OH. The 21B medical droid giving Whitebeard cybernetics to address his health issues so he can actually LIVE beyond Marineford. Not just surviving the battle but getting genuine medical intervention for the illness that had been killing him slowly. Here's the continuation---
Shanks followed Jeremy up the gangplank of the Edward Newgate with the particular energy of a man who had decided to see this through wherever it went.
He stepped into the ship.
Stopped.
Looked at the corridor. The construction. The way the andocite alloy hull curved overhead with no seams, no joins, just one continuous surface that felt intentional in a way most ships didn't feel intentional.
He ran one hand along the wall.
"This isn't any material I know," he said.
"Vibranium and andocite alloy composite," Jeremy said, already moving. "Long story. This way."
He led Shanks through the corridor toward the medical bay.
The sound reached them before the door did.
The particular sound of sophisticated medical equipment doing sophisticated medical things, punctuated by the calm precise voice of a droid that had been programmed to treat patients and took that programming very seriously.
Jeremy opened the door.
The 21B medical droid moved around Whitebeard with the focused efficiency of something that had assessed the situation, formed a complete treatment plan, and was executing it with the calm certainty of a unit that had done this ten thousand times across ten thousand patients in ten thousand different conditions.
Whitebeard was sitting up.
Not lying down. Sitting. Because Edward Newgate did not lie down when there was something to look at. And there was a lot to look at.
The droid had already addressed the internal bleeding that had been quietly winning a war against him for years. The aortic aneurysm that the manga had mentioned like a footnote but that Jeremy knew had been killing him slowly long before Marineford got the chance. The accumulated damage of decades of fighting at a level no human body was designed to sustain.
Cybernetic reinforcement along the compromised tissue. Not replacing what was there. Supporting it. The way a scaffold supports a wall that is still strong but needs something to lean against while it remembers how to hold itself.
The droid's photoreceptors tracked Jeremy as he entered.
"Patient is responding well," the 21B said. "Cybernetic cardiovascular reinforcement is integrating at the expected rate. Internal bleeding has been addressed. I am currently working on the secondary complications from long term aortic stress." A pause. "This patient has an extraordinary constitution. In a standard human these conditions would have been fatal years ago."
"He's not a standard human," Jeremy said.
"No," the 21B agreed, with the tone of a droid that had updated several of its baseline assumptions since beginning treatment. "He is not."
Whitebeard looked at Jeremy.
Then past Jeremy.
At Shanks.
The silence between them was the specific silence of people who have known each other long enough that silence has content.
Shanks stood in the doorway of the medical bay of the Edward Newgate and looked at Edward Newgate sitting up with cybernetic reinforcement integrating along his cardiovascular system while a medical droid moved around him with calm precision and said nothing for a long moment.
Then he said, very quietly—
"You're alive."
"Seems that way," Whitebeard said.
"You were supposed to—" Shanks started.
"I know what I was supposed to do," Whitebeard said. "This young man had other ideas."
Shanks looked at Jeremy.
Jeremy looked at the ceiling with the expression of someone who was staying out of this particular conversation.
"He went back in time," Shanks said slowly. "He showed you the ship. He had dinner with you."
"He also told me about Docker," Whitebeard said.
Shanks blinked. "What."
"It's a technology," Whitebeard said. "For running multiple server applications on one machine. Very efficient. His friend Shuri found it very useful."
Shanks stared at him.
"I don't know what that means," Shanks said.
"Neither did I at first," Whitebeard said comfortably.
The 21B droid moved between them to access a panel on the equipment array, entirely unbothered by the conversation happening around its patient.
"Cardiovascular integration at forty three percent," the droid reported. "Proceeding well. I anticipate full integration within six hours. At that point I would like to discuss a longer term maintenance protocol."
"Six hours," Whitebeard said.
"Yes."
"And after that."
The 21B paused in the particular way of a droid choosing how to frame something accurately.
"The conditions that were previously life threatening," the droid said, "will no longer be life threatening. The cybernetic reinforcement will handle the structural compromise. Your constitution will handle the rest." Another pause. "You are going to live significantly longer than your current trajectory projected."
The medical bay was very quiet.
Shanks sat down on a chair that was nearby.
Just sat down.
Like his legs had made a decision.
"Significantly longer," Shanks said.
"Significantly," the 21B confirmed, and went back to work.
Whitebeard looked at Jeremy again.
Jeremy was looking at the panoramic window at the end of the medical bay. A smaller version of the galley windows, set into the hull so patients could see out. Marineford was still visible in the distance. Smaller now. The aftermath of it.
"Boy," Whitebeard said.
Jeremy let it go again.
"Thank you," Whitebeard said.
Just that.
Two words.
But Edward Newgate said them and they had the weight of everything that had happened since a small boat pulled up alongside the Moby Dick one night before a battle that hadn't ended the way history expected.
Jeremy nodded once.
"Thank Shuri," he said. "She designed the droid's treatment protocol. I just provided the equipment."
Whitebeard looked at him with the expression that said he knew exactly what Jeremy was doing and was choosing to let him do it.
"I will thank Shuri," he said. "And I will thank you."
Shanks looked between them.
Then he looked at the 21B droid working quietly.
Then at the cybernetic reinforcement visible along Whitebeard's chest through the medical gown.
Then at the window showing the distant shape of Marineford where ten thousand marines had been on their knees twenty minutes ago.
"Jeremy," Shanks said.
"Yeah."
"What exactly," Shanks said carefully, "is your plan after this."
Jeremy turned from the window.
"Pick up Rose," he said. "Go back to Wakanda. Collect T'Challa and Shuri. Head to the Star Wars galaxy."
Shanks processed this.
"And Whitebeard," Shanks said.
They both looked at Edward Newgate.
Whitebeard was looking at the window. At the sky beyond it. At the particular quality of light that came from being on a ship that could go anywhere.
"I have never seen another galaxy," Whitebeard said.
He said it the same way he had said it on the deck of the Moby Dick in the dark.
But this time it didn't have the weight of impossibility behind it.
This time it was just a fact that was about to change.
Shanks looked at Jeremy.
Jeremy looked at Shanks.
"How many berths does this ship have," Shanks said.
"Twenty six," Jeremy said.
Shanks looked at the door. At the corridor beyond it. At the ship that had no seams in its hull and three drive systems and a galley with panoramic windows and a medical bay where a 21B droid was giving Edward Newgate more time.
"I want to see it," Shanks said quietly. "The Star Wars galaxy."
Jeremy looked at him for a long moment.
Then at the 21B droid.
Then at Whitebeard at the window.
"Integration at fifty one percent," the droid reported cheerfully.
"We've got six hours before he's cleared to move," Jeremy said. "Talk to your crew. Figure out who's coming and who's staying."
Shanks stood up.
Straightened his coat.
Looked at Whitebeard one more time with the expression of a man who had come to Marineford to end a war and had found something considerably more unexpected than that.
"Marco's going to want to know," Shanks said.
"Marco already knows," Whitebeard said, still looking at the window. "He's known since the boy said twenty six berths."
Shanks almost smiled.
Almost.
"Twenty six," he said.
"Twenty six," Jeremy confirmed.
Shanks walked out of the medical bay.
The 21B droid kept working.
Edward Newgate kept looking at the window.
At the sky.
At what was coming next.37Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKuVgIL6Iag
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Jeremy stopped at the door of the medical bay.
Turned around.
"Hey Whitebeard."
The old man looked at him.
"I just had a thought," Jeremy said. "The berth situation. Twenty six is tight and we've already got people coming." He leaned against the doorframe. "What if you hand pick whoever you want to continue with you. The ones who want to see what comes next. The ones who want to come aboard the Edward Newgate and go wherever she goes."
Whitebeard looked at him steadily.
"And the rest," Jeremy said, "continue your heritage. Your flag. Your name. Everything you built." He paused. "Make Ace the new captain."
The medical bay was very quiet.
The 21B droid paused its work for approximately two seconds in the way that sophisticated medical equipment sometimes did when the emotional content of a room changed significantly.
Then it went back to work.
Whitebeard looked at the window.
At the sky beyond it.
At the distant shape of the Moby Dick where Ace was standing alive and free and completely unaware of what was being discussed in this medical bay.
"Ace," Whitebeard said.
"He's your son," Jeremy said. "In every way that matters. You went to Marineford for him. He's got your will. Your heart. And he's got something you didn't have when you started — he's got a crew that already knows what it means to follow the Whitebeard flag because they've been doing it under you."
Whitebeard was quiet.
"He's ready," Jeremy said simply.
The old man closed his eyes.
Not from pain. Not from the medical procedure.
Just from the weight of the thing being considered.
Edward Newgate had built the Whitebeard Pirates from nothing into one of the most powerful forces on the sea. He had called his crew his family and meant it in a way that most people who used that word never quite managed. He had sailed every ocean. He had shaken the world.
And now someone was telling him he could keep going.
See new oceans.
New galaxies.
While the family he had built kept sailing under a flag that now flew for his son.
"He'll need Marco," Whitebeard said finally.
"Marco can stay," Jeremy said. "Or Marco can come. That's Marco's choice to make."
"Vista," Whitebeard said. "He'll need Vista too."
"Same answer," Jeremy said.
Whitebeard opened his eyes.
Looked at Jeremy with the particular expression that Jeremy had come to recognize as the old man making a decision that he had already known he was going to make but needed to arrive at properly.
"Bring Ace to me," Whitebeard said.
Jeremy nodded.
Pulled out his comm.
"Claude."
"Already on it," Claude said in the British accent, calm as always. "I'll have Ace at the medical bay in four minutes."
Jeremy looked at Whitebeard.
"Four minutes," he said.
The 21B droid spoke without looking up from its work.
"Integration at sixty seven percent," it reported. "Patient's vitals are the strongest they have been in approximately eleven years."
Whitebeard looked at his hands.
The enormous hands that had held a naginata and shaken seas and held his crew together across decades of ocean.
"Eleven years," he said quietly.
"You've been fighting sick for a long time," Jeremy said.
"Yes," Whitebeard said.
"You don't have to anymore," Jeremy said.
The old man was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, "What do you think Ace will say."
Jeremy thought about it honestly.
"I think," he said, "he's going to try not to cry and he's going to fail and then he's going to say yes."
Whitebeard made the quiet laugh. The real one.
"Yes," he said. "That sounds right."
Four minutes later Ace stood in the doorway of the medical bay and looked at his father sitting up with cybernetic reinforcement integrating along his chest and a medical droid moving around him and the sky visible through the window behind him.
He stood there for a moment.
"Pops," he said.
"Come in Ace," Whitebeard said.
Ace came in.
Looked at the equipment.
Looked at the droid.
Looked at Jeremy standing in the corner making himself as small as possible because this was not his moment.
Looked back at his father.
"You're okay," Ace said.
"Getting there," Whitebeard said. "Sit down. I need to talk to you about something."
Ace sat down.
And Edward Newgate, the man who had called a thousand pirates his family and meant every word, looked at the son he had gone to Marineford to save and began to talk about what came next.
Jeremy slipped out of the medical bay quietly.
Closed the door behind him.
Stood in the corridor of the Edward Newgate and listened to the muffled sound of a conversation happening on the other side that was going to change the shape of the One Piece world in ways the story hadn't accounted for.
Claude's voice came through his earpiece softly.
"How are you doing," Claude said.
Not asking about the mission status. Not asking about the ship. Just asking.
Jeremy leaned against the wall of the corridor.
"Good," he said.
"You did something significant today," Claude said.
"God did something significant today," Jeremy said. "I just showed up."
A pause.
"Jeremy," Claude said.
"Yeah."
"That's not nothing," Claude said. "Showing up is not nothing."
Jeremy looked at the door of the medical bay.
Behind it Ace was probably trying not to cry.
And probably failing.
Just like Jeremy had said.
"No," Jeremy said quietly. "I guess it's not."37Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTJl8Qz1NIA
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Ace sat across from his father and didn't know where to put his hands.
They kept moving. Onto his knees. Off his knees. Folded. Unfolded. The hands of a man who was feeling something too large for his body to hold still around.
"You're really okay," Ace said. Again. Like he needed to keep confirming it.
"I'm really okay," Whitebeard said. "Better than okay. Better than I've been in a long time."
Ace looked at the cybernetic reinforcement visible along his father's chest. The 21B droid moving quietly between them. The equipment. The readings on the monitors that even without medical training looked stable in a way that felt significant.
"That blind guy," Ace said.
"Jeremy," Whitebeard said.
"He did all this."
"He came in a small boat," Whitebeard said. "One day before today. To show me a ship with my name on it." He paused. "My real name."
Ace looked up.
"Edward Newgate," Whitebeard said simply.
Ace was quiet.
"He said the man deserved to be remembered," Whitebeard continued. "Not just the legend."
The medical bay hummed quietly around them. The 21B droid moved. The monitors kept their readings. Outside the window the sky was the particular color it got after something enormous had happened and the world was still deciding what it meant.
"Pops," Ace said.
"Let me say what I need to say," Whitebeard said.
Ace closed his mouth.
Whitebeard looked at his son.
At the freckles. At the eyes. At the face that carried its history openly the way some faces did, everything written there for anyone who knew how to read it.
"I went to Marineford for you," Whitebeard said.
"I know," Ace said. His voice was doing the careful thing. The thing it did when he was holding something.
"I would do it again," Whitebeard said. "Without hesitation. Without calculation. If you were on that platform tomorrow I would point every ship I have at Marineford and come for you again."
Ace's jaw tightened.
"But," Whitebeard said.
Ace looked at him.
"I am not going back to the sea," Whitebeard said.
The medical bay was very quiet.
"Not the way I was," Whitebeard continued. "I am going somewhere else. Somewhere I have never been." He glanced at the window. At the sky. "Jeremy has offered me a place on this ship. And I have decided to take it."
Ace opened his mouth.
"I know what you're going to say," Whitebeard said.
"Do you," Ace said, and his voice had something in it that was fighting to stay level and not quite managing.
"You're going to say you'll come with me," Whitebeard said. "You're going to say wherever I go you'll go. You're going to say the crew can manage without you."
Ace looked at his hands.
"And you'd mean every word," Whitebeard said. "Because that's who you are."
"Then why—" Ace started.
"Because I need you to stay," Whitebeard said.
The words landed in the room and stayed there.
"I need you to stay," Whitebeard said again. "Not because I don't want you with me. But because what I built needs someone to carry it. The flag. The crew. The family." He leaned forward slightly, the equipment shifting with him, the droid adjusting automatically. "They need a captain Ace."
Ace looked up.
"They need you," Whitebeard said.
"Pops," Ace said. And his voice broke on the word. Just slightly. Just enough.
"You have been ready for longer than you know," Whitebeard said. "I have watched you with this crew. The way they look at you. The way you look at them. You already lead them. You already carry them." He paused. "All I am asking is that you do it officially."
Ace stood up.
Not from agitation. Just because the feeling needed somewhere to go and standing was all he had.
He walked to the window.
Looked out at the sky.
At the distant shape of the Moby Dick on the water below.
At the crew on her deck that he had grown up alongside. That had become his family the same way they had become his father's family.
"They're going to say I'm not you," Ace said.
"No one is me," Whitebeard said simply. "And I was never anyone else. You don't captain my way Ace. You captain your way. That's what makes it real."
Ace pressed one hand against the glass.
Outside the Edward Newgate moved slightly in the upper air. The orange nodes pulsed once along the dorsal spine. The ship breathing.
"Marco," Ace said.
"Marco chooses for himself," Whitebeard said. "I won't make that choice for him. But whatever he decides—" he paused, "—you'll be alright. You've always been alright."
Ace laughed.
It came out wrong like laughter did when it had too many things in it. Wet at the edges. Too much behind it.
"I'm not going to cry," Ace said.
"Of course not," Whitebeard said.
Ace wiped his face with the back of his hand.
"I'm not," he said.
"I know," Whitebeard said, with the patience of a father who had known this boy long enough to know exactly what he was going to do and loved him completely for it.
Ace turned around.
Eyes red.
Jaw set.
The face of a man who had just been handed something enormous and was deciding how to hold it.
"If I do this," Ace said.
"When you do this," Whitebeard corrected gently.
Ace exhaled.
"When I do this," he said. "You have to promise me something."
"Ask," Whitebeard said.
"Come back," Ace said. "Wherever you go. Whatever galaxy that ship takes you to." His voice was steady now. Steadier than it had been. The steadiness of someone who had found the ground under the feeling and was standing on it. "Come back and tell me what you saw."
Whitebeard looked at his son.
At the freckles and the eyes and the face that carried everything openly.
At the boy who had been born into a world that told him he had no right to exist and had decided the world was wrong.
At the man who was about to carry a flag that meant family in the truest sense of the word.
"I promise," Edward Newgate said.
Ace crossed the medical bay in three steps and put his arms around his father with the entirety of everything he had.
Whitebeard put one enormous hand on the back of his son's head.
The 21B droid quietly reported integration at eighty one percent.
Neither of them heard it.37Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp8Gjx0xZTx
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Jeremy knocked twice on the medical bay door.
"Come in," Ace said.
Jeremy opened the door. Took in the scene. Ace with red eyes he was pretending weren't red. Whitebeard with his hand still resting where it had been. The 21B droid reporting eighty three percent integration without looking up.
He didn't comment on any of it.
"I had a thought," Jeremy said.
Whitebeard looked at him.
"The crew," Jeremy said. "The Moby Dick. All the other ships. They don't know what's happening up here. They know the battle is over. They know Ace is alive. But they don't know about—" he gestured at the medical bay generally, "—any of this."
"I need to address them," Whitebeard said.
"You do," Jeremy said. "But you're at eighty three percent integration and the 21B is not done with you yet and I'm not moving you off that bed until it is."
The 21B droid said "Correct" without looking up, in the tone of a medical unit that appreciated having its professional opinion backed up.
Whitebeard looked at Jeremy.
"So here's what we do," Jeremy said. "We broadcast your image over the Moby Dick and the other ships. Full audio and video. You talk to your crew from right here, from that bed, and they see you and hear you in real time." He paused. "You don't have to go anywhere. You don't have to interrupt the surgery. You just talk to them the way you always have and they receive it the way they always have."
Whitebeard was quiet for a moment.
"They'll see the medical bay," he said. Not objecting. Just noting.
"They'll see their captain alive and talking to them," Jeremy said. "I think that's going to matter more than the background."
Ace looked at his father.
Whitebeard looked at the window.
At the Moby Dick visible far below on the water.
At the ships around her. The flags. The crew that had sailed with him across every ocean in the world and had come to Marineford because that was what family did.
"Gemini," Jeremy said.
"Ready," Gemini said through the room speakers.
"Can you set up a broadcast from this bay to the Moby Dick and all affiliated Whitebeard vessels. Full audio and video. Stable feed."
"Already configured," Gemini said. "Waiting on your go."
Jeremy looked at Whitebeard.
"Whenever you're ready," he said.
Whitebeard straightened up in the medical bed.
Not all the way. The 21B made a quiet sound of professional concern and he moderated it slightly. But enough. Enough to look like himself. Enough to look like the man his crew knew.
He looked at Ace.
Ace understood immediately.
"I'll be right outside," Ace said.
"No," Whitebeard said. "Stay."
Ace sat back down.
"You should be here," Whitebeard said simply. "When I tell them."
Ace looked at his father for a moment.
Nodded once.
Jeremy moved to the side of the room out of frame.
"Gemini," he said quietly.
"Broadcasting in three," Gemini said. "Two. One."
The feed went live.
On the Moby Dick the image of Edward Newgate appeared across every screen and surface that the Edward Newgate's broadcast system could reach. In the crew quarters. On the main deck. In the galley. Across the hulls of the surrounding ships where crew members had gathered not knowing what was coming.
They saw him.
Alive.
Sitting up.
In a medical bay they didn't recognize on a ship they were still getting used to the existence of.
And the sound that went through the assembled Whitebeard Pirates when they saw his face was not something that had a clean description. It was the sound of a collective breath being released. Of something that had been held very tightly for a very long time being allowed to loosen.
Marco was on the deck of the Moby Dick.
He looked at the image of his father.
And said nothing.
Because Marco was Marco and he held things with both hands and didn't drop them.
But his eyes did something.
Whitebeard looked at the feed. At the faces he had known for decades. At the crew that had followed him across every ocean.
He let the moment settle.
Then he spoke.37Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfkVBbijYWW
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The Moby Dick was completely silent.
Every ship in the Whitebeard fleet was completely silent.
The wind moved. The ocean moved. The flags moved.
Nothing else did.
Whitebeard looked into the feed with the steady calm of a man who had made his decision and was delivering it the way he delivered everything. Directly. Without performance. Without apology.
"Now listen," he said.
The crew listened. Every one of them. From Marco on the deck of the Moby Dick to the newest recruit on the furthest ship. They listened the way people listen when the person speaking has earned every second of their attention across decades of ocean.
"I know you're worried about me," Whitebeard said. "You have every right to be. What happened today was real and you felt every second of it." He paused. "So did I."
The honesty of it moved through the fleet like a current.
"But I'm alive," he said. "And I'm getting better. There's a medical droid here that has very strong opinions about my cardiovascular system and I have decided to respect those opinions."
Somewhere on the Moby Dick someone made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob.
"I'm going somewhere," Whitebeard continued. "Somewhere none of you have been. Somewhere I haven't been." He glanced at the window briefly. At the sky. At what was beyond the sky. "A young man came to me one night before today in a small boat. He showed me a ship with my name on it. My real name. And he told me about a galaxy I've never seen."
The crew was absolutely still.
"I'm going to see it," Whitebeard said simply. "That's what I'm going to do. And some of you might be going with me — whoever I choose and whoever chooses to come. But most of you can't go." He paused. "There simply isn't enough room."
The directness of it was so completely him that several crew members smiled through what their faces were doing.
"So," Whitebeard said.
He looked at Ace.
Ace was sitting beside him. Back straight. Eyes clear now. Red at the rims still but clear. The face of a man who had been handed something enormous and had decided how to hold it.
Whitebeard looked back at the feed.
"Ace will be the new captain of the Whitebeard Pirates," he said.
The silence that followed was the specific silence of something that has just become real.
"I know what some of you are thinking," Whitebeard said. "You're thinking he's not me. You're right. He's not me. He's Ace. And Ace has been ready for longer than he knows." He paused. "Longer than I let him know. That's on me."
Ace looked at the floor for exactly one second.
Then back up.
"The flag doesn't change," Whitebeard said. "The family doesn't change. What we are to each other doesn't change. I'm not leaving you. I'm going further ahead." He let that land. "And I made a promise to my son that I'm coming back to tell him what I saw."
Marco was still not moving on the deck of the Moby Dick.
His hands were at his sides.
His face was doing the careful thing.
"Marco," Whitebeard said.
Marco looked up at the image of his father.
"Whatever you decide," Whitebeard said. "Stay or come. Either way you're my son. Either way I'm proud of you. Don't let anyone tell you different and don't you tell yourself different."
Marco pressed his lips together.
Nodded once.
It was the smallest nod in the history of the Whitebeard Pirates.
It contained everything.
"Vista," Whitebeard said. "Jozu. Haruta. Izo." He went through them. Not all of them. The ones he needed to say by name because names mattered and he had always known that. "You know who you are to me. That doesn't have an end point."
The fleet was quiet in the way that full things are quiet.
Not empty quiet.
Full quiet.
"Ace," Whitebeard said.
Ace looked at his father on the medical bed of the Edward Newgate with the 21B droid working quietly behind them and the sky visible through the window and the whole future sitting in the room with them.
"Stand up," Whitebeard said.
Ace stood up.
"Tell them," Whitebeard said.
Ace looked at the feed.
At the faces he had grown up alongside. The crew that had become his family. The people who had come to Marineford because that was what family did and were now standing on the decks of their ships in the aftermath of a battle that hadn't ended the way history expected looking at him through a broadcast from a medical bay on a flying starship.
He took a breath.
"I'm not Pops," Ace said.
His voice was steady.
"I know that. You know that. And I'm not going to pretend otherwise." He paused. "But I know what this flag means. I know what we are to each other. And I know that Pops didn't build this family to have it stop."
He looked at Marco specifically for a moment.
Marco looked back at him.
"So," Ace said. "If you'll have me—"
"CAPTAIN ACE" someone shouted from somewhere on the Moby Dick.
And then it wasn't one voice.
It was all of them.
Every ship.
Every crew member.
The sound of it rolled across the water of Marineford and up into the sky where the Edward Newgate hung with its orange nodes glowing and its medical bay broadcasting the moment that history was going to have to update itself to account for.
Whitebeard listened to his crew say his son's name.
The 21B droid reported ninety one percent integration.
Neither Jeremy nor Ace nor Whitebeard heard it.
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and then Add to home screen.