The air over Whole Cake Island was saturated with sweetness so thick it almost felt viscous.
Every breath carried the toasted aroma of biscuits, cream, chocolate, and sugar, while singing flowers and animated confectionery filled the roads leading toward Whole Cake Chateau.
Kaido hated nearly all of it.
Hassaikai rested across his shoulder as he strode through the castle, each heavy step making the biscuit flooring crack beneath his sandals.
King followed several paces behind, the crimson flame burning steadily at his back.
This meeting was not spontaneous.
Perospero had already exchanged several messages with the Beasts Pirates after Katakuri warned that the accelerating Reverie crisis, Zaraki's presence on Fish-Man Island, and unusual Government movements around the Red Line suggested a much larger upheaval was coming.
At the time, Linlin had ordered him to explore whether their previous reluctant cooperation could become something real.
Mary Geoise had settled the question.
Zaraki was no longer attached to the Marines.
He was alive.
And half the sea was suddenly asking whether he intended to build a power of his own.
Kaido entered the throne hall.
Charlotte Linlin sat inside a throne built to accommodate her enormous frame, chewing through a massive slice of cake.
Her right arm ended in the heavy prosthetic Zaraki had forced her to wear, its reinforced fingers tapping against the side of the throne while her left hand shoveled another portion of dessert into her mouth.
The sight of Linlin's prosthetic alone made the purpose of the meeting obvious.
Prometheus and Zeus floated nearby, while Perospero stood to one side with his long tongue curled around a candy cane.
"Mamamama! Kaido!" Linlin swallowed before greeting him properly. "You finally decided talking through a Den Den Mushi was boring?"
Kaido planted Hassaikai against the floor, cracking the biscuit tiles beneath it. "I didn't come here for your sweets."
"No surprise there. You always were a miserable drinking partner." Linlin laughed at his darkening expression, but he let the insult pass.
"You saw Marineford."
Her prosthetic fingers stopped tapping, and the smile left her face. "Of course I did."
For all the humor Linlin usually wrapped around her rage, some things gave her nothing to laugh about
. Zaraki had cut off her right arm, and Kaido had already fought him and withdrawn wounded. Neither needed Morgans to explain what the War Demon could do.
Kaido rested both hands on Hassaikai. "When he belonged to the Marines, at least there was a leash around his neck."
"Not much of one," Linlin said, narrowing her eyes.
"No," he agreed. "But there was still a headquarters, a Fleet Admiral, orders, politics. People he had to answer to. Now there's nothing."
He stepped forward, his gaze hardening. "The brat's already survived both of us separately. He beat Hawkeye, walked into Mary Geoise, killed a Celestial Dragon, and fought one of the Five Elders. He came back alive, and now pirates are talking about gathering beneath him."
Linlin looked down at her prosthetic as its metal fingers slowly curled.
"Mamamama... And you think that if we leave him alone, he'll eventually come after us again."
"I know he will. Last time we met, he practically promised me." A savage grin crossed Kaido's face, his molten-gold eyes brightening at the memory.
That part, at least, he seemed to enjoy.
The grin faded as his hand tightened around Hassaikai. "We've fought him one at a time, and that hasn't solved the problem. So we stop fighting separately."
Perospero watched carefully in the quiet that followed, while King remained silent.
The possibility had already been discussed through intermediaries, but hearing Kaido propose it in person made its scale real: Kaido of the Beasts and Charlotte Linlin, two Emperors formally joining forces.
"Before the brat finishes building whatever he intends to build," Kaido continued, "we crush him."
Linlin stared at him before bursting into laughter, her enormous body shaking.
"Mamamamama! An alliance between us again?"
Kaido's face twitched at her choice of words.
They had once sailed under the same flag with Rocks, and neither remembered those days fondly.
"Fine. I'll make it official." Linlin leaned forward with a sharpening grin, then raised a finger. "But I have conditions."
Kaido looked unsurprised as he told her to name them.
She pointed her prosthetic hand toward him and began with the one subject that immediately drew his brows together.
"First, Yamato. My family still doesn't have Oni blood." Her smile widened. "Bring that troublesome child of yours to the banquet. We'll arrange a marriage with one of mine."
Kaido took a moment to answer.
Yamato willingly obeying a marriage arrangement was about as likely as Hassaikai sprouting wings.
"You can propose it," he said irritably. "I'm not promising that idiot will cooperate."
"Mamamama! Getting the bride to cooperate is part of the fun!" King remained motionless, and Perospero pretended not to have heard her as she raised a second finger.
"If we're announcing an alliance that will shake the world, we're doing it properly. A banquet!" Her eyes lit up, while Kaido already looked tired.
"With the biggest cake Whole Cake Island can produce!"
"No. The banquet happens on Onigashima."
Linlin's face darkened, and Kaido continued before her temper could turn into a hunger tantrum.
"If we're challenging Zaraki directly, he comes to my territory. Five days from now, we announce the alliance there."
She stared at him as a predatory grin spread across his face, then considered the proposal.
Her anger vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared.
"Mamamama! Fine! I'll bring the cake myself!" She slapped her prosthetic hand against the throne, looking delighted with the arrangement.
Kaido looked as though he regretted every decision that had brought him to Whole Cake Island.
"And third..." Linlin raised another finger, her grin growing unsettling as he waited. "If Yamato refuses, you owe me another blood tie between our crews."
Kaido's expression hardened, but she only leaned closer.
"Unless you'd rather give me a few more children yourself."
Perospero's tongue stopped moving.
Beside him, King's visible eye shifted slowly toward Kaido as black lightning crackled around Hassaikai.
"Linlin." Kaido's voice sounded as though it had been dragged through a volcano, which only made her burst out laughing.
"MAMAMAMAMA! Still too easy!" She slapped her knee, apparently unconcerned that he looked ready to end the alliance before it officially existed.
"Kaido-san," King said quietly. He offered nothing more, and nothing more was needed.
Kaido drew a breath and let it out, the black lightning gradually fading from his club.
Linlin was still laughing as she waved her prosthetic hand.
"Fine, fine! If Yamato refuses the marriage, we'll arrange another suitable blood tie between our crews later."
"That I can tolerate," Kaido said through a clenched jaw.
"Mamamama! Then it's settled!" Linlin raised her drink. "Five days, on Onigashima."
Kaido lifted Hassaikai onto his shoulder and turned to leave, having endured quite enough of Whole Cake Island.
At the doorway, however, he stopped and glanced back.
"Oh, Linlin. If we're making this public..." A savage smile spread across his face. "Send the brat an invitation."
Her grin matched his, and her familiar "Mamamama!" mingled with the laughter that rolled from him through the castle.
"WORORORORORO! Let the whole world know." Kaido looked back over his shoulder. "If War Demon wants people to treat him like another Emperor, he can come prove it."