ONE PIECE: KAIDO'S SON

 The ruined cliffside of Onigashima echoed with the tension of silence. Ragnar and Yamato stood face to face, locked in a cold standoff, the shattered terrain around them bearing witness to the chaos that had just unfolded.

Ragnar's hand was clenched tightly around Yamato's kanabō—Takeru, she had once named it in defiance of her father—its black coating of Busoshoku Haki flickering ominously under his grip.

"Yamato," Ragnar's voice was steady but edged with steel, "why are you interfering?"

It was just moments ago that his own Raimei Hakke had been intercepted. Yamato, reacting instinctively with her own Thunder Bagua, had redirected the forceful strike—not at him, but at the weapon he was swinging toward Ace.

"Or do you want to spend New Year's in Udon Quarry with Ace?" His tone wasn't icy, but far from warm. For an outside observer, there was no hint that these two were blood siblings—both born from the tyrant Kaido.

Yamato's breath came heavy, her form tensed like a spring. "Did you read Lord Oden's journal?"

Ragnar's brows furrowed slightly. "I read it," he said at last.

"Then you know why I must defeat Kaido!" she declared, the fury in her voice resonating like the cry of a liberated soul.

"You can call Kozuki Oden 'Lord,' that's your business," Ragnar said coldly. "But as for our father... whether you call him 'father' or not, at least show some respect."

"Respect? For that monster?!" Yamato's eyes burned. "You've read the journal—you know what Kaido has done to Wano! How can you ignore it?"

Ragnar's expression darkened. "I don't ignore it. But unlike you, I haven't rewritten reality in my head. You spit on the man who raised you, yet worship a stranger who died over twenty years ago. Oden never knew you. Never cared for you. Kaido may be a devil, but he's still—"

"Don't you dare call him a father," Yamato snapped. "Do you know what kind of 'father' chains his child in a cave for days, puts explosive shackles on them, and beats them for speaking their mind?"

Ragnar opened his mouth, then froze.

Yamato raised her arm, the metal gleaming under the moonlight. "Do you see this? This bomb bracelet? Kaido said if I tried to leave Onigashima, it would blow me to pieces!"

Her voice cracked, but her spirit did not.

"I want to go to sea more than anything... but not until Wano is free. Not until that tyrant pays for everything he's done. Then, and only then, will I sail."

She wiped her tears away roughly and raised her kanabō again, stance solid as the mountains of Ringo. "And if you try to stop me—then I'll beat you down too."

Ragnar's eyes narrowed. Without a word, he stepped forward and grabbed her wrist, yanking her toward him with startling speed.

"Hey—! What are you—!"

He grabbed the bracelet on her wrist and twisted. With a harsh clack, it snapped free and clattered to the ground.

"NO!" Yamato gasped, throwing herself forward—expecting the explosion, the fire, the agony—

Nothing.

The metal lay on the ground, inert. Cold. Powerless.

"W-why didn't it explode...?" Her voice was barely a whisper.

Ragnar crossed his arms. "Because it was never armed. A bluff. Like Kaido's promises of war, all bark when he doesn't need to bite."

Yamato fell to her knees, eyes wide, body shaking—not in fear, but from the collapse of something she had long believed unbreakable.

"You weren't bound by shackles, Yamato." Ragnar's voice softened, just a little. "You were bound by your own fear. Prejudice."

"You picked up a diary and revered it like scripture. You deified a man who once fought your father to the death. Yet you trample your bloodline as if it were worthless."

Ragnar released his grip on Yamato's collar. His tone, once sharp, softened ever so slightly. In his sharp gaze flickered something rare — gentleness.

"You have your dreams. If becoming someone like Kozuki Oden or sailing the seas is your path, then go."

He took a step back, his shadow cast long over the rubble of Onigashima.

"As long as I, Ragnar, am here — the Four Seas, the Grand Line, even the New World — you're free to tread them all. Beasts, marines, warlords, Emperors — no one can stop you."

Then his voice dipped into steel:

"But remember this, Yamato — I will inherit the legacy of the Kozuki Clan. I will take Wano and shape it anew. If Whitebeard couldn't protect it, no one can. Not even you."

The warmth in Yamato's eyes shattered.

Her breath caught in her throat — once touched by his words, now scalded.

"You bastard, Ragnar!"

"I thought... I thought you were different from Kaido! I even gave you Lord Oden's journal — you read it! You cried over it! And now you say this?"

Her eyes, once stormy with emotion, became fire.

"The Kozuki Clan. Wano Country. That's my burden. My duty. I am Oden! If you dare raise a hand against them... I will crush it!"

She roared, lifting the kanabō "Takeru" high above her head.

"I said it!"

As if responding to her fury, black lightning crackled along the shaft — Armament Haki, concentrated and unrelenting.

With a sharp metallic clang, the iron met stone, and the air changed.

Murderous intent coiled like a serpent through the island. The winds stilled. The skies above Onigashima grew heavy.

Ragnar's eyes narrowed, but his smile remained — thin and dangerous.

So it begins. Brother against sister. Inheritance against inheritance.

Steel would decide whose dream would be carved into the bones of Wano.