SMILE

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Long ago in Hakumai, Oden and his rough followers kept troubling Yasuie. When they tried to steal a large sum, Yasuie did not merely punish them; he gave them even more money and told them to spend it on themselves as his treat. The men panicked, thinking it had to be a trap, but Yasuie explained that if layabouts like them stayed as Oden's ministers, Oden's honor would be nothing. They were to learn manners, buy books, educate themselves, and use that money to take back their lives. Oden, who had been saved by Yasuie, asked whether they liked Oden. Yasuie answered that of course he did, and that Oden had saved his life.

Yasuie declared that Oden would one day be shogun of Wano and that none but the best samurai should stand at his side. He told the retainers that they must not only protect their lord, but the capital itself, because eventually the country would rest in their hands. In the present, those words strike the surviving allies as they watch him die. The guardian deities of Wano hear him; Raizo, Shinobu, Kawamatsu, and others all understand that the man on the platform is still carrying Oden's future on his shoulders. They call out, "Lord Yasuie!"

At Rasetsu Town prison house in the Flower Capital, Yasuie is dead, yet laughter spreads through the crowd. People mock that Yasu is dead and order the fools from Ebisu kicked out. Others are horrified, saying Lord Yasuie was just killed and the idiots are laughing. One man calls it Shogun Orochi's gravest sin. O-Toko cries for her father while her face laughs helplessly. Zoro watches the grotesque scene, and the laughter around a public execution becomes more disturbing than the death itself.

Yasuie's body lies before the prison, and Hiyori explains the cruelty behind the laughter. The people are trapped in misery yet prevented from truly expressing it. O-Toko sobs, "Zorojuro, please... If this is not hell, then... what is?" Zoro realizes the truth: SMILE is not just a synthetic Devil Fruit. Orochi, riding nearby, laughs that Yasuie's end is fitting and calls him a hedge-rat, delighted that someone he hated still spent his final moments in Wano. The grief of Ebisu is being twisted into a joke before everyone.

Orochi orders everyone to laugh, smile, and send Yasuie off with cheer, calling Wano bright and mirthful. Zoro and the others arrive too late, and the people of Ebisu collapse around their beloved friend. Hiyori kneels in tears, while others wheeze, laugh, and mourn at the same time. Lord Yasuie is gone, and one man says he was a fool for not knowing it was him until he had already been crucified. The forced laughter turns the mourning into something unbearable.

At Udon prisoner mine, the broadcast shows people laughing as their former daimyo is executed before their eyes. The prisoners shout that the Ebisu people have lost their minds and call Orochi cruel. Luffy, swollen from food and furious, says there is no one out there whose death should be laughed at. Hyogoro, however, sees the reason: some people there cannot do anything but smile. He identifies it as the SMILE fruits at work. The tragedy reaches Udon clearly enough for Luffy to understand that the laughter is not joy.

On Onigashima, Kaido laughs at Orochi's cruelty and calls him sick. In Bakura Town, Shutenmaru asks Inuarashi and Kin'emon whether they know of the SMILE fruit. The smiles of Ebisu Town, he says, are only masks that can never be removed. The truth that Hiyori hinted at now spreads across the allies: what looks like cheerfulness is not happiness at all, but a permanent wound caused by Kaido and Orochi's artificial fruit scheme.

A few years earlier, Kaido and Orochi began trading Wano's weapons for artificially made synthetic fruits called SMILEs. Sanji remembers hearing from Kin'emon that these are synthetic Devil Fruits, the kind whose factory the Straw Hats destroyed. In return for the terrible curse of a Devil Fruit, the fruit grants the feral power of a beast to those who succeed. Kaido aimed to use them to strengthen his followers and build the most fearsome pirate crew in the world. But these fruits carried a catch.

The artificial power works only for about ten percent of those who eat it. If ten men eat the flesh of the fruit, only one gains its power, while the other nine become duds who receive only the adverse effects. Those who have not yet eaten any fruit and are waiting for a chance are called Waiters. The lucky ten percent who gain animal powers become Gifters. Those on whom luck does not smile, the laughing soldiers who receive nothing but the side effect, are called Pleasures. The failed drug steals away the emotions of sadness and rage, leaving them capable only of smiling.

The fruit's name becomes another cruelty. As if sneering at the fate of the unlucky fools, the three categories themselves came from the fruit's name: SMILE, Gifters, and Pleasures. Hiyori says that the true horror has yet to come. These failed fruits still carry the power to transmit their adverse effects, and Orochi hatched a plan to use the leftovers after one bite had already been taken. The failed SMILEs could no longer produce more Pleasures, but they could still spread the curse.

Orochi hid the failed SMILEs among the leftovers of the capital. The leftover town was already drenched in tears from families mourning their dead, and Orochi grew tired of that grief. He sent the fruits among the hungry poor. At first they looked like fresh apples, and people rejoiced that everyone could have one. Slowly and painfully, the people understood what kind of fruit they had eaten. They could not satisfy their hunger, and they lost the ability to show grief. That is how Ebisu, a town without a frown, came to be: a place that first seems cheerful but whose children cannot even lament the deaths of their parents.

Hiyori begs Zoro not to attack the poor souls for smiling. The people themselves repeat the broken rules that misery has forced into them: if they do not smile, fortune will not come; if they are not laughing, they are losing. O-Toko runs through the crowd carrying what she calls medicine for her father. Hiyori screams for her to come back, but Toko slips through the bars and reaches Yasuie's body. She does not understand death as final; she only wants to help her father get better.

The crowd recognizes Toko as the child who came for soba, Tonoyasu's little girl. Hiyori pleads for her to come back because Orochi will see her, but Toko reaches the corpse and says, "Daddy, please! Come back to life! This medicine'll make you all better!" She tries to explain that it is called toad oil. Orochi, seeing her, cuts through the crowd in fury and says, "Found you, you little shitstain." The child who was already a target of Orochi is now standing directly in front of him.

Orochi realizes that Toko is Yasuie's daughter and blames her laughter for Komurasaki's death. He says Komurasaki would not have had to die if not for Toko's blasted laughter, and that he has had enough of father and daughter alike. Hiyori screams for Toko to run because she does not want her to die too. Orochi raises his weapon and declares, "Time to die!" Toko, still laughing through tears, calls, "Get better, Daddy!" as the shot is about to be fired.

Before Orochi can kill Toko, two figures strike at once. The crowd recognizes the wanted man from the posters, the magistrate killer, and the soba vendor who stood up to the Kyoshiro clan. Zoro-juro and Sango rush through the chaos together: Zoro cuts in with his sword and Sanji kicks through the guards, both landing between Orochi and the child. The chapter ends with their names shouted through the capital and with the two allies facing each other in surprise after saving O-Toko.

The final impact of the rescue becomes unmistakable: the people point out that one savior is the man from the wanted posters and the other is the soba vendor who resisted the Kyoshiro clan. They shout "Zoro-juro" and "Sango" as smoke and debris settle around the two men. Zoro and Sanji lock eyes in a sharp, familiar glare, their reunion happening in the middle of a public execution, with O-Toko still alive because both moved at the same instant.

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