"Of course I know about this," Yamato said, with the conviction of someone reciting something they'd spent years committing to memory. "He danced for five years to save innocent prisoners from Orochi. Five years — and that snake went back on his word anyway. It's disgusting."
The mace swung through the air for emphasis. The boat rocked significantly.
Ornn steadied his grip on the oars and waited.
"So," he said, when the rocking settled. "Do you think he was right to do it?"
"What do you mean?"
"Plainly: was Kozuki Oden — a man of his power, his reputation, his lineage — dancing half-naked in public for five years, in exchange for the lives of prisoners held by a man he should have known couldn't be trusted... was that smart, or was it something else?"
Yamato's mouth opened immediately. Smart, obviously smart, Oden-sama is—
The words stopped before they arrived.
She sat with the half-formed sentence for a few seconds. Turned her head to look at the water.
"It doesn't matter whether it was smart," she said finally, more quietly than before. "He didn't know Orochi would break the agreement. He couldn't let people die because of his own conflict with that man."
She reached over and took the oars from his hands.
"You've been rowing for a long time. Rest. I'll wake you when it's your turn again."
Ornn let the oars go.
"Perhaps when we reach the other islands," he said, "you'll see things a little differently."
She didn't answer. He hadn't expected her to.
He settled into the bottom of the boat and closed his eyes.
Fourteen years of belief didn't dissolve in one conversation on open water. But she'd stopped. She'd thought about it. She'd given ground without admitting it — which was, for now, enough. A fanatic would have argued past reason. Yamato had changed the subject, which meant somewhere underneath the devotion there was still a person capable of doubt.
That's something to work with, he thought, and let the movement of the boat carry him under.
The cold woke him.
A gust off the water, sharp enough to cut, and the boat lurching beneath him. He grabbed for the oars on reflex and found an arm instead — smooth, firm, already gripping the shaft. He let go immediately.
"Sorry—"
He looked up and stopped.
Yamato's face had gone the color of old paper. The vitality that normally radiated off her — the restless, physical aliveness of someone who'd been cooped up too long and was finally moving — had drained out entirely. Her lips had faded from their usual red to something approaching white. She was still rowing, technically, but each stroke had the determined quality of someone performing a task through sheer refusal to acknowledge that their body was filing complaints.
"What's wrong?"
She opened her mouth to say something deflecting and produced a retching sound instead.
Even Yamato seemed surprised by this.
"I don't know," she said, with the bewildered tone of someone whose body had never previously done anything without permission. "I can't use my strength properly. My chest is tight. I'm not injured, but it feels — worse than when my father hits me."
Ornn looked at her. Looked at the water. Looked at the way the boat was moving. Looked back at her.
His expression did something complicated.
The daughter of Kaido. A woman who had survived fourteen years on Onigashima through physical resilience that beggared description. Who had just knocked an entire dock's worth of guards unconscious with one swing and destroyed a torii gate for recreational purposes.
Seasick.
Who on earth would believe this, he thought, and kept the observation entirely behind his teeth.
He took the oars back from her without comment and told her to rest.
His actual plan had never involved leaving Wano's waters quickly — their small boat wasn't built for that kind of crossing, and two newly-freed ability users alone on the open sea with the Beasts Pirates' fleet as a potential obstacle was not an equation he liked the answer to. The smarter move was darkness under the lamp. Hide in Wano's own territory until the search patterns normalized, then find proper passage.
The other islands weren't far. He put his back into it.
Forty minutes of steady rowing brought the coastline into visibility. Another thirty and the boat's hull scraped sand. He helped Yamato onto the beach — she accepted this with the rigid dignity of someone determined not to appear as unwell as they were — and then turned and flung a thread of magma back at the boat.
It caught immediately. Good hardwood, once it decided to burn.
He watched it go for a moment, then turned to find Yamato standing on solid ground with her legs quietly betraying her, the seasickness apparently unwilling to leave just because the sea had. He caught her arm before she could fall, and they walked — or rather, he walked and she was assisted in the approximate direction of walking — inland from the shore.
The morning light was pale and thin when they reached the treeline. By the time the sun had climbed to something resembling noon, they'd found a path. By the time it was warm, the path had led to a village.
Small. A few dozen families at most, the houses low and built from whatever the forest offered. The kind of place that existed in the deep interior of islands like this one — too far from Onigashima to matter to the Beasts Pirates, too small to be worth occupying.
Ornn was calculating which house to approach first when the bamboo rustled beside the path.
He turned.
A small girl, perhaps three years old, perhaps four — purple hair, sharp eyes, riding on the back of a dog that was shaped like no dog he'd seen before. The girl had the particular stillness of a child who had decided that strangers warranted caution before curiosity.
Something about her made Ornn pause. The purple hair. The unusual animal beneath her. The way she sat — small but completely unafraid, just watchful.
He was about to say hello, to offer something gentle that wouldn't startle her, when she cupped both hands around her mouth and directed the full capacity of her small lungs toward the village:
"Uncle Wutai! Outsiders! In the village!"
The response was immediate. Five doors opened. Five thin men emerged with long knives, moving to form a loose perimeter around Ornn and Yamato with the practiced wariness of people who had learned, probably the hard way, that unexpected visitors in Wano's interior were rarely bringing good news.
They stared. Ornn and Yamato stared back.
Yamato still looked like she'd lost an argument with the ocean.
Ornn considered his opening.
"We need water," he said, "and somewhere to sit down. We're not here to cause trouble."
The five men did not immediately lower their knives. The small girl on the dog watched from behind their legs with round, evaluating eyes — apparently satisfied with the chaos she had so efficiently initiated.