A Mother's Strength

The father and son duo stood on the shore looking out to sea for the whole day. Neither said a word and no one came to disturb them, they just sat in peace.

It wasn't till night fall did they get up and make their way back home.

When they arrived, they saw that everyone was their waiting for them. Everyone but Roger.

Seeing that Roger was absent, Marcus asked the question, despite knowing the answer.

"Where's Roger?"

Rouge replied calmly.

"He left last night."

Marcus nodded slightly as he said.

"I don't agree with your decision but you're right, it is your decision to make and if I was in your position I'd probably make the same decision. You have my support."

Hearing that put a bright smile on Rouge's face. Despite being strong earlier, she relies quite heavily on her older brother. Now that she has his support, she feels like a weight's been lifted from her shoulders.

Seeing her smile Marcus could only let out a sigh. He then asked.

"What plans did the two of you come up with for your child?"

He asked that because he knew that in a little over 2 years, he, Walter and Gaia would have to set sail and though Mira wasn't going with them she too would be leaving to attend to some unfinished business. And even if Ori and Roman were very mature for their age, they still couldn't raise a child.

"After a long conversation with Roger, we decided on convincing Garp to take care of them."

"Garp?! There's no denying his character… But to trust the wellbeing of your child, the child of the man who's recognized as the greatest enemy of the world government to the hero of the marines… What were you thinking, what makes you think he'll even agree?!"

Marcus frowned as he couldn't wrap his head around Rouge's and Roger's thought process.

"Monkey D. Garp is a fiercely loyal man with incredible morals. If the rest of the Marines were to find out that Roger had a child this child would be persecuted for his bloodline alone, but Garp's not like that, we both truly believe that Garp believes that a child shouldn't be persecuted for the sins of the father. Plus who'd ever believe that a child raised by the hero of the marines would be the child of the king of the pirates?"

"But Garp and Roger have tried to kill each other more times than I can possibly count."

"Despite their rivalry, Roger truly trusted Garp almost as much as he would a member of his own crew."

To that, Marcus didn't know what to say. He too could see the unique relationship between Roger and Garp. He didn't like that his nephew had to be raised away from his family but he knew that their choice wasn't a bad one but above all it was theirs to make.

Seeing her brother had given in, Rouge then looked at Orion who was stood beside Marcus and Roman who was next to his parents.

"Before he left last night, Roger told me the promise you made to look out for our unborn child. So I wanna thank you on their behalf."

Roman who was normally up beat and easy going, today was understandably in a sombre mood. Suddenly his whole right arm was covered in golden scales and his nails grew into claws.

When Ori saw Roman's transformation he was startled slightly.

[There's something weird about his right hand.]

He wasn't shocked by the fact that his arm could now fully transform as he had known Roman finally learnt to transform his whole arm about a month ago. What shocked him was the weird aura covering his right hand.

[Is that… Busoshoku?!]

Roman had no idea what Orion was thinking about. His eyes were red as if he had cried recently but at this moment they held nothing but resolve as they stared directly at Rouge's as he replied.

"I promise that if anyone tries to bully my little cousin, I'll personally beat the crap out of them."

Despite it coming from a 5 year old (who looked 10), everyone could hear the conviction in his voice.

Orion put his shock of Roman learning haki to one side and nodded towards Rouge indicating he felt the same as Roman.

"Hehe to have such strong older cousins is their good luck!"

She turned back to Marcus and said with a smile.

"Looks like I'm gonna need granny's technique to delay the birth."

Marcus didn't move immediately, he just stared at her in the eyes before he eventually asked.

"Are you sure you want to go through with it? That technique forcefully delays the birth of a child and although the child won't be impacted in anyway shape of form it uses your own life force to sustain the pregnancy. The pain you will have to bear during the pregnancy will be like nothing you've ever felt. If you go through with this, living is out of the question."

Rouge looked at her protective older brother with a gentle smile as she nodded.

"I'm sure!"

Marcus walked towards the house as he said.

"Rouge follow me. Everyone else wait here."

As they left Orion looked to his mum as he asked confused.

"Where are dad and aunt Rouge going?"

"Your dad's going to help your aunt Rouge perform a certain technique to slow down the pregnancy."

Hearing that Orion didn't ask any further questions as he just stared at the house.

Roman walked over to Orion who was still staring at the house.

"How's the training going? When Uncle Roger came over last night he said you had finally become a Sword Student."

Orion nodded, with a serious face as he replied.

"Uncle Roger came over last night and helped me break through. Without him, I have no idea how long it would've taken me to accomplish myself! What about you, when did you learn how to use haki?"

Roman transformed his arm into that of a golden dragons and looked down at his right fist as he said slowly.

"Uncle Roger was the one who taught me to use it last night. My dad had been trying to teach it to me for the past month since I learnt how to transform my arm completely, but I hadn't been able to pick it up at all, but uncle Roger managed to teach it to me in 10 minutes.

But you can only use it when your body reaches at least the D- rank. Which is why I can only use it on my right arm when I use my Dragonization on my arm, but I'm still not very skilled so I can only barely use it on my hand not even the whole arm.

But still it's a start I gue…"

Just as the two boys were talking a tyrannical aura erupted from the house enveloping everyone in the immediate facility.

As soon as it did, Walter appeared in front of Roman and Orion relieving them of the pressure.

After a few minutes the aura disappeared.

The front door was pushed open and Rouge and Marcus walked out.

Everyone saw Rouge's pale face as she was leaning on Marcus for support and understood that the price she had to pay was a truly dear one.

Seeing everyone's worried faces, she let out a little chuckle.

"I'm alright, I'm happy with my decision!"

Everyone could see how weak she was physically, but that didn't take away from the great strength that was radiating from her.