The Flag That Never Falls

The roar aboard the Moby Dick lasted a full ten seconds.

The voices of hundreds of grown men rose together, sending ripples across the sea. Sea Kings in the surrounding waters fled into deeper water in fright.

Marco rose from where he had been standing before Whitebeard, his eyes red-rimmed but his mouth already stretched into a grin.

Jozu smashed his diamond arm into the deck, leaving a crater, but he paid it no mind. His other hand was scrubbing hard at his face.

Vista raised his sword toward the sky.

"Pops can fight!"

The words rang out from a corner of the deck, then everyone took up the cry, until it became a surging wave of voices.

Whitebeard sat on his throne, feeling the change taking place in the old heart that had beaten in his chest for decades.

The change was unmistakable.

The pain was gone.

Not diminished. Gone.

The dull ache that had accompanied him for the last ten years, making every breath feel as though someone were cutting the walls of his heart with a blunt knife; the suffocating feeling that struck every few hours; the weakness that jolted him awake from his dreams in the middle of the night, though he dared not let anyone know.

All of it was gone.

In its place was a long-forgotten, abundant sense of strength, like seawater rushing into an empty hold.

He clenched his fist.

As his fist tightened, the air squeezed between his fingers with a muffled pop, and the planks beneath his feet groaned.

"My condition ten years ago."

He repeated the words.

Edward Newgate ten years ago, an awakened user of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit, at the pinnacle of all Three Types of Haki, the World's Strongest Man, a title the Marines and his peers alike had acknowledged.

Not the strongest after his decline.

The strongest in his prime.

The whole world was watching the reaction aboard the Moby Dick, but more people were looking in another direction.

Marine Headquarters.

Sengoku stood at the window of the Fleet Admiral's Office, looking at the reward on the Sky Screen. The teacup in his hand shattered.

Tea ran down his fingers and dripped onto the floor, but he felt nothing.

"Restored to his condition ten years ago."

His voice was flat, but Staff Officer Tsuru noticed the fingers gripping the shattered cup twitching slightly.

"Duration: permanent."

He turned that one word over three times.

"Tsuru."

"Yes."

"You know better than I do how strong Whitebeard was ten years ago."

Staff Officer Tsuru closed her fan.

"Ten years ago, Whitebeard could wipe an island off the face of the sea with his full strength. His Tremor-Tremor Fruit could change the course of ocean currents and trigger regional tsunamis and earthquakes. It took all Three Admirals working together to confront him head-on."

She paused.

"Our combat assessment back then was that if Whitebeard got serious about destroying Marine Headquarters, our chances of winning were no more than forty percent."

Sengoku fell silent.

After a long while, he released the broken cup in his hand. The fragments fell to the floor with a crisp clatter.

"In other words, from now on, we'll be facing a Whitebeard stronger than the one in the original timeline."

"A Whitebeard without heart disease."

"A Whitebeard who already knows everything about the battlefield and the Marines' plans."

He turned to look at Staff Officer Tsuru.

"How are we supposed to fight this war?"

Staff Officer Tsuru did not answer.

Because she had no answer either.

The second reward appeared on the Sky Screen.

[Second reward: Whitebeard is granted the passive ability Pops' Protection. Within the range of Whitebeard's Haki, all comrades he considers family will receive a twenty percent reduction to both physical and mental damage. This effect remains permanently active for as long as Whitebeard lives]

When the reward appeared, the roar on the deck grew even louder.

Not because the damage reduction itself was so powerful.

But because everyone had read one thing in the wording of the reward.

Comrades he considered family.

Everyone in the Whitebeard Pirates knew that, in Whitebeard's eyes, they were family.

Marco took a deep breath, suppressing the emotions surging in his chest.

"Pops, what about the third one?"

Whitebeard looked up at the Sky Screen.

The third reward was slowly appearing.

[Third reward: Given that Whitebeard's greatest regret in life is his uncertainty about his family's future, the system will show Whitebeard thirty seconds of the Whitebeard Pirates' fate after the war in the original timeline. Only Whitebeard will be able to see it]

This reward was completely different from the first two.

It was not an enhancement, an ability, or an increase in fighting strength.

It was information.

Information a father wanted to know about what happened to his children afterward.

Whitebeard's gaze changed at that moment.

He had been calm when the first two rewards appeared, even a little indifferent.

But when this one appeared, his pupils contracted for an instant.

"Only I can see it?"

He repeated the words.

Standing beside him, Marco saw the change in Whitebeard's expression. He opened his mouth to say something, but Whitebeard raised a hand to stop him.

"Step back."

"Pops."

"Step back."

Whitebeard's voice left no room for argument.

Marco took a step back, Jozu took a step back, and everyone on the deck moved away, leaving Whitebeard a space of his own.

Only Whitebeard could see the images on the Sky Screen. To everyone else, it was blank.

Thirty seconds.

Whitebeard sat on his throne, staring straight ahead at the images only he could see.

No one knew what he saw.

But everyone saw his reaction.

At the fifth second, his fingers tightened on the armrest, his nails digging into the wood.

At the twelfth second, his jaw tightened, and a muscle in his cheek twitched beneath his skin.

At the eighteenth second, he closed his eyes.

At the twenty-third second, he opened them again, and liquid slipped from the corner of his eye.

At the thirtieth second, the images ended.

Whitebeard sat there in silence for a full ten seconds.

No one on the deck dared make a sound.

Then he spoke.

"Marco."

"Yes, Pops."

"Call all the commanders over."

"Call them now."

Marco asked no questions. He turned and left.

Two minutes later, every commander except Ace had assembled on the deck.

They stood in a row before Whitebeard's throne.

Whitebeard rose from his throne.

The way he stood was completely different from when he had been sitting. His knees moved without the slightest hesitation, his back was straight, and his nearly six-meter-tall frame cast a huge shadow across the deck.

"I saw your future."

His voice echoed throughout the ship.

"I won't tell you what I saw."

The commanders remained silent.

"But I will tell you one thing."

Whitebeard looked down at the sons before him, his gaze moving from Marco's face to Jozu's, from Vista's to Atmos's, looking at them one by one.

"That future won't happen."

His voice grew stronger.

"Because I'm still alive."

"Because I'm still standing here."

"Because your pops' heart is beating as strongly now as it did when I was thirty."

He held out his fist, its surface coated in pitch-black Armament Haki. The air distorted violently around it as the Tremor-Tremor Fruit's force field resonated.

"The Paramount War is coming."

"The Marines want to use Ace as bait to kill every one of us."

"The Sky Screen has laid their entire plan bare."

"So this time, we're not going there to die."

He clenched his fist in the air, and a visible shock wave spread from between his fingers. A two-hundred-meter-long trench ripped across the sea, and the water around the Moby Dick receded more than ten meters.

"We're going to bring my son home."

The deck fell silent for a second.

Then it erupted.

The roar was louder than any before it, so loud that even the images on the Sky Screen trembled.

Hundreds of people drew their swords, raised their fists, and shouted the same name at once.

"Pops!"

Whitebeard stood among them, listening to their voices surge toward him from every direction, and the corners of his mouth curved slightly.

Then he turned to face the sea ahead.

Toward Marineford.

"Set sail."

The images on the Sky Screen changed, bringing the account of Whitebeard's regrets to a close.

Lin Qi watched the global emotion data panel in the tavern. The passion value had shot straight past the top of the chart, the sadness value was falling rapidly, and the hope value had soared to its highest point in the entire top ten regrets series.

"A perfect emotional curve."

He nodded in satisfaction.

"Heartbreak first, then excitement. The standard tearjerker-to-hype template."

He picked up a fresh can of beer.

"All right, third place is done."

"Second and first place."

His fingers slid across the system panel as he looked at the last two names.

His expression turned serious.

"These two people's regrets are different from all the ones before them."

"The people before them regretted what they had lost."

"These two regret what they never had."

He glanced at the name in second place and pressed confirm.

New preview text began to form on the Sky Screen.

[Top ten regrets, second place, coming soon]

[Hint: This regret concerns a straw hat, a name that can never be spoken, and a wind that blew through Loguetown]

In the Sabaody Archipelago, Luffy looked at the hint and reached up to touch the straw hat on his head.

His fingers stopped when they touched the brim.

"A straw hat."

He repeated the words aloud.

"A name that can't be spoken."

"The wind in Loguetown."

He looked up at the Sky Screen, something changing in his gaze.

"It's Dad, isn't it?"