A Fox of a Single Disguise

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A letter tells all. Kawamatsu reads Hiyori's words: "To Kawamatsu. Thank you for everything. I am safe. Hiyori." He refuses the truth at first, whispering, "No..." and then cries out for her: "Princess Hiyori! Princess! My lady!" He searches desperately through Wano, calling "Princess..." and "Princess Hiyori..." until he collapses from exhaustion. Years later, Hiyori is safe among allies, and Kawamatsu's old grief finally has an answer.

In present-day Ringo, Gyukimaru runs through the snow with Zoro pursuing him by following the blood. Hiyori notes that the monk is not carrying a truckload of weapons, judging by the way he is running, and Zoro decides, "Well, I just have to follow the blood, and..." Yet he suddenly stops and says, "Huh?" The trail has led him toward something unexpected in the frozen wilderness.

At Bandit Bridge, Kawamatsu says they should leave the place. Zoro asks whether Kawamatsu thought Gyukimaru had simply been picking off stragglers the whole time, and also asks who that large warrior monk was. Kawamatsu wobbles on his injured footing and says he must focus. Hiyori calls him by name, but he laughs, "Kappappa! Is that so?!" and says he knows no adult that puffs up like a blowfish like that. Still, he admits there are so many things he wants to ask her: "How did you end up here?"

Kawamatsu begins explaining how he arrived in Ringo. After Hiyori left him, he drifted, doing this and that, until his feet eventually carried him there. He says, "If something ever happens to the princess, and I must end my own life, this is the place to do it!" The frosty northern reaches of Wano, Ringo and the neighboring Hakumai, were once ruled by the fierce Shimotsuki clan. Ringo itself became a wasteland under Kaido's wrath, but its daimyo had been Shimotsuki Ushimaru, a master swordsman always accompanied by his pet fox.

Kawamatsu asks whether Hiyori knows Ringo's custom, the Eternal Burial. Hiyori has heard that because it is so cold, bodies left out in coffins stay preserved for hundreds of years. Kawamatsu explains that the markers used for these eternal graves are swords, katanas, and that some of the blades were famed meito. Such was Ringo, the land upon which they now stand. But after the fall, the graves were constantly looted, and a fox barked from the snow as robbers prepared to raid them again.

The fox's name was Onimaru, the beloved companion of the late daimyo of Ringo, Ushimaru Shimotsuki. When grave robbers approached, Onimaru leapt out barking, and Kawamatsu recognized him: "Onimaru?!" The fox snarled, but Kawamatsu said, "I... I have met you once before." The meeting brought together the ruined land's last loyal guardian and the retainer who had lost Hiyori.

For the five years after Ringo fell, Onimaru fought alone against the evils of grave robbers. Kawamatsu is stunned and asks, "Don't tell me... you protected all this by yourself?!" He thinks of the custom: on the day of their birth, the people of Ringo give their children swords, and those swords accompany them through life, one day serving to mark their graves. Seeing Onimaru wounded and loyal, Kawamatsu feeds him and says, "Here! Eat up. You must eat to heal. For if you die, who will protect your master's grave?"

Onimaru continues guarding the graves, barking and growling whenever Kawamatsu approaches the swords. Kawamatsu hushes him and apologizes: "Forgive me. Forgive me! I know!" The fox does not understand yet, and the snowfield fills with the scrape of blades as Kawamatsu begins gathering them anyway. The work looks like theft, but Kawamatsu's guilt shows that he knows exactly whose resting places he is disturbing.

Onimaru bites Kawamatsu, but Kawamatsu pleads for forgiveness and explains the future he sees. "Thirteen years from today a battle will be fought!" he says. He does not wish to disturb the slumber of the dead any more than Onimaru does, but the day will come when the samurai of Wano raise their bowed heads in unison. On that day they must be armed, and they will need countless swords. Kawamatsu believes the dead will allow their blades to be used once more if it means freeing the country.

Kawamatsu imagines the final battle: the samurai will advance with the swords of their fallen comrades in hand, and the souls that live in those blades will steel their hearts and enable them to vanquish their enemies. He says the war between the Hundred Beast Pirates and the people of Wano still rages here. These blades must not yet be put to rest. He cannot afford for them to be pilfered by crooks before the fated day arrives, so he decides that this, at least, is a task to which he can bind himself: "I will collect them all and hide them away!"

Kawamatsu frames the work as penance: "As someone that failed to even protect Princess Hiyori... this, at least, I can do... I must do!" He tells Onimaru to bite off his arm and be done with it if he is truly starving, but he refuses to stop defiling the graves because he has no other choice. If he does not keep his hands busy, the guilt will consume him. Onimaru watches him, and the fox begins to understand that Kawamatsu is not looting for himself.

Kawamatsu and Onimaru dig beneath the graves and hide the blades underground. Onimaru barks as Kawamatsu says, "Let us dig down. We will hide the blades underground." From then on, Kawamatsu survives by borrowing food and selling one or two blades in the capital when he is starving, while Onimaru keeps watch. The work is slow, cold, and painful, but each hidden sword brings the future rebellion closer to being armed.

At some point, circumstances prevent Kawamatsu from returning to Ringo. Before that, he had begun appearing as a warning figure: "I'm Gyukimaru! Of Bandit Bridge!" When grave robbers approach, he drives them off, shouting, "Beyond here lies the heartland of Ringo! You shall not have the treasures of these tombs! Leave your weapons here and begone!" Later, when he goes to the capital to procure food, he is caught as the fried tofu thief. Kawamatsu calls the name Gyukimaru a coincidence, but recognizes that it is interesting and careless of him.

In the present, Hiyori asks whether Kawamatsu is there to see the fox. Kawamatsu says he does not think Onimaru will return after thirteen years; the fox has probably run out of patience with him. Still, if the swords they managed to hide together remain hidden, they will be enough to outfit hundreds of soldiers. Zoro notices that the big guy has vanished, leaving the door open. Kawamatsu says, "This is the passageway to that underground chamber," and the group wonders whether to pursue Gyukimaru or enter the hidden storehouse.

Inside the underground chamber, the scale of Onimaru and Kawamatsu's work becomes clear. Kinemon calls through the snail, and Kawamatsu tells him, "Kawamatsu! I'm so glad you're still alive!" He reports that what happened at Udon has swelled their ranks, but they are struggling to find enough weapons and armor. Kawamatsu answers that Orochi has confiscated all the swords in the country over the last twenty years. Then he reveals the hidden store: no matter how many thousands of men join, each shall be outfitted with a blade. He tells Kinemon to send men to the place he will now describe. Looking at the impossible number of weapons, he realizes this cannot be only a man's work and wonders if Onimaru did it.

Onimaru, wounded and exhausted, slips away through the snow while Kawamatsu and the others remain behind. Zoro still refuses to surrender Shusui, saying, "Zorojuro... if your sword really is the one known as Shusui, please, return it to Wano!" Zoro answers, "Like I've said, it's mine!" Hiyori offers him another blade in exchange: "I shall give you another in return! A sword my late father gave to me. The meitou Enma!" The blade is legendary, said to be the only sword that has ever injured Kaido.

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