Mr. Kishido

In Kalifa's room, the battle is Sanji vs. Kalifa. Kalifa keeps her composure and needles him with Robin's fate: "If you're wondering about Nico Robin," she says, "She's getting closer and closer to the Gates of Justice. Or should I say she's approaching 'hell'?" Sanji snaps back, "I'm perfectly aware of that!!! Right, Robin-chan's life is at stake!!!" His anger fills the ruined room as he warns her, "If you try to get in my way, I won't take into consideration that you're a woman!! Now, give me the key that you have, before you get hurt!!!" Kalifa only laughs softly. "... Hoo, hoo... Even with your yelling, the key won't appear that easily."

Kalifa steps into the fight without accepting any mercy. "You don't have to think of me as a woman..." she tells Sanji. "I don't live in such a lenient world. As long as I have the extermination order, I'll just take your life." Sanji answers that his life is not what she is getting: "I won't give you my life. What I want is the key to Robin-chan's handcuffs." Kalifa decides the polite pause is over. "Well then, shall we bring tea time to a close?" In the next instant she disappears with "Soru," closing the distance with CP9 speed before Sanji can force the conversation any further.

Kalifa's kicks come in sharp, clean lines, and Sanji is forced to guard instead of countering. He recognizes the truth of her power: "Indeed, she has super-human power." Their legs clash again and again in the air, Kalifa pressing him with the precision of the Six Powers. Even when Sanji keeps up with her speed, he still does not strike her. Kalifa lands a hit and calmly counts it: "One blow for me." Sanji reels with "Hawe...!!" as the blow crashes through him with a heavy "Hon-gah!!!" The page turns the fight into a one-sided test of Sanji's restraint, not his strength.

Kalifa makes her advantage plain. "Something like that would be 'one blow,' wouldn't it?" she says as Sanji is knocked backward. He hits hard enough to cry, "Owwie!" and "Orrrghh!!!" but still refuses to answer with a kick of his own. Kalifa rises with "Geppou," stepping through the air above him, and Sanji can only shout, "NGGG!!! You fiend~~!!!" The impact comes down with a brutal "Thump!!" It is not that Sanji cannot move; it is that the one move that would save him is the one thing he will not do.

Kalifa pins the fight beneath her heel. "I just crushed you with my leg...!!!" she says before shifting into "Shigan." Her finger pistol shoots toward Sanji as she declares, "You lost. Now gimme the..." But Sanji vanishes from under her hand fast enough to startle her: "He's so fast...!!" Kalifa answers with "Rankyaku," sending cutting arcs through the room. Sanji twists and survives, grunting "Ugh!!!" and "Whoa!!!" as the slashes tear past him. His speed proves he has not been beaten physically, but every dodge makes the same problem clearer: he can escape, block, and endure, yet he still will not attack her.

Kalifa sees through him. "You're a pirate... yet a terrible coward," she says, because his threats have no force behind them if he will not hit a woman. Sanji flares up, "Hey, shut up!!! Just give me the key!!!" Kalifa is finished playing along: "I've had enough of your empty threats. If you don't counter-attack... you won't survive it." Sanji still tries to talk his way to Robin's key instead of breaking his rule. Kalifa closes in and says, "Let's do something fun..." The danger becomes personal: she is not merely guarding the key, she is exposing the contradiction at the center of Sanji's chivalry.

On the first floor VIP room, Nami faces Kumadori. She realizes with relief, "He's not coming after me..." and thinks, "Good thing... if he were to catch me again, I bet my life would end right there...!!" Her plan is simple: "I'll just run..." But Kumadori's hair surges after her with "Woosh woosh." He uses "Seimei Kikan," noted as "Life Feedback," and the hair moves like living tentacles. Nami barely has time to cry, "Eh!?" before it wraps her up. She screams "WAH!!!" and "Kugh...!!!" while Kumadori sings out, "Ayoi yoi yoi yoyoyoi!!!"

Kumadori resumes his theatrical execution as Nami struggles in his hair. "Noooow, as we were~~!! Shall I stab you to death~~~? Or shall I strangle you~~?" Nami chokes out, "Shi---!!! I'm choking... Ugh...!!" Kumadori recites as if death were a stage performance: "Life is but a harsh, wintry wind; without the taste of spring, you'll pass into blissful oblivion. But first, to see the flower bloom, the lovely scarlet petals of your soul, is the duty of compassion. To scatter them in the dismal wind is the kindness of my heart. To recite the spring feeling." He names the attack "Haru Gin Jou" and cries, "Now, die, die, die!" Nami screams, "NOO!!!" and gasps, "I'm... I am---- killing well!!!" Kumadori continues, "Once you're in the next world... please tell my late mother..." before a sudden "Kokutei" strikes into the scene.

Chopper crashes into Kumadori's performance with his hoof attack. The technique lands as "Roseo" and the note explains that "Kokutei Roseo" means "Engraving Hoof Sakura." Kumadori's chant collapses into a startled "Byo!!?" as Chopper's blow smashes him away from Nami. He is driven across the room with a huge impact, the sound effects roaring through the page, until he hits the ground with "BOEI!!!" and "Thud." For a moment, the strangling hair releases its hold, and Nami is saved from Kumadori's fatal recital by Chopper's sudden intervention.

Nami coughs on the floor, "Gah!!! cough!! cough!!" Chopper rushes to her: "Nami!!! Are you okay!!?" She answers, "...!! Chopper...!! Thanks, you saved me..." Chopper stares at Kumadori's hair and asks, "What is that!? Is he a DF user?" Nami says, "No idea! His hair moves like an octopus. I couldn't counter it at all!! Anyway, this's our chance, Chopper!! Let's leave here ASAP!!" Chopper protests, "Why!? We won't get the key unless we beat him!!" Nami reveals she already stole one: "I stole it without being noticed, but I couldn't run!!" Chopper checks it: "This's it, isn't it? Do you know how the others are doing?" Nami urgently asks, "Hey, hey, what's the number on it!?" He reads the tag: "Number?" It is "No. 3." Nami groans, "Aw, crap. Useless." Chopper asks, "What's with the number?"

Before Nami can explain the numbering, something crashes down inside the Judicial Tower. Chopper looks up: "Something... fell!!" Nami cries, "Kyah!!" and then, "Eh!!?" At first Chopper thinks, "A doll!!?" but the ruined body in the rubble is Sanji. Nami shouts, "Sanji!!?" and Chopper cries, "No!!! What!? What happened to him!!?" Sanji has fallen through like a broken mannequin, glossy and badly injured from Kalifa's attack. The sight interrupts every other problem in the room, because the crew's cook, who should have been fighting for Robin's key, has been thrown down defeated.

Nami and Chopper gather around Sanji in the broken floor. Chopper is horrified: "He's like a glass doll!!! His entire body's so shiny... and seriously injured!!" Nami asks, "Sanji!! Hey, what's going on!!?" and "Are you okay, Sanji-kun!?" She cannot accept the result: "I can't believe Sanji-kun was defeated...!! There must be a DF user in CP9 who can do this...!!" Sanji can barely speak. "S... sowwy... I lost. I couldn't get... the key..." Nami freezes over that confession. Chopper starts forward: "H-hold on, Sanji!! I'll give you first aid!!" But Nami asks what matters most: "You really couldn't win...? Did you fight her seriously...?"

Nami understands exactly what happened when she hears Sanji's excuse. He apologizes again, "...!! I'm sorry... about the key," but she snaps, "It's not that!!" She throws his own rule back at him: "Your opponent is that woman, right...? You're always so sweet to women." Then she asks the real question: "I'm just saying that if you keep holding on to your stupid kishido, you'll be endangering your life!!! Will you still keep it, even if you end up like this!? What if you die!?" Sanji answers from the rubble, quietly and absolutely: "I was taught never to kick a woman. ...!! It's not like... I want to die... but that's just how I was brought up. That's why..." Then he declares, "... Even if it kills me, I refuse to kick a woman...!!!" Nami calls him "Idiot..." and then louder, "Idiot!!" while Chopper panics, "Hey, what're you doing, Nami!!?"

Nami does not forgive Sanji's stupidity, but she accepts the shape of it. As she heads for Kalifa, she says, "If 'running away' is also against your kishido, then you shouldn't bother with it!! It's a totally different story to waste your life like that!!" Sanji, even from the floor, insists, "Leave that woman to me!! I won't let her get away with this." Nami answers, "And as for your kishido... I guess you deserve some credit for that." Chopper cries, "She didn't say that!! She said... deserve some loving for that," but the meaning is clear: Nami will take over where Sanji cannot. She faces Kalifa and says, "I won't be so sweet to you!!" Kalifa smiles back: "Same here. We might get along well..."

Kumadori, meanwhile, revives and panics as Chopper turns back toward him. He wails, "YOYO!! WAAAit up!! I won't...!!! I won't leet yooou geeet awaaay!!!" Nami assigns the fight without hesitation: "Octopus-man!!" and tells Chopper, "You handle that woman, Nami!!" Chopper answers, "I'll take care of him!! Okay!!" He charges with "Kokutei" and follows through with "Cross!!!" against Kumadori's body. Kumadori howls, "YOYOGOH!!!" as the impact explodes across the room. The battlefield splits cleanly: Nami goes to Kalifa for the key Sanji could not win, and Chopper takes responsibility for holding back Kumadori.

Outside the tower, the underground passage roars beneath the sea, and the voices of Luffy's unexpected guides echo over the water: "Ubebaba bobaba bebabuba!" In the flooded current, the strange pair thrash and shout while Luffy demands, "UWAAAH!! Pirate-bro, what're you doing!!?" One guide answers in more strange sounds, "Hababebi bobobana bebiranuga rapa!" and the other cries, "Nyaaa, Nyaaa!!!" Luffy, coughing and struggling through the water, yells, "Are you an idiot!? There's no way you can cross this sea with a boat!!" They shout back, "Calm down!!! We came to tell you the way to get there!!!" Luffy explains why he cannot wait: "Haa... Haa... It's 'cause Robin was taken to that gate!!! We've gotta hurry or it'll be too late!!!"

Luffy's guides explain the route: "An underground passage beneath the sea!?" A subordinate reports, "Yup!! Lucci's subordinate went down the staircase earlier while laughing out loud, so I followed him." Another cries, "Waaaah hahaha. They can't follow us!" and the information continues: "Lucci and that black haired lady went in here, too!" At the steel door marked "WORLD GOVT," the subordinate says, "Is this it!? It's a hard steel door..." and explains, "The subordinate touched something over here earlier... so I bet... You can operate it using this keyhole!!" But the problem remains: "But we don't have the key..." Luffy has no patience left. "... Guys, get back. We can get to the Gates of Justice from here, right!?" Someone asks, "Eh!? What're you gonna do!?" Luffy bites into his thumb: "Gear" and then, with force gathering in him, "Third"!!! The watchers shout, "...!!? Whoa!!!"

The Judicial Tower looms as Luffy's new technique begins to move the impossible door. A massive sound tears across the area, and someone gasps, "!!?" The steel gate shakes, then the panel confirms it: "It opened..." Luffy's face tightens with determination: "Good..." The passage to the Gates of Justice is no longer sealed. As the others panic at the sudden change, one screams, "EEeH!? Why'd you shrink!!?" Another cries, "Nyaaaa!?" Luffy, now small after using Gear Third, walks forward with tiny steps, "tomp tomp," and announces, "Here I go!!" The absurd aftermath does not slow the purpose of the scene: he has opened the way to chase Robin.

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