Imu

Imu is the mysterious occupant of the Empty Throne, holding supreme authority within the World Government as the one whom even the Five Elders bow to and serve every whim of. However, Imu's existence is kept an absolute secret within the government and the world at large, to maintain the lie that there is no singular ruler of the world.

Due to their status, indirect actions and longstanding, profound plot involvement, Imu is one of the primary antagonists of the One Piece series, especially its Final Saga. They were revealed and first appear during the Levely Arc.

Appearance
Imu has only been shown as a silhouette so far. They possess a humanoid figure with a hand resembling a human's and sharp, almond eyes with red irises, each having a thin ring around the pupil. In terms of attire, Imu dons a crown that has four sharp, incredibly tall spikes on the top and an extremely long robe that flows upon the ground a great distance behind them.

Personality
Little is known about Imu's personality, but they have developed a particular interest in Monkey D. Luffy, Marshall D. Teach, Shirahoshi, and Nefertari Vivi. During the events of the Levely, Imu kept wanted posters or photos of all four on their person. Despite this, Imu seems to have a calm demeanor, as shown when they gently handled the butterflies in the Room of Flowers; though in that same moment, Imu was also shown to have left the aforementioned pictures (save for Vivi's) pierced through and cut apart by weapons.

Imu has demonstrated greater cruelty and apathy than the Five Elders. While the Elders tend to feel hesitant about ordering mass executions to protect their secrecy, Imu annihilates entire islands in order to erase them from history with pure enthusiasm. This immense callousness is best evidenced by Imu ordering the destruction of Lulusia Kingdom purely to field test the Mother Flame, completely disregarding the lives of its inhabitants, solely due to the close proximity of the target island.

Despite their existence being meant to be secret from the world at large, Imu is not above revealing themselves to individuals of interest, as with Nefertari Cobra when he questioned the lost records of his ancestor and Ohara's scholars. However, Imu and the Five Elders had no intention of letting Cobra leave the room alive after Imu showed themselves. Likewise, when Sabo appeared and attacked, Imu was furious that their existence was revealed to an outsider.

When confronting Cobra, Imu was initially polite in their speech and offered to explain what the Will of D. actually meant, but quickly became much more hostile when talking about the subject of the Poneglyphs. Likewise, Imu has an intense hatred of those who bear the Will of D., as the moment Imu discovered Cobra's ancestor was a D., Imu immediately attempted to kill him.

Imu uses the unique first-person pronoun "Mu" (ムー) seemingly derived from their name, as well as the unique second-person pronoun nushia (ヌシア) for others.

Five Elders


As the true supreme leader of the World Government, the Five Elders are all extremely loyal to Imu and obey them without question. The Five Elders often come to their all-mighty sovereign for council of matters of the upmost importance. What Imu personally thinks of the Five Elders is currently unknown, but they seem to trust them enough to handle government affairs on their behalf. The Five Elders understand that any outsider that learns of Imu’s existence must be eliminated to maintain the illusion of peace and equality among the allied nations.

Will of D.
Imu possesses an intense hatred for those who bear the D. as the middle initial of their names, due to it being the moniker of an "ancient enemy". For this reason, they sliced up the wanted posters of Monkey D. Luffy and Marshall D. Teach, who are both possible threats to them, and became angered when Cobra admitted that his ancestor, Lili also had it.

Nefertari Family
Imu shows great disdain for the Nefertari Family, particularly because of the actions of Queen Lili during the Void Century that resulted in the dispersing of the Poneglyphs across the world and suspected that it was no mere accident.

Despite this utter contempt for Lili, they were polite to her descendant King Cobra, although they fully intended to kill Cobra when the conversion ended because he had become aware of Imu as the shadow ruler of the world. Hostilities intensified when Imu learned that Arabasta's royal family had the initial D in their name. When Cobra sacrificed himself to ensure that Sabo escaped Mary Geoise, this greatly angered Imu.

Imu has also developed an interest in Princess Vivi for currently unknown reasons. After she escaped the custody of CP0, Imu ordered the Five Elders to capture and bring her to them.

Shirahoshi
For unknown reasons, Imu seems to greatly dislike Princess Shirahoshi, as shown when Imu stabbed a portrait of her with a saber. It is unknown if they are aware of her ability to control Sea Kings.

Sabo
When he and his fellow revolutionaries infiltrated Mary Geoise, Sabo inadvertently learned of Imu’s existence. Sabo was surprised and appalled by the fact that there was a secret monarch of the world. After Sabo escaped, Imu became extremely determined to silence him.

Abilities and Powers
The full scope of Imu's abilities and power is unknown, but the fact that they sit upon the Empty Throne, a seat whose occupant would be associated with sole authority over the entire world, plus the fact that the Five Elders—who are publicly considered the World Government's highest authorities—bow down before Imu and address them with a great honorific, indicates that Imu indeed holds the highest authority within the World Government. However, their power seems limited in so far as they cannot publicly exert their authority, thus electing to direct the Five Elders to act out their will instead, by proxy.

Imu can order the deployment of an immensely powerful weapon called "Mother Flame", which was built by Dr. Vegapunk and can effect the total annihilation of an entire island within seconds.

Transformation


Imu has shown the ability to transform themself into a massive, beast-like, yet humanoid creature capable of consuming fire, as well as control what appears to be a sharp-pointed, arrowhead-shaped appendage or tentacle used for impalement, strong enough to severely injure even the Logia user Sabo. It is unknown if this ability stems from a Zoan-type Devil Fruit power or something else entirely.

Weapons
Imu possesses a saber. They have not been seen being used in combat, but they did use it to cut apart wanted posters and photographs or stab them.

Levely Arc


As royals gathered at Mary Geoise for the Levely, Imu went to a underground frozen chamber deep within Pangaea Castle, and approached a large straw hat while carrying several wanted posters and photographs including Monkey D. Luffy's. Imu later went to the Room of Flowers and cut apart Luffy and Blackbeard's wanted posters and stabbed the photo of Princess Shirahoshi. With a photo of Nefertari Vivi in hand, Imu then met with the Five Elders while sitting on the Empty Throne. The elders requested that Imu reveal the name of the "light" that needed to be extinguished from history.

Wano Country Arc
On the fourth day of the Levely, Nefertari Cobra went to the Empty Throne room to talk with the Five Elders about why Nefertari Lili, the Queen of Arabasta 800 years ago, was not officially documented after the Void Century. As the two parties conversed, Imu listened in on their conversation from the Room of Flowers. Without notice, Imu then entered the Empty Throne room and proceeded to sit on the throne in front of the Five Elders and a surprised Cobra.



Imu refused to answer any questions about their own identity but went on to reveal that the Will of D. was the moniker of the government's ancient enemy; it has cropped up more frequently in recent times, but Imu referred to it as nothing but a faint echo and individuals who carry the name aren't even aware of its true meaning. Imu then explained Lili's involvement that caused the Poneglyphs to be scattered all over the world. In exchange, Imu, who had shown interest in a letter written by Lili that Cobra mentioned having beforehand, ordered the Arabasta king to reveal the full name of its author.

Realizing he had no chance to escape and was set to die anyway, Cobra admitted that Lili carried the moniker D. on her name and was impaled by a strange shadowy tentacle summoned by Imu. Sabo, who was eavesdropping nearby, quickly jumped in to attack the Five Elders and Imu, but the latter was able to cancel Sabo's flames with their own ability. Having let Sabo witness some of their biggest secrets, the top brass of the Government gave chase to the revolutionary and Cobra, only managing to stop and kill the latter. Wapol also happened to witness the whole thing through a peephole and ran away as far he could.

Sabo managed to escape with knowledge of Imu, and the World Government went on high alert to locate him.

After the Levely ended, Imu called the Elders. They wished to test out Vegapunk's latest creation, the Mother Flame, and upon being asked where to use it on, Imu named Lulusia Kingdom as its target simply to the Kingdom's proximity to the Mother Flame, regardless of the people living there. Imu also ordered the Five Elders to capture Vivi and bring her to them.

Egghead Arc
Coincidentally, the World Government eventually was able to trace Sabo's location to the Lulusia Kingdom, after intercepting a call where he attempted to reveal Imu's existence to the rest of the Revolutionary Army. After crossing the Lulusia Kingdom off a map, Imu annihilated the country with an explosive energy barrage, with the Five Elders proclaiming that it never existed at all.

Major Battles

 * Imu & Five Elders vs. Sabo

Translation and Dub Issues
In the VIZ Media translation, Imu talks in first person with the standard subject pronoun "I", but instances of the objective form "me" are replaced by "mu".

Imu's unique second-person pronoun nushia (ヌシア) in Japanese is seemingly derived from the dated "you" pronouns onushi (御主) and nushi (主). In the VIZ Media translation, Imu uses the archaic English pronouns "thou" and "thee".

Trivia

 * The existence of an authority even higher than the Five Elders within the World Government was first hinted in Chapter 793 when Fleet Admiral Akainu learnt from the Five Elders that the orders approving Doflamingo's charade of falsely quitting the Seven Warlords came from an authority that superseded their own.
 * Emporio Ivankov has hypothesized that Imu may be one of the First Twenty from 800 years ago, a member of the Nerona Family named Saint Nerona Imu, who would have received the "Perennial Youth Operation" as no ordinary Celestial Dragon would be able to command the Five Elders if they weren't one of the First Twenty. This belief is strengthened by Marcus Mars referring to Imu as a "Creator" in the same way as the First Twenty are referred to, although whether this is true is unknown as of now.
 * Im is the name of a Jotunn appearing in Norse mythology.
 * When written in katakana, Imu's name is composed of the two radicals comprising the character 仏, which means "Buddha".
 * The two syllables in Imu's name can also be read as "1" and "6", or 16.
 * Imu's position as ruler of the world is a title which the infamous pirate Rocks D. Xebec once aspired to obtain. It is not known if Rocks was ever aware of Imu or the Empty Throne, though the island in which he met his downfall, God Valley, was later wiped off the map much like the Lulusia Kingdom and a great kingdom during the Void Century that also disappeared.

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