Compared to the three who'd only counted toward Yimi's quest through a bug—future replacements for the original Four Emperors—Kaido possessed genuine, undeniable strength, and happened to be the tankiest of the Emperors on top of it.
When Yimi didn't immediately accept his friend request and instead leveled her spear and charged, Kaido was actually pleased. As he'd said before, he valued challengers far more than anyone who simply bent the knee.
But when he realized that even Yimi's Armament Haki-infused attacks were pitifully weak, his mood soured.
That Morgans was peddling fake news again. There was no way someone this feeble had beaten an Admiral.
Kaido swung his kanabo in a casual arc. Irresistible force traveled through the spiked club and into the spear clutched in Yimi's small hands. He hadn't actually put much into it—no matter how underwhelming this girl turned out to be, that didn't change his intention to recruit her, and it wouldn't do to accidentally kill her.
But then something felt wrong. A strike that should have knocked out a hundred-million-Berry rookie in one blow hadn't budged the airborne little girl an inch.
"She—she blocked it?!" The Beasts Pirates crew shouted in disbelief. Even Hancock, who'd followed Yimi here knowing full well that Kaido's real target was Whitebeard, couldn't make sense of it.
The knockback—even the misfortune of absorbing that kind of force—had been flung away entirely.
"Congratulations to the host for completing the achievement [It's Xiaoli]. Reward: 5% portal energy."
"Another bizarre Devil Fruit ability." Kaido retracted the kanabo and grabbed Yimi's spear with one hand, halting her next attack cold.
"Hey, kid. Are you a Zoan-type user?"
This was an important question. He had a compulsion about it—he wanted every last one of his subordinates to be Zoan Devil Fruit users, and had invested a fortune building an entire factory dedicated to producing inferior artificial Fruits to that end.
"I haven't eaten a Devil Fruit." Yimi recalled her spear into storage space, staring quizzically at Kaido's kanabo.
Weren't the Four Emperors supposed to be weak? How was this guy even tougher than an Admiral?
Yimi pulled out a water gun and squirted him.
"Don't tell me..." Kaido swung the kanabo again. The stream of water—comparable in volume to a fire hose—was swept up off the club's surface as though he were manipulating it, redirected in a tai chi-like motion straight into Jack the Drought's face.
"Is that the kind of cheap trick you used to beat Akainu?"
Another swing. This one blasted the half-sunken Marine warship clear to the horizon and tore a gash through the clouds overhead.
Thunder Bagua!
"Kid!" Hancock scrambled to the top of the ship's wreckage.
Yimi extended a small hand and gently touched the kanabo. To anyone watching, it looked as though a little girl had caught a spiked club nearly as tall as she was with one hand, a sight that left Jack—on docking duty—drenched in cold sweat. Only Kaido himself could feel it: both of his attacks had landed like punches into cotton.
The little cat had gleaned something from that last kanabo strike.
Rayleigh had spent these past days drilling Armament Haki into her, but what Kaido used was different. Beyond the armor-like coating on the kanabo, his Haki flowed like water, trying to invade and attack from within.
Turning "hard" into "soft"—destroying from the inside out. Armament Haki infusion, also known in Wano Country as Ryuo. A more advanced application of Haki.
Rayleigh could use it too, of course, but he'd subscribed to the "learn to crawl before you run" philosophy and hadn't demonstrated it for her.
"No way—this kid is actually going blow for blow with Boss Kaido?!"
Yimi checked her storage space. The mushroom's cooldown was nowhere near finished. She summoned her Stand to harvest Red Light and White Light, then danced gracefully through a multi-hit combo across Kaido's body with her spear.
How tall was Kaido?
Seven meters.
That height was a perfect fit for Insect Glaive techniques. Unlike the giant octopus from before, though, even Armament Haki-infused strikes couldn't so much as scratch Kaido's skin.
"Fun ability, but are you trying to tickle me, kid?" Seeing that even infusion was useless, Kaido simply stood there and let her hit him, using his own flesh to teach her the gap between them.
A downward thrust broke the combo. Yimi stood on his ship, craning her neck to meet his gaze.
Those widely acknowledged Four Emperors really were incredible.
She finally understood that much.
Readying the Spear of Longinus, Yimi recalled what she'd just felt from Kaido's body. Perhaps because that kanabo swing had carried genuine killing intent with minimal restraint, she'd picked up more from it than from anything Rayleigh had taught her.
She softened the Armament Haki coating she could barely solidify, and swung a Flying Roundslash. This time it wasn't a rigid cut. It was like what Zoro had once praised about Mihawk—"what a soft blade"—an attack that looked limp and powerless but could shatter anything in its path.
"This brat..."
Even without taking it seriously, Kaido raised the kanabo to block.
He felt a faint tremor run through the club. His eyes narrowed, masking his disbelief.
What kind of talent was this?
Ryuo, without question—the power to destroy from within. She'd learned it after taking just one hit from him.
That clumsy execution, combined with the earlier strikes, made it painfully obvious she'd only started learning Haki recently.
It was as if an infant who'd just started toddling had immediately climbed onto a bicycle with no training wheels. Even Kaido, who'd been a monster since the age of ten, wouldn't claim he could replicate that kind of miraculous talent.
Why wasn't this brat Yamato's kid?
Holding his blocking stance, Kaido abruptly changed the subject. "Kid. Have you ever met your mother?"
"Yes."
Kaido frowned, then pivoted. "Then have you ever personally watched your mother give birth to you?"
"Mm..." Yimi genuinely hadn't seen that. Her earliest memories were of her mother already feeding her.
Kaido nodded. "You're not your mother's biological child. Your real biological mother is actually my son, Yamato—"
"You're trying to scam a kid!" His own crew was stunned by the shamelessness.
"Shut up! It's not like any of you were there." Kaido snarled at his subordinates.
"That's enough, Kaido."
A blast of Supreme King Haki nearly connected heaven and earth, intent on ending this farce.
In response, Kaido immediately unleashed his own Supreme King Haki to clash against it. The storm clouds that had gathered when Kaido first appeared were cleaved cleanly apart—the sky itself looked as though it had been split in two.
A blade that had charged in from nowhere collided with the kanabo. At the same time, a hand pulled Yimi clear.
"Whoa!"
Without looking to see who'd grabbed her, the little cat stared wide-eyed at the two of them.
"Red-Haired Shanks..." Hancock murmured the newcomer's name.
What a day. They hadn't even found Whitebeard yet, and two other Emperors had shown up first.
"I thought you were headed to Marineford to stir up trouble. Instead you're here picking on children?"
The kanabo and the blade hadn't actually touched—they hovered apart, separated by a gap.
Yimi saw it clearly: Supreme King Haki infusion!