Chapter 1097

Eight years after God Valley, a 17-year-old Kuma serves as a pastor in Sorbet, drawing pain from the elderly with his paw powers and earning their devotion. Ginny, now 21, insists he limit the free healings to Sundays and grumbles that the locals treat their church as a clinic. The villagers cannot pay because the Heavenly Tribute is crushing them, and Sorbet's new king Bekori, a tyrant who jails the sick who fall behind, cares more for the Nobles than his own people. At night Kuma absorbs the gathered bubble of sickness into himself, suffering quietly so it will not return to its owners, while a tearful Ginny tends to him.

Five years on, Ginny proposes marriage, but Kuma refuses, secretly fearing his Buccaneer blood will doom her as it doomed his mother. He instead admires Dragon and the spreading Freedom Fighters in the news. Three years later, Kuma attacks Sorbet's soldiers for seizing the people he loves and is branded a traitor, landing him and his protesting friends in prison.

Kuma confirms that any pain his powers expel will eventually rebound to its source unless someone absorbs it. Bekori has split the kingdom in two, a northern realm for those who pay the tribute and a lawless zone for everyone too poor, which provokes Kuma's defiance. The Freedom Fighters then invade Sorbet, depose Bekori, and abolish its slave policy.

Dragon and Ivankov find the imprisoned Kuma and recruit him. After the Ohara Incident, Dragon, Ivankov, and Kuma reshape the Freedom Fighters into the Revolutionary Army, taking mercenary work to fund their growing rebellion. Dragon reveals he once served the Marines but left after finding no justice there, and Kuma pledges his loyalty. Eight further years pass, by which point Ginny has risen to commander of the army's East division, until she is seized by an unknown attacker and Dragon is alerted.

The cover request, by PN Takashi, shows Kuma scooping salmon from a river. The chapter lays out a long stretch of Kuma's youth, from his pastoral work at 17 through his jailing at 25 for resisting the enslavement of his elders. His refusal of Ginny's proposal stems from grief that his mother was enslaved alongside the Buccaneers despite not being one herself. Ginny is established as East Army commander before Belo Betty held the role, and her abduction is placed 14 years before the present timeline.