King the Conflagration, who had been standing off to the side like background scenery, instantly sharpened his gaze and cut in coldly.
"From the way you're talking, it sounds like you want to swallow Wano all for yourself."
"What a joke! Do you think we're running a charity here?"
Queen the Plague also blew up. His layers of fat trembled with rage as he shouted,
"We've put down roots in this dump for almost five years! You think we'll just pack up and leave because you say so? Dream on!"
Kaido didn't say a word, nor did he stop his two top officers from venting.
Clearly, he was thinking the same thing.
The reason the Beasts Pirates had come to this godforsaken Wano in the first place was because they'd been sweet-talked into it by that old hag, Kurozumi Higurashi.
At first, Kaido had only wanted a stable base of operations.
But after five years here, he'd completely tasted the sweetness of it.
This place was practically a treasure vault.
Natural choke points that made it easy to defend and hard to attack.
Craftsmen so absurdly skilled it bordered on insanity.
And rare minerals that could be mined endlessly.
Geographically, it let him advance or retreat at will.
The craftsmen and minerals allowed him to mass-produce weapons nonstop—especially those one-of-a-kind Seastone products.
With the Age of Great Pirates turning the seas into a boiling mess of constant warfare, the arms trade was pure, obscene profit.
A literal money-printing machine.
And Seastone goods? A global monopoly. One shop only. No competitors.
Now Tenma wanted to take all of that back with a few casual words.
If Kaido agreed to that, then he'd be the one with something wrong in the head.
To Kaido at this point, Wano's value was ten thousand times greater than his own kid—
…well, not kid. His rebellious daughter.
Still, Kaido was a true warlord. He didn't flip the table on the spot.
He knew Tenma wasn't an idiot.
If he dared to open his mouth and demand Wano outright, then he definitely understood how valuable this land was.
Since he'd called it a "business talk," he must have come prepared.
There was no way this would be a one-sided grab.
If Tenma could offer something even more tempting than the endless profits from weapons and Seastone…
Kaido didn't mind listening.
Tenma calmly squatted down, casually picked up a palm-sized piece of rubble from the ground, and tossed it behind him.
Moa Moa no Mi—activate!
With a low buzz, the stone swelled instantly in the wind, transforming into a massive slab that crashed down with a thunderous boom, dust billowing everywhere.
Tenma sat down squarely on the slab, crossing his legs.
"I know exactly what you can't let go of. Let's be honest."
"The arms trade with Kurozumi Orochi—and the cut from Seastone processing. How much are you taking?"
"Fifty percent."
Kaido replied gruffly, still gripping his massive kanabo.
"That fifty percent brings me tens of billions of berries every year. That's the lifeblood for expanding my Beasts Pirates!"
To be fair, the Beasts Pirates really hadn't been overly greedy here.
Even though Orochi feared Kaido to the bone, Kaido had his own concerns—if the samurai of Wano truly fought to the death, they'd still be a massive headache.
Things might change later—maybe even like in canon, where he planned to install Yamato as a puppet shogun.
But that was later.
Not now.
"The arms business and Seastone processing continue exactly as before."
Tenma raised two fingers, confidence written all over his face.
"I won't take a single berry from that fifty percent. It all stays yours."
"Even your headquarters, Onigashima—you can take it with you if you want."
"On top of that, I'll give you two gifts you absolutely won't be able to refuse."
"Oh?"
Kaido's eyes narrowed slightly. He smelled a big deal.
"Let's hear it."
"First," Tenma said casually,
"I'll give you a Road Poneglyph pointing to Laugh Tale."
His words were explosive.
"There are only four of these in the world. They were the key that let Roger become Pirate King."
"How valuable that is—I don't need to explain."
The moment those words landed, Kaido's massive body visibly trembled.
Even his breathing grew heavier.
If you sailed under the pirate flag, who didn't want to be the one true king?
Who didn't want to find the legendary ONE PIECE?
Especially after Roger's final words before his death—they'd been itching at Kaido's heart for years.
As far as he knew, that complicated old flame of his, Charlotte Linlin, held one Road Poneglyph.
As for the remaining three—who the hell knew where they were?
And yet this Tenma was claiming to have one?!
"And the second?" Kaido pressed urgently.
Tenma's lips curved into a meaningful smile.
"Since you're called the Beasts Pirates, I assume you dream of building an invincible army made entirely of Zoan users, right?"
"If you don't want to rely on luck and chance…"
"I can provide you with animal-type Devil Fruits in bulk."
Kaido's eyes flew wide open, sharp light exploding from his pupils.
"You mean using that freakish technique of yours to steal other people's abilities?"
Hearing that, both Queen and King felt a chill run down their spines.
Queen instinctively shuffled backward several steps, terrified that Tenma might reach for him next.
Tenma shook his head.
Whether Kaido believed him or not, he laid it all out.
"To completely strip a Devil Fruit ability with a hundred-percent success rate, I don't have that medium anymore."
"And I don't have the time to scour the world capturing Zoan users for you."
"Compared to that clumsy method…"
"Wouldn't mass-producing them like canned goods be far better?"
This hit Kaido squarely in a blind spot.
He frowned deeply and barked,
"Stop talking in riddles! How the hell would that work?!"
"Artificial Devil Fruits."
Tenma spoke the words plainly.
"I have the technology to mass-produce artificial Devil Fruits."
"WHAT?!"
Even King—normally icy calm—was openly stunned.
Queen, on the other hand, rolled his eyes as if something clicked in his mind.
"Don't joke with me, Tenma."
Kaido's voice dropped low, heavy with suspicion.
"If it's killing or fighting, I'll believe you. But this is high-tech territory."
"Artificial Devil Fruits? That sounds like something only a god could do."
"You really think I'm the kind of person who jokes about something like this?"
Tenma pointed straight at the thoughtful-looking Queen.
"And besides—judging by that fat bastard's expression, he clearly knows something."
The named Queen instantly exploded.
"Bastard! Who're you calling fat?!"
"This is plump! This is muscle!"
—BAM!
Before he could finish, Kaido casually smashed him into the ground with a backhand punch, like whacking a mole.
"Enough bullshit! Start talking—now!!"
Queen clutched the swelling lump on his head, looking like a three-hundred-kilo child who'd been wronged.
"Boss, I'm not totally sure either!"
"But back when I was with that illegal science research team, I did hear that freak Vegapunk mention something called the Lineage Factor."
"In theory, it is possible to manufacture Devil Fruits…"
"But I was busy obsessing over mechanical augmentation back then! How the hell would I know what they were cooking up?!"
This time, Queen wasn't lying.
Scientists were all lunatics in their own way.
He'd been obsessed with mechanical ascension—biotech simply hadn't been his focus.