One Piece: The Eternal Flame

Batalila Island is very beautiful. It is a small island with a suitable temperature in spring. The island is mostly a plain with green grass, and the wind blows will stir up a green ocean.

On the only highland of the island, there are red or yellow hibiscus flowers, which are very beautiful.

The Navy surveyed all the newborn or soon-to-be babies, as well as their mothers, and found nothing.

Even so, they still stayed on the island and did not leave. According to the order of their superiors, they had to wait for at least half a year. During this half year, the port was strictly controlled and no one was allowed to leave the island.

Lu Jiu's life was still ordinary. Gray was lying on the roof, listening to the morning sickness coming from the room, and felt that being a woman and a mother was really too difficult and tiring.

Time passed and the navy finally retreated.

In a few days, night.

Gray sat on the breakwater of the port, and saw a dog-headed warship arriving at the port, he felt a little bit in his heart, but the only one who got off the warship was Garp the Iron Fist.

He suddenly remembered what Roger had entrusted to Garp, and he felt relieved. Garp walked straight towards the hospital in the town.

Speaking of which, Lu Jiu's body is getting weaker and weaker now, and she has been in the hospital for several months, and her daily life is taken care of by nurses.

He followed Garp, and Garp pushed away the doctor who blocked him, and broke into the ward directly with a lamp.

"You are Portgas D Lujiu, right?"

Gray poked his head out from behind Garp, and looked at the increasingly weak and pale face of Lu Jiu sitting on the hospital bed, her time was running out.

Twenty months of persistence has brought this mother to the brink of exhaustion.

A few days later, as the baby cried, hibiscus flowers fell on the blood-stained bed sheet.

——The child was named Gol D Ace, and he was the son of Roger the Pirate King.

The baby was wrapped up and placed on the crib, unlike other babies who were wrinkled when they were just born. After all, he stayed in the mother's womb for an extra ten months.

While Garp and the others were busy rescuing Lujiu, Gray approached the child, keeping a close distance, tilting his head to look at the child who only knew how to cry.

The child kept waving his hands in the air, and opened his mouth to howl dryly. Xu realized that no one would care about him, so he restrained his crying and began to look at the world with his own eyes.

His dark eyes caught sight of the figure next to him, and he began to cry uncontrollably, as if he wanted someone to hug him.

"Can you see me?" Gray leaned forward, the little guy couldn't understand what he said, just kept waving his arms, babbling, but his eyes were really staring at him.

"Hey, can you really see me?" Gray was a little excited, he didn't know why, the kid could see him.

But this doesn't stop him from being excited. You know, even if he stays in the busiest tavern surrounded by people for decades, he still can't hide the loneliness deep inside.

No one can see him, and no one can talk to him, they will pass through his body mercilessly, this feeling is... suffocation, but he can't die.

The eternal fire of the soul may be a blessing or a curse.

Gray stretched out his hand and tentatively grabbed the child's arm, but of course he passed through it.

He was not disappointed.

"But it's nice that you can hear me, right? What's your name? Ace, right, nice name."

"Hey, when can you talk, when can little kids talk?"

"This is the first time I've seen a child as small as you. Are all newborns so small?"

"Do you like fire? No, no, no, you haven't seen it, you haven't seen anything, there are many interesting things in this world, and you will definitely see them in the future."

"How about I tell you a story when you can understand me?"

Gray was rambling, regardless of whether the child could understand him or not, he didn't stop talking until Garp and the others came back.

"The child is so good, he doesn't cry or fuss." The nurse picked up Ace.

The sudden elevation of vision made Ace feel novel. He looked at Gray, babbling words that no one could understand.

Gray laughed immediately, and decided to stay with the kid, um, when Ace grows up, he will give him the burning fruit.

Garp was a little perceptive, and glanced at the place that attracted Ace's attention, but saw nothing. He asked the nurse, "Do children like to stare at one place and laugh?"

"Well, not necessarily, no one knows their thoughts for such a young child, maybe there is something that attracts him."

"Really."

Garp was relieved at this point, and reached out to take Ace from the nurse, but the next second, the little guy opened his mouth and began to cry.

"He may be hungry," the nurse added.

Ace fell asleep after being fed in a hurry. A heartless child who doesn't know anything.

Garp took the child back to Donghai Windmill Village. Ace was like a hot potato. If those people knew that he was Roger's child, he would definitely die.

Karp couldn't keep this child by his side. As a navy, he had no time to take care of this child. In the village, the best trustee was the mountain bandit Kalidadan.

"Hey, Dadan, I'll raise this child for you." Garp hugged Ace and yelled unceremoniously at the bandit who was drying the clothes.

His sudden request made Dadan almost unsteady on the stool, "Huh?"

"It's the most fun when you can't walk. I clap my hands in one place, and you crawl over excitedly. You're so coaxable. Like a puppy, you come over wagging your tail as soon as you clap your hands. If you can't touch me, you cry. It's very fun."

When Gray talked about his joy, he smiled and gestured with both hands, "You were so small at the time, and you felt like you could be crushed to death with one hand."

Just this one sentence broke up all the warm atmosphere, and Ace expressed dissatisfaction with Gray's description of himself as a "puppy".

"Don't use this face to look like an elder, what will happen next?"

"After that, you won't be able to see me. You won't be able to see me after the age of three." Gray shrugged and looked up at the sky. "Afterwards, I saw that you had Sabo and Luffy. It feels like your own children have grown up."

"And then I... I suddenly missed my father." Gray's voice became hoarse. "Really, after realizing that you have a friend, I suddenly missed him very much."

"Especially when I realize that I will never be sorry for him, but he will never blame me..."