Chapter 964

Thirty years ago, Whitebeard turned down Oden's request to join, wary that the samurai was not the type to follow another, a flaw he recalled from his own former crew. When the pirates tried to slip away quietly, Oden and Izou stowed aboard by gripping a chain trailing from the ship. Rather than simply refuse, Whitebeard set a wager: endure the chain for three days and Oden could join.

Oden clung on through storms, waves, ravenous fish, and freezing cold, winning over Marco and the crew with his grit, only to lose his grip with ten minutes to spare and drift off. He came ashore on an island where slavers had cornered a woman named Amatsuki Toki, who held them off with her katana while planning to flee into the future. A swollen Oden frightened the gang away, and when their leader Karma returned, Whitebeard appeared to strike him down and finally welcomed Oden aboard, impressed that he had abandoned his ambition to protect her.

Oden, Toki, Izou, and the stowaway minks then voyaged with the Whitebeard Pirates and saw how vast the world truly was. Toki revealed that, though twenty-six, she had been born eight centuries earlier, marking her as a traveler through time. Elsewhere, Shanks and Buggy, already aboard Roger's ship from a young age, read of Oden's recruitment, and Roger himself was intrigued by the idea of a samurai who had escaped Wano, voicing a wish to meet him.