Chapter 889 - 889: Everything Was a Story That Had Been Arranged in Advance

Meanwhile...

[In the First Half of the Grand Line, Marineford]

After more than ten years of Rosse's rule, Marineford was no longer the World Government's Marine Headquarters, but as the largest branch fortress in the first half of the Grand Line, its development still far exceeded the world's imagination.

The originally solemn stone fortress had been replaced by even more magnificent surreal architecture. The ships docked at the harbor were no longer traditional wooden sailing warships, but steel behemoths filled with cold metallic textures and the glow of high technology.

However, for Juste, who was bound in seastone chains and escorted all the way here, the more of this he saw, the stronger the mockery and resistance in his heart became.

"What! Are you planning to use this place as a stage for my public execution?"

Juste dragged his heavy steps and looked back with a cold laugh, "When Pops really comes, aren't you afraid that his power capable of overturning the sea will flatten this magnificent Marineford?"

"We really do need to be careful about that. That old Whitebeard's Gura Gura no Mi definitely isn't something to joke about..."

Momonosuke, walking slightly behind to the side, instinctively shrank his neck and repeatedly warned them.

As a refined egoist who cared only about his own interests, he did not want his hard-earned bright future to be affected by the fallout from an execution.

Hearing this cowardly remark, Hiyori, who was walking at the very front, let out a contemptuous laugh.

"What wishful thinking."

Hiyori walked forward elegantly without even looking at Juste, "When Whitebeard really attacks Marineford, if he can destroy even a single blade of grass or piece of wood here, then he can consider himself worthy of his reputation."

This confidence was not unfounded.

Although Rosse wanted to see a grand show that would entertain him, and Shirahoshi was willing to serve as the perfect director of that show without any limits, these two beings standing above the clouds would absolutely not waste their strength meaninglessly for this.

Marineford was destined to become a grand battlefield.

But on the World Government's side, even if they gathered hundreds of thousands of troops at that time, not a single brick, tile, soldier, or piece of equipment here would suffer any real loss.

"Under the absolute grace and rules of the gods, whether believers or cornerstones, they should be indestructible, shouldn't they?"

There was a fanatical devotion in Hiyori's laughter that Juste could not understand.

Seeing the look in her eyes, as if she were looking at a dead man, Juste clenched his teeth and could only pray helplessly and desperately in his heart.

'Pops, don't come!'

He did not know where the World Government's confidence came from now.

But with the World Government's confidence and strength, once they truly laid out an inescapable net, it was probably not something human strength could break through.

At least with the current strength of the Whitebeard Pirates, they could not break through the World Government's defenses.

Soon, Juste was escorted all the way to the highest level of Marineford and shoved through the heavy doors into the conference room.

Normally, since Marineford was no longer the Headquarters, only one Admiral was stationed there.

But when the doors opened, even Juste, who had already prepared himself to die, could not stop his pupils from shrinking.

"So many big shots. Looks like you're pretty wary of Pops after all."

Even when losing, Juste refused to lose face. He suppressed his instinctive trembling and grinned arrogantly.

Inside this spacious office was a lineup powerful enough to make every pirate in the New World tremble.

And he was extremely familiar with every one of them.

Fleet Admiral, Sakazuki.

Admiral, Borsalino.

Admiral, Yamato.

Director of the Military Affairs Department, Zephyr.

And... although Juste had never met him, he was extremely familiar with him. He was also the person he hated most deep down...

Admiral, Ace.

"Hiyori, you guys took way too long. This dirty and sleazy brat is that useless older brother of yours?"

Yamato lazily leaned against the sofa. She wore a well-tailored women's suit, but the top two buttons at the collar had been casually pulled open, revealing a large expanse of striking white.

With her arms folded, she glanced at Momonosuke outside the door.

Of course, she could sense Momonosuke's furtive and extremely lecherous gaze, but instead of getting angry, Yamato showed a playful, pitying smile.

There was no need to take offense at someone who was destined to die.

Back then, she had been heavily influenced by the name Kozuki Oden.

But ever since she followed that bastard father of hers, Kaido, completely sided with the World Government, and witnessed that man's presence, the ridiculous samurai filter in her mind had long since been shattered into nothing by the truth and years of education.

"We stopped to look at the scenery along the way, but this is already our fastest speed."

Hiyori laughed indifferently, then casually raised her leg and kicked Juste without the slightest courtesy, sending him through the conference room doors.

She then leisurely stepped across the threshold.

Before Momonosuke behind her could follow, the doors slammed shut with a bang, mercilessly closing in his face.

"Huh? I... I haven't gone in yet!"

Momonosuke covered his reddened nose, his face awkward and furious. But with what little courage he had, he did not dare say anything. He could only swallow his anger and stand side by side with the Marine major standing guard nearby, humiliatingly becoming a gatekeeper.

———

As the doors closed, the atmosphere inside the conference room instantly dropped to freezing point.

"Why are you all so quiet? You captured me and put together this huge lineup for a three-way interrogation. Don't you just want to pry open my mouth and find out Pops' weaknesses?"

Juste stared fiercely at everyone in front of him and spat out a mouthful of blood-tinged saliva, "I'm telling you, don't waste your effort. I won't say a single word!"

At this point, he had nothing left to fear.

After all, no matter how much he compromised, he could not change the fact that he had become a hostage with a death sentence hanging over him.

"Tch!"

Yamato could not help sneering, as if looking at a ridiculous clown, "You're really overestimating yourself. You didn't inherit even a bit of Roger's blood, but you sure inherited all of his arrogant confidence."

Apart from Yamato's mockery, Sakazuki, Borsalino, and the others in the room could not even be bothered to look at this prisoner.

"Heh! So you're Admiral Yamato? That's just the pot calling the kettle black."

Juste glared at Yamato and shot back, "I've heard the rumors on the sea. You only got this position because of your connections. If fate hadn't been switched around back then, who knows? Maybe I'd be the one sitting in that Admiral's chair right now!"

All he wanted now was to die as quickly as possible.

As long as he died here, the Whitebeard Pirates would not enter this inescapable trap to save him.

Yamato was not angry. Her smile only grew wider.

She knew better than anyone what had gotten her this position.

After all, Rosse had many women, but there were not many who could become Admirals.

"Are you really that eager to die? Wouldn't it be better to stay alive?"

Ace, who had remained silent until now, finally stood up and slowly walked over to Juste, looking down at him from above.

There was no anger in his eyes, only a strong trace of curiosity and pity.

"Actually, I'm quite curious about how you feel right now. After all, if I hadn't been lucky enough, if Father had arrived a few days later back then and my mother had died giving birth to me that day, then I'd probably have been taken away by that bastard old man Garp. In that case, the person living through your miserable life today would have been me."

"What the hell would a dog who calls his enemy father know?"

Those words seemed to hit Juste's deepest sore spot. Like a desperate beast, he roared at Ace, "You've never lived my life! What right do you have to pity me?"

He could accept sympathy from anyone, but he absolutely did not want Ace looking down on him like this.

'Why?'

'Why do I have to bear the fate of being abandoned and become a ridiculous substitute?'

But even so.

The bonds he had formed since setting out from Foosha Village, the battles and adventures he had fought through on the sea, all of these were things that truly belonged to him, things he had built through hardship.

Even if their identities had been switched, Ace, who had grown up in a greenhouse, could never have possessed the same passion and brilliance as him.

"Calling me a dog who calls his enemy father? Then what fundamental difference is there between you, who became the godson of Whitebeard, Roger's sworn enemy, and me?"

Ace looked at him strangely and gently shook his head before speaking quietly, "And besides, when exactly did you start getting the illusion that you were actually living your own life?"

Juste's roar abruptly stopped, and his breathing suddenly caught.

"Was it when Garp casually arranged for you to stay in Foosha Village and placed you in the care of the bandit Dadan?"

Ace counted on his fingers with interest, "Or was it when, after you went out to sea, you happened to be starving half to death on the uninhabited Sixis Island, only to casually pick up the Mera Mera no Mi?"

"Or perhaps it was the moment you named your pirate crew the Spade Pirates?"

The pity in Ace's eyes grew heavier. It was the pity of someone looking at a bird in a cage, "What if I told you that everything, from beginning to end, was actually a script that had been written long ago? Including what you would experience at this age, when you would say certain things, when you would make certain decisions without knowing your own limits... all of it was simply a part that the World Government arranged for you in advance for the grand show that would come later?"

"Heh! Bullshit!"

Juste's eyes bulged as he desperately refuted him, "If you can really scheme things out to this extent, then why does the World Government still leave the pirates alive? They would've wiped out the Four Emperors with a wave of their hands long ago! Are you trying to tell me that even me standing here today and talking back to you is part of a script you arranged?"

'Absolutely impossible! It was my own free will!'

"Do you really think it isn't, Mr. Juste?"

A smiling voice echoed through the air in the conference room.

But Juste's blood completely froze in that instant.

Because those light words were spoken in his own voice. More than that, they came from his own throat, through his own mouth, word by word.

For that instant, Juste even felt that the tone of those words perfectly matched his own habits, without the slightest sense of incongruity.

But the most terrifying part was that the remnants of his own consciousness clearly knew.

He had not said those words.

He had not wanted to say them.

His body, his mouth, and even his subconscious had been forcibly taken over by some kind of power at that moment.

"What... what the hell is this? What ability did you use on me?"

Juste's voice trembled, and cold sweat instantly soaked through his prison uniform.

"This is merely the most basic weaving and manipulation of the course of fate."

Ace sat back down in his chair. Knowing that the disturbance just now had been caused by Conis, he spoke indifferently, "Of course, there's actually no need to use this kind of ability to interfere with your fate. With the government's control over this world, we can simply use ordinary means to weave a false but perfect life for you, bit by bit."

"Why do you think that extremely rare Logia-type Mera Mera no Mi happened to appear in a place as remote and deserted as Sixis Island, waiting for a rookie who couldn't even use Haki to eat it? Because I personally placed it there, wrapped it up, and left it for you a few days ago."

"Why do you think that in the vast New World, a hotheaded rookie who had just set out to sea happened to run into Whitebeard? Because the crew member on Whitebeard's ship who claimed that something had happened in his hometown and asked Whitebeard for help was actually one of our people. The direction he pointed you toward happened to be the place where you were resting at the time."

As Ace calmly recounted these things, deep down, he could not help feeling profoundly fortunate.

The ups and downs of this life did indeed seem magnificent.

But if all of it had been manipulated, what meaning was there in having bonds and passion that had been planned for you?

As Ace's voice fell, as if to completely shatter his psychological defenses, one scene after another, like cold memories viewed from God's perspective, was forcibly poured into Juste's mind by Conis using the power of the Fate-Fate Fruit.

He saw it all clearly.

In the years before he was sent to Foosha Village, the stingy and fierce bandit Dadan he remembered was kneeling on the ground, greedily counting the large sum of Beli specially granted by the World Government.

He saw Ace, wearing an Admiral's cloak, casually throw the flame-patterned Devil Fruit onto the beach of Sixis Island as if he were throwing away a piece of trash.

And he finally saw the blind spot hidden deep within his memories.

Back then, when he had just set sail and proudly recruited his first group of companions, a spade playing card happened to drift down from the sky. That was the origin of his pirate crew's name, the romantic idea that he had been chosen by the sea.

Yet high above that memory, the playing card was nothing more than a guiding token thrown down by a woman with pure white wings.

It turned out that all the passion.

All the bonds, encounters, struggles, resistance, and even that dignity...

From beginning to end, they were nothing more than artificial plants raised by their creator inside a glass box.

"AAAAAAAAAAAH!"

A broken, meaningless cry of anguish came from his throat. All his persistence and the support he had given himself collapsed completely at this moment.

Juste painfully raised his head and closed his eyes. Two streams of tears filled with utter despair silently slid down his filthy cheeks.

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