The island was wreathed in a thin mist.
The Spade Pirates moored their ship on a chilly coast spotted with conifer trees, and disembarked. Nearby animals bolted for safety, alarmed by the arrival of the unexpected visitors.
“Nobody’s here,” said one of the crew.
“Stay on guard… We’re in Whitebeard’s territory now,” warned Deuce.
It appeared to be a completely ordinary island. But this was one of the places Whitebeard used to resupply.
Resupplying is something any seafaring pirate must do to survive; it’s a lifeline. Especially when you command a crew of a thousand. Seawater can be purified until it’s drinkable, and fish and aquatic mammals can be acquired for food—but there are many supplies, like firewood, that can only be found on land.
So in a sense, the entire island was a working farm producing supplies for the Whitebeard Pirates. Somewhere on this rock were fields where farmers worked in Whitebeard’s employ, producing vegetables, fruit, and meat for the crew.
Ace received word that Whitebeard’s main ship might be stopping by to resupply in the near future, so he took the crew through the mist to secretly disembark on the far side of the island.
“Is Whitebeard really coming here?”
“Don’t chicken out, Deuce. If we get tired of waiting, we can just run our flag up on this island instead.”
A resupply point was the ideal place to carve away some territory. If Whitebeard was flustered by that, it would be reward enough.
“What about the Piece of Spadille?”
“Mihal’s in charge. We’ll hide it in some secluded inlet or another, and set up a campsite. Who knows how many days we’ll be waiting here.”
They had to be careful that the farmers on the island didn’t spot them. The mist would not last forever.
“I’m gonna take a few men and check out the area.”
“Be careful, Ace. Whitebeard might have left some soldiers here.”
“It’s fine. We’re prepping for war anyway.”
“Oh, c’mon.”
He was like a knife that was all edge. Ace was always a loose cannon—the type to act before he thought—but he had been more hasty and less careful than ever since they’d reached the New World, Deuce noticed. Why was that?
If there had been a starting point, it was when he’d messed with Whitebeard’s flag at Fish-Man Island. There had to be a reason for that. Deuce thought he—and he alone—knew the answer. As the son of Roger, the King of the Pirates, Ace felt invisibly persecuted by the rest of the world. He was struggling, trying to free himself from the chains of his father’s shadow.
He had no interest in the One Piece, or being King of the Pirates. When Ace told Shanks as much, it was probably the unvarnished truth. Ace wanted to be free of Gold Roger’s curse. If he was going to succeed at that, he couldn’t be King and find the One Piece… He couldn’t just do what his father did.
So what should he accomplish?
How could he surpass his father? Roger was the first man to conquer the Grand Line, shaking the foundations of the world and bringing about a new era. But in the end he died a miserable death, executed at Roguetown. He submitted to the yoke of the World Government.
To overturn the world.
Perhaps in some vague way, Ace’s goal was a kind of conquest. To be a man ruled by no one and nothing. Not the Navy, not the Four Emperors, not the World Government—not even the Celestial Dragons, those living gods who called upon the Navy’s admirals like bodyguards. To destroy the very concept of a protected class like the Celestial Dragons.
All of existence was his foe.
So Whitebeard, the man praised for being neck-and-neck with the King of the Pirates, was the first step on the stairs he sought to climb.
What Deuce was doing—asking Skull to investigate, collecting information, and waiting for the right opportunity to launch a surprise strike on Whitebeard’s forces—was executing a solid military strategy, but it was not where Ace’s interests were. Ace would challenge them directly, even if it meant facing the entire combined might of Whitebeard’s group.
Ace took a few men and began to walk along the coastline. Deuce gave orders to the others and began to search for a discreet place to push farther into the forest.
Boom…!
There was a roar like a cannonball blast.
Where was that? Deuce wondered, holding his breath. Up ahead through the light mist was the inlet where the Piece of Spadille was supposed to have gone…
A huge shadow appeared before the Spade Pirates. The entire group was stunned. Where had it come from? It came leaping out from the bottom of the sea, in fact. A sodden cloth was draped over the figure’s shoulder.
“Isn’t that our…”
Deuce couldn’t even finish his question. It was the flag of the Spade Pirates, the one that flew from their mainmast. This creature had torn it off, mast and all, and tossed it aside like scrap cloth.
The Spade Pirates bristled. Tearing down a pirates’ flag was equivalent to stomping on their faces with your boot. The only possible response was battle.
Deuce was worried about the ship. Was Mihal, the ship’s guard, all right?
“Do you…do you realize what you’ve done?” Ace growled. He stared down the enemy through the mist.
“I could ask the same of you! Do you understand what you did when you burned down Whitebeard’s flag over Fish-Man Island?” said a deep, threatening voice.
“Oh!” gulped Wallace, the fish-man of the crew.
“Ah, you have a fish-man, too? Do you know who I am, young man?” growled the figure, glaring down from a height of ten feet.
“Boss!” gasped Wallace, who was so terrified he could say nothing more.
“Are you the boy who turned down the Seven Warlords, then?”
“I don’t know nothin’ about the Warlords, you big lug,” said Ace, fire enveloping his body. Very quickly, the mist in the area burned away, revealing torn earth.
“King Neptune of the Ryugu Kingdom and Whitebeard are good friends. That flag protected Fish-Man Island from pirates, boy. Your actions are too serious to laugh off as a childish prank.”
It meant making an enemy of all fish-men—and doing great insult to the reputation of Whitebeard, Emperor of the Sea.
“Listen, big guy…I wanna see this Whitebeard dude!”
“And then what?”
“You already know.”
Ace indicated the threat he posed with the flame in his hands. The rookie who’d spurned the Seven Warlords and made contact with Red-Hair Shanks intended to take out Whitebeard.
“Well, I can’t allow Pops to meet with a boy as sharp and willing to harm as a knife! I am not part of the Whitebeard Pirates…but I do have an obligation to oppose you.”
“That’s one of the Warlords, Ace! It’s Jimbei!” his companions warned.
Of course he was aware this was the First Son of the Sea—a man counted among the Seven Warlords, who was previously wanted for a bounty of 250 million berries.
Jimbei, the second captain in the history of the Sun Pirates, had long served as a diplomatic bridge navigating the rocky relationship between humans and fish-men. Eventually, he was given an invitation by the World Government to join the Warlords.
The Warlords made up one of the Three Great Powers. They were government-sanctioned privateers, pirates who hunted other pirates. In exchange for a percentage of their earnings, they were granted the right to pillage from pirates and unaffiliated countries without being charged by the government.