King publicly relayed Kaido's final instructions, which effectively made Yamato the new Governor-General of the Beasts Pirates.
However, when King solemnly passed the title of World's Strongest Creature to Cain as well, Cain's reaction left everyone around him staring.
"Huh? That guy seriously wanted me to inherit that too?"
Cain looked utterly baffled.
"First he spends the whole fight pestering me to call him Dad, and now he's dumping his title on me too. What exactly was he trying to accomplish?"
"You defeated Kaido-san with your own hands," King answered solemnly. "That title naturally belongs to you now."
"Is this really the time to talk about titles?"
Cain was practically melted into his reclining chair, his eyelids growing heavier by the second.
"Someone go get Bella and have her freeze the bottom of Onigashima already. I'm exhausted. I want to sleep."
His physical strength had recovered a little, but the mental exhaustion was far harder to shake.
Even actively forcing his awakened body to regenerate injuries had left him drained every single time. He had absolutely no energy left to care about inheriting some grand title.
Fortunately, Yamato's Namuji Glacier Fang was powerful enough to contend directly with Kaido's Bolo Breath.
Her freezing ability lacked Bella's absurd large-scale destructive range, but it was more than enough to stabilize the situation.
After everyone worked for quite some time, Onigashima's downward collapse was finally halted completely.
Cain relaxed at last.
His head tilted sideways, and within moments, he had fallen deeply asleep.
King remained alone in the shadows, Kaido's final words repeating endlessly in his mind.
'The ones who defeated me weren't Joy Boy, and they weren't people from Wano…'
'They were my sons…!'
Sons.
Plural.
Then King remembered Cain complaining that Kaido had spent the entire fight trying to force him to call him Dad.
Everything suddenly made sense.
In Kaido's heart, Cain had apparently become no different from Yamato.
He was another child Kaido had genuinely acknowledged.
King slowly clenched his fist and made a silent vow that, for the rest of his life, he would do everything in his power to support this strange pair of siblings.
There was only one question left.
When would Kaido wake up?
And once he did, what exactly was Yamato supposed to do with him?
…
Once the immediate aftermath on Onigashima was dealt with, everyone quickly moved away from the island.
The place was riddled with collapsed rock, shattered structures, and lingering smoke. It was hardly somewhere anyone wanted to remain.
Returning to the Flower Capital, however, only introduced Yamato to a far more complicated problem.
The samurai and ordinary people of Wano hated the Beasts Pirates to the bone, and demands that every last member be expelled from the country were becoming louder by the hour.
But Yamato was now both Shogun of Wano and the new Governor-General of the Beasts Pirates.
She couldn't simply throw all of them out.
At the same time, allowing them to do whatever they pleased was even less acceptable.
Without Kaido holding them together, thousands of pirates scattered across the country could cause chaos without ever needing to leave Wano.
King had already anticipated that.
He understood exactly why most of these men had joined the Beasts Pirates in the first place. A pirate who wanted to survive in the New World needed a powerful force to shelter beneath.
Now Kaido had fallen, while Yamato's identity had become inseparably tied to her position as Wano's shogun.
Some people would inevitably begin considering other options.
King's solution could be summarized in a single word.
"Kill them."
His tone was perfectly calm, as though he were describing the simplest answer imaginable.
"Execute every pirate who tries to betray us or flee."
"Suppression doesn't require mercy. Kill enough of them, and the rest will behave."
"No!"
Yamato rejected the proposal immediately.
"If we rely on killing people to frighten everyone into obedience, the ones who submit will just hide their ambitions more carefully."
"Then the moment we're gone, they'll come right back out."
"So no. I'm not doing that."
King didn't argue.
He had known from the beginning that Yamato would never accept his proposal. He had only placed the most direct option in front of her.
Choosing between competing factions and balancing their interests had never been his strength anyway.
Nor did he especially want it to be.
The only reason King was even standing there now was because Yamato had ordered him to sort the Beasts Pirates' personnel roster and separate everyone into categories.
Otherwise, he probably would have been sent to Udon's quarry with the rest.
"Don't worry, Yamato."
The door suddenly opened.
Uta stepped inside after finishing taking care of Cain.
"Cain already thought about this problem."
She turned toward King.
"For now, all you need to do is make a list of the ones who are still ambitious, rebellious, or likely to cause trouble."
"We have a way to deal with the rest."
…
Cain had indeed anticipated Yamato's problem.
Though in truth, he hadn't spent months planning for it.
The idea had only fully come together after he heard that Garp was heading for Wano.
What the current deadlock lacked was a third party that both sides could accept.
And the Marines Garp had brought were perfect.
Every one of those soldiers had been born in Wano and raised as a samurai. That meant they could speak on behalf of Wano's people without making the surviving Beasts Pirates feel as though the country's local factions were simply carrying out a one-sided purge.
In simple terms, one side would play the hardliner while the other played the conciliator.
The actual plan wasn't complicated.
The Marine samurai would publicly pressure Yamato while presenting themselves as representatives of Wano's citizens.
Then Garp and Sengoku would handle the formal negotiations, with both sides acting as representatives of separate factions.
The louder and uglier the argument looked, the better.
They were all acquaintances anyway. They could insult one another as much as necessary without actually damaging their relationship.
And the eventual result could be shaped entirely through the negotiation itself.
The performance worked almost immediately.
The pirates taken away by the Marines would be the irredeemable troublemakers who refused to change.
Those allowed to remain would be the ones willing to accept reform and discipline.
In doing so, Yamato demonstrated to the surviving Beasts Pirates that she genuinely intended to take over as Governor-General. She wasn't trying to dissolve the crew; she intended to preserve everyone who could still be saved.
At the same time, the public negotiations showed Wano's citizens exactly where Yamato stood.
She wasn't shielding the pirates from consequences.
She was placing them under rules enforced with Marine involvement.
Both sides received an answer they could live with, and public resentment naturally eased considerably.
As for the Beasts Pirates' path toward redemption, that was as far as Cain and the others could help.
Finding a genuine way for these people to repay their crimes and earn the trust of Wano's citizens would ultimately be Yamato's responsibility.
She was both Shogun of Wano and Governor-General of the Beasts Pirates.
Nobody else could walk that difficult line for her.
For now, they only needed to wait for the Marines to arrive.
They didn't have to wait long.
Rapid footsteps sounded outside.
A samurai hurried into the hall, dropped to one knee, and spoke with obvious excitement at having accomplished something important.
"Shogun! The old man you personally ordered us to capture a year ago, along with his accomplice, has been arrested!"
"He's currently in prison demanding to see you!"
Yamato blinked.
"…Old man?"
Her expression went blank.
"What old man?"
Uta tilted her head.
"What warrant from a year ago?"
The three of them looked at one another.
None had any idea what the samurai was talking about.
Then Bella floated in through the window and leaned toward Uta's ear.
"Mama, Mama…"
She whispered,
"Great-Grandpa got arrested."
"He said Papa has to pay money to bail him out."
"WHAAAAAT?!"
Uta had barely recovered from that revelation when another completely unexpected piece of news arrived.
This time—
it concerned Ace.
…
"GARP, YOU IDIOT!"
Sengoku grabbed Garp's head in both hands and twisted with enough fury to make the veins on his temples bulge.
"What the hell did you do in Wano for the shogun to put a bounty on you?!"
Not long earlier, Garp and Sengoku had been leading the Marine contingent toward Onigashima when news of Kaido's defeat reached them.
The Wano-born Marines immediately erupted in cheers.
They might not have managed to contribute anything meaningful to Wano's battle, but hearing that Kaido had finally been defeated still filled every one of them with genuine joy.
Seeing that, Garp simply waved one hand and told everyone to go home and visit their families first.
His only instruction was that they regroup later in the Flower Capital to receive their next assignments.
He and Sengoku then continued toward Onigashima to inspect the battlefield personally.
Unfortunately, by then Yamato and the others had already returned to the Flower Capital.
The moment Garp and Sengoku approached Onigashima, the samurai guarding the perimeter saw Garp's face and immediately surrounded both men.
Even Bella's attempt to vouch for them didn't completely solve the problem.
Rules were rules, and the order had supposedly come directly from Shogun Yamato.
Neither Garp nor Sengoku wanted to expose their Marine identities or cause an unnecessary disturbance inside Wano, so they simply allowed themselves to be arrested.
Sengoku was furious.
"Was the prison meal you got at Sabaody not enough for you? Why are you getting thrown into jail again in Wano?!"
He twisted Garp's head harder.
Garp looked every bit as confused.
"I—I don't know either!"
Trying to fight back, Garp grabbed Sengoku's long braided beard.
Sengoku immediately hooked two fingers into Garp's nostrils.
"You're pulling my beard now?! I still haven't finished beating you for dropping me down that waterfall!"
Within seconds, the two old men were wrestling across the floor.
The entire situation was, in fact, a gigantic misunderstanding.
More than a year earlier, Garp had disappeared while visiting Tama, and Yamato had panicked and plastered the city with notices bearing Garp's portrait while trying to find him.
Garp was eventually located.
Yamato simply forgot to order the notices removed.
Over time, the papers remained exposed to wind, rain, and sunlight, while fewer and fewer people remembered why they had originally been posted.
All anyone vaguely remembered was—
'The shogun is looking for this old man.'
As that half-remembered information passed from person to person, a missing-person notice somehow transformed into a wanted poster.
When Uta finally arrived at the prison, she found Garp and Sengoku rolling across the floor while grappling with each other.
The legendary Hero of the Marines and the former Fleet Admiral were fighting like children without the slightest regard for dignity.
Because they needed to maintain their disguises, both were dressed in loose Wano robes, and Sengoku's struggle with Garp had left their clothing disheveled and half-open.
The scene was unbelievably awkward.
…
Once the embarrassment faded enough for everyone to function normally again, the two old men were finally released.
Rather than leave immediately, however, they sat down inside the interrogation room to discuss the actual reason they had come.
The room did have excellent soundproofing, after all.
"So… this is the strategy Cain gave you?"
Sengoku stroked his chin while mentally going over the plan Uta had relayed.
The longer he thought about it, the more conflicted his expression became.
"Damn it…"
"He accounted for everything."
"Calming Wano's citizens, separating the Beasts Pirates into factions, timing the Marines' intervention, even arranging what roles Garp and I would play in the negotiations…"
Sengoku suddenly felt an unpleasant surge of envy.
He gritted his teeth and slowly turned toward Garp.
"You did an incredible job raising him."
Then he practically exploded.
"An absolutely incredible job! How the hell did an idiot like you end up with a grandson that smart?!"
"He has strength, intelligence, leadership ability—he's practically perfect future Fleet Admiral material!"
"Why does he have to be your grandson?!"
Sengoku was undeniably jealous.
Garp's mouth twitched.
"Heh. Hearing you say that doesn't make me particularly happy."
"He was perfect Fleet Admiral material, and then you people let him become a pirate."
He paused.
"Though I did agree to it at the time."
Garp then turned toward Uta, his face still slightly red from embarrassment.
"Where's Cain?"
"I remember telling Bella to inform him. Why are you the only one here?"
The thought that his future granddaughter-in-law had walked in on him wrestling Sengoku across a prison floor still made him want to hide his face.
"Cain just finished fighting Kaido," Uta explained quietly. "He was completely exhausted, so he's asleep right now."
"I see."
Garp nodded.
Then another thought occurred to him.
"What about Ace? How's he doing? Are his injuries any better?"
Uta's expression immediately became strange.
She hesitated for several seconds before carefully choosing her words.
"Ace…"
"…is having some trouble giving birth."
Silence.
Then Garp and Sengoku shouted at exactly the same time.
"GIVING BIRTH?!"
Both old men shoved their faces closer, their eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets.
"You're saying Ace is having difficult labor?!"
…
"AAAAAGH! It hurts! Damn it, it hurts!"
Ace clutched his enormous swollen stomach while rolling across the bed.
"Why won't you come out?!"
"Ace, you can do it! Breathe! Don't panic!"
Yamato hovered anxiously beside him, repeatedly wiping the sweat from his forehead.
Then Bell's furious voice came from inside Ace's abdomen.
"You bastard! You think I don't want to come out?!"
"Explain why it hurts me whenever I try to move!"
"How the hell should I know?! Stop moving around—AAAAH! There it is again!"
"I DIDN'T MOVE! You're cramping by yourself!"
Bell sounded genuinely alarmed.
"Could this be pregnancy contractions?!"
"CONTRACTIONS MY ASS!"
Ace nearly screamed himself hoarse.
"I'M A MAN! WHY WOULD I HAVE THOSE?!"
"This is all because you're still hiding inside me and refusing to come out!"
Yamato looked from Ace to his stomach and back again, completely unable to insert herself into the argument.
All she could do was keep wiping Ace's sweat.
…
One floor below, Bella and King were sitting across from one another.
The atmosphere between them was unbelievably strange.
Ace's agonized screams continued echoing from upstairs, leaving neither of them quite sure what they were supposed to say.
Eventually, King raised his cup with a perfectly expressionless face.
"Tea?"
"Bella doesn't drink tea."
Bella floated upright directly in front of him, her eyes fixed on King without blinking.
"Mama told Bella to watch you!"
King paused.
"…Right."