Uchiha Puppet Master, Starting from One Piece.

"The people of Iwami Village now have to kneel at the village entrance every time they arrive to welcome the Beast Legion. They don't even dare to raise their heads. If they don't kneel fast enough, they will be killed."

Rangiku's pupils contracted slightly.

Bai Yu has also witnessed many cruel things. In the world of Naruto, war, massacre, and hatred are all familiar to him.

But Kaido's behavior of treating humans as mere objects still sent a chill down his spine.

It's not fear.

It's anger.

Onimaru slowly stood up. His body had not fully recovered, and his legs were still trembling slightly, but he stood very straight.

"You said you didn't come to Wano Country to cause trouble."

He looked at Bai Yu: "I believe you. Because if you were truly an enemy, you could kill me right now."

Bai Yu did not deny it.

"But I don't believe you."

Onimaru continued, "Because you are too strong, so strong that it frightens me, so strong that I feel that you are the same kind of person as Kaido, someone who doesn't value the lives of the weak."

Bai Yu looked directly into his eyes.

“If I were that kind of person, you would already be dead.”

Onimaru remained silent for a long time.

Then he nodded.

"So I want to ask you a question."

"ask."

Onimaru took a deep breath, as if he were making a very important decision.

Would you be willing to help us?

Bai Yu did not answer immediately.

One by one, the samurai behind him got up from the ground. They were injured, some bleeding, some possibly with broken bones, but not one of them ran away. They stood behind Onimaru in a crooked line, as if they could be blown over by the wind at any moment, yet they still stood there.

Their eyes were all on Bai Yu.

Those eyes held no pleading, no pleas, only an almost stubborn, humble, yet inextinguishable hope.

Robin walked up to Bai Yu and gently tugged at his sleeve.

"White Feather."

Her voice was soft, but Bai Yu could hear the emotions hidden in it.

She was telling him in her own way: what these people were saying was true, their pain was real, their despair was real, and their hope... was also real.

Bai Yu looked at Artoria.

She didn't speak, but simply nodded slightly.

The Knight Queen's intuition told her that the scars on these warriors were real, the calluses on their hands were real, and the desire for survival in their eyes was real.

Bai Yu then looked at Ranju.

Rangiku sheathed her Zanpakuto at her waist, crossed her arms, tilted her head to look at Shiroha, and wore a half-smile on her lips.

"You are Bai Yu, you are the captain, you decide."

She spoke casually, but Bai Yu noticed that her movement of sheathing her sword was a beat slower than usual. She was hesitating. She had seen too many similar things before, in the Rukongai of Soul Society, on innocent people in the human world, and on ordinary people attacked by Hollows.

Rangiku Matsumoto was never one to pretend not to see.

Finally, Bai Yu looked at Violet.

Violet's gaze swept over the bodies of the warriors, her lips slightly pursed.

"Their physical condition is very poor."

Violet said in a low voice, "It's not just a hormone problem; they've been malnourished for a long time, have many old injuries that haven't been properly treated, and some have already begun to show signs of organ failure."

She looked up at Bai Yu.

"Without treatment, one-third of these people will not survive more than six months."

"Onimaru."

"exist."

"You say you are rebelling against Kaido. Tell me, what have you done, what can you do, and what do you plan to do?"

Onimaru's eyes lit up, but not in a fanatical, unrealistic way; rather, it was the kind of light that comes from someone who has been in darkness for too long and has suddenly seen a glimmer of light.

"We have a base."

He began, "Deep in the mountains northeast of Wano Country, there is an abandoned mine. Kaido's men don't go there because the ore has been mined out, and they think it has no value."

"How many people live in the mine?" Bai Yu asked.

One hundred and seventy-three.

Onimaru said, "Sixty-two of them are children, the youngest being only three years old. Forty-four are elderly people. The rest are people who can fight."

How many weapons do you have?

Onimaru gave a wry smile.

"Seventeen knives, those are the ones you just saw. There are also more than twenty farm tools that have been modified into weapons, such as hoes, sickles, and shovels. There are no guns, no cannons, and no ranged weapons."

Bai Yu frowned slightly.

"How could you possibly defeat Kaido with these weapons?"

A flicker of pain flashed in Onimaru's eyes, but it was quickly replaced by something much stronger.

"We can't win."

He said his voice was very soft, yet it was like a knife, carving each word into the air.

"But we never thought we could win."

Bai Yu looked at him.

"Then what are you doing?"

Onimaru raised his head and looked at the distant sky, which was gray and seemed to be covered by a layer of dark clouds that would never dissipate.

“We are waiting,” he said.

"Wait for what?"

"Waiting for a miracle."

Onimaru's voice echoed across the empty harbor, carrying an indescribable sorrow.

"Wano Country no longer has any samurai. True samurai, those who would draw their swords for their beliefs and dare to die to protect the weak, should have all died long ago."

"The rest either escaped, hid, or knelt before Kaido and became his dogs."

His gaze shifted from Onimaru, sweeping over the ragged samurai behind him, over the path leading to despair, and over the gray sky in the distance.

"But you haven't knelt yet."

Bai Yu said.

Onimaru's lips twitched slightly.

"Because we knelt down."

He began, “We’ve been kneeling for a year and a half. We’ve been kneeling as we watched Kaido’s men kill people in front of us, kneeling as we watched them steal our food, kneeling as we watched them take our wives and daughters away, kneeling as we listened to their cries from afar, and we could do nothing about it.”

"Then one day, I realized that my knees were so badly damaged from kneeling that I could no longer kneel down."

I stood up.

He turned his head and looked at the warriors behind him.

"Then I realized that I wasn't the only one who couldn't kneel down."

The young samurai's tears finally fell, but he didn't wipe them away, letting them slide down the scars on his cheeks.

"I want to live."

He spoke, his voice trembling but firm: "But I don't want to live on my knees anymore."

Bai Yu remained silent for a long time.

He remembered someone.

A man wearing a green bodysuit and sporting a watermelon-shaped haircut was always smiling, always talking about youth, and always running. Even if he fell, he would immediately get up, dust himself off, and keep running.

That man once told him.

"The lotus of Konoha will bloom in the face of adversity."

Bai Yu didn't consider himself a person like Matt Kai. He didn't have that passion to burn himself out to light up others, nor did he have that belief that hard work could create miracles.

But he knew one thing.

Some people are worth taking action against.

"Take me to your base."

Onimaru suddenly raised his head, his eyes filled with disbelief.

"you……"

"Don't get too excited yet."

Bai Yu interrupted him, his tone calm but unquestionable: "I didn't say I would help you fight Kaido. I just want to see where you are and how you fight the man known as the strongest creature."

Onimaru's lips trembled slightly, then he nodded heavily.

"it is good."

He turned to the warriors and said, “Get up, put away your swords, we’re taking our guests back to the mine.”

The warriors looked at each other, then got up one by one.

Their eyes changed; most of their previous hostility and wariness disappeared, replaced by a cautious, expectant look, as if they were afraid of being disappointed.