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After a prolonged break, Eiichiro Oda’s record-breaking One Piece manga will finally return with a new installment on Monday, January 22, 2024. Based on the first spoilers and raw scans, it seems that One Piece chapter 1104 will continue the narration of the Egghead Incident.
Following the conclusion of Bartholomew Kuma’s flashback, the storytelling returned to the present. Bonney and the others were powerless in front of Saint Saturn, but Kuma's timely arrival saved them. Besides this major development, however, there’s another important matter that needs to be clarified.
Since coming on Egghead, Borsalino “Kizaru” has been behaving rather oddly, even during his fight against Luffy. Tasked with killing Vegapunk, the Admiral is torn between his duties as a Marine and his friendship towards the scientist and the others.
Disclaimer: This article contains major spoilers from the One Piece manga up to chapter 1104.
One Piece chapter 1104 suggests that despite appearances, Kizaru is helping the Straw Hat Pirates
Kizaru's feelings were exposed in One Piece chapter 1104
Gathering all his Devil Fruit energy, Haki, and the suffering of an entire life into a single punch, Kuma violently struck Saint Saturn. The powerful blow sent Saturn crashing into the surrounding buildings and caused him major injuries, but he used a special ability to regenerate every damage.
With Saturn temporarily incapacitated, the effect of his powers over Bonney, Sanji, Franky, and Dr Vegapunk stopped. As such, they were finally able to move once again. As Saturn targeted Kuma, Sanji and Franky protected the latter.
Franky fired his Radical Beam at Saturn, piercing through his body, but the Elder regenerated himself just like he did after being hit by Kuma. Meanwhile, Kizaru was seemingly down for the count as a result of a powerful Conqueror’s Haki-imbued blow by Gear 5 Luffy.
Right at that moment, however, the Admiral appeared out of nowhere and struck Franky, sending him flying. Seeing Kizaru, Vegapunk asked the former:
“Your heart can’t handle doing this anymore, isn’t it? This must be sad for you, Kizaru!”
Saddened and almost about to burst into tears, Kizaru replied:
“I should have worn darker sunglasses.”
Kizaru's nerfed mental state
Kizaru has been conflicted ever since he received the mission to kill Dr Vegapunk. This is the reason why he didn’t even go all-out in his fight with Luffy, which also explains why the battle looked quite uncanny, as if both combatants weren’t particularly interested in overcoming each other.
Vegapunk teased Kizaru about his discomfort, and the Admiral’s answer indirectly confirmed his evident uneasiness. Kizaru beat Sentomaru, fought Luffy to a standstill, allegedly targeted Vegapunk several times, and now, as seen in One Piece chapter 1104, struck Franky. However, that doesn’t mean he has any real killing intent against the Straw Hats or his former friends.
Kizaru's mental state seems the same as Garp's during the Paramount War. Kizaru is fighting and launching some attacks here and there, but he is evidently unwilling to go any further. He isn’t using the real extent of his powers and has no intention of doing so.
He is trying to find a balance between carrying out his duties as a Marine and respecting his human feelings. That’s exactly what Garp, torn between strikingly similar demands, did back then in Marineford. Garp attacked Marco, but that doesn’t diminish his internal conflict, especially as he also let Luffy get past him.
Similarly, Kizaru taking on Luffy and the others doesn’t mean that he is putting much commitment into it. In the beginning, Kizaru appeared as an enormous obstacle for the protagonists, but as the story unfolds, it seems increasingly clear that he has no real intention of killing Vegapunk.
Kizaru might have already helped the Straw Hat Pirates
The battle between Kizaru and Luffy ended up in a sort of draw, allegedly leaving both contenders unable to move. Luffy hit Kizaru with a technique called Gum-Gum Star Gun, which sent the Admiral flying, and ostensibly injured him to the point where he needed to rest.
However, Luffy was in the same situation. Having consumed almost all his energy to maintain the Gear 5 transformation, Luffy reached his limits as soon as he performed the Star Gun. He fell to the ground exhausted and started asking for food, which he would need to regain his stamina.
Shortly after, Luffy is seen eating a massive quantity of food, which appeared out of nowhere. The person who assisted Luffy was not shown, but it's made clear that he or she did so in a flash, to the point where not even Saturn noticed what happened.
Pending the manga's official confirmation, it’s highly likely that the person who fed Luffy was none other than Kizaru. Before Luffy received food, Kizaru was lying down on the ground, thinking about Sentomaru and Bonney’s fate. Right after Luffy began to eat, Kizaru was shown in a very different position.
He was now sitting up and seemed short of breath. It must be noted that only a few moments pass between the two scenes, and that, at the time, the Straw Hats, Bonney, Vegapunk, and his satellites were all unable to move, or busy elsewhere. Hence, no one of them could have possibly assisted Luffy.
Not to mention, the mysterious benefactor managed to gather an enormous quantity of food, bring it to Luffy, and flee, all in the span of a few seconds.
If there’s a person in One Piece capable of such a feat, that’s Kizaru, who can move at unparalleled speed thanks to the powers of his Glint-Glint Fruit. Moreover, Kizaru spent a lot of time on Egghead in the past, which means he likely knows the location of the Automatic Cooking Machine.
Using that appliance would be the only way to gather such a large amount of food in such little time. The easiest and most logical explanation is that Kizaru used his Devil Fruit ability to move at the speed of light, reach Vegapunk’s cooking machine, generate the food, and bring it to Luffy.
The fact that, of all characters, One Piece author Eiichiro Oda purposely showed Kizaru both immediately before and right after Luffy received food seems like a pretty evident hint on the mangaka’s part. Concurrently, Oda emphasized Saturn’s anger at what happened, as he knew for sure that no one on the “good side” could move.
Among the nourishment that Luffy received there was a bowl of ramen, the same food that Kizaru was eating before landing on Egghead. This might be another hint that the person who fed Luffy is the Admiral. Kizaru probably decided to prioritize his morals over his position but didn’t want to openly defy Saturn and the World Government.
The "cog" has to choose a side in the next One Piece chapters
When Sentomaru was just a child, Kizaru trained him to become Vegapunk’s bodyguard. Sentomaru even refers to the Admiral as “uncle,” which only proves their close bond. When he came to Egghead, Kizaru fought and beat Sentomaru, but refrained from killing him, even though he could have easily done so.
As seen in the recent One Piece chapters, Kizaru wasn’t only very close to Sentomaru and Vegapunk, but even to Kuma and Jewelry Bonney. Despite his attempts to claim that it was just part of his work, Kizaru spent a lot of time on Egghead with Vegapunk and the others, creating happy memories with them.
At one point, Kizaru, Sentomaru, Vegapunk, Kuma, and Bonney feasted together, eating pizza and even cheerfully dancing to the rhythm of Nika. With the lives of all his friends now threatened by the World Government, of which he is a prominent representative, Kizaru is torn between his feelings and his sense of duty.
As noted by Vegapunk in One Piece chapter 1104, however, Kizaru’s emotions are evidently taking over. This is possibly a result of him learning that Saturn was the one who cruelly destroyed Bonney and Kuma to manipulate the latter into becoming a mindless cyborg at his service.
Apart from being displeased by the idea of hurting his friends, Kizaru also became disgusted by Saturn’s evil schemes. However, true to his moral philosophy, the “Unclear Justice,” Kizaru didn’t take a strong and unambiguous position.
Instead of fully switching sides, he likely just stopped blindly obeying the World Government and started acting in a way that enabled him to both carry out his orders and protect his friends.
A man who described himself as “a cog in the machine,” Kizaru is fine with being a piece of something greater. Thus, instead of openly rebelling against the World Government, he chose to depend on Luffy, assisting the young pirate in the hope that he can help Sentomaru, Vegapunk, Kuma, and Bonney to survive.
Kizaru just attacked Franky, but that's, paradoxically, another indication of the fact that he is acting on Vegapunk and the Straw Hat crew's side. To prevent Saturn from mercilessly murdering the Straw Hats, Kizaru would fight them in his place.
He would use non-lethal attacks and hold himself back to keep the Straw Hats alive, so that they can do what he, due to his role, can't. By doing so, Kizaru aims to hold his Admiral rank in front of Saturn, while secretly helping Vegapunk and the others.
However, Kizaru might soon be left with no choice but to openly choose a side. As revealed in One Piece chapter 1104, Saturn ordered a Buster Call on Egghead, meaning that, if no one stops the course of events, the people whom Kizaru is so fond of are doomed to die.
