Summary:
Nami confronts Cracker and tries to use various tricks against him, but they prove ineffective and he overpowers her. However, Luffy regains his Haki and jumps back into the fight, surprising Cracker with a Gear 2 strike.
In the Teutonic Kingdom, Sanji is unable to continue fighting Niji due to the threat on Zeff, allowing Niji to strike him. As his brothers stand over him, Sanji remembers his childhood in the Germ Kingdom. The judge gave him and his siblings superhuman powers and let them train, but Sanji constantly fell short of his siblings’ performances, which bullied him cruelly. The judge found that Sanji had no superhuman powers after all, and faked Sanji’s death, locking his third son in a dungeon with an iron mask to act as if he never existed.
As Cracker confronts them, Nami tells Kingbaum and friends to run while she fights Sweet Commander. Kingbaum is shocked that he’s up against someone of Cracker’s caliber, but Nami sets her plan in motion as she leaps out of the tree homie’s mouth and punches the two cracker soldiers at lightning speed. However, the lightning strike, which only scorched their biscuity bodies, did not faze the soldiers. He then attacks Nami, overpowering her and subduing her. Cracker then confronts Nami personally, asking her why she and Luffy are suicidal in their quest to get Sanji back. Nami replies that while Sanji can be annoying at times, he is one of her valued crewmates and selflessly helps the crew in times of need, a relationship that Cracker doesn’t seem to understand. Thinking over Nami’s words, Cracker decides to attack her himself, believing that she will not be able to cause him pain. Nami manages to block the first few blows from the pretzel, but Cracker eventually disarms her and holds the pretzel to her neck, taking his time and painfully killing her. However, Luffy then bursts in with Gear 2 activated and punches Cracker, sending him away. Cracker is pleased to see Luffy again, and Luffy prepares to deal with Sweet Commander alone.
In the Germa Kingdom, Sanji just kicked Niji in the face, causing Niji to fall into a wall. As Niji fixes his injured jaw, Ichiji reminds Sanji that they can have Zeff killed if Sanji continues to attack, causing Sanji to stagger. Taking full advantage of this, Niji quickly moves behind her brother and mocks him for his reaction to Cosette’s beating as she drives an electrified knee into his back. Niji then sends Sanji sprawled to the ground with an electric shock, and he, Ichiji, and Yonji stand over their brother. They continue to mock Sanji’s devotion to Cosette, and Ichiji reminds Sanji that he is still in the family hierarchy as their failure. Sanji remembers his past in the Teutonic Kingdom, where he and his siblings stood before the judge. The judge told them they were gifted with superhuman powers that would make them powerful emotionless military commanders and said they needed training to awaken them. The siblings started practicing and jumped off a high balcony for the test. Reiju, Ichiji, Niji, and Yonji easily landed on their feet, but Sanji was overcome with fear from the big fall and was unable to jump.
This trend continued as Sanji consistently fell behind his siblings in every physical test, even nearly drowning once while swimming across the ocean. He and Niji once fought with wooden swords, and to Sanji’s surprise, his sword broke when he tried to strike Niji with it. Niji then responded by brutally beating Sanji with his sword, which took so long that the Germa 66 soldiers had to remove him from Sanji. Sanji’s siblings started hunting for his weakness and regularly bullied him, Reiju seemed reluctant but joined in anyway. Unhappy with Sanji’s weakness, Judge was confused when he heard a report from one of his assistants that Sanji appeared to be a normal human. no superhuman adjustments. Sanji was in his room feeding a rat when Judge came in and confronted his son about his weakness. The judge became angry when he saw Sanji feeding the rat and tells him to stop acting like his late mother as he sent the rat and the food falling out the window. Judge’s brutality made Sanji cry and Sanji’s suffering continued as his normal human body could not withstand the harsh training. Acknowledging that Sanji was a failed experiment, the judge held a funeral for his son, stating that he had died in an accident. Ichiji, Niji and Yonji didn’t care about the news of their brother’s death. In reality, Sanji was taken to a dungeon where an iron mask remained on his head. Shocked and confused, he begged the soldiers to let him speak to the judge, but they revealed that the judge had ordered it because he wanted to pretend Sanji no longer existed. Left alone in his cell, Sanji wailed desperately at the abuse he was suffering.