"What just happened? Did the Young Master transform into a dragon exactly like Lord Kaido? Was that an illusion?" The high-ranking officers looked at one another in a daze, their minds racing as they tried to make sense of what they had just witnessed.
"It wasn't an illusion, you idiots," Queen said, leaning back and puffing on a thick cigar. He wore a smug, enigmatic expression as he surveyed the confused crowd. "What you saw is one of my most successful and secret research projects: a perfect Artificial Devil Fruit."
"An Artificial Devil Fruit?" Jack asked, his brow furrowed. The concept sounded nearly impossible.
"Even if I explained the science, none of you have the brains to understand it," Queen replied with a dismissive wave. "All you need to know is that I used Big Brother's Lineage Factor to synthesize a perfect duplicate. The Young Master ate that fruit and gained the same Draconic abilities as Lord Kaido. That is what you just saw."
Queen looked so incredibly satisfied with himself that the subordinates couldn't help but believe him. After all, Queen was a world-class scientist and a former member of MADS; if anyone could pull off such a feat, it was him.
"I see. That explains everything," Black Maria whispered, finally realizing why Yamato had been so willing to give away a genuine Mythical Zoan fruit earlier.
"So the Young Master is an artificial user," Haruko added, her eyes wide with realization.
"That's incredible, Lord Queen!" Sasaki exclaimed. "If you can make those, does that mean we can start mass-producing dragon abilities for the rest of us?"
"Don't be a fool! Artificial fruits aren't like baking bread," Queen snapped, shaking his head. "Do you have any idea how much time I spent on the Young Master's fruit?"
"How long?" the crowd asked in unison.
Queen raised a hand, his expression turning dramatic. "Over ten years. It took more than a decade of constant work. I failed thousands of times before I finally produced one successful result. It was incredibly difficult—deathly difficult. I never want to go through that process again."
He let out a long sigh of feigned exhaustion. "If it hadn't been a direct mission assigned by Big Brother, I would have given up years ago. Luckily, I finally finished it."
Seeing Queen's vivid and emotional description, no one doubted his story. He had successfully convinced the entire crew that Yamato's power was a man-made miracle rather than a separate, natural fruit.
"So there you have it," Queen added, blowing a smoke ring. "Don't go expecting a dragon army. These things are nearly impossible to manufacture."
Watching Queen lie through his teeth with such natural grace, King felt a rare sense of respect for his colleague. It was definitely the right choice to let Queen handle the explanation, King thought, nodding to himself.
Thud!
A massive tremor shook the floor, and dust filtered down from the ceiling. Everyone looked up toward the roof of the skull dome.
"Are they already at it?" They didn't need to ask who was responsible. It was clear that Yamato and Kaido had already started their brawl.
"Those two are fighting on the roof again," King's face darkened with frustration. "Didn't I tell them to stop using the roof as a sparring ground?" He transformed and flew toward the upper levels to keep the damage from spiraling out of control.
The remaining officers looked at the shaking ceiling and stood up. "Let's just go back and wait. Knowing those two, they won't be finishing anytime soon."
Several hours later, the father-daughter duo finally returned to the hall. The officers were both shocked and amused by the state of them. Both Yamato and Kaido looked pathetic; their clothes were shredded, and their faces were heavily bruised and swollen.
It was a strange sight to see. Both were Mythical Zoan users with incredible recovery rates, which meant the fight must have been exceptionally brutal for the marks to still be visible. It looked as if they had both spent the entire afternoon intentionally punching each other in the face.
"Ow... hiss..." Yamato winced, touching her swollen cheek. "You Idiot Old Man! You actually aimed for my face. If I end up disfigured and ugly, I'm going to blame you for the rest of my life."
Fortunately, her teeth were still intact. She had fared slightly better than Kaido, who was currently missing several teeth from his lower jaw.
"You little brat! You're blaming me?" Kaido fumed, his voice muffled by his swollen lip. "You're the one who specifically targeted my face the entire time! What was I supposed to do, just stand there?"
"Big Brother, Young Master, please," King interrupted, his voice dripping with exhaustion. "Just stop talking."
"Hmph!" Yamato and Kaido snorted in unison, finally falling silent as they took their respective seats.
With the fighting over, the high-ranking members of the Beasts Pirates began their meeting. Yamato had zero interest in the discussion. Kaido was planning to establish even more weapon factories across Wano Country to support their newly expanded territories.
What a disaster, Yamato thought. She knew that more factories meant more pollution and even more suffering for the people of Wano. While she sympathized with them, she also knew she was a beneficiary of the system, which left her feeling conflicted.
"If anyone dares to resist the expansion, send the enforcers immediately," Kaido said coldly. "Kill them if you have to. We can always find more workers; the one thing this world has plenty of is people."
In Kaido's eyes, the people of Wano were nothing more than replaceable tools for his war machine.
"You're being so ruthless, Idiot Old Man," Yamato remarked. "You should watch out. A backlash is coming for you."
Kaido gave her a disdainful, bloody grin. "Backlash? Let it come. If anyone wants to stop me, they'll have to defeat me first. That's the only law that matters."
"Yeah, yeah. You're the strongest, you big brute," Yamato said, spreading her hands.
"There is one more thing," King said, shifting the topic. "In Kuri, there is a troublesome figure. He is one of Kozuki Oden's former vassals, a man named Ashura Doji. His combat strength is formidable. How should we handle him?"
"A vassal of Oden? One of those 'Nine Red Scabbards'?" Kaido paused, the name bringing back old memories.
"Yes," King nodded. "Currently, Ashura Doji is leading a group of bandits on a mountain in Kuri. He frequently comes out to oppose our operations. If we leave him alone, he'll become a major problem."
"He's still alive?" Black Maria asked, surprised. "I thought the Nine Red Scabbards were all killed over ten years ago."
"That was the official report, but no bodies were ever recovered," King explained. "Besides, Shogun Orochi was the one who was supposed to handle that."
Kaido didn't really care about the Scabbards, but Orochi was obsessed with them. The Shogun lived in a state of constant paranoia, terrified of the commoners' rumors that the Scabbards would eventually return to seek their revenge.
"If he's so scared of them, why is there a living Scabbard just sitting in Kuri after all these years?" Yamato asked, sounding genuinely confused. "Is Orochi's brain broken?"
No one answered, but they all secretly agreed. It was ridiculous that Orochi lived in terror of ghosts while ignoring a very real enemy right in his backyard.
"Let's try a different approach," Kaido decided. "Try to recruit him into the Beasts Pirates. A man like that would be a decent asset to our strength."
"Recruiting him will be difficult, Big Brother," King noted skeptically. "He's a samurai who was deeply loyal to Oden."
"I say we just kill him," Queen added, chewing on his cigar. "Those samurai are like stones in a latrine—both smelly and stubborn."
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