"Gonna make trouble?"
Kaido stared at the bartender for a beat, then bared his teeth in a grin.
"I'm Kaido. I don't wreck a joint after I drink. Even pirates have code. I drank your wine—I won't smash your bar."
He paused, then added—much too casually,
"Say I owe you two Devil Fruits. Now pour me another."
Sure you meant to pay those back? Dimon only shook his head. Pirate "honor" ranked right up there with the Marines' "Justice" stenciled on their capes—nice embroidery, flexible interpretation.
"Seems you didn't hear me," Dimon said, sliding a dagger across the counter. "Test it yourself. You've already got undying regeneration."
Kaido frowned, then—because Kaido—sliced his palm open.
Blood welled, then flowed back as if time rewound. The split skin closed over in seconds, erasing the wound like it never happened.
"…No way."
He shot to his feet, stunned. "It's real!"
His eyes lifted to Dimon. "What are you?"
"Just a bartender," Dimon said mildly. "Name's Dimon. Now do you believe?"
Kaido drove the dagger straight through his hand this time. Blood sprayed—then surged back, the hole knitting shut moments later.
"A bit slower on heavier damage," Kaido muttered, impressed. "So the worse the hit, the slower the rebound?"
"Correct. Even a pierced heart or a severed head will restore," Dimon answered. Guy's a maniac, he thought. Immortality doesn't mute pain, by the way.
"Uorororo… That's an invincible power!"
Kaido's laugh rattled the bottles, then he froze, a thought striking. "Drinking your wine won't make me a hammer, will it? I haven't eaten a Devil Fruit yet. Do I still get to?"
"It doesn't conflict."
"Uorororo! Thanks, boss! I'll grab you a Devil Fruit right now—wait for me!"
He stormed out, shoulders shaking with laughter, eager to field-test his new toy.
Dimon watched him go, satisfied. He'd expected small-time pirates; instead, Kaido had followed the scent to his door.
"Twenty-ish, at most," Dimon mused. A little monster already. Devouring him now? Not on the menu. Plant the apple now, harvest later.
And Kaido? With that temperament, he really might come back with a Fruit to settle the tab. Devour a Fruit, earn Demon Points, brew more Wine—scalability: confirmed.
Outside, Kaido's blood sang. He needed a fight—something that shook the island.
Fodder wouldn't do. Only another Rocks crew monster could scratch the itch.
He spread his Kenbunshoku—Observation Haki—locking on. A few bounding leaps over rooftops, and—
Whitebeard strolled down the street, hands easy at his sides. Then his instincts flared.
"Newgate!!"
Whitebeard turned, eyes narrowing. Kaido dropped from above, Busoshoku (Armament) crackling along his spiked club.
"Raimei Hakke—Thunder Bagua!"
"What are you doing?" Whitebeard frowned and met him head-on. "Quake Break."
Gura Gura no Mi's power howled. The air itself fractured, a shattering force rippling out to meet Kaido's swing.
Impact.
Kaido flew backward like a meteor, blood arcing from his lips. Houses within a hundred meters collapsed from the backlash, the street folding in like paper.
"Bad! Kaido and Whitebeard are going at it!"
"Run! Five kilometers minimum if you like living!"
"Someone get Captain Rocks—he's the only one who can stop them!"
Pirates scattered to the edges to watch.
From the rubble, Kaido clawed his way up. The blood he'd spat… rolled back into his mouth. Wounds sealed as he grinned.
"Uorororo… Refreshing! Come again, Newgate!"
Whitebeard made a face like he'd found a drunk in his yard. "What madness is this? You're not my match, Kaido."
"Hmph. Today is different. I'm invincible!"
Sun's out, rain's gone—our boy's confidence is back.
Kaido charged, club humming with black lightning.
"Yare yare… troublesome brat," Whitebeard sighed, hefting Murakumogiri.
Their Haki collided before the weapons touched—an expanding ring like a small sun detonating between them. Wind flattened everything that hadn't already fallen.
Kaido's club jolted loose. In that instant, Whitebeard's left hand clamped over Kaido's face.
With a roar, he slammed him into the ground. A visible quake-sphere bloomed in his palm.
The street spider-webbed, then dropped—an enormous crater yawning where Kaido lay, like a meteor strike.
Figures gathered at the rim:
"Oi oi oi, Newgate, what'd you do?" Charlotte Linlin's lips curled. "That's my little underling. You trying to kill him?"
"Gehahahaha! Lost again, did he? Thick-headed brat never learns," Shiki the Golden Lion jeered, hovering.
"So why are we fighting again?" Streusen drawled, amused.
"Men full of hot blood," Gloriosa said, shaking her head.
"Hungry? I can cook something. Easier to keep brawling on a full stomach," Streusen added with a wink.
Whitebeard removed his hand from Kaido's face, snorting. "He insisted. Still alive, Kaido?"
"Kh… kh-kh…"
Kaido coughed, blood trickling from every orifice—then pulling back in as his flesh mended.
Gasps circled the crater.
"What the—?"
"He's healing… did he eat a Devil Fruit?"
"No wonder he challenged Whitebeard again."
Kaido staggered upright. In the time it took to breathe, he was whole.
He grinned, Haki blazing up around him like a bonfire. "Uorororo… Useless. I'm undying."
He leveled the club.
"Again, Newgate!"
The island held its breath.
And above the rooftops—unseen by most—a man with a tiger's grin watched the crater and the laughing beast inside it, as if measuring a blade against a whetstone.
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