The Strongest Man
When the name appeared on the Sky Screen, the deck of the Moby Dick fell eerily silent.
[Top ten regrets, third place]
[Whitebeard, Edward Newgate]
Marco's fists tightened at his sides, his nails digging into his palms.
A crack-shaped glimmer appeared on Jozu's diamond arm. It was Armament Haki he had unconsciously released, pressing against the diamond's surface.
Vista drew his sword an inch from its sheath at his waist, then pushed it back in. He did it three times.
Of the hundreds of people on deck, not one made a sound.
Whitebeard set his cup on the armrest of his throne, its base striking the wood with a crisp clack.
"Don't make faces like that."
His voice came down from the throne, carrying its usual roughness.
"I'm not dead yet."
Marco's lips moved.
"Pops."
"The Sky Screen is talking about the future, not the present."
Whitebeard raised a hand and waved it in the air.
"I'd like to see just what that future me regretted."
A question appeared on the Sky Screen.
[Question: In the Paramount War of the original timeline, what was Whitebeard Edward Newgate's greatest regret?]
[A. Failing to prevent Blackbeard's betrayal]
[B. Failing to enter the war in his prime, with his strength severely diminished by age and illness]
[C. Being stabbed by Squard during the war and failing to use his full strength to protect all his sons]
[D. All of the above, as well as a dream about family that he had never spoken of to anyone]
When option D appeared, everyone on deck turned to look at Whitebeard.
Whitebeard stared at the last line of option D.
A dream about family.
His expression did not change, but his fingers tightened slightly around his cup.
"Family."
He said the word aloud.
Marco stepped closer.
"Pops, what was that dream?"
Whitebeard did not answer.
The countdown reached zero.
[Correct answer: D]
The footage began.
The first scene began long ago, before the Whitebeard Pirates had even been formed.
A young man sat beneath a palm tree, with no ship or pirate flag beside him, only a dilapidated beach and a few crooked fishermen's huts.
He was tall. Even seated, he towered over the huts around him, and his white crescent mustache was still short, as though he had only just begun growing it.
A group of children crouched before him. They were fishing-village children, dressed in patched clothes, barefoot, with dirty faces.
"Mister, are you a pirate?"
The boldest little boy came over and asked.
The young Whitebeard looked at him and grinned.
"No."
"Then why are you here all by yourself?"
"I'm thinking."
"About what?"
The young Whitebeard looked down at the children gathered around him. Their eyes were bright, full of an instinctive curiosity and wariness toward an unfamiliar adult.
"About a question."
He kept his voice very soft.
"What's the most precious thing in the world?"
"Is it treasure?" the little boy asked.
"No."
"Strength?"
"Not that either."
Whitebeard reached out and ruffled the little boy's hair.
"Family."
An annotation appeared on the Sky Screen.
[As far back as his time with the Rocks Pirates, Edward Newgate displayed desires utterly unlike those of other pirates. He had no interest in wealth or power. From beginning to end, there was only one thing he wanted]
[A family]
The footage switched to the early days of the Whitebeard Pirates.
The Moby Dick had just been completed, and the deck still smelled of fresh wood. The crew numbered only a dozen or so.
Whitebeard stood at the bow, facing the boundless sea.
Marco was still very young. He stood behind Whitebeard, the blue flames of his phoenix flickering faintly on his shoulders.
"Pops, you really don't want to be the Pirate King?"
Whitebeard answered.
"No."
"Then what do you want?"
Whitebeard fell silent for a few seconds.
"I want a bunch of brats who call me Pops."
"They'll make a racket, fight and drink every day."
"Then one day, when I'm old and can't fight anymore, those brats can stand in front of me and protect me."
He looked back at Marco.
"Just like family."
Marco had not replied at the time, but the footage captured the change in his expression.
The young Marco turned his face aside, his lips moved twice, and finally he sniffed hard.
In the present timeline on the Sky Screen, the current Marco stood on the deck, watching the younger version of himself in the footage, his fingers trembling.
"Pops."
His voice was much lower than usual.
Whitebeard did not look at him. His eyes remained fixed on the Sky Screen.
The footage fast-forwarded.
It sped ahead to the Paramount War of the original timeline.
Clips from this part of the footage had already appeared in the earlier war-criminal rankings, but this time the perspective was completely different.
Before, the perspective had encompassed the entire battlefield, the clashes between the various forces, and the contest of strategy and tactics.
This time, it followed Whitebeard alone.
At the start of the battle, Whitebeard jumped down from the bow of the Moby Dick and swept his long blade across, the power of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit tearing apart the sea around Marineford.
But the Sky Screen showed a close-up from the side at the instant he jumped.
His knees bent at an angle nearly twenty degrees greater than when he was young, and his takeoff was 0.3 seconds slower than in his prime.
The Sky Screen displayed a set of figures in the corner of the footage.
[Whitebeard's physical condition at the time: advanced heart disease; organ function had declined to sixty percent of a normal person's; he had received emergency treatment for an attack three days before the battle. His nurses had explicitly warned him against taking part in high-intensity combat]
[He personally removed all the medical tubes attached to his body before setting out]
In the footage, the scene of Whitebeard removing the medical tubes slowed down.
A small stream of blood followed the needle as it came out of his arm. A nurse cried and tried to stop him, but he gently pushed her aside with one hand.
"Pops, you can't go."
"My son is waiting for me."
As he spoke, his expression was exactly the same as it had been thirty years earlier, when he told Marco aboard the Moby Dick that he wanted a family.
Calm, certain, needing no reason.
The footage cut to the middle of the war.
Squard stabbed Whitebeard through the chest.
This scene had already been shown during Squard's ranking, but this time the Sky Screen showed it from Whitebeard's perspective.
The instant the blade pierced his chest, Whitebeard looked down at the tip protruding from it, his eyes unchanged.
Then he raised his head and looked at Squard, whose pupils had contracted to their limit as he stood before him.
He reached out.
And pulled Squard into his arms.
"Foolish son."
Those were the words he spoke.
It was exactly the same as the footage shown during Squard's ranking, but this time there was one detail the earlier footage had not shown.
As Whitebeard pulled Squard into his arms, he pressed his other hand against the wound in his chest, not to stop the bleeding, but to block the direction the blood was spraying.
He did not want blood to splatter on Squard's face.
The detail was so small that no one had noticed it amid the chaos of the battlefield.
But the Sky Screen magnified it.
On the Moby Dick, Jozu's knees buckled, and he dropped to one knee on the deck, his diamond arm braced against the floor and his head buried between his arms.
Vista slammed his scabbard against the deck, grinding his teeth until they creaked.
Atmos turned to face the sea, his shoulders heaving violently.
Whitebeard sat on his throne and watched the footage, watching himself shielding Squard from the blood with a blade still in his chest. The corner of his mouth lifted.
"Fool."
That was his one-word judgment.
It was unclear whether he meant Squard in the footage or himself.
The footage on the Sky Screen continued, skipping to the end of the war.
Whitebeard faced Akainu and a large force of Marines alone, the wounds on his body too numerous to count.
His knees were weakening, and the weight of his great blade made the muscles in his arms spasm, but he did not retreat a single step.
Because his sons were retreating behind him.
The Sky Screen showed a shot from behind Whitebeard. His broad back filled the entire escape route, and the Whitebeard Pirates' tattoo on it remained clear despite being soaked in blood and sweat.
Beyond his back, thousands of pirates were retreating toward the sea.
His sons.
[Attacks sustained by Whitebeard during the Paramount War: 267 blade wounds, 152 gunshot wounds, 46 cannonball hits, three Admiral-level attacks, and two stabs from Seastone weapons]
[Throughout the entire war, he never retreated a single step]
The figures on the Sky Screen were laid out coldly, each number representing a wound cut into flesh and blood.
The footage finally froze on the instant Whitebeard fell.
He died standing.
He stood like a mountain amid the ruins of Marineford, his great blade planted in the ground, his body leaning against its hilt, his face turned toward the sky.
The tattoo on his back was completely intact, without a single wound from fleeing, whether from the front or the back.
The Sky Screen showed one final shot: Whitebeard's last expression before he fell.
He was smiling.
It was exactly the same smile he had worn as a young man, sitting beneath a palm tree surrounded by children.
The footage faded to black.
[He wanted a family]
[He got one]
[Then he gave his life to protect it until the very last second]
A deeply suppressed sound rose from the deck of the Moby Dick, the resonance of hundreds of grown men trying to hold back their tears at once.
Whitebeard sat on his throne and raised his empty cup to his lips. Finding there was no wine left, he set it back down.
A drop of liquid slowly traced the wrinkles at the corner of his eye.
He did not wipe it away.
"This is my regret?"
His voice echoed across the deck.
"What do I have to regret?"
"My sons are all still alive."
The judgment began to appear on the Sky Screen.
[Regret assessment: Edward Newgate's regret was not death itself, but that he never got to see what kind of future his family would find in the days after his departure]
[When he fell, he did not know that Marco would fight to exhaustion after the war to protect their territory]
[He did not know that Jozu would lose an arm]
[He did not know whether the time he bought with his life would ultimately be enough for his sons to survive]
[His greatest regret was that, when a father closed his eyes for the last time, he could not be certain his children would be all right.]
When the last line appeared, Marco fell to his knees.
He knelt on one knee before Whitebeard's throne, looking up at the man seated above everyone else.
"Pops."
His voice was trembling, but every word came out clearly.
"We'll be all right."
Whitebeard looked down at Marco kneeling before him, then at his sons behind Marco, their eyes red.
He reached out and placed his hand on Marco's head.
"I know."
New text appeared on the Sky Screen.
[Given that Whitebeard is still alive in this timeline and the Paramount War has yet to occur, the system has determined that his reward will be directed toward changing the future outcome.]
[The rewards will be announced shortly.]
Lin Qi watched the screen from the tavern, his finger hovering over the system panel.
"This old man's reward has to be substantial enough."
His voice was much more serious than usual.
"A man who could take two hundred and sixty-seven blade wounds and die standing deserves a chance to live and see his sons grow up."
He pressed confirm.
The reward text on the Sky Screen began to light up, one line at a time.
[Reward one: Eliminate Whitebeard's current heart disease symptoms and restore his bodily functions to their state ten years ago. Duration: permanent.]
A deafening roar erupted aboard the Moby Dick.