The Price ofPower Misidentification* For context, Spytand Malice (the dino-man) thought Izuku had eaten a Devil Fruit, and is being thoroughly corrected.* Art by vscarok
Izuku, who has been recovering from his final fight with All for One for two weeks and isn’t at full strength, manages to come up with a plan to free Yamato from her father by stealing the key Kaido always keeps in his pants in the span of about two days. The success of this plan is so unprecedented that Kaido suffers an Abusive ParentPapa WolfVillainous Breakdown over it.
Furthermore, if Spytand Malice hadn’t noticed him, Izuku would have pulled the whole thing off without fightingany of the Beast Pirates.
Yamato one-shotting Page One. He comes to thinking someone hit him with a ship.
While she ultimately loses to Kaido, Yamato’s distraction duel with her father sees her unlocking the ability to use Conqueror's Haki. Kaido's so impressed that he drops all his (active) defenses in the hopes that the blow will actually leave a mark.
Izuku destroysSpytand Malice—one of the members of the Flying Six (officially the bottom six of the ten strongest in the entire Beast Pirates), a former Vice Admiral who has an Ancient Zoan Devil Fruit, knows the Six Powers, and can use Armament Haki—without any of the abilities a One Piece character would need to even attempt such a thing.
When he first sees Izuku using Smoke, Spytand assumes that he's killed Smoker for the Smoke-Smoke Logia fruit, and Izuku cleverly holds back to let him think that Smoke is his only power while slowly testing out Spytand's strength, and when the Flying Six member manages to knock him into the ocean, he's able to get in a surprise attack because the Tyrannosaurus Zoan assumes that he's won and lets his guard down.
The final blow of the fight has Spytand frantically putting up a combined defense of Tekkai and Armament Haki, only for Izuku to punch straight through both, leaving Spytand a Twinkle in the Sky. It's later revealed that he landed clear across the ocean in Wano, somehow still alive.
To reiterate for One Piece fans, the guy without Haki managed to Megaton Punch the guy with Haki.
Izuku realizes afterwards that he didn't even need to use Fa Jin, meaning that wasn’t even the strongest blow he's currently capable of.
Part of why Spytand is so frantic is that he believes that if Izuku manages to learn Haki and harness his full power he could actually be a viable threat to Kaido. To put this into perspective, Izuku had claimed to be using 80% of his power when the truth was closer to 50% so Spytand would underestimate him, meaning that what Spytand thinks is Izuku's maximum is only 5/8 of his actual maximum. Again, this is without haki.
By the time that King finds Yamato's cuffs thanks to Bao Haung and Kaido realizes he's been robbed, Izuku and Yamato, thanks to Izuku's Float Quirk, are already well beyond Wano's borders.
When pirates attack the first town Izuku and Yamato arrive in after escaping Wano, the two of them intervene, knocking the attacking Brownbeard insensate and forcing his crew to flee.
At the Midsummer Knights Festival, Izuku and Yamato manage to thwart an attack by domestic terrorists with no loss of life.
Bach proves why he's the king of Doyle by using his wits to devise a clever trap for the Finalem Brothers to step into, hook, line, and sinker. Mainly, he fakes surrendering to the Brothers to lure them to his palace while Lord Jenner and others secretly amass Doyle's army and police forces, then when the Brothers are at their most vulnerable Izuku and Yamato ambush them to separate them from the rest of their crew, throwing the Finalem Pirates into chaos and allowing the otherwise outmatched regular forces to defeat them with minimal loss of life.
Sabo and Koala intervening to stop three of the Finalem Pirates from attacking the city's gasworks alongside Ensign Doll. Special mention goes to Koala smashing her opponent with a Dangerous Forbidden Technique after the Fish-woman hammers Koala's slavery Berserk Button (with the added hypocrisy of being a member of a highly enslaved race within the world) and Doll taking down a scythe-wielder with her own Marine Sword Style she developed during her training.
Izuku and Yamato vs the Finalem Brothers. Yamato finally gets a handle on her devil fruit powers to defeat Bandsome and Izuku makes it rain to shut down Handsome, defeating the New World-grade logia user without awakening his haki.
Whitebeard one-ups Izuku in the weather department, destroying a hurricane big enough to tear up islands, throw Sea Kings around, and tank multiple hits from 200% One For All with a single blow from his Conqueror's Haki.
From Chapter 50:
Izuku and Yamato are captured by Breed, a pirate who can shoot goo from his hands that turns into a Slave Collar when it makes contact with someone. Despite being caught off guard, Izuku still has enough will in him to strike Breed with Black Whip, though it isn't enough to free the two heroes.
Thatch, who had come along just to observe the two, jumps in to intervene when it's clear Breed has Izuku and Yamato at his mercy. Breed hits Thatch with his Pet-Pet powers, but Thatch is able to overpower the mind control with his Haki and willpower alone before Flash Stepping to Breed and giving the bastard a Neck Snap for his trouble.
Izuku expresses a need to overcome Conqueror's Haki, otherwise he'll never be able to even come close to Kaido. Whitebeard decides to show Izuku just what he's up against by having Izuku cross the deck and hit him in the knee while Whitebeard counters with Conqueror's. Izuku barely makes five steps before collapsing, and Thatch comments that the amount of Haki he'd been hit with would kill a normal human. Points for both Izuku making it that far, and Whitebeard once again demonstrating how powerful he really is.
In order to improve their strength, Whitebeard orders Izuku and Yamato to fight Marco and Jozu respectively- not a sparring match, no pulled punches, both of them going all out to try and beat the two commanders. Things do not go our heroes' way:
Yamato is up first. Jozu is able to almost casually dodge every strike from Yamato before disarming her, forcing her to fight bare fisted for a while. Even when it appears that she's regaining momentum, he's just too strong and fast and smashes her into a rock, knocking her out for good.
Next it's Izuku's turn. Marco gives him an opening and lets Izuku hit him full force at 50%, but the commander No Sells the strike easily (even repeating the same words Rayleigh gave him when the Dark King did the same to Marco decades prior). Marco proceeds to Speed Blitz Izuku throughout the rest of the fight, dodging or shrugging off everything the younger man throws at him before slamming him into the ground for the knockout. Marco is even able to figure out one of the key weaknesses of Fa Jin (its reliance on kinetic movement to charge up) and bear hugs Izuku before delivering a final blow.
To their credit, both young heroes do get some good hits in; Yamato is able to figure out Jozu's weakness (mainly that he can't move while his Devil Fruit is active, and while the diamond is unbreakable the rest of his body is not) and almost manages to turn the fight around before Jozu finishes things, and Izuku manages to break his current limit and hit Marco with 55% One for All, catching Marco off guard before he adapts and dominates the remainder of the fight. They lost, but both are commended for their skills and their mentors believe they will get much stronger in due time.
At the Reverie, Reichen Bach gave a speech denouncing the sloppy handling of the Doyle Incident and demanding reforms of the Marines to avoid another Jansen Baker incident. While the Marines just swept the whole thing under the table, Bach's speech was enough that Doyle was entrusted with military grade hardware and got him contacts with Vinsmoke Judge and Germa 66 to boot. Not bad for a first time visit to the World Government.
The Whitebeard Pirates need to get to Brew Island fast, but even sailing underwater and riding the current will take them four days and only get them so close. Izuku's solution to the latter problem? Use One For All 55% to physically carry the Moby Dick the rest of the way, impressing even the Whitebeards.
Trafalgar Law's Establishing Character Moment, when Izuku and friends find him taunting a rival pirate he had just curb-stomped while Bepo, Shachi, and Penguin happily loot the rival's ship, with the inhabitants of Swallow Island cheering the Heart Pirates on.
Though he was never going to win the fight, Ace does get a good hit on Queen when the Headliner taunts him over the death of his crew. More importantly, Ace is finally able to unlock his Haki as a result, catching Queen off guard and drawing private praise from Hyogoro.
