The Name Left Unspoken

The golden letters on the Sky Screen were still assembling, and the hint remained before everyone's eyes.

[Hint: This regret concerns the daughter of a Marine Vice Admiral and a pursuit that should never have happened]

Marine Headquarters reacted most quickly.

More than one Marine Vice Admiral had died in the Paramount War, but when it came to one connected to a daughter, most people couldn't think who it might be.

Sengoku stood by the window of the Fleet Admiral's office. His gaze swept over the soldiers in the plaza who had yet to recover from the previous series of shocks, then settled on the Sky Screen.

"The daughter of a Marine Vice Admiral."

He repeated the hint.

Vice Admiral Tsuru stood beside him, holding a cup of cold tea.

"Not a vice admiral from the Paramount War."

Tsuru's voice was even.

"Look at the hint again. It says a pursuit that should never have happened."

"A pursuit?"

Sengoku frowned.

"If it was a pursuit, then it wasn't something that happened on the battlefield at Marineford. It happened before the war."

Tsuru put down her teacup.

"It has something to do with Ace."

"Ace went after Teach, but Ace was a member of the Whitebeard Pirates. No Marine Vice Admiral was involved in that."

Sengoku's mind raced.

"Unless this vice admiral had something to do with the pursuit itself, such as trying to stop it or taking part in it."

He paused.

"Or the vice admiral's daughter had some connection to the person doing the pursuing."

Tsuru glanced at Sengoku.

"Have you figured it out?"

Sengoku said nothing, but his expression said it all.

The name on the Sky Screen finally finished assembling.

[Top ten regrets, ninth place]

[The truth of the blood relationship between the pirate "Fire Fist" Ace and a Marine Vice Admiral—Portgas D. Rouge]

The moment the name appeared, every senior officer in the Marine Headquarters building who knew the truth froze.

Portgas D. Rouge.

That woman.

Gol D. Roger's lover.

Fire Fist Ace's mother.

A woman who, to protect the child in her womb, had forcibly extended her pregnancy to twenty months and died of exhaustion after giving birth.

Sengoku's expression turned grim.

"It's going to reveal what happened to Rouge."

"Not just Rouge."

There was a rare gravity in Tsuru's voice.

"The hint mentioned the daughter of a Marine Vice Admiral."

"Rouge's father was a Marine Vice Admiral?"

Sengoku turned sharply.

"I don't know. The Five Elders ordered that part of the records destroyed after Roger was brought to justice."

"You don't know?"

Tsuru looked at Sengoku, a trace of scrutiny in her eyes.

"Then it seems the Sky Screen does."

The question had appeared on the Sky Screen.

[Question: How was Portgas D. Rouge able to remain hidden for twenty months during the Marines' worldwide manhunt?]

[A. She possessed formidable combat strength and single-handedly repelled multiple searches]

[B. She received Garp's secret protection, and Garp used his authority to interfere with the search]

[C. She used her willpower to extend her pregnancy to twenty months, avoiding the Marines' search based on her due date]

[D. Both B and C are true. Garp protected her, while she protected her child with her life]

As soon as the four options appeared, emotions across the world shifted in a completely different direction.

The previous review of war criminals had brought anger and shock. This time, it brought heartache.

A woman, pregnant and hunted across the world, had avoided the search by extending her pregnancy to twice the human limit.

"Twenty months?"

On Drum Island, Doctorine's pipe fell from her mouth.

She was one of the best doctors in the world, and she knew all too well what a twenty-month pregnancy meant.

"The normal human gestation period is ten months."

"At twenty months, the burden on the mother's body would be three to four times what it normally is."

"Her internal organs would be compressed, her bones would deform, and her blood circulation would be severely impaired."

"Just staying alive in that condition would be a miracle, let alone evading a manhunt."

"How did she do it?"

Chopper looked up at her.

"With willpower?"

Doctorine looked at the name on the Sky Screen and fell silent for a long while.

"Medicine doesn't recognize willpower as a factor."

"But sometimes, when a mother decides to protect her child, her body does things that even medicine can't explain."

The countdown on the Sky Screen reached zero.

[Correct answer: D]

The footage began to play.

The first frame showed a small island in the South Blue: Baterilla Town.

A young woman stood on the dock, the sea breeze blowing through her long hair. Her hand rested on her slightly rounded belly as she gazed at the distant sea.

She was beautiful.

Her beauty was not as breathtaking as Boa Hancock's. It was warm and tranquil, like the spring afternoon sun shining over a flower field.

She was Rouge.

A time marker in the corner of the footage read: The second month after Roger was brought to justice.

A Marine patrol ship appeared on the distant sea.

Rouge turned and walked into town, her pace neither hurried nor slow, no different from any ordinary resident.

But her hand remained on her belly.

The scene shifted to an office at Marine Headquarters.

A younger Sengoku sat at a desk, a confidential document spread out before him.

"Roger's bloodline must be eradicated root and branch."

He spoke to the subordinate before him.

"Investigate every woman worldwide who has had contact with Roger. Pay particular attention to those who are pregnant."

"The due date is ten months from now. We must find her before then."

His subordinate accepted the order and left.

The scene shifted back to Baterilla Town. The time marker now read the fifth month after Roger was brought to justice.

Rouge's belly was already very large. Normally, at this stage, she should have been close to giving birth.

But she didn't give birth.

She sat by the window with both hands on her belly, her lips moving as she spoke softly.

The Sky Screen amplified her voice.

"Wait a little longer."

Her voice was gentle.

"Mommy knows you want to come out, but it isn't safe outside yet."

"Will you wait a little longer?"

"Mommy will hold on."

There were clear signs of exhaustion on her face. Dark circles lay beneath her eyes, and there was little color in her lips, but her eyes were bright, so bright it was hard to look directly at them.

The footage sped up.

In the seventh month, her body began to show obvious signs of distress, and she needed to hold on to the wall to walk.

In the tenth month, the due date calculated by the Marines passed. The search net began to contract, and the search became less intensive. Sengoku judged that the target might have miscarried or died.

In the twelfth month, Rouge's belly had grown so large that even her neighbors thought something was wrong, but she smiled and said she had simply eaten too much.

In the fifteenth month, she could no longer stand and could only lie in bed, but the child was still in her belly, alive and kicking against it.

Her hand rested on the bulge, and her smile was as warm as it had been on the first day.

"Wait a little longer."

"It'll be soon."

"Mommy promises you, I'll bring you safely into this world."

The eighteenth month.

A huge figure dressed in civilian clothes appeared in Baterilla Town.

It was Garp.

He stood by Rouge's bed, looking at the woman who had grown so thin she was little more than a skeleton, though her belly remained enormous. An indescribable expression crossed his deeply wrinkled face.

"You silly girl."

Garp's voice was rough.

"That bastard Roger left you to bear all this alone."

Rouge leaned against the headboard and smiled.

"Mr. Garp, I chose this myself."

"He didn't make me do anything. I wanted to have this child."

"Because this is the last thing he left to this world."

Garp heaved a deep sigh and sat down beside the bed, making the floorboards throughout the room creak.

"I'll protect you until you give birth."

"What about afterward?"

Garp was silent for a while.

"Afterward, I'll take the child with me."

"Help me raise him."

Rouge's voice suddenly turned serious.

"I might not survive the birth."

"Don't say that."

"Mr. Garp, it's already been twenty months."

She rested her hand on her belly, her fingers trembling slightly.

"I know my own body."

"So I'm begging you, help me raise him."

"Let him grow up healthy. Don't tell him who his father is, and don't let him bear any burdens."

"Just let him live freely."

Garp sat in the chair, which was nearly collapsing beneath him, his huge body curled into a ball.

He didn't agree.

Nor did he refuse.

But everyone knew that, in the end, he had agreed.

Because that child had survived.

That child's name was Portgas D. Ace.

In the final frame of the footage, Rouge held her newborn baby, the happiest smile in the world on her face.

She spoke her last words to the child.

"Your name is Ace."

Then she closed her eyes.

The image on the Sky Screen stopped the moment her eyelids closed, and the entire world was once again shrouded in an unspeakable sorrow.

In a cell deep within Impel Down, Ace looked at his mother's face on the Sky Screen, at the smile she had worn before closing her eyes.

A faint sound came from the Seastone chains as his body trembled.

He had never seen his mother.

Never.

He knew only her name, and that she had died giving birth to him.

But he had never seen her face, never heard her voice, and never known what she looked like when she smiled.

Until today.

"Mom."

Ace's voice came from deep in his throat, so hoarse that the words were almost impossible to make out.

He lowered his head, his hair falling over his face. Something dripped through the strands onto the stone floor of the cell.

In the neighboring cell, Jinbe listened to that voice. He turned his massive body to face the wall, leaving his back to Ace.

He said nothing.

Some moments didn't need anyone else present.

On the Sky Screen, the system's judgment slowly appeared.

[Regret assessment: Portgas D. Rouge paid with her life to push a mother's love to the very limit of what a human could achieve. She did nothing wrong, yet she paid the cruelest price this world had to offer]

[Reward: Since Rouge has passed away, the system will transfer her reward to her son, Portgas D. Ace]

[Reward details: Upgrade "Undying Flame Seed" to "Mother's Flame." In addition to its original effects, it gains a passive ability: when Ace is attacked while protecting others, the Flame-Flame Fruit's defensive power will temporarily rise to Awakening level]

The little flame seed in Ace's chest pulsed fiercely. Its warmth turned to searing heat, but that heat was not pain. It was a power surging up from deep within his bones.

He looked down at the glow in his chest, tears blurring his vision.

The flame pulsed inside his chest, its rhythm perfectly matching a heartbeat.

No.

That wasn't his heartbeat.

It was someone else's heartbeat, one he had never heard before yet knew so well.

It was his mother's.

In the tavern, Lin Qi rubbed his reddened eyes and sniffled hard.

"I'm not crying."

He said it to the air in his defense.

"This beer's just too strong."

He tossed the empty can aside, picked up a tissue, and blew his nose.

Then he looked at the new notification the system had brought up on the screen.

[Global emotional level: Sadness is approaching the upper threshold]

[The question setter is advised to adjust the pacing of the next installment and include an appropriate breather or lighter elements]

"True. I can't keep making it heartbreaking."

Lin Qi thought for a moment, then the corners of his mouth curled up.

"For the eighth regret, let's change the style."

He swiped across the system panel a few times, stopping on a name.

His expression shifted from sadness to a subtly mischievous look.

"This person's regret, well, honestly, it's both funny and heartbreaking."

"It should help lighten the mood."

He pressed confirm.

The judgment on the Sky Screen faded, and a new preview began to take shape.

[The ten greatest regrets, number eight, will soon be revealed]

[Hint: This regret concerns a confession that was never spoken, and a woman who watched only one person's back on the battlefield]

On Amazon Lily Island, Boa Hancock's face instantly turned red.