Thirty Seconds on the Execution Platform

The image on the Sky Screen changed.

The time was marked precisely, down to the second.

Original timeline, the Paramount War, thirty seconds before Luffy charged onto the Execution Platform.

Smoke and gunpowder haze filled the battlefield at Marineford. The image was not a panoramic view, but a close-up fixed on the top of the Execution Platform.

Garp sat on the Execution Platform.

He sat beside Ace, his Marine cap on his head and his arms folded across his chest. His posture looked no different from usual.

But the Sky Screen showed a close-up of Garp's hands.

The knuckles of the hands crossed against his chest had turned completely white.

All ten fingers dug into the fabric of his uniform, leaving ten deep indentations.

He was using all his strength to hold himself back.

Ace knelt beside him, his hands bound in Seastone cuffs, his head lowered.

"Grandpa."

Ace's voice squeezed through the clatter of chains.

"Don't call me that."

Garp's voice sounded as though it had been ground out between his teeth.

"Don't call me that at a time like this."

"Grandpa, do you hate me?"

Garp did not answer.

The image showed a close-up of his face in profile. The brim of his cap hid the upper half, but every muscle in the lower half was taut, and he was biting his lips so hard they were almost bleeding.

"I don't hate you."

It took him a long time to say those words.

"I hate myself."

A line of text appeared on the Sky Screen.

[The following footage reconstructs Garp's thoughts. The data comes from the system's complete scan of Garp's mental state in the original timeline]

The image did not change, but Garp's voice became an inner monologue that only the audience could hear. Ace, in the footage, could not hear it.

I've been sitting here for three hours.

For three hours, I've watched the battlefield below, watched Whitebeard's ships charge in, watched the Marines' cannon fire blast the sea into hell.

I've sat here without moving a single step.

Because I am Marine Vice Admiral Monkey D. Garp.

It's my duty to guard this Execution Platform.

Garp's inner monologue paused for a second.

But the one sitting on the Execution Platform is my grandson.

The footage fast-forwarded fifteen seconds. Luffy appeared on the stairs below the Execution Platform.

He was covered in wounds, his clothes so torn they were barely hanging on, but he was still climbing.

Garp rose from his seat.

He stood at the very top of the Execution Platform, blocking the only path Luffy could take.

"Out of the way, Grandpa!"

Luffy's voice came from below, bloodied and breathless.

Garp did not move aside.

He stood there, both legs rooted to the floor.

The inner monologue on the Sky Screen continued.

My duty tells me to knock him down.

With my iron fist, I could send him back to the battlefield in one blow.

Luffy's body couldn't withstand a serious punch from me.

I know.

But I can't raise my hand.

In the footage, Garp did raise his fist.

It was clenched tight, a faint layer of Armament Haki Hardening covering his knuckles.

But that fist stopped in midair for three seconds.

Three seconds.

The Sky Screen slowed those three seconds down until every change in Garp's expression could be seen in each frame.

In the first second, his eyes were empty, his pupils dilated, like a man looking down from the edge of a cliff.

In the second, his lips trembled, and a third of the Armament Haki Hardening faded from his fist.

In the third, his fist opened half an inch, clenched again, then opened again.

Then Luffy charged up.

That punch landed on Garp's face.

But the punch was not powerful enough to send Garp the Hero, the Marine, flying if he was defending himself seriously. An annotation on the Sky Screen calmly pointed this out.

[System analysis: Luffy's attack power at the time was insufficient to knock Garp back at full strength. Garp being sent flying was only possible because he deliberately chose not to resist]

Garp's body flew off the Execution Platform.

As he flew through the air, the Sky Screen showed an extreme slow-motion close-up of his face.

He was smiling.

The corners of his mouth curved up slightly, and liquid slid from his eyes, scattering in the wind.

A smile and tears on the same face.

His inner monologue sounded one last time as he was sent flying.

Go, Luffy.

Go save your brother.

Grandpa can't do anything.

All Grandpa can do is let you knock him away.

The footage cut off there.

A black screen.

People all over the world stared at the black screen for three seconds.

No one spoke.

In the Marine Headquarters mess hall, soldiers who had been eating put down their chopsticks.

In a tavern in Water 7, Franky took off his sunglasses.

On Drum Island, Doctorine's pipe fell from her mouth. This time, she did not pick it up.

In the Sabaody Archipelago, Luffy stood where he was, fists clenched, veins rising one by one on the backs of his hands.

"Grandpa."

His voice had gone hoarse.

Zoro stood beside him without saying a word, merely resting a hand on the hilt of the Wado Ichimonji.

Rayleigh leaned against the wall, his bottle already set on the ground, his arms crossed and the smile gone from his face.

"Roger."

He spoke the name very softly.

"You entrusted your son to this man."

"Do you know how heavy a burden you made him carry?"

The image on the Sky Screen returned.

It did not continue the footage of the Paramount War. Instead, it jumped to a new scene.

Time: original timeline, the third day after the end of the Paramount War.

A tiny single-occupancy rest room in a corner of Marine Headquarters.

Garp sat on the edge of the bed, his cap tossed on the floor and his uniform half-removed, hanging from his shoulders. His hair was disheveled, his face was stubbled, and he looked ten years older.

He was clutching a photograph.

The photograph was old, its corners frayed, and it showed three people.

A young man in a Marine uniform, a black-haired boy under ten, and a child under five wearing a straw hat.

Dadan had secretly taken the photograph one day when Garp was training Luffy and Ace.

Garp was grinning broadly in the photograph, one hand gripping Luffy by the back of his collar and the other pressing down on Ace's head.

Ace was struggling, reluctance written all over his face.

Luffy was shouting, his mouth open as wide as his face.

All three were alive.

All three were in the same picture.

Now, the black-haired boy in the photograph was dead.

Garp pressed the photograph to his forehead and sat hunched over on the edge of the bed.

His shoulders were shaking.

They shook so hard that the whole bed shook with them.

But he made no sound.

Not a single sound.

In that small, empty room, the Marine hero Monkey D. Garp used all his strength to keep his sobs trapped in his throat.

Because someone was moving outside the door.

Outside the door was a Marine hallway.

He could not let anyone hear him.

The uniform he had worn all his life did not permit him to cry aloud.

The Sky Screen showed the scene for a full fifteen seconds. Throughout those fifteen seconds, nothing in the image changed; only the hunched old man's shoulders kept shaking, accompanied by the faint sound of the photograph crumpling in his grip.

The whole world fell silent.

The words of the verdict appeared on the Sky Screen.

[Regret assessment: Monkey D. Garp's life was a paradox that could never be resolved]

[He chose justice and lost his son]

[He upheld justice and lost his grandson]

[The flag he believed in all his life did not, in the end, even grant him the right to cry aloud for his grandson]

[He was not a bad man, nor was he a good Marine]

[He was merely an old man who wanted to protect everything, but failed to protect anything]

When the last line appeared, Lin Qi was in the tavern, watching the global emotion data panel on the screen. All the data had turned red.

Not the red of anger.

The red of sorrow.

He put down the beer can in his hand without drinking.

"I thought Bon Clay's episode was already brutal enough."

He stared at the image on the screen of the hunched old man with shaking shoulders, his voice much softer than usual.

"Garp's regret is different from everyone else's."

"Other people's regret is that they were brought down by fate."

"His regret is that he stood across from fate himself, watched it bring down every member of his family, and then told himself he couldn't move."

His fingers paused over the system panel for a few seconds.

"The reward and punishment need to be carefully designed."

"This old man has suffered enough already."

On the Sky Screen, the last line of the verdict was still glowing as new text slowly emerged.

[Given that the core of Monkey D. Garp's regret lies in the conflict between his identities and the loss of family bonds, the system rules as follows]

The whole world held its breath, waiting for the ruling to appear.