The Coffin Did Not Return to the South Blue

"She's talking about Garp?"

Ace placed the microphone next to the Paper Thread.

Little Patch did not go any further inside.

"There's only this one sentence on the paper."

Who said that?

"I can't hear you."

Garp picked up the red thread flower and compared it with the sound coming from the Paper Thread.

"Rouge was too old to speak such a long sentence when she was dying."

Mo'er stared at the bloodstains on the table.

"This isn't the sound from the scene on the day the ship sank."

A Hui asked, "How come you have other people's words in your memory?"

"Someone inserted an Echo into the flight path."

"Like Lin Qi's Future Echo?"

"The method is the same, but the direction is opposite; this sentence was sent back to the ship from somewhere after the wreck."

Ace looked at Garp.

Why not let the coffin be given to you?

"How would I know?"

"You buried her, and the coffin is empty."

You doubt me?

"I'm asking."

The questioning was like an interrogation.

Whitebeard tapped on the deck.

"Garp, answer the question you know first."

"I personally watched the coffin lid close and stayed until the burial. It wasn't until after I left the South Blue that someone dug up the grave."

Is it possible that the coffin was empty when it was buried?

Garp clenched the red thread flower in his palm.

"Have."

Ace leaned forward slightly.

"You didn't check?"

"She is already dead, and I have not opened her coffin."

Who put the body in the coffin?

"A local doctor, and two townspeople."

Sengoku, they consulted old registers of the South Blue.

The doctor disappeared six months later, and two townspeople died in a shipwreck.

"The same event?"

No, it's been three months.

Robin asked, "When did the World Government record the delivery of the remains to the Calm Belt?"

"The seventh day after Rouge's death."

Garp glanced at the date in Sengoku's hand.

The burial took place on the seventh day.

No one answered the phone.

Blank asked from the Moving Island, "She went to two places on the same day?"

That's what the record says.

Which one is real?

Ace gripped the beaded necklace.

"So we need to investigate."

What if they're all true?

Vegapunk turned to a page of data.

"Rouge's remains may have been divided into multiple samples."

A thin crack appeared in the casing of the Den Den Mushi in Garp's hand.

Say it again.

"The experiments back then required tissue from the fetus, and the hospital ship also possessed memory extraction technology, making it possible to dissect the remains."

You're referring to conditions.

"Yes, the evidence is still insufficient."

Blank presses on his abdomen.

Am I just made of wood chips?

"Currently, only wood chips are visible."

"Then don't open it."

"Don't open it yet."

Lin Qi recorded her refusal on the Protection Page.

Ace did not object.

"Inspect the coffin."

Little Patch moved a section over the Paper Thread.

The sound of seawater came from the Tavern table, followed by the clatter of planks as the ship tilted.

Mo'er raised his hand.

Stop here.

"Haven't determined the direction yet."

"There's a shipwreck ahead."

"I know."

"If you go in, you'll be pulled back into your body."

"Then you do it?"

Mo'er's hand stopped beside the Paper Thread.

A Hui pushed the line back.

He's not going.

"I can."

"You just came out of the well. The doctor said you might lose another piece of your memory, and you might even forget your own name."

A Hui will remember.

I won't remember it for you forever.

"Then write it down."

"You'll see for yourself when you're alive."

After Little Patch and the two finished arguing, the thread had already crossed the bloodstains.

The boat capsized.

Mo'er turned to him.

Hold onto the edge of the paper, and avoid the sound of water.

"The edge of the paper is also moving."

"Then seize my name."

Your name is not here.

The color drained slightly from Mo'er's face.

A Hui immediately tore the end of the Paper Thread.

How could there not be?

"Remember him as Maintainer in this section."

"Where is the name?"

"In the seventh paragraph."

Mo'er reached out to take it, Little Patch first used Red Knot to cover the Blank.

I'll save you a spot.

"Don't write nonsense."

"It wasn't written."

The seawater in the Paper Thread overflowed the first section of the route, and a few pieces of broken wood floated on the projection.

One of them had a white wooden coffin lid hanging on it.

Garp recognized the red thread flower.

"That's it."

Ace asked, "Is anyone inside?"

"Can't see."

Little Patch followed the red line on the coffin lid forward.

It separated from the ship.

Nami immediately checked the sea chart.

The ship Calm Belt, while the coffin headed southwest.

"The southwest is the Reverse Mountain."

The ocean currents weren't right at the time.

The Sengoku unfolded a weather map from twenty-two years prior.

"That day, an unusual ocean current flowed back into the South Blue from the Grand Line, lasting for six hours."

"The coffin was returned to the South Blue?"

"Based on the direction, it will approach the sea off Baterilla."

Garp shook his head.

When the grave was excavated, a search of the nearby coast revealed no coffin.

The woman's second sentence came through the Paper Thread.

"The coffin will not be returned to the South Blue."

Then, the coffin lid, which had been drifting southwest, turned around, revealing a Black Cup underneath.

The cup swallowed the ocean current, dragging the coffin towards an area of sea without any navigational markers.

Boa Hancock examines the Old Map of the Calm Belt that Kuja had saved.

That location is in the northwest of Amazon Lily.

Nami overlays the current route of the Moving Island onto it.

"That's exactly where it passed by."

Blank looked down at his own body.

"I brought a coffin?"

Little Patch replied from within the Paper Thread, "I've carried it before."

"And now?"

"There's no footage of what happened next in the water."

Mo'er grabbed the Paper Thread and followed the bloodstains to a break in the paper.

"Because I lost consciousness at that time."

A Hui asked, "And then what happens after you wake up?"

"The ship ran aground outside the Calm Belt; the Object Awaiting Destruction was nowhere to be found, not even the coffin."

Who saved you?

The Custodian said it was a patrol boat.

You believed it?

"I believed then."

Robin marked the location where the coffin had drifted on the Evidence Page.

"This statement, preventing the coffin from being handed over to Garp, might be to stop it from returning to its original tomb."

Garp asked, "Who would do that?"

"The person who knew the grave would be dug up."

Lin Qi looked at the sealed Black Cup.

"Future Echo."

Mo'er denied it.

"In the future that Lin Qi heard, there was no Rouge's remains."

How can you be so sure?

"That person only mentioned Ace's death, not his remains."

Ace's hand stopped on the beaded chain.

"Maybe he didn't tell you."

Little Patch suddenly said, "Seventh segment is calling me."

Mo'er held down the Paper Thread.

"Don't listen."

"Someone inside said the coffin cannot be returned to Garp."

Who is it?

"I can't hear him, he's coughing."

Luffy patted his Straw Hat.

"The child in the hat?"

"Older than me."

Shanks access line.

"A man who coughs and laughs."

Mo'er rolled the Paper Thread back around once.

He's not on the ship.

"You said that when the ship sank, he grabbed a plank and bumped into his Straw Hat."

"I remembered that later."

A Hui stared at him.

"What day is your 'later'?"

Mo'er did not answer.

"You hid the seventh paragraph because you didn't want Little Patch to see it?"

"I was afraid he would see how I was put into the Straw Hat."

"Anything else?"

"No."

"Every time you say no, there's something hidden underneath."

Little Patch shows half a thread sticking out from the Red Knot.

I heard him.

"Who?"

"A person who is coughing."

A small patch of dark seawater seeped out from the seventh section of the Paper Thread.

The man's cough was muffled by the waves, breaking off several times before he could finally piece together a complete sentence.

"Garp will send Rouge back to the tomb, and the Throne will be dug up again, so I borrowed the coffin."

Ace moved closer to the line.

"Who are you?"

The Echo did not answer him.

A hand reached out from the sea, removed the red thread from the coffin lid, and stuffed it into Mo'er's pocket.

Garp opened his palm.

The flower he had kept for twenty-two years now had two small, never-before-seen characters on the inside of the molding.

[Waiting for Ai]