The Weight of Memory

Bonney turns herself into a weeping child claiming she broke something. A sympathetic Vegapunk approaches to help and calls for medics, but the act is a ruse. Once he is near, Bonney bulks up with a move called Distortion Future and swings a pipe, missing, then connects with Toshi Tsuki despite his pleas. The blow literally knocks Vegapunk's age out of him into drifting shapes, leaving him reduced to an infant. Lifting the helpless scientist, Bonney explains her power on the living is not permanent and demands to know why he stripped Kuma of his personality. Vegapunk answers that the truth would only wound her and that he swore to Kuma to keep the secret. As he speaks, Kuma himself begins scaling the Red Line, blown back by Marine fire yet fighting on.

Bonney refuses to accept that Kuma surrendered his humanity willingly, and Vegapunk says no more. Spotting a door marked with a bear paw, she ages its lock open and finds a giant paw-shaped bubble. This triggers Vegapunk's recollection of telling Kuma about a West Blue scientist's claim that a body loses 21 grams at death, the supposed weight of the soul. Fascinated, Vegapunk had wondered whether memory and imagination also carry mass, and intended to test that idea through the Nikyu Nikyu no Mi, the power Kuma wields to give intangible things physical form and pass them to others. Kuma understood that Vegapunk wanted his memories and refused at first before relenting. Returning to the present, Vegapunk pleads with her to leave the bubble untouched, warning it holds pain fierce enough to kill, but she replies that she knows her father's power well and that these are his memories.

On the Labophase, Nami panics that Lucci breached the facility, though Usopp trusts Zoro and Brook to guard the Sunny even at two against three, until Shaka notes the Seraphim have joined, making it two against seven. Shaka explains the Seraphim can act with limited independence, which is why they back CP0 unbidden, and that the satellites can override them since their authority outranks CP0 and Sentomaru. Edison and Lilith set out to reclaim control, with Sanji and Franky following. Aboard the Sunny, Zoro faces the awakened Kaku, deflecting his Kirimanjaro attack while Brook watches the ship. Lucci orders the Seraphim to wreck Labophase before Vegapunk arrives. Suddenly Stussy sinks her teeth into Kaku's neck, lulling him unconscious, then unfurls bat wings and warns Lucci he is next, revealing herself as a copy of Buckingham Stussy, once a Rocks Pirate, and the earliest clone MADS ever produced successfully.

Bonney catches Vegapunk and reduces him to a child, while Kuma begins climbing the Red Line and fights back against pursuing Marines. Inside the lab, Bonney finds one of Kuma's paw-shaped repulsions and identifies it as the memories belonging to her father, produced by an experiment Vegapunk pressed Kuma to join. Vegapunk tries to stop her, citing his promise, and states Kuma gave up his free will willingly during the Pacifista project.

Zoro's fight with the awakened Kaku continues. The Seraphim join CP0 at Labophase and begin destroying it on Lucci's orders, Shaka explains their limited decision-making, and Lilith and Edison move to seize their authority with Sanji and Franky backing them. Stussy is revealed as a MADS clone of Rocks Pirates member Buckingham Stussy, knocks Kaku out by biting his neck, intends to silence Lucci, and displays bat wings.

The cover continues the Germa 66 serial with MADS beginning an experiment in its twenty-eighth installment. The chapter is part of the Egghead Arc and runs alongside its running Germa 66 side serial.