There were not that many fools in this world.
Anyone with even a slightly long-term vision could see what the so-called Heavenly Tribute system would eventually lead to.
That despairing future was something Garp did not want to witness.
Because it would almost completely deny the justice he had fought for until now, the justice he had held in his heart all this time.
He also knew that he could not change this world.
That was why he had chosen Ace.
And yet…
That expectation seemed to have lost all meaning. It could no longer bring about the kind of change Roger once had.
"What I witnessed at God Valley made me understand that the World Government has never been where justice lies.
"It is only… the biggest fist. It uses power to decide what it believes is right and wrong.
"But Roger, you who reached the final island once told me that the timing was wrong, that the era of change had not yet arrived.
"But if even your son cannot do it, then who am I supposed to place my hopes on?"
Garp lay on the sofa, grief nearly drowning him.
To him, Ace was someone almost like a grandson. That bond, built over more than ten years together, ran deep.
That was an undeniable fact.
But before Ace was born, Garp, who had been entrusted by Roger, had not been entirely free of selfish motives.
As he had just thought, he had placed expectations on Ace, the child who carried Roger's blood.
Even though Ace had not yet been born at the time.
That was why, during the incident on Baterilla, when pregnant women of suitable age were being harmed by the Marines…
Garp, who clearly knew exactly who they were looking for, still remained silent, watching helplessly as those innocents died.
That was something he had regretted to this day.
He was a Marine!
A Marine who had fought until now with justice in his heart!
But he knew he could not resist the World Government's orders. Even if he acted, he would be stopped by the admirals who came after him.
Nor was he willing to truly hand Ace over.
Because that child carried Roger's blood.
As long as that child grew up, perhaps he would bring about a variable similar to his father, yet even better.
Blood would always be inherited through blood.
That was the hope Garp believed in.
A variable that would prevent the God Valley Incident from ever happening again, or even make those unreasonable things disappear entirely.
If Roger could accomplish something like that, then surely his child would be even more outstanding, right?
Perhaps the "wrong timing" Roger had spoken of would fall upon Ace's era.
Perhaps the things on the final island truly could change the world, just as Roger had said.
Garp had placed those hopes on him on his own.
And in order to avoid influencing Ace himself, he had left Ace somewhere far outside his own sphere.
Aside from teaching him physical training, he allowed the boy to grow wild.
Every time they met, he would use his fists to urge Ace to become a Marine.
That was nothing more than the selfish desire of an old Marine.
If the world could be changed by the son of Roger, then why could the first thing to change not be the Marines?
Compared to rebuilding an entirely new force, the existing Marines were far more in line with his expectations.
Garp simply had not expected that Ace would reach his end just like this.
Perhaps things had not yet reached absolute despair.
The authorization document placed before him was the final opportunity.
Once he arrived inside the great prison of Impel Down, as long as he was willing to stake his old life, no one would be able to stop him.
Even if an admiral stood before him, it would not change the result of Ace leaving alive.
But…
In the past, he had been unwilling to influence Ace.
Could he do so now?
Could a result gained through such interference truly bring about the change he desired?
For the first time, Garp found himself lost.
This heavy state of mind would torment him day and night during this period.
And at the final end of it all, Garp felt that he would probably go and see Ace.
He would seek the answer from Ace's own mouth.
"So… it was actually true?"
Inside the room, Ren withdrew his hand from the Wishing Machine and stared thoughtfully at the light screen.
The number on the account had almost returned to zero.
The reason it was "almost" was because there was still a pitiful 1 chip remaining!
But its existence proved one fact.
The wish Ren had just made… was an executable project that had consumed money.
The contents of the wish were extremely complicated, involving Garp's wish.
Of course, it had not succeeded.
Trying to succeed with the tiny amount of money in the account was wishful thinking.
But Ren, whose perspective had been pulled away, understood very clearly that this attempt had absolutely not been worthless.
As mentioned before, Ren placed great importance on intelligence.
And his intelligence came from the original work.
After learning the nearly latest manga plot developments, he was almost entirely familiar with the main storyline of the One Piece world.
Once established information was in place, many things could be deduced in reverse.
For example, before the war in Dressrosa began, he had been able to predict that the Beasts Pirates would definitely intervene. That was a deduction made based on those factors.
And now, with all his attention focused on the Marineford War, Ren inevitably began examining the overall situation.
That included Garp.
Garp in the original work was a rather complicated person.
If one said he was an upright Marine who firmly believed in justice, then the way he usually chased pirates was almost like fooling around. He never did his work seriously at all.
When faced with Luffy's various actions, his attitude was always to let things go.
Luffy's other actions might still be excusable, but causing havoc in Impel Down and releasing a whole group of prisoners was genuinely indefensible.
Evil was evil.
But if one said Garp did not believe in justice and was a heartless Marine…
Then during the Marineford War, he had decisively acted to stop Marco from rescuing Ace.
That punch had even shocked Sengoku.
One had to know that the person being executed on the platform was the grandson Garp had raised for twenty years. Even if they were not related by blood, there was still affection between them.
Sengoku had even said that he did not have to come.
But if one said Garp did not care about his family, or had no feelings for Ace…
Then after Akainu killed Ace, Garp immediately showed signs of wanting to make a move.
Regardless of whether he could beat Akainu, the strongest admiral or not, that reaction itself was an instinctive expression of his stance.
It was only because Sengoku held him down that an internal conflict did not erupt during the Marineford War.
If they had not truly been family, there was no way he would have shown that kind of reaction.
To summarize…
Garp had chosen to watch Ace be executed for the sake of justice. After the execution failed and Akainu killed Ace, he finally could not hold back and wanted to strike.
After being held down by Sengoku, he restrained himself from killing Akainu.
In other words, Garp was fundamentally a Marine with an extremely strong sense of justice.
But as the original work gradually revealed more of the plot, Garp had two extremely strange points about him.
The first was that he accepted Roger's request and helped Portgas D. Rouge delay Ace's birth by ten months.
During that period, Marines did investigate Baterilla. To put it plainly, they dealt with every pregnant woman of suitable age and timing.
The original work did not describe exactly how they were dealt with, whether through forced miscarriage or murder, but judging by the World Government's methods, it would not have been anything good.
Under those circumstances, Garp had said nothing at all.
Then there was the reveal of the God Valley plot. To summarize it briefly, a group of humanoid nobles treated people as entertainment and carried out a massacre.
The pirate side attacked, and Garp was ordered in a crisis to protect the Celestial Dragons. Afterward, even after witnessing the truth, he did not rebel against the Marines.
Although he refused promotion to admiral, this did not fit Garp's established character.
Of course…
Ren subjectively believed this was the original author's fault. There were no small number of logical holes in One Piece.
But the world he was in was reality. Events that happened here inevitably had reasons behind them.
And so…
He had conducted a test, and gained confirmation.
"No wonder Garp lost so decisively on Hachinosu. So it was because Ace's death made him lose his hope, and with it, his spirit."
The moment Ren reached this conclusion, he immediately connected it with the Hachinosu plot.
The Hachinosu plot was very simple.
Or rather, it was related to Blackbeard's surprise attack on Kuja Island before that plot. He attacked Kuja Island because he wanted to do something there.
But Rayleigh arrived and drove him away. Coincidentally, at the time, the Marines had come to prepare for a siege of Kuja due to the abolition of the Warlord of the Sea system.
Blackbeard did not want to return empty-handed, so he prepared to capture Marines as hostages. Koby, who had earned fame as a hero in the Rocky Port Incident, was captured.
And so Garp took a warship to rescue his disciple Koby.
In the end, he ran into more than half of the Blackbeard Yonko crew, as well as Kuzan himself.
Ren had originally thought they would fight for a long time. In the end, Garp was defeated before long, and even the way it happened seemed designed to pave the way for Koby.
One had to know that before that…
Ren had believed Garp's strength should at least be on the level of the Yonko. Even if he could not win, he should still have fought for several hours, or even several days and nights!
But reality was cruel. Garp simply vanished from the scene just like that.
The plot merely had not explicitly stated that he had died.
Looking at it now, the cause and effect were connected.
"If that is the case, can I use Garp's hands to do something?"
Ren roughly made a calculation, then rose and pushed open the door.
Dragon was sitting in the living room, seemingly resting.
The training that had lasted five days in reality but one month inside the realm had also been an extremely heavy burden for him, because Ren's training efficiency had been active twenty-four hours a day.
Even Dragon could not withstand that kind of robot-like training process.
Of course, the results obtained were also gratifying.
"Thank you for helping me this time, Dragon."
Ren expressed his gratitude sincerely. "Without you, I probably would not have been able to learn how to control Conqueror's Haki, let alone reach the advanced stage."
"No. Your talent is simply too terrifying."
Dragon shook his head. As if he had thought of something, his expression became complicated.
"I have never seen a genius like you.
"You completely mastered the beginner level in a single day. In five days, you learned intermediate Conqueror's Haki. In fifteen days, you reached the first minor stage of the advanced level.
"In twenty days, you mastered the second minor stage. In twenty-five days, you mastered the final stage of the advanced level.
"In the last five days, you even began trying to learn the ultimate technique of Conqueror's Haki infusion.
"Your speed of progress is too fast. I have never seen a Haki genius like you before.
"To be honest, in one month, you practically completed a path that would take us several years.
"And this is not to say that you are a genius among ordinary people. You are a genius among geniuses, because even among geniuses, there are differences.
"No… perhaps it is precisely because you possess this kind of talent that your performance has become more brilliant each time.
"That is reasonable. But it is a kind of reason that far surpasses our imagination."
He did not hesitate to offer the highest praise he could give.
As Dragon had said, Conqueror's Haki had detailed levels.
Beginner level—It erupted due to heightened emotions and was triggered by emotional agitation such as anger. It could knock out the people around the user, but could not be precisely controlled.
Incidentally, the Conqueror's Haki impact Luffy unleashed during the Marineford War when Ace was about to be executed was at the beginner level.
(End of Chapter)