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Yamato was never afraid of heights.
When Yamato was a child, their Father would take them to the skies. Clouds of auspiciousness suspended the both of them. They would ride on their Father’s head, whoop and scream as they clutched tight at the dragon’s antlers as they soared through a clear blue. Sometimes, Father would rest on a sky island, taking drinks from his gourd, and Yamato would run amok amidst the white beaches while their Father roared at them to not stray too far. King usually accompanied them on these little outings, in case of an accident.
Father’s breath was warm, and always smelled of rice liquor. Sometimes, as he crossed the ground in huge strides that covered fifteen of their paces, he would hoist them up on his shoulders— he was so big that they could sit on one side, while the spiked club rested on the other.
There were people, sometimes. Most of them were mean, and they always wanted to hurt Father. They screamed and called him names, cursing him before Yamato’s eyes. But they never did get far beyond cursing. They cried like babies, and were crushed underfoot just as easily.
When blood sprayed Yamato would flinch, but the people that died were bad people, and Father was strong.
Father was the strongest.
“Will I be strong like you, one day, Father?” Yamato asked, once. Their Father had barely broken a sweat, left ragged scars in the earth behind them.
Father laughed.
“Of course.” His large hand wrapped around the entirety of their back. “You’re mine.”
They loved Wano country. They loved its blue sky and roiling seas, the pine trees that twisted upwards in strange bends which made them perfect to climb, the clear streams that they could catch tiny fish in. They loved the lush forests, the mountains, the cherry blossoms, the deer with the pretty white spots. They loved the people. Loved the men and women with their silken fashion, loved the samurai warriors with their strange code of honour, loved the sumo wrestlers pushing against each other in their drawn rings.
They knew their Father loved it too.
One of their favourite things was the onsen, even if it smelled a little bit like rotten eggs. Queen had to chase the strange monkeys out of the water, and they screeched and hissed at him as he tried to corral them away.
Wo ro ro ro ro! Their Father laughed, sake in his hand as they bathed together. Black Maria was at his side, pouring him more.
“I’ll give it to you, then, if you like it so much.” Their Father promised. “One day, when you’re older, I’ll give you Wano.”
“Really?” They had asked, the biggest grin on their face. “Really really?”
“Really really.” Father said, and stroked his large thumb over their wet hair. They were smaller than a child’s doll, compared to him. “But you’re going to have to take good care of it for me.”
“I will!” They grinned. “I definitely will!”
Wano was going to be theirs one day. Father said so, and he could make everything possible. That was when they started to try to understand it, care for it, love the land just like they would family. They forgot how many nights they’ve poured over scrolls, memorizing each and every stroke of kanji. They read about the Kozuki, the Kurozumi, the Daimyo and the Shogunate and all the garbled jargon that the court spoke that made their head hurt..
They didn’t like Orochi, and told their Father as such. He smiled too much, and made himself small in front of Father, despite being Shogun. This was a man with no strength, no ambition. No haki .
“He’s scum.” Father had admitted, ruffling their hair again, “You’re right, Yamato. But he’s useful, so we’ll keep him around for a little longer.”
They weren’t exactly happy about it. Usually, whenever they disliked someone, Father would make them disappear, some way or another. But Orochi was useful to Father, and somehow, usefulness mattered as much as strength.
At first, they thought Kozuki Oden was useful, because he made everyone laugh. They had heard legends of the man, but they stood in strong dissonance to the naked one dancing in the streets.
“Don’t pay any mind to him, young master. It’s just the Idiot Lord.” Page One had said, him and his sister the ones accompanying Yamato this time. The people of Wano laughed as the drums sounded and the daimyo spoke in rhymes.
Oh radish, ganmo! Chikuwa and eggs!
One two three! Go ahead and eat!
Oden wouldn’t be Oden if it wasn’t boiled!
“I’ve never had Oden before.” Yamato remarked, looking at the procession.
When they returned home, they searched in the library for a recipe. It was easy enough, just throwing things in a huge pot and boiling it. Even a child like them would do it.
Father laughed when they told the pirates to put it on the table for dinner. It was impossible to eat by themselves, and oden would not be oden if it wasn’t boiled.
“Yes, you’re right, Yamato.” He said, taking a bite of the steaming fish cake. Yamato bit into one too, flinching from the burn on their tongue. “Oden wouldn’t be oden if it wasn’t boiled!”
Father was happy, then, sharing the meal with everyone.
“Come! Taste the Oden my child has made! It’s the perfect drinking food!” Father’s gourd never left his left hand, and he washed down konjac and eggs with sake.
Amidst the laughter and jollyness of the pirates, Yamato saw their Father conversing with Queen, who had a smile they always found distasteful. It always meant men would return, groaning and in pain, covered in welts or burning from fever. It meant Plague.
But when their Father beckoned them over and laughed until the entire hall shook, it didn’t matter. And Yamato smiled too, because Father was invincible.
For the first time in years, Onigashima was quiet. Yamato wanted to go with their Father, see how Kozuki Oden made his insurrection. The man who was so different from his legends, who sang rhymes about snakes instead of cutting down mountain gods, had suddenly regained his fighting spirit.
And when Father returned, it was the first time Yamato had seen their own blood, bleeding through bandages. It was the same red as their own. It was dragon’s blood, and Oden had drawn it with his blades. The long diagonals on their Father’s chest are testament to the man’s greatness. He had never heard Father speak of anyone like that before, with his full breath.
“I want to be like Kozuki Oden!” Yamato had said, smiling at their Father, professing their dream.
Father’s backhand was fast, even in his injured state. Yamato flew, crashing past the screen door, breaking the wooden frame with his small one. When he breathed, it was painful, and he knew his ribs were bruised.
“I will not allow any child of mine to idolize that fool.” Father said, as Yamato pushed themselves onto their knees, too weak to stand on their own two feet.
“I want to be like Kozuki Oden!” Yamato insisted, looking upwards at their Father. Why did he not understand?
They yelped as the hand hit their back as they crushed the tatami underneath them. Not a backhand this time, but with the palm that once held them within its centre. Their ears were ringing, and they spat out a bit of blood.
“Did you not hear me, Yamato? He’s going to be executed in two days, that Idiot Lord!”
“He’s not an Idiot Lord!” Yamato screamed back, for the first time, with conviction rather than impudence. “He’s strong! He’s Kozuki Oden! I want to be Kozuki Oden! I want to be Kozuki Oden!”
Beast Pirates watched as Father dragged them to their room with a roar, the scales on his forearm making Yamato’s fingers bleed as they tried to scratch him. They felt electricity crackle in the air, black clouds of ill omen surrounding them.
“He’s an idiot who will die like an idiot!” Father said. “That man is a fool who abandoned his country, who humiliated himself, who has no pride to speak of!”
“He’s a hero! He sailed with Whitebeard and the Roger pirates!”
“Soft!” Father spat out that word like an insult, and threw them onto the desk hard enough that it too, cracked in half along with several of their ribs. The oil lamp they read by tipped over, spilling onto the papers, setting everything aflame. “Soft, sentimental fools! You’ll never be like them, not as long as I live!”
“I’m going to be Kozuki Oden!” Yamato screamed, louder and louder, the more he felt his body bruise and his bones break, the stronger his determination. “I’m gonna be Kozuki Oden!”
It was the smoke that made tears well in his eyes, the flames that casted that strange shadow over Father’s face. It was the splinters digging into his sides that caused him pain.
It was night that made his vision go dark.
The first time Yamato had ever broken a bone was in a fight.
“Did you win?” Their Father had asked, a bowl of sake in hand.
“Of course!” Yamato said. It was a given. They were bigger than most children their age already. Their hand was outstretched as a doctor put a splint onto it, but they were immediately trying to wave it around. “I didn’t cry, and I didn’t get hit either!”
“Then why did it break?”
They puffed out their cheeks.
“I dunno! It’s stupid, it just broke!”
“Mr. Kaido.” The doctor provided an explanation, “The young master is too strong, their body cannot handle it… Their arm could not withstand the recoil.”
“Yeah, it’s stupid!” Yamato had said, trying to twist their arm away, much to the doctor’s horror and panic. “I did it like I’ve seen you do it. Went psht and woosh and then a Thunder Bagua !”
“P-Please don’t move around too much, young master Yamato! You have to wait for it to heal!”
Wo ro ro ro ro ro! Father laughed, and the world trembled with it. He nodded in approval.
“I was the exact same when I was your age.” He said, taking another swig from his gourd. “It’ll heal soon, and then I’ll teach you how to throw a punch.”
“Really?”
He nodded, before rummaging around in his robes. What he fished out was something as small as a toothpick in his hand— but to Yamato, it was a large club, made for an adult several times their size. Metal and studded, it looked heavy. “Use this for now.”
Yamato frowned as they took it into their hand, stumbling as it sank, denting the tatami. They tried to tug at it with their good hand, but it dragged along the floor, raking up the soft rush straw.
“It’s too big! And it’s too heavy!” They complained.
“ Wo ro ro ro ro! ” Father laughed in amusement. “It’s meant to be that way. You’ll grow into it. Maybe you’ll even be stronger than me, one day.”
“You really think so, Father?” Yamato squatted to pull, grunted and heaved and ho’d, until it finally lifted off the ground. Grinning, they rested it on their shoulder, just as they’ve seen their Father do so before.
Sometimes, when Father smiled, he had more wrinkles. A lot of people said he was scary and ugly with them, but Yamato never thought so. Black Maria said wrinkles showed a man’s wisdom, but to Yamato, it showed their Father’s joy.
“Of course. You’re my child.”
I’m going to be Kozuki Oden!
Yamato wiped at his tears as he searched the remains of Kuri, alone. Tried to ignore the bitter taste in his mouth, the ache in his chest that he did not have a name for yet, attempting to salvage anything that remained of the man that he idolized. He could still remember the sound of gunshots, just a little bit out of sync, as they shot towards the boiling pot.
I’m going to be Kozuki Oden!
As if answering his prayers, a piece of damp scaffolding fell to the side, revealing a tattered bundle of pages. Soft paper with smeared ink, but he could read it. He could read the language of Wano better than even Father. And he had enough time at sea to recognize it— a sailor’s log.
More of his tears fell as he flipped it open, being careful as to not to rip the fragile wet pages. And immediately, he could recognize names. Whitebeard and Roger in Wano’s completely different alphabet. Names of the samurai, like Kin’emon and Kanjuro, with their meanings in a masculine scrawl.
And on a single page, with broad strokes of the brush, were the words that would forever change his life.
OPEN WANO.
It seemed like every conversation of theirs was the same one. It was the first conversation about some mundane political ties, but the thousandth one about opening Wano again. Father was growing increasingly irritated.
“You’re my daughter— I will not allow you to—”
“Son.” Yamato corrected.
He tried to ignore the desperate plea in that long-abandoned corner of his heart. Where the child that once rode dragons and saw heaven full of saints and angels hoped. He tried to crush memories of a loud booming laugh, a too large hand on his head, a broad shoulder that carried him, a sulphur-filled promise. He’s a monster who killed this country. He tried to tell himself, the heavy weight of the shackles on his wrist, the bruises still on his back a reminder of the horrors his Father has done. He does not deserve hope. Not from you.
Kaido’s eyes fell on him, and for a moment, there was silence. For a moment, he was a child again, holding the heavy metal club with freshly-healed bones, learning to swing for the first time. For a moment, he was learning a new language, pressing black handprints full of ink on a new page. For a moment, the smell of sake that permeated the room was tainted with cherry blossoms of memory, of too loud snores that kept his eyes open to the midnight sky.
“You’re my son.” He said, with his entire breath. “And my decision on that matter is final.”
Yamato pulled his mask back down, and adjusted the weight of the club on his shoulder.
“...Foolish old man.”