Barn's words exploded like a thunderclap in Ace's already troubled heart. Having endured countless slights and rejection since birth, Ace had long since closed himself off. Without Luffy, Sabo, and Jig, he might have remained a loner forever.
Yet Barn's words overturned all of that. They meant he hadn't been unloved. From the moment he was born, his parents had given him everything they could, including their lives.
Ace knew that after his father, the Pirate King scorned by the entire world, Gol D. Roger, died, the government learned that he had a son-Ace-and killed almost every baby born that day. To protect him, his mother, Portgas D. Rouge, had kept Ace in her womb for twenty months through sheer willpower. As soon as he was born, she died...
That was how he became an orphan and even came to resent his father. Later, other people's cruel words drove him to deny his father's very existence, leaving him struggling all these years to prove that his own life had meaning.
Ace's little face was drawn, his brows tightly furrowed. His upper teeth bit into his lower lip so hard it nearly bled. It was clear how torn he was, and how afraid he was of learning the truth.
Though Barn couldn't see him, he could sense it. Putting himself in Ace's shoes, he could understand the complicated emotions churning inside him.
But he didn't try to console Ace. Instead, he took another long swig of liquor and began talking about the past.
"Your father and I-oh, no, Roger and I-met at the Sabaody Archipelago many years ago. We even fought. I remember losing pretty badly that day. It was my first defeat, and such a complete one..."
At the Sabaody Archipelago many years earlier, where Barn and Roger had fought...