You can quote me on this shit:
- 1037 had Gorosei tease the "awakening" of a DF they just realized has a different name (Zunisha was a red herring, the WG fodder did not contact them at all that chapter)
- 1041 had Gorosei order entirely change the CP0 goal from capturing Robin to killing Luffy, solidifying that what they were talking about in 1037 WAS in fact about Luffy
- 1042 now shows the extent of Luffy's power with G4 and AdCoC. He used the tools he could on the rooftop since Chapter 1000. It's not working because Kaido is a monster..
- Oda also seemed to want Luffy to "lose" without really "losing. He "lost" unfairly
- Additionally, there has has been no named Vs chapter yet. 923 was appropriately called Kaido vs Luffy, not Luffy vs Kaido (Oda never puts the villains first in these titles it seems)
Awakening IS coming. It IS the next step. There is a reason WsW talked about the fruit, Shanks and Sun God Nika randomly during Jinbe's fight. Shanks definitely told the Gorosei something. Oda has a tendency to tie seemingly irrelevant conversations into the plot, see how CP-0 randomly talked about Vegapunk's artificial devil fruit 5 chapters before Momo showed up huge.
It's all coming together. Either Luffy gets up consciously or unconsciously (awakening happens without him knowing or in control), but its going to happen at this rate. The fight is his and his alone. It just depends on what this move from Kaido does to him