Quoted By:
“Get your act together. We’re all equally at fault. We were stupid when we could’ve stopped him. And by the time we wanted to act we were all too weak. I know you’re frustrated but don’t pin the blame on others.”
“It’s okay Mary. He’s right.”
Garp lowers his head in shame.
“The truth is that we could’ve prevented this. Many times. But we argued if it was right to put him down when he hasn’t done anything, or we put it off because he did something to redeem himself and give us hope that maybe things would turn out differently. But the harsh reality is… that we were afraid. How would you feel like if you sacrificed everything to seal the Devil away, and then see him strutting on the streets 40 years later? And to tell you the truth it was already over by the time he came to Marineford. I’ve seen it in his eyes. He was at the boiling point and he was ready to explode. I thought that maybe if I placated him he’d just leave. And… I’m ashamed to admit it but I wanted him to succeed. The execution three years ago is the biggest regret of my life.”
“So you wanted to… atone?”
“Atone? No. I wanted to be punished. For letting my son die.”
Garp takes up another bottle and hands one to Coby as well.
“Maybe Akainu was right all along…”
As the two continued to stew in their misery alongside Helmeppo who was just happy to be included, Mary got angrier.
“No. He wasn’t. And you shouldn’t just abandon the ideals you fought for so easily, Coby. You told me to not let my mistakes dictate my life, even though I made many. So I won’t let you break down because of one! Don’t let Silver poison your mind! Even if he proves Akainu and the absolutists right, that doesn’t mean you’re wrong. Now, how about you finish those and instead of moping we start figuring out what to do about all this?”
“I got a good idea! W-We all submit our resignations and find a nice little abandoned island somewhere in one of the blues and pray he doesn’t find us!”
“No Helmeppo. Mary is right. We can’t just give up! It’s not like our objective changed. It just got harder. Any suggestions Mary?”
“Yeah. Instead of sitting on our asses we can start training so we can weather the storm. That’s a good start.”
“TRAIN? Have you lost your MIND woman? You’ve seen what those monsters were doing! Right? THEY SPLIT THE SEA AND HEAVEN! How do you think lifting rocks will help us fight that?!”
“Listen buckethead, if I learned something in CP-0 it’s that there is always some next level of forbidden bullshit the bigwigs don’t want us to know about, some new echelon of power. Just look at what the Straw Hats did. In three years they went from impressive rookies to pirates that barely encountered difficulties in the New World. We just need to find a training from hell.”
