The One Piece Manga just revealed something that will change the course of story like
nothing has, probably since Ace’s battle with Blackbeard that lead to the war at marineford.
And that’s because Eiichiro Oda has just kicked off a battle between Trafalgar D. Water
Law and, yup you guessed it, Blackbeard.
Again.
A development i think no one had on their radar, especially since we just saw Marshal
D. Teach being chased off Amazon Lily by Rayleigh and Boa Hancock, kidnapping Luffy’s marine
friend Koby as a little souvenir in the process.
And now he has ambushed Law, another one of Luffy’s friends, who was on his way to the
next island after leaving Wano.
Blackbeard has been obsessed with with getting his hands on as many devil fruits and poneglyphs
as possible in a very short time.
We know this, because while he and Law are preparing to clash, it seems that Aokiji,
who has teamed up with Blackbeard for yet unexplained reasons has invaded Big Mom’s
territory and has not only taken her Poneglyph, but also kidnapped Pudding, one of the selected
few people who can actually decipher the Road Poneglyphs and lead Blackbeard to Laugh Tale
before Luffy.
And now, should he successfully defeat Law, Teach has to chance to not only add Kaido’s
poneglyph on top, but also get his hands on Law’s legendary devil fruit powers, that
include the eternal youth surgery that Doflamingo wanted above anything else.
Has Aokiji truly become Luffy’s enemy?
Is there any chance that Law could win this fight?
And what would it mean for Luffy and story if he loses?
Turns out, we might already know the answer to all
of these.
To understand why this chapter and Law’s battle with Blackbeard is such a big deal,
we have to take a closer look at Blackbeard’s actions in the story so far.
Because even though the story tries really hard to sell Teach as a impulsive and dangerous
idiot, the truth as you well know, is that Blackbeard is one of the most cunning characters
in the story, that has carefully and patiently planned to get where he is today.
Luffy’s biggest rival for the title of Pirate King and right nowI would say the top contender
for reaching Laugh Tale first.
As you’ll remember, Teach, who seems to be connected to and inspired by the legendary
and infamous pirate Rocks D. Xebec, joined Whitebeard’s crew in the hope to get his
hands on the Yami Yami no mi, according to him the strongest devil fruit in existence,
that seems to have been the core piece in his plan to rise to the top of the pirate
world.
Once he got lucky and had the fruit in his reach, instead of stealing the fruit, he chose
to murder his crew mate, well knowing that Ace would come after him.
His goal from the start, as we now know was to get his hands on Whitebeard’s Earthquake
powers as well, which is why he joined his crew in the first place.
His plan was to start a war between the Marines and Whitebeard, well knowing that he doesn’t
have a chance against Whitebeard, yet.
Despite his betrayal, he still fears and respects the man.
So he prepares everything for his big moment, a calculated gamble with high risk, but immense
reward.
He makes sure to get on the good side of the World Government to become a warlord and thus
gain access to the high security prison Impel Down.
He hands over Ace to the Marines, telling them about Ace’s heritage, well knowing
that the government would want to turn the execution of the pirate king’s son into
a major publicity stunt.
And he also knows, that Whitebeard would come to save his son, because he used to be part
of that very same family, that he never loved in the first place.
Once the war had begun, Teach used the commotion to enter Impel Down and grabbed some of the
most powerful and infamous pirates locked away on level 6 into his crew.
Now commanding a quite formidable force, he grows confident, that he will be able to see
his plan through all the way.
He waits until both marines and pirates are exhausted from the war.
Then he sees his chance, he swoops in, and even though he underestimated the power of
a dying Whitebeard, is able to steal the Gura Gura no mi and escapes, now with 3 essential
pieces of his plan secure in his hands: Two of the most powerful devil fruits in the world,
a crew of monsters and Whitebeard’s vacant place among the Yonko.
While Luffy and the straw hats train over the time skip, Blackbeard starts the third
phase of his plan.
He knows there are still people out there strong enough to snuff out his ambitions.
And that scares him.
So he does what he does best, lay low and wait.
While all the other Yonko’s are being challenged by the members of the worst generation, Blackbeard
is happy securing his position and getting his hands on as many useful and powerful devil
fruits as possible to boost his crew even more.
We have already seen that his commanders have eaten some truly frightening devil fruits
and 4 new ones are revealed by Oda here as well.
Jesus Burgess has eaten the Riki Riki no Mi giving him abnormal strength so he’s easily
able to lift a mountain.
Doc Q has the Shiku Shiku no Mi, the sick sick fruit, which is quite ironic.
He can infect people with sickness.
Van Augur can teleport people using the warp warp fruit.
And Doc Q’s horse Stronger has eaten the mythical pegasus zoan fruit, that basically
just gives him wings i guess.
It looks like the devil fruit phase of Teaches plan is now also complete.
Which now brings him into the final stage of his plan, that he needs to become pirate
king:
Getting his hands on the four road poneglyphs and finding a way to decipher their contents.
For that he has laid low and waited for the right moment.
He was too scared to challenge either Big Mom or Kaido heads on, but now that they have
been defeated by Luffy, Kid and Law and knowing that they would get their hands on Kaido’s
poneglyph, he waited in the waters around Wano and tracked down the one out of the three
that arguably poses the smallest threat to him right now.
And sadly that person is law.
Blackbeard attacks his submarine and forces Law to retreat to a nearby island, where he
can now engage him in a one on one battle, that he is very confident he can easily win.
So it looks like while Luffy is learning more about the true nature of Devil fruits from
Doctor Vegapunk, Law, who’s a doctor might get the chance to learn more about Blackbeards
strange body.
But even if Teach is able to defeat Law here and get his copy of Kaido’s poneglyph, what
about the rest?
Well, turns out, he’s been on the move for the rest of them all along.
We have now gotten three covers in a row, that strongly suggest that Aokiji is in Whole
Cake island, Big Mom’s territory, that after her defeat is pretty much defenseless.
Where we know another road poneglyph is hidden in this room.
The first cover shows two mysterious figures appearing in town.
The second is chocolate town, where Luffy first met Pudding, completely frozen over.
And now, we see Cracker, one of Big Mom’s, commanders, frozen over.
And it looks exactly like this, where Aokiji froze Robin or here with Luffy.
And Brulee has realized that Pudding has vanished, Big Mom’s daughter of the three eyed tribe
that allegedly can naturally decipher the inscription on the poneglyphs.
This of course shouts Blackbeard, not only because it’s the very same chapter as his
attempt to get Law’s poneglyph, but also because of this panel here, where one of the
Gorosei reveals to us that Aokiji has teamed up with Teach.
Which feels strange, because as we know from all these moments here, Aokiji always seemed
to be a good guy, even sympmathizing with Luffy.
In his youth he was a big admirer of Garp and his sense for what’s truly just and
fair, representing a more gentle and human side of the Marines and the government.
He protected Robin, spared Luffy on Long ring island AND during marineford and the last
time we saw him he saved his friend smoker from being sliced into salami by Doflamingo.
But it also very much looks like he’s delivering a road poneglyph, a crucial piece of information
to get Blackbeard more power, directly to him.
What’s going on here?
At first glance, you really have to wonder if Aokiji didn’t actually just legitimately
switch sides.
Maybe he lost faith in the world government so much after his battle with akainu, that
he decided to tear it all down, even if it meant joining hands with Blackbeard.
And it’s definitely a real possibility that would make for some truly interesting plot
down the line.
But I don’t think it’s very likely, Oda has portrait Aokiji as a force of good on
countless occasions, many of them where he didn’t need to show any kindness.
He also doesn’t seem like the type of person who would hold a grudge or even be out for
revenge against an organization that is full with life long friends of his.
Just look at Punk Hazard, where he went out of his way to save Smoker from being killed.
I don’t think that’s the type of person who would want Blackbeard to burn all of the
marines to the ground.
There are 3 alternatives to Kuzan now having gone Anakin Skywalker on us.
First, and in my opinion the most likely option, is that he is still with the Marines, an undercover
agent for the secret marine unit sword, that operates independently and without the knowledge
of the government, which is why the Gorosei didn’t know about it.
He could also have teamed up with the revolutionaries.
A force that wants to take down the celestial dragons, but not the Marines themselves.
Or he could be out there doing his own thing, gathering intel on Blackbeard independently
and delivering it to whoever he finds worthy in the end, which would then most likely be
Luffy.
But right now it doesn’t really matter whether Kuzan is friend or enemy or spy.
He is still working with Blackbeard and it looks like he will bring him not only a second
poneglyph, but someone who can translate the ancient language on it for Teach.
That would give him 2 Poneglyphs really quick.
Unless law is able to actually win.
But is that even possible?
Law has now a bounty of 3 billion berries for a reason.
Why he teamed up with kid to take down Big Mom, he is still one of the strongest pirates
out there.
Law not only has an incredibly versatile and powerful devil fruit, but maybe even more
importantly the brains to get the most out of it.
Blackbeard is a schemer, but so is Law, it’s no coincidence that both of them benefited
from the Rocky port incident, which Law orchestrated.
He can absolutely match Teach when it comes to strategy and maneuvering.
And since his devil fruit allows him teleportation, he could get close to Blackbeard without giving
him the chance to nullify his powers.
His gamma knife was one of the keys in bringing down Big Mom and since he has awakened his
fruit, it is more powerful than ever.
Law also has an incredibly high level understanding of Haki, confirming something in this chapter
that we have only speculated so far: Powerful haki allows the nullification of devil fruit
powers.
Which could be a real game changer against Blackbeard.
Teach on the other hand is ridiculously powerful at this point.
Not only did he easily defeat ace with his darkness fruit, which power you can see on
these panels here, but now wielding Whitebeard’s Gura Gura no mi, he has maybe the strongest
offensive power in the world as well.
Just look at what whitebeard did to the ocean with it.
On top of that, Blackbeard has Doc Q with him, while Law’s crew has yet to prove their
worth.
They didn’t really shine all too much during the raid on Onigashima.
I think that even though Law would at least have a decent chance against most people in
the world, I just don’t see him taking down Blackbeard.
Teach has been built up throughout the story to be luffy’s main rival for the one piece.
He is bound to be one of the, if not THE main villain of the story. he just kidnapped Koby
and was responsible for ace’s capture and death.
Don’t you think it would be a bit anticlimactic if he could be stopped by Law?
No offense to Law fans.
Law beating Teach makes absolutely no sense, neither power wise nor plot wise.
I only see 2 options for law to not get captured or killed by blackbeard here and hand over
his poneglyph plus possibly his devil fruit: I think law is capable enough to try and get
away from the fight and maybe warn Luffy and co about his powers.
Or, and this would be very dark, but it’s possible, he could sacrifice himself and remotely
perform the immortality surgery on Luffy to not have to perform it on Blackbeard.
We don’t actually know what the conditions for this ultimate ability are, so it’s definitely
an option.
Because if Law actually ends up losing this fight, it would truly change the projective
of the entire story.
Here’s why.
Again Law has a road poneglyph, he has one of the most valuable fruits with the ability
to make someone immortal, but there is also this (Beppo).
And you know where the third road poneglyph is right now?
Exactly.
here.
If blackbeard captures Law, he will have 2 poneglpyhs and a mink, that could lead him
to the 3rd one hidden in the whale tree on Zou, the home of the minks.
Not only will that put Blackbeard on Luffy’s level, with 3 red stones and someone to decipher
them, but he would have 2 of luffy’s best friends as hostages.
Luffy was so traumatize by losing ace, he would not hesitate a second to come for them
if he finds out that Blackbeard might kill two other people who are close to him.
And Teach is smart enough to draw people he wants something from out with their loved
ones.
We already saw that with Whitebeard and Ace.
SO he might wait for Luffy to get his hands on the 4th poneglyph and then bait him with
law and koby to take it from him.
and then, with the road to laugh tale, a crew of monsters and 2 or maybe even 3 powerful
devil fruits, what is going to stop Teach from becoming Pirate king before luffy?
Where will he get a third fruit and how is he able to eat more than one devil friuit
in the first place?
We don’t know yet, but I have a pretty interesting theory that you can watch here next.