Shakuyaku

Slim and tall, Shakky keeps her black hair short with two tufts jutting upward above a squared jaw, and she looks remarkably young for her age, nearly always holding a cigarette. Her go-to outfit is a pink V-neck top stamped with a black spider that bares her midriff, layered under a black jacket whose pink-striped sleeves finish in wing-like cuffs; she rounds it off with a beaded yellow necklace, giraffe-patterned trousers, a belt knotted with a white cardigan, and painted nails.

Her looks have barely shifted over the decades. Twenty-two years back she dressed much the same in a skimpier top and short pants, minus the necklace and jacket. In her prime she was called the loveliest woman alive, her jaw rounder and her hair longer past the shoulders, so striking that Gol D. Roger and his men even tried to haul her aboard their crew. Once she became empress she wore the Kuja's dark V-neck blouse, a loose sarong, a white cape, and a pair of large golden serpent earrings, and on Hachinosu she ran her first bar in a short sleeveless dress and an apron reading SHAKKY.

Shakky is a tireless collector of knowledge, poring over newspapers almost obsessively on the conviction that information equals power, and she was the one who briefed Luffy about the nine other pirates carrying bounties above a hundred million. Sharply perceptive, she pieced together Hancock and Luffy's Impel Down scheme and even sensed Hancock's love for him. She fiercely guards her age, sidestepping Luffy's question while admitting his grandfather had once hunted her, yet she warmed to the boy instantly and openly cheers for him to claim the title of Pirate King, seeing how strongly he mirrors Roger.

A fierce independence marked her younger days, as she refused to belong to any man, Roger included. Even gripped by Love Sickness she would not chase Rayleigh or sign on with his crew, instead posting him a letter daring him to come and claim her. For all her swagger she can crack emotionally, as she did at God Valley when Rayleigh rescued her and she sobbed in his arms over how terrified she had been. She delights in teasing, once convincing Chopper he owed a fortune for cotton candy, and she is notorious for fleecing her customers, sparing only the likes of Hatchan and the Straw Hats. She likewise respects fighters disciplined enough to steer clear of needless clashes, the very reason she leaned toward Luffy rather than the recklessly violent Eustass Kid.

Shakky once served the Kuja Pirates as first mate to the empress Gloriosa before inheriting both the captaincy and the throne, roles she eventually handed off to Tritoma and Boa Hancock. Roughly forty-four years ago, when the Roger Pirates attacked, her beauty left Roger and Gaban powerless, allowing her to flatten nearly the entire crew until Garp's sudden assault forced a retreat and Gloriosa succumbed to Love Sickness. Shakky then claimed the throne, her fame climbing higher. In time she too caught Love Sickness over Rayleigh and gave up piracy to open a bar, settling on Hachinosu, where every pirate, the Rocks Pirates and Roger among them, fell smitten and helped her set up her celebrated rip-off bar.

Thirty-nine years ago she was abducted, almost surely by World Government agents, and a year later was displayed at God Valley as the ultimate reward of that year's Native Hunting Competition, squabbled over by Figarland Garling and Shepherd Sommers. Her power let her hold off the Marines guarding her until the Rocks and Roger Pirates bore down from both flanks. An enraged Sommers wounded her and prepared to take her life, but Rayleigh cut him down at the last moment; she collapsed into his arms in tears, and the rescue sealed their bond. She wed him afterward, and over the years that followed she, Rayleigh, and Gloriosa sheltered the Gorgon Sisters on Sabaody after their flight from the World Nobles.

By the present she stands as Rayleigh's wife and business partner in an open marriage, untroubled when he vanishes because she trusts his capabilities. When Hatchan brought the Straw Hats to her bar, she filled Luffy in on the other rising rookies and steered them toward Sabaody Park to find Rayleigh. After Kuma scattered the crew, she rightly reckoned that surviving an admiral was a slim hope and that the era itself was turning. Following the war she advised Rayleigh that Hancock would conceal Luffy on Amazon Lily, and she later helped arrange the crew's reunion through Rayleigh's Vivre Card. In the Final Saga she joined talks about the Marines' new Seraphim weapons and gently laid a blanket over a sleeping Rayleigh as Vegapunk's broadcast drew to a close.