Smoker Sets Course For Alabasta Pursuit-Lock
Status: confirmed (Ch. 157 — Smoker already in Nanohana before Strawhat-arrival) · Technique: chekhov-explicit + parallel-arc-structure
The seed
The payoff
Why this matters
This is the first time the Marines and the Strawhats are explicitly locked onto the same arc-destination — the pursuit-lock that makes Smoker an Alabasta-arc presence rather than a Loguetown one-off. The Loguetown insubordinate-pursuit register (Smoker stakes his reputation to catch Luffy) escalates here into a cross-arc commitment. Pre-loads Smoker’s wildcard role in Alabasta — pursuing Luffy while also opposing Crocodile — and the broader recurring grammar of a parallel-tracking antagonist who shares the protagonists’ itinerary.