Chapter 1031: Warrior of Science

Sure their captain has buried the Emperor under tons of beams, the watching Beasts Pirates marvel, doubting anyone could endure it. As Kid and Law gasp for breath, Law remarks on how the awakened Jiki Jiki no Mi let Kid turn others magnetic, though Kid clams up about the rest. Then a beam flies off the heap and Big Mom climbs out, casts Soul Pocus, and poses her life-or-oshiruko question. Because so much had been handed around at the party, the nearby crewmen fold under it, and she rips out their souls to forge a new Homie army from the steel. Devouring a year off her own span, she swells further, soul energy pouring from her eyes, and admits the pair have hurt her like no one in decades; Law wants the hidden history, while Kid pledges to topple her whatever it costs.

Threading back into the castle, Yamato ducks into the Cave Chamber and lands amid Drake spurning Apoo's alliance. Drake exposes that the Oto Oto no Mi only catches a target who tracks Apoo's line of sight, but Apoo cites three Numbers at his back just as Yamato crashes in. Apoo pivots, trying to recruit Yamato against Kaidou, and is rebuffed; Drake admits his own defection too. Shoving past toward the weapons room, Yamato draws a chase from Fuga, with Apoo siccing Inbi and Zanki after him.

A floor down, Robin and Brook run from CP0 as the Minks fail to slow the agents; Brook scoops her up and dives off a ledge, and she notes the masked agents rank in a tier of their own before Guernika vanishes with Soru. Over inside the tower housing the Left Brain, Sanji blunders into Black Maria's brothel, where the women turn hostile, blaming him for striking one of them. Sickened, since he had sworn never to harm a woman, he finds the prickling under his skin has stopped by the time Queen catches up. Torn over whether Luffy would want the human cook or a merciless soldier of science, he wrenches the Raid Suit free, stomps it to ruin, and refuses to surrender more of himself to Germa. He then raises Zoro on a snail he had slipped into the swordsman's sash, asking to be cut down should his humanity ever slip away. Zoro consents, and a furious Sanji ignites Hell Memories, setting Queen ablaze.

The color-spread cover lines up famed right-hand men, among them Katakuri, Beckman, Sabo, Marco, King, Shiryu, Rayleigh, Bepo, Killer, and Zoro. Here the main story first names the fruit Kid swallowed, the Jiki Jiki no Mi, a disclosure Oda had called overdue back in SBS Volume 99. The cook's brows have twisted the wrong way, mirroring his siblings, and he appears to slip from sight without the suit. The installment sits within the Wano Country Arc.