Warning: contains spoilers for One Piece chapter 1032!
The Wano arc is approaching its end in One Piece, and until now it has been action-packed and full of revelations even for the manga's high standards. Chapter 1032 closed with yet another surprise in its final panels: the return of Kozuki Hiyori, in her guise as Komurasaki. Fans, however, have speculated that the returning character could actually be not Hiyori, but her mother Toki, who had supposedly been dead for twenty years.
Kozuki Hiyori is the daughter of Oden, the legendary hero of Wano who was killed and dethroned by the pirate Kaidou and the treacherous usurper Kurozumi Orochi. After the death of her husband, Toki used her Devil Fruit power to send four of Oden's closest retainers, along with her infant son Momonosuke, twenty years into the future to keep the fight against Kaidou alive. However, she decided to keep Hiyori in the present and gave her to the care of Kawamatsu, while Toki stayed in her husband's burning castle and apparently met her demise.
Hiyori survived thanks to the help of another of her father's retainers, Denjuro, who masqueraded her as the oiran Komurasaki, in which guise she became Orochi's favorite. Denjuro then pretended to kill Hiyori to aid her escape from Orochi's clutches, and she has been notably absent from the Straw Hat Pirates' assault on Onigashima. She did, however, help the pirates and the rebellious samurai in preparing the attack, most notably gifting the fabled sword Enma to Zoro. Her return at the height of the battle for Wano could have serious consequences... if it's really her.
Considering she suddenly appeared close to Orochi and dressed as the woman he was obsessed with, it is entirely possible that Hiyori's goal is to get revenge on the man who betrayed her family and ruined her life. Her sneaking up into Onigashima in secret would also confirm that the mysterious figure who healed the Nine Scabbards after their confrontation with Kaidou was indeed Hiyori. However, a far more intriguing theory is that the woman dressed as Komurasaki is actually Hiyori's mother, Toki.
In One Piece, characters often look a lot like their parents, and the flashback chapters have shown that Hiyori and Toki have very similar appearances. Considering Toki's incredible time-traveling powers, she could have jumped to the future before dying. This would explain some of her actions that the fans have been struggling to make sense of. For example, Toki warned Orochi that he would meet his demise in exactly twenty years, which put the usurper shogun on alert and made him extremely cautious. She also decided to not send her daughter to the future, condemning her to a life of danger and deception.
With all the events and the epic fights going on during the raid, the appearance of Komurasaki seems oddly out of place, unless there is a grander meaning behind it. With her powers, it is possible that Toki foresaw the future, and everything she did was to create this one chance to get close to Orochi? Fans of One Piece will have to wait to find out about this new mystery, as Komurasaki returns to the story... whoever she actually is.