Skull and Sakura

Three days after the rescue, Hiriluk discovered his reindeer guest could speak. Asked why it had stayed silent, the animal explained it feared the doctor would come to hate it, since a bullet had answered the last time it spoke. Hiriluk saw no problem with a talking reindeer, and when one of his chemical jars blew up, the two dashed outdoors together. Delighted to find his companion unhurt, the doctor gave him the name Tony Tony Chopper, inspired by the powerful antlers strong enough to fell a tree, and the reindeer took happily to it.

The recollection then shifts to the Levely. As Wapol rode down the mountain plotting fresh decrees, his retainers Chess and Kuromarimo observed that the security captain Dalton had been acting strangely since returning from the summit. Dalton fretted over the widening gulf between the royals and the people, thinking back to Mary Geoise, where King Thalassa Lucas raised an image of Dragon the revolutionary and warned that this man would menace the world within five or six years. Wapol shrugged the caution off, drawing a rebuke for his selfishness from King Nefertari Cobra of Arabasta. After the meeting Wapol struck Cobra's young daughter Vivi under the pretense of an accidental bump. Igaram nearly boiled over, yet Vivi calmed him and shouldered the blame herself, leaving Dalton awed by her poise and ashamed as he later overheard her weeping in private with Igaram.

Back on the island, Hiriluk urged Chopper not to hate the islanders who cast them out, calling their cruelty a sickness of the heart, and told of a thief whose own heart ailment healed at the sight of cherry blossoms. Convinced no disease was beyond curing, Hiriluk vowed to fight every illness beneath his Jolly Roger, which he described as an emblem of faith. The pair labored side by side for a full year, until Chopper was at last well, whereupon Hiriluk fired at him and forced the reindeer back into the wild.

The Levely, a summit of the world's kingdoms convened every four years, is introduced, and among its debated matters is Dragon's emergence alongside the Revolutionary Army. A confrontation between Wapol and Arabasta's delegation sharpens how sourly Dalton now regards the ruler of Drum. Making his first flashback appearance is Nefertari Cobra, the Arabasta king who is also Vivi's father. Hiriluk presents Chopper with a Jolly Roger that carries his hope for the kingdom, and after their year together he drives the reindeer away for its own good.

The cover continues Jango's Dance Paradise, in which Jango reluctantly joins the dance-off on Mirror Ball Island and sets the whole crowd moving. The chapter weaves Chopper's bond with Hiriluk into the wider politics that will doom Drum, and it forms part of the Drum Island Arc.