Chapter 973

With their lord slain, the Nine Red Scabbards rush to pull his family from a burning Oden Castle, where Kaidou has cornered the boy Momonosuke. Toki channels her power to throw her son twenty years into the future, sending Raizo, Kikunojo, Kanjuro, and Kin'emon along with him, while Hiyori is carried off by Kawamatsu. Toki herself rides out to voice a prophecy before her wounds take her. Rage twists Denjiro past recognition inside a hut, and he steps out reborn as Kyoshiro, climbing to yakuza chief and Orochi's bodyguard. Seven years on he shelters a lost Hiyori and molds her into Komurasaki for the coming reckoning.

A flashback recalls Oden hoisting a young Momonosuke to see the horizon past Wano and schooling him during the Roger voyage. In the present flight, Shinobu delivers the samurai their blades and asks to serve the clan, a choice Kin'emon leaves to her alone. Behind the group, Inuarashi and Nekomamushi trade accusations over which is the traitor and are seized by one of the Numbers, prompting Ashura and Denjiro to double back. On the castle roof, Kaidou lifts Momonosuke by the neck, then hurls him into the flames rather than snuff out the bloodline himself as the Scabbards force their way in.

Once the children are cast forward and Hiyori spirited to safety, Toki reaches Bakura Town to speak her words and collapses, while a shaken Orochi trembles at what she foretells. In the years that follow, Denjiro forms the Kyoshiro Family, ousts Hyougoro from Orochi's side, and robs his master by night as the phantom thief Ushimitsu Kozo. The lasting quarrel between the two minks is rooted here, each faulting the other for Oden's death. Thirteen years before the present, Denjiro recognizes the abandoned Hiyori, assumes Kawamatsu's role as her guardian, and trains her into Komurasaki.