Later that night, Ace and his Spade Pirates gathered on the deck of the Piece of Spadille.
The ship had been accompanying Whitebeard’s main fleet. It was given preferential treatment, as it belonged to guests of the crew, but the damage done during Jimbei’s attack was still there, and the mast was nearly broken.
“Ace…”
“Captain Ace,” said his crew, prompting him to speak at last.
“I’m sorry.” He bowed to the rest of the group.
“Huh?”
“I couldn’t come to the right decision. I was naive, and therefore I’ve been keeping you all hanging in the wind. But…I’ve made up my mind now.”
Ace looked at his oldest partner. Deuce nodded and brought out a piece of cloth.
“Hey, that’s…”
“It’s our flag.”
It was the partially torn flag of the Spade Pirates. Jimbei had torn it from its pole during their fight, but Deuce recovered the scrap during that five-day battle.
“Listen up, guys,” said Ace. This was likely to be his final message to them as captain.
“As of today, at this very moment, I am disbanding the Spade Pirates. I’m taking down this flag,” he proclaimed, flag in hand.
The rest were silent.
There were only two possible options for them. Take this broken-down ship and leave Whitebeard’s territory, or stay here as members of the Whitebeard Pirates.
The former was the loser’s choice. But they would remain independent, and have a chance to rebuild.
The latter would also make them losers, in a way. They would be surrendering to Whitebeard’s army.
Ace admitted his defeat. “I fought Whitebeard a hundred times, and couldn’t beat him once. I’ve got no pride left to make me feel shame… But let me say this one thing…”
What was being a pirate about, to Ace? What was the reason he left for the sea? What was a life without regrets, the one he swore to follow before Luffy and the late Sabo?
“I guess the reason I became a pirate wasn’t for my own fame, or status, or strength…”
But what the reason really was, he was having trouble expressing.
“Ace, are you going to find what you’re searching for here, in Whitebeard’s territory?” Deuce asked.
“I…I think I am.”
“Why do you think that?” his partner asked. It needed to be properly said aloud, not just left unspoken.
“Because…it’s comfortable here,” Ace admitted. He was starting to like the Whitebeard Pirates.
And the rest of his crew, to varying degrees, probably felt the same way. They’d lost the fight, and by many accounts, they should have been killed. But Whitebeard spared them, and gave them food and shelter.
“I lost a hundred times to Whitebeard. But I’m not breaking up the crew simply because I lost the fight. It’s because…I owe a hundred debts of gratitude to Whitebeard.”
Roger was his father. The fact that he was born at all was perhaps the one small reason for gratitude he owed his father. But Whitebeard…Whitebeard had spared his life a hundred times.
“I haven’t done a single thing to repay this debt. So I’ve decided to stay here with Whitebeard. And that means there’s a code that we should adhere to.”
I want to drink from Whitebeard’s cup.
It was the summation of Ace’s travels, and the final decision.
Ace waited for the others to respond. He did not rush them.
“This pirate crew…” said Skull, the first to speak.
“Yes?”
“This pirate crew raised its flag when Master Ace and Master Deu met on an uninhabited island, right? So if you two have made up your minds, then there’s nothing for the rest of us to say.”
The rest nodded along with what he said.
“It’s the way of the pirating world that if the captain says something is white, then even if it’s black, it’s white.”
“Mihal…you guys…”
Ace turned to Deuce, and they shared a look. The masked man spoke for his captain.
“I know that not all of you chose the pirating life for yourselves. If any of you have misgivings about this decision, please speak now. We’ll do whatever we can for you.”
“Are you sure you want to do this, Mihal? Wasn’t it your dream to be a teacher in some far-off country?” Ace asked.
“That’s right, a far-off country… Because with blue sky and a deck beneath my feet, I can teach anywhere,” he replied kindly. But there was sadness in his look too, as he prepared to say goodbye to the ship he’d guarded for so long.
The vessel that took them across the Grand Line was terribly damaged. As the coater at the Sabaody Archipelago had told them, its life span was nearly up. Even the shipwrights of the Whitebeard crew agreed that it would be better to build a new ship than fix up this one.
There would be a disbandment ceremony. A chance for everyone to release the feelings they’d all woven into the flag of the Spade Pirates.
“Given the kind of captain you guys had, what I put into this flag—my beliefs, I guess—weren’t really much to write home about.”
“That’s not true, and you know it.”
“Deuce…” Ace murmured, looking up at his partner. Kotatsu meowed and came over to rub against his legs.
“Ace…you’re a pirate, and your fists turn to fire. We came to this ship and this flag because we admired how you live like a burning flame.”
Shouldn’t that be enough? We were always just a bunch of naive kids and outcasts. That was all we needed.
The crew surrounded Ace, and admired their captain for who he was.
“Thanks, everyone.”
There was fire burning in his hands. The flag Ace held aloft rustled in the winds whipped up by the heat, shining and dancing in the darkness of the night.
The time had come to bid farewell to their ship.
“Goodbye, Piece of Spadille.”
“It was a good home, Ace.”
“Yes it was, Deuce.”
He gave the order to disembark. Ace and his crewmates then saw the burning ship off on its final journey.