"Kin'emon, Hifumi, will you both stand guard by the doors during…. This…. If anything happens or if they try to escape then-" he goes onto say but I just pated the side of his arm.
"Don't worry Oden, we will keep them both from leaving and we will let you serve justice to them both, but I also have a plan for Orochi as I believe he has already eaten his devil fruit making it much harder to kill him, so…. Serenity." I say to them as they both see a shadowy skull mask appear behind me cloaked in shadows before taking on the form of a dark skin woman with dark blue hair.
"Yes Master?" She asked as she kneeled before me.
"When Oden has given the man Orochi his sentence and taken his life, I want you to poison his body with the most deadly toxin in your arsenal on his body to kill him for good, chopping off his head won't kill him in one attack after all." I say as I look at her as she nods in acknowledgment and then disappears before their eyes.
"…. I didn't know you had such a proficient Kunoichi working for you Hifumi, I didn't even know she was there." Oden said with a bit of surprise in his voice as he saw her just fade away in front of his eyes, something even Raizo can't do and he's the best Shinobi of Oden's Retainers.
"She's not a Kunoichi, they have some set codes of honor, Serenity on the other hand is assassin who will do anything and everything to achieve her mission, and I will say this now, even if you cut off his head, 9 more will grow out as he has eaten a devil fruit that has made him into a snake like beast that would need to be killed several time to do so, but with Serenity you won't need to worry about that as her poisons alone could destroy entire armies if she so chooses, now let's wait for our guests." I say as I stand by the door where Kin'emon followed suit and acted like a guard as well.
Oden deep down didn't want to do this, but he knows what he saw was the truth, so for the first time in awhile, he went and took his seat as Daimyo on a platform that put him above others, something he is known for never doing, this will be a signal to his retainers that will come that what is to happen in here is to be taken with the utmost importance.
Soon enough a few minutes later all of his retainers, excluding Izou and Kiku, entered the room, though they were slightly surprised to see Oden using the Daimyo seat so they began to wonder whats going on to take this visit from the poor man Orochi so seriously.
So they took their positions around the room and before long, the man himself had arrived before he took a seat before Oden below him, not noticing the particularity of him sitting in the Daimyo seat this time.
"Ahh Orochi(16) good to see you again, how is your mother doing? Is her health getting any better?" Oden said showing genuine worry for his subject and his family like the good lord he is.
"Hehe, well Oden-sama my mother is starting to get better, but my father broke his leg when he fell off a roof from an carpentry accident…. And we don't exactly have the money to have the doctor fix his leg after all." Orochi said as he rubbed his hands while laughing a bit ashamed of himself, or at least portraying that.
"Ahh, that's terrible, well I'll give you some money to go get you patched up, Raizo, Doji, Denjiro, go grab the funds for me…. And please take your time…." Oden said to them who agreed and began to leave though I saw Kin'emon whisper, 'Don't return until we call you back' to them.
It made them confused but seeing the situation and the hidden tension in the air the three knew something was up and it was best they come back when their lord calls for them personally, with that said they left and now it was the five of us in the room.
"While we wait for them, how about a drink? Kanjuro, could you poor some sake for Orochi here?" Oden asked and he complied, grabbing a nearby Sake jar and cup before going over and pouring it for Orochi.
Orochi felt the situation was strange, but then again it was probably just Oden being friendly, so he took the Sake and drank it.
*Cough Cough* "This is some strong stuff Oden-sama, it must be great to drink this all the time." Orochi said as he patted his chest as he hasn't really gotten into drinking yet after all.
"Well you could say that, say Orochi I have to ask, if you were wealthy, what would you do with your money? Spend it on women and alcohol? Maybe get into the merchant business and make even more money or maybe…." Said before he drank his sake as well before looking at Orochi with a big smile on his face.
"…. Avenge the Kurozumi family?"
"!!!" (Kanjuro)
"?!?!" (Orochi)
"Wh-what are y-you talking about Oden-sama? The Kurozumi family, I've never heard of them at all!" Orochi said as he began to sweat profusely as his plans that have only as recently as three years have just been set into motion and at this moment might be crumbling apart.
"Well you see Orochi, I always found it odd that your 'family' was always sick, or injured, or both and that you needed money from me to help them out, now maybe you and your family had really bad luck, but just in case I had my personal Shinobi follow you to see what was going on." He said as he gave me a slight glance, so I told Serenity what to do.
Soon enough a black mist appeared near Oden before the form of a skull masked woman appeared.
This person Kanjuro had never seen before and must be some of the most secretive of Shinobi that Oden has, maybe one of the Oniwabanshu directly from the Shogun himself, thus why he wasn't privy to that information.
Oden just turned to Serenity and she nodded, "After following the man Orochi to his home we discovered that it was in a dilapidated shack in the woods where he, an old woman and old man lived." Hearing this Orochi was just drenched with sweat as it was all true.
"Orochi would usually go out and beg several of the lords and nobles for money along with doing odd jobs here and there then taking all the gold and silver he got to that shack, on one occasion we were able to over here them discussing plans, and these plans were-" but Oden stopped her so she stopped talking before disappearing before he went and stood up pulling his swords from his sheathe.
"-to take over the Shogunate of Wano, dispose my father, tarnish my name and most of all ruin the lives of all the people of Wano in the process, now what say you, Kurozumi Orochi, in your defense?" Oden said as he gave him the chance to speak his peace.
Orochi was shaking, sweating, absolutely terrified of what was happening, planning on over throwing the shogunate and having the evidence against him all but sealed his fate.
Not having any other way out of this he turned to his only chance of escape, "Kan-"
*Shwing! Splish!*
"UUGGGGGHHHH!!!!" Kanjuro cried out in pain as he fell to the floor as he lost the ability to stand up as blood could be seen coming out profusely from his ankles and his Achilles tendons were cut clean through.
"Unfortunately for you Kanjuro, they mentioned you as a spy in our fold…. It saddens me dearly that you would betray my trust like this and work with the people who would do everything to bring destruction to Wano." Oden said as he watched me flick off the blood from my blade after using Space cut to instantly close the distance between us two and cut through his tendons like butter.
Orochi was having a mental breakdown completely as he knew his fate was sealed so he grit his teeth and got real angry, "Fine! You want the truth then let me tell you why we're doing all this!"
"If you ask me, every single person in this land is guilty of persecuting the Kurozumi Clan!! I don't care if every last one of them dies!! I wanted to take the shogun's throne to drive this country into ruin!! To complete my vengeance!!"
"Years ago, my grandfather committed a crime and was forced to commit seppuku!! Our clan fell into ruin, and that was one thing! But then the rest of the family left behind was chased and terrorized by strangers who claimed they were performing justice!!"
"They beat us, threw us into the river, killed us!! I was so terrified of the mob of fools that I couldn't sleep!!! The man who committed the crime was long dead at this point!! Apparently, even a child can be a criminal, if he happens to have the name Kurozumi!!!" Said as he shouted out all of his grievances that he had put upon him for all of these years, all the pain and suffering he went through just because he was a Kurozumi.
"I do understand that what happened to your family after your clan fell apart was wrong." I said as I put my foot on Kanjuro's back as I looked at the angry and terrified Kurozumi's.
"But at the same time what happened wasn't the entire population of Wano persecuting you now was it? I was a ragtag group of people who thought they were doing the right thing but in reality we're doing the wrong thing and we're killing innocent people and ruining the lives of you and the rest of your family, but I got to ask you Orochi, do you know what happened to that ragtag group of justice delivers?" I asked him a genuine questioned as saw the look on his face that said it all.
He didn't know, he didn't know what became of them as they stopped chasing him around the age of 8, "What happened was that ragtag group was caught, put to trial for killing innocent people and were promptly executed for their heinous crimes for killing all those innocent people, and that's why Higurashi and Semimaru are just using you to get revenge for the death of their brother as they were also working with him when they plotted to help you become the next shogun because they are too old and must let the younger generation take the reigns of Shogun for the family as they wanted all those years ago." I say which visibly shocks Orochi as what I said makes a lot of sense.
The two oldest members of the Kurozumi family want the younger family member take revenge for their family and take the shogunate for themselves and the only known survivor was none other than Orochi so the choice was obvious as to what they should do with him.
"Oden-sama, what are your orders?" Kin'emon said as he came over and disarmed Kanjuro before tying him up with a rope so he couldn't do anything else.
"…." Oden didn't say anything as the shadows around his eyes darkened make it impossible to see his eyes.
*Shing!*
*Thud!*
With one swift quick movement, Oden cut off Orochi's head without any hesitation at all, even what happened to him was true and the pain that befell him and his family was terrible.
He still planned to overthrow the Shogunate and take it for themselves, a crime punishable by death, so Oden didn't hesitate and killed him in an instant.
Soon enough Serenity reappeared with a blade covered in a blackish blue liquid that she stabbed into the body of Orochi before disappearing once more.
After a few seconds, Orochi's body began to jerk and then, "AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHH!!!! IT HURTS!!! IT HURTS!!! IT HURTS!!! MAKE IT STOP!!!!" Orochi, no longer dead and showing his true monster self as he reformed with 8 more heads in his Zoan form as he squirmed and writhed on the floor in pain as the lethal toxin flowed through his body.
He screamed and cried in pain until his voice gave out only for Oden to then cut off all the remaining heads and after squirming for a few more minutes after losing all his heads his body slowly came to a stop and laid still once and for all.
Kurozumi Orochi, the future Tyrant of Wano, lay dead before Kozuki Oden, his reign that would have come will never be and Wano was saved from a fate it never deserved.
*****
Alright next chapter will be the last one in One Piece, I said he would set up those shops but I didn't realize it would take this long to just get through Wano alone.
So I'm thinking I'll let Archer do all the setting up the shops and give him reign to set them up so as to not bloat this fic with One Piece chapters even if this is his second main world that earns him the most SP he needs and the most savior missions overall.
So yeah I'll see you in the next chap!