WARNING: The following contains spoilers for One Piece Chapter #1017 by Eiichiro Oda, Stephen Paul and Vanessa Satone, available in English now from Viz Media.
As any One Piece fan will tell you, one of the best feelings you can get while reading the series is when an apparently unremarkable moment in the past suddenly gets expanded upon in the present. When it comes to creator Eiichiro Oda, everything happens for a reason, and even the smallest details can snowball into something extraordinary for our characters. Chapter #1017 of the manga is the most recent example of this. Suddenly, a throwaway line from One Piece's very first chapter takes on a world of difference for Monkey D. Luffy's Gum-Gum Fruit.
Earlier on in the series, Jimbei was climbing to Onigashima's rooftop with Luffy so that he could reach Kaido, but the First Son of the Sea stayed behind on the fourth floor to fight off one of the Tobiroppo, Who's Who. Jimbei is now outnumbered and even gets shot by one of the underlings of Who's Who, but the former Shichibukai is too tough to complain about a simple bullet wound. Jimbei never expected a fair fight to begin with, but he, like the rest of the Straw Hats fighting right now, must defeat the Beast Pirate officer before him, no matter what.
As this happens, O-Tama's voice reaches through the Mary intercoms, telling all the Gifters to pledge loyalty to Momonosuke and Luffy. This causes one of the Gifters of Who's Who to begin attacking the rest of the Tobiroppo's underlings, leaving Jimbei to finally face the masked pirate one-on-one again.
Peculiarly, however, as Jimbei and Who's Who begin trading blows, the sabertooth tiger hybrid uses some familiar techniques: Shave, Tempest Kick and Iron Body. Jimbei quickly picks up on the fact that these are the same Six Powers Martial Arts used by the government assassins of Cipher Pol, or CP9, the shadow organization that works for the world government. CP9 were also the main antagonists of the "Water 7" saga.
Jimbei remembers hearing of a CP9 agent who had been imprisoned in Impel Down but escaped at some point, and Who's Who delightfully confirms that was, indeed, him. Who's Who then elaborates that he was imprisoned because of a mistake he made 12 years ago, which was unfortunate because he had just as much potential as Rob Lucci.
And yet, Jimbei still doesn't understand why Who's Who is telling him all this. After all, the Fishman has no sympathy to give to this particular enemy. So Who's Who finally gets to the point: it's because Jimbei is now a member of the Straw Hat Pirates, something that annoys the former assassin dearly. Why? Because 12 years ago, a Devil Fruit was stolen from a government ship -- the Gum-Gum Fruit that Straw Hat captain Luffy ate by accident.
In the first chapter of One Piece -- during the famous bar scene where Shanks is humiliated by the mountain bandit, Higuma -- Luffy ate the Gum-Gum Fruit in Shanks' possession, giving him his famous rubber body. Explaining the onlookers' shock, Lucky Roo detailed that the Devil Fruit had been recently plundered from an enemy ship.
What we can take away from this new information gleaned from #1017 is that Who's Who was likely the one assigned to guard the Devil Fruit while it was being transported. When the ship was attacked by Shanks and his nakama, his failure to defeat the pirates and protect the Fruit meant he was sentenced to imprisonment in Impel Down.
This is likely not something Oda planned from the very beginning, leaving us with a few questions about Luffy's iconic Devil Fruit. Why the government was coveting the Fruit, for instance, is unclear. Perhaps it represents some kind of opposition to the World Government's authority? Hopefully, a flashback of the plunder of the Gum-Gum Fruit in next week's chapter may expand on this shocking revelation in the One Piece manga.
