You expect this to be Sabaody 2.0?
Yes. In part because Oda is not a good enough writer to do anything other than plagiarize his pre timeskip self, in part because the Straw Hats happily sailing off into the sunset of the New World would serve no narrative purpose and ultimately I think Oda would just consider this a boring kick-off into the true EOS, and in part because these circumstances are just way too overwhelming for the Straw Hats to win.
If this were Kaido and his crew of 30K, that would be one thing but it’s not. It’s literally 10 motherfuckers against 30K marines and Pacifista and Cipher Pol.
Look at how Egghead has gone so far, this is literally exactly how Shabondy went so far, to the letter. In both arcs, we arrived on the island and did some setup exploring, then Oda actually cut away from the Straw Hats to show us other characters and events while also foreshadowing the events of the final war, then the big event happens which triggers the Straw Hats to try and escape.
In Shabondy, this resulted in the Straw Hats suffering a big defeat. So far the arcs have mirrored each other to perfection.
Now like I said, Oda doesn’t know how to bring the Straw Hats into the EOS saga from here other than plagiarizing his pre TS self so here’s what’s going to happen:
The Straw Hats lose here, probably somebody shows up to help them escape, maybe even Kuma himself. Then Luffy gets teleported to Elbaf where he’ll meet up with “Hancock” aka Celestial Dragon Shanks. Then we get an Impel Down style arc where Luffy reunites with his crew just like Luffy gathered up all the Impel Down escapees (this will probably be the Burning Man arc which might even lead to Raftel itself)
And then we get the final war, whatever that means. Oda actually defeating and separating the crew here in the exact scenario where all his fans expect them to win is classic Oda, and like I said he’s not good enough to do anything different. The true EOS war will be what everyone thinks Egghead will be, where the Straw Hats prove themselves to the world and Luffy becomes Pirate King or whatever.
But that shit ain’t happening on Egghead lol. It’s way too soon for that.
