"After all these years, Marine Headquarters still looks pretty much the same~"
The white-haired old man wore a red captain's coat and looked around with great curiosity.
"It's been wrecked into this state. How can you even tell...?"
Buggy could not help but complain.
"Here~"
Austin handed Ace over, and Roger caught it in his hand.
"My beloved blade... You actually inherited it~"
Roger took Black Blade Ace, and a familiar feeling welled up in his heart. His face was full of smiles.
Austin showed no reluctance whatsoever. After all, he was not a swordsman, but a sniper.
He lit himself a cigarette and calmly walked beside Captain Roger.
Although some things were not really his place to say, now that it had come to this...
"Captain Roger, you should know that Ace doesn't have much fondness for you, right...?"
Roger froze, then looked at Austin smoking against the wind as he continued speaking.
"Stop pretending. You'd liked Aunt Shakky for a long time. Then, before you died, you found Madam Rouge, hurriedly left behind a child, and turned yourself in to die..."
Austin's eyes shifted as he held the cigarette between his lips.
Then he calmly looked at Captain Roger's aged appearance.
Having witnessed nearly all of Roger's seafaring journey, from before the battle at God Valley until his surrender, Austin naturally understood him very well.
"With the kind of person you were, it would already be good enough if Ace didn't hate you. You don't seriously think there'll be some touching father-son reunion, do you?"
If he had been Ace...
Not beating Roger half to death would have counted as having a good temper.
"Rayleigh told you all that, didn't he?!!!"
Even old, Roger was still as scatterbrained as ever. With memories only up to his execution, he