Beneath Onigashima.
The burning Vivre Card curled bit by bit before Kaido's eyes, flames devouring its edges.
That faint flicker of fire was like a blade stabbing straight into Kaido's pupils.
He stared blankly at the Vivre Card as every sound from the battlefield seemed to fade away.
The rumble of falling rubble, Garp's laughter above the crater, the fighting between the Marines and the Beasts Pirates throughout Onigashima—all of it became indistinct.
Only the fiercely burning Vivre Card remained.
Linlin...
Something had happened in Totto Land.
A Vivre Card burning like this could mean only one thing: Charlotte Linlin had been driven to the brink of life and death.
Kaido's pupils abruptly contracted.
The next instant.
Memories buried in the deepest reaches of time, layered over by liquor, bloody battles, and pain, surged through his mind without warning.
That had been decades ago.
He had not yet become Kaido of the Beasts. He had only been the fifteen-year-old monster boy from the Vodka Kingdom.
Back then, he had believed he was protecting his country.
He had fought desperately, slaughtered desperately, using his not-yet-grown body to stand before the enemy.
But what awaited him in the end was not his kingdom's gratitude. For the right to attend the Reverie, its king had sold him to the Marines.
Fifteen years old.
Betrayed, escorted away, treated as a bargaining chip, treated as a monster.
That day, Kaido truly understood that this world had never made sense.
The weak would betray. Kings would bow their heads. Nations would personally send those who protected them to the execution block.
He escaped desperately, and was consequently given a bounty of seventy million Berry.
Seventy million Berry made the world remember the fifteen-year-old monster for the first time.
But after that, his life only became more