Not Alone

The Puffing Tom shudders through the storm, and someone reacts in alarm: "What happened!?" Inside the first car, Robin turns toward the strange visitor who has slipped in beside her. Sogeking introduces himself with theatrical dignity: "Nice to meet you. I am the Sogeki King, 'Sogeking' for short." A note explains that "Sogeki" means sniper. Then he drops the act just enough to state his purpose: "As for why I'm here... To make a long story short, I'm here to save you!!" Robin recognizes him at once and breathes, "Long-nose...!!" But her first answer is not relief. She warns, "I'm not alone, though." Sogeking explains the situation quickly: "There's a chef named Sanji and this hoodlum named Franky on the train. I snuck in here while they distracted the enemies."

Robin reveals that the rescue has grown far beyond the two men on this train: "Furthermore, the Straw Hats are also pursuing us on another sea train. And it's carrying quite a few people..." Sogeking peers back through the route he used and admits, "I prefer it through the windows on my way here... The four people in that car behind us look really strong." He does not want Sanji and Franky forced into that fight if they can avoid it, so he urges Robin to move now: "We should get out of here before Sanji-kun and the others have to confront them!! But don't worry about a thing!! Now, escape with me and my friends!!" He produces the strange escape tools and instructs her, "These are your 'octopults.' Please put these on your hands and feet. And then climb out through the window."

Robin refuses the rescue with a pain that has not softened. She demands, "Why are you doing this...!? Didn't I clearly tell you that I'd quit the group!!? Don't make me tell you twice. I'm not one of you anymore!!!" Sogeking answers that the crew already knows the real reason behind her choice: "They all know of your reasons!! It seems that Ice-ossan guy, from the shipyard, told them everything." Robin is shaken by the news and asks, "Wha... he's safe!?" But even Iceburg's survival does not let her accept the rescue: "Not even then, still can't go back." Sogeking, furious on behalf of the crew, says, "Before you made this stupid deal, you should've talked to them about it first!!!" and then insists, "Don't you get it!? You don't need to worry about protecting them!!!" Robin can only stare at him and ask, "What are you babbling about...?"

Sogeking tells Robin exactly what her crew will do now that they know the truth: "Now that they know why you quit the group... They'll find and chop up your enemies no matter where they hide!!!" He asks the question at the center of her despair: "Do you actually believe that they'd willingly sacrifice a friend in order to survive!!?" Robin explodes back at him, not because she doubts their courage, but because she fears what that courage will cost them. "You don't understand what you're saying!!! I never wanted for you guys to save me!! I won't let you have your way!!!" Her voice rises so loudly that someone outside the door notices. A knock comes, and a voice asks, "What're you yelling about, Nico Robin?" The rescue attempt suddenly has to hide itself again.

Franky confronts Robin from outside the room, sensing that something about her reactions does not match what he has been told. He asks bluntly, "Are you crying about your future now? You know it's too late for that, don't you...?" Robin answers, "I'm fine." Franky looks at her and thinks, "Something feels wrong here somehow..." Robin repeats, "I said, I'm fine. Just leave me alone." Her controlled words do not convince him. Franky studies her face, the closed posture, and the way the whole conversation feels off, then thinks, "Something's definitely weird about this woman." Still, with no proof and no time, he is left wondering, "Am I just imagining things...?"

Back in the fourth car, the kitchen fight turns even more ridiculous and more dangerous. Wanze rushes Sanji in his noodle armor, chanting, "Ramen Kenpo!!! Sasasa... take this!!" He attacks with "Tonkotsu Spank!!!" as a note explains that tonkotsu means pig bone. Sanji's kick slams into the ramen suit but sinks into the sticky strands instead of breaking through. Wanze mocks him: "All you did was become bigger." Sanji realizes the problem immediately: "What's with this 'power-up'?" The cook keeps taunting him from inside the suit: "And your punches are still weak as hell!!" The armor looks absurd, but in a cramped train kitchen it turns food itself into a trap.

Sanji tries to fight through the suit, but the noodles cling to him. "What the--!? It's stuck!?" Wanze laughs at the opening: "Sasasa sa-- idiot!!! You're surprised by my Ramen Kenpo, aren't you." With Sanji's leg trapped, Wanze spins and prepares revenge for the earlier humiliation. "Now, I'm going to pay you back for earlier!!" Sanji notices that the enemy's movement is sloppy and snaps, "Bastard! Why're you getting dizzy!!?" The absurdity of Wanze's technique makes the fight look foolish for a moment, but Sanji is still pinned by a suit that turns every direct touch against him.

Wanze presses the advantage while Sanji struggles against the sticky armor. "You'll pay for that!!!" he shouts, then slams forward with "Noodle Soul Press!!" Sanji is crushed and shoved through the kitchen space, thinking, "Damn it!! I can't fight like this..." Wanze celebrates as if the technique has become unbeatable: "How do you like my super, crazy, unstoppable Ramen Kenpo now?!!" He laughs, "That's for looking down on me!! Sasasasasa~~~!!!" The joke of the noodle suit has turned into a real tactical problem: Sanji cannot land clean kicks, and Wanze can keep attacking from inside the food he has weaponized.

Sanji finally tears himself free: "Finally, I'm free...!!" But the lesson is clear. If he strikes the ramen armor directly, he will be caught again. Wanze rushes in, and Sanji thinks through the problem: "If I get stuck when I attack his armor...!! I have to avoid touching the ramen." Wanze keeps attacking with manic confidence: "Sasa eat this!!!" He follows with "Ramen Gyoza Set" and "Clapping!!!" Sanji watches the moving shell and reaches the narrow answer: "There's only one place I can attack!!" The fight shifts from brute force to precision; he must find the exposed target inside the absurd armor without touching the trap around it.

Sanji attacks the one weak opening with "Escalope!!" as a note explains that an escalope is a thin piece of boneless meat. Wanze reacts with another burst from the armor, "Ramen Beam!!!" The exchange explodes through the tight kitchen, but Wanze's confidence remains intact. He boasts from inside the noodle shell, "I have no weak point. Sasasasaa!!" Sanji's strike still reaches him enough to draw a cry of "BWAH!!!" and the impact proves that the suit is not invincible. The problem is not whether Wanze can be hurt; it is how to cut through the food armor without letting it drag Sanji into another sticky bind.

Wanze believes he has solved Sanji's style. "I've already figured out your fighting style!!!" he declares. "You only use your legs to attack!! So if I lock down your kicks, you're doomed--!!" He presses the logic further: "No matter what you do, you'll only get stuck in this suit!! It's useless!!" Then he launches another ramen technique: "Try to dodge this!! Ramen Kenpo" and attacks with "Fukumen Spank!!!" A note explains that fukumen is a mask. Sanji faces an enemy whose armor is built specifically to punish kicks, and Wanze is certain that a cook who refuses to use his hands has no answer left.

Sanji changes the rules of the kitchen fight. Instead of kicking the ramen armor apart, he moves with precise, cutting control and names the ingredient-like counter: "Fedelini: 1.4mm Pasta." Wanze is thrown off by the sudden shift and blurts, "Acrobatics? What!?" The ramen strands begin to come apart under Sanji's technique, reduced from a bulky battle suit into thin, controlled lines. The page turns the absurd food armor back into food: something a real chef can understand, measure, and cut. Wanze expected Sanji to be trapped by his own fighting policy, but Sanji has found a way to answer him within the rules of the kitchen itself.

Wanze panics as the ramen suit is ruined: "But you ruined my battle suit!!!" Sanji explains the line he normally refuses to cross. "A chef must fight without using his sacred hands and knives!! That is my policy for fighting..." Then he makes the exception clear: "But... since we're in a kitchen and you're using food as a weapon... it's another story." Wanze's crime is not merely attacking; it is treating food like a toy and a weapon. Sanji answers as a cook, not just as a fighter, and lashes out with "Sen-men Whip!!!" The ramen strands that once protected Wanze become material Sanji can handle and punish him with.

Sanji takes control of the kitchen. Wanze screams, "Don't touch my kitchen knives!! They're not toys for hoodlum amateurs!!!" But Sanji is neither a toy-grabber nor an amateur. He answers, "Allow me to show you... a first class cook's... special 'Houchou Sabaki'!!!" A note explains that houchou sabaki means a way of handling or caring for knives. The page then cuts from Sanji's culinary counterattack to the roof of the third car, where Franky and Nero continue their own fight above the speeding train. The rescue has split into two battles at once: Sanji reclaiming the kitchen from Wanze, and Franky trying to break past the CP9 newcomer.

On the roof of the third car, Nero shows off the speed of CP9's techniques. He vanishes with "Soru!!!" and darts around Franky faster than a normal fighter could track. Franky answers with blunt force, swinging "Strong Hammer!!!" Nero avoids the blow with "Kamie," letting his body slip away like paper while the strike misses him. The storm, the roof, and the rushing sea make the fight unstable, but Nero moves as if the train were his arena. Franky sees that this is not simply another brawler; Nero has enough of the Six Powers to dodge, leap, and strike in ways that make him hard to pin down.

Nero keeps attacking from the roof, using another CP9 technique: "Rankyaku!!" A note ties the name to a slicing leg attack, and the kick sends a cutting force toward Franky. The exchange forces Franky to study how Nero moves. Sogeking, still nearby in the broader chaos of the train, reacts with shock as Nero leaps and shifts through the air and along the train's surface. The technique looks dangerous, but Franky's body does not respond like an ordinary human target. The battle begins to expose a mystery for Nero as much as for Franky: one fighter moves like a trained government assassin, while the other absorbs punishment in a way that should not be possible.

Nero uses "Soru!!!" again, trying to stay out of Franky's reach, but Franky counters with "Fresh Fire!!!" and breathes a blast of flame across the roof. Nero avoids disaster by leaping away with "Geppou!!" The note calls it moon walk, and the move lets him kick through the air itself. From the angle of the train it looks as if he has dropped toward the sea on purpose, and someone reacts in disbelief: "He jumped into the sea on purpose!?" Instead, Nero has used the air as footing. The fight on the roof becomes a contest between Franky's unexpected body and Nero's incomplete but frightening CP9 mobility.

Nero returns from the air, and the fighters realize they are both seeing something strange. Franky watches the movement and says, "What kind of...!!" Nero cannot understand Franky's durability either: "How come Rankyaku didn't do anything to him!? There's something strange with this guy's body!!!" He attacks again and demands the answer in the middle of the clash: "...Monster are you!!!?" The Puffing Tom roars onward beneath them. The final panel tightens the countdown: "Only 20 minutes." The train is nearing "Arrival time to the government's front door, Enies Lobby." Every stalled fight now costs Robin's rescuers a piece of the little time they have left.

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