Chapter 1185

Taken in by the crown, Brook trained under Candelle, who drilled both swordsmanship and etiquette into the cheeky boy despite his endless pestering for glimpses of women's underwear. He recalls her as a radiant figure of Esperia, including the day a stranded World Noble left her bedridden from exhaustion before Reuven rose to the throne and married her. When Shuri once asked whether he would save her only because she was her parents' child, Brook paused, then answered he would rescue her for who she herself was, a hesitation that briefly stung the princess.

When Shuri turned fifteen, a strange mist blanketed Esperia for half a year, corroding its instruments and thickening into a sickening smog that robbed the kingdom of song and claimed many lives, Candelle among them. Without music the realm could no longer fund the Heavenly Tribute owed to the World Nobles. The Nobles demanded a thousand slaves instead, and Reuven, knowing that fate worse than death, declared war on the World Government with two months before the armada arrived. Brook kept the panicked citizens' spirits up through his songs even as he privately began dreaming of a pirate's life.

The invasion engulfed Esperia in flames, and the badly outnumbered convoy could not hold. Fighting his way to the breached palace, Brook found Shuri standing with demonic features and glowing eyes over Reuven's corpse, the dead king bearing horns and wings. A vast bird-shaped shadow and an unidentified figure looked on as Shuri told a horrified Brook the war was over and he should be glad. The cover request, by reader Masako, shows Hancock practicing her cooking for Luffy.