He ran over excitedly, chasing after Ace and shouting at his back.
"Hey! My name's Luffy! I'm not mad at you for spitting at me anymore!"
Despite Luffy's best efforts to show his enthusiasm, it didn't have the effect he'd imagined...
Ace turned back and gave Luffy a vicious glare...
But thickheaded as Luffy was, he naturally didn't mind. Instead, he remembered when Shanks had been insulted by the mountain bandits back in Windmill Village...
Back then, he'd stared at Shanks, who was drenched in booze, and shouted in bewilderment.
"What's so funny?! You look like a total pushover!"
But Shanks had only smiled and said.
"It's just a little booze. Nothing worth getting angry over."
By comparison, he'd only been spat on, so that wasn't worth getting angry over either.
At that thought, Luffy called out enthusiastically to Ace again.
"That's nothing to get mad about! Let's be friends!"
"Where are you going?"
Luffy shouted, but Ace was growing impatient. When he reached a large tree, he gave it a vicious kick!
Crack...
After that kick, the tree actually began to lean, until...
It fell across Luffy's path.
"Waaaaaaah!"
Crash...
Ace kept walking ahead. He thought that would be enough to stop him, but he'd clearly underestimated the cockroach-like tenacity Luffy possessed as the future protagonist...
"Hah... hah..."
Luffy caught up anyway, panting hard with a few twigs sticking out of his bird's-nest hair.
But Ace soon spotted him. Standing on a suspension bridge, he looked back at the panting Luffy with the same hostile glare. Without a word, he swung his iron pipe hard, aiming straight for the bridge's ropes...
The suspension bridge broke, and naturally, Luffy plunged into the abyss...
"Aaaaaaah!"
"Ace, why'd you come back alone? Where's that Luffy kid? Why didn't he come back with