Meeting

High up in the eighth-floor kitchen of the Chateau, the head cook Streusen pours emotion into supervising the final touches on the marriage cake, likening each ingredient to a facet of life as his staff carry them into place. Along Whole Cake Island's eastern shore, the Sun Pirates order a restless Pekoms to lie still and recover. He presses Aladine on whether Jinbe truly reported Bege's treachery to their captain, and Aladine falsely assures him it was done. Still unconvinced, Pekoms grows agitated as the crew keeps him from slipping out to confirm it himself.

Drawing near the Fire Tank Pirates' base, Luffy asks Sanji what kind of man Bege is and is told to imagine a mafia boss. Vito throws open the entrance, thrilled to greet Sanji again, and Chopper emerges hatless to insist the new arrivals wash up, since Bege will not see them otherwise. Inside the women's bath, Nami shares stories of Lola from Thriller Bark, delighting Chiffon, who thanks her for once saving her twin sister. Carrot listens along eagerly.

Chiffon recounts the marriage scheme: the Elbaph prince Loki, smitten the instant he laid eyes on Lola, offered her his hand, thrilling Big Mom, who hoped to end her feud with the giants and seize their world-renowned military strength. After Lola fled, Big Mom installed Chiffon as a stand-in, but the giants discovered the deception and called off the wedding, leaving relations worse than before. Big Mom then abandoned the giants for gigantification research, and her fury at Lola swelled until her runaway daughter was declared an outlaw across Totto Land, while Chiffon endured savage beatings for the resemblance, leaving wounds that lingered for years. Chiffon no longer counts Big Mom as her mother and felt nothing when Bege told her of the plan to assassinate her.

Three hours and a half before the tea party, Luffy and Brook climb out of the bath and drink milk from a fridge, which mends Luffy's missing tooth and the crack in Brook's skull. In the meeting room, Bege addresses the alliance, suggesting that cutting down the Straw Hats then and there would spare his own men the most trouble, but Sanji notes the plan fails without him alive. Luffy ignores the talk to address the spike-haired figure beside Vito, panicking Caesar Clown, who insists he is the sworn brother of Bege, going by the alias "Gangster" Gastino, before the crew sees through it. After cursing Luffy and Law for his predicament, Caesar is silenced when Bege squeezes his heart.

The cover is a color spread depicting the crew in an American football contest against teams of giant bisons and monkeys, with each jersey number matching a member's birthday. Luffy recognizes someone in a flimsy disguise for the very first time. When Bege demands an answer on the alliance, Luffy first lands a punch on him for shooting Pekoms, igniting a clash between the crews until Jinbe reminds everyone of their common foe. The wedding is set to start in roughly three hours and twenty minutes.