Listening to Kaido’s words, Charlotte Linlin seemed to realize something. Kaido choosing to bring this up now appeared to have his own intentions behind it.
“So, you’re saying you want to hold this meeting in a state where you don’t owe me anything?”
“Worororo! It looks like your brain hasn’t rusted with age yet. Isn’t that obvious? Even an alliance needs someone in charge, and that leader can only be me.”
“You little brat… the you from decades ago was much cuter.”
“Worororo! What a coincidence. I also think you looked better decades ago. Time really is a terrifying blade, old hag.”
Charlotte Linlin had no way of knowing whether Kaido had truly cured her problem. After all, her eating disorder flared up randomly. As for the issue with Sister Carmel…
They couldn’t exactly smash a photo of Carmel in front of her just to test it; it hasn’t come to that point yet. It was like a paralyzed person not being able to test whether they still felt pain by stabbing themselves clean through—that would be going way too far.
She had agreed to Kaido’s proposal of repaying the favor, but now it seemed Kaido had even more on his mind than she expected. He clearly didn’t want her taking even the slightest advantage of him.
“You two, I think we can sit down and talk this through slowly. There’s no need for the atmosphere to be this tense, right?”
Seeing Kaido and Charlotte Linlin seemingly fighting with their eyes, and even looking ready to continue fighting, Shanks stepped in to mediate. He had no desire to watch those two fight for days and nights here.
What happened earlier was Kaido and Charlotte Linlin’s private matter, but once the alliance was involved, it became an issue for all three of them.
“You’re right. Besides, you’re here too. Who would’ve thought the apprentices of Roger and Rocks would both grow to this extent? Perospero!”
“Please wait a moment, Mama.”
Hearing Charlotte Linlin call him, Perospero hurried forward. Large amounts of candy syrup secreted from his arm, then solidified into a massive negotiation table.
Old hag, little brat—just hearing those nicknames made him nervous. Under normal circumstances, who would dare call his mother that? Only Kaido could say something like that and still chat and laugh with her afterward.
In a sense, it also showed the relationship between the two of them. They could casually call out each other whatever they wanted, but if an outsider tried it, they would die horribly.
After clearing the random thoughts from his mind, Perospero was about to continue making chairs when Kaido stopped him.
“There’s no need for you to do everything. Yamato.”
“Understood.”
In an instant, three chairs appeared nearby, wisps of cold air drifting from their surfaces. But Kaido sat down without caring in the slightest.
“What? It’s just a little cold. Doesn’t weather like this make it perfect for cooling off? Don’t tell me you can’t even handle this?”
Pirate disputes were sometimes strange. They could develop absurdly stubborn pride over the weirdest things. Earlier it was competing over who could laugh longer; now it was having their children create the items needed for negotiations.
At this point, the three of them seemed to have developed the mentality that whoever feared sitting on the ice chair was a low-tier pirate, and they all sat down out of sheer stubbornness.
As for Red Hair—
His crew member’s abilities were somewhat one-dimensional, so in this situation they couldn’t really help much. Shanks himself didn’t care, but Beckman was discussing something with the others, seemingly researching how to help their captain save face.
“Attack together, defend together. That’s the simplest summary of this alliance. You two don’t have any objections, right?”
“No.”
“No.”
Pirate alliances weren’t complicated. They wouldn’t sign any written treaties either. A scrap of paper had no binding force whatsoever. The only thing capable of restraining pirates was strength.
“Then this becomes simple. The alliance consists of our three pirate crews. Normally, we won’t interfere with each other, but the leader must be me.”
“Based on what?”
“Based on the fact that I can beat the two of you. I’ve got another method too, we can have the three of us fight it out. Whoever wins becomes the leader of this alliance.”
Faced with Charlotte Linlin’s questioning, Kaido gave an extremely simple reason and suggested settling it with force directly. No matter how he looked at it, a rational Charlotte Linlin was far more worth fighting than the crazed version of her.
“There’s no point. The Marines already know we’re here, and those people earlier proved it. If we start fighting amongst ourselves, it’ll take quite a while. Letting the Marines or World Government profit from it wouldn’t be worth it.”
Red Hair was the first to voice opposition. He had already gotten dragged into Kaido and Bullet’s battle once before, and he had no intention of experiencing it a second time.
“Red Hair, you’re really no fun. Then how about we raise the stakes a little? You and Linlin together. If you win, the Beasts Pirates will heal your arm, and the two of you can decide for yourselves who leads. I’ll give up the fight for leadership entirely.”
“Kaido, aren’t you being a little too arrogant?”
“No, I’m still not interested. I don’t really care who becomes the leader.”
Charlotte Linlin originally thought this was an opportunity. She admitted that Kaido was currently a bit stronger than her, but she didn’t believe Kaido could beat two opponents at once.
As for Red Hair, Charlotte Linlin didn’t think she would lose to him in a one-on-one either, yet Red Hair withdrew first.
After all, Shanks had seen more and understood more than Charlotte Linlin. Hearing about it secondhand from Katakuri and witnessing it personally were two very different things.
At the same level of combat power, the Big Mom Pirates had one such fighter, the Red Hair Pirates barely had two, but the Beasts Pirates had at least four, and that also represented the upper limit of individual strength.
“Or let’s try a different approach. None of us fight personally, and we hand the stage over to the younger generation.
After all, we’re not getting any younger. Eventually we’ll have to step aside. How about letting them decide where the future belongs?”
“Well… unlike you two, I’m basically on my own. I really don’t have any suitable juniors.”
At this moment, Red Hair entered the state known as “Schrödinger’s father.” Uta wasn’t his biological daughter, so when comparing groups, he could say he had a daughter, and at a time like this, naturally, he could also say he didn’t. It all depended on whichever was more advantageous.
“…”
Charlotte Linlin was even more speechless. She merely looked at Yamato with a somewhat unwilling look in her eyes, then glared at Perospero and Smoothie, conveying a clear sense of dissatisfaction toward them.
“You’ve all seen it. I have the strongest successor, the largest military force, and the most sufficient logistics. So I’m the leader of this alliance. Any objections?”
Kaido’s pupils narrowed. Along with electric currents appearing out of thin air in the air, a terrifying aura surged skyward. His powerful Conqueror’s Haki nearly condensed into a tangible entity, coiling behind him like a demonic dragon.
For people like them, this clearly didn’t count as fighting, it was merely a way of greeting each other. But as Kaido’s Conqueror’s Haki swept across the area, two other auras rose in succession.
“Kaido, although I agree to let you take the lead, that doesn’t mean I’m letting you act as captain.”
Red Hair’s Haki did not fall behind, quickly securing its place in the clash, while Charlotte Linlin’s Conqueror’s Haki followed close behind and swept out as well.
The collision of the three Haki generated a violent current of air, and the pirates who had followed their respective captains to this island gradually began losing consciousness one after another.
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