It was the world that killed Sabo. You can’t really live or die unless you’re executed and change history with your death, like Roger did.
So Ace chose to be a pirate.
Whether or not the world accepts me or hates me, I’ll be a great pirate. I’ll show them all.
That was the genesis of Ace’s desire to be a pirate.
He’d never met his father and felt nothing but hatred toward him. Ace grew up tormented about being the son of a terrible criminal, and in the end, the only way for him to move forward and live freely was to go beyond what his father did.
He wouldn’t be “Ace, son of Roger.” From that moment, it would be “Roger, father of Ace.” That was what he needed to turn the tables. And it wouldn’t happen if he just did the same things Roger did. It couldn’t just be about the One Piece and being King of the Pirates.
It could be anything. Anything to become famous and make Gold Roger a name of the past. Here in the New World, it would all be about Portgaz D. Ace. He was going to make sure everyone knew the name given to him by his mother, Rouge, who hid from the government and secretly gave birth to him after twenty months of gestation.
Through talking with Shanks, Ace felt these vague ideas that had been floating in his heart coalescing, and turning into a solid conviction.
Without revealing what was on his mind, Ace told Shanks, “The entire world is my enemy. Warlords, Emperors, even Celestial Dragons…I’ll topple them all. I’ll bring low everything that now sits high and mighty. And I’ll do it with this flame…with my name and my flag.”
To surpass the Pirate King, Gol D. Roger, the starting point for Portgaz D. Ace will be to defeat Edward “Whitebeard” Newgate.
Shanks held his silence, listening to him speak. He was going to let the kid get it all out of his system.
What was reflected in Red-Hair’s eyes?
Vague, undirected dissatisfaction and frustration toward the world. An impatient, youthful tendency toward danger. These things were true of just about any rookie pirate making their name in the world.
But what was that dark ember glowing beneath his violent, attention-seeking flames?
“But that’s enough about me. I want to hear about you now.”
“Me?”
Now it was Ace who wanted to hear from Shanks.
“Yeah. For instance, about your flag. You’ve got the three scars on the skull. They stand for those, don’t they?” Ace said, glancing at Shanks’s left eye. There were three long scars running from his forehead, over his eye and down his cheek.
“These?”
“Luffy’s got a scar on his left cheek, but apparently he did that himself, like a little idiot, thinking it would earn him a spot on your pirate crew. But yours—yours clearly came from battle. Who did it? Who could put a wound like that on you?”
Indeed, who was capable of scarring Red-Haired Shanks, one of the four most powerful pirates in the world?
Shanks traced the scars with three fingers. “These…”
“I can’t imagine who’d be terrifying enough to land a blow like that on you.”
Stories about Red-Haired Shanks in battle often involved his duels with Mihawk, the world’s greatest swordsman. But this was not a typical sword wound. The three lines were parallel, as though he’d been clawed.
“It happened in the East Blue, before I lost my arm.”
“Boss?” piped up one of his men, uncertainly. It seemed it was uncommon for Shanks to talk about the scar.
“It was the Whitebeard Pirates who put this scar on me.”
“It was Whitebeard?!”
“No. It was just a pirate under his employ.”
So it was just a man, not even one of his division leaders…
“You’re not saying this just to scare me off from going after…”
“I don’t care if you think I’m lying,” Shanks said, this being one of the rare times that he would test Ace with his words.
If you want to take out Whitebeard, you’ll have to beat not just him, but everyone in his entire family.
“What’s he doing now?”
“Dunno. I haven’t felt this wound itch in a while…”
A log in the fire popped and crumbled. The party’s conviviality had passed, and the evening’s drink had run dry. Shanks gave a nod, and his followers began to clear the path to the cave’s exit.
The night was over.
Ace had made his antagonism toward the Whitebeard Pirates clear. Since they’d shared a customary rite of welcome, Shanks wasn’t going to harm the other pirate, but as one of the competing Four Emperors, Shanks couldn’t extend any special treatment to the Spade Pirates beyond what he’d already done.
After, he would send a message to Whitebeard. He would write: The pirate Portgaz D. Ace who is on his way to challenge you has no special connection to the Red-Haired Pirates.
That, too, was one of the customary ways.
A clash between Emperors was an event that would shake the New World to its core. The buds of conflict had to be nipped off before they could grow.
For Ace’s part, he’d received the courtesy of a night and a meal in the Red-Haired Pirates’ territory, so it was common courtesy to return the favor by leaving without making any trouble. But this meant that venturing next into Whitebeard’s stretch of sea could lead to a rain of blood…
The Piece of Spadille departed the winter island.
“From the moment he approached the shore, I could sense his Haki. It was like flame itself.”
“No wonder he could melt a winter island’s snow. Woulda been a blizzard if not for him,” said Benn Beckman, pulling up the collar of his coat.
“What did you see in him?” Shanks asked, seeking the wisdom of his first mate.
“Say he beats Whitebeard. What does he do after that? Based on the story he was telling, I can’t envision it,” said Benn Beckman.
The entire world was his enemy. He would destroy the world order that kept the Celestial Dragons on top. And that meant destroying the Four Emperors, too. That was all part of Ace’s grand vision.
“Didn’t seem very pirate-like.”
“He was awful courteous at first, but then he starts going on and on about himself. The kid’s more naive than he looks. Like he’s not really a pirate, but a gladiator. If he wants to destroy the world that bad, why didn’t he join the Revolutionaries?”
No interest in the King of the Pirates or adventure. No intention to hunt pirates as one of the Seven Warlords. No desire to be a Naval hero, protecting the common people. If anything, the most appropriate place for him seemed to be with the Revolutionary Army, that group of so-called terrorists seeking to overthrow the World Government.
“He’s limiting his choices, all by himself. The way he’s acting, the best he’ll ever be is the captain of a single ship.”
Benn Beckman didn’t see any potential beyond that in the young man named Ace.
If he had logs, he could start a fire. But a fire wouldn’t keep burning with just that. If he started a fire somewhere, set a mountain ablaze and burned down everything in sight, the fire would eventually burn itself out. What was Ace going to do beyond that?
“He said he was from the South Blue.”
Baterilla… Shanks ruminated on the name of that island.
“You curious about him?”
Shanks sat in silence.
“He’s a rookie who turned down the Seven Warlords, so I expected a lot, but he seemed like your average kid with an inflated opinion of himself. He ate a Logia fruit, and now he thinks he’s invincible,” said Benn Beckman with a sigh.
“But that rookie got recommended for the Seven Warlords.” That meant that the World Government—Sengoku and the Five Elders—saw something in Ace.
“That’s what bothers me. Does that make him Warlord material or not? With a Logia fruit alone, you’d only max out in the hundred-million range. And the bounty currently sitting on Portgaz D. Ace’s head is…”
Ace’s bounty had soared in value after he spurned the Five Elders’ offer to join that elite cadre of privateers. It indicated that he was dangerous, but this was simply too much. There must be some other circumstance. Was that why the World Government was trying to lock Ace down into just the Warlord title?
“‘He’d already been executed when I was born.’”
“What?”
“For playing like he didn’t care, he sure thought a lot about Captain Roger… He even called him Gol D. Roger at the end.”
That was a rare thing from a young person nowadays. A faint smile played over Shanks’s lips.
This was different from the silent grin he always wore. Benn Beckman felt like it had been ages since he saw his captain smile with actual emotion like this.