Leaving behind the Flower Capital's illusion of prosperity, the scenery grew increasingly desolate and dilapidated as they approached Kuri.
Weeds had nearly swallowed the road to Amigasa Village. Abandoned houses, scorched earth, and scattered remnants of weapons, long since weathered and rotted, lined the way, silently recounting the brutal battles once fought here. A faint smell of rust mingled with decaying vegetation hung in the air, utterly unlike the carefully manufactured fragrance of the Flower Capital, yet closer to reality.
"Kuri... was once the most chaotic, but also the most vibrant region of Wano Country. Kozuki Oden established Peach Paradise Farm here." Robin watched their surroundings warily as she quietly recounted what she had pieced together from historical documents and Kawamatsu's information. "After Oden died, Kaido and Kurozumi Orochi made this place a primary target of their purges. The resistance was scattered, and the people either fled to more remote places or were enslaved. Amigasa Village is one of the few remaining settlements still barely holding on, because it's well hidden, and..."
She paused. "A noble thief calling himself Ushimitsu Kozo, along with some samurai who refuse to submit, has been providing a little protection in secret."
Lin Yan walked in silence, his Observation Haki spreading like a fine-meshed net for several kilometers around him. He "heard" beasts whimpering in the distant mountain forests, heard the wind moaning through ruined walls, and "heard" the pulse of a human settlement farther in, suppressed yet carrying a faint trace of life.
There was also an exceedingly faint sense of... familiarity that stirred something deep in his soul.
It was not the blazing fiery presence of Ace, but another kind of flame... resilient and gentle, carrying the warm scent of food.
"There are people ahead. A lot of them, gathered in a valley.