One Piece: Marine Luffy, Garp regrets it

The climate in the New World was notoriously fickle—Kaido had witnessed countless instances of extreme weather throughout his decades at sea. It wasn't uncommon for clear skies to transform into hailstorms within seconds, or for calm seas to erupt into typhoons without warning.

But something about this particular thunderstorm triggered Kaido's instincts. He paused mid-bite, his massive brow furrowing as a realization struck him.

"No... this isn't natural," he muttered, lowering his skewer of meat. "I'm currently in the White Sea at an altitude of over 7,000 meters."

Kaido had journeyed to Sky Islands numerous times over his long career as a pirate. The White Sea had distinctive weather patterns, and while they could be unpredictable, they rarely manifested as conventional thunderstorms like those in the Blue Sea below.

"Will there be thunderstorms over the White Sea?" he questioned aloud, suspicion growing with each passing second.

Before he could pursue this line of thought further, the weather itself provided a decisive answer to his query.

CRACK! BOOM!!!

An ear-splitting thunderclap shook the cloud-house, followed immediately by a blinding bolt of lightning that struck the structure with unerring precision. This was no random act of nature—the lightning had been directed, targeted specifically at Kaido's floating sanctuary.

The impact sent Kaido stumbling backward, his massive frame momentarily losing balance as the cloud-house began to disintegrate around him. With rage contorting his features, he roared the name of the only person he knew capable of such a precise lightning attack.

"DAMN YOU, MARINE BRATTTTT!!!"

His enraged bellow echoed across the sky as the cloud-house exploded into fragments, its structure completely obliterated by the lightning strike. The destruction of his floating platform left Kaido with nothing to stand on, sending the Emperor plummeting through the White Sea and toward the Blue Sea far below.

For more than ten seconds, a humanoid figure could be seen in free fall—a massive shape hurtling downward at terminal velocity. Directly beneath his trajectory lay a small, uninhabited island—one of many scattered throughout the waters surrounding Wano Country.

Kaido's enormous body crashed into the island with catastrophic force. The impact generated a shockwave that rippled through the entire landmass, creating fissures in the ground and uprooting trees for hundreds of meters in every direction. At the point of impact, a perfect crater formed—a bottomless pit that seemed to extend deep into the island's core.

For several long moments, the pit remained silent and still. No movement, no sound emerged from its depths.

"That guy Kaido... he didn't actually fall to his death, did he?" a voice questioned from the edge of the newly formed crater.

Luffy stood at the rim, flanked by his assembled team. Beside him, Yamato gazed into the darkness with an expression that mixed hope and skepticism. Despite being Kaido's biological child, she held no filial affection for the tyrant who had imprisoned and tortured her throughout her youth.

"Even for someone as durable as my father," Yamato observed, hefting her kanabo, "falling from an altitude of 7,000 meters should cause significant damage. Perhaps we—"

Before she could complete her assessment, the ground beneath their feet began to tremble violently. The vibrations intensified rapidly, culminating in an explosion of debris as a dark shadow erupted from the pit, launching upward with terrifying speed before crashing back down to earth just meters from where the Marine group stood.

When the dust settled, it revealed Kaido standing before them—muddied and disheveled, with his clothing torn in various places, but otherwise appearing completely unharmed. Despite the catastrophic fall from an altitude that would have killed virtually any other being, the Emperor showed no signs of either external or internal injuries.

More remarkably still, despite being taken by surprise and plummeting through both the White and Blue Seas, Kaido had managed to retain his grip on his signature weapon—the legendary kanabo known as Hassaikai, or Eight Trigrams.

With his massive club in hand, Kaido strode forward purposefully. The sheer pressure of his presence—his overwhelming Conqueror's Haki leaking out uncontrollably—caused Viola and Mansherry, the more support-oriented members of Luffy's team, to visibly struggle under its weight.

Kaido's piercing gaze swept across the group of seven people arrayed before him. First, his eyes locked onto Luffy—the "little Marine brat" who had stolen his territory and humiliated him. His teeth gritted at the sight of his nemesis, but then his attention was captured by an unexpected figure standing among the Marines.

"Yamato?!" Kaido bellowed, his expression shifting from rage to genuine shock. "Why are YOU here, you idiot?!"

The question erupted from him almost involuntarily, a father's instinctive response rather than a calculated reaction. But as the initial surprise faded, Kaido noticed details that compounded his confusion—namely, the Marine coat draped over Yamato's shoulders and her dramatically altered appearance.

While female fighters in the pirate world often battled in impractical attire like skirts and high heels, Yamato's current outfit represented a seismic shift from her previous style. She wore a fitted white short-sleeved top embellished with the Marine insignia, paired with a light blue high-waisted pleated miniskirt that replaced her traditional hakama. Instead of her usual wooden sandals, she now sported elegant white stiletto heels that accentuated her height.

But these fashion changes weren't what truly stunned Kaido. What left him genuinely speechless was the transformation in her presentation.

His child Yamato—who had for years insisted on being addressed as a man, who had declared herself to be the reincarnation of Kozuki Oden, who had rejected all aspects of conventional femininity—had applied makeup. Delicate eyeliner accentuated her eyes, complemented by subtle eyeshadow. Her lips were tinted with a pale pink color, and her nails were manicured and polished.

"Is this still my idiot child Yamato?!" Kaido thought, dumbfounded. "Where did you hide the real Yamato?!"

While Kaido stared in disbelief, Yamato herself had no interest in his confusion. She hefted her own kanabo—smaller than Kaido's but still a formidable weapon—and pointed it directly at him, her eyes blazing with years of accumulated hatred.

"Damn you, Kaido," she snarled, dispensing with any familial terms. "I finally have my chance. This time I'll kill you myself and avenge the people of Wano Country!"

These unfiliual words snapped Kaido back to reality, pulling him from his shocked stupor. With mixed emotions swirling within him, he untied the gourd of sake that had somehow survived both the lightning strike and his subsequent fall. Tilting his head back, he gulped down several mouthfuls of the potent alcohol.

"Haaah~" he exhaled, the familiar burn of sake momentarily distracting him from the bizarre situation. After shaking the now-empty gourd, Kaido callously tossed it aside.

"WORORORORO~" His distinctive laughter boomed across the devastated landscape. "I thought the electric shock had caused hallucinations, but this is actually real!"

He turned his attention to Luffy, addressing him with a mixture of sarcasm and genuine curiosity. "Hey, kid, how exactly did you manage to transform Yamato like this? You've accomplished something even I couldn't achieve in twenty years!"

Luffy, who had been standing with his arms crossed, analyzing the most effective strategy against Kaido, responded in a deliberately neutral tone.

"What, are you surprised?" he replied with calculated indifference. "If you knew I was your son-in-law now, your jaw would hit the ground."

"Haaaa?" Kaido emitted a strange, strangled sound, his eyes darting rapidly between Luffy and Yamato. Looking more closely at his child's features, he indeed noticed a newfound gentleness and confidence that hadn't been present before—a stark contrast to the perpetually angry, Oden-obsessed youth he remembered.

For perhaps the first time in decades, Kaido of the Beasts found himself genuinely speechless.

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