Kaido stalked past shattered timber beams and collapsed wall sections towards the central chamber's remnants—a vast, open space choked with dust and debris. Where a dais once held the Iwakura lord's obsidian throne, only fractured rubble remained amidst crushed banners and overturned braziers. Kaido kicked aside splintered ebony chunks with casual force, clearing a rough approximation of a seat. He crouched, then settled heavily onto the fractured stone base—the only solid relic left. The cracked stone groaned beneath his weight. Dust billowed upwards in slow-moving clouds. He leaned back, resting his massive forearms on knees bent wide. Above him, sections of the scorched ceiling groaned softly, threatening collapse. Below, the courtyard stones felt unnaturally cold against his dragon-forged skin. Kenji's frantic hammering ceased abruptly overhead; only the distant groan of settling ruins and the faint whistle of wind through gaping holes remained. Kaido's crimson gaze swept the cavernous ruin—over unconscious warriors sprawled in awkward poses, over pools of congealed blood glistening faintly, over scorch marks radiating from his earlier landing. Waiting. Silent. Immovable. A dragon perched on the carcass of prey. **His Conqueror's Haki lingered in the air—a drowsy, oppressive hum vibrating just above the threshold of consciousness.**
Time bled slowly. Clouds drifted past gaping ceiling holes, painting shifting patterns of twilight grey onto the dust-choked floor. Kenji cautiously descended from the gate beam, clutching the crude skull banner's remnants like a lifeline, utterly ignoring Hideshi's vacant shivering near the vaporized odachi's imprint. The trembling samurai scrambled backward, pressing against a less-damaged support pillar—as far from Kaido's throne as possible. Kaido didn't acknowledge the movement. His senses tracked deeper rhythms: the slowing heartbeat of an unconscious warrior pinned beneath rubble, the ragged breath of another nearby struggling through bruised ribs, the distant *thump-thump-thump* echoing from Stone Crags' direction—Goro's panicked hammer on stubborn granite. Sensory input swirled—smoke, ozone, cold stone, sour terror—each detail etching the ruin's stark geometry. His thumb traced the scaled ridges striating his forearm, recalling Wool's yielding tear under dragon-strength. These mortals? Wool. Tearable. Yet… potential lay dormant, like ore veins in dead mountains. He inhaled deeply—burnt cedar carried miles from his own devastation mingling with Stone Crags' damp rock scent. Purpose crystallized.
Kaido's head lifted abruptly. Crimson eyes snapped open, slicing through the gloom like twin furnace doors slamming wide. Dust motes flared brilliant red in their sudden glare, swirling violently as if caught in a vortex. His shadow seemed to bleed across the floor, long and absolute. A low growl built—not loud, but profoundly deep—vibrating fractured stone beneath him and every unconscious warrior nearby. Kenji froze mid-step toward a fallen water jug. Hideshi choked on his own breath against the pillar. Even the wind seemed to pause. Kaido rose—a mountain detaching itself from bedrock. Bones groaned, scales shimmering faintly. He surveyed his silent kingdom of ruin: the paralyzed samurai, the crater where Hideshi knelt, Kenji clutching the torn wool like a shroud, the distant hammering. Fragmented memories surfaced—roaring pirates hoisting Jolly Rogers, trembling recruits bowed before dragon's roar. This wreckage? A crew berth carved in ash. His lips peeled back over teeth the color of shadowed glaciers.
He raised a scaled hand—gorilla fingers outstretched—toward Kenji trembling beneath the skull banner, Hideshi trembling against the pillar, the half-a-dozen groaning survivors stirring amidst rubble, even the distant frantic chipping echoing from Stone Crags. His voice erupted—not a shout, but an avalanche given syllables. Every syllable cracked stone, shook loose plaster, forced conscious warriors back onto trembling knees: **"AS OF NOW..."** He paused, letting the command's weight crush resistance, letting it seep into marrow. Crimson eyes flared brighter, illuminating dust-laden air like bloody spotlights. The ruined fortress hall became a confessional under his gaze. **"...ALL OF YOU..."** His thumb jabbed toward the battered skull banner flapping weakly above the shattered gate—the declaration etched in primal fury. **"...ARE JOINING MY CREW!"** He paused—the silence deafening, expectant, oppressive. **"THE BEAST PIRATES!"** The name echoed—part declaration, part invocation. Not recruitment. Conscription etched by dragon's claw onto the bones of the Warring States. Survival? Only beneath his banner.
Silence followed—heavy and brittle. Kenji stared at the banner clutched in his own hands, its savage stitches mocking his existence. Hideshi's tears froze midway down his grimy cheeks. A choking gasp escaped a pinned warrior nearby. Goro's distant hammering ceased abruptly. Kaido lowered his hand slowly. His crimson gaze swept the frozen tableau—not triumph, but finality. "Object?" he rumbled softly—a sound like shifting continental plates. The question hung cold, sharp-edged. No tremor touched his voice. Only absolute conviction solidified the air. Tomorrow dawned. Training. Hammering. Living. Dying. All beneath the Beast Pirate skull carved not in thread, but in annihilation itself. Kenji shuddered violently—not in denial now, but bone-deep understanding: The sky belonged to Kaido. The earth belonged to Kaido. They merely existed upon it. Breathing was privilege. Service was survival. He stared at the banner's skull—stark white against indigo wool—and felt its gaze become his own. Duty etched in primal fury. Hideshi closed his eyes slowly against the pillar. Escape was a splintered peak miles away. Silence settled. Only the Beast Pirate banner flapped defiantly in the growing wind—a promise whispered in torn cloth.
Kaido settled back onto his throne of rubble. Twilight deepened into bruised night. His immense form remained utterly still, a silhouette carved from shadow against distant mountain wounds—scars left by his declaration of power. Yet within that stillness, a storm brewed. The swirling dust motes ignited crimson, reflecting the volcanic furnace behind his narrowed eyes: **Memories.** Not reincarnation's fragmented flickers, but stark visions hewn from future echoes. The Warring States' petty blood feuds faded like cobwebs before it—a colossal stage unfolding: **Four catastrophes.** Shinobi Nations grinding millions to dust beneath flags born *today*. The roar and chained agony of **Bijū**—living weapons of mass destruction, their chaotic might defiling landscapes he roamed now. Faces materialized—distorted, terrifyingly potent: Madara, ambition calcified into bone armor; Obito, hollowed by loss; Orochimaru, serpentine hunger twisting life itself. Ascending above them all: **Celestial parasites.** Cold, alien perfection. Otsutsuki. Reality thieves. Their pale eyes promised annihilation not of peaks, but *worlds*. Kaido's scaled fingers dug into fractured stone beneath him. *Weakness*. The thought crystallized—not disgust, but cold, strategic assessment. This rabble—Kenji simpering, Hideshi broken, Goro sweating over crude hammers—they were dust motes against the hurricane. Yet... dust compressed with enough pressure forged stone. Stone forged mountains. Mountains resisted storms.
His gaze drifted northwest—toward the Senju-Uchiha river valleys. **Madara.** Crimson Sharingan spinning with nascent, deadly grace. **Hashirama.** Innocent laughter masking terrifying life-force. *Fragile*. The certainty settled heavier than stone. Friendship? Gone. Their naive bond couldn't survive the crucible their warring clans forged. Madara's heart would fracture under loss, hardening into jagged ice. Hashirama's compassion would drown in blood, leaving behind a hollow shell preaching peace atop mountains of corpses. And Obito... a manipulated ghost fueled by ashes. Orochimaru... a snake slithering through cracks in a flawed system. These weren't distant threats; they were inevitabilities sprouting from the poisoned soil below him *now*. Kaido inhaled deeply—burnt ozone, wet stone, mortal fear—and tasted the metallic tang of future war. His fortress? A fledgling fleet anchored amidst chaos. His crew? Raw ore screaming potential...if pounded hard enough. The nascent Beast Pirates weren't enough. Not nearly. They needed more than survival. They needed evolution—forced, agonizing, dragon-forged. Goro hammering beneath Stone Crags wasn't crafting a weapon; he was forging the *process*. Hideshi trembling near vaporized earth wasn't learning a jutsu; he was internalizing annihilation. Kenji clinging to a banner wasn't hanging cloth; he was planting a flag in the skull of fate itself. Kaido's lips peeled back in a grin devoid of humor—a dragon contemplating the storm it must birth to weather the greater tempest beyond.
Kaido rose abruptly from the fractured throne. Stone groaned protest beneath his boots. His shadow bled across the ruined hall, swallowing flickering torchlight. Instinct screamed—not towards Stone Crags or the river valleys, but *deeper*. Into the earth's forgotten veins. **Resources.** His Conqueror's Haki pulsed—a silent, seismic wave rippling through miles of bedrock. It sought... resonance. Not gold. Power. Materials untouched, unknown. Potential sleeping beneath ancient forests and jagged peaks. The perfect ore for Goro's impossible kanabō. The hidden chakra nexus Hideshi's wind-blade needed. Kaido inhaled—ozone faded beneath damp moss, decaying roots, distant saltwater tang. Northwest. A pinprick *pull*. Vibrant. Violent. Untapped.
He strode through shattered archways without hesitation. Rubble didn't yield—it vaporized underfoot. Kenji scrambled back, clutching the Beast Pirate banner tighter. Hideshi whimpered against his pillar. Kaido ignored them. Beyond the fortress corpse stretched dense woodland—ancient oaks snarled thickets, twisted vines choking moonlight. Dragon eyes pierced the gloom: parasitic growths strangling trunks, venom-wasp nests pulsing beneath bark, razor-leaved creepers poised like guillotines. Kaido grinned, baring glacier-teeth. **Perfection.** If Hideshi survived navigating *this*, Wind Scythes would cut flesh. If Kenji hung flags here… loyalty forged in venom-stung terror. Kaido's scaled foot crushed a coiled root-serpent—its spine snapped with a crunch echoing gunfire.
Three miles deep within the forest's suffocating throat, Kaido halted. His Haki recoiled—rebounded. Stone met stone. **Impenetrable.** Before him yawned a sinkhole half-collapsed, choked with thorned vines thicker than a man's thigh. Beneath it? Hollow silence. Death-still air. Dragon nostrils flared, filtering rot: petrified wood resins, extinct fungus spores… and beneath it all? Metallic ozone. Pure compressed chakra-stone singing. His fist lashed out—not Conqueror's Haki, but brute physical force. Thorns shattered like glass. The sinkhole's throat tore open, revealing sheer obsidian walls plunging straight down into impossible darkness. Kilometers? Deeper. No echo returned. Only the pressure—crushing, silent—against his scales. Kaido's grin widened. **Foundry.**
He stepped off the edge. No descent—freefall. Wind ripped at his kimono sleeves. Darkness swallowed him whole. Seconds stretched into plummeting eternity. Then—impact. Razor-edged obsidian floor shattered beneath dragon-forged soles into glittering powder. Absolute blackness reigned. Until Kaido's eyes ignited—bloody beacons carving reality from void. Crimson light spilled over walls weeping condensed chakra like black ice, reflecting infinite jagged facets. Air hung thick. Heavy. Charged. Every breath filled lungs with crystallised potential. Ahead stretched a cavernous tunnel—walls humming with contained lightning. Kaido strode forward. Obsidian dust ground beneath him like broken promises. The stone sang louder here. Goro's ore awaited. Hideshi's training ground. Kenji's nightmare. The Beast Pirates' crucible. Hammer required. **Hammer found.**
Kaido's fist slammed into the humming wall—scaled knuckles driving deep. Obsidian screamed. Fell. Dust choked the cave. Muscles corded. Fist withdrew. Clenched within? Not rock. A jagged shard the size of a warhorse. Deeper than black. Light devoured its edges. It vibrated—low, dangerous resonant thrumming syncing with Kaido's pulse. **Chakra Ore.** Perfect. Raw. Untouched. He gripped it tighter. Cold seared scales hotter than dragonfire. Realms flickered behind his eyes: **Konoha.** Not sapling tree sapling, but calcified cage—Hashirama's dream ossified beneath administrative rot. Hokages flitted like pathetic ghosts: Tobirama's cold-eyed efficiency sacrificed for paranoid isolationism. Tsunade drowning compassion in sake. Minato—golden flash extinguished too soon by masked shadows. Weakness disguised as strength. He saw Orochimaru's labs—glass jars filled with stolen potential. Jiraiya's smirk hiding rot beneath tales. Tears and snot-faced brats clawing at destiny's chains. **Konoha:** A fragile vase awaiting the dragon's clawed foot.
The ore's resonance deepened. Feeding the vision. **Naruto.** Screaming idiot determination plastered over Uzumaki ruin. Hollowed-out jinchūriki vessel leaking borrowed power. **Sasuke.** Emaciated vengeance sculpted into Uchiha hubris—madness mistaken for purpose. Their clashes? Sparrow fights beneath thunderheads. Kaido saw Boruto—a pale smear reflected in alien eyes. Otsutsuki parasite squatting within stolen flesh. Reality itself unraveling beneath celestial boredom. Worlds consumed. Will devoured. Worse? The pathetic reliance on *ninja tools*. Training wheels bolted to toddlers. His scaled fingers tightened—ore cracked warning sparks. Future squandered. Potential pissed away on village banners and sentimental lies. These weren't warriors facing oblivion. They were insects awaiting the boot. **Konoha's Legacy:** A funeral pyre dressed in green leaves.
He ripped the ore free—
—and Konoha's pathetic mirage shattered like glass. Crimson eyes narrowed, seeing beyond crumbling obsidian and chakra-thick gloom. Two figures flickered behind the cold ore's luster, burning brighter than Uchiha flames or Uzumaki reserves: **Rock Lee.** Limbs wrapped in cast-iron weights, sweat carving rivers through gritted teeth beneath a bowl-cut. **Might Guy.** Brow furrowed in eternal sunrise smile, muscles screaming defiance against genetic chains. Their forms blazed—no borrowed Biju rage, no stolen Sharingan sight. Only bone-deep sweat, tendon-tearing push-ups, youth surging unchecked from dawn till dusk. Kaido's lips twisted. Respect? Hard-earned. Mortals spitting in destiny's eye, forging strength where fate offered vacancy. *Yes.* Worthy. Not yet born? Irrelevant. He saw their lineage coiled like dragonfire: **Might Duy.** The failed bell test echoing across decades. A flicker of green erupting beneath Konoha's scornful shadow—**Eight Gates.** Sacrifice blazing briefly, brighter than a thousand Kage. Kaido's thumb traced the ore's jagged edge, scales scraping sparks. Potential roared louder than obsidian's hum. A dynasty of defiance. Not citizens. Not shinobi. **Beast Pirates.** Subordinates carved from pure, unyielding spirit.
The vision solidified—cold clarity slicing through centuries. Guy's thunderous roar shaking Marineford's foundations. Lee's drunken fist pulverizing celestial arrogance. Duy's last sunrise scorching Uchiha pride. *His* fist clenched tighter around the ore. Fractures spread. Recruitment wasn't seduction; it was salvation. Rip them from Konoha's suffocating cradle before its weakness infected their marrow. Let Guy teach *his* samurai the price of determination—Hell Training beneath dragon eyes. Lee would forge blades with kicks alone. Duy's flickering legacy? Immortalized in Beast Pirate devotion. Kaido's crimson gaze burned brighter. Patience. Seeds planted now bloomed later. First—forge the crucible worthy of them. Goro's kanabō. Hideshi's wind-blade arena. This ore was the anvil. His will, the hammer.
Kaido exhaled—a plume of vapor crystallizing instantly in the charged air. Obsidian dust settled like funeral ash. The cavern's oppressive silence pressed in. Time meant nothing. Yet urgency coiled serpentine beneath his scales. Mortals above breathed borrowed air beneath his banner. Goro chipped at granite heart. Hideshi trembled near shattered gates. Training required tools only *this* place possessed. He strode deeper into the humming tunnel—each step pulverizing jagged debris into glittering powder. Crimson light cast long, monstrous shadows dancing across weeping chakra walls. Resonance deepened. Ahead—a jagged outcrop pulsed sickly violet. Not pure. Tainted by decaying roots above. Kaido swung the ore shard—massive, heavier than siege ballista bolts. Impact. Violet stone exploded into toxic dust clouds smelling of rotting plums and ozone. Unworthy. Discarded. He moved faster. Boot-crushed obsidian marked his path. Foundries weren't negotiated. They were claimed.
He found it near the tunnel's throat—a towering node humming pure cobalt. Unblemished. Resonating with the ore gripped in his scaled fist. Kaido slammed the shard onto its surface. Metal shrieked. Sparks flew—incandescent blue-white, blinding in the bloody gloom. The cavern trembled. Walls wept faster. A seam split the cobalt node—wide enough for a war galleon's prow. Inside? Liquid fire churned: blinding-white plasma swirling with veins of sapphire lightning. Heat blasted Kaido's face—a furnace wind hotter than any earthly forge. Not lava. Refined chakra-fire. Sufficient? Kaido grinned—baring glacier-teeth glinting hellish crimson. **"Goro!"** His roar boomed through miles of stone, shaking the mountain's roots. **"Your forge awaits!"** The command echoed—dragonfire promising transformation… or annihilation.