Seppuku

En route to Wano, Nekomamushi's group halts at the orphan island Whitebeard called home, its minks camped along the shore as warriors among a peaceful people. Now serving as the island's doctor, Marco recounts how Whitebeard, born poor here without ties to the World Government, funneled his pirate earnings back to support it. He broke after Blackbeard took everything, thanking Shanks for burying his captain on this final keepsake, and explains he cannot leave for Wano with Edward Weevil hunting anyone linked to Whitebeard.

Marco entrusts Nekomamushi with a message for Luffy. Elsewhere in Wano, Kin'emon orders Franky, Usopp, Robin, and Zoro to blend in until they can muster support against the Kaidou-aligned shogun Kurozumi Orochi; the three quietly take work as a carpenter, salesman, and geisha. Zoro, posing as a ronin, is seized by the magistrate Toyama Tsujigiro and accused of slaying three men at night and defiling the swordsman Ryuma's grave, his possession of Shusui used as proof. Gleeful at claiming the blade, Tsujigiro orders him to commit seppuku.

This begins both the Wano Country Arc and Saga. Marco resurfaces after the timeskip, Whitebeard is revealed as a New World orphan, and Buckin is confirmed to have sailed with him decades earlier. The Wano shogun is named as Kurozumi Orochi. Zoro, smelling blood on the magistrate, accuses him of the real killings, then swings the seppuku blade through the air, slashing Tsujigiro and the building, stunning the onlookers as he inwardly apologizes to Kin'emon.