The Arena

Marigold and Sandersonia hurry into the palace and demand an explanation, only to freeze when they spot a man standing on Amazon Lily. Their sister tells them the stranger glimpsed her back, a revelation that horrifies the pair. Luffy, for his part, holds only a hazy recollection of the marking he saw and cannot grasp why it carries a death sentence.

Hancock fires her petrifying ray, yet Luffy confuses it with Foxy's slowing beam and braces wrongly. The technique simply fizzles. A second attempt produces an identical outcome, and the Gorgon Sisters trade bewildered looks with their intended victim. Marigold guesses that terror has smothered any lust in him, while Luffy bolts off in a panic, still hunting for the companion he lost. He smashes through a wall and leaps clear, but Hancock refuses to let him flee, knocking him down with Pistol Kiss before ordering the Kuja Pirates to seize him.

Bound with living serpents, Luffy finds himself in an arena ringed by the Gorgon Sisters and the assembled Kuja. When Hancock interrogates him about his arrival and then condemns him, Marguerite steps forward to vouch for his honesty, confessing that she was the one who carried him onto the island. Sweet Pea and Aphelandra add their voices, admitting they mistook the mushroom-covered newcomer for a fellow warrior.

In answer, Hancock walks down into the pit and petrifies the trio, leaving Marguerite, Aphelandra, and Sweet Pea frozen as solid rock. A shocked Luffy demands to know what she has done, and Hancock responds by summoning Bacura, her longtime executioner beast that leaves nothing of its prey behind. The snakes loosen their grip on Luffy as the spectators roar for the creature.

The cover continues the CP9 Independent Report serial, with the agents celebrating their homecoming. Luffy avoids petrification because Hancock's allure has no hold over him, which is why her beam keeps misfiring. The installment also establishes that Sandersonia and Marigold carry Zoan-class fruits letting them take serpentine forms, a power they prepare to unleash by its close.