The Gorosei have retreated back, with only Saturn staying on Egghead. And while we know that they wanted to archive a few goals, they almost succeeded in everything:
- Acquiring and keeping Punk Records save
- Keeping York save
- Acquiring and keeping the mother flame save
The only thing that the WG did not archive was `killing´ all Vegapunks. I do not want to say that Lilith is the only Vegapunk left, since I know that at least Shaka is still alive. Also, Luffy made a promise to protect Vegapunk and Oda is not going to just throw this away. Shaka even explicitly ask Luffy for this favour and Luffy has almost never broken his promise. Besides, the WG knows that Lilith is still alive. Nasjuro saw her the moment before the Sunny leaped from the Labo-phase. And if he communicates this to his fellow Gorosei, it is possible that she is going to be wanted as well in the near future.
It feels a little strange that the Gorosei are back in Mary Gyoise again right after they had arrived on Egghead only a few chapters before. And while it does not feel forced, it is rather abrupt. It makes me wonder, why Oda decided on this rather short involvement in this arc. It did serve a few purposes as to give us an insight in what the Gorosei are capable of and act as a first preview of what evil monster the SHPs are going to go against.
It is interesting that someone else than the Gorosei knows about Imu’s existence. We only need to know, who it is, that is concerned about the “Great Imu” in that single panel. Is it a servant or a slave or maybe Imu’s partner? It makes one wonder, if there are more people, who know Imu.
Then we have Kizaru still on Egghead. Since Oda made him rest for a while, the admiral was not active until now. He is the only one, who is still able to reach the SHPs using his DF-ability and bridge the distance between land and ship. That means that someone needs to stall him for our heroes to be able to flee.