Chapter 31 — Truth
Original serialization: Weekly Shounen Jump 1998, #15
Kaya wakes up from a nightmare about a crazed Usopp, and discovers Merry. He’s still alive, and tells her the truth about Klahadore, and how Usopp was actually trying to save the village back then. They decide that since Klahadore wants her fortune, she’ll go and talk to him. They think she’s the only one who can save the village now.
Pepper, Carrot, and Onion are discussing Onion seeing Klahadore heading to the beach, and all admit that they think Usopp was telling the truth the day before. Then they spot Kaya walking on her own in their direction.
At the beach, the Meowban Brothers, Siam and Butchie, hop off the Black Cat’s ship. Jango orders them to attack Zoro, but they’re too scared to do it. After a while, Siam eventually charges him, but he’s still super scared. However, once he gets close enough, he suddenly gets serious and swipes at Zoro with his claws in a surprise attack. Zoro blocks the attack with his sword, but when Siam jumps back it turns out that he somehow managed to steal Zoro’s other two swords!
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This isn’t good… Kaya’s going to get herself killed if she confronts Kuro. There’s no way he’d take her mansion and money but leave her alive. He wants to make a clean escape after this operation is over, and that means no one who knows about him can be left alive. She’s probably going to end up interfering with the fight somehow… This isn’t good.
But Merry’s still alive, at least! Kuro definitely made a mistake by trying to kill him early, since Kaya was bound to find him lying there or know that something was wrong once she woke up.
And now Siam has stolen two of Zoro’s swords… Luffy is asleep, Zoro has one sword, and he has two opponents (not including Jango). And then Kuro is on his way, and Kaya and Usopp’s pirates are going to add another dynamic to this battle…
The odds seem to be against Luffy’s crew+Usopp+the villagers right now. It’s up to Zoro, then, to fight all these opponents, unless Luffy can manage to wake up…
Next chapter, tomorrow!
Well yeah, Kuro made a mistake by “killing” Merry, but to fair, according to his plan, the pirates would be already at the mansion, before Kaya woke up. How could he know that Luffy and co. would be there exactly this day and also volunteer to help Usopp. Just a stroke of bad luck for him^^
Yeah, that’s true. But after carefully executing his plan for three years, it was pretty stupid to mess it up at the very end. He didn’t even have to kill Merry, really. Just hypnotize and “accident” Kaya to death.