WARNING: The following contains spoilers for One Piece, Chapter #1,003 by Eiichiro Oda, Stephen Paul and Vanessa Satone, available in English now from Viz Media.
Although the fight between the Worst Generation and the two Yonko, Kaido and Big Mom, showed promise for the five rookie pirates at first, it seems their human limitations finally caught up with them in Chapter #1,003 of One Piece. Luffy unleashed a full-power Kong Gatling on Kaido but that final push of power has used up the last of his Gear Fourth. Now, the rubber man is unable to use haki for the next 10 minutes and the other four Supernovas must hold back the Yonko and keep Luffy safe while he recharges.
However, the most intriguing action of One Piece's latest chapter isn't what's happing on the roof of Onigashima, it's what's taking place below it, in the palace.
As Kaido releases a devastating typhoon attack, the Beast Pirates and Samurai are still facing-off in the palace. The severed head of the former shogun of Wano, Orochi, still rests on the very ground where he was killed but, even more interestingly, a gloved hand is shown arranging the pieces of a Go board, an ancient Chinese strategy board game that is still played today.
This hand belongs to an agent of CP-0, or Cipher Pol Aegis Zero. Three of these government agents appear to be riding out the raid in one of the palace's small tea rooms with several of the Beast Pirate maidens attending them. CP-0 is the strongest and most secretive branch of the government assassin organizations collectively known as Cipher Pol. They're even more secretive and powerful than CP-9, who the Straw Hats defeated in Enies Lobby. That group was later assimilated into CP-0 sometime during the series' time skip.
The three masked CP-0 Agents' names still have yet to be revealed, but two of three are still recognizable -- they appeared in Dressrosa to explain the false newspaper story concerning Doflamingo's resignation from the seven warlords.
The mysterious group ponder that should Kaido and Big Mom fall in this battle, there's no telling what will happen to the One Piece world as we know it. It says a lot that these shady government agents would apparently rather have tyrants like these Yonko keep their power over the New World rather than face the uncertainty of the new blood trying to change the world by defeating them.
The agents and their attendants even tally the remaining combatants on both sides. The alliance of pirates and samurai started with 5,400 and have only lost 400 men so far. Meanwhile, the Beast Pirates once consisted of 30,000 but have already lost 3,000 warriors since the raid began.
The agents commend the raiders' efforts but have faith that Kaido's Headliners will wear down their remaining numbers. Despite their concerns about the Yonko, they don't seem to have a horse in this race themselves, so how much more bloodshed happens on both sides makes no difference to them. With their contact, Orochi, dead, who knows what the CP-0 agents' next course of action will be. They could easily ride out this entire war in the shadows like they are doing now, but knowing Oda, and knowing the lengths these agents go to to meet their objective, this won't be the last we see of CP-0 during the Onigashima Raid.
