Chapter 166

The syndicate's meeting is broken up by Mr. 3, who tailed the rest in from Spiders Cafe hoping to earn one more shot at the Straw Hats. The intrusion stuns Crocodile, because ever since that telephone report out of Little Garden he had presumed the whole crew and Vivi were dead, never realizing it was Sanji who picked up and fed him a lie. Mr. 2 vouches that they are alive, having run into them on his own way to the kingdom, and uses his ability to recreate their faces while leaving Sanji out. Armed with those likenesses, the organization sets about arranging ways to block Vivi from ever reaching the rebel leader Koza. Finished with Mr. 3, Crocodile drains him dry and tosses him to his Bananawani instead of offering a second chance.

Mr. 2 confirms the Straw Hats have arrived in the kingdom and puts their faces on display, once more omitting Sanji. Beyond Sanji, Chopper is also kept off the kill list, having been written off as the crew's pet. Crocodile carries out Mr. 3's execution by feeding him to a Bananawani. At the same time the friction between Luffy and Vivi grows fiercer: he brands her naive for hoping nobody has to die, and as the clash boils over he lays out his genuine aim, that he wants her to gamble her friends' lives next to her own so he can bring down Crocodile, the man at the root of the entire crisis.

The cover advances the Jango's Dance Paradise serial into its thirty-first installment, a tearful, manly objection dance, in which Fullbody and his whole squad storm in to protest during Jango's trial. Within the desert-kingdom arc, the chapter spells out Luffy's resolve to go after the mastermind rather than waste effort on the rebels, even as the warlord draws his net tighter.