Roger and Rayleigh

Beyond the auction house, the Heart Pirates fall back, Bepo nimbly thrashing Marines while Jean Bart tears down the bridge in their wake, and Bepo reminds the recruit that his standing sits beneath his own. Law soon catches sight of Kid's crew facing the Kuma figure, which utters Law's name and looses a laser toward him. Jean Bart observes that finding a Warlord this close to Marineford and Mary Geoise comes as little surprise. Across the way, Duval pummels Peterman of the Hound Pets and drops Hatchan, Camie, Rayleigh, and the Straw Hats off outside Shakky's Rip-off Bar.

Stunning the whole crew, Rayleigh discloses that he once held the post of second-in-command and right-hand man aboard the ship captained by Gol D. Roger. He explains that the world had it wrong about Roger's capture, for the Pirate King chose to give himself up rather than being caught. A full four years ahead of his death, Roger discovered a sickness no cure could touch, and Crocus joined the voyage as a physician to watch over his condition. The Straw Hats recognize Crocus as the lighthouse keeper at Twin Capes, and Brook knows him most of all, having left his whale Laboon in the man's care. Rayleigh notes that Crocus signed on chiefly to track down the Rumbar Pirates, Brook's former crew, yet remained three years and earned a place as a genuine shipmate.

Rayleigh paints Roger as someone who relished celebrations and combat, a captain who one day commanded his crew to break apart. A year onward Roger surrendered and met execution in Loguetown, his East Blue birthplace, leaving Rayleigh with a parting vow that he would not die. Intended as a deterrent to pirates across the seas, that public death instead lit the fire of the Great Pirate Age, an era Rayleigh maintains only those living through it could ever bring about. He further reveals that Shanks and Buggy were present in that plaza and had once trained as apprentices on Roger's vessel.

Down at the harbor of Grove 27, news circulates that a Marine warship has appeared, perhaps with an Admiral aboard. While the ship bombards the island, Kizaru arrives riding a cannonball, touches down within the explosion, and places a call through a Den Den Mushi.

The cover depicts Lucci checking out of the hospital and clasping hands with the doctors who saved his life. Brook recalls that Roger was merely a rookie during his own time, half a century earlier. This chapter confirms Rayleigh as the unidentified first mate seen alongside Shanks and Buggy all the way back in Chapter 19, and casts Roger's love of adventure as an unmistakable reflection of Luffy's own nature.