Chapter 643

While the palace guard tangles with the enemy crew, Robin works through Hody's captives, snapping Hammond's spine after he nets her, and the freed slaves turn on their former masters. Brook, having lost track of Zeo, pinpoints the assassin by his own announced technique and runs him through. Zeo beheads the skeleton with a chain, only to watch Brook calmly reattach his skull, explaining that mastery of his soul keeps him alive and that bone cannot be cut. Usopp, dodging Daruma's fiery charge, warns that hidden traps will end the fight in three moves.

The Ammo Knights gain access to the national broadcast and warn everyone that Noah is again bearing down on the island, sparking a mass flight. Static-laced fragments of a conversation between Luffy, Shirahoshi, and the air-tank guards reach listeners across the kingdom. Then Fukaboshi's voice takes over, declaring Hody a monster forged from inherited resentment rather than personal suffering. A flashback shows Hody answering, with a single silent word, that nothing was ever done to him; his hatred springs purely from upbringing and propaganda, leaving him an empty being with neither cause nor will.

The cover continues the From the Decks of the World series with the Saruyama Alliance, still keeping the Hercules beetle Luffy once gave them. Robin's cloning powers are formally named, and she debuts a Double Clutch variant. Brook reveals what he learned during the timeskip about his Devil Fruit, names his Longarm-forged blade Soul Solid, and wreathes it in soul-chilled cold. Mont Blanc Cricket, Masira, Shoujou, and Octopako appear, and Fukaboshi contrasts Hody's manufactured hatred with the real grievances of Tiger and Arlong.