“Kaido’s daughter… Your development has exceeded our expectations. Just like your father, you are both extremely dangerous individuals who must be eliminated.”
“Enough! Kaido, Kaido—every single one of you keeps talking about Kaido! Do I not have a name of my own?! I just don’t like being like him, going around looking for people to fight every single day.
If all you remember is the destruction caused by his strength, then today I’ll show you that what you’ve seen is only the tip of the iceberg!”
Once or twice would have been one thing, but being addressed like that by enemies over and over again was something Yamato could not tolerate. Her goal had always been to defeat Kaido and disperse the dark cloud that had loomed over her head since childhood.
Kaido himself had admitted during battle that Yamato had the ability to do so. Although she had previously lowered her own estimate of her chances of victory, that did not mean she had given up on the idea.
The way the Five Elders referred to her was undoubtedly a form of refusal to acknowledge her, constantly treating her as nothing more than an extension of Kaido. That was further crossing her bottom line, and Yamato had long since accumulated plenty of experience dealing with such behavior.
The Beasts Pirates were a pirate crew filled with countless dangerous individuals. Because of Arceus’s existence, the Beasts Pirates had filtered out a large portion of the truly rotten ones, but among those who went out to sea to become pirates, how many were really obedient and well-behaved?
They joined the Beasts Pirates because they admired Kaido’s strength. They joined the Arceus Cult because of their faith in Arceus.
Yamato’s status was beyond question. Having been designated by both sides as the second-generation successor, she was undoubtedly the one who would inherit everything in the future.
But accepting that reality did not mean everyone had been completely convinced. “Young Miss,” “Oni Princess”—all of these titles were inseparable from the identity of Kaido’s daughter.
The titles had not changed now, but the pirates had long since come to sincerely acknowledge her. She had earned all of it through fighting. The pirates on Onigashima had personally witnessed her ability to fight a serious Kaido for days.
If someone was unconvinced, then beat them until they were convinced. Within the overall culture of the Beasts Pirates, only strength could make everyone shut their mouths.
Snowflakes began to drift down inside the ice dome, and the dancing snowflakes even caused Yamato’s figure to start disappearing.
“Extreme Speed: White Dragon Dash!”
Her body turned into an afterimage, and in the blink of an eye, Yamato had already appeared beside Mars. Lightning coiled around her kanabo, and within the fierce Conqueror’s Haki was an indescribable pressure.
Mars raised a leg to kick at Yamato’s incoming kanabo, but a sudden sense of danger flashed through his mind. Between his eyes and his Haki, Mars still chose to trust what his Haki was sensing.
He hurriedly flapped his wings and flew upward, while at the same time thrusting his tail in another direction.
The image of Yamato swinging her club slowly faded away, while Mars’s tail pierced straight through Yamato’s abdomen. Yet the warning from his Observation Haki did not transmit any sense of safety.
There was not just one.
At this moment, he was practically surrounded by Yamato. Countless Yamatos were swinging their kanabo at him from every direction.
“Illusory Ice World: Twelvefold Strike!”
The Yamato pierced by his tail burst into a sky full of ice crystals. In an instant, most of Mars’s body was frozen solid, and only then did Yamato’s true body emerge from within the snowstorm.
Neither the Yamato used as a feint nor the Yamato struck by Mars had been the real Yamato. Mars could foresee one attack and evade two, but this was a limitless chain of attacks.
Those illusory Yamatos were not some kind of Substitute-type move. The extreme cold of the snowy environment, combined with the boost from Extreme Speed, caused her afterimages to condense together with the ice energy in the air, creating the appearance of countless Yamatos.
Every Yamato was part of the attack. It was simply that her speed was too great. Even though it was a chain of consecutive strikes, she produced an effect as though all of them had landed at the same time.
Boom!
Mars’s body slammed into the ice dome in the sky, and the extreme cold spread throughout his entire body in the blink of an eye. As he was completely frozen solid, Mars’s body began falling toward the ground.
However, Yamato knew very well that the battle was not over yet. As he fell, black flames began burning from within the ice, completely engulfing Mars.
Before he could even hit the ground, the surrounding ice was melted away by the black flames. Mars dodged Yamato’s follow-up strike, then spread his wings once more and returned to the sky.
Unlike before, there was now a golden feather on top of his head.
“Very good, Kaido’s daughter. You’ve angered me. Go on, drown in your own desires and disappear.”
The golden feather erupted with dazzling golden light. Mars had not changed the way he addressed her. If Yamato reacted strongly to that title, then all the better.
Emotions were also part of battle. Mars happened to possess the ability to disrupt a person’s emotions, causing them to be swallowed by their own desires and behave abnormally.
Among the feathers of the Itsumade, one was special. Unlike ordinary feathers, this was a golden feather with properties identical to gold. Even for the Itsumade, only one feather per year would undergo such a transformation.
This golden feather could stir up an enemy’s greed. On top of that, the Itsumade itself was a yōkai born from resentment. Greed and resentment together were enough to make an enemy lose their mind, and the more impulsive and mentally fragile someone was, the more strongly they would be affected by this power.
Yamato had grown angry over the way he addressed her, so in Mars’s mind, she had already been labeled as impulsive. And yet, after the golden light flashed, nothing seemed to happen.
[Hmph, what a foolish man. If this girl’s state of mind were that easy to shake, wouldn’t all these years of trials have been for nothing? Zekrom, he’s exactly your ideal type.]
[Ideals are not delusions. He judged the situation based on what he believed to be the truth. It was truth that deceived him.]
The odds of Zekrom and Reshiram not arguing were about the same as Groudon and Kyogre sitting down at the same table for tea. Even when they did not actually fight, they still had to bicker.
The two dragons had originally been watching to see whose power had produced the stronger clone, only to happen upon Mars’s technique. This kind of mental ability was certainly terrifying, but it was completely useless against Yamato.
Besides, the two of them were Legendary Pokémon representing abstract concepts like ideals and truth. Naturally, they looked down even more on tricks like Mars’s.
[Speaking of which, you’re not doing very well. You still haven’t taken down that old man.]
[And you’re strong? The one you’re dealing with couldn’t defeat that old man either, could he? I heard he even got chased around. Rounding things up, that means you’re worse than me.]
Except in very rare situations where the two of them agreed, most of the time they were arguing. Even though those two clones were not being directly controlled by them and merely originated from their powers, Zekrom and Reshiram still wanted to determine a winner.
“So that move of yours was just meant to dazzle people’s eyes?!”
Outside, Yamato had waited for quite a while, yet absolutely nothing happened. Her Observation Haki had not sensed any possible danger either.
“How could you be completely unaffected?! Someone capable of doing something like that shouldn’t be possible…”
For once, a trace of panic appeared in Mars’s eyes, as though he had thought of something unbelievable. However, his body did not stop moving because of it.
Black oil continuously spilled from his mouth. The strange liquid moved as though it were alive, completely wrapping around Mars’s body. As his savage jaws snapped shut, black flames instantly engulfed his entire body.
“Flame Prison Bird!”
“Hmm, now this is a little more interesting. Some of these techniques were originally prepared for my father. I’ll let you experience them first.”
“Chaos must be eradicated. Now there is one more reason why you must be eliminated.”
A new ring of fire appeared behind his burning body, and a fresh surge of power erupted from within Mars, forcibly claiming a corner for itself inside Yamato’s domain of extreme cold.
Itsumade: Awakened State.
The golden feather was one of his hidden techniques, but not the only one. He no longer said anything like “Kaido’s daughter.” Since it had no effect, there was no reason to keep trying. Now he intended to end his opponent using his status and power as a “Warrior God.”
“Awakened, huh? Doesn’t matter. Let me see whether your body is as tough as your mouth!”
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