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Gol D. Rodger may not know the number of the days he has left, but he knows that, no matter what, that number can’t be very high. He’d never thought himself immortal, had always known that death waited for him, like the next island in the Grand Line— it’s location and date of discovery unknown but still there.
Once he’d joked with friends and enemies and those who didn’t fit neatly into either category that death would be an adventure… the last great voyage of discovery. But now… now his looming death presses down upon him like a weight, like he’s a Devil Fruit user who has made the mistake of stepping into the ocean.
Once Gol D. Rodger hadn’t cared for the future, beyond the freedom that not knowing it provided. Now he finds himself longing for some measure of understanding, some hint at what is to come, if only to make his eventual inability to participate in it haunt him just a little bit less.
The longing weighs upon him… and makes him think of those moments, in the heat of battle, where he swears he can see his opponent’s attacks just a few seconds before they actually happen. And then he thinks of that part of him so deep that it’s not just his anymore, and what he’s been able to achieve when he’s reached for it.
So the next time that the Oro Jackson comes across an uninhabited island, Gol D. Rodger goes out for a walk in the darkest hours of the night. He walks alone, with no lamp or torch and no weapon but his fists and wits.
He reaches out as if trying to anticipate his opponent’s move, stretching himself till it feels like he’ll break… and then he reaches down to the part of him that lies so deep it’s not just him anymore and uses what he finds there to keep reaching forward.
And with a sudden clarity that cuts through him like a knife, Gol D. Rodger knows that he will not live to see his boys grow into men or to witness a new child of his bloodline born. He will be known throughout the world as the King of the Pirates, will be seen as the most free in the entire world… and he will likely die before he can even catch a glimpse of his successor and surpasser.
For reasons that he can’t quite put a finger on, the thought of not even having a glimpse of the one who will succeed and surpass him, the thought of not being able to see even the faintest of outlines of the next King of the Pirates is not just unacceptable but intolerable.
So Gol D. Rodger reaches out again but reaches further and he digs down again but goes even deeper. He swears he can feel himself tear at the seams and start to dissolve into the part of him that isn’t just him but is them and…
Just for a moment— Gol D. Roger may not live to see the next King of the Pirates.
From a distance— But perhaps he can get a glimpse of his successor and surpassor….
Through decisions not yet made— Or at least some sort way to identify him…
Gol D. Rodger sees what Gol Portgas D. Ace sees.
Two burning lights, without form or feature, measurable only in ferocity. There would be no difference between them… if not for the fact that each light had a color of their own.
And those colors tell Gold D. Rodger all he needs to know.
— While somehow telling Gol Portgas D. Ace nothing.
It is glaringly obvious that while lesser distinctions may be shared by any number of individuals from four to seven to millions and billions (if one got lazy about it) there can only be one Pirate King at a time.
Yet… just for a moment, from a distance, through decisions not yet made— he’d done more than see the lights, he’d known the two lights…
— almost as if he’d seen himself in them. As if he could have been one of them
— if only the other wasn’t gone.
Rodger knows there is power in stories, that they offer mortal a means of shaping the world, in ways large and small, just by changing the way that people tell the tale.
— Justice will prevail, you say? But of course it will! Whoever wins this war becomes justice!
Two individuals who could be crowned King of the Pirates. Of course, only one can succeed… so the two would fight and one would either die or never really stand tall again. One would succeed but the fight would leave it’s scar and place the limits imposed by those scars on the one who should be the freest person in the world… but what if one of them was crowned before their fight could begin?
Of course… that would mean that Rodger needs to make a choice between the two, needs to give fate a bit of a nudge.
It should be hard to choose one over the other. (Because Rodger loves his boys.)
It hurts that it’s not. (Because Rodger knows his boys.)
The moment that he knows he needs to make a choice… well, he’s already made that choice.
Gold D. Rodger had wanted to catch a glimpse of the future King of the Pirates. He had been gifted with a glimpse of two individuals who had the potential to be his successor and surpassor.
Now Gol D. Rodger must crown one of those two potentials, in the hopes that doing so will save the other. He must make a choice … but when presented with the choice of blue or red… well that would have been easy for anyone on the Oro Jackson. Because while Rodger knows that his crew loves both boys just as equally and fiercely as he does, his boys are as different from each other in personality as they are in hair color… and which one has what it took to become King of the Pirates is as plainly obvious as the nose on the other one’s face.
A week later Gold D. Rodger places his hat on the head of Akagami no Shanks. He can feel the power of stories working it’s magic in theat part of him that lies so deep it isn’t just him anymore. The red of his boy’s hair goes well with the red of the hat’s band. He’s only a little happy that blue isn’t there when it happens and doesn’t seem to realize what it means when he finds out.
Gol D. Roger comforts himself with the fact that his hand had started to drift at the last second, away from red towards blue. He tries to ignore how it was more like his hand was drifting towards the middle of the space between red and blue… as if there was someone there a third choice Gol D. Roger couldn’t see.
Later, as he stands on the gallows, knowing that his life is now being numbered in minutes (if not seconds) instead of days, the sight of blue and red in the crowd gathered to watch a King fall is a strange mix of relief and despair.
A man in the crowd cries out and Gol D. Roger is given a chance to send the world to sea, to kick off a new age, to be more than just another pirate executed by the World Government.
So he takes that chance, knowing that in a moment or two there will be no more chances.
“My treasure? It's yours for the taking, I left everything I own in that place.”
He can feel the power of stories working it’s magic, can feel the weight of the moment in the part of him that is so deep it isn’t just him anymore… the part that soon will be all that is left of him.
Gol D. Rodger dies laughing, with a smile on his face.
Because he is Gold D. Rodger, King of the Pirates… and the combined might of the World Government and the Celestial Dragons were unable to prevent him from starting a new era and passing on his crown..
~ * ~
Gol Portgas D. Ace knows he gets certain things from his father. After all the man’s last few Bounty Posters are easy enough to find, both in the East Blue and in the Grand Line.
He hopes that at least some of the differences between him and Gol D. Rodger are due to the influence of Portgas D. Rogue. But he doesn’t have anything to go on beyond what little he could drag out of the old geezer over the years.
There have been times where Ace has been tempted to seek out further information, to know for certain what of him is Gol and what of him is Portgas… and what of him is just plain Ace. He’s not sure what he wants the breakdown to be, but he knows it varies from day to day and sometimes minute to minute or even second to second when his temper flares.
Today… today had started off as a good day, where Ace was certain that the breakdown was skewed towards Rogue and himself and away from Rodger. But then he’d gotten cocky in a barroom brawl with some no-name wannabes. One of those wannabees— who could barely summon enough armament haki to cover his knuckles —managed to get a lucky hit in. It’d been barely enough to raise a lump on Ace’s head, so small it wasn’t even worth mentioning really…
But of course Marco had seen Ace get hit and insisted on checking him over afterward… and had freaked out even though the bump was nothing compared with the ones the old geezer had raised in his training sessions or with his stupid fists of love. Ace had told Marco as much, but all that had resulted in was Marco freaking out even more while also muttering something about how “that explains so much!” while he all but dragged Ace back to the Moby Dick’s med bay.
So while Marco flutters around like he ate Tori Tori no Mi, Model: Mother Hen. Ace finds himself focusing on his medical record, wondering what parts are from Rodger, which parts are from Rouge and which parts are his own… and because his good mood evaporated with the wannabees’ lucky hit, he’s finding himself leaning towards the breakdown being skewed towards Rodger and himself… or at least away from Rogue.
Because Ace can’t imagine that the woman who managed to carry him for 20 months randomly fell asleep when eating and conversing. No, that must be a relic of Rodger or a result of one too many fists of love from the old geezer.
Perhaps Rogue was responsible for the fact that Ace has to either squint when he reads or hold the paper at arm’s length, though maybe Sabo was right and it’s Ace’ fault that he’ll probably go blind before he’s thirty because he didn’t eat his vegetables or tried to read at night or looked at the sun for too long or whatever.
He’s tempted to ask Marco if it’s genetics or the old geezer’s attempts at making him a marine that causes Ace to occasionally mix up and see one color as another— but he’s pretty certain that would result in Marco kept in the med bay for even longer, so he holds his tongue.
After all, he’s lasted this long occasionally seeing green as blue and yellow as red… so it’s probably not worth worrying about.