Chapter 208 - Preparation

(A/N: I'm currently doing some small-time skips and I hope you guys don't mind. I'm trying to finish up the story without prolonging it. Hopefully, by 250 chapters it would be done)

The lady that led the way for Ian and co was named Tsuru. She also happened to know Tama from before.

She had pointed them to her shop, and when they finally reached the place, she served them tea and some snacks. She didn't comment about their numbers, nor their races, since they had fishmen and minks among them.

She also didn't mention the food spent on them at all, even with how small of an amount she had.

But Ian being the kind of guy he was, made sure to replenish whatever the lady wasted on them and more. Without her knowing of course.

When she later goes to see her stock, she would be in for a surprise.

Ian knew that the current state of Wano was quite bad, so he didn't want to burden this lady even more. As such he decided to help her.

Another point was that she was in fact the wife of Kin'emon as he remembered.

While they were drinking their tea and eating, Kiku was the one helping Tsuru.

That was someone Ian also knew from the anime. She is one of the nine red scabbards.

Though Ian didn't know why she didn't get ready just yet for the upcoming fight against Kaido…

But if he knew even a bit about her from the anime, he would reckon that she was staying to help the lady Tsuru. But Ian did remark to himself about her strength, she was quite impressive.

Just after they had been planning to leave, Tsuru began to tell them about the history of the town.

Since they had not changed their clothing, she knew they were foreigners. As such she explained to them about the history and why many people they saw on their way were starving and impoverished.

But while explaining there was an attack made on Tsuru, which was then blocked by Zoro.

Bert having taken a liking to the little girl Tama, stopped the sneaking person who tried to kidnap her. Stopped as in he beat him black and blue and threw him into the sky very far away.

Whether he would live after or not, even Ian didn't know…

The other one who attacked Tsuru was taken care of by Zoro with a flying sword attack that threw him after his friend.

Why was he able to catch the guy off guard? Well since Ian made sure the guy was not able to move.

****

This led to the current event where Law joined them as his crew informed him about Ian's arrival.

Since then he had been leading them towards Oden's castle.

And very soon after Ian and co reached the place, but not before Zoro separated from them to fight it out with some beast...

Unlike in the original, Kin'emon had already told everyone from the straw-hats, and law, about their other secrets and them being time travelers.

This left only Ian's crew and Sanji as the ones who didn't know. So this was what Kin'emon did the moment he invited them to the castle.

Right now in the room, there was Law, Kin'emon, Momo, Kiku, and the ones that came with Ian.

And just before Kin'emon started, Zoro rejoined them.

After that Kin'emon started to speak.

"In truth, the five of us- I, Momo, Kiku, Raizo, and Kanjuro the traitor- all came from the land of Wano of 20 years ago, crossing through time to the present land of Wano!!" Kin'emon said and dropped a bomb on them all of a sudden.

Only Ian and Elene knew this. But they still tried to act surprised.

"Is it by a devil fruit?" Ian asked quietly. His face remaining the same apart from raising his eyebrows.

Kin'emon gave a nod.

Robin muttered to herself.

"So there was such a miraculous devil fruit…"

Meanwhile, the rest decided to wait for more details.

Kin'emon then proceeded to explain to them the history of how that happened.

But at one point Ian just stopped him.

"I don't need to know about this Kin'emon. I already know about Oden… the old man Whitebeard did tell me about him many times… As such, I'll step outside for a bit." Ian said.

Kin'emon gave him a nod.

He then got up to leave.

Leaving the rest to listen to Kin'emon.

Ian stood closer to Law as he was near the broken door.

Ian asked him then.

"So what's going on now?" Ian said.

Law brought his eyesight from Kin'emon to Ian, he already heard what was being said.

After all, Kin'emon was only repeating this since he felt he had to do it in person since they were his allies.

"Everyone is ready. A message was spread among the samurais that would be joining us. We will all meet and head out to attack Kaido in Onigashima! I also made sure to spread the message about you fighting Kaido with the stacks of Kaido and Orochi stepping out of Wano as rulers… this has led to Orochi rebelling out and for Kaido to kill him… but by now everyone knows that Kaido and his beast pirates along with everyone that was under Orochi are going to fight a war against you…" Law casually stated.

Ian raised a brow…

He didn't know about this from the anime. He never reached this far, but he decided to just accept it.

"So one enemy was already dealt with? And how could I lead a war against an army?" Ian asked what he felt was important.

Law nodded for the first question.

"The news spread also happened to mention that you are a person on the same level as Kaido… so it was assumed you had an army too…" law spoke up.

Ian laughed at this a bit.

"Such a nice plan you had." Ian shook his head.

"What about swords for the samurais?" Ian asked next. This was important since this was a war and weapons were needed.

"Zoro in his search for his sword that was taken by someone happened to find plenty for us… Along with Momo's sister, Hiyori…" law said and left it at that.

And Ian didn't ask any more about this. Since Law said the swords were enough then it was definitely enough. As for Momo's sister, well that was a good thing.

"How did that happen?" Ian asked.

Law replied.

"She was ordered to die by Orochi, but Zoro saved her… he also got a sword from her, in return for another he owned… The sword, Enma, is said to belong to Oden. And that it managed to wound Kaido once in the past…" law explained. There was a bit of admiration in his tone for the sword.

Ian did in fact notice that one of Zoro's swords was quite strange earlier...

'So it was a new one he got? Interesting.' Ian thought.

Law then continued on.

"A huge number of allies have also been recruited in the form of prisoners from Udon under Kawamatsu who is a red scabbard... And we also got a recording of Orochi boasting about how they framed Oden and manipulated him by Nami… just like you requested…" Law told Ian.

"However… even so, we still remain outnumbered. We are just a bit more than 4000 persons as opposed to Kaido's troops reaching near 30,000!" Law concluded his report to Ian of everything that they did so far.

"What about the sh.i.p.s?" Ian asked.

"It was taken care of by Franky. Right now all that is left is for us to follow after our allies for the raid against Onigashima! The meeting place was already decided, and only we are left." Law replied.

Ian gave a nod.

It appeared that everything was ready for the final battle.

Somehow Ian knew that this upcoming battle was in no way going to be as easy as he first anticipated. But it did not scare him or anything. Rather Ian was even more excited about this.

He looked at the sky and grinned.

'I can't wait for everything to start…'