Video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAPrtjbm5Ek

After half a decade (yes, I know) we are finally getting back to the Reverie, with a full flashback where we witness the battle between the three commanders and the two Admirals.

KARASU’S LOGIA POWERS

And our first point of interest within this chapter is finally finding out how Karasu fights, as after all these years we are finally told how his fruit works. He has eaten the Susu Susu no Mi, or Soot Soot Fruit, which appears to be a Logia that lets him turn into a soot or tar-like subtance, essentially burned carbon. In spite of this however, Karasu is able to turn his Logia elements into living creatures, but how is that possible?

Well I actually already presented this idea back in my fan manga Return to the Reverie, but it is very well possible that while Zoan Awakenings provide transformations and Paramecia Awakenings allow to affect your surroundings, Logia Awakenings allow the user to turn their element into living creatures. In fact we’ve seen Akainu, Aokiji, and even Enel all transforming their elements into living creatures that moved on its own, so it’s likely that Karasu is employing a similar strategy here, able to create living crows made of soot, which are understandably pitch black, without any eyes or visible features, that can interact and even speak with others. Maybe it’s not awakening, but it seems to be a feature of some Logia.

We actually saw Karasu using this ability as far back as the pre-timeskip, with his crows being used to send communications through the Revolutionary Army, showing that he can extend his powers really far. We even see a great mastery over his Logia powers here, as Karasu can create several shapes, including wings that allow him to fly or splitting his body into several crows. He also seems to not be affected by bullets, though we don’t know if this is due to using future sight like Katakuri to dodge attacks or if the Government agents simply didn’t have haki when shooting him.

He also uses several new attacks here:

• His first is “Karasusu”, which is a pun between “Karasu”, or “crow”, and “susu”, or “soot”
• His next is “Oberisusu”, again a similar pun with soot, but now combined with “obelisk”
• And finally, “Renkon”, which refers to the shape of a lotus root, basically a cylinder filled with holes like the one Karasu is transforming into with his crows. However the kanji 連魂 is written as “group of souls”, suggesting that all the crows are in a sense alive

On a small note, we also see the return of all the CP9 members, we already knew about Bueno and Kalifa through Film RED, but we also see Jabra, Fukurou, and Kumadori. Some people might be surprised to see them in CP0, but as Oda explained, the CP0 members with masks are the most dangerous, with those unmasked generally being more like foot soldiers. We don’t know if the likes of Jabra here simply have their masks hidden away somewhere, but it would make sense that only Lucci and Kaku are considered elites.

THE GODS’ KNIGHTS

During this time we see the Revolutionaries play out their three main objectives as Sabo neatly lays out at the start of the chapter: on top of rescuing Kuma and other slaves where possible, their main objective was publicly declaring war against the Celestial Dragons, which resulted in the Eight Nation Revolution, though four failed to make this happen. These nations stopped the supply of their resources to Mary Geoise, as we learn that on top of the celestial tribute, countries also need to share their supplies and natural resources en masse for the Celestial Dragons, which on top of the Revolutionaries destroying the pantries of Mary Geoise, makes them experience what it is like living without resources for the first time. Which for how greedy they usually are, is bound to send Celestial Dragon society into chaos. This essentially creates a resources siege, in which the Revolutionaries put the Government into a difficult chokehold.

However, Dragon believes that this will fuel the start of a proper conflict between these two forces once the Celestial Dragons start mobilizing the Gods’ Knights, or “Kami no Kishidan” in Japanese. These are a fairly new faction to One Piece; they were previously mentioned in Chapter 1054, with the Marines mentioning that the Gods’ Knights would take care of St. Charlos’s attempted assassination, but some people understandably wondered if that was simply the name for the knights we’ve always seen around Mary Geoise. It’s possible they could be a more elite subset of them, but Dragon’s description seems to suggest they are an even more dedicated military force, one that may potentially be over even CP Aigis 0, the already famously known Shields of the Celestial Dragons, which gives us an even better perspective as to how difficult it is to attack the Celestial Dragons, as not only can they summon the Admirals, but are even protected by both the CP0 and the Gods’ Knights. Aside from the suspiciously-Shanks-like silhouette though, there’s really not much we can go off of here yet, and we don’t know if this will be an elite group of named characters or something closer to like the Orochi Oniwabanshu, so it’s too early to tell.

WHAT HAPPENED AT THE REVERIE?

On a separate side though, we are finally seeing all the plotlines of the Reverie converge, starting from the attempted assassination of St. Charlos. Sabo notices that Charlos, alongside his father Rosward and enslaved Kuma, is heading to the courtyard to attempt to enslave Shirahoshi again, after he tried to do so back in Chapter 907 but was stopped by St. Donquixote Mjosgard, the Celestial Dragon who was redeemed by Queen Otohime. Shirahoshi is naively sitting in the mingling courtyard of Pangaea Castle talking with Princess Mansherry, while Bonney is instead rushing into the castle to save her father.

At the same time, at the bondolas that go down to the Red Port, Lucci is trying to stop Vivi, who wants to go down to ask for Garp’s help, as Garp is stationed at the Red Port. Despite his intentions and his clear dislike of Vivi, it is still Lucci’s duty to protect her unless asked so by the Celestial Dragons, but he doesn’t want to drag Garp into this as he likely fears that will just make things worse for the Celestial Dragons. Meanwhile, Cobra goes for an audience with the Five Elders while he sends Chaka and Pell to look after Vivi.

This is all we are told within this chapter, which leaves a lot of questions hanging about what really happened. But we don’t need to wait, because we can already understand what happened simply by gathering all the information we’ve been slowly given over the past few years and putting the pieces of this puzzle together:

PIECING THE PUZZLE

For starters, it is actually quite likely that Vivi was able to go down to get Vice Admiral Garp’s help. After all, there is virtually nothing that Lucci could do to stop her, as he could only dissuade her as per his orders. I’m mostly saying this because in Chapter 956, we saw Garp having escorted the Neptune Royal Family back to Fishman Island. Though that was already his duty, it’s possible that perhaps, out of Vivi’s request, he may have hastened their leave to protect them. However, I think it’s also more likely that by the time Vivi got down to meet with Garp, the situation up top may have been resolved already.

Particularly since we had two forces, Sabo and Bonney, crossing into Charlos to help rescue Kuma. This is also likely the moment when Sabo and Bonney met that she mentioned back at the start of Egghead. It’s likely in this case that it was Sabo himself who helped beat up Charlos in order to rescue Kuma, resulting in the attempted assassination of St. Charlos. This is because Sakazuki mentioned that the God’s Knights were looking into this matter and trying to find the perpetrator, and since Dragon mentions that Sabo will be the biggest target of the God’s Knights, this could be one of the reasons why. It was mentioned that St. Mjosgard helped the perpetrator escape, so he must’ve covered up for him allowing the group to get away, with Bonney heading for Egghead and Sabo and the Revolutionaries taking Kuma back with them.

This all even fits as Kurouma mentioned that in the eyes of the public, Sabo was the one pulling the strings behind all these headlines, meaning that the news likely mentioned Sabo as the one who almost killed Charlos, which only elevated his status as the Celestial Dragon killer Flame Emperor.

However, at the same time, it is possible that Vivi may have already left for the Red Port to ask Garp for help, and I’m mostly saying that because Morgans himself was situated at the same Red Port as Garp, so it would make this the perfect opportunity for her to sneak aboard his ship and escape. Maybe she heard of her father’s assassination from a tip that Morgans got from his reporters, or something else triggered her sense of worry, to the point that she escaped with him to save herself. However, from Chaka and Pell’s perspective, she went to the Red Port and vanished without a trace, as they could not locate her anywhere. Morgans helped propagate this story as a lie on the newspaper as it benefitted him to hide her for a potential future profit, plus it just sells a good story, something that Morgans loves.

This leads into the three main articles that Morgans mentioned in Chapter 956: the death that took place at the Reverie, being Cobra’s death, framed at the hands of Sabo, the votes resulting in the abolition of the Shichibukai, and the attempted assassination of St. Charlos at Sabo and Bonney’s hands. We never got to find out what the headline the Government tried to silence was though, seemingly not wanting him to publish one of these three articles upon the world.

However, it’s at that point that Morgans got a communication from Wapol, who said to have had some incredibly valuable leaked intel. This is likely the point when Weapon joined in on Morgans’s ship, much to the dismay of Vivi. However, what’s interesting is that Wapol mentioned that if the Government found out about his existence and what he knows, then they would erase him in a moment’s notice.

But then what is it so dangerous that Wapol found out about that would cause him to be erased by the Government? Well, there’s only one secret that the Government is that desperate to hide and that connects all of these mysteries together.

Because it’s very well likely that trying to get revenge against Cobra, Wapol may have followed after him and witnessed something horrible, just as Sabo likely got into the empty throne room just as Cobra was having his supposed meeting with the Gorosei, wishing to ask about the secrets of the Poneglyph in Alabasta and the Void Century. This seemed to upset the Gorosei, who not only see the Nefertari as traitors who didn’t join them at Mary Geoise, but if they found out that Alabasta has been secretly hiding a poneglyph this entire time, then that makes them too dangerous to be left alive. This is what resulted in the assassination of King Cobra, with Sabo being photographed the moment he walked in on the scene in order to frame him as the killer and hide the truth. But as Sabo mentioned back in Chapter 1060, what he saw within that room and the person who killed Cobra was not the Gorosei. It was someone sitting upon the Empty Throne, a hidden King ruling the world from the shadows, who at last after all these years, his secret identity has been revealed to Sabo, and potentially even Wapol too, who now potentially holds this information to the most dangerous person possible, Big News Morgans, to potentially unleash upon the world.

But if Imu-sama’s secret might finally come to light, will that force their hand? We know that the Government has been trying to gather weapons from the Wano Country, which is the reason why they sent CP0 to Wano to dialogue with Orochi, with one of his men even claiming that the Government is seemingly preparing for a massive war. Which may potentially be what the Gorosei were talking about all along… a Great Cleasing is coming.