Nefertari Cobra

Cobra stood at an average height, his face lined, his beard tied off at its point, and his hair long, curly, and black. His attire combined a green robe edged in yellow, a sash of orange and beige knotted at the waist, a purple coat, dark shoes, and a necklace. The timeskip aged him: a mustache emerged, the beard turned fully gray, and only the crown and back of his hair kept their old black. By then he wore paler robes and a lighter coat, having set the necklace aside.

Spoken of everywhere as a noble, high-charactered leader, Cobra put his people before himself time and again. Even after their rebellion he grasped that it grew from a wish to protect Arabastan lives, and he would have given up his capital rather than watch his subjects die. He thought toward the future and shunned reckless choices, as when Koza pressed him to use Dance Powder against the drought and Cobra answered that hoarding rain other lands needed solved nothing real.

At home a mischievous streak showed, and he once tipped off the Straw Hats about the women's baths so they could peek at Nami and his daughter, then humbly bowed his thanks, joking that without his robes he was simply a grateful father. He raised Vivi with unusual freedom, letting her play with commoner children and call him 'Dad,' though he worried over her endlessly and slipped after her in secret. Charitable by nature, he quietly funded Koza's village from the royal household's own purse. Like others marked by the D., he faced death unafraid, choosing as his final deed to die so a message might reach Luffy and Vivi.

As king of an Arabasta bound to the World Government, Cobra commanded its troops and held a place at the Levely. In youth he was athletic enough to help Igaram brawl with Agotogi's gang by hand, and he was infamous for the King Chop he handed out to ministers who annoyed him. Sickness wore that vigor away, leaving him easily manhandled during Operation Utopia, though he survived hours crucified through the elbows, and he later declined into a wheelchair-bound invalid whose mortality became openly questioned.

After Gol D. Roger's execution, Cobra read the news beside Titi and Igaram and warned that a dreadful age had begun; six years on, Vivi was born. He answered a drought near Koza's village by sheltering its people in Alubarna, and personally downed the last kidnapper who came for Vivi. At a Levely he scolded Wapol for dismissing the danger Dragon posed, after which Wapol struck Vivi to provoke a war that her composure denied.

When Baroque Works staged a false famine, Arabasta turned on Cobra in the belief he had hidden Dance Powder, and Koza swore to seize the rain back by force. He was abducted by Miss Merry Christmas and Mr. 4 while Bon Kurei impersonated the king to ignite the revolt. Crocodile later pinned him to a wall demanding Pluton's whereabouts; led into the royal Tomb of the Kings, he watched Robin pretend the Poneglyph held mere history, toppled a column to wreck the chamber, and saw Luffy at last overcome Crocodile. With Robin's antidote handed to the dying Luffy and his own innocence proven, he urged the nation to unite and move on.

Years later, in failing health, Cobra traveled to Mary Geoise set on putting questions about the Poneglyphs to the World Government. Before the Empty Throne he pressed the Five Elders for the fate of his forebear Nefertari Lili, counted among the founding Twenty, who had vanished after refusing to live as a World Noble, and asked the meaning of the D. Their anger flared, and Imu, who had overheard, openly took the throne. Imu revealed that D. marked the enemy of the World Government, and that Lili had loosed the Poneglyphs upon the world. Realizing he would not leave alive, Cobra confessed her full name as Nefertari D. Lili. Stabbed by a transformed Imu just as Sabo arrived, Cobra spent his last strength covering Sabo's escape, charging him to pass word to Luffy and Vivi that their whole family bore the D. The murder, pinned on the innocent Sabo, helped spark the Eight-Nation Revolution, and his body was laid to rest inside the rebuilt royal tomb.