Seeing Marco square up like it was a do-or-die showdown, Gern Reginald Sigmar waved a hand in open irritation.
"Alright, alright. Warm-up's over."
He clicked his tongue lightly.
"You're not actually planning to stake your life on this, are you? When did you get back?"
Realizing that his grand display of 'Undying Phoenix Rage' hadn't intimidated Gern in the slightest, Marco deflated.
The azure flames around him fizzled out with a faint puff, like a gas stove running out of fuel. The avian features receded, feathers dissolving into sparks. In their place stood the familiar ship's doctor—crooked glasses perched on his nose, shoulders slightly slumped, radiating the exhausted aura of an overworked salaryman who had long since run out of patience.
He pushed up his glasses.
"Four months."
"Four months?" Gern arched a brow and stepped closer. "Then Blackbeard—"
"Heh."
Marco cut him off with a short, dry scoff. He dragged a hand down his face, hard, forcing a brittle smile onto his lips.
"We lost."
A pause.
"A lot of people died. The Whitebeard Pirates…" He swallowed. "We fell apart. Everyone went their own way."
Just a few sentences.
Yet they carried the weight of a collapsing spine.
A silent desolation settled into the air. Even the wind sweeping across the grass seemed to whisper more bleakly.
Gern listened without interruption. The habitual curve at the corner of his mouth faded slightly. His gaze dropped to Marco's clenched fists and the faint tremor in his shoulders.
He offered no comfort.
But neither did he twist the knife.
Instead, he shifted the subject with a question he clearly already knew the answer to.
"And this 'Weevil' you mentioned?"
"Weevil, huh?" Marco inhaled slowly, steadying the tide of emotion threatening to surge again.
"An old hag named Bakkin brought him here. Claims she once sailed on the same ship as Pops. Says she was a woman he loved."
His jaw tightened.
"Then she drags along this oversized idiot, calls him Pops' 'biological son,' says he's here to inherit the old man's estate."
Gern said nothing.
"I'd guess the big guy's brain is about the size of a walnut," Marco continued flatly. "But his strength… that part's real. There's a shadow of Pops' younger self in it."
"Before coming here, he'd already taken down sixteen former captains who once served under Pops. The World Government recognized him as one of the Seven Warlords."
A faint chill crept into his voice.
"And his reason for coming here…"
His eyes hardened completely.
"To take Murakumogiri."
Silence followed.
The air itself seemed to freeze.
Gern could feel it clearly—far colder than Marco's earlier killing intent during their clash.
This wasn't just about protecting an heirloom.
It was about defending the final dignity of Whitebeard.
About ensuring no opportunistic scavenger dared soil the name of the man who had once ruled the seas.
Gern didn't press further.
The defeat was settled. The annihilation of a Yonko crew was reality. An old empire had crumbled. Words would only salt the wound.
He studied Marco as he stood there—outwardly composed, inwardly torn between grief and fury.
Without the halo of the Phoenix, Marco seemed less like a mythical guardian and more like a retired country doctor guarding the graves of his family.
For a fleeting second, Gern was reminded of that old coating mechanic on the Sabaody Archipelago—Silvers Rayleigh—another relic of a bygone era.
Different men.
Same loneliness.
"Take me to see them," Gern said at last.
No sympathy. No ceremony.
Just a simple statement of intent.
"Them…" Marco paused, adjusting his glasses. Light flashed across the lenses, masking the complicated emotion in his eyes.
He knew exactly who Gern meant.
Three gravestones standing side by side on the rear slope of Sphinx Island, facing the open sea.
After the Summit War ended, Monkey D. Garp had held Ace's body in his arms, tears streaking down his weathered face. He had wanted to take the boy back to Windmill Village in the East Blue.
But Gern had stepped forward then.
And stood in his path.
"Let the child who never knew a father's love," he had said quietly, "rest beside the father he chose—and died for."
One sentence.
It pierced through everything.
Perhaps what Portgas D. Ace had sought all his life wasn't the burden of the Pirate King's bloodline.
Perhaps it had been Whitebeard's vast, ocean-like embrace—a father's love broad enough to accept him entirely.
In the end, at Gern's insistence, Whitebeard, the Golden Lion, and Ace were laid to rest together on Sphinx Island.
Two legends of the old era.
And a young flame who ignited the fuse of the new one.
"Come," Marco said quietly, turning toward the island's rear slope.
Gern followed.
They walked in silence across grass flattened by the sea breeze. No words passed between them until they reached the high hill overlooking the ocean.
Here, the wind stretched long and low, thick with salt. It brushed over three simple stone markers standing side by side.
Marco stopped more than a dozen paces away.
He didn't step closer.
He merely gave Gern a slight nod.
Go on.
Sunlight glinted off his worn lenses, obscuring his eyes. Only his tightly pressed lips betrayed the effort it took to remain composed.
Gern said nothing.
He walked forward alone.
The three gravestones stood in quiet dignity, each bearing the weight of a legend.
Before Ace's grave, his iconic orange cowboy hat rested against the stone, along with the short dagger he always carried.
At Whitebeard's grave, the massive naginata—Murakumogiri—was driven deep into the earth. Its enormous blade still seemed to proclaim, in utter silence, the pride of the "Strongest."
And at the resting place of Shiki, the famed swords Oto and Kogarashi stood crossed together. Though they no longer carved the heavens, they still radiated that untamed arrogance.
These were not mere relics.
They were monuments.
Gern approached and, instead of standing in solemn silence, casually lowered himself to sit on the grass.
As though visiting old friends.
The sea wind stirred his hair and brushed across the cold stone.
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then, in a voice low but steady, blending into wind and waves, he spoke.
"Sorry. Been busy."
The words were light. Almost offhand.
Yet the instant they left his mouth, something surged up his throat and burned behind his eyes.
He had thought himself long since steady. Thought he had packaged those turbulent emotions away and dumped them into some internal landfill labeled 'Past'.
But sitting here—facing men who had once fought him to the death, or whose curtains had fallen partly because of him—
The loneliness hit.
One by one, old figures had withered and fallen like leaves in autumn wind.
The tide of the era had roared past, sweeping so much away.
And left him standing alone at the crest.
He could almost see Whitebeard's final, towering silhouette.
Hear Shiki's infuriating, triumphant laughter.
Recall the first time he'd met that little spark named Ace.
Now—
Only three cold stones remained before him.
Gern lifted a hand and pressed hard against his brow, drawing in a deep breath of salt-heavy air, forcing the riot of emotion back down into the depths where it belonged.
Then he sat there quietly.
His solitary figure framed against the vast horizon of sea and sky.
Alone.