly!"
Denjiro flung his right arm high into the air, pointing toward the moon.
"Yet, look at the reality before us now! The tyrant Kaido is dead! The traitor Orochi is dead! Their reign of terror has been violently ended!"
He paused, sweeping his gaze over the desperate faces. "But... has our beloved country actually returned to us? Have the rightful rulers been restored?!"
His tone suddenly dropped, turning incredibly cold and terrible.
"No! They have not! A group of outsider pirates, completely lacking in honor, more cunning than the brute Kaido, and more venomous in their policies than the coward Orochi, have swooped in and stolen our hard-fought victory! They are the Suzaku Pirates!"
Denjiro stepped forward, his face contorted in a mask of pure, aristocratic outrage.
"And what do these invaders do?! Under the false, pretty banner of 'liberation' and 'equality', they would violently smash our very livelihood! They seek to fundamentally destroy the natural order of our nation!"
He spat the words out like poison.
"They would completely abolish the noble houses! They would abolish the sacred rank of the samurai! They would have these proud sword-hands—hands meant to protect the Daimyo and uphold honor—forced to take up dirty hoes and labor alongside the filthy peasants in the mud!"
He roared the final sentence. "Such an unbearable, unforgivable disgrace!"
The words drove like red-hot branding irons directly into the core of every single samurai's fiercely proud heart.
"Better a bloody death than such an insult!" a young warrior screamed, tears of rage in his eyes.
"Toil in the fields like common livestock?! I would rather disembowel myself right here and now!"
"Yes! He is right! We are the sharp blades that guard the soul of this land, not starveling, dirt-grubbing farmers!"
Denjiro's lips curled into a faint, utterly satisfied smile as he looked at the seething, furious crowd.
This was exactly the reaction he wanted. He had successfully ignited the powder keg of their class prejudice.
"Why do they enforce such insulting, degrading laws?!" Denjiro continued, playing them like a master musician. "It is simply because they fear us! They deeply fear the righteous, unyielding blades of Wano's samurai!"
He sneered, gesturing toward the direction of the capital.
"So, they try to buy the loyalty of the ignorant, common folk with cheap husks of food and empty promises, all to intentionally starve us of our rightful stipends! To strip us of our ancestral honor! To forcibly turn proud retainers into wandering, masterless ronin!"
He drew his own blade, the steel ringing sharply in the night air.
"It is a vile, cowardly scheme to pull the fire right from beneath the cauldron! They would completely wipe out the thousand-year-old, indomitable soul of Wano's samurai culture!"
Denjiro thrust his sword toward the sky. "The Suzaku Pirates' black hearts are fit only for execution!"
He whisked his long sword in a tight arc; the cold moonlight licked the razor-sharp edge like a hungry, silver tongue craving blood.
"But I bring you a chance for salvation! I have confirmed news! These invaders have just bled heavily in their brutal battle with the Beasts Pirates! They are currently strong in appearance, but their forces are exhausted and hollow within!"
His voice took on a deeply seductive, urgent power.
"In the Udon quarry, thousands of our imprisoned brothers, strong warriors loyal to the Kozuki, currently await our rescue! The invaders have not yet fortified the region!"
He leaned forward, his eyes wild.
"Once we march there and join forces with them, we will be thousands of blades strong! We can strike a fatal blow before these foreign invaders are fully settled, and drive them from our sacred soil forever!"
"We shall restore the true, natural order this very day!"
With the crowd utterly captivated and entirely ready to throw their lives away, Denjiro executed his final, most crucial move.
He turned sharply, his armor clinking, and bowed deeply, respectfully, to a small, cloaked figure wearing a wide straw hat standing quietly in the shadows behind him.
"Princess Hiyori!" Denjiro's voice boomed, forcing her into the spotlight. "Give us the word! Shall we march tonight and reclaim the beautiful Wano Country that rightfully belongs to the legacy of your father, Lord Oden?!"
The question was not a request; it was a carefully aimed dagger thrust directly into her heart.
Under the sudden, intense scrutiny of hundreds of blazing, desperate, and fanatic eyes, Hiyori clenched her trembling hands tightly within the long sleeves of her kimono beneath the heavy cloak.
She felt sick to her stomach. She knew she had just become a living, breathing banner, forcibly hoisted high to legitimize a bloody rebellion she didn't even truly understand.
But surrounded by such overwhelming, suffocating expectation, she could only nod.
Slowly, hesitantly, the straw hat dipped in a single motion of consent.
"Ooooooh!"
The collective roar of the samurai shook the very leaves from the trees.
"By the Princess's divine command!"
"For the glory of the Kozuki Clan! For the Samurai!"
With that single, perceived "divine" sanction from Oden's bloodline, the gathered samurai erupted into a completely thunderous, mindless frenzy.
The very last, lingering shred of rational doubt in their hearts was instantly burned away by the flames of loyalty, leaving behind nothing but a fanatic, suicidal resolve to kill the invaders.
"Advance!"
At Denjiro's booming order, the great, ragged "restoration army" surged forward as one. They moved like a dark, relentless black tide through the forest, heading straight toward the Udon region, their minds clouded by dreams of restoring the glory of the old, oppressive class system.
Several hours later.
Near the border of the Udon region, just outside the massive, rocky expanse of the Prisoner Mine.
A broad, desolate forest clearing served as the only path toward the main gates. The night wind rattled the dry, dead leaves of the twisted trees, the sound resembling a mournful dirge played in advance for the one-sided slaughter that was about to occur.
Thud-thud-thud... The sound of hundreds of ragged, hurried footsteps approached rapidly from the darkness. Denjiro's host had finally reached the designated spot.
"Halt!"
Denjiro sharply raised his hand, signaling the army to stop at the edge of the tree line. His calculating eyes narrowed as he studied the quiet, seemingly unguarded quarry perimeter ahead.
"Hold your positions and rest where you stand for a moment," he commanded in a low voice. "I will send a few agile scouts forward to check for any hidden—"
Before he could even finish his tactical sentence, the environment completely changed.
A sudden, biting chill—a cold so intense and unnatural that it felt incredibly sharp right down to the marrow of their bones—violently swept through the entire clearing.
"What—?!" a samurai gasped, his breath suddenly visible as a thick cloud of white mist.
"S-so incredibly cold..." another stammered, his teeth chattering uncontrollably as the metal of his sword hilt instantly turned freezing to the touch. The warriors shivered violently, their previously firm sword-hands trembling in sheer shock.
Then, a voice echoed through the freezing air.
It was a cool, incredibly melodious, female voice. Yet, despite its beauty, it was entirely sovereign, dripping with an absolute, aristocratic scorn that seemed to sound simultaneously from every single direction at once.
"What an utterly pathetic sight. A filthy pack of lowly vermin who truly know not the meaning of death."
The very instant those arrogant words fell from the sky—
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Dozens of massive, incredibly fast shadows violently leapt from the high branches of the surrounding, frozen woods, landing heavily in a perfect circle around the trapped samurai army!
The samurai gasped in horror as the moonlight revealed their ambushers.
They were tall, powerfully built, and incredibly varied beast-men forms—massive lion manes, sleek leopard ears, imposing wolf snouts.
But what was truly terrifying was that every single one of these Mink Tribe warriors was currently wreathed in wild, crackling arcs of intense blue lightning! Their fur was stark white, and their eyes glowed with a feral, unstoppable power.
They were fully transformed. The Mink Tribe—Sulong Form!
And standing directly at the fore of this terrifying, lightning-clad beast army, stepping slowly out from the shadows of a frozen tree, was a woman.
She wore a pristine, stark white officer's uniform that contrasted sharply with the dark night. Her beautiful, waist-long ice-blue hair fluttered gently in the freezing wind she herself generated.
Esdeath, the Empire's Strongest General, smiled a chilling, sadistic smile as she slowly lowered her pale, gloved hand from the hilt of her rapier.
She didn't draw her blade. She simply stood there, an aura of absolute, overwhelming dominance radiating from her perfect form. Yet, the sheer, crushing weight of her piercing, ice-blue eyes seemed to physically freeze the blood in the veins of every single man present.
The sudden, terrifying turn of events left the formerly fervent, bloodthirsty samurai completely and utterly stunned.
They had marched here feeling like righteous lions. Now, surrounded by literal lightning-wielding beasts and an Ice Queen, they felt exactly like helpless sheep herded into a heavily guarded slaughterhouse, entirely terror-struck by the suffocating killing intent pressing down on them.
"Am-ambush!" a samurai shrieked, dropping his rusted sword in panic.
"We've been exposed—but how?! We moved in total silence!"
"It's a trap! We've been betrayed!" Denjiro roared, his fanatic confidence finally shattering into pieces as he stared into Esdeath's terrifying eyes.
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