"Divine Departure!"
Red-Haired Shanks—the youngest of the Four Emperors, and the only one without a Devil Fruit ability. Unlike Kaido, who was here to take advantage of the chaos, Shanks had come to stop the war between Whitebeard and the Marines. He hadn't even reached the battlefield before running into Kaido, who'd been heading there to cause trouble.
Violent Supreme King Haki erupted from the clash of weapons, instantly knocking out some of the rookies below who'd never witnessed anything on this scale. Cracks spiderwebbed across the hull, and eventually a shockwave detonated across the ocean surface, pushing outward for kilometers.
If these two were the genuine article, then what on earth had her first three kills been?
The little cat couldn't figure it out.
"Do me a favor—fighting here benefits neither of us. How about we both back off?" Shanks activated his Devil Fruit ability (not).
"What's it to you?" Kaido had always disliked this younger man who belonged to a different generation yet sat at the same table. He seemed to forget that by age he only ranked third among the Emperors himself.
"Benn Beckman." While the two Emperors clashed, King the Conflagration—Kaido's right-hand man—turned his attention to the person who'd just pulled Yimi away.
After a moment of thought, King barked: "How despicable—are you trying to use Lord Kaido's grandchild as a hostage?"
"?" The Beasts Pirates crew exchanged glances.
You're actually going along with Boss Kaido's bit? Or—wait, did Young Master Yamato really have a thing with Hawk-Eye?
Even the perpetually stone-faced Benn Beckman did a double-take. He hastily snuffed out his barely-smoked cigarette and studied the girl dangling from his grip, eventually zeroing in on the tuft of black hair at her forehead. He nodded.
Yep. Definitely Hawk-Eye's kid.
The Red Hair Pirates had always been on decent terms with Mihawk. When the news first broke, they'd laughed it off as nonsense, but now that the little one had stirred up trouble and gotten Mihawk dragged in as collateral, they had no choice but to believe it.
Beckman leveled his rifle at King. "Since when is Hawk-Eye's daughter Kaido's grandchild? She doesn't even have horns. Does the Beasts Pirates crew moonlight as child kidnappers now?"
Watching them bicker with such conviction, the little cat almost bought it herself.
"Reminder to the host: you have no blood relation to any creature in this world." At least the system's anti-scam feature kicked in.
Yimi nodded and dropped the matter. The cat only had one mother.
She tilted her head up to observe the two men's Supreme King Haki infusion. She could vaguely tell that Shanks wielded his with more finesse.
Yimi looked down and tried channeling her considerably grown "spiritual energy" along the shaft of her spear. Perhaps because the way she'd acquired and developed Supreme King Haki differed from everyone else in this world, she actually found it easier to manipulate than Armament.
Even so, it failed. Mastering Supreme King Haki infusion wasn't that simple. If she could get one more close-up look, maybe.
Beckman glanced down at what she was attempting. "Kids these days are really something..."
The next instant, Yimi planted her spear and vaulted into the air. Beckman reacted fast, reaching out to grab her back—but his hand was twisted aside by a layer of white light.
"Hey!"
At Emperor-level, fights demanded total focus. Yimi's Love Train could interfere with Observation Haki, but a blinding light shoving itself between their clashing weapons was impossible to miss.
Shanks, confused, angled his attack away to avoid hitting her. Kaido had no such reservations. He swung the kanabo straight at Yimi with full force, and—predictably—it was like hitting cotton again.
"So that's how it works..."
Yimi placed her hand on Kaido's kanabo and felt carefully, then attempted to copy it: Armament Haki infusion wrapping the spear shaft, Supreme King Haki layered on top, meeting Kaido's kanabo head-on.
The cat wasn't stupid. Even if Hawk-Eye had never really mentioned his relationship with Shanks, she could tell the one-armed redhead was here to help.
"You're kidding me." Shanks stared, wide-eyed.
BANG—
Even with successful infusion, Yimi had been using Armament for less than a week and didn't have the raw power to trade blows with Kaido. But at the moment of impact, both the "knockback" and the "recoil" were swatted away by Love Train, creating the bizarre impression that the two were evenly matched.
"Good, kid!"
"Run—the ship's breaking apart!"
The deck cracked and splintered. Kaido's vessel had finally reached its structural limit, though among a crew of ability users, Kaido was the least concerned about losing a ride.
He didn't bother checking on his subordinates. The three Calamities—one who could fly, one who was a Fish-Man, one who was a cyborg—weren't going to drown over something this trivial. Kaido's limbs sprouted talons, azure scales rippled across his skin, and his body stretched to a hundred meters as he took to the sky.
Uo Uo no Mi, Mythical Zoan: Model Seiryu.
"Getting serious?" Shanks's expression hardened.
The dragon soared through the clouds, gazing down upon the sea. "I get your type every single day—people who think having a little talent means they can challenge an Emperor."
"Don't underestimate me, you little punk! You're a hundred years too early to fight an Emperor! First I'll beat you into submission, then I'll make you understand what 'Grandpa' means. Since you're immune to impact—"
Kaido drew a deep breath. Something like a thick glob of phlegm caught in his throat. The ambient temperature across the entire stretch of ocean seemed to rise with him.
"Bolo Breath!"
A torrent of flame engulfed Yimi along with the entire Red Hair Pirates' fleet.
"Congratulations to the host for completing the achievement [Even Dogs Won't Eat the Flame-Flame Fruit]. Reward: 5% portal energy."
"Little Hawk-Eye—" Before Yimi could even react, Shanks split the inferno in half with a single one-handed slash.
Having forgotten that he was the one who'd joined midway, Shanks had been about to tell Yimi to stay out of this fight—only for his dear niece to plant a foot squarely on his head and launch herself skyward, spinning a Haki-infused spear around her body.
Strong Jumping Advancing Slash!
"Are you trying to tickle me?" Kaido rolled his massive body. His already formidable defenses were reinforced by a layer of impenetrable dragon scales.
Even with her freshly acquired Armament Haki infusion plus the icing-on-the-cake Supreme King coating, the raw strength behind Yimi's strikes simply wasn't enough—Kaido tanked every hit without flinching.
But for an Insect Glaive user, adapting to underwhelming damage output was a core part of the curriculum.
Yimi grabbed Kaido's mane and swung herself onto his back.
Mount Attack—a universal technique across every weapon class in Monster Hunter. Exactly what it sounded like: ride the monster's back and attack from above, setting up for a top-down finisher.
During the mount, you could grip tight and endure the monster's thrashing with stamina, or shift your position to dodge its shaking.
What set the Insect Glaive apart from other weapons was that it didn't necessarily require the standard "pull out a knife and stab repeatedly" approach. With the Glaive, evasive repositioning during a mount also counted toward building the finisher gauge.
"You little punk..."
Yimi spun her spear, scrubbing it from Kaido's neck all the way down to his tail in one fluid motion—finisher gauge filled instantly.
"Congratulations to the host for completing the achievement [The Finisher Is Here!]. Reward: 5% portal energy."
The spear carved horizontally across Kaido's body. An explosion of blood rained down toward the sea below.
"Lord Kaido!"
"Lord Kaido is wounded?" Only someone who truly understood how durable Kaido was could appreciate the shock.
Even if it was just a single wound—since that fool Kozuki Oden, how long had it been since anyone had left a mark on him?
Beyond the shock, Kaido felt a spark of excitement.
If she could do this much now, given ten years to grow, she'd become someone stronger than him.
"Are you Joy Boy?"