Chapter 1016

Down in the Flower Capital, the Fire Festival is in full swing. Hitetsu walks the young Toko through its meaning, explaining that the blaze honors the departed and that a cloudless sky lets the bonfire reach those watching from above. The child wishes for her late father to glimpse the flames; Hitetsu reassures her that he surely does, keeping watch over the country's future while Onigashima drifts toward the city.

Inside the reception room, CP0 keeps studying the war. Despite Luffy's supposed loss, the alliance refuses to break. A fresh count adds five thousand more downed soldiers across both sides, and as Pleasures and Waiters defect from Queen, the totals shift to twenty thousand for the Beasts Pirates and seven thousand for the alliance. The agents note how each new piece of information keeps tilting the fight.

To Usopp's amazement, his own Clima-Tact now talks. Zeus reveals that once his spirit had drifted free and Hera moved in to devour it, that spirit lodged inside the weapon at the moment Nami stretched it. Stripped of Big Mom's powers, he is now trapped inside, and Nami grudgingly accepts her chatty new partner.

Arriving at the Live Stage with Nami and Tama, Usopp finds Ulti and Bao Huang together. Recovered from Big Mom's blow, Ulti charges, headbutts Usopp flat, and seizes Tama, pinning the Gifters' betrayal and Page One's loss on the child. Zeus elongates the Clima-Tact and grows spikes from it, judging that a single bolt would finish the officer given her ruined insides. To split the two apart, Usopp lets loose Midori Boshi: Sargasso. Nami conjures a cloud, Zeus becomes it, dodges Ulti's leap, then doubles back to strike her down.

Blurting out her shock, Bao Huang accidentally announces Ulti's defeat island-wide, sapping the crew's spirit. Usopp then traps her with Midori Boshi: Devil, leaving Tama free to address the tamed Gifters through her Mary mask.

On the Skull Dome's roof, Kaidou returns in his serpent shape and warns Yamato that breaking the explosive chains will not let him leave Wano. Yamato answers that he means to drive Kaidou off and then sail under Luffy's flag. Switching into his hybrid form, Kaidou hints at a private motive for settling in this land and urges Yamato to yield and accept the title of Shogun. Refusing, Yamato vows to hold the line until Luffy comes back and calls him the man Oden once awaited. The two then clash. This is the 1016th chapter of the manga, part of the Wano Country Arc; its cover request depicts a ninja cat and a ninja Zoro dodging spears within a ceiling crawl space.