Chapter Summaries

Yaen and Borsalino discussed which pirate crew to face as the Lian Merchant Association's dealer plan advanced quietly. Days later, the Beast Pirates and the Red-Haired Pirates met on a deserted island near Wano, where Shanks and Kaido unleashed their Conqueror's Haki as spectators watched from afar.

• Yaen monitored the Lian Merchant Association's dealer plan through the Mental Space and learned it was proceeding according to schedule, with most candidates secretly tied to the Revolutionary Army.
• Yaen and Borsalino each tried to take on the less injured pirate crew, knowing that a badly wounded enemy like Kaido could fight back desperately.
• Vice Admiral Tsuru left Yaen and Borsalino to settle their debate and went to prepare the battle plan.
• The Beast Pirates and the Red-Haired Pirates landed on opposite sides of a deserted island near Wano Country as other pirate crews and six Shichibukai arrived to watch.
• Shanks and Kaido unleashed their Conqueror's Haki at the same time.

Shanks and Kaido began their battle on the Deserted Island after their Conqueror’s Haki clash revealed Kaido’s restored dragon-claw left arm. Their crews also joined the fight, while onlookers watched the Emperors’ devastating clash.

• Shanks and Kaido clashed Conqueror’s Haki, knocking nearly all the island’s creatures unconscious and sending Sea Kings fleeing.
• Shanks recognized Kaido’s dragon-claw left arm as an application of his awakened Fish-Fish Fruit, and Kaido grew angry when Shanks stared at it.
• Kaido attacked Shanks with Thunder Bagua, and Shanks blocked the blow with Gryphon coated in Conqueror’s Haki.
• The Beasts Pirates and Red-Haired Pirates began fighting across the island as their officers engaged one another.
• Shanks and Kaido continued battling at the island’s center, unleashing storms and shockwaves that left watching pirates in awe.

The Navy watched the clash between the Beast Pirates and the Red-Haired Pirates while its vice admirals argued over Justice and the Navy’s internal factions. Yaen suspected the World Government was encouraging the Hawks, until Kaido’s Azure Dragon form appeared on the projected images and silenced the observers.

• The Beast Pirates and Red-Haired Pirates began a battle that devastated the island and stirred violent seas and skies.
• Borsalino, Tsuru, Yaen, and other Navy officers watched intelligence footage while Momonga, Onigumo, Spandine, and Doberman argued over whether the Navy should wait for both crews to weaken.
• The chapter described the Navy’s divisions between the Hawks, led by Sakazuki, and the Doves, led by Kuzan, while Garp and Borsalino’s faction remained largely neutral.
• Yaen reflected on the Navy’s lack of unified ideals and suspected the World Government was deliberately cultivating the Hawks to control the Navy.
• Kaido transformed into his Azure Dragon form, and the arguing Navy vice admirals fell silent as they watched him.

Yaen and the Marines prepared to face Kaido, joking that nineteen fighters had the advantage, until Shanks struck Kaido down with a powerful slash. Vice Admiral Tsuru identified Shanks’s power as the rare “Ruler’s Domain” level of Conqueror’s Haki and began explaining it.

• Yaen admitted that Kaido’s transformed form was so formidable that he might not last half an hour fighting Kaido seriously, and Tsuru reminded him that he would not face Kaido alone.
• Yaen counted the nineteen people assembled against Kaido and declared that they had the advantage, easing the other Vice Admirals’ nerves.
• The projected scene showed the sea and sky falling still as Shanks’s crimson Flying Slash cut through Kaido’s Heat Breath and sent the Azure Dragon crashing down.
• Momonga, Doberman, and Onigumo reacted with alarm to Shanks’s strength, while Tsuru recognized his Conqueror’s Haki as “Ruler’s Domain.”
• Tsuru explained that Observation and Armament Haki could be developed through training, while Conqueror’s Haki was innate and could be brought out more fully through practice.

Vice Admiral Tsuru explained that Haki could awaken into rare abilities, including Conqueror's Haki's Ruler's Domain, which Shanks had inherited from Roger. She and the other Marines assigned Yaen to face Shanks, leaving Yaen privately uneasy about the matchup.

• Vice Admiral Tsuru revealed that Haki awakening could produce special abilities such as Future Sight and Danger Sense.
• Vice Admiral Tsuru explained that awakened Conqueror's Haki formed Ruler's Domain, also known as the Voice of All Things, and identified Roger as its last known wielder before Shanks.
• Vice Admiral Tsuru warned the Vice Admirals that Shanks was dangerous and had to be eliminated to prevent another Pirate King.
• Borsalino asked Yaen to handle Shanks because Ruler's Domain could neutralize the advantages of Logia users like him.
• Vice Admiral Tsuru admitted that Garp would have been better suited to fight Shanks but asked Yaen to take the assignment, and Yaen privately questioned his ability to do so.

Yaen agreed to help the Marines deal with Shanks, whose Ruler’s Domain could severely weaken Logia users, while the day-long battle between Shanks and Kaido neared its end. As pirate crews rallied behind Shanks, the chapter left him poised to become a fourth Emperor of the Sea and escape the Beast Pirates’ territory with support from Ben Beckman’s arrangements.

• Yaen agreed to do his best to help counter Shanks after learning that the Red-Haired captain’s Ruler’s Domain could greatly reduce Borsalino’s combat power.
• Yaen reflected that Shanks could make the Marines’ plans dangerously costly, and he watched the battle between Shanks and Kaido intensify.
• The battle devastated the island over a day and night, and a pirate captain concluded that Shanks and Kaido were evenly matched as the fighting began to wind down.
• The captain announced that his crew would join the Red-Haired Pirates, and twenty or thirty pirate ships raised Red-Haired flags as they sailed to welcome Shanks.
• Observers realized that Ben Beckman had likely arranged for the crews to help the Red-Haired Pirates withdraw safely from the Beast Pirates.

Marine forces launched a massive encirclement around the battle between the Red-Haired Pirates and Beast Pirates, overwhelming the surrounding pirate crews with artillery and swordsmanship. As the fleet advanced toward the island, frightened pirates sought help from the Shichibukai, but their attempt to approach one was met with a threat.

• Enel watched the pirate crews gather under the Red-Haired Pirates' flag and prepared to take action.
• More than fifty Marine warships surrounded the pirate ships and opened fire, setting vessels ablaze and sinking them.
• Gion killed a pirate captain and led the Female Swordsman Squad in swiftly wiping out his crew.
• Marine formations advanced toward the island from eighteen directions, bringing seventeen Marine Warships, thirty-two Navy warships, and over forty thousand Marines.
• Panicked pirates tried to approach the Shichibukai for protection, but one warned them not to come closer without permission.

The Marines and the Shichibukai crushed the pirate fleet surrounding the island, revealing that the Shichibukai had been working with the Marines all along. With the encirclement closed and the Red-Haired Pirates and Beast Pirates as the real targets, Yaen prepared to confront Kaido alongside Borsalino.

• Hancock turned pirates into stone with Slave Arrow and declared that only Yaen was qualified to be her companion.
• Corazon and the other Shichibukai attacked pirate ships, disrupting the pirates’ attempted counterattack and escape.
• Yaen sensed that the Marines’ surprise assault and the Shichibukai’s betrayal had broken the pirates’ will to resist.
• Forty-nine Marine warships sealed the island, leaving the Red-Haired Pirates and Beast Pirates as the Marines’ main targets.
• Tsuru handed the next stage of the operation to Borsalino and Yaen, and Yaen told Borsalino to defeat Kaido quickly and then assist him.

Yaen and Borsalino led the Marines to the island’s central crater, where the exhausted Red-Haired Pirates and Beast Pirates had stopped fighting. Borsalino attacked Kaido, and the Marines’ assault sparked a full battle with the Beast Pirates.

• Yaen refused Borsalino’s suggestion that he fight Kaido and headed for the island’s coast with Borsalino.
• Tsuru directed the fleet’s bombardment as Marines landed and encircled the island’s center.
• Yaen and Borsalino found the injured Red-Haired Pirates and Beast Pirates resting in a massive crater.
• Kaido threatened the Marines and claimed he still had enough strength to defeat them.
• Borsalino launched a Light Speed Kick and Yata no Kagami at Kaido and the Beast Pirates.
• Beast Pirates officers charged Borsalino, while Marine Vice Admirals and soldiers joined the fighting.

Yaen confronted Shanks and the Red-Haired Pirates while the Marines fought the Beast Pirates, insisting that they were not targets and trying to recruit Shanks. Shanks asked Yaen to end the war and offered to hold back Kaido’s forces, but Yaen refused his request.

• Ben Beckman advised Shanks to help the Beast Pirates assess the Marines before deciding whether to flee.
• Yaen stood alone before the Red-Haired Pirates and told Shanks that the Marines intended to target Kaido, not them.
• Shanks warned that a Marine defeat in the New World would destabilize the seas, and Yaen praised his concern before inviting him to join the Marines as a future Fleet Admiral.
• Shanks refused to join and asked Yaen to end the war, offering to hold back the Beast Pirates so the Marines could leave safely.
• Yaen calmly told Shanks that a pirate was not qualified to ask him for that favor.

Yaen questioned Shanks’s motives and suspected they were connected to Luffy before Shanks gave up on negotiation and challenged him. Yaen revealed powerful Conqueror’s Haki and calmly blocked Shanks’s attack, leaving the Red-Haired Pirates stunned.

• Yaen wondered why Shanks was so determined to preserve the sea’s balance and suspected his actions were connected to Luffy.
• Yaen decided to keep an eye on Luffy because he doubted Shanks’s interest in him was innocent.
• Shanks realized Yaen would not negotiate, drew Gryphon, and unleashed his Conqueror’s Haki.
• Yaen released his own Conqueror’s Haki and met Shanks’s force head-on, knocking out nearby elite Marines with the clash’s shock.
• Yaen held Shanks’s Haki back fifty meters away without disturbing the Marines fighting the Beast Pirates, astonishing Shanks’s crew.

Yaen confronted Shanks as the Red-Haired Pirates prepared to join the battle against the Navy, then used Bankai to divide the battlefield. The Shichibukai arrived to face the Red-Haired Pirates, and Yaen left the fighting to them.

• Shanks questioned whether Yaen could uphold his will despite the Navy's darkness, then declared the Red-Haired Pirates would join the battle if the Navy stayed on the island.
• Yaen released Bankai: Senbonzakura Kageyoshi, raising a sea of cherry blossoms that separated the Red-Haired Pirates from the Navy and Beast Pirates.
• Shanks attacked Yaen with a Flying Slash, but Boa Hancock blocked it and rebuked Shanks for attacking her husband.
• Kuma, Corazon, Enel, Moria, and Fisher Tiger appeared beside Yaen, joining Hancock against the Red-Haired Pirates.
• Yaen stepped back with his hands in his pockets and asked the Shichibukai to make their move.

The six Shichibukai split the Red-Haired Pirates into separate battles while Yaen confronted Shanks and tried to unsettle him with the threat that his crew would be wiped out. Shanks chose to trust his companions and charged Yaen, warning him that Kaido could still defeat the Marines.

• The six Shichibukai attacked the Red-Haired Pirates and divided them across seven battlefields.
• Yaen struck Shanks with a tide of cherry blossoms, but Shanks emerged unharmed and asked whether the Marines had secured the Shichibukai's support.
• Yaen warned Shanks that his entire crew might be wiped out, making him hesitate between fighting alongside the Beast Pirates and fleeing the island.
• Ben Beckman shouted to Shanks, who regained his confidence and said he would trust his companions.
• Shanks told Yaen that defeating him would resolve the crisis, cautioned him about Kaido, and suddenly charged with Ruler's Domain.

Yaen fought “Red-Haired” Shanks, testing his strength against Shanks’s “Ruler’s Domain” while trying to keep his distance and stall for time. Shanks unleashed “Ruler’s Apex,” sending a devastating shockwave and black-red lightning across the domain.

• Shanks enveloped Yaen in “Ruler’s Domain,” and Yaen prepared to face him using only the “Zanpakutō: Senbonzakura.”
• Yaen sent the Sea of Cherry Blossoms surging at Shanks, who cut through it with a Flying Slash coated in Conqueror’s Haki.
• Yaen recognized that Shanks’s domain let him extend Conqueror’s Haki beyond tangible objects, then filled the erased space with Haki-coated blossoms as he retreated.
• Shanks realized Yaen was stalling while his allies struggled and his own fatigue made a prolonged battle dangerous.
• Shanks invoked “Ruler’s Apex,” unleashing a shockwave and black-red lightning throughout the range of his domain.

Red-Haired Shanks’s Ruler’s Domain disrupted Enel’s elemental body, allowing Beckman to shoot him, but Enel sealed the wound with lightning and unleashed a furious counterattack. Yaen recognized the power and suppressive effects of Shanks’s Conqueror’s Haki while fending off his attacks, and realized he could not last long against Shanks in close combat.

• Shanks’s Ruler’s Apex blasted apart Yaen’s Sea of Cherry Blossoms and destabilized Enel’s Elementalization.
• Beckman shot Enel in the chest with an Armament Haki-coated bullet, leaving him bleeding from a wound that would not heal normally.
• Enel cauterized the wound with lightning, escaped the influence of Shanks’s domain, and transformed with Three Hundred Million Volts: Raijin.
• Enel rained lightning down on Beckman while Beckman desperately searched for a way to survive.
• Yaen realized Shanks could coat his attacks and cherry blossoms with Conqueror’s Haki and suppress opponents within the Ruler’s Domain.
• Yaen judged that Shanks’s swordsmanship and physical strength gave him a major advantage in close combat.

Yaen kept Shanks occupied while the Marines and Shichibukai gained the advantage over the Red-Haired and Beast Pirates. On Whole Cake Island, Perospero woke Charlotte Linlin with news of the Marine assault, prompting her to recognize the danger to Kaido.

• Yaen retreated while using Conqueror’s Haki-coated cherry blossoms to keep Shanks occupied as the Shichibukai battered the Red-Haired Pirates.
• Kizaru, Gion, Kake, and the Marine forces gained ground against Kaido and the Beast Pirates as reinforcements arrived.
• Vice Admiral Tsuru received battlefield reports and directed Marine warships to attack the pirate fleet surrounding the island.
• Perospero burst into Charlotte Linlin’s bedroom and warned her that a massive Marine fleet had joined the battle between Kaido and Shanks.
• Perospero explained that the Marines might destroy the Beast Pirates, and Charlotte Linlin realized the threat to Kaido because of their deep bond.

Charlotte Linlin sent the Big Mom Pirates fleet to join the battle between the Marines and the Beast Pirates, hoping to trap the Marines and weaken their forces. Admiral Kuzan froze the fleet in place, preventing it from reaching the battlefield.

• Charlotte Linlin ordered Perospero to prepare a fleet and set out for the island where the Red-Haired Pirates and Beast Pirates had fought.
• Charlotte Linlin planned to cut off the Marine Fleet's retreat and break the Marines' blockade of the New World.
• Charlotte Katakuri foresaw danger as a vast expanse of ice rapidly spread across the sea and stopped the Big Mom Pirates fleet.
• Charlotte Cracker told Charlotte Linlin that the sea had frozen, and Perospero identified Kuzan's Devil Fruit ability as the likely cause.
• Kuzan confirmed through a Den Den Mushi that every ship in the Big Mom Pirates fleet had been frozen, then used an intelligence agent's Vivre Card to track the fleet.

Vice Admiral Garp intercepted Whitebeard’s fleet, and the two old rivals prepared to settle their unfinished fight. As Marco redirected the fleet toward a nearby Deserted Island, he suspected a Marine spy had revealed their route.

• Whitebeard confronted Garp and said he wanted revenge on Vice Admiral Yaen for killing Weevil.
• Garp offered to arrange a one-on-one fight between Whitebeard and Yaen, but Whitebeard refused and challenged Garp instead.
• Jozu asked Marco whether they should persuade Whitebeard not to waste time fighting Garp, and Marco explained that Garp could sink their fleet if they all attacked him.
• Marco told the Division Captains to find a nearby Deserted Island so Whitebeard and Garp could fight there.
• Marco suspected a Marine intelligence agent inside the Whitebeard Pirates had helped Garp intercept them and resolved to expose the spy.

As the Marines deployed most of their forces against the Red-Haired Pirates and Beast Pirates, pirate crews saw a chance to escape the New World and assembled to attack the G-1 Branch. Sakazuki destroyed most of their fleet with Meteor Volcano and stayed behind to defend the base, warning Borsalino and Yaen that he would hold them responsible if the Marine fleet’s operation failed.

• Pirate crews gathered into a combined fleet of more than a hundred ships and sailed toward the G-1 Branch, hoping to escape the New World.
• Sakazuki fired Meteor Volcano at the approaching fleet, destroying more than half its ships and crippling the survivors.
• Sakazuki ordered the Navy warships to pursue the surviving pirates and leave no one alive.
• Sakazuki remained at the G-1 Branch to guard the Marine stronghold and protect the fleet’s retreat.
• Sakazuki clenched his fists and warned that he would never forgive Borsalino and Yaen if the fleet’s operation failed.

Yaen kept Shanks at a distance as the Red-Haired Pirates’ position worsened, then offered Shanks and his crew better treatment in Impel Down if they surrendered. Shanks rejected the offer, choosing to risk his life rather than surrender his freedom.

• Yaen and Shanks fought at range as Shanks struggled to break through Yaen’s petal attacks and conserve his strength after fighting Kaido.
• Shanks saw Beckman and the other Red-Haired Pirates suffering heavy losses and realized their chances of victory were slim.
• Yaen let the battle drag on while covertly watching Wano Country and expecting Dragon to act.
• Shanks laughed at the dire situation and said he had resolved to live as a free man when he joined the Roger Pirates.
• Yaen tossed Shanks a pair of Seastone Cuffs and offered lenient treatment for the crew if they surrendered.
• Shanks declined, saying he would give up his life for freedom but would not surrender his freedom to save his life.