Impel Down — Lowest Level, Level 6: Infinite Hell
Once, this cage had held the Pirate King himself.
Now, it confined his blood.
(Gol D. Roger)
Portgas D. Ace hung suspended in the darkness, his wrists bound high above him by heavy Seastone chains. Massive shackles weighed down his ankles as well, the metal biting into bruised flesh.
The wounds he had suffered in his fierce battle against Blackbeard Teach had not been properly treated — merely wrapped and left to mend on their own.
(Marshall D. Teach)
His head drooped forward.
The orange cowboy hat was gone.
Disheveled black hair veiled his face, and only the faint rise and fall of his chest proved he was still alive.
Then—
In the suffocating silence of Level 6, a clear sound echoed.
Footsteps.
Measured.
Steady.
Drawing closer.
Ace, who had been held in solitary confinement for nearly a week, slowly lifted his head at the sound.
Outside the bars, beneath the dim sway of a lantern's yellow light, two tall figures stood.
When he recognized them, a hoarse whisper escaped his cracked lips.
"Old man… Gern… you weird old guy…"
At that address, Garp's fist clenched instantly.
(Monkey D. Garp)
He stared at the battered young man inside the cage. His eyes reddened despite himself.
"…You idiot…"
The words forced themselves out between clenched teeth.
Gern, by contrast, revealed nothing.
He stood quietly, his gaze traveling over the chains, the shackles, the untreated wounds — finally settling on Ace's eyes, where the usual fire had dimmed.
His lips pressed thin.
For a moment, he seemed to search for words.
In the end, it became only a sigh.
"It seems… you still couldn't decide your own fate, Ace."
(Portgas D. Ace)
Before Garp, Ace had nothing to say.
What could he offer? Apologies? Explanations?
In the face of the man who had raised him, words felt hollow.
He hated the father whose blood he carried.
He remembered — and was grateful for — the mother who had risked everything to bring him into the world.
But from childhood to now, though he had always called him "old man"…
In his heart, Garp had always been family.
His grandfather.
Ace bit his lip and forced his gaze away from Garp, turning instead toward Gern, whose composure was colder, steadier.
His voice was dry.
"…What's going to happen to me?"
Gern did not evade.
"The World Government intends to execute you."
Ace repeated softly, as if testing the weight of the words.
"…I see."
A faint, bleak smile curved across his face — one that looked almost relieved.
"Well… I am a pirate."
Watching him accept it so easily, Gern's next words fell like ice water over his head.
"It will be a public execution. At Marineford. The World Government is already pressuring the Marines."
(Marineford)
"Public—?!"
Ace's pupils contracted.
He jerked upward against his restraints. The chains screeched violently as they scraped against iron.
"They're targeting Pops—!"
(Whitebeard)
"It's not the Marines targeting him!" Gern's voice cut through the chamber, sharp and resonant against stone walls.
"It's the World Government. Get that straight, Ace."
"You were captured by Blackbeard and handed directly to the Government — not to us."
"We're not insane enough to launch a full-scale war against one of the Four Emperors without reason."
"Whitebeard is powerful. But he's old. He doesn't have much time left."
Gern's tone was calm — clinical.
"Why would the Marines deliberately provoke a catastrophic war during the final stage of his life? It makes no strategic sense."
Ace fell silent.
He wasn't ignorant of these truths.
But hearing them laid out so plainly stripped away the last of his illusions.
The suffocating despair returned.
He understood now.
It wasn't merely that he was Whitebeard's son in spirit.
It was his bloodline.
His existence.
That was the weapon the World Government intended to wield.
Garp, who had been silent until now, finally spoke.
His voice was hoarse, as though dragged painfully from his chest.
"You chose to be a pirate…"
"You chose your path…"
"You don't get to regret it now…"
Each word was heavier than iron.
Gern glanced at Garp's face, which seemed to have aged several more years in a matter of days.
Then, unexpectedly, he chuckled softly — a sound that slightly eased the oppressive weight in the air.
"So that's why," he said lightly, glancing at Ace with faint amusement, "if you'd just called me 'old man' back then, wouldn't that have been better?"
He tilted his head, half-joking, half-not.
"If you'd followed me… no one on this sea would dare touch you."
Ace understood perfectly.
Gern wasn't lamenting.
He was reminding him.
The seed of today's cage had been planted the moment Ace insisted on walking the path of "Fire Fist Ace."
Every decision led here.
To these chains.
To this inevitable end.
Silence swallowed the prison once more.
Inside the cage.
Outside the cage.
Three men bound together by fate — and divided by it.
...
Gern and Garp left.
On the return voyage, Garp did not speak a single word.
His dog-headed cap was pulled low, hiding his face completely.
Only after they stepped onto the deck of the Marine vessel — after the silhouette of Impel Down receded into the distance and the Gate of Justice closed behind them with a thunderous finality — did he move.
(Impel Down)
He removed his hat.
He turned his back to Gern and faced the sea.
Under the sunlight, his broad back appeared strangely hunched.
Alone.
Gern stood behind him and watched.
The shoulders of the man hailed as the "Hero of the Marines" were trembling.
Uncontrollably.
"Just now… I spoke so coldly…"
At last, Garp's voice broke.
"Gern… pirates… don't deserve sympathy…"
The words sounded as if they were meant for Gern.
But more than that, they were meant to convince himself.
"Even if they don't deserve sympathy…"
His voice shook harder, nearly fracturing into incoherence.
"But… family…"
"…is different…"
He spun around suddenly.
Tears streamed freely down his weathered face.
"What should I do?!" Garp demanded, staring at Gern with raw desperation — confusion and anguish laid bare.
For the first time, he did not look like a Marine hero.
He looked like a lost child in a storm.
"Gern… tell me… please!"
In this moment, he was not the iron-willed legend of the seas.
He was merely an old man, watching his grandson march toward the execution platform — powerless because of his own position and duty.
His heart was breaking.
Gern looked at him — at the man who had finally shed every layer of pride and revealed the fragile human beneath.
His expression was complicated.
He did not answer immediately.
Instead, he faced the sea wind in silence, letting Garp's grief scatter across the waves.
Because there was no answer.