One Piece Cliffhanger Teases Luffy's Pirate King Comeup

One Piece is deep in the thick of it when it comes to the War For Wano, with the Straw Hat Pirates attempting to take down the Beast Pirates and their terrifying leader known as Kaido. With each of the Straw Hats having their own unique enemies and challenges to combat against during this epic arc, it seems that the dream of Monkey D. Luffy in becoming the king of the pirates is set to be taking place much sooner than we thought, at least when it comes to Zoro and Sanji's thoughts on the matter.

Warning. If you have yet to read the latest chapter of One Piece's manga, Chapter 1022, you might want to steer clear of the rest of this article as we'll be diving into spoiler territory.

Following Nico Robin defeating Black Maria with her insane Devil Fruit ability that allowed her to transform into a giant demon, Kaido's forces have definitely seen better days. With the Beast Pirates' top lieutenants in the Tobi Roppo down for the count, the Straw Hats are beginning to gain some ground against Kaido, even with their leader having just recovered from his insane loss at the hands of the larger-than-life villain. Even with these mighty swashbucklers laid low, the Beast Pirates still have plenty of firepower under their belts.

As King and Queen descend upon the Straw Hats, the phoenix known as Marco attempts to hold them back, as the war for the future of the isolated nation continues to run wild. To those witnessing this clash of the titans, they are astonished as not only does Sanji jump into the fray to deliver a brutal blow to Queen in his dinosaur form, but so to does Zoro, who has seemingly healed in an insane amount of time to once again join the fray.

Following these decisive blows, Sanji and Zoro have a unique conversation, wherein they believe that Luffy's time of achieving his dream is on the horizon:

"Hey Twirly, once we conquer this battle..."

"Yeah, we're going to catch a glimpse of Luffy as the King of the Pirates."

Though Oda himself has stated that he plans to end the series within the next five years, perhaps the ending of the Wano Arc will see Luffy finally achieve his life-long dream.

Do you think we're about to witness Luffy wearing the crown? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and the world of the Grand Line.