Luffy's Dream

With Rayleigh and Shakuyaku beside them, Hancock and the Kuja Pirates look back on how they repelled the joint invasion mounted by Blackbeard's crew alongside the Marines. Once Blackbeard had her pinned, Hancock proposed undoing his crew's petrification in exchange for a withdrawal, but he flatly refused and moved to kill her, convinced she would stone everyone the instant his Yami Yami no Mi let her go. Rayleigh then turned up and, wielding Supreme King Haki, cowed Blackbeard into yielding, brokering a deal that drove both factions off the island. Only later does it come out that Blackbeard snatched Koby right after pulling back.

Over at the Kamabakka Kingdom, the Revolutionary Army worries for Sabo after the papers pin Cobra's killing and Vivi's vanishing on him, until a snail call from Sabo proves he is still alive. On the Thousand Sunny, the crew mourns Cobra and dreads for Vivi yet questions Sabo's guilt, since the Revolutionaries have never gone after a king. Most of them want to mount a rescue, though Zoro insists the moment is wrong and that Vivi has to hold on by herself for now. Stretched out on the deck, Luffy turns over the sworn brotherhood he shares with Ace and Sabo, then lays before the crew a goal far beyond the Pirate King's crown, and each member is left stunned in their own fashion.

With this installment, Saiko Totatsuten and Raise close out their run as the opening and ending themes. The anime works in Rayleigh dropping lesser Blackbeard Pirates, Koala and Ivankov reacting to the headlines, and Kuma haltingly trying to speak with Dragon. Tellingly, the episode does not finish on Luffy's familiar vow about the Pirate King but on Momonosuke swearing to one day exceed Oden, and a unique arrangement of We Are! plays across the dream reveal. The entry falls inside the Egghead Arc.