"That doesn't hold up."
"You and I differ in our ideals. This is a fight to the death."
"What's the point of talking about a year ago, or ten years ago? People change with time."
"Perhaps I wouldn't have wanted to see you then, and you might not have given me a second glance either!"
Shane didn't buy any of that talk about meeting sooner.
People had different temperaments at different ages. Back then, neither of them might have wanted to know the other.
What would Roger have been like in his youth, and what circumstances had Shane been in a year ago?
Someone standing on high and looking into the distance, brimming with confidence, might have been swallowing humiliation to make compromises not long before.
Some submitted for a time only to be reborn at a certain moment, while others, like Roger, could not endure even a second of it and would sooner die than submit.
In Roger's case, he became a king upon the seas, an overlord, an Emperor of the Sea.
In Ace's case, he might have lost his life on the spot. With different circumstances, their experiences could never be the same.
Shanks knew that people suffered defeat and displacement, and Shane, too, had times when he fled and sought opportunities for revenge.
Garp had dominated an era with his fists, drawing countless followers who considered his justice the freest and most unfettered.
Yet Aokiji had followed him and practiced Iron Fist for decades, only to have his leg broken by an even stronger magma fist when he faced Akainu.
So.
Who was stronger now?
Shane had fled and hidden, and he had also refused to yield. Each moment brought choices made under different conditions.
People were especially changeable. A year earlier, Roger would never have