Declaration of War

Marines pick through the ruins of Ohara and find no survivors, only a lake brimming with rescued books. Spandine studies a wanted poster and confirms the face as Robin, who boarded a passenger ship far to the northeast and slipped away. He recalls his helm freezing as he tried to pursue her, and Kuzan concludes that Saul let her live with his dying act. A bounty of seventy-nine million is placed on an eight-year-old able to read the Poneglyphs, and a dedicated Marine unit is tasked with the hunt.

The flashback then traces her years of flight. An old woman she stayed with sells her out for the reward, a couple takes her in only to question the danger she brings, and a pirate group hands her over the moment Marines appear. Barred even from entering shops, she keeps searching for Poneglyphs as she runs. By sixteen she has spent eight years fleeing and grown accustomed to betrayal, until she finally crosses paths with Crocodile.

The flashback ends. In the present, Robin warns Spandam about the destructive power of the Buster Call, but he waves it off. She admits she longs to remain with the Straw Hats yet fears an enemy she can never escape, and dreads that in time they too will betray her. Spandam mocks her as an unwanted burden and gestures to the World Government banner above. Luffy responds by ordering Sogeking to fire on the flag, and the sniper burns it to cinders.

Enies Lobby reels in horror, recognizing the act as a declaration of war against the entire World Government. Luffy shouts that it does not matter and tells Robin to say what she truly wants. The crew waits as she struggles with the one demand she never dared make, then cries out that she wants to live and to be carried back out to sea alongside them. The Franky Family and Galley-La workers begin lowering the bridge to the tower.

The chapter reveals that Robin's seventy-nine million bounty stems from her ability to read Poneglyphs, not from sinking six Marine ships as earlier claimed, and it completes the flashback covering her path from Ohara to Baroque Works. Luffy's order to burn the flag is treated as a formal declaration of war, and the clash with CP9 begins. Trivia notes that the original Jump printing erroneously drew Crocodile with two hands on the cover, later corrected to his hook, and that this is the first chapter where a character appears in both the cover story and the main chapter.