“Ah! Haaaa…”
Ace bolted upright from his sleep and began to cough.
He was on an examination bed in the doctor’s cabin.
“So you’re back.”
“Eh!”
Across from Ace, dressed in a white doctor’s coat, was none other than Masked Deuce.
“You never learn. How many dozens of times have you tried by now?”
“Listen, I—” Ace began to retort.
“Oh, Doctor!”
The nurses had arrived. These were the real angels of the battlefield. They wore knockout uniforms of miniskirts and high leopard-print boots. They even smelled nice.
The main fleet of the Whitebeard Pirates alone had several huge ships and well over a thousand members, making its crew the size of a modest town. They had multiple ship’s doctors with enough medical support to be considered a hospital.
“I told you not to call me that. I didn’t even graduate from medical school.”
“Oh, the other doctors probably aren’t real doctors, either,” said one of the nurses, draping herself over Deuce. The combination of masked man and leopard-booted woman was a very strange one.
Deuce was a failed medical student. There was no ship’s doctor in the Spade Pirates, but they didn’t really need one, because Deuce filled the role well enough.
Besides, what pirate crew demanded a diploma to accept a doctor on board? Just sew up the parts that get cut, amputate the parts that won’t survive, and isolate the people with contagious illness. With a crew as large as Whitebeard’s, a degradation in sanitary conditions could have frightening consequences. A closed-off, isolated space like a ship was fertile ground for disease to spread.
So the Whitebeard Pirates’ medical team was their lifeline. They were always on the lookout for promising recruits. And Deuce met their standards, apparently…
The nurses delivered a message from the ship’s head doctor, giggled when they saw Ace, and left the infirmary.
“Must be nice to have all that attention, Deuce,” scowled Ace as he sat up in bed.
In the intervening weeks, Deuce had become utterly ensconced in Whitebeard’s medical team. He was a doctor, a crucial part of their group. Unlike his famous, renowned father, Deuce was a medical school dropout who left home. Ace had never pried into his personal life since their meeting on that empty island, but now he realized that Deuce must have had quite a lot of potential.
Deuce stared back at Ace. “Think of me what you will. I do not mind.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Have you seen the others?”
“The ones who are on this ship, sure. You, Wallace…”
For the moment, the Spade Pirates members were dispersed throughout Whitebeard’s fleet. The very night that Ace fell in combat, Deuce led his crewmates in a charge to take back their captain. They were easily defeated and captured. That part was as Thatch had said.
But like Ace, they hadn’t been thrown into cells. They were given food. They were split apart across the ships of the fleet, rather than kept in one place where they could make trouble, but the main point was that they were all just fine.
“Yeah, I know, I’ve lost face,” Ace admitted. “Whitebeard beat me.”
The flag he carried aloft had been broken. And it wasn’t just a personal defeat; he had exposed his crew to danger and failed to protect them.
“That’s right.”
“But I’m not gonna be a loser my whole life! If I can take Whitebeard’s head…”
Deuce just sighed. He hesitated, unsure of what to say, and realized that this attitude was only going to hurt Ace. He had been Ace’s traveling partner longer than anyone, so it was up to him.
“The medical team here is incredible.”
“What, the nurse babes?”
“No, I’m being serious. The facilities here are equivalent to a hospital in a large town, perhaps even better. Why do you think that is?”
“Don’t know, don’t care…ow!”
Ace rubbed his neck. Despite the fact that he was made of flame, his tussles with Whitebeard were doing serious damage to his body.
In the New World, people with Devil Fruit powers were easy marks—especially Logia fruit, which were the most powerful, and most likely to make their users lazy and reliant on them. Pirates like Jimbei, the Seven Warlords, and the Four Emperors were made of sterner stuff.
That was what it took to be at the top of the world of pirates. The level that Ace would need to learn to exceed if he wanted to surpass his hated father…
“That entire medical structure is here to support Whitebeard,” Deuce said.
“Eh? Is Whitebeard in bad health?” Ace wondered. That couldn’t be right. How could a monster like him be suffering?
“Our health abandons us as we get older. People age, they grow weaker, and there’s no medicine in the world that can counteract that. Not that I know of, at least.”
Not unless there was some Devil Fruit out there that could provide eternal life.
“What’s your point?”
“I mean that Whitebeard’s past his prime. Not like when he used to tussle with Roger.”
And Ace was completely helpless against even this version of Whitebeard. They were on completely different levels. At best, all that Ace could do was match Jimbei the Warlord.
“You’re saying I’ll never win?”
“Not right now, at least,” Deuce stated. “Now, back to what I was talking about. Why does Whitebeard have such a massive medical team? Because Whitebeard’s life doesn’t just belong to Whitebeard.”
“Huh?”
“There are tens of thousands of members of the Whitebeard Pirate Crew. And there are many more times that number living on the islands that make up his territory. All of those lives are under the protection of Whitebeard’s flag. So what would the consequence be if something happened to him?”
Hundreds of thousands—millions—of lives were linked inextricably to his.
Ace had only brought together a single ship of people; he couldn’t imagine what it was like to have Whitebeard’s dominion. Whitebeard’s health had to be managed with the greatest possible care, all to prolong the years under his control and stability. All for the sake of those who flew his flag, secure under his rule.
“So…what? You want me to stop trying to kill Whitebeard?” Ace said, glaring at Deuce.
“That’s for you to decide. But…I think you ought to understand what kind of life it is you’re trying to take.”
“Have you met Whitebeard, Deuce?”
“I haven’t spoken with him. He didn’t ask me to do any of this.”
So he hadn’t tried to woo Deuce into joining his giant crew. And yet he still had the power to make Deuce argue this point.
“It’s like you’re a member of the Whitebeard Pirates already,” snapped Ace. He immediately looked regretful.
Deuce didn’t admonish him. “We challenged Whitebeard to a fight. You, our captain, lost that fight. So the fight is over. We tried to save you, but that was a failure too.”
“I guess I don’t have any right to argue, then.”
“That’s not what I’m saying, Ace. We haven’t…I haven’t gone over to join Whitebeard.”
Ace waited in silence.
“It’s just…we easily could have all been tossed in the sea to drown. But not only did Whitebeard spare us that fate, he didn’t even lock us behind bars or put us in chains. Not even you, our captain.”
“Yeah, because they have so little fear of us.”
“Perhaps, perhaps. But those are the facts, regardless.”
Ace hung his head. “What are the others doing?”
“They’re all doing their own thing. Skull’s been living up to his strengths, gathering intel. Mihal's teaching those who need it how to read. They’ve put Kotatsu to great use in procuring ingredients for the meals. In fact, Kotatsu was the first one to start working. He took to Commander Thatch pretty quick once he got fed.”
“Huh…”
“Even pirates have rules. There’s a certain code of honor to the way we do things. I guess the cat knows the code better than we do.”
You work for what you eat. It was a lesson that Ace learned at a young age when he was sent to stay with Dadan the mountain bandit. The others had found ways to put their skills to use as well.
“I haven’t lost to Whitebeard,” Ace growled. If I lose—if I admit that I’ve lost…
“My only captain is you, Ace. No matter what life you choose to lead, I’ll be at your side. If you’re going to keep gunning for Whitebeard, I won’t stop you. I’m just saying…follow the code.”
“Deuce…”
Everyone had begun to live their lives within the Whitebeard Pirate Crew. It was a kind of payment in return for the mercy Whitebeard showed in sparing their lives and feeding them. The pirate’s code of honor demanded it.
“If you’re going after Whitebeard, do it openly and in the proper way. Don’t force me to betray you,” Deuce warned.
It seemed that their captain was the only member of the group who couldn’t comprehend where he stood.