One Piece: The Living Devil

"Luffy! Stop!"

Shanks' expression changed dramatically.

"Do you know Juste?"

Facing Luffy's ferocious rubber punch, Ace didn't even draw his sword. Instead, he casually threw out a name with interest.

At the same time, he casually extended his left hand and caught Luffy's stretched fist, which carried tremendous force.

Ace's wrist gave what seemed like a gentle flick.

A terrifying force, layered upon itself like a tsunami, traveled through Luffy's rubber arm.

Luffy didn't even have time to cry out before his whole body was flung into the air like a fish tossed out of the water. Then, like a cannonball, he slammed hard into the stone pavement.

Boom!

A shallow crater appeared in the ground.

The instant Luffy hit the ground, Ace's figure vanished like a ghost.

The next second, with both hands still in his pockets, he was standing steadily in front of Luffy.

"So fast..."

Shanks had been staring at Ace the entire time, yet he hadn't seen how Ace moved at all.

It wasn't high-speed movement.

It was more like spatial teleportation.

It resembled the way Beckman had moved before, but Ace was clearly far more skilled and much faster.

By the time Shanks tried to rush over and rescue Luffy, Ace had already casually placed his polished leather shoe on Luffy's dirt-covered face.

Ace didn't look down at Luffy beneath his foot.

Instead, he smiled as he looked straight at Shanks.

Shanks froze where he stood and fell completely silent.

Even Gryphon in his hand trembled slightly.

He knew exactly what that look meant.

If you move even one step, I'll crush this kid's head with one stomp.

Killing Shanks might still take Ace some effort, perhaps a day or two of fighting.

But if he only wanted to kill Luffy...

It would be no different from stepping on an ant by the roadside.

Shanks knew that with Rosse watching from behind, Ace probably wouldn't really kill Luffy in public today.

That wasn't Rosse' objective.

But Luffy was already the last hope of the old era, the only hope left for all of them.

Shanks didn't dare gamble.

Even if the chance was only one in ten thousand, he couldn't use Luffy's life to test Ace's limits.

"Juste? Y-You know Big Brother Juste?"

Pinned beneath Ace's foot, Luffy's face was covered in blood. His limbs still struggled unwillingly, but the moment he heard that name, his shock instantly overwhelmed his anger.

Juste was his sworn older brother who had grown up with him in Foosha Village.

The two of them had been even closer than real brothers.

A few years ago, when Juste set sail before him, they had clinked cups on the cliffside and promised to meet again at the summit of the seas.

"Of course I know him."

Ace glanced down at Luffy from above and chuckled.

"I've heard his name, and he's definitely heard mine. After all, for all these years, he's been living in the shadow of the identity that belonged to me, drawing endless attention in my place."

"Heh..."

Shanks couldn't help mocking him in return.

"Juste may be a substitute, but out on the sea, someone like him, who's willing to risk his life for his friends, is far more like Captain Roger's son than a cold-blooded animal like you wearing the World Government's uniform."

"Then let him be Roger's son. Wasn't he doing just fine on Whitebeard's ship before?"

Not only did Ace not get angry, he laughed even louder.

"Then explain something for me. Why did that Roger-like Juste completely fall apart after learning he was a fake? What exactly was he afraid of? Was he afraid that his Will of D. was just a joke? Or was he afraid that once he lost the halo of Roger's bloodline, Whitebeard, the man who took him in, would abandon him?"

"Hmph! You wouldn't understand. The bond between friends isn't maintained by blood."

Shanks' expression stiffened.

Even he felt that those words lacked conviction, and his reply came out painfully forced.

Who could have imagined that the child Garp had taken away right under a Vice Admiral's nose had actually been a fake?

Even worse, not long ago, they old-timers had accidentally let the truth slip to the boy.

Originally, although Juste didn't possess monstrous talent like Shanks or Dragon, with his reckless determination, reaching Beckman's level in the future had never been a problem.

Even Whitebeard thought highly of him.

But now, after learning the truth and watching his beliefs collapse, Juste had begun to lose his mind.

Shanks felt that everything was falling apart.

"Shanks! What is he talking about? What happened to Big Brother Juste?"

Luffy, still pinned under Ace's foot, grabbed uselessly at Ace's pant leg with both hands while continuing to shout.

But Shanks ignored him.

Because someone with Luffy's simple, one-track mind couldn't understand reality at the moment, nor could he solve anything.

Instinctively, Shanks turned his gaze toward Rouge not far away.

Aside from Rosse, Rouge had also witnessed the child swap all those years ago.

She had been at the center of everything.

No matter what Rosse' reasons had been for deliberately replacing one baby with another and hiding the real child inside the World Government, as a mother, Rouge should have felt at least some resentment seeing someone else's child suffer in place of her own.

After all, Juste might truly have been an unimportant fake.

But what if he wasn't?

What if Rosse had lied to Rouge back then, and even the current Ace was actually the fake?

"Why are you looking at me as though you're hoping my conscience will suddenly awaken? Do you think I'm another pitiful victim who was kept in the dark?"

Rouge noticed Shanks' gaze and smiled back at him.

Even on this tense battlefield, her voice remained soft and leisurely.

"Shanks, have you ever considered... that I knew everything from the very beginning that night, and willingly allowed all of it to happen?"

"Having a baby whom even Garp completely believed to be Roger's child inherit the cursed identity, drawing the entire world's pursuit in our place... wouldn't that give my Ace a much safer life under the sun?"

Shanks felt as though he'd been struck by lightning.

He stared at the beautiful woman before him in disbelief.

Meeting his gaze, Rouge didn't think she had done anything wrong.

As a mother, selfishly protecting her own child was simply instinct.

Besides, back then, Rouge herself had only just escaped death.

To protect her only child, how could she possibly have cared about the fate of someone else's baby?

More than ten years living within the World Government had taught her one truth.

Compared to the safety of herself and her son, lofty ideals and kindness were worthless.

"Heh... Captain never should have trusted you," Shanks let out a cold laugh.

The last trace of hope in his eyes disappeared completely.

He turned away, refusing to look at Rouge again.

She had utterly disappointed him.

Beneath that beautiful, indifferent face, there wasn't even a fraction of Roger's broad-minded spirit.

She wasn't worthy of Roger.

"That self-righteous look on your face is truly disgusting," The smile disappeared from Rouge's face.

She raised her chin coldly, "But in today's world, how many people still think that I, Rouge, wasn't worthy of Roger? Wouldn't everyone instead think that I, an innocent woman who should have lived an ordinary life, was completely ruined by that reckless brute Roger?"

Rouge took a step forward, looking directly at Shanks, "If it weren't for him, I should have had a better future. Maybe not as noble and comfortable as my life in the World Government now, but I certainly wouldn't have had to live in fear every day or nearly drain my life away just to give birth."

"You pirates, always talking about freedom, really are selfish to the very end."

"If you say so... then so be it," Shanks closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the blood-tainted air before speaking in a low voice.

He no longer wanted to argue with Rouge about a man's romance or the tide of the times.

Because...

He truly had nothing left.

Every friend from the Roger Pirates who had once sung together beneath the stars was gone.

Crocus, the last old friend, had most likely died at the hands of Roger's own son.

For the Roger Pirates, and even for the entire Great Pirate Era, it was irony taken to the extreme.

As for the Red Hair Pirates that he had built with his own hands, because they stubbornly insisted on walking this road destined to be covered in thorns, some had died, some had left, and only a handful remained.

Since he already carried countless blood debts...

Since there was no turning back...

Then all he could do was walk this path to the very end.

So what if he was selfish?

So what if he was insane?

If his madness, his life, even the lives of everyone here could bring down the World Government, if it could shatter the suffocating web Rosse had woven, then even if half the people in the world had to die...

He, Shanks, would swing his sword without the slightest hesitation.

"Shanks, what are you talking about? Big Brother Juste... how is he now?"

Luffy kept shouting while struggling helplessly like a fish out of water.

His treasured straw hat had rolled off to the side, stained with mud.

He might have a simple, straightforward mind.

But not understanding complicated things didn't make him stupid.

The bloodless look on Shanks' face, along with the mocking superiority of this Marine standing over him, had already filled his heart with an overwhelming sense of dread.

"That Juste... I've heard he's having a pretty miserable time these days."

Ace lowered his head slightly and looked at Luffy beneath his foot with a gaze that was both sympathetic and cruel.

Smiling gently, he said, "Imagine going from the son of the Pirate King, carrying the hopes of the entire old era, to having your identity overturned overnight. Watching everything you believed in collapse isn't exactly easy."

"Not long ago, to avoid facing the Whitebeard Pirates whom he'd once trusted completely but now didn't know how to face, he even volunteered to Whitebeard for the thankless task of hunting down a traitor."

"Heh! Your World Government's intelligence network is unexpectedly impressive."

Shanks snorted coldly, gripping the hilt of his sword tightly.

Though he mocked Ace on the surface, a suffocating chill rose within him.

In fact, Beckman had already told him.

Nowadays, every single day, every single movement of the remnants of the old era, even what they ate each day, was completely known to the World Government.

Like ants trapped inside a transparent glass box.

They thought they were running with all their might, yet every step they took unfolded under the enemy's eyes.

It was precisely this complete surveillance, with no blind spots whatsoever, that filled Shanks with helplessness.

Everything he did now felt like a ridiculous silent play.

His only hope lay in Luffy, the child destined by fate.

Perhaps Luffy's growth would surpass all expectations and break every convention.

Maybe, during one moment of arrogance or carelessness from the World Government, Luffy would suddenly grow into someone even they couldn't deal with.

What Shanks didn't know was that Beckman had concealed an even more despairing piece of information.

The World Government had long since stopped focusing on the remnants of the old era.

Rosse already possessed the power to conquer other worlds.

And Luffy, whose limits were confined to a single world, could never become any threat to Rosse no matter how explosively he grew.

Beckman simply hadn't told Shanks.

What would have been the point?

For someone like Shanks, who no longer had any path left except to fight to the death in a hopeless situation...

Whether the enemy was a mountain or the entire universe, the ending would still be total destruction.

"Our World Government's intelligence network... how good it is, Shanks, you should know better than anyone, shouldn't you?"

Ace suddenly looked up with a faint smile.

That single glance made Shanks' brows droop.

Cold sweat instantly soaked through the shirt on his back.

If Ace hadn't left it unsaid, Shanks might have believed that his farewell meeting with Beckman in that hidden harbor alley earlier, one he thought no one knew about, had been watched by the World Government from beginning to end.

But...

How was that possible?

He hadn't stayed in that alley for long.

With Beckman's abilities, how could someone have tailed him without being noticed?

And when they met, Shanks had fully unleashed his Observation Haki.

He hadn't sensed anyone else watching them.

"Haha! Seeing that nervous look on your face... did you suddenly remember something you'd rather keep hidden?"

Ace laughed at Shanks' stiff reaction.

He didn't continue pressing the issue.

Instead, he changed the subject and casually dropped another bombshell.

"Since we're talking about hunting traitors... aren't you curious why Momonosuke, the Fourth Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates, suddenly chose to betray them?"

"What do you know?"

Shanks' expression instantly became serious.

His one remaining eye stared fixedly at Ace.

As far as he knew, half a month ago, Momonosuke had suddenly gone mad aboard Whitebeard's ship.

Using a poisoned samurai sword, he killed several completely unsuspecting crewmates.

Then, under cover of night, he stole a small boat and escaped alone.

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