What Is Kaido? I'll Take the Azure Dragon

Rektol bent down. The glass crystals at the edge of the sand pit were hot underfoot.

He pulled a broad-bladed scimitar abandoned by fleeing pirates from the sand.

The rag wrapped around its hilt had been stiffened by sweat. The brass handguard was covered in green patina.

Rektol gripped the hilt. Blue-white arcs of electricity instantly crawled from his palm over the blade.

The blade vibrated violently, emitting a piercing buzz. The dark red rust was stripped away by the heat, revealing the pitted Fine Steel beneath.

Rektol carried the electrified scimitar and strode forward on his short legs.

The sea breeze swept over the sandy ground that had just endured a thunderstorm. He was naked, his pink short hair flying wildly in the wind.

Faint static still crackled across his skin. The air was thick with a pungent burnt smell, coming from several pirate corpses struck by lightning.

He walked forward step by step.

The pirates blocking his path scrambled aside. Some did not even dare stop to pick up the gold coins rolling on the ground, retreating on hands and feet.

The crowd was forcibly split apart, opening a three-meter-wide passage.

No one dared breathe loudly. Hundreds of eyes stared fixedly at this three-year-old child as though he were a plague god.

The lingering might of that last slash still trembled in the air. A monster capable of driving back two officers with one strike would not even blink before killing them.

Rektol ignored the gazes around him.

He stopped before a pile of discarded beer barrels. The barrels still reeked of sour, fermented ale.

In the shadows, teenage Kaido was curled into a ball.

He was more heavily built than an adult pirate, his entire body covered in coarse muscles. Yet he was trembling like a sieve.

The two thick bull horns atop his head pressed hard against the barrel's edge. The barrel creaked under the pressure.

Kaido swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing with difficulty.

Rektol stopped.

Kaido could not bear the suffocating pressure of waiting to die. He bit through his tongue.

The rusty taste of blood spread through his mouth, forcefully awakening his beastly instincts.

His fear reached its limit and turned into pure madness.

Kaido let out a furious roar and sprang upright. He crushed the barrel beneath one foot.

He swung the spiked Fine Steel club in his hand and smashed it viciously toward Rektol's head.

The wind howled. The air pressed down by the club blasted a shallow pit into the sand.

Rektol did not dodge.

His toes left the ground, and his three-year-old body floated directly into the air.

With a casual flick of his wrist, the electrified scimitar met the club.

"Clang!"

There was no deadlock amid flying sparks. The Fine Steel club was sliced into two as easily as tofu.

The cut glowed red-hot. Molten iron dripped onto the sand, hissing into white smoke and scorching black marks into it.

Kaido froze. His hands remained locked in the downward swing. The web between his thumb and forefinger had split open, blood running down the backs of his hands.

The monstrous strength he took such pride in was a joke before this three-year-old child.

Rektol extended his free left hand.

His chubby five fingers spread wide and clamped around Kaido's thick neck.

The enormous difference in size made the scene look absurd. Rektol could not even close his hand around Kaido's neck.

But Kaido could not laugh at all.

Two hundred million volts of high-voltage current surged from Rektol's fingertips and instantly burrowed into Kaido's flesh.

Kaido convulsed violently. A layer of charred black burns spread across his skin.

His eyes rolled back, and meaningless gurgles came from his throat. His tongue lolled out of his mouth.

His huge body flailed helplessly in midair like a dead fish thrown onto shore.

A deep blue light filled Rektol's eyes.

All-Knowing Eye, forced invasion.

Kaido's mental defenses were as brittle as soaked paper before max-level Observation Haki.

Rektol's consciousness crashed in brutally.

Kaido's memories were like a chaotic garbage dump.

The humiliation of being sold out by the Vodka Kingdom. The hunger of snatching rice balls aboard Marine warships. The beatings he endured in an iron cage.

They were all nothing but lowly, savage survival instincts.

Impatiently, Rektol tore apart those worthless scenes.

He increased the blood supply from his three hearts. His Observation Haki dug deeper like a scalpel.

He found it.

The memory was dimly lit. The air was filled with cheap cigar smoke.

Rocks sat in the captain's quarters aboard the flagship, his legs resting on the table.

A yellowed sea chart lay spread across the tabletop, its edges badly worn.

Rocks's withered finger pointed to the center of the map, where a winged skull had been marked.

"God Valley." Rocks's voice echoed through the memory, like sandpaper scraping rusted iron.

"In the Celestial Dragons' treasury, there's something I have to get."

Rocks exhaled a thick cloud of smoke. "The Fish-Fish Fruit, Mythical Zoan, Azure Dragon Form."

"With it, my combat power will become utterly invincible. Those useless fools from the World Government will all kneel at my feet."

Outside the memory, Kaido was listening through a crack in the door.

Young Kaido's eyes were full of yearning. Both hands gripped the doorframe tightly, his nails gouging deep marks into the wood.

He dreamed of becoming stronger. He wanted to escape his fate of being treated like a weapon.

That Azure Dragon Fruit had become his sole obsession for surviving aboard this rotten ship.

Rektol snorted coldly.

With such pathetic ambition, he dared covet a god-tier fruit?

He severed the connection.

The blue glow faded from his eyes, and Rektol released his left hand.

The burnt smell in the air grew stronger.

Kaido crashed heavily onto the sand. He clutched his throat and desperately sucked air into his lungs. Snot and tears mixed together across his face.

Rektol looked down at him.

"I'll claim this fruit for my younger brother Katakuri."

Rektol's voice was soft, yet every word slammed against Kaido's eardrums.

Kaido gasped heavily. He could not understand how this brat knew the greatest secret in his heart.

Rektol raised a foot and kicked Kaido in the stomach.

The sole of his shoe had long since burned away, leaving bare flesh against flesh.

The monstrous strength supplied by three hearts erupted.

Kaido was kicked away like a human cannonball. He skidded across the sand for more than ten meters, smashed through half an abandoned mast, and vomited a mouthful of sour fluid.

The spasms in his stomach made him curl up like a shrimp.

"Trash like you doesn't deserve to become a dragon." Rektol tossed the chipped scimitar onto the ground.

The blade struck a stone with a crisp ring.

The surroundings fell deathly silent.

The pirates lowered their heads. No one pitied Kaido. Here, even breathing was a sin for the weak.

Linlin, standing not far away, had just been about to come over and praise her son a little, then ask where exactly the Azure Dragon Fruit was.

From the stone house at the center of the island came a sudden, ringing cry of an infant.

The cry was shrill and extraordinarily penetrating, drowning out even the sound of the waves.

Rektol frowned.

Katakuri rarely cried. Even the impact of that Conqueror's Haki Prototype had not made him cry out.

When Linlin heard the sound, her expression changed drastically.

She looked down at her enormous, ball-like belly. Her rough palm pressed against it.

"Damn it, my water broke!" Linlin cursed.

She paid no attention to Kaido coughing blood on the ground, nor did she have time to ask Rektol about the Azure Dragon Fruit.

She broke into a run, charging toward the stone house like a stampeding mammoth.

Several wooden crates along the way were crushed beneath her feet.

Rektol watched his mother's anxious back.

Blue light exploded beneath his feet. He transformed into a bolt of lightning and rushed into the delivery room ahead of Linlin.

The stone house's wooden door had been smashed apart by him earlier. Cold wind poured inside.

A heavy smell of blood filled the room. The caramel scent from the shattered Mochi-Mochi Fruit had been completely covered up.

The torchlight in the corner was dim.

A makeshift wooden basin sat on the floor tiles, filled with red hot water.

Two maids knelt trembling beside the bed. One held a bloodstained towel.

The other maid held a newborn baby girl whose umbilical cord had just been cut.

The baby girl's legs were unusually long, a third longer than those of an ordinary infant. Her skin held a healthy pinkish-white color.

Rektol walked up to the maid.

The maid trembled so badly that she nearly dropped the child.

Rektol lowered his head and looked at his eldest sister, Smoothie, in her swaddling clothes.

The newborn had her eyes closed. Her breathing was somewhat rapid.

In the original timeline, this younger sister would eat the Squeeze-Squeeze Fruit and grow into a mediocre Sweet Commander who could do nothing but coast along.

Her martial arts were mediocre, and her swordsmanship was pathetic. When she encountered a true powerhouse, she could only stand uselessly to the side.

Rektol had no intention of letting her walk that boring old path.

He watched the baby girl's arms flail wildly.

Since flesh was weak and frail, then she might as well abandon it completely.

A mad plan took shape in his mind.