The Real Power of the Nine Red Scabbards!

People are still surprised by the Scabbards and their actions in the recent chapters.

First, many people thought it was egregious that they managed to disarm and stall the Calamities. Now, that the Scabbards managed to wound Kaido, a lot of people said “Gear 4 Luffy did nothing to Kaido, why these people can?”.

Well, I guess we should just give a quick look to their CVs. We have:

Ashura Doji

This man has literally cut Jack’s weapons and gave him a wound that he needed 2 full acts to recover from he’s bandaged all the way up until Act 3. Needless to say, this puts him around Jack’s level.

Inuarashi

The dude has fought against Jack 12 hours a day for 5 days straight. Wanda would say that, while Jack was undefeated, so the Dukes. It was a stalemate that could only be resolved with the use of a chemical weapon. Inuarashi also has Sulong at the ready, and has now a second sword to fight. However, since he hasn’t used Sulong yet, this won’t be considered a factor in the events of 986 and 987.

Nekomamushi

Practically Inuarashi’s equal, maybe even slightly stronger – a consideration based solely on the fact that it was Nekomamushi who brought Jack to his human form, and not Inuarashi. Still, we’ll consider him on the same level as Inuarashi and we still won’t take Sulong into consideration.

Izo

He was a Commander in an Emperor crew Many people believe that, since he was the 16th commander, he is weaker than all the 15 people that came before him. That’s however not necessarily the case; the only example of a crew that has a similar structure to Whitebeard’s that we have is Blackbeard’s – with its 10 Titanic Captains – and we know that the Captain of the 1st Ship – Jesus Burgess – is not stronger than the Captain of the 2nd Ship – Shiryu of the Rain. While not on the same tier as Marco or Jozu, or maybe even Vista, Izo was still a Commander.

Denjiro

What we have about him is; he has 20 years of unadulterated rage that have been building up inside him; he’s been introduced by Ashura as a “demon with the blade”; he has sparred with an enraged 2-swords Zoro like it was child’s play and deflected a 720 pound cannon with a smile. We can safely say that he’s currently the strongest Scabbard!

Kin’emon

This is where most of the misconception lies. A lot of people have this idea that Kin’emon is fodder, that he’s a joke. The thing is; we’ve never seen Kin’emon actually fight – except for the flashback, which was still against some Beasts Pirates fodder, so not really worth analyzing. All we know is that he was handled by Law in the frostbiting cold of Punk Hazard while he was looking for Momonosuke and after a big escape from Dressrosa – which is, by itself, not a scar to be ashamed of, as Law, especially back in Punk Hazard, has an absurdly overpowered Devil Fruit until Oda decides to nerf him because otherwise he would win every fight he’s in – and that’s it. After that, he saves the crew from Smiley, he defeats a Punk Hazard dragon with Brook, and… well, he uses Haki to push back the Birdcage. Many people remember a Kin’emon vs Doflamingo that actually never happened; go and reread chapter 730. There’s no fight there. And Kin’emon literally shrugs it off like nothing seconds later. Another point people refer to when calling Kin’emon “fodder” is when he sees Zoro cutting Pica in half. Well, no shit; Zoro literally cuts a mountain in half – also thanks to Orlumbus, something that people conveniently leave out every time they remember this scene. That’s an astonishing feat. So, at the end of the day, we have absolutely no metric for Kin’emon’s skills outside of “he was defeated by Law while being in a very disadvantegous position.

O-Kiku.

We know nothing about her power. We just know she’s “pretty strong” – as said by Luffy – but outside of that? Nothing really. She never had a serious fight before chapter 985, and now I guess we can say she’s stronger than Kanjuro…? But again, we know nothing about her. Treating her as fodder just because we don’t know her power is an extremely weak reasoning.

Raizo

Another one we know nothing about, except he has some special techniques in his moveset. As one of Wano’s greatest ninjas, Raizo is an extremely powerful master of Ninjutsu , being referred as a genius ninja during his youth. His strength is acknowledged by Orochi himself and is noted to rival even Fukurokuju, the leader of the Orochi Oniwanbanshu.

Also Read: Top 12 Strongest Characters from North Blue – Ranked

Kawamatsu

Kawamatsu possesses tremendous physical power as he is stated to be the strongest sumo wrestler in Wano. Shortly after being released, he overpowered multiple members of the Beast Pirates with great ease. He possesses immense endurance as he has been fed poisoned fish every day for thirteen years by the Beasts Pirates without dying or even suffering any illness like Tama, a feat which has baffled his captors. However, we have only seen him at work against fodders.

So, after this general look, we can see that the Nine Scabbards are now made of 4 confirmed Commander level characters – one being a Commander (Izo), the other 3 having fought on par with one (Ashura Doji, Inuarashi, Nekomamushi). Then we have a very powerful warrior who could be stronger than them all – Denjiro. However, people are still baffled by how these 9 people could block 3 commanders and attack an Emperor all together.

To this, we need to add something that unfortunately many people seem to forget: this is NOT your average shonen. Being the most powerful doesn’t mean being invincible to everyone whose “power level” is below yours. This is even more relevant in a story such as OnePiece, where WILLPOWER is the most important trait a fighter can have. I mean, Haki is willpower converted into actual physical power. Luffy has won against Katakuri on willpower alone.

And what we’ve had here was 9 people, some of them mustering the willpower of 20 years, who threw away their lives and decided to avenge the man who gave them everything.

You need to understand; this is the equivalent of the Straw Hats going against an enemy after Luffy had been killed by said enemy, and the 9 Scabbards are arguably stronger then the Straw Hats without Luffy. This attack was not just “I used Haki, I overcame his defenses, I wounded him”: that’s why Kaido’s lines are so important. He can’t understand how he’s getting wounded, because his reasoning is extremely shallow; “they must be using a Haki on the same tier as Oden’s, otherwise it doesn’t make sense” he thinks as he screams in pain. But that’s not it, they’re not using Oden’s level Haki. This is so much more than that, and people now screaming bloody murder because “these fodders can hurt Kaido, but Luffy can’t, now it’s sure Zoro can hurt him because there’s no way he’s weaker than them” is painful to read.

Also Read: What was Reason Behind Shanks’ Scar ?