Nightmare

Worn down by the venom in his veins and the wounds he carries, Luffy buckles to the floor as his foe stands over him and mocks. Should the rookie fail to win this bout, Crocodile sneers, every hardship along his voyage will count for nothing, and he brands the boy a small-fry sailor only recently out on the water. High above Alubarna, the contest for the bomb at the tower's top builds toward its peak as Vivi sprints against a vanishing countdown.

Zoro hurls Chopper and Vivi into the air while the two frontier agents return fire and wound the swordsman further. Briefly shifting into Heavy Point, Chopper throws the princess toward the structure with every ounce of force, then drops back to Brain Point so he can twist past the gunfire above ground. Three seconds remain when Vivi, sailing at the duo, deploys a technique she names the Kujakki String Slasher Runback, weaving past their shots to send both of them tumbling off the platform. One second left, she claws desperately at the fuse as her enemy crows that it is finished. A recollection surfaces of youngsters pleading with a little Vivi to come play, of a guard covering for her, and of Chaka reasoning she had wandered off toward the tower beneath pleasant skies. In the now, Usopp wonders aloud whether the blast was halted. Wielding her Peacock Slashers, she had in fact cut the cord at the very last beat. A faint ticking lingers, though, and Crocodile spells out to Cobra that a sound design leaves nothing unaccounted for: the device also holds its own timer, rigged to go off seconds later on its own should the cord ever be cut, a measure he prepared in advance.

Working together, Zoro and Chopper get Vivi all the way to the tower's crown. She bests both Mr. 7 and the sniper paired with him, then slices the cord with under a second on the clock. It then comes out that the explosive carries a self-firing timer too, a safeguard in case the manual line was tampered with. The cover page belongs to Hatchan's Sea-Floor Stroll, where the Macro Pirates cruise the waves with Camie shut inside a compartment on board.