The atmosphere inside the shogun's residence the next morning was strangely awkward.
Cain stared at the walls and floor in front of him, both of which had been smashed full of holes, then looked at Ace and Yamato, whose dark circles were practically hanging down to their chins.
He remained silent for several seconds before finally asking,
"Did you two spend all night robbing graves or something? What the hell happened to you?"
"Eh, close enough."
Ace yawned and casually tossed Cain a sheet of paper covered in copied writing.
"Here. This is yours."
"We had to tear through several walls before we finally found the thing."
"I originally thought about making another copy for Luffy, but knowing that idiot, if we handed it to him directly, he'd refuse it."
Ace shrugged.
"So I'm giving it to you instead. Consider it your prize for defeating Kaido."
Cain unfolded the paper and scanned the text.
His expression sharpened slightly.
"A Road Poneglyph."
"So you really did find it."
He neatly folded the rubbing and put it away before looking back at Ace.
"You didn't keep a copy for yourself?"
"What would I need one for?"
Ace laughed and patted Yamato's shoulder.
Yamato immediately understood what he meant and wrapped one arm around his neck, pulling him against her so tightly that he nearly stopped breathing.
Ace struggled until half his face emerged from the crook of her arm.
"With my relationship with Yamato now, if I ever want to see it, I can just come look at the real thing."
His tone gradually became more reflective.
"Besides, I'm not chasing that dream anymore."
"There was a time when I wanted to become Pirate King. Then I wanted Pops to become Pirate King."
"But now…"
Ace smiled faintly.
"I just want to make sure everyone from the Whitebeard Pirates has somewhere safe to belong."
"Same with Yamato. Once the two of us have our respective crews and responsibilities settled, then we can think about where we want to go next."
He looked at Cain with a relaxed smile.
"When I put it that way, I guess my dream's starting to sound a little more like yours."
"A peaceful life?"
Cain sighed.
"You say peaceful, but I'm starting to feel like that word is running away from me."
He glanced at Uta beside him before adding casually,
"Besides, with the one you just gave me, I've got three Road Poneglyphs now."
"…What?!"
Ace's sleepiness vanished instantly.
He grabbed Cain by the collar, then almost immediately released him again as all the strength seemed to drain from his body.
"You better give Luffy a chance!"
"If that idiot finds out you're this far ahead, he's absolutely going to throw a fit!"
"There's nothing to give him a chance about."
Cain straightened his collar.
"Like you just said, Luffy will catch up on his own."
"That's exactly why I'm not going to hand any of these to him."
He looked toward Uta.
"I only joined the Straw Hats in the first place because I needed to save you."
"Now I just want to travel and have adventures with Uta."
Uta was already looking back at him. Her fingers tightened around his, and the two naturally interlaced their hands.
At that moment, Yamato suddenly remembered the two swords she had found the night before.
She grabbed Uta and pulled her out of the room, apparently intending to discuss that along with something else.
Shortly afterward, Garp and Sengoku returned with Bella and Bell.
Cain and Ace both turned toward the door.
Then both froze.
The two old men looked utterly exhausted.
Neither even reacted to the half-destroyed state of the shogun's residence. Their eyelids were drooping so badly that they looked ready to fall asleep standing up.
Cain and Ace spoke almost simultaneously.
"What happened to you two?"
"Did you actually go digging up graves?"
"Oh, shut up."
Sengoku irritably tossed a small ice sphere into Ace's hands.
Inside it was Bell, lying flat at the bottom with spirals in his eyes.
"This little menace is basically every troublemaking gene in the Monkey family compressed into one fireball."
"I spent years as Fleet Admiral and even more years dealing with Garp, and I have never been as exhausted as I was last night."
Garp immediately started complaining too.
"And then Sengoku grabbed Bell, transformed into his giant Buddha form, sat beside my bed glowing like the damn sun, and spent the entire night reciting Marine regulations!"
He gestured wildly.
"And every few paragraphs, he'd throw in stories about all the embarrassing things I did as examples of what not to do!"
"One of them wouldn't stop yelling, the other wouldn't stop preaching—an entire night! The whole damn night!"
Sengoku glared at him.
"What was I supposed to do, knock the kid unconscious?"
"He's a troublemaker, sure, but the whole reason he started acting up was because of you, Garp!"
"So your solution was to keep me awake all night?!"
The two men had looked half-dead only moments earlier, yet the instant they started arguing, their energy somehow returned.
Ace looked down at the ice sphere in his hands.
Bell was lying perfectly still at the bottom while a faint golden glow from Sengoku's Buddha form still clung to him.
Apparently, the child had been thoroughly enlightened by the Great Buddha.
Bella, meanwhile, had avoided the entire disaster.
Early the previous evening, she had used the device Vegapunk gave her to freeze herself solid and slept more peacefully than anyone else, completely unaware of what was happening outside.
She only woke that morning, at which point Bell immediately begged her to freeze him too so he could finally get some rest.
Ace looked between the exhausted old men and the frozen fireball.
"…You really had a rough night."
He quickly apologized.
…
"So you're leaving."
Sengoku rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"Elbaf, huh? I'm surprised you told us your destination that openly."
"Doesn't really matter."
Cain waved one hand.
"It's not like the Marines can do much in Elbaf anyway."
"Hah! And?"
Garp immediately became boastful.
"I remember that Gaban bastard lives there."
"Didn't stop me from finding him and beating him up last time."
The mention of Scopper Gaban immediately caught Cain's interest.
He had transmigrated too late to witness Garp's encounter with him personally, so naturally he was curious about what had happened.
Garp continued without prompting.
"I remember accidentally letting something slip back then."
He laughed.
"I told him Roger had a son."
"Bwahahaha! It was supposed to be a secret too!"
"No idea whether he told anyone else afterward, but I suppose it doesn't really matter anymore!"
Silence.
Ace, Cain, and Sengoku's expressions all darkened at exactly the same time.
The next instant, Sengoku had an arm locked around Garp's neck while Ace and Cain each grabbed one of his arms.
All four of them collapsed into a chaotic wrestling match.
"I told you not to bring up Ro—that guy!"
Ace's voice rang out from somewhere inside the pile, genuine emotion breaking through his irritation.
"So what if Gaban used to be one of his crewmates?! What kind of grandfather are you?! Did you ever stop to think about how I felt?!"
"GARP, YOU BASTARD!"
Sengoku's roar immediately followed.
"Ace's relationship with Roger may be such a complete mess now that nobody could untangle it if they tried, but just for admitting that, I could charge you with colluding with pirates and arrest you on the spot!"
Cain was no gentler.
He grabbed Garp by the ear and pulled hard.
"If I hadn't come up with that last-resort plan, Ace would still have been sitting on an execution platform!"
"And you're casually admitting this right in front of the former Fleet Admiral?"
"Grandpa, do you ever learn from anything?!"
"I was wrong! I was wrong!"
Garp immediately surrendered.
"I won't say anything else!"
When Uta and Yamato returned to the room laughing a short while later, the first thing they saw was the utterly bizarre sight of the four of them tangled together on the floor.