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The sun shone down on the village as the children played on the streets, painting an optimistic scene that contradicted what their reality was like merely days ago. From going to school by day and being forced to work until they could barely stand by night, to living the kind of life any child should get to live.
Class had just been dismissed for the day, so it would still be a while until their parents—or whoever was their guardian, if they lost their parents—called them for lunch. Regardless, to those kids the idle moment between the end of the school day and lunch was one of their favorite parts of the day.
“Hey, kids!” a voice called in the distance.
The children turned around and grinned, running towards the approaching figure. Although the person coming their way was much, much taller than any of them, none of the kids were afraid of him. It was quite the opposite, in fact.
“Yamato!” one of the younger girls was the first to reach him. “Did you bring the log today, too?”
“Of course I did,” Yamato answered, picking up the little girl in his arms. It didn’t take long until the other children surrounded him. “What would everyone like me to read today?”
“Oden’s adventures in the Sky Island.” The young girl in Yamato’s arms stretched her hands up to the sky.
“Did he write about Whitebeard’s battle against Roger? I want to hear that,” a boy requested, eyes sparkling.
“It’s Oden’s journal,” an older boy intervened. “We should hear about his battle against Roger.”
“He battled Roger too?” the other boy asked.
“Yes, he did! Yamato said so the other day.”
“Alright, guys,” Yamato chimed in, putting down the little girl. “How about I try to read all three things today?”
“That’d be awesome,” a different girl cheered. The other children echoed the same sentiment.
“Let’s go, then.”
Yamato led the kids to the spot where they all had been reuniting for the last few days: a bench under a small cherry tree, which at that time of the day didn’t provide much of a shadow and allowed the man to read comfortably. Deep down, however, he worried that sitting under the sun for long could hurt the kids. Maybe he’d suggest a new location tomorrow.
Two kids sat on the bench, flanking him. The rest sat on the ground and waited for Yamato to start reading as he got hold of the journal, secured by his nio-dasuki. It didn’t take long at all for him to find the exact page—that being the one where Oden’s journey across the Sky Island started—the man knew the document by heart. He cleared his throat and began reading
The children leaned forward, some of them pressing their palms to their cheeks as they listened. As every time he read through Oden’s log, Yamato immersed himself in the text, but now he would look up from time to time to glance at the faces of his fascinated audience.
The day he first came across those kids, Yamato was out to run some errands. One of them, a little boy, came running towards him and requested his help to retrieve a ball that got stuck between two tree branches. Thanks to his extraordinary height, Yamato recovered the ball without breaking a sweat. He gave it back to the young boy and the rest of the children joined in to thank him, striking up a conversation.
Upon learning that the children sometimes got bored after school while waiting for lunch, Yamato asked Momonosuke for permission to borrow his father’s log once again. He intended to read it aloud to the kids in hopes the man’s adventures would entertain and even inspire them, just like they did for him. Of course, Momonosuke had no issue with that. Yamato had kept his father’s journal safe for twenty years, what harm would it do to let him have it for a little while every day?
On the first day, the kids were confused when Yamato introduced himself as Kozuki Oden, even more knowing that Oden had died long ago. A girl asked Yamato if he was Oden’s son. If only, the young man thought while displaying a wistful smile. Yamato answered that no, he isn’t, it’s just he finds Oden’s life so exciting and motivating he wants to emulate him by protecting Wano and traveling the world.
On the second day, Yamato admitted to the kids who his actual father is: Kaido. Some backed up instinctively, others froze in place and stared at him. Yamato sighed and lowered his head, but he was quick to explain he was nothing like his father. In fact, he told them—in his own words—a “cool secret”: he had participated in taking him down.
“Then, you won’t hurt us?” a girl asked.
“He helped us the other day, didn’t he?” an older girl answered. “If he meant harm, he wouldn’t have done that.”
“That’s true…”
Sadly, some of the parents and guardians weren’t as understanding. That same day, they forbid the children from spending time with Yamato and threatened to tell their teachers in hopes they would get him kicked out of the village. Kin’emon, who happened to be within hearing distance of one of those parents as they said such things, didn’t hesitate to tell them they were wrong about Yamato. He explained that the man was an ally to the Kozuki family and scolded them for believing that children are fated to repeat their parents' sins. Yamato never learned about this incident.
A couple of days later, while playing hide-and-seek with his new friends, Yamato came to a realization: the time he had spent with those kids in the past few days reading to them, playing with them, sharing rice balls (and even patching up a couple of scraped knees)... That’s what having a good, normal childhood must be like. Yamato’s was anything but good and normal, always starved, beaten up, being told what to think, what to do, what to strive for. He was aware that all kids in Wano had it just as bad as him and not being able to do anything about it filled his heart with helplessness.
Now, that was a thing of the past. Thanks to Luffy and his friends—among whom Yamato could count himself—Wano was a free land and everyone could finally live life. Children could live the kind of childhood every kid should experience. Yamato himself was getting to experience the kind of childhood he should have lived, although he had to wait twenty years for that. Luckily, as they say, it’s never too late.