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Yamato is five when he first asks.
"Who is my mom? Where is she?"
Kaido's eyes flash with anger and there's a moment of fear as Yamato braces himself for a hit. His father never holds back, not for any man—or child.
When the tension releases from Kaido’s shoulders, Yamato relaxes as well, happy to have escaped punishment this time before his father’s hand pulls him gently closer.
“You have no mother, I formed you from clay myself; you are mine and mine alone. I will shape you into a great man, you’ll see.” A large hand claps his back as Kaido smiles down at him, rare to see and Yamato can’t help but smile back. In this, his father has never wavered, has never questioned.
Yamato is his son and that’s all there is to it.
Still, as Kaido walks away the smile drops from Yamato’s face as he thinks it over. Yours? he wonders. But what about me?
Yamato is eight when he first overhears.
“Surprising how much the kid looks like that woman. Her coloring and everything. Got her ideas too!” Queen complains loudly as King hums with disinterest. Yamato freezes, no longer content on just passing by and ignoring whatever they were discussing.
Instead, he bursts into the room, chest heaving as Queen lets out a high-pitched scream.
“You knew my mother?!”
Queen recovers quickly. “Of course we did! We’ve been with Kaido the longest and—”
“My father didn’t make me himself?!” Yamato interrupts. The following silence feels judgmental as the two men stare at him with disbelief and he bristles with anger. Kaido had lied.
“I don’t believe Kaido-san wishes us to discuss this,” King says at last. “We should drop it.”
“But I—” Yamato begins.
“The subject is closed,” King speaks over his objections, the weight of his words a physical thing as Yamato can feel his heart breaking.
Yamato is twelve when he first gives up.
Trying to get information from Queen is like trying to dig for pearls—with Yamato’s devil fruit it’s impossible.
The All-Star likes to tease him with barely-there scraps of information. Comparatively, King is a wall, never giving into Yamato for a second. Queen at least seemed like he might tell him something .
That hope has been dashed again, and again, and again over the years.
Until Yamato can’t take it anymore and gives up—he stops asking.
Wherever she is, he hopes his mother isn’t disappointed in him.
(He doesn't bother to try to comfort himself with meaningless platitudes. His mother is dead; no one leaves this island and lives to tell the tale, not anymore.
Yamato ignores the grief that wells up inside that perhaps he'll never make it out alive either.)
The only piece of information that may have been a little helpful is a sneer about Yamato’s blood being from this country.
From then on, he tirelessly searches for any hint in the faces of the people from Wano. Looks for his white hair and the exact hue of yellow eyes. Maybe, just maybe, he can find his family.
More family than he has anyway.
Yamato dreams of it, sometimes. A family that actually loves him, that takes care of him. Their faces are blurry to him, but they’re smaller than his father, and all have Yamato’s same shade of hair. Perhaps with different colored tips. They pet his head and tell him kind things.
It’s what he clings to before he goes to bed, cold and alone, the chains from his shackles clinking in his ears.
Yamato is seventeen when he first lets go.
He stops looking for himself in every face from Wano, striving for a connection.
Every piece of himself that looks nothing like Kaido he revels in. Finds joy in seeing the differences between himself and the one blood relative he can compare himself to.
Some things are similar. Although he tried others, Kaido’s weapon always felt the best in his hands.
He lets that go too.
Now, there is only gratitude every time he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Everything about himself is different from his father. If Kaido himself wasn’t so adamant about their relation, Yamato doubts anyone would believe they were father and son. He takes comfort in that.
He will let Oden’s words be his guide. He will become a great man like Oden and be nothing like his father.
Yamato will be only himself, shaped by his very own hands into the person he wishes to be.