Chapter 311: Red-Hair's Great Crisis
"Grandpa?!" Luffy froze, then instinctively tried to run.
"Where do you think you're going?!" Garp's large hand shot out, grabbing Luffy by the back of his collar like a chick and lifting him into the air. "You little brat! I just got back and you're already spouting nonsense! What kind of potion did that Red-Hair give you?! You still think his arm was bitten off by that Lord of the Coast?!"
"A man of his strength, how could he be injured by a mere Sea King from the East Blue?! Use your brain and think, you idiot!"
"Why not?!" Luffy struggled, yelling back defiantly. "If it was a one-on-one fight, Shanks wouldn't be afraid of the Lord of the Coast! He could take it down in a couple of punches! But that was to save me! It was an emergency! You agreed with that back then, Grandpa!"
Garp's face flushed. "That's because I was a fool back then! I couldn't for the life of me figure out his motive, so I was swayed by your words!" the old man grumbled. "But things are different now, you brat!"
Seriously, how did I ever believe that? That year, though Shanks wasn't yet a Yonko, he was a great pirate who had already established himself in the New World. He had mastered all three forms of Haki and had a bounty of two billion! Maimed by a mere Sea King? It was ridiculous. It was as laughable as him, Garp, being injured by a low-ranking Marine from an East Blue base.
"Here, Luffy!" Garp slammed Luffy back into his chair and pointed at the torn newspaper. "Look for yourself! What's that on this guy's arm?!"
Luffy followed Garp's finger. On the newspaper, Shanks was wearing a summer shirt, and on his exposed arm, a five-pointed star-shaped black brand was faintly visible.
"What's that?" Luffy was clueless. He hadn't even noticed.
"A five-pointed star crest! It's the mark of a contract between a Celestial Dragon and a legendary demon!" Garp snorted. "That guy didn't want to be tied down to the Holy Land, and the only way to break free was to cut off that arm!"
"In other words, the story about him losing his arm to save you was a lie! An act! He tricked you! Don't you get it yet, you idiot, Luffy?!"
Luffy stared blankly at the photo. The five-pointed star brand was as sharp as a needle.
"Th-that's impossible…" Luffy clutched his straw hat, his teeth clenched. "Shanks… he…" The image of the red-haired man gently placing the straw hat on his head, of the man who could still laugh cheerfully even after losing an arm, flashed in his mind. No!
"I still can't believe it, Grandpa!" Luffy roared, his eyes red. "Even if you say the story about the Sea King is a lie, his kindness to me was real! And the promise to become the Pirate King was real too!"
"That's all I need to know, right, Grandpa?! Besides, I'm just a kid from the countryside! If it's like you say, then why did Shanks do all that?! Tell me, tell me!"
Garp was at a loss for words. He could only pick his nose in frustration. How the hell should I know?! That was the one thing the old man still couldn't figure out. Why Luffy? And why did he give him Roger's straw hat and want him to become the Pirate King, to find the One Piece?
Dragon, oh, Dragon. This is all your fault. If you hadn't risked your life to save Red-Hair back in God Valley, I wouldn't be in this mess… The more Garp thought about it, the more frustrated he became. He snatched a bottle of sake from the table, chugged half of it, and then slammed it back down.
"I don't care about all that!" he said gruffly. "If you want the truth, you can ask Red-Hair yourself when you're older! But from today on, you're forbidden from talking about becoming a pirate or the Pirate King! I'm sick of hearing it."
"In exchange, I won't force you to be a Marine anymore! From now on, you're going to devote yourself to the training plan I've set out for you!"
BAM!
Garp's fist of love slammed into Luffy's head, and a large, red bump instantly appeared. "If you dare to slack off or break this promise, you'll get another taste of my fist of love!"
"OWWW, that hurts!!!" Luffy clutched the bump on his head, and the tears he had been holding back streamed down his face. "Why do I have to train again? I haven't even finished paying off my debt… huh, wait!" The slow-witted Luffy finally realized. "Grandpa, you… you don't want me to be a Marine anymore?" What's with this sudden compromise? So strange!
Beside him, Makino glanced at the newspaper. Is it because of what was exposed a while ago?
"I just figured some things out," Garp said, his gaze turning distant and, for a rare moment, somber. "All these years, I've wanted you and Ace to become Marines because I thought that no matter what, the Marines could at least protect civilians and uphold justice…" The old man clenched his fist, his voice growing low. "But now, I'm not so sure myself. Those countries that were used as prey by the Celestial Dragons, those civilians who were sent to hell by the Marines' own hands… what is justice?"
Sengoku, oh, Sengoku. You bastard, you promised that after you became Fleet Admiral, what happened in God Valley would never happen again! But in the end…
Luffy stared at his grandfather. He had never seen Garp look so lost and pained.
"But not being a pirate is the bottom line!" Garp suddenly spun around, his fierce expression returning, and grabbed Luffy's ear. "Anyway, I've taken a super long vacation this time! I won't be going back to Headquarters for a while! I can stay here for months, even years! And from now on, I'm going to train you personally! The day you can beat me…" The old man suddenly grinned, pointing a thumb at himself and baring his teeth. "…I'll take you to the New World to confront that Red-Hair bastard! After that, you can do whatever you want!"
"Hey, really?" Luffy's eyes lit up, and he forgot all about the pain in his ear. "You mean it, Grandpa? No take-backs!" In the few months he had been wearing the Sea-Prism Stone cuffs, his strength and endurance had increased dramatically, equivalent to two or three years of training! And his grandpa, though everyone in the village said he was strong, was already very old. At this rate… Hmph hmph. Luffy slammed his fists together, full of confidence. He might not even have to wait until his seventeenth birthday to beat his grandpa to a pulp! Then he could see Shanks and ask him everything!
"Hmph! When have I ever gone back on my word?" Garp released his ear and chugged the rest of the sake. "Alright, let's not waste any time! Let's start right now! Come with me! I want to see if your body is strong enough to start learning Haki!"
Haki? Luffy was confused. He seemed to remember Big Bro Shane mentioning that word, but he had forgotten what it was. What was it again? He racked his brain but couldn't remember. He didn't even notice that Garp had casually thrown him over his shoulder and was now running towards Mt. Colubo.
Garp ran, feeling the weight on his shoulder, the warmth of his grandson's body, and his heart was filled with a mixture of emotions. If it hadn't been for that Shane kid tearing the heavens asunder, he probably would have still been torn, reluctant to leave that mess and come home.
"You little brat!" Garp laughed as he ran. "I won't be holding back this time! Get ready for some real hellish training!" The tide of the new era was crashing ever more fiercely. The seas in the next few years were bound to be even more dangerous. He didn't care if Red-Hair's feelings for Luffy were real or fake, or what his motives were. He didn't care what the future held. Luffy's full name was Monkey D. Luffy! He was Dragon's son, his grandson! He would absolutely not stand by and watch Luffy become someone else's pawn, their toy! He had to make sure Luffy was strong enough to protect himself when he set out to sea! Even if it took two hundred times the effort!
"Starting today, five thousand push-ups every morning! Five thousand sit-ups! Three thousand squats! A hundred-kilometer run! If you can't do it, you don't get lunch!"
"Eh? Just in the morning? That's too…"
"Hmm, you're right, it is too little. Then let's add two thousand pull-ups! And two thousand sets of basic punches!"
"EH! NO, GRANDPA!!!"
Amidst his screams, under the setting sun, the figures of the grandfather and grandson gradually disappeared into the depths of Mt. Colubo.
Dawn. New World, aboard the Red Force.
"Captain," Benn Beckman said with a long sigh, a cigarette in his mouth. "The worst has happened. The new recruits all ran away during the night." On the deck were a pile of abandoned luggage and a rope ladder still hanging from the railing. The new recruits had clearly been determined to leave.
"Ha, so they were scared off after all?" Yasopp said with a smile, cleaning his rifle. "After the newspaper came out, even some of the old crew members were grumbling."
Lucky Roux took a large bite of meat and mumbled, "You can't blame them. After what happened in the North Blue, the Celestial Dragons are public enemy number one. Anyone would want to run if they suddenly found out they were on a Celestial Dragon's ship…"
"Hey!" an officer glared at him. "Lucky, you're talking as if our captain is one of those trash!"
"You idiot…" Lucky Roux said, exasperated. "There's no talking to you!"
"Hah?!"
Amidst the bickering, Shanks sat on the ship's railing, drunk, clutching the newspaper that was rustling in the sea breeze. The stern face of his father, Garling, in the front-page photo made him feel sick.
"Heh…" Shanks crumpled the newspaper and took another large swig of sake. "They're right, aren't they?" The sake dripped down his chin. He wiped it away with the back of his hand and let out a self-deprecating laugh. "This bloodline is disgusting."
When he had first seen the newspaper yesterday morning, a cold sweat had broken out on his back. He had immediately realized the gravity of the situation. And what followed was just as he had expected. Though the Red-Hair Pirates had no fixed territory, there were a number of islands that flew their flag. And there were a dozen or so pirate crews that had sworn allegiance to him. Since yesterday afternoon, they had been receiving a stream of calls from these islands and crews, all questioning the truth of his Celestial Dragon heritage. Some of them, who believed in his character, were willing to continue following him. But many more were furious, even ashamed to be associated with him, and had declared they were cutting ties. And now, after just one night, even the new recruits on his own ship had all run away. This cursed bloodline, heh…
"You've had too much to drink," Benn Beckman said with a frown, snatching the gourd of sake from his hand. "It's one thing to drink your sorrows away, but to sit here feeling sorry for yourself? Hey! This isn't the Shanks I know!"
"The ones who left were never true comrades! Your true brothers, they know who you are! They would never doubt you because of something like this!"
"That's right, Captain!" the old crew members on the deck all nodded in agreement. One of them raised a bottle and yelled, "Who cares about some damn bloodline! The Red-Hair Pirates follow you!"
"Yeah! So what if you're a Celestial Dragon? If you really cared about that status, you would have gone back to the Holy Land to live in luxury a long time ago! You wouldn't have had to fight on the seas for all these years!"
"Everyone…" Shanks was stunned. He looked at the familiar, determined faces, and the hand that had been clutching the newspaper slowly relaxed.
"BWAHAHAHAHAHA!" He threw his head back and laughed, the sound echoing across the deck and over the rising sun.
"You're right!" Shanks shot to his feet, threw back his cape, and grinned, all traces of drunkenness and confusion gone from his eyes, replaced by a burning fighting spirit. "What's a Celestial Dragon's bloodline? What's the world's misunderstanding? I am Shanks!" The world's doubts were only temporary. His path was not wrong! When he brought the light of rebellion, the sound of the drums of liberation, to the Holy Land, those who had doubted him, those who had not understood him, they would all understand his choice, his conviction!
Purupurupuru~
Just then, the Den Den Mushi rang again.
"Another call to question you?" Beckman stood up. "I'll get it."
"No, I'll take it," Shanks stopped him and strode towards the Den Den Mushi. Encouraged by his comrades' support, his conviction was once again solidified. He would no longer be troubled by those doubts!
He picked up the receiver. "This is Shanks."
In the next moment, his expression changed, and his pupils shrank. The voice on the other end was both strange and familiar, an old voice he hadn't heard in a very, very long time. "Oh, it's you. That saves me some trouble… This is Garling. It's been a long time, Shanks."
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