There may be a higher authority in charge of Wano above both Kaido and Orochi. Most of the reasoning behind this idea is that given the various ways that Oda has built up this arc, it makes little sense for the currently revealed characters to fulfill the hype that has been deeply established.
First order of business is the Lurking Legend and the upcoming war that Oda himself claimed we would see in Wano. So far we have a handful of samurai, the Straw Hats, an army of peon smile users, a few very strong Headliners, 3 Disasters, Kaido and Orochi, and eventually Big Mom and her crew.
Not a bad collection! But Oda claimed this war will make Marineford seem small. Clearly we will need to see some extra attendees in order for this to happen. Now there could be many plausibilities here such as Blackbeard, Mihawk, Shanks, perhaps Fujitora and Ryokugyu, some Revolutionary Army folks… But none of those options would fit the bill of Lurking Legernd. So I suggest that Lurking Legend will be an outsider that has not yet been (obviously) revealed.
Would this necessarily imply that Lurking Legend is directly connected with Wano? Not exactly, but I think Chapter 907 pushes Wano pretty hard. First the call from Big Mom to Kaido sparks the following dialogue between admirals:
So Kizaru, being as humble as ever, upon hearing about Big Mom confronting Kaido first thinks that he himself should go deal with them. Yet, Akainu says to wait due to the unknown military force of Wano samurai.. thus far, we have only seen Shutenmaru alongside Oden’s retainers. Far from a military force scarier than two Yonkou combined. In general, the samurai of Wano have been hyped since Loguetown. Kaido’s military force is all Smile user pirates, not exactly what comes to mind in terms of Wano samurai. The development of the Wano arc so far seems like a few samurai vs. Beasts Pirates, but if all the samurai were AGAINST Kaido, then Akainu’s reservations would not make sense here.
Akainu’s statements here seem to be a STRONG hint that there are further samurai allied with Kaido.
The chapter immediately pans to Garp laughing about the whole matter. Hina mentions that Big Mom and Kaido are related to the real reason Garp is a Hero, and Garp interrupts and starts talking about some legendary Rox (official Viz translation) pirate crew from 40 years ago. Hina then responds:
Hina is informing us that there is a pirate crew in the current world made up of old members of Rox, and that they are growing. How could the existence of such a crew go under the radar? Well, considering the context of this chapter, Wano seems like the perfect place: completely separated from the World Government. Big Mom and Kaido were hinted to be members of this crew twice in this chapter (getting along like old times, according to Big Mom). Since Big Mom has her own regime, it seems that the growing strength Hina is referring to must be related to the Beasts Pirates. Garp is more or less portraying Oda himself in this scene, with his informed sentiment towards the return of these legendary pirates mirroring Oda’s mastermind sentiment regarding the upcoming war.
The Beast Pirates are a strong candidate as members of the current Rox Pirates, who are most likely stationed in Wano. This would make the Rox captain the perfect candidate for Lurking Legend, trumping authority over Kaido.
Now with the Orochi reveal from 929 we see that he also has some beast-related powers (although we do know that he is a sword user due to some Wano children referring to the “Orochi two-sword style”).
What I found interesting and relevant for this theory was his complete fearlessness of the World Government, similar but contrasting Kizaru’s fearlessness of Kaido. He is defending his bravery by having Kaido’s alliance, but we know from Kaido’s introduction that he has been defeated and captured by World Government members many times, not to mention Kizaru’s confidence in his own strength compared to Kaido’s. To me this confidence is further evidence that Orochi has more powers by his side that we are not aware of.
Lastly, I cite this interaction between Hawkins and Luffy:
Just as I was suggesting that Garp was mysteriously playing the role of Oda himself during his conversation with Hina, here Oda is practically laughing at us by mirroring the reader’s hastily confident beliefs through Luffy. What was the purpose of Hawkins’ question? We are already very familiar with Kaido’s existence in Wano, I don’t think it is worthy of Oda’s signature use of “…”
Given Kaido’s recent behavior with Big Mom, Kid’s alliance, and now Okobore Town, I find it hard to believe that Hawkins (or Oda for that matter) would consider Kaido to be working “from the shadows”.
And that’s all! I think there is clearly another power involved here, probably involving more samurai, giving Orochi the confidence (and correct confidence given Akainu’s fear) to resist the World Government. Since we know we are meeting the Lurking Legend soon, I think it is sensible for the Lurking Legend to be the source of this power and most likely the ex-captain of Rox. Basically I think Shiki is the Lurking Legend.
*Theory by Sakkeru
