#op 1170

Many people on twitter spotted this detail in the new chapter, a detail which looks a lot like a certain world's best swordsman. How probable is it, though ?

The silhouette of the hat appears to ressemble the one he wears in the current story, and the other HK don't wear this type of hat either. It lacks the white feather adorning it though.

What looks like a sword is hanging sideways in the back. We do have proof (left picture above) that Mihawk hanged it sideways in his youth as well, probably because the sword was too big for his height then.

Now, does the timeline fits ? Oda drew a very rough-looking Mihawk in his childhood, leading people to recently theorize he could have been the victim of a human hunt. It's hard to estimate his age (left picture below) as Oda tends to draw children the same regardless of the age.

A few of his word choices are eerily similar to the Celestial Dragons' speech : he uses "rabbit" and "insect". Despite this, it seems he wasn't born into wealth. He could have used the words of his oppressor as a way to take revenge, gain agency as theorized here. X.

Perona mistaking the rabbit for Mihawk (right picture) could be foreshadowing of him being previously a "rabbit" in a human hunt.

During the hunt, his great talent with a sword could had led the God's Knight to take him under his wing. It would mirror Shanks' past nicely (the two are probably set to be narrative foil, they share the same birthday, are rivals and have opposite personalities) : a child born of commoners would be taken and raised by CDs - the exact opposite of Shanks' childhood.

Then, he could have taken part of the Holy Knights' expeditions to retrieve Shanks. The later doesn't remember it, so it may have happened when he was younger than 5 years old. Mihawk is 4 years older so he must have been 7 to 9 years old at the time. It's seems a bit young but it's not outside the realm of possibilities.

It could also explain the similarities between Rayleigh and Mihawk's clothing. He could have met him and became somewhat of a fan (as much as Mihawk can be a fan I guess). He then stole his fit.