Gotta put my thoughts down cause this chapter has actually done more for good speculation on the future than basically the last 2-3 years combined.
To get the obvious out of the way:
- While bounty is not a direct correlation to power, Zoro now has a clearly defined endgoal in mind in terms of bounty, assuming Beckman and Shiryu do not have higher bounties, which imo they do not. Whitebeard, with the highest canonical bounty in the series after Roger, only had a #2 with a 1.374 billion bounty. Now we know this fluctuates. Kaido had a smaller bounty than WB, but King was at 1.39 Billion. Shanks is the most impregnable crew, so i assime Beckman is closer to 2 than 1.5 Billion. However, Mihawk being at 3.59 is pretty insane for a supposed #2 opponent, UNLESS it's said #2's endgame
- This is why personally I think he goes down at the end with Shanks. There's all this history there and they should be at the same place of Oda wants to tie their plotlines together. We have to remember that both characters hold extremely deep values for Luffy and Zoro. While expect Beckman to be high somewhat higher than even King, Zoro's endgame opponent doesn't strike me as a follower, which is why I doubt his final opponent would be am Admiral, Shiryu, Ben, or a Gorosei. It's always been Mihawk
- Supporting this is just Cross Guild in general. 2 of the 3 characters are former villains for Luffy. Their relevance as enemies has gone caput. There's no reason for them to even be against Luffy. Their goals are against Marines at this point, and Buggy seemingly owes something huge to someone above him. Then there's just Mihawk, who imo is just coasting here to play a role in the endgame anyway (e.g. the above)
- Regarding the next plotline, it's interesting the chapter ends with Sabo. I find it fascinating that it only took him a day or two to reach the Reverie with Karasu, but it's been nearly a month since he fought the Admirals and Rescued Kuma. Why was he MIA all this time? Did Kuma teleport him somewhere? Maybe 1059 will show us a glimpse of Vegapunks Lab?
- On that note, really the only major plotline left outside of some major war involving Yonko and Marines/WG seems to be centered around Vegapunk or Elbaf. You have 2 unaddressed Supernova (Bonnie and Urogue), one of which is heavily tied to this Sabo/Kuma plot. Smoker/Tashigi are STILL missing lol, and last they were seen was heading with Fuji to Vegapunks lab, and only Fuji was seen after...makes you think they may be tied to that plotline. Then you just have the SSG.
One things for sure, 1059 is going to be huge, it should explain the truth behind Sabo's actions and also reveal to us what happened at the Reverie with Alabasta, and why BB reacted to the event. It's all connected. That and maybe 1060 will really show us where we are heading to next and how this story is going to start building up its climax.
I think One Piece might actually return to form again, everything coming is meant to be from things Oda has saved for decades. Let's hope it works out.