Chapter 1120

Set roughly twenty-six years before the current events, the opening flashback takes place on Punk Hazard. There, Clover approaches Dr. Vegapunk to recruit him into the circle of scholars pursuing the forbidden era. The offer is declined; Vegapunk answers that his loyalty now lies with the World Government, and he explains that Clover has stayed alive through his many arrests only because the authorities want to use him as a trail leading to the rest of his colleagues so all of them can be eliminated at once.

Clover then unburdens a long-kept secret. Clover, who was actually born Claíomh D. Clover, once had an older sibling openly carrying that same initial, and that sibling was executed over it. Survival came only by disowning the connection. Because a person should never perish simply over the letters in their name, Clover has thrown himself into digging up the world's buried truth. Vegapunk again refuses to take part, yet he pledges to say nothing of the confession and offers his friend good fortune. Clover swears that the planet's great mystery will yield to him someday.

Four years afterward, news of Ohara's Buster Call reaches the scientist. Caesar Clown greets the report gleefully, convinced it will terrify anyone tempted to probe the Void Century. Vegapunk later walks the scorched island in tears and asks the memory of his friend why, this once, he did not flee as he always had, and why he judged his research worth more than his life. Returning to the present, the broadcast finds Vegapunk quoting Clover on how the voices of the fallen would eventually be heard, noting that the victors author history while the defeated slip away unrecorded, and yet those voices have at last carried across the world.

Back on the Thousand Sunny, Zoro calls for immediate liftoff, but Lilith cautions that the vessel will never make open sea if Nusjuro so much as nudges its ascent. Without warning, Atlas rushes over, knocks Lilith cold, and cuts her tie to Punk Records, an act that convinces York she has perished. Handing the unconscious satellite to the crew, Atlas streaks toward Nusjuro, catches hold of him at the cost of her left arm, and drags him off as the ship at last unleashes a Coup de Burst and climbs into the sky.

Below, Luffy grins to see Emet stir, and the giant robot rejoices at the return of the one it calls Joy Boy, growing testy whenever Luffy mistakes its meaning. Emet urges the boy onward while it stalls the Five Elders, since Warcury and Peter grasp that halting the broadcast now demands the machine's complete ruin. Only Luffy catches Emet's words, delivered through the Voice of All Things. Peter charges and bites off Emet's arm after its weapon jams, and Saturn springs onto the Giant Warrior Pirates' vessel. In the air, Atlas answers Nusjuro's disbelief by saying she is merely doing her job, then detonates as the crew mourns and York cheers his supposed sole survival.

Professor Clover is confirmed as Clou D. Clover, placing both him and his slain brother among the earliest bearers of the initial D. By silencing Lilith before her own sacrifice, Atlas keeps her hidden from York, who mistakenly counts himself the last of the Vegapunks. Emet is shown reaching Luffy alone by way of the Voice of All Things and refers to him as Joy Boy, an identity Luffy still does not understand. In the final pages the broadcast discloses to everyone that the pirate king was born Gol D. Roger, and it credits his crew with hearing the purest voices of the ancient past.