novelnext Chapter 199 The Struggling People
Chapter 199 The Struggling People
Chapter 199 The Struggling People
"We don't want to fight you."
The young samurai finally spoke, his voice very soft, as if he were talking to himself.
"But Mr. Onimaru said—if we don't come, if we don't prove our worth—the remaining old people and children in the village won't survive this winter."
He looked up at Rangiku, his eyes reddening, but he didn't shed a tear.
"We've run out of food. Kaido's men stole the last of our supplies, saying the tax rate will be higher this year. They took the rice, the salted fish, the firewood we need for winter, and even the children's blankets. They say it's tax, but Wano Country no longer has a government, only Kaido's Beasts Army."
The young samurai's voice began to tremble.
"We tried to resist. Three months ago, the village of Iwami in the north organized a 30-man guard team to protect the village. Kaido sent one person, who was just a Devil Fruit user, and he killed all 30 people without leaving a single survivor. The samurai cannot face these Devil Fruit users."
"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 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 have been dead just now."
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 real too.
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 of them 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's worthless."
"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. The rest are those who can fight."
How many weapons do you have?
Onimaru gave a wry smile.
"Seventeen knives, those are the ones you just saw. And over twenty weapons made from modified farm tools, hoes, sickles..."
A shovel. No guns, no cannons, 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.
"So what are you doing?"
Onimaru raised his head and looked at the distant sky, which was gray and hazy, as if it were covered by a layer of dark clouds that would never dissipate.
"We're waiting," he said.
"What are you waiting for?"
"Waiting for a miracle."
Onimaru's voice echoed across the empty harbor, carrying an indescribable sorrow.
"Wano Country no longer has 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 distant, hazy sky.
"But you haven't knelt yet."
Bai Yu said.
Onimaru's lips twitched slightly.
"Because we knelt down."
He began, “We knelt for a year and a half. We knelt and watched Kaido’s men kill people in front of us, we knelt and watched them steal our food, we knelt and watched them take away our wives and daughters, we knelt and listened to their cries from afar, and we could do nothing.”
"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 even in dire straits."
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 what kind of place you are in and what kind of method you are using to 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.
The young warrior walked up to Bai Yu and bowed deeply.
"Thanks."
His voice was muffled, as if squeezed from his chest: "Whether you help us in the end or not—thank you for coming to see us."
Bai Yu looked at him without saying anything, only nodding slightly.
Rangiku walked over to Shiraha and gently nudged him with her shoulder.
"You've softened your heart?"
Bai Yu glanced at her sideways.
"I'm just curious."
"What are you curious about?"
"I'm curious how a rebel group that can't even gather enough weapons has managed to survive under Kaido's nose until today."
Violet walked up from the back of the group, her eyes gleaming slightly, a state she only displayed when using the Gaze-Gaze Fruit's power.
"What they said is true. There are indeed many people in that mine—the elderly, children, the injured, and—"
Her brows furrowed.
"And what?"
"And there's something down in that mine." Violet's expression became somewhat puzzled. "Very, very deep down, there's a very strange—energy. I've never seen anything like it before. It's not a Devil Fruit, nor is it ordinary mineral. Could it be Seastone, representing the sea?"
Bai Yu's eyes narrowed slightly.
"interesting."
The group began moving deeper into Wano Country.
Onimaru led the way, walking quickly, as if afraid that Shiraha might change his mind.
The warriors followed behind, some still bleeding, but none of them cried out in pain.
Shiraha walked in the middle of the group, followed by Artoria, Robin, Rangiku, Unohana, Kanna, and Violet.
As the port receded into the distance, the small boat that was moored became smaller and smaller in sight, finally disappearing into the mist.
The true face of Wano Country begins to unfold before Shiraha and his companions.
It wasn't the beautiful scenery that was celebrated, nor the idyllic countryside depicted in ukiyo-e prints, but a country that had been drained of its lifeblood, was on its last legs, and was struggling on the brink of death.
The farmland along the roadside was overgrown with weeds and no one was cultivating it.
Occasionally, you can see some farmhouses, but most of them are empty, with smashed doors and windows and traces of smoke and fire remaining on the walls.
There was an old man sitting in front of a farmhouse.
The old man was very old; his hair was completely white, and the wrinkles on his face looked as if they had been carved by a knife.
He sat on a dilapidated chair, holding a bundle that had been lying around for who knows how long, staring blankly into the distance.
Onimaru slowed his pace, walked up to the old man, and squatted down.
"Uncle Sato".
The old man's eyes slowly moved, looking at Onimaru, and his lips moved, uttering a hoarse sound.
"Onimaru—you're back—"
Onimaru's face paled slightly.
He didn't answer, but simply shook the old man's hand gently, then stood up and continued walking.
As Bai Yu walked past the old man, the old man suddenly looked up at him.
There was a strange light in those cloudy old eyes.
"Outsider".
The old man's voice was like a withered leaf: "If one day you also have to run away—take those children with you."
"They—are still young—they shouldn't die here—"
Bai Yu paused for a moment.
He didn't turn around.
After walking for more than an hour, the group finally reached the foot of the mountain.
Onimaru pointed to a path almost completely hidden by bushes and said, "It's a forty-minute walk uphill from here."
The path was steep and difficult to walk on, with loose stones and tangled tree roots everywhere.
Bai Yu noticed that this road was not naturally formed, but had been deliberately concealed.
The bushes may look messy, but they cleverly conceal the road markings, making it impossible to tell there's a road from a distance.
"Did you guys do this?" Bai Yu asked.
Onimaru nodded.
"We spend time maintaining this road every day to prevent Kaido's people from finding it. Last winter, a patrol from the Beast Pirates almost found us here. We didn't light a fire to cook for three whole days. Everyone hid in the mine and didn't dare to make a sound. Also, it seems like there's something wrong with the water here."
He spoke very casually, as if he were talking about something very ordinary.
But Bai Yu could imagine that scene.
More than a hundred people, half of whom were children and the elderly, were crammed into an abandoned mine shaft, afraid to speak, afraid to cough, afraid to make any sound, for fear that the slightest noise would bring about their annihilation.
Darkness, cold, fear.
And hunger.
Images of children huddled in the darkness, covering their mouths and afraid to cry flashed through Bai Yu's mind.
His pace quickened without him even realizing it.
Forty minutes later, the team arrived at the mine entrance.