Chapter 444

Caught between a giant set of lips, the Straw Hats watch the ghost retreat to its home as Robin works out that the island's machinery has clamped onto the Sunny, the destination Brook had been racing toward. Only Luffy is pleased, itching to hunt the phantom down, and Sanji and Robin hand him his treasured pirate lunch. Franky seizes the moment to expand on the Soldier Dock System and what their ship can carry. Opening the second channel produces the Mini Merry II, a shopping craft rebuilt to resemble the old Going Merry, and Nami, Usopp, and Chopper climb aboard while Franky describes the dock's other vessels and its still-empty fourth slot.

The little boat never comes back, and Nami's scream rings out from the island with no way for the others to follow it. On the Sunny the anchor drops by itself and an unseen presence slips through the hatch, pawing at Luffy's face and Zoro's blades while snarling like an animal. It flings Sanji back when he tries to flee, gropes and licks Robin, then shoves the ship away as it departs. Ashore, the boat trio crash-land and run straight into a Cerberus, a creature topped with two canine heads and a fox head that infuriates Chopper. They bolt up a staircase into a forest and, while hiding, meet Hildon, a bat-shaped thing claiming to search for the beast. He offers a carriage ride toward a surgeon's estate, the doctor's name being one Chopper recognizes at once: Hogback.

Franky demonstrates further details of the Sunny's design, and the crew is split when Nami's group vanishes onto Thriller Bark. As with Perona's ghost in earlier chapters, Absalom debuts unannounced here, the Suke Suke no Mi power rendering him invisible while his beast noises and obsession with women hint at his nature. Cerberus and Hildon mark the island's earliest zombies without being labeled as such, the "21" stamped on Hildon teasing something deeper. The Going Merry returns in spirit through the Mini Merry II, and Hogback is named for the very first time.