One Piece Teases a Traitor Hiding in the Akazaya Nine

One Piece teases that there's a traitor hiding among the Akazaya Nine with the newest episode of the series! After spending the last few months exploring Oden Kozuki's life through a major flashback, the newest episode of the anime officially puts a bow on this detour and brings the anime back to the present day of the Wano Country arc's third act. Now that we have seen how Oden's life came to an end, and seen how Toki sent some of the Akazaya Nine 20 years into the future, it's time for even more reveals apparently.

While the episode shows how the other members of the Akazaya Nine had been spending the 20 years waiting for the others to arrive in Wano (according to Oden and Toki's wishes), there's a major wrench thrown into things as the newest episode also reveals that there's a traitor hiding in plain sight as a member of the Akazaya Nine. Someone who's so dedicated that they don't even view themselves as a traitor!

Episode 976 returns to a few weeks before Orochi had bombed Wano's ports, and revealed that he actually has been getting not only this new information but has been steadily informed of all of Oden's moves for the past 20 years. Kaido asks Orochi about his informant, and Orochi is cocky in the trustworthiness of this information because of his twisted and ultimately tragic upbringing.

Born and raised in a theater troupe, his parents were killed on stage right in front of him due to the same kind of persecution that haunted the Kurozumi clan. This person had survived by hiding in the characters they played until Orochi reached out to them. Happy to serve a member of the same family that took down the Kozuki clan, this person was happy to play their part in Orochi's grand plan for revenge.

Orochi tasked this person with becoming one of Oden's retainers and even dying as one of the retainers without breaking character. Orochi then teases he'll provide this person with a Devil Fruit (which narrows down the options for who the traitor could be), and this person happily accepted. Orochi then boasts that this traitor not only provided information on Oden's raid on Kaido's forces, provided him the money to help pay Kaido, and was even willing to die amongst the others in the oil.

This traitor still gives him information to this day, and is also the one who told Orochi about the Akazaya Nine's plans to attack Onigashima. Fans probably figured out who this could be given the major clues left here with the traitor's origin, but we'll see for ourselves whether or not the Akazaya Nine figure it out too. But what do you think of this traitor tease? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or you can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!