Chapter 974

The Nine Red Scabbards launch toward Onigashima in the present day. When Kin'emon raises the fear that one among them is a traitor, Kanjuro admits without hesitation that the traitor is himself. Orphaned when his kin were purged, the man was slipped into the Kouzuki by Orochi and handed the shogun every secret Oden's household kept, right down to the current plot. Three Beasts Pirates ships close in, and Kin'emon severs Kanjuro's head, only to learn he struck a flawless living drawing while the true traitor stands on the shore clutching Momonosuke. The Straw Hat, Heart, and Kid crews then crash the scene aboard their vessels.

A flashback shows Denjiro cautioning Hiyori over her charity and readying blood bags to fake her death, sparing her from Orochi's growing fixation. Months earlier, as Kin'emon's party arrived out of the past, Orochi laid out his spy's story for Kaidou. The boy's actor parents had been slain for their Kurozumi ties, and Orochi, Semimaru, and Higurashi drew him in with a Devil Fruit and a command to feign loyalty until death. Money the spy skimmed from Oden's borrowing bankrolled the alliance with Kaidou. In the present, the Scabbards entrust Momonosuke to Shinobu, and while sailing they reason the traitor rides with them, at which point Kanjuro speaks.

Komurasaki's staged death is revealed as Denjiro's handiwork, and Hiyori is shown to already know he moonlights as Ushimitsu Kozo. Kanjuro's supposed clumsiness with a brush was pure pretense, his drawn double melting off the boat as the real man grips Momonosuke onshore. Before he ever seized power, Orochi had swallowed a snake-model fruit, the Hebi Hebi no Mi that grants the Yamata no Orochi form. The repaired Thousand Sunny bursts from the swells, the Polar Tang hoists the Scabbards' boat free, and the Victoria Punk strikes a third enemy ship as Luffy, Law, and Kid commit to open war on the water.