"Wororororo~ Excellent! Then let me show you the power of this old man!"
Without a hint of mercy for the child before him, Kaido swung his iron club straight at Ra's head the instant her words fell. The strike was so fast it tore the air apart with a sonic boom.
Ra merely tilted her head slightly, and the club whistled past her, the trailing wind scattering her golden hair to one side.
"Observation Haki, huh? Not bad at all!" Kaido praised with genuine appreciation at her clean and precise dodge.
But it wasn't Haki—Ra had simply predicted his movements through sheer dynamic vision and reflex.
The body of a god, even newly born, came with capabilities to match.
Kaido's assault didn't cease—strike after strike came, each faster than the last.
The air before him exploded with every swing, forming a vacuum of cutting wind and pressure. Anything entering that zone would be ground to dust.
[I can't keep this up. My vision can't track him much longer, and my room to maneuver is shrinking. For someone that size, his attacks are absurdly fast and precise...]
Realizing she couldn't keep dodging, Ra at once gathered divine power in her left hand. It condensed into the shape of a long, slender obelisk, glowing with molten gold. With a flick of her wrist, she swung upward to meet Kaido's descending strike.
The obelisk gleamed like carved jade, golden light pulsing within. Countless ancient glyphs flickered across its surface—this was divine power, compressed into a weapon of overwhelming density and heat.
The instant the spiked tip of Kaido's kanabo met the obelisk, the metal vaporized. Reacting swiftly, Kaido halted his momentum and jumped back.
[Was that fire? The Mera-Mera no Mi, maybe? No... she didn't turn to flame when dodging. So... Paramecia?]
Dismissing the Logia theory, Kaido thought of the barrier she'd formed earlier—his suspicion deepened.
He glanced at the truncated end of his kanabo, then at the golden weapon that warped the air with heatwaves. His eyes narrowed.
Without a word, Kaido's massive frame began to twist, morphing into a serpentine form. In moments, a hundred-meter azure dragon soared upward, its shadow swallowing the sky.
With the clouds blasted away by his own presence, Ra could see him clearly—
blue scales glinting coldly under sunlight, claws sharp enough to rend mountains, twin horns jutting heavenward like spears to pierce the firmament.
There was none of the holy majesty of Eastern dragons—only dread and tyranny.
A true evil dragon.
"Let's see how your fire measures up against mine!
Heat Breath!"
Kaido opened his maw, releasing a torrent of flame that scorched the air itself, roaring straight for the unmoving Ra.
Even before the blast reached the ground, trees within hundreds of meters combusted. The sand beneath began to melt into glowing magma.
"How unfortunate," Ra said calmly, unmoved even as the inferno surrounded her. "Fire doesn't work on me."
She didn't raise a hand to defend—just waited until Kaido's flames reached her, then hurled the golden obelisk skyward.
It shot through the fire like a golden laser, straight toward the dragon above.
Sensing the incoming attack through his Observation Haki, Kaido twisted his body just in time, but the heatwave that followed still singed his scales.
"Hot! Hot! Damn that burns!"
He stared at the blackened patches on his body, then down at Ra—standing untouched in a sea of molten rock—and his grin widened.
"To think such power exists in a brat like you... incredible!"
"But if fire doesn't work... then how about this?!"
Opening his jaws again, Kaido unleashed not flame, but a storm of slicing gales.
"Destructive Wind!"
The air screamed. Thousands of razor-sharp wind blades tore across the battlefield, so dense that dodging was impossible.
The southern half of the island was shredded in seconds—trees, cliffs, even magma torn apart and flung into the sky.
Ra stood at the storm's heart without moving.
She had already calculated that evasion was futile.
Raising her arm, her sleeve slid down to her elbow as she gestured upward.
Divine power surged beneath her feet—and monolithic obelisks erupted around her, encircling her like the pillars of a temple.
These weren't the delicate crystalline ones from before—they were vast, heavy as if carved from living rock, yet still inscribed with radiant glyphs.
The howling blades crashed down, striking the obelisks one after another, gouging deep scars but never breaking through.
Kaido's onslaught raged on like a storm-tossed sea, but none of it reached her.
Finally, the tempest ceased.
The ground was ravaged beyond recognition, the air choked with smoke and cinders.
Through it all, Kaido's Observation Haki still sensed her—completely unharmed.
"To withstand even that... what a monster you are," he admitted.
Those last attacks, though not his full strength, were enough to annihilate most first-rate fighters on the seas. Yet this little girl had taken them head-on and emerged unscathed.
When the smoke cleared, Ra lowered her arm and the obelisks crumbled back into dust.
She looked up at the massive dragon above—her expression unchanged, serene as the sun.
But within, she knew the truth. Though her body showed no wounds, her divine energy was rapidly draining.
After all, she was still in a child's form, her soul only recently stabilized after separation. Maintaining such divine output was pushing her limits.
[First was fire. Then wind. Next... likely water or lightning.]
From Kaido's dragon form and abilities, she had roughly deduced the nature of his powers.
She gauged the pace of her own energy expenditure and regeneration, and reached one conclusion—
This battle had to end now.
[The next exchange will decide everything.]
Drawing in every last drop of divine energy, Ra's body began to glow. The markings of power spread from her heart in radiant, sunburst patterns, running down her limbs like rivers of gold.
Her golden hair flared like liquid sunlight, shifting from soft dawn-gold near the roots to blinding white at the tips, burning like fire.
Particles of light danced around her—starlike embers tracing luminous arcs.
Her crimson eyes closed, and in their place, a golden eye of light opened upon her brow—
like the awakened gaze of a nameless Pharaoh.
Golden adornments formed across her hair and temples, symmetric now—framing that radiant "sun" between her brows. The flaming ear-ornaments unfurled like solar flares, crowning her in divine majesty.
In that instant, Ra ceased to be human—
and became a god.
Though incomplete—lacking the halo of the true Sun God and the mighty golden wings of the Winged Dragon—her brilliance was enough to make Kaido's pulse quicken.
The light washed over his draconic form, evoking the image of a certain round-headed Marine admiral, and even stirred a rare flicker of unease in him.
But his reaction was not fear—
it was excitement.
[Not Paramecia... a Mythical Zoan?! This is...]
Kaido's eyes gleamed like a dragon that had just found its treasure hoard.
"Magnificent! Truly magnificent! Let me see your limits, little brat!"
He transformed again—this time into his strongest hybrid form.
Lightning crackled around his kanabo, now cloaked in jet-black Armament Haki, as he descended from the heavens like divine judgment.
"Thunder—Bagua!"
Ra sensed the unstoppable force locked onto her. Dodging was impossible.
Golden flames erupted from beneath her feet, her white dress burning away as a phoenix of living fire enveloped her.
At her chest, the phoenix's beak opened wide, channeling divine energy as she clasped her hands together—compressing power beyond reason until it blazed like a miniature sun.
Then she released it upward in a single, blinding beam.
"God Blaze Cannon!"
The world burned crimson.
From the earth rose a divine blast, a stroke of godly wrath aimed toward the shadow in the sky.
In the next instant, flame and thunder collided—divine might clashing against Conqueror's Haki!
Sand, trees, seawater, clouds—everything was blown away. The nameless island below looked as though it was welcoming the end of days.
"Wororororo~ What a thrill! You little monster!"
Feeling the heat creeping up through his club, Kaido grinned wildly and poured even more power into it—Haki surging, Armament flowing, black lightning dancing.
The strange, flowing force ran along the kanabo, seeping into the flames before triggering a chain of explosions that blasted the sky apart. Kaido was swallowed by the fireballs, thrown spinning through the air, scales shattering and flying in all directions—
—but even so—
[The attack… is being broken apart.]
Through her senses, Ra could feel her concentrated flames crumbling under the constant detonations. Their force was being neutralized, scattered bit by bit, forcing her to pour in more divine energy just to maintain the blast.
But it was a losing battle—a futile struggle.
At last, her divine power reached its limit.
The golden inferno of the God Blaze Cannon faded away—
and Kaido's counterstrike finally broke through.
Boom!
The explosion sounded right before her face, carrying the shriek of thunder itself.
The iron club halted just one fist away from Ra's forehead, the wind pressure blowing her golden hair and white dress into a swirl of light. Tiny sparks still danced at her hem.
Kaido, meanwhile, was a wreck—steam rising off his body, his once-proud dragon scales cracked and burned black. Yet he was grinning, eyes shining like molten stars.
"I lost," Ra said evenly, not a trace of fear in her voice. "We'll join you."
Though death hovered less than ten centimeters away, her tone was calm, almost serene.
The golden eye upon her brow—the Eye of Ujat—had closed, fading away. The radiance had vanished; she had returned from god to girl.
And though she was the loser, she looked far better off than her opponent—no visible wounds, just slightly shallow breathing.
"Wororororo! Welcome to the Beasts Pirates, Ra! From now on, this old man is your captain!"
Kaido slung his kanabo over his shoulder, grinned from ear to ear, and crouched to pat her lightly on the head.
"Understood, Captain," Ra replied, carefully straightening her golden hair ornament.
[Beasts Pirates… and the name Kaido. That means this world is probably One Piece…]
Unfortunately, the soul inhabiting her body—You Ling—barely remembered the series.
Neither manga nor anime had ever interested her much; all she knew were a few famous moments and half-remembered names.
"Alright, go wake up those two little brats behind you. We're heading for the South Sea."
Kaido hefted his club and started walking. The island's plants and animals had been annihilated by their clash; anything nearby had likely been reduced to molecules.
The hills and ridges were flattened—now they could see straight to the glowing barrier where Osy and Obey slept.
Kaido's stride was enormous, forcing Ra to trot just to keep up.
He noticed, of course, but made no effort to slow down—he seemed to enjoy watching her struggle to match his pace.
Ra could only sigh inwardly and continue following like a small golden-tailed shadow.
Then, without warning, a thunderous crack split the air behind them.
The ground collapsed, revealing a vast underground chamber beneath the battlefield.
Ra stopped first, turning back.
"This is… an underground vault?"
She remembered that their fight had taken place near some ancient ruins. This must have been unearthed by the shockwaves.
Kaido turned as well. They both peered down, but the ceiling had only partially collapsed, leaving most of the chamber shrouded in darkness.
Darkness didn't hinder Ra—her divine sight pierced through easily.
At once, she saw it: a massive cubic stone monolith standing at the chamber's center, bluish in hue, one face carved densely with strange symbols.
The markings were orderly and precise—not something ordinary hands could have made.
With a flick of her fingers, Ra conjured floating flames around it, bathing the relic in golden light.
"Wororororo~ A Poneglyph, huh? You've got some luck, kid."
Through the glow, Kaido saw it clearly.
"Still, these things are pretty useless. Just some old stories chiseled in rock."
History didn't interest Kaido in the slightest; after one glance, he turned away with a snort.
[A record of history… so it's like this world's version of scripture? Carved in stone instead of written on paper. How curious.]
Ra swept her eyes over the symbols once, committing every line to memory, then followed after Kaido without comment.
Snore… snore…
Before they even arrived, the sound reached them.
Inside the fading flame barrier, the two little ones—Osy and Obey—had somehow transitioned seamlessly from unconsciousness to peaceful sleep. The world-ending battle outside hadn't disturbed them at all. Perhaps the divine fire surrounding them made them feel utterly safe.
"Wake up, Osy. Obey."
Ra dispelled the flames and gently shook the two girls, her voice soft—almost reluctant to disturb their dreams.
"Mmm… five more minutes, Mom…" Osy mumbled, turning over to hug Obey tightly.
Obey's brows furrowed as if she'd fallen into a nightmare involving red tentacles wrapping her up.
Ra couldn't help but chuckle. She was just about to call again when Kaido stepped forward—
—and the towering pirate had far less patience.
"Hey! You two brats, get your asses up!" he roared, the sound alone kicking up dust from the ground.
The result was immediate.
"Gyaaah!" Osy shot up three feet into the air in pure fright.
"Who—who dares disturb the queen's slumber?! Face my million-horse—uh…"
Mid-yell, Osy noticed Ra and then Kaido behind her. She froze.
Then, without hesitation—
"Super-Conductive Thunder Cannon!"
A bolt of golden lightning shot straight at Kaido.
It didn't hurt much… well, maybe a little.
Even so, Kaido's skin still stung—after bathing in solar fire moments ago, his body hadn't fully recovered, and taking another electric hit wasn't pleasant.
But of course, he couldn't show it.
"Enough, Osy. This is Captain Kaido—our new leader, not an enemy," Ra said, holding back Obey, who was also gearing up to attack.
"Captain?!" the two exclaimed in unison.
"Yes," Ra nodded.
She quickly explained what had happened—and that this world was likely the world of One Piece.
"So that means… we're pirates now?" Osy asked, blinking.
"Yes. I'm sorry for deciding on my own."
"It's fine, big sis. The three of us are one person anyway. Your choice is mine," Obey replied sincerely.
"Same here," Osy added with a grin.
"You three brats done chatting yet?" Kaido grumbled after quietly rubbing the sore spot where the lightning had hit. "We're heading for the South Sea now."
"Got it, Boss Kaido! Sorry about zapping you earlier!" Osy said, scurrying forward to apologize.
"She's saying sorry for attacking you," Ra translated when Kaido tilted his head in confusion.
In the short time since the fight, she had already learned to speak fluently in his tongue.
Mastering an entire language in half an hour—
truly, the talent of a god.
"Huh? You learned the common tongue that fast? Whatever. You two runny-nosed brats will catch up eventually," Kaido snorted. He wasn't particularly surprised—or interested.
[These three… really aren't normal.]
That was clear to him from the very first glance. In fact, anyone would think the same upon seeing them.
Their presence alone radiated something unnatural—
and even without sensing their immense potential, their appearance stood out: too beautiful, too refined, too precise.
In a world drawn with rough, lively lines, they looked like full-color illustrations dropped into a sketchbook.
Of course, the trio—having met no one else since arriving in this world—hadn't noticed.
And even if they did, probably only Osy would care.
"Ra, teaching those two brats the common tongue is your job now. We're moving out."
Without waiting for a reply, Kaido transformed once more into his colossal dragon form.
He summoned drifting flame clouds, scooped up the three girls, and with a deafening roar—
soared east-southeast, toward the South Sea.