Monsters (one-shot)

A narrator recalls a dragon's horn of marvelous power stolen a decade ago and since forgotten. In a town restaurant, the waitress Flare reunites with the celebrated swordsman Cyrano just as a famished stranger gazes hungrily through the window. Fed by Flare, the samurai Ryuma explains it is his first meal in days and vows a debt to whoever saves his life. When Cyrano's sheath grazes Ryuma's on his way out, the samurai takes deadly offense and demands a duel, halving a copper Buddha in the clash, yet he instantly obeys when Flare orders him to stop.

A barkeep tells Ryuma how a dragon razed Flare's mountain village seven years prior, leaving only her and Cyrano, a tragedy that cemented Cyrano's heroic fame. Out on the street a swordsman named D.R. accuses Ryuma of stabbing him and of stealing the Dragon Horn, then blows the horn to summon a dragon before seemingly dying. The crowd turns on Ryuma, and Flare slaps him as a murderer. Ryuma and Flare soon witness Cyrano and D.R. looting the abandoned town together, revealing the two were partners who framed him and who had staged the original attack.

Learning that Cyrano murdered Flare's father and exploited her for glory, Ryuma confronts the pair, slaying Cyrano in a single stroke and refusing D.R.'s pleas. When the real dragon descends, he leaps from a rooftop and beheads it with one mighty swing. He departs telling Flare she now owes him a meal, and the townsfolk later learn the modest traveler is The King, hailed by those he saved as the greatest swordsman alive. The story became canon as revealed during the Thriller Bark Arc, and its Baratei restaurant nods to a steakhouse where Oda once worked.