A nice chapter overall. Sasaki tied up by his old friend, Pound given a rope by his girls, Fukurokujo turning his back on his new masters. The chapter tells us that you should pick your familiars wisely and that goes for the "Lone Soldier".
The epic stare down on the roof continues. It doesn't look like we missed much apart from Jack genociding his favorite furry frenemies. Kaido could at least act like he's Doc Louis outside the ring and give his boy Lil' Jac some tips. YOU GOT THIS! GIVE HIM THE ONE-TWO! DODGE TO YOUR LEFT! *stab* YOUR OTHER LEFT! With nothing better going on, Inu and Neko finally transform into big shadows and take Jack for themselves. The expectation now is that the next time we visit the roof only the Scabbards, Kaido and Jack may be left. While bringing the Yeti-looking Number to the snow battle was a clever idea, I got no faith in these guys. Jack is still saving his hybrid form while the Dukes tease us with silhouettes, from a narrative standpoint they're going nowhere.
Hawkins reminds us why he's the most loyal and valuable subordinate in Kaido's crew. Wait, what? Credit to King for reorganizing the Flying Six so they're not running around chasing Yamato and help stop the raiders in the showroom. This leads to a touching reunion between Page One with a brocon, and Who's Who changing sights towards X-Drake. Who's Who the tomcat sets up some delicious bait for a rat, giving X-Drake the chance to backstab one of the higher ups in the middle of the chaos. Tempting, but it doesn't matter since Hawkins snitched on him a while ago and before you know it swordsman Queen has Drake bloodied on the floor. Luckily for him a random explosion provides the perfect getaway. Back to the question on my mind: why is Hawkins so loyal and so good to Kaido? He found Luffy, Zoro and Law hiding in Wano, nearly had drunk Kaido wipe out the crew, put Law behind bars until X-Drake freed him, and finally exposed the 2-year dino spy. Does Hawkins want a promotion? Do the cards say he must be absolutely loyal? Maybe he's just teaching Law and Drake a lesson to finish the job next time, or least remove his heart and blackmail him like Caesar. At the very least, Hawkins won't back a character with only a 1% chance of survival without extraordinary circumstances.
Another Supernova joins the alliance. G4 Luffy and hybrid X-Drake (finally in action!) exchange named attacks and it's the start of a beautiful friendship. Well actually, Drake is acting far too suspicious to imagine he'll easily be let into the group. For one, he's not willing to state the reason he was nearly killed by his previous crew. Two, it's not as if admitting he was an undercover marine is the way to win over the pirate alliance. Three, he has a bad rap sheet from destroying Tama's village to hunting down Sanji and the bathhouse ladies. Since Law's not around to vouch for Drake, I could see Jinbe acting as the intermediary like when he smoothed things over between Luffy and Capone despite Luffy being upset that Pekoms was shot in the back. I like the implication that it was Koby who sold Drake on Luffy, but Drake was the one risked his position and freed Law before that conversation. I doubt Drake was a secret bestie of Law, or is a character to act on whims, so it'll be interesting to hear his reasoning and what plan he's been cooking up all this time. With the Big Mom and Kaido alliance experiencing unprecedented drama, it may be time for Drake to get on the line directly with Akainu.
Only 10 chapters away from 1000. I'm starting to sweat here. I'm not sure if we're ramping up to the end of Act 3 or turning the corner to the start of individual fights. We do have 2 Calamities, 5 Tobi-roppo entering the stage, Big Mom, Hotei and Fukurokujo lurking around. That's 9 big names + Big Mom. If Luffy wants to make it to the roof, there's 9 Strawhats to create openings. Nothing short of Perospero is occupying Big Mom for good. I have to feel bad for the Numbers here. It was similar for Oars Jr. in Marineford, casually losing a leg to Doflamingo, so thinking about it they went down to respectable attacks. Only unveiling an awakened Zoan power like the Impel Down beasts can save them now. They are WG experiments, incapable of speech, incapable of complex thought, part of a Zoan crew, so a small glimmer of hope exists. For now, we get a break to think about how far the Strawhats have come basically one-shotting the ultimate zombie Moria came up with back in Thriller Back. And that was Moria's main plan to take on Kaido's crew. Ouch.
