Kaidō and Orochi each got exactly what was coming to them after what they did to Kozuki Oden. The late shogun should finally be able to rest easy.
One Piece’s Kaidō and Orochi did some awful things during their takeover of Wano. Not only did they ravage the land and break the spirits of many of its citizens, but they humiliated and killed its greatest warriors, including Kozuki Oden. In fact, they made an especially big display of killing Wano’s shogun by boiling him alive in oil for an hour and then shooting him in the head.
Fate had its way of paying these two back for their transgressions. Not only were they overthrown 20 years later, just as Oden predicted, but they each suffered defeats befitting the punishment they bestowed upon him. They received the ideal comeuppance for cooking a national hero alive.
To really get a feeling for how gratifying what happened to them was, here’s a look back at exactly what happened to Oden. He and his retainers were originally sentenced to be boiled until dead. However, he made a deal that if they could somehow last an hour in the oil, they could go free. Thus, he spent an hour in searing pain while also holding his retainers over his head to guarantee their survival. By the end, not only was his bottom half cooked beyond repair, but Orochi went back on his word to spare his retainers; on top of that, Kaidō shot him in the head as an act of mercy. This was all after they made him dance in the streets for five years and promised to leave Wano if he did. Everything these two did to the former shogun was done to hurt and humiliate him.
The first one to receive his comeuppance was Orochi. Originally, he lied, cheated, and betrayed countless people to steal the title of shogun. Once he got what he wanted, he spent the next 20 years hiding behind the overwhelming might of Kaidō and the Beast Pirates. Not even the tragedy of the Kurozumi family can justify all of this.
He was paid back all throughout the Raid on Onigashima. Getting beheaded seven times over was a good start, but what was really poetic about his defeat was what happened to him in Chapter 1044, “Warrior of Liberation.” As he was begging for mercy from Hiyori, Kanjūrō’s Kazenbō arrived, and he ordered it to kill her. However, the fire spirit instead went to him and set him ablaze. He spent the remainder of his time slowly burning to death.
There’s more to Orochi’s end, but only after Kaidō’s fate was revealed in Chapter 1050, “Honor.” Following the last chapter, “The World That Should Be,” he was punched into the ground so hard by Luffy that he ended up in a pool of magma deep below Wano. This triggered an underwater volcanic eruption that he was presumably caught in. This is arguably a little more than what Oden had to go through, but Kaidō was an Emperor, so he needed something at least this big to happen to him.
Orochi’s absolute final moments were revealed in Chapter 1057, “The End.” Despite still burning and being beheaded for the eighth and final time by Denjiro, he still had the strength left to tell Hiyori that the Kurozumi Family would continue to curse Wano. In response to this, Hiyori claimed that Kurozumi was born to burn. With this, Orochi was completely engulfed by the flames and died filled with regret.
Hiyori’s line has several layers of meaning to it. For one thing, it’s a play on words as kurozumi (くろずみ, 黒炭,) roughly translates to “Black Charcoal,” which is, in fact, made to be burned. It’s also a twist on Oden’s final words, in which he stated that oden (おでん, 御田) was meant to boil. As for the potential implications of persecuting the Kurozumi Family, which is what led Orochi and Kanjūrō to do what they did in the first place, that’s a discussion for another time.
By the end of the Raid, both Kaidō and Orochi were cooked alive, just like Oden. This alone isn’t enough to make up for what they did to Wano, but at least the besmirched shogun’s soul should finally be able to rest easy. If either of them ended up a little overcooked, that would be far from a bad thing.
