WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for One Piece, Chapter #991 by Eiichiro Oda, Stephen Paul and Vanessa Satone, available in English now from Viz Media.

When Oda reaches the climaxes of warfare in One Piece arcs, he likes to splinter off his characters so that multiple exchanges and showdowns can happen at once. It happened in the Enies Lobby arc with the Straw Hats splitting up to fight each of the CP9 Members and again later on when the crew got separated on Thriller Bark. Now, in Onigashima of Wano, Oda has begun the process again in the manga, setting readers up for some exciting future fights.

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Chapter #991 picks up where #990 ended, with X Drake trying to ally himself with the Straw Hats. We know that Drake is secretly a marine undercover as a pirate, but after the Beast Pirates realized his loyalty was questionable, Drake managed to slip away from his interrogation. Now, he's trying to convince Luffy to let him be apart of their mission to defeat Kaido. This triggers a flashback with Coby, one of Luffy's oldest friends, telling Drake what he admires about Luffy. Drake repeats his interest in aligning with the Straw Hats, but remarks that he can not say why -- sparking Zoro's distrust of Drake.

As the crew argues about this, the Tobiroppo siblings, Page-One and Ulti, make it to the first floor of the palace where they go on a rampage against the alliance. Usopp lands a shot on Page-One and then immediately shifts the blame onto Nami when an angry Ulti asks who did it. The duo of "hit-and-run" cowards then make a run for it as Ulti and Page-One chase after them.

This is right when Luffy and the remainder of the crew are ambushed by Scratchman Apoo and his musical Devil Fruit powers. Apoo uses his body to create deafening explosive soundwaves, but he also calls the Numbers. He mourns the loss of the defeated Numbers, as a fourth Number, Hacha, enters the fray. Hacha takes an interest in Franky's General Franky suit, which they use to lead the ancient giant out of the palace and away from the fight.

During this, Zoro and Drake continue their skirmish, but seeing Apoo trying to call in more Numbers, the two drop their fighting to attack the musical pirate. With a mutual enemy established, the two agree to team up to take down Apoo, but their double team is halted, this time by a hail of bullets by Queen. With that, the chapter switches perspectives back to the rooftop where Kaido and his men are fighting the Nine Red Scabbarbs led by Kine'emon.

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Shockingly, one of Kaido's All-Stars, Jack, falls in battle, which upsets a surprisingly sympathetic Kaido. Jack, being a member of Kaido's top brass, would never be defeated so easily but it soon becomes clear what the cause of this is. Standing in the glow of the moonlight are the Mink Kings, Nekomamushi and Inurashi, in their Sulong forms. With power beyond their normal limitations, Neko and Inu were able to wipe out a majority of Kaido's men along with Jack, leaving the Strongest Creature forced to face The Scarabs on his own. But what this leaves us with is seeing a much more sympathetic side to Kaido. He even goes so far as to thank Jack for his contribution and leave him to tend his wounds as he faces the threat alone. You would never believe Kaido to be the sympathetic type, but it seems he does care about his men to some extent.

Kaido then unleashes a fiery breath attack upon the Scarabs, but this does nothing to worry Kin'emon. The resolved samurai uses his foxfire sword style to cut the flames in two and even damages Kaido in the process. The nine former retainers of Kozuki Oden stand firm with their resolve unshaken as they taunt the Yonko. None of them plan on dying until after Kaido dies here.

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