The clearing was quiet, save for the whisper of the sea breeze threading through the plum blossoms. From where we sat, Roger's mausoleum gleamed under the waning sunlight, the petals drifting lazily across its polished stone. It looked less like a grave and more like a sanctuary, a garden where time itself had chosen to slow down in respect for the man who once shook the world.
Four figures rested in silence before it—me, Garp, Rayleigh, and Shakky. None of us spoke for a long while. Words seemed too small, too fragile in front of Roger's resting place. Instead, the silence was filled with memories. Shakky chuckled softly now and then, recalling Roger's impossible antics, her cigarette smoke curling upward as though it too wanted to join the drifting petals.
Rayleigh's laughter was deeper, tinged with fondness and sorrow, as he told tales of nights spent drunk on adventure, of Roger's reckless grins in the face of storms that should have drowned them all. Even Garp, the Marine Hero, allowed himself to join in, his booming laugh carrying across the clearing as though the years had fallen away and he was young again, chasing Roger across the seas instead of mourning him.
For a fleeting moment, it was as though Roger himself was there—leaning against the plum trees, grinning that familiar grin, daring the world to try and stop him.
But then Garp's laughter faded. The light in his eyes dimmed, replaced by something colder, sharper. He turned, fixing his gaze on me. The weight of it was suffocating, as though the man who had once wrestled monsters into submission was now ready to pin me down with nothing but his will.
"Ross…" His voice cut through the easy air like a blade. Gone was the softness of nostalgia, gone was the sadness of a grieving friend. In its place was a tone sharp and neutral, honed by decades of hunting pirates and seeing through lies.
"I know earlier you kept things from us because Kuzan was there." His fists rested on his knees, knuckles pale. "So I'll ask you now—and I want you to answer me straight."
Rayleigh and Shakky fell silent, their eyes shifting to him, and then to me. The easy smiles they'd worn while reminiscing vanished. They knew what was coming. They knew the question before it left his lips.
"Is the one who attacked Dressrosa…" Garp's jaw tightened. For a brief moment, even the blossoms seemed to still in the air. "Rocks?"
The name hung between us like a thunderclap. The air itself grew heavier, charged with the memory of a ghost the world believed long gone.
Even Rayleigh, who had faced Roger's greatest foes, sat back with narrowed eyes, lips pressed thin. Shakky's fingers trembled faintly as she tapped her cigarette, ash falling like gray snow onto the grass. They both knew the truth of that name. And they both knew—as did Garp—that I held the answer.
The air in the clearing had grown heavier, the faint scent of plum blossoms now carrying a subtle bitterness, as if nature itself recoiled at the name that had just been spoken.
I hadn't answered Garp's question with words. I didn't need to. A simple nod sufficed. A nod that confirmed the return of the nightmare they all thought had been buried under the weight of time and history.
A deep frown carved itself into Garp's weathered face. He didn't press me for confirmation the way lesser men might. Perhaps because he already knew in his gut. Perhaps because a man like him, who had stood against the tide of monsters and legends, didn't need words to recognize the truth when it stood before him.
"So… he has returned from the dead, after all."
The words left Garp's lips in a whisper, but they carried the weight of cannon fire. His gaze drifted—not to me, not to Rayleigh or Shakky—but somewhere far away, somewhere only he could see. For an instant, he wasn't here in Green Bit among old comrades and memories. He was standing once more on God's Valley, surrounded by chaos, blood, and fire. The memories gushed forward like an unrelenting tide, drowning the present in the echoes of the past.
I exhaled slowly and added, "It's not just him. Somehow, Rocks has managed to bring others back from the dead. Linlin is alive, and I'm afraid both Izumi and Dorian of the Shichibukai were brought back by him as well."
Garp's head snapped up, his eyes narrowing into sharp, piercing slits. Even Rayleigh and Shakky, who had sat silently as the conversation unfolded, visibly stiffened. They had already seen Linlin in her prime, her monstrous power reborn, but they hadn't known it was Rocks who had dragged her back from the abyss. The realization hit them like a thunderclap.
What I did not tell them was that Rocks himself was already seated within the Shichibukai under the guise of François. That secret, dangerous as it was, served a purpose—my purpose. His position there would benefit me in the long run, and so for now, I kept that card close to my chest.
"Linlin…?" Garp's gravelly voice cut through the tension. His tone wasn't disbelief; it was something darker, more resigned. "Did you not kill her?"
The Marine Hero was no executioner. He didn't revel in bloodshed, nor did he believe in killing his enemies unless there was no other path. But neither was he naive. He knew the seas better than anyone. He knew they were cruel, merciless. Kill or be killed—that was the rule. He himself had survived countless attempts on his life, not just from pirates, but from men and women within the very order he served. Garp wasn't judging me. He was simply asking.
"Yes, I did," I answered plainly. "But somehow, he managed to bring her back from the corpse I left behind. I thought leaving her body intact would allow her children to give her a proper burial, to lay her to rest." My jaw tightened. "But I was wrong. That mistake is now haunting the seas."
Shakky, who had been unnervingly calm until now, finally whispered, "Resurrected… from a corpse?"
Her words seemed to echo louder than they should have, their weight pulling all our gazes toward Roger's grave. The polished stone of the mausoleum gleamed in the fading light, the petals still drifting peacefully around it. And yet, the thought that Rocks could lay his hands on Roger's body made even this sacred place feel vulnerable.
A chill clawed at the edges of their spine. I didn't need to ask what they were all thinking—it was written across their faces.
"You don't have to worry," I said firmly, my voice steady enough to cut through the dread. "Roger will not be disturbed here. Not by Rocks, not by anyone. I gave Roger-san my word, and I intend to keep it until the end."
That seemed to ease them, if only slightly. But then Rayleigh, his usual casual demeanor replaced by something far heavier, finally spoke. "Ross… if Rocks can truly bring the dead back, don't you think he must be stopped before it's too late?"
His voice carried no accusation, only urgency. He wasn't speaking as the Dark King, the pirate feared across the Grand Line. He was speaking as a man who had once sailed at the side of Roger, as a man who had chosen to step away from piracy but still carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. His eyes glimmered with quiet desperation.
"The sea is a graveyard of monsters who once ruled it. Even if Rocks were to revive a fraction of them, the world would cease to exist."
His hand tightened around the unopened bottle of rum he had brought as an offering. I knew who he was thinking of. Roger's son. Rayleigh had never voiced it openly, but the truth was written in his every hesitation. He wanted to see Ace grow up. He wanted the boy to inherit his father's freedom, not a world swallowed by resurrected demons of the past.
Garp remained silent, though his heavy brow furrowed deeper. If there was anyone who could still face Rocks, it was him. But even the Hero of the Marines knew there were limits. If Rocks could truly resurrect monsters like Linlin without restraint, even Garp's fists wouldn't be enough. He didn't fear death, but he feared what would be left behind if Rocks succeeded.
I could see their imaginations spiraling, visions of an endless tide of resurrected monsters sweeping across the world. Before the panic could take root, I raised my voice.
"No. That's not how his Devil Fruit works. He cannot resurrect endlessly. There's a limit—something tied to how much his soul can endure. From what I've seen, I believe he's already near that limit. He cannot bring them back infinitely."
It was the truth, or at least as much of it as I understood. Because if Rocks truly could resurrect endlessly, even I—wielding my awakened God Fruit—would have no confidence in defeating him.
But before relief could settle in, Shakky exhaled a plume of smoke and cut in, her sharp eyes gleaming through the haze.
"That doesn't mean he won't find a way to increase that limit. If there's one thing I know about Rocks…" Her lips twisted into a grim smile. "…it's that he never accepted limits. He always found a way to defy the odds. Why else do you think monsters like Whitebeard, Shiki, and Linlin followed him back then?"
Her words left a silence in their wake. A silence filled with ghosts.
They all knew it. They all remembered, in one way or another, what kind of monster Rocks truly was. The kind of man who could gather the most dangerous pirates the seas had ever known under one banner. The kind of man whose ambitions weren't just to rule the seas, but to shatter the very order of the world itself.
God's Valley had been the price. A battlefield soaked in blood and sacrifice, where legends had clashed to end the reign of a man too dangerous to live. And now, somehow, he had clawed his way back into the world.
"Maybe… just maybe, if it weren't for me back then, would things have been different…?"
Shakky's voice trembled faintly as it slipped into the quiet clearing, soft but cutting through the silence like a blade. For just a moment, the woman who had once commanded the seas with her wit and charm let a shadow of doubt creep in. Her eyes drifted toward Roger's grave, though her words weren't for the dead—they were for the ghosts of that cursed day.
"If I hadn't been captured… if I hadn't been dangled as a prize for those bastards during that damnable 'competition'… maybe the incident at God's Valley would never have happened."
Her cigarette quivered between her fingers. Though she had made her peace with that event decades ago, the memory still sometimes surfaced like an old scar itching under the skin. The thought that her capture, her weakness, had sparked one of the bloodiest battles in history was a wound that never quite healed.
Rayleigh didn't try to argue. He didn't need to. He simply reached out, clasping her hand with his own, rough and calloused, grounding her in the present. His silence said more than words—you're not alone in this.
But I knew truths that even Shakky didn't. Truths that only a handful of souls in this world ever glimpsed. Because all three who sat before me now—Garp, Rayleigh, Shakky—had been present at God's Valley. They had lived it. They had fought it. And they carried with them the story the world believed: that Rocks D. Xebec had led his crew to that island to rescue Shakky, and in the process, to plunder the devil fruits and treasures hoarded by the Celestial Dragons during their vile "native hunting competition."
That was the story etched into history books of those who walked out of God's valley. The story survivors whispered. The story even they themselves had clung to. But it was not the truth. Perhaps the only other souls who knew the true reason were King Harald… and myself and possibly Teach.
I looked at Shakky, then at Garp's furrowed brow and Rayleigh's steady hand around hers. They deserved to know.
"I don't think it would have mattered, Shakky-san," I said softly, though my words carried weight like falling stone. "Whether you had been captured or not, the incident at God's Valley would have happened all the same. You were simply the excuse Rocks used—a lure to gather his crew under one banner for that day. But his reasons… his real reasons… ran far deeper than treasure or glory."
Their eyes sharpened. Even Garp, who had remained stone-faced until now, tilted his head slightly, as though daring me to continue.
"Truth be told," I went on, "Rocks wasn't there to rescue you. He wasn't there for the Celestial Dragon's prize, nor the devil fruits, nor the treasures they flaunted. No… he would have stormed God's Valley alone if he had to. Because what he was truly fighting for… was his family."
The words struck like a thunderclap.
Rayleigh's grip on Shakky's hand tightened until his knuckles whitened. Shakky's lips parted, the cigarette hanging loosely between her fingers, the ember at its tip fading in the breeze.
Even Garp—the Hero of the Marines, the man who had stood toe-to-toe with Rocks that day—leaned forward slightly, his jaw tightening, as though he were recalling something, some half-formed suspicion he had buried long ago.
"His… family?" Shakky finally managed to whisper, disbelief and something dangerously close to hope threading her tone.
I nodded. "That man—mad, ruthless, monstrous as he was—was not driven by greed alone. For all his cruelty, all his hunger to shatter the world order, Rocks's heart burned for one thing above all: to protect and reclaim what the World Government had stolen from him. You were a convenient excuse to rally his crew. But in truth, Shakky, you were never the prize that lured him into that hell. His family was."
The silence that followed was absolute. The forest seemed to lean in closer, the wind stilled, even the blossoms falling from the plum trees appeared to hesitate midair.
And in that silence, each of them was dragged back—to that cursed island, to that battle where the seas ran red and the sky itself seemed to split.
Garp's eyes narrowed, the old soldier's mind replaying those brutal hours. "Tch… so that's why." His voice was low, almost a growl, but not at me. At the truth itself. "That explains why… even when we cut him down, even when the treasures burned and the Celestial Dragons screamed, he never once faltered. His crew fought for power, but Rocks… Rocks fought like a man possessed."
Rayleigh exhaled slowly, his usual calm shaken, but he had his suspicions. "All these years, I thought I understood that day. But if what you say is true… then everything we thought we knew about Rocks was wrong."
Shakky lowered her gaze, her hand trembling in Rayleigh's. For so long, she had carried the weight of believing she was the spark that ignited God's Valley. To hear otherwise… to hear that Rocks had never been there for her at all, that she had simply been the mask for something far more personal… it broke something in her, but it also freed her.
Her voice cracked as she whispered, "Family…? That man…? He never spoke of them. Not once."
"No," I said, shaking my head. "Because for Rocks, family wasn't a story to share. It was the wound that drove him. The fury that made him defy the heavens. That day wasn't about you, nor the Celestial Dragons, nor even the world. It was about taking back what had been stolen from him, no matter the cost."
The weight of my words settled over us like a shroud. And for the first time in years since the God valley incident, Garp, Rayleigh, and Shakky realized that even their memories of God's Valley—their understanding of the man they had fought—were nothing but fragments of a deeper, darker truth.
The world called Rocks a tyrant, a madman, a monster who sought only chaos and destruction. But to the man himself… he had been a father, a husband, and a protector. A man who would burn the seas and shatter the sky if it meant reclaiming what was his.
That was why he had been so dangerous. That was why, even in death, his shadow still stretched across the seas. And that was why, now that he had returned, the world trembled once more.
"Wait… does that mean there's a possibility that Rocks's family actually made it out of God's Valley alive?"
Shakky's voice trembled with something caught between dread and disbelief. She didn't finish the sentence—the implication hung heavy in the air like a storm cloud. If no one had even known Rocks had a family to begin with, then what else had been hidden, buried beneath layers of silence and erasure?
Slowly, their gazes turned toward me. It was almost comical, in a way—three legends of the sea, veterans of battles that had shaken the world, now looking at me as though I were the keeper of all secrets, the one holding answers to riddles older than their own memories.
None of them even bothered to ask how someone like me, who had been little more than a toddler when God's Valley unfolded, knew so much about an event even they—who had bled on its soil—did not fully understand.
I didn't answer Shakky directly. Instead, my eyes shifted toward Garp. Because ultimately, this truth brushed against him more than anyone else. After all, it was his own son who, decades later, had pulled Rocks's child from that nightmare—setting into motion a chain of events that would see Teach rise under Whitebeard's shadow.
"Maybe… maybe not. But time will tell."
I left it at that, my words deliberately cryptic. Some truths were too volatile to lay bare, and this one—Teach's identity as Rocks's son—was my insurance. My shield in case Rocks ever turned his fury toward my own blood. The Donquixote family stretched wide across the seas; I couldn't be everywhere at once, couldn't protect everyone if Rocks chose to strike. But as long as I held that secret, I had leverage.
Garp studied me, his eyes narrowing, but he didn't press. He must have sensed the deliberate vagueness in my tone. Instead, the old Marine pivoted, turning toward the question that had gnawed at him for years.
"So tell me this—was it the World Government that deliberately leaked the news about the hunting competition at God's Valley? Was that their way of luring Rocks into a trap?"
His voice was sharp, yet even. There was no sadness now, only that iron edge—the voice of the man who had stood against monsters his entire life.
"But it doesn't make sense…" he muttered, almost to himself. "Leaking that information only drew more eyes to the island. They risked the lives of the Celestial Dragons themselves."
I tilted my head, lips curving into a faint smile. "Yes… and no."
Their expressions hardened. Even Rayleigh stopped fiddling with the bottle of rum in his hand, his attention now locked on me.
"That is what the World Government hadn't expected," I continued, my tone low, deliberate, every word like a stone dropped into still water. "You see, the Celestial Dragons thought they were hunting natives on some random, unaffiliated island. But God's Valley… God's Valley was no ordinary place. It was a land holding a far deeper secret. And it was chosen for a reason."
I let the silence stretch, let the weight build, and then spoke the name that shattered it.
"It was the home of the remnants of the Davy Clan."
The name itself was like a spark tossed into gunpowder.
Garp frowned, confused. Shakky's brow furrowed as she tried to recall if she had ever heard such a name whispered in the back alleys of the underworld. But Rayleigh—Rayleigh froze. His eyes widened, the casual mask on his face shattering in an instant. Of the three, only he truly understood. Because only he had walked the path to Raftel. Only he had seen the fragments of the world's forbidden history.
I caught the flicker of recognition in his eyes and smirked knowingly.
"I see you understand, Rayleigh-san. You've reached the final island… you've pieced together enough to know what the Davy Clan truly was. What none of you knew—what even the World Government themselves never realized—was that Rocks… was one of them. Not just one of them. He was their blood. The heir to the will of Davy Jones himself."
The forest itself seemed to hold its breath.
"Rocks D. Xebec… the world's most feared pirate, the man who nearly toppled the order of the seas… was in truth Davy D. Xebec. And God's Valley was not his battlefield." I paused, letting the words sink in. "It was his home."
The effect was immediate. Shakky's cigarette slipped from her fingers, falling into the grass. Rayleigh's grip on her hand tightened once more, though this time it wasn't comfort—it was grounding himself against the weight of revelation. Garp's fists clenched on his knees, the veins in his forearm bulging as memories of that day clawed their way back into his mind, finally everything falling into place after all these years.
"The World Government…" I continued, "had knowingly chosen the island for their depraved 'competition,' just so they can purge the rest of those who carried the bloodline of the Davy clan. But what was supposed to be just another festival of cruelty turned into something else entirely. They didn't realize they had set their stage on the birthplace of the man who dared defy them. They didn't realize the beast they provoked had come not for treasure… not for slaves… but for vengeance."
I leaned forward slightly, my voice dropping to a near whisper, heavy with certainty.
"Rocks didn't stumble into God's Valley. He returned to it. He wasn't there for his grand ambition; no, he was there so he could give his family a chance to survive that massacre."
The weight of the truth pressed down on the clearing, on the four of us sitting there overlooking Roger's grave.
Shakky's lips trembled, her earlier guilt now drowned in something colder. Rayleigh's face was carved from stone, the reality settling in. Garp… Garp closed his eyes, his jaw tight, as if the memories of clashing fists with that man finally aligned with this truth he had always felt but never named.