"Ace, you brat, why couldn't you live the way I told you to..." Garp's voice trembled slightly, and his eyes reddened.
Sensing Garp's feelings, Ace turned to look at the white-haired old man sitting beside him. "Old man..."
"Damn it, you little brat, why did you have to do this?" Garp clenched his fist and struck the Execution Platform beneath him.
Scenes from Ace's past now flashed through his mind.
He had taken Ace from Portgas D. Rouge's arms, back when Ace was still a newborn who could only cry for milk.
Whenever Ace cried, Garp would get flustered, but as soon as Garp held him in his arms, Ace would stop crying.
He had entrusted Ace to the mountain bandit Dadan.
He had sent Luffy, then only a few years old, to Dadan's home to grow up with Ace.
He would always find some excuse to make time to return to the East Blue and visit Ace and Luffy.
When Ace first went hunting and adventuring alone in the jungle, he had followed him the entire way.
Whenever he saw Ace in danger, he grew terribly nervous too.
When Ace first succeeded in hunting, he had quietly rejoiced nearby.
Ever since he was little, Ace had declared that he wanted to be a pirate, to be the freest man on the sea.
Though Garp scolded him aloud, in his heart he thought that as long as Ace and Luffy grew up healthy, it didn't matter whether they became Marines.
After Ace first set sail as a pirate, he had kept following his progress.
His first bounty, his failed challenge against Whitebeard, his joining the Whitebeard Pirates-Garp had followed it all.
Although Garp hadn't always been by Ace's side, he had kept track of every event in Ace's life.
He