"Please, Lord Ozz!!! Spare my life and I'll do anything, anything at all, ahhhh!!!"
Inside the shogun's estate, where he once ruled in decadent luxury, the shogun of Wano, Orochi, was now weeping pitifully. His grotesque face twisted in terror, reduced to the likeness of a stray dog begging for mercy.
"It hurts! Please, I'm begging you, give this lowly one a chance!"
Ozz let out a yawn.
He was lounging lazily on the shogun's throne, one leg crossed over the other. Beside him, Wano's most beautiful geisha stood trembling, holding a drink with both hands.
The corners of Ozz's mouth curled upward.
"Why's your hand shaking so much? Am I really that scary? No way..."
In his mind, he considered himself a reasonable man.
Even gentle.
As he took the cup, he reached out and pinched the geisha's cheeks, gazing into her wide, shimmering eyes and delicate pout. His smile remained soft and warm.
"I'm just the type who never lets a grudge slide."
For a moment, the geisha was spellbound. It was like standing before a tall, handsome youth with a surprisingly gentle air.
But then her eyes caught a glimpse of the man collapsed on the floor behind Ozz the pitiful, broken shogun and she instantly snapped back to reality.
Right.
This wasn't just some charming young man.
He was a monster capable of ripping through the entire shogunate without even lifting a finger.
The floor before the throne was littered with kneeling warriors.
At the center, directly beneath Ozz's feet, lay a strange beast, writhing in misery.
It looked like something out of a fairy tale.
The mythical Yamata-no-Orochi.
Eight heads, eight lives. A so-called divine beast of the land of the rising sun.
Its combat ability was underwhelming, but its appearance was certainly intimidating. A Mythical Zoan, after all, was always more fearsome than your run-of-the-mill Zoan.
Still, in Ozz's eyes, it was nothing but a fat snake with extra heads.
Each of its eight jaws was pierced through by a longsword, pinning them to the floor like butterflies on a specimen board.
Blood pooled across the tiles, grotesque and vivid.
If it weren't for the regenerative strength of its Mythical Zoan bloodline, Orochi might have already bled out.
"Kurozumi Orochi. Your grudge with the Kozuki clan is none of my concern. Even if I was once acquainted with Kozuki Oden, Wano's civil strife has nothing to do with me."
"But did my silence make you think that just because you're clinging to Kaido's shadow, you could pick a fight with me?"
"Where exactly did you get the courage?"
Ozz's gaze turned icy. Even the faintest leak of Conqueror's Haki from him plunged the entire hall into a frozen silence. Every soul in the room felt like they'd fallen through a hole in the ice, their limbs turning numb.
It didn't feel like they were standing before a mere monster.
It felt like they were in the presence of a god.
As those cold words landed, the blades pinning Orochi's heads to the floor sank another inch deeper, driven not by physical force but sheer will.
The beast shrieked in agony, thrashing on the floor like a grotesque clown in a puppet show.
"It wasn't my intention! It was those idiots under me acting on their own!!!"
"Please! Spare me! I'm the shogun of Wano, I can still be useful to you! Let me make it up to you!"
Orochi begged desperately.
Say what you will about villains, but they always knew how to read the room.
And when it came to survival and preserving wealth and power, Orochi was willing to do absolutely anything.
The moment Ozz hadn't killed him outright, he knew there was hope.
Surely, he was still of some use. Just like Kaido hadn't killed him either.
And Ozz, frankly, had no real interest in killing him. The man was a puppet ruler, nothing more a bloodsucker funneling Wano's lifeblood to foreign interests.
In many ways, keeping him alive was more useful than killing him.
"You'd do anything to survive?"
Ozz's tone was calm, but something dark flickered behind his eyes. The question seemed casual, almost amused, as if Orochi's groveling had actually gotten to him.
Orochi felt a wave of relief.
That's right...
Today, fate was on the side of Shogun Orochi!
As tears and snot ran down his face, he broke into a disgusting grin.
"Hahahaha..."
"Whatever you desire, Lord Ozz, I will offer it to you as tribute!"
His flattery was so revolting that even the surrounding samurai and geisha winced. To think this was the shogun of Wano it was a national disgrace.
After all, whatever Ozz wanted, it wouldn't come out of Orochi's own pockets. It would be the people of Wano who paid the price.
"Anything I want, huh?"
A trace of a smile appeared on Ozz's lips at last.
"Then I'll be taking a portion of Wano's seastone mining output."
Of all the resources Wano had to offer, the only one that genuinely interested Ozz was its massive deposits of seastone.
Orochi's eyes shrank to pinpricks.
Cold sweat began to pour down his face.
Even in the act of groveling for his life, Ozz still wouldn't let him off the hook. He was demanding the one resource Orochi couldn't control.
The seastone mines belonged to the Beasts Pirates. Kaido's domain.
"What's wrong, Orochi? Didn't you just say you'd give me anything I wanted?"
"Then why that face?"
Ozz narrowed his eyes and looked down at him.
Orochi stammered for a moment before finally muttering in defeat,
"That... the seastone mines are managed by Kaido's men. I don't have authority over them!"
"No. You do."
In a blink, Ozz disappeared from the throne and appeared right in front of Orochi. A pair of polished black shoes entered the beast's line of sight.
Looking up, he saw a gentle smile that, in his own eyes, was cold enough to freeze hell over.
"Wano is your country. If you really wanted to, I'm sure you could find a way."
"N-no! If I do that, Kaido will have me killed!!!"
"Then what's your choice? Die now?"
Orochi froze.
It felt like someone had just dumped a bucket of ice water over his head.
Right.
Refuse, and he dies now.
"You understand, don't you? Kaido still hasn't come to your rescue. Chances are, he's already decided you're not worth saving."
"Not that it'd matter if he did show up."
Orochi was cunning. After only a moment of hesitation, he made the only decision he could.
"I... I understand. I'll do it..."
Dead either way. Betraying Kaido might buy him some time. Refusing Ozz would guarantee his head on a spike.
Kurozumi Orochi had always been a survivor.
And from this moment on.
Wano's double agent was born.
Codename: Yamata-no-Orochi.