Rescue Ace! The New Destination is the Great Prison

Keeping her promise, Hancock offers Luffy a ride to Sabaody aboard the Yuda-towed Kuja ship and asks him to join that evening's feast. At the celebration he eats everything within reach, and the warriors, misjudging their princess's behavior, nearly attack him until a bored Luffy strikes up the song Binks' Sake, dancing about with a pan in one hand and a spoon in the other, which turns the mood to laughter. Having never laid eyes on a man, the women interrogate and poke at him, even setting a price to touch him, until he protests that he is not on display and bolts to Nyon's house with Marguerite. Alone on a balcony, Hancock recalls that Luffy departs the next day, finds herself crying for no reason she can name, drops her glass, and collapses to the floor in pain as her stunned sisters rush to her.

Inside the elder's home, Luffy is taken aback to learn the empress is a Warlord. Nyon recounts that Hancock claimed the rank at eighteen, soon after becoming ruler of the Kuja, having earned a fearsome reputation and a heavy bounty off a single campaign that unsettled both the Marines and the World Government. She accepted the seat only to safeguard her tribe, forging a treaty that keeps the government off their island. Nyon then reads aloud from the newspaper about open war brewing, with the Whitebeard Pirates set against the navy, and chides Luffy for knowing so little before naming the condemned man on death row. Realizing it is his brother Ace, Luffy cuts her off, shocking the elder, and learns that the man responsible for handing Ace over to the navy was Blackbeard.

With the execution only five days away and the trip to Sabaody requiring a week, Luffy concludes that reuniting with his crew first would take far too long, so he chooses to free Ace from the maximum-security prison Impel Down beforehand. Nyon explains that a single path leads to his brother in time: convincing Hancock to heed the Marine summons, since a navy battleship could make the journey. Just as the two of them set out to make the request, a Kuja attendant rushes in to report that the empress has fallen to a deadly illness and lies in great pain. The episode notably opens with no narration, and its preview runs shorter than the usual length.