Chapter 1029

When the cook's neck splinters Queen's sword, shock spreads through the surrounding crew, and a debate breaks out over whether Haki was the cause; Queen settles it, confirming the use of Armament. As the cook straightens himself up, the All-Star's mind drifts to an old boast from Judge about crafting people who shrug off harm, mend in moments, hit harder, and carry no feeling whatsoever. Dread takes the cook then, the worry that he is freezing over into something like his kin. Rather than swap further blows, he sprints off the Live Floor to seize a quiet moment and work out the source of the change. Rounds fired during his dash glance off him harmlessly, and the All-Star follows, hungry to see the Raid Suit deployed.

A level beneath them, a headache-wracked Kid sinks to his knees before the Emperor, who hoists Napoleon and Hera for the kill until Law shoves Counter Shock into her face to stall, only for an outraged Prometheus to sweep him clear with Stollen Feuer. The pounding pain, it emerges, springs from the floor above the third: there Hawkins, whose own life he had roped to Kid's via the Wara Wara no Mi, keeps cracking his head on a column so the damage carries over. Deaf to Killer's pleading, and waving off his crew despite the climbing flames, Hawkins is at last met with a decisive answer. Killer shears away the wizard's left arm; since Kid has none on that side, the harm transfers nowhere, and Kid's prosthetic merely clatters loose.

Killer plucks the final straw doll out of the severed limb, the last one Hawkins held, and the binding dissolves. Drawing his Death card in its upright reading, the wizard then conjures a Straw Man and flings it forward, but Zanshu Claw rips the figure to pieces. Consulting his deck for how the war resolves, Hawkins recoils at drawing The Tower, an omen of overturned order and, in its buried meaning, a path breaking open. A burst of Jin Sonic finishes him as the crew roars, and a restored Kid declares his strength has come back. Through the clash Hawkins jeers at the defective SMILE the other man swallowed and dangles surrender, even a word with Kaidou, yet Killer flings his own gamble against the odds right back. PN Arinko's cover request shows Bonney in a soba-slurping match against a few otters.