The timing was bad, and then it got worse.
Ornn had been back inside Bakura Town for approximately forty seconds — still adjusting the borrowed uniform's collar, still orienting himself toward the tribute cart's last known position — when the procession rounded the corner and he walked directly into its escort.
The cadre at the front was a large man with the particular posture of someone who had been given authority over a small domain and had thoroughly enjoyed the experience. He had a lion — or rather, half of one — protruding from his left side, its head fused to his flank at the hip, its expression independently disgruntled. A Smile Fruit user. Animal-type.
The whip came down before Ornn had time to do anything useful about it.
He took it across the shoulder and made the appropriate sound — a sharp intake of breath, a flinch that was mostly genuine, the instinctive duck of someone whose rank did not permit them to react otherwise.
"Who gave you permission to leave the gate?" The cadre's voice had the flat, practiced authority of a man who asked questions he didn't actually want answered. "Where are the others?"
Ornn kept his head down. From this angle he had a clear view of the lion at the man's waist — its mane, its fixed scowl, the particular quality of a Smile Fruit manifestation that had developed enough personality to be annoying independently of its host.
Holdem, he noted, placing the name against the face. The man who puts pliers to children's faces for entertainment. Currently in charge of Bakura Town's food supply. Six years before Luffy arrives and resolves the situation personally.
The lion at Holdem's waist — Nidai — had a fire ability. And fire abilities, in the context of the Creation Illustrated Book, meant materials.
There was an entry. King of Beasts — Lion King. He'd noted the requirements when he first browsed the Book on Onigashima, filed them away for later, and later had just arrived wearing a uniform he'd taken off an unconscious guard.
Holdem went onto the list. He'd deal with that eventually.
For now, he manufactured a story.
"My lord — a beggar came running through, shouting about gold found out in the wilderness. Everyone just — the whole gate went—"
"Gold." Holdem said it with the contempt of a man who had heard every version of gullibility the world had to offer. "People walk that wilderness every day. If there was gold it would have been found before you were born." He stared at Ornn for a long moment, then appeared to lose interest in pursuing it. "Stay at the gate. Guard it. If anything moves in this town while I'm gone, I will be extremely displeased when I return."
"Understood, my lord."
He kept his head down until Holdem's back was fully turned and the procession had begun moving again — the giant beast hauling the cart, the food piled high, heading toward the road out of town — and then stood up straight.
He looked at the crowd watching the cart go.
Then he looked at the alley where Tama was waiting.
Then he drew the borrowed sword and swept it in a wide, unfriendly arc.
"Nothing to see here. Move along. Eyes forward — unless you'd like to donate yours to the collection."
The crowd dispersed with admirable efficiency.
He caught up with the cart half a li outside town, running at a pace that communicated urgency rather than threat — a guard chasing his commander, not a man with a plan. Holdem heard him coming and turned on the beast's head with the expression of someone who had specifically requested to not be followed.
"You again. What part of stay at the gate was unclear?"
"My lord." Ornn slowed, breathing hard, and produced the Kibi Dango from his pocket the way a man produces something he isn't sure will be well received. "I found this near the gate — it's addressed to you. I thought it might be important."
Holdem stared at the small glowing ball in his outstretched hand.
At twenty meters the skepticism on his face sharpened into something more alert. His hand moved to the mechanical blade at his hip.
At fifteen meters he slapped Nidai's flank.
"Burn him."
The lion's mouth opened.
The fire came out in a column — wide, generous, the kind that didn't leave room for sidesteps. It engulfed Ornn completely, and behind a boulder fifty meters away, Tama made a sound that Yamato's hand cut off before it could develop into anything useful.
The fire burned.
From somewhere inside it, a voice said: "Oh?"
Holdem's expression went through several stages.
An arm emerged from the flames, steady and unhurried, and pushed the Kibi Dango directly into Nidai's open mouth.
The lion's jaw snapped shut on instinct — the biological response of a mouth that had been presented with food and had not consulted the rest of the situation before acting. There was a brief pause.
Then a small, clear voice called out from behind the boulder.
"Nidai."
The effect was immediate and total. Nidai went boneless. His head dropped from aggressive to horizontal in under a second, the mechanical blade Holdem had half-drawn clattering against the cart as his host's posture collapsed in sympathy. The lion rolled — or tried to, constrained by his attachment to Holdem's waist — and made a sound that was considerably more pathetic than anything a lion should produce.
"Master," Nidai said. "Master, master—"
Holdem stared down at his own waist.
The two subordinates beside him stared at Holdem's waist.
Nobody moved for a full two seconds.
Then Yamato came around the boulder with Tama at her side, and Ornn stepped out of the fire — his uniform slightly singed at the edges, which was cosmetic — and each of them addressed one side of the situation. Ornn took the subordinate on the left. Yamato took the one on the right. Neither engagement lasted long enough to be called a fight.
Holdem, with Nidai fully occupied with trying to roll over for a child twenty meters away, found himself without options and sat down on the cart with the expression of a man who intended to have a very serious conversation with whatever decisions had led him here.
The village was quiet when they arrived.
It took two hours to unload what they'd agreed to take — roughly a tenth of the cart's load, selected for variety, a portion of it seed grain set aside specifically. Enough for the village to eat properly for a while. Enough to plant. Enough to begin rebuilding something that had been taken apart piece by piece over twenty years.
Hitetsu stood at the edge of the unloading and said nothing, which Ornn had come to understand meant he was processing something significant and had decided not to do it out loud.
Holdem, under the patient influence of Tama's Kibi Dango, would make four more deliveries over the coming month. After that the effect would fade — but by then the farming would have started, and the food problem, while not solved, would be different in character. Manageable rather than terminal.
One problem off the list. Others remained.
Ornn reached into his coat and took out two letters — written by Hitetsu, sealed, carrying the kind of weight that only existed in letters that had been a long time coming. He handed the one marked for Shutenmaru to Yamato.
She looked at it. Then at him.
"Split up from here?" she said.
"It makes more sense. The Flower Capital is Orochi's territory — his actual base of operation, not an outpost. Taking you in there puts Kaido's search and Orochi's guards in the same place at the same time." He kept his voice even. "Hitetsu will take you to Atamayama. Shutenmaru — his real name is Ashura Doji, one of the nine red scabbards — has been gathering ships in the mountains for years. Damaged, most of them. But that can be fixed."
"And you're going to the Flower Capital alone."
"I'm going to find Kyoshiro." He paused. "His real name is Denjiro — another of the nine, currently running as Orochi's most trusted merchant. He has access to Sake Iron Ore and the funding to move it. Without that, nothing else matters."
Yamato was quiet for a moment. Something moved through her expression — brief, slightly complicated — and then she set it aside with the efficiency of someone who had made a decision and wasn't going to revisit it.
"Both actions succeed," she said, with the unqualified confidence of a statement that was also a promise.
She took the letter. Straightened. Gave him the look she gave things she intended to resolve.
"Don't get caught," she said.
"Same to you."
She grinned — wide and unguarded, the expression she'd been wearing since approximately the moment the chains came off — and went to find Hitetsu.
Ornn stood in the road outside Amigasa Village with the second letter in his coat and the Flower Capital ahead of him somewhere, past Orochi's roads and Orochi's guards and a search that had his partner's face on every public board from here to the coast.
He started walking.