Chapter 841

Locked away for half a year, the young Sanji eats the elaborate dishes secretly delivered to him whenever his mask is briefly loosened. He remembers his first efforts in the kitchen, slicing his hands open and struggling through rain and a stray dog to bring a homemade plate up to the infirmary for his ailing mother. The dish tasted dreadful, yet she finished every bite gladly and asked him to cook for her once more before she died. That moment cements his dream of becoming a chef.

After his brothers thrash him, Reiju treats his injuries and admits the body alterations stripped the others of compassion but left her untouched. She tells him the Germa Kingdom is preparing to scale the Red Line and pass over to the East Blue. As the fleet storms Cozia, she bends apart the bars of his cage and grants him a single opportunity to run. Judge intercepts him but, privately relieved, permits his son to leave so long as he never bears the Vinsmoke name again. Weeping, Sanji climbs aboard a passing cruise ship. In the present day, eleven hours into the fight, a swollen Luffy keeps swallowing Cracker's Biscuit Soldiers to sap his stamina.

The chapter explains why Sanji aspired to cook, introduces his mother Vinsmoke Sora, and shows how he came to leave the family. His departure followed Germa's climb over the Red Line on its way to the East Blue, made possible by Reiju's assistance and Judge's reluctant consent. The vessel he boards is the Orbit, the very ship later raided by the Cook Pirates that ultimately brings him together with Zeff. Luffy commits to his strategy of exhausting Cracker by consuming the unending biscuit soldiers.

The cover satisfies a fan request featuring goats chewing on Whitebeard's beard. This installment delivers the first appearance of Sanji's mother and dramatizes the boyhood escape that underpins his whole backstory, including the meeting with Zeff that awaits him aboard the Orbit.