## One Piece Chapter 953: A Fox of a Single Disguise - Chapter: 953 - Pages: 0-17 - Characters: Capone Bege, Charlotte Chiffon, Kawamatsu, Kozuki Hiyori, Roronoa Zoro, Gyukimaru, Shimotsuki Ushimaru, Kaido, Onimaru, Kinemon, Orochi ### Summary Page 0: The cover story reads, "Short-term focused cover-page serials, part 24, Gang Bege's 'Oh My Family' vol. 4: 'Time to hijack the enemy's ship off to Thriller Bark!'" Bege and his men prepare a ship theft as they continue following Chiffon's wish. It is cover-story content rather than the chapter's main plot. Page 2: A letter tells all. Kawamatsu reads Hiyori's words: "To Kawamatsu. Thank you for everything. I am safe. Hiyori." He refuses the truth at first, whispering, "No..." and then cries out for her: "Princess Hiyori! Princess! My lady!" He searches desperately through Wano, calling "Princess..." and "Princess Hiyori..." until he collapses from exhaustion. Years later, Hiyori is safe among allies, and Kawamatsu's old grief finally has an answer. Page 3: In present-day Ringo, Gyukimaru runs through the snow with Zoro pursuing him by following the blood. Hiyori notes that the monk is not carrying a truckload of weapons, judging by the way he is running, and Zoro decides, "Well, I just have to follow the blood, and..." Yet he suddenly stops and says, "Huh?" The trail has led him toward something unexpected in the frozen wilderness. Page 4: At Bandit Bridge, Kawamatsu says they should leave the place. Zoro asks whether Kawamatsu thought Gyukimaru had simply been picking off stragglers the whole time, and also asks who that large warrior monk was. Kawamatsu wobbles on his injured footing and says he must focus. Hiyori calls him by name, but he laughs, "Kappappa! Is that so?!" and says he knows no adult that puffs up like a blowfish like that. Still, he admits there are so many things he wants to ask her: "How did you end up here?" Page 5: Kawamatsu begins explaining how he arrived in Ringo. After Hiyori left him, he drifted, doing this and that, until his feet eventually carried him there. He says, "If something ever happens to the princess, and I must end my own life, this is the place to do it!" The frosty northern reaches of Wano, Ringo and the neighboring Hakumai, were once ruled by the fierce Shimotsuki clan. Ringo itself became a wasteland under Kaido's wrath, but its daimyo had been Shimotsuki Ushimaru, a master swordsman always accompanied by his pet fox. Page 6: Kawamatsu asks whether Hiyori knows Ringo's custom, the Eternal Burial. Hiyori has heard that because it is so cold, bodies left out in coffins stay preserved for hundreds of years. Kawamatsu explains that the markers used for these eternal graves are swords, katanas, and that some of the blades were famed meito. Such was Ringo, the land upon which they now stand. But after the fall, the graves were constantly looted, and a fox barked from the snow as robbers prepared to raid them again. Page 7: The fox's name was Onimaru, the beloved companion of the late daimyo of Ringo, Ushimaru Shimotsuki. When grave robbers approached, Onimaru leapt out barking, and Kawamatsu recognized him: "Onimaru?!" The fox snarled, but Kawamatsu said, "I... I have met you once before." The meeting brought together the ruined land's last loyal guardian and the retainer who had lost Hiyori. Page 8: For the five years after Ringo fell, Onimaru fought alone against the evils of grave robbers. Kawamatsu is stunned and asks, "Don't tell me... you protected all this by yourself?!" He thinks of the custom: on the day of their birth, the people of Ringo give their children swords, and those swords accompany them through life, one day serving to mark their graves. Seeing Onimaru wounded and loyal, Kawamatsu feeds him and says, "Here! Eat up. You must eat to heal. For if you die, who will protect your master's grave?" Page 9: Onimaru continues guarding the graves, barking and growling whenever Kawamatsu approaches the swords. Kawamatsu hushes him and apologizes: "Forgive me. Forgive me! I know!" The fox does not understand yet, and the snowfield fills with the scrape of blades as Kawamatsu begins gathering them anyway. The work looks like theft, but Kawamatsu's guilt shows that he knows exactly whose resting places he is disturbing. Page 10: Onimaru bites Kawamatsu, but Kawamatsu pleads for forgiveness and explains the future he sees. "Thirteen years from today a battle will be fought!" he says. He does not wish to disturb the slumber of the dead any more than Onimaru does, but the day will come when the samurai of Wano raise their bowed heads in unison. On that day they must be armed, and they will need countless swords. Kawamatsu believes the dead will allow their blades to be used once more if it means freeing the country. Page 11: Kawamatsu imagines the final battle: the samurai will advance with the swords of their fallen comrades in hand, and the souls that live in those blades will steel their hearts and enable them to v...