The hand on Aster's shoulder felt less like a mountain range had decided to rest its weight upon him.
Aster stood frozen in the shadowed alleyway of Loguetown. The rain slicked his hair to his forehead, mixing with the cold sweat that had suddenly broken out on his neck. His hand was on the grip of Crimson Abyss, but he didn't draw it.
More like he couldn't.
DON'T. MOVE.
Flamey's voice in his head was a terrified hiss, vibrating against the back of Aster's skull.
Aster, listen to me very carefully. Do not twitch. Do not breathe wrong. That... thing behind us... he is a monster. He is a natural disaster in a coat. If you pull that axe, we die. Instantly.
Aster didn't need the warning. His Observation Haki, usually a reliable radar, was screaming static. The man behind him had no killing intent, no malice.
"You heard me, brat," the voice rumbled again.
Aster slowly turned his head.
Monkey D. Garp stood there. He was massive, his broad chest filling the narrow alley. He wore his Marine coat draped over his shoulders, the sleeves fluttering in the wind. His face was older than Aster remembered from the glimpses at God Valley, lined with years of hard battles and harder choices.
But it wasn't the fear of capture that froze Aster's heart. It was what Garp had said.
You are just like that bastard.
He knew.
Despite Eris's sacrifice, despite the Memory Swipe that had fooled Roger, despite fourteen years of silence... the Hero of the Marines knew exactly who he was.
"Relax," Garp grunted, sensing the tension radiating off the boy. He removed his hand from Aster's shoulder. "If I wanted to arrest you, you'd already be in cuffs. Come with me."
Garp turned and walked deeper into the alley, not even looking back to see if Aster followed.
Aster hesitated for a heartbeat.
Run? Flamey suggested weakly. Maybe we can... fly? Shit, we can't fly! No, he'd catch us. Dig a hole?
"No," Aster whispered. "We follow."
He adjusted the axe on his back and walked after the Marine Hero.
They ended up in a small, dusty storage room in the back of a closed-down tavern. It smelled of stale beer and sawdust. Garp kicked a chair toward Aster and sat heavily on a crate.
"Sit," Garp commanded.
Aster sat. He kept his posture rigid, his eyes scanning the room for exits, his hand never straying far from his weapon.
They stared at each other for a long, heavy minute. The silence stretched, thick with history and unasked questions.
Finally, Garp let out a long, weary sigh. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a bag of rice crackers, and crunched one loudly.
"You must be wondering," Garp said, chewing, "how an old man like me still remembers you."
Aster nodded once. "My mother... she erased it. Roger didn't know until I told him. How do you?"
Garp stopped chewing. His expression softened, a shadow of an old grief passing over his features.
"Eris," he said the name with a heavy respect. "She was a terrifying woman. Brilliant. Dangerous."
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Before she died... in that split second before she unleashed that light... she sent messages. Through that Voice of hers."
Aster's eyes widened. "Messages? Plural?"
"Two," Garp confirmed. "One to Rayleigh. I figured that's who raised you. You have his stance."
Aster felt a lump in his throat.
"And the second one..." Garp tapped his own temple with a thick finger. "...she sent to me."
Aster stared at him, his mind reeling. His mother, in her final moments, while burning her life force to deceive the world, had reached out to the enemy? To the man hunting her husband?
"Why?" Aster whispered.
"Because she wanted to burn the board," Garp said grimly. "She didn't just tell me you were alive, kid. She told me the Truth."
Garp clutched his head for a moment, as if the memory of the message was physically painful.
"She dumped everything she knew into my head. The history of her clan. The 'Gimmick'. The secrets of Mary Geoise." Garp looked up, his eyes hard and angry. "She told me how the World Government farms us."
"Farms you?"
"They plant pirates," Garp spat, his voice filled with disgust. "They encourage the chaos. They create monsters like Shiki, like Kaidō, even like Roger... so they can justify the Marines. They need a boogeyman so the world begs for their 'protection.' They built a grinder, kid. And they throw the strong — Marines and Pirates alike — into it to kill each other off, so no one ever gets strong enough to look up."
Aster sat back, the wood of the chair digging into his spine.
The World Government controls the world even more deeply than I thought.
It wasn't just oppression. It was a play. A scripted tragedy where good men died to keep bad men in power.
"I was a fool," Garp muttered, crushing a cracker into dust in his fist. "I thought I could change things from the inside. I thought if I just punched hard enough, justice would prevail. But your mother... she showed me the strings."
He looked at Aster. "And she told me I'd find you here. In Loguetown. On the day Roger died."
"How?" Aster asked. "How could she know that? That was fourteen years ago."
"I don't know," Garp admitted. "She pushed it. She pushed her Observation Haki past the limit of what a human should be able to do. She burned her life to see the timeline. She saw you standing here. She saw us."
Silence descended on the room again.
"So," Aster said. "You know who I am. You know what I am. What do you want from me, Garp? You want to turn me in?"
Garp looked at the young man. He saw the scars. He saw the hatred burning deep in the golden eyes. But he also saw the control.
"No," Garp said. "I want you to join the Marines."
Aster paused.
The offer hung in the air, absurd and heavy. The son of Rocks D. Xebec. A Marine.
"You're joking," Aster said flatly.
"I've never been more serious," Garp replied. "You have the power. You have the training. I can see Rayleigh's work on you. You could be an Admiral, and change things."
Aster looked down at his hands.
He thought about it.
He remembered God Valley. The chaos. The pirates laughed as they killed.
And he remembered the four low-ranking Marines.
He remembered the man who had jumped in front of a blade meant for him. He remembered the squad that had charged a New World pirate with nothing but courage and a laugh, dying to save a child they didn't know.
Sorry for not being there earlier, kid...
The words of the Marine still fresh in his mind.
In a world full of evil, selfish monsters, the Marines were the only place where he had seen genuine, selfless sacrifice. They were the shield for the weak.
Aster looked up at Garp. A small, sad smile touched his lips.
"I would love to," Aster said honestly.
Garp's face brightened, a grin beginning to form. "BAHAHAHA! That's good! I knew you had some sense! Let's get going then-"
"But I can't," Aster added, his voice hard.
Garp paused. The grin vanished. He slammed his hand on the table, rattling the crates. "WHY?! Don't give me that 'pirate blood' nonsense! You choose who you are!"
"It's not about blood," Aster said calmly. "It's about the mission."
He leaned forward. "You know my history, Garp. You know what I have to do. My goal isn't just to sail the seas. It's to burn the World Government down. To kill the Tenryuubito. To not only finish what my father started, but to do it right."
"And if I join the Marines..." Aster continued, his eyes darkening. "I will make friends. I will form bonds. I will have men under my command. Good men. Men like the ones who saved me."
He shook his head. "And when the time comes... when I turn my axe against Mary Geoise... those men will be in the crossfire. The Government will use them against me. They will use my friends as leverage. Just like they used my mother against my father."
"I won't let that happen again," Aster said, his voice absolute. "I won't protect them just to lead them to their deaths."
Garp stared at him. He hated it. He hated how much sense it made. He hated that this eighteen-year-old kid understood the cruelty of the system better than most Admirals.
Garp sighed. He slumped back on the crate. "You really are her son. You think too much."
"Someone has to," Aster said.
"So what?" Garp grunted. "You become a pirate? You raise the Jolly Roger? You become another Shiki? Another Kaidō? Scum of the sea?"
"No," Aster said. "I hunt them."
Garp raised an eyebrow. "Hunt them?"
"I become a Free Agent," Aster proposed. "A Bounty Hunter. I sail with my own crew and hunt the pirates. I clean up the trash that the Marines can't catch. I protect the civilians."
Aster pointed at Garp. "And I answer to you."
Garp looked confused. "How will that work?"
"Simple," Aster corrected. "You give me targets. I take them out. I get the money, you get the credit. I get stronger, the seas get safer."
Garp stared at him for a long moment. He processed the logic. A weapon. A secret weapon, operating outside the law, but guided by a moral compass that aligned with his own 'Moral Justice.'
Slowly, a wide, toothy grin spread across Garp's face.
"Bwahahaha!" Garp roared, slapping his knee. "A Bounty Hunter! The son of Rocks, hunting pirates for the Marines! This shit is so funny. Sengoku would have a heart attack if he knew!"
He looked at Aster, his eyes gleaming with approval. "I'm glad. I'm glad you didn't inherit your father's brain. He was a visionary, but he was an idiot. You... think like your mother."
Garp stood up and walked over to Aster and, surprisingly, placed his heavy hand on the boy's head. He patted it, awkwardly but gently.
"I'm sorry, kid," Garp said, his voice low and rough. "I'm sorry I couldn't see the true picture back then. I'm sorry I didn't save your family. I was... blind."
Aster went still under the hand.
"I was always lenient on pirates," Garp muttered, looking at his fist. "On Roger. I thought they were just... free spirits. Rivalries. But seeing what they did to your brother... hearing the truth... I guess not everyone deserves a chance."
He squeezed Aster's shoulder. "From now on, I've got your back. You run into trouble you can't axe your way out of... you call me."
Aster didn't move. He didn't look up. He just swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded.
Garp stepped back. He adjusted his coat. "Alright. I have to go. Before Sengoku starts going crazy."
He started walking toward the door, but before he left, he stopped. He reached into his coat, pulled out a heavy bag, and threw it at Aster.
Aster caught it. It was heavy.
"What is this?" he asked.
"Just the assurance that you work for me," Garp grunted. "Consider it your first paycheck. And some gear."
"Gear?"
Garp grinned one last time. "Don't die, Aster. The world needs a fire."
With that, the Hero of the Marines walked out into the rain, leaving Aster alone in the dusty room.
Aster sat there for a moment. Then, he opened the bag.
Inside, there were stacks of Berries. Enough to buy a decent ship and supplies for a year. There was a small, baby Den Den Mushi, painted with a crude drawing of a dog bone.
And at the bottom, there was a book.
It was a thin, worn manual. Aster picked it up.
Marine Rokushiki Training Manual: Geppo (Sky Walk)
Aster's eyes widened.
Tucked inside the cover was a hastily scrawled note in Garp's handwriting.
Just in case your sorry, Devil-Fruit-eating ass is about to drop in the sea. Can't have my best agent drowning like a hammer. Learn to fly, brat.
- Garp
Aster stared at the book.
The ability to kick the air. To fly. It was freedom.
A smile broke across his scarred face.
Even after all these years... he thought, looking up at the ceiling, imagining his mother's smile.
You're still helping me, Mom.
He put the book in his coat pocket, grabbed Crimson Abyss, and left. Ready for what is coming next.