"Nice work... *cough cough*, I mean, what a pity, it looked like Pops was just a tiny bit away from succeeding."
Looking at Kaidou lying on the ground nearby, Yamato instinctively blurted out her true feelings.
If Arceus hadn't been right next to her, Yamato would've been jumping for joy on the spot, but she quickly noticed a problem: Kaidou was injured on the physical level.
No matter how badly she got hurt in the Unova Dragon World, it would only result in mental fatigue—sleep a bit more and she'd be fine again—and she had never once had her actual body get injured.
"Foster Father, is it different for my father?"
"Mm. Over there what's being tempered is your spirit; your father is fighting in a far more real way, and the damage he takes gets fed back to his body. There's just a near-death safeguard slapped on top."
Yamato's situation is virtual reality: even with 100% pain simulation turned on, it's still fake. Kaidou, on the other hand, is the unlucky player trapped inside the virtual reality; if something goes wrong in there, then he himself will have problems too.
"I see.... Oh right, Foster Father, I suddenly remembered I've got stuff to do, see you later."
Yamato suddenly thought of something even scarier. For Kaidou, failure and success didn't make much difference—if he ran into her, she always ended up unlucky. To avoid future risk, she once again chose to bolt.
Theoretically, Kaidou shouldn't be coming after her right after getting beaten up, so she still had time to run.
Yamato moved fast, directly jumping off the edge of the Holy Mountain, using the momentum from her run-up to go into free fall, then forming a membrane of wings out of lightning and ice, starting a wingsuit flight.
Not long after she left, Kaidou, who'd fallen down, also climbed back up.
"Rayquaza's not exactly fond of you. Looks like you picked a really wrong time and node."
"Wugogogo, as long as I can fight, that's enough. There are fewer and fewer who can fight now."
"Heh. Don't come bother me again before you beat that kid."
"You call that a kid....."
A creature that can fly at high speed through the starry sky and snack on meteors is just a kid in Arceus's mouth—but considering the reason Rayquaza shows up and what Arceus is himself, that line isn't really wrong.
Kaido had also noticed another intention of Arceus: now that there's Rayquaza, he seemingly no longer has any excuse to go find Arceus to temper himself.
"That's fine too. Fighting it, I did pick up a bit of technique. I'll digest it first. If it's too frequent, it'd be bad if I piss it off."
Kaido wasn't afraid of Rayquaza going all out; he was afraid of Rayquaza losing its temper and just quitting on him. With Rayquaza's speed, if it doesn't feel like fighting and simply chooses to avoid battle, Kaidou has absolutely no way to do anything.
He needed to find a suitable frequency: not so often that Rayquaza chooses to avoid battle, but still enough for him to get his fights in.
Fresh off the end of a battle, Kaidou thus started a new round of thinking. It was something that consumed mental energy, and coupled with the previous fight making him very pumped up, whenever he ran into that situation, Kaidou really wanted a drink.
Normally when he drank he still kept some sense of measure, but at times like this Kaidou didn't control himself at all, and it didn't take long before he entered a drunken state—which meant Kaidou had entered his random mode.
No one knows where Kaidou in that state will appear, nor what will happen.
...
Boom!
The ground was blasted into a big crater, and Kaidou rubbed his head as he crawled out of it.
"Hic.... Took my eyes off it and drank too much again. Was flying, then just fell... wugogogo, I really am an idiot, huh... heehee.. hic.."
You could tell Kaidou hadn't sobered up completely; strange noises came out of his mouth from time to time, and his hands were moving in very weird ways.
Behind him, a figure was sneaking away on tiptoe. Being noticed by a drunk Kaidou didn't mean anything good, but Kaidou was drunk, not blackout drunk; compared to when he's sober, his vigilance was actually even higher in that state.
"Queen... hic... where do you think you're going?"
Reaching out and grabbing a braid, Kaidou yanked the other man back toward him.
"Big Bro Kaidou, I... I was gonna go get you more booze. You probably haven't drunk to your fill yet, right?"
Right now Queen was feeling a bit of regret about leaving his hair that long, but then he thought about it and realized it didn't make a difference. Kaidou had already dropped right in front of him—whether he had long hair or was bald didn't change a thing.
This was Wano Kuni's laboratory; for Kaidou to drop precisely in front of him, there was no way he'd believe it was an accident.
"Oh? Got good liquor in your lab? But I've already had enough this time... hic.... Queen, let's have a little practice."
"Uh... Big Bro Kaidou, personally I think Miss Yamato is a much more suitable partner. I'll go find her right now!"
"No need. That girl is soaking in the women's bath in the hot springs."
After jumping off the mountain, Yamato had gone straight to the hot springs. Relaxing was one reason; avoiding danger, that was also a great spot.
You can't use that trick all the time, but once in a while it really works miracles—at the very least, it successfully pushed back Kaidou's move and forced him to pick target number two.
Soon, strange noises echoed from outside the lab, and right then a card slipped from Hawkins's hand onto the ground.
"As expected, some things just can't be dodged."
Picking up his Tarot Card, Hawkins lightly wiped the dust off it. Staring at the pattern on the card, Hawkins looked toward where Queen was, and in those dead-fish eyes, a trace of sympathy seemed to appear.
Someone whose fate is this bumpy is rare to see in a lifetime.
...
"Ara ara, does this kind of thing happen a lot? The people around here aren't reacting at all."
Kuzan was dressed just like a vacationing young guy, sunglasses pushed up on his forehead, a sun hat on his head, a parasol slung over his shoulder. The camel behind him was hugging two oversized folding chairs, with a huge picnic backpack strapped on its back.
The commotion Kaidou and Queen had kicked up wasn't small; even from far off you could see the dust clouds over there. Yet the nearby residents acted like they hadn't seen a thing, just going on with their usual daily lives.
The only impact was that a little girl failed to hold onto the Swablu balloon in her hand, but before her tears could fall, Kuzan had already used his height advantage to grab the balloon and help tie a slip knot around her wrist.
"It probably happens every few months or so. But.... running into you here really is unexpected, Admiral Aokiji."
A voice came from behind Kuzan, answering his question, but without much respect in it.
"That's all in the past. At most I'm a former Admiral now. But aren't you the same? A member of the World Government's CP9 defected here too. This place really is a big old mixed bag."
The one answering Kuzan was Who's-Who. CP9's attitude toward the Navy had always been like that: to them, the Navy is just a subordinate force of the World Government. Even though an Admiral represents the Navy's highest combat power, they don't have the authority to directly order CP9 around.
Strength would make them rein in that arrogance, but it wouldn't make them much more respectful. In fact, if someone came bearing a World Government order, their attitude would get even more arrogant.
It's just different now. Whether CP9 or Admiral, both are things of the past.
The place they were in was Wano Kuni, the heartland under Hundred Beasts' control, and all their former identities had become history. Who's-Who had even become Kuzan's senior.
It's just that Who's-Who had always been out on missions, so this was the first time he'd met Kuzan face to face.