Chapter 119 He Must Die

The sudden voice did not belong to anyone present. The minors in the Akutagawa residence looked over warily and saw a strange black-haired young man standing outside.

Akutagawa Ryunosuke frowned. He had met Dazai Osamu before. He seemed to be a friend of Mr. Ace, but he was not very familiar with him and did not know him well.

When Ace saw him coming, he greeted him directly: "Zhi, you are here too!"

The three little kids who were stuck at the back and couldn't see anything were unable to confirm Dazai Osamu's voice when they heard it, but when Ace called out his name, they reacted immediately.

They pushed aside the gap between the brother and sister, and waved to Dazai Osamu, "Dazai-nii!"

Dazai Osamu waved to them from a distance and stood still.

After they finished greeting each other, Akutagawa Ryunosuke immediately looked at Dazai Osamu and asked, "What did you mean by that just now?"

"Literally." Dazai glanced at him leisurely, and without hesitation began to praise Mori Owl. "Shouldn't you know a little bit about what kind of person Mr. Mori is?" He showed a meaningful smile, "Didn't he summon you privately?"

Ace looked at Akutagawa Ryunosuke with some surprise.

Neither Akutagawa nor Mori Ogai mentioned to him that Ryunosuke Akutagawa and Ogai had met in private.

Except for Sen Ou, although he was mentioned, he was unusually silent.

Akutagawa Ryunosuke's tone changed slightly, "Whose bait are we?"

Since the enemy was not coming for them, then who was it coming for? Who was the enemy trying to lure?

Akutagawa Ryunosuke was frowning and thinking when he saw Dazai Osamu's eyes fall on Ace.

Others' eyes also turned over.

Ace hadn't reacted yet. Seeing everyone looking at him, he asked curiously, "Why are you all looking at me?"

Akutagawa Ryunosuke answered Ace's question in a questioning manner, and then stared at Dazai Osamu, "Their target is Mr. Ace? Why?"

Ace then realized that the target was referring to himself. He pointed at himself in surprise: "Me!?" Then he looked at Dazai Osamu.

Dazai Osamu did not answer directly, but asked Ace: "Do you know what the special ability of Mimic's leader, Kidd, is?"

"Um."

"His goal is to find someone with abilities and strength equal to his, and die in the duel after trying his best."

Everyone: “……?”

Yukikawa asked blankly, "...wanting to die?"

All the children present were trying desperately to stay alive, needless to say those who were born in Raibo Street, even if they didn't know why they were living, even if they were in the mud, they still tried their best to live. Even the three children of writer Oda crawled out of the pile of corpses in the Dragon War and were picked up by Oda Sakunosuke.

They couldn't understand why anyone would want to die.

Ace had similar thoughts when he was being executed. The Marine Headquarters set up a trap for the entire Whitebeard Pirate Group, especially for Whitebeard.

A blatant conspiracy.

If Whitebeard comes, he will have to step into the trap set by the Navy and endure the attack from the Navy. But if he doesn't come, Ace will die, and the prestige that Whitebeard and the Whitebeard Pirates have built up over the years, "Anyone who dares to harm Whitebeard's son will be retaliated twice," will collapse overnight, and the Navy will inevitably use this to spread the rumor that "Whitebeard Pirates are afraid of the Navy and don't even dare to rescue their own sons." By then, anyone will dare to step on Whitebeard Pirates, and this is absolutely unacceptable to all members of the Whitebeard Pirates!

Whitebeard would not want to disappoint his son, nor would he want his reputation to collapse. From then on, anyone with a little strength would dare to attack his son when he left the main ship. Not all members of the Whitebeard Pirates were strong enough to despise the enemies in the second half of the Grand Line. Once that happened, his sons would most likely be killed by anyone when they were far away from the main ship.

Moreover, even if Whitebeard remained silent, his sons would secretly gather people and rush to rescue people without telling him, and when Whitebeard found out, he would surely come to support them.

No matter what, in the end the Whitebeard Pirates will come together to rescue Ace.

Ace knew his father and companions too well. Only at that time, he hoped that his father and companions would not come to rescue him. He wished that he would be executed by the navy before the Whitebeard Pirates came to rescue him. Only in that way, the Whitebeard Pirates lost the reason to enter the Marine Headquarters Marinford and could avoid the trap of the navy!

No matter if it was revenge for him later or anything else, he just hoped that his death could bring some good to the Whitebeard Pirates.

This was the only time in his short life that he wished to die.

Ace tried to put himself in the Mimic leader's shoes and asked cautiously, "Did they have any reason to die?"

Dazai Osamu paused, and his gaze towards him became slightly complicated.

He had always guessed that Ace should be a dead person, who possessed Mori Ougai because of his special supernatural powers, and then became a part of Mori Ougai's supernatural powers in the form of a supernatural body.

Ace himself is not the kind of person who would think about the kind of questions that only negative people like them would think about. The reason he asked such a question is probably because he himself has experienced such a thing.

If Ace wanted to know the meaning of life like he did, and therefore wanted to explore death, he didn't believe it. But if he was forced to do so for some reason, such as to protect someone, then it was absolutely possible.

Dazai Osamu closed his eyes and answered in a low voice: "Who knows, maybe it's because they used to be soldiers, and after losing the meaning of existence as soldiers, they still want to die in the way of soldiers, so they want to force you to take action."

Ace's face turned grim.

"If they want me to take action, they don't need to force me like this. All they need to do is challenge me!"

"But you are so elusive that they can't find you. They can only force you to show up."

When Ace was on the Mori Owl, who could tell it was him except those who knew him? When Ace was not on the Mori Owl, he was either locked up in the office by Mori Owl to do work, or he randomly found someone to play with, or he wandered around somewhere and it was impossible to find him.

"...I hate them." Ace said suddenly.

He no longer tried to understand the other person's thoughts. In any case, if the target was him, he shouldn't involve others. It was fine to warn or pass on the message, but he couldn't do it to a group of children!

Ace's expressionless face showed a heavy sense of pressure. He looked at Dazai Osamu: "Where are those people?"

Dazai Osamu also looked at him, his eyes dim: "Are you going to kill them?"

"Ah." Ace responded calmly, "If they want to die so badly, I will kill them."

Akutagawa Ryunosuke took a step forward: "I'll go too."

After him, other people asked to go together.

They were caught off guard before, but after such a long period of training, there were always a few who were better in skills and did not want to miss this opportunity.

However, Ace directly reached out and pressed on Akutagawa Ryunosuke's head, pushing him back.

"You stay. We don't know if they will send more people. Ryunosuke, you are the strongest among your companions. You have to stay and protect them."

"But--"

"Ryunosuke."

Akutagawa Ryunosuke looked at his face that was suppressing his anger, hesitated for a while, and compromised: "...I understand."

After arranging this, Ace asked Dazai Osamu about the location of Mimic again.

Dazai Osamu glanced at the three children of writer Oda, closed his eyes and said, "Come with me."

It was not difficult for Dazai Osamu to find Mimic's hiding place. He took Ace to Mimic's hiding place, and the two of them walked in silence, one in front and the other behind.

Suddenly, Dazai Osamu called him, "Ace."

"Um?"

"The ability to predict is not the same as the ability to foresee. The opponent that Jide wants to find is a person with the ability to predict. Have you ever thought about why they would choose you?"

Mori Ogai felt something was wrong when he heard this. The news he released was clearly about Oda Sakunosuke's special ability, but after Dazai Osamu said this, the news he released became Ace's!

"Why?" Ace looked at him puzzled.

Dazai Osamu raised the corner of his mouth slightly, and there was a slight coldness in his eyes as he turned his back to him.

"Of course someone deliberately leaked your information to them, making them think that your ability is actually foresight." Worried that his mind was not working that quickly, Dazai Osamu even broke it down for him to analyze, "They were able to use such a roundabout method to let you face Mimic, and they probably knew that they would attack Akutagawa and the others."

Mori Ogai knew that Dazai Osamu wanted to use this to deal with him, but he did not say anything in response.

Indeed, he designed to let Mimic know about Oda Sakunosuke's ability, not Ace's ability, but releasing the news to let Mimic's people target people related to Oda Sakunosuke is essentially the same as releasing the news about Ace to let them target people related to Ace. Even if Mori Ogai explained it, he couldn't really explain the whole truth to Ace. After all, Ace is like this. No matter what the situation is, Ace will not accept it.

Even if he had planned to let the children of Oda Sakunosuke's family get acquainted with the children of Akutagawa's family, his purpose was to let Akutagawa Ryunosuke protect them so as not to make things worse. But there was no need to tell Ace about this. This kind of compensation method that depended on luck would probably only make Ace angrier.

"Who is it?" Ace asked.

"I'll tell you once you've dealt with Mimic."

Dazai Osamu didn't say it directly. Now was not the right time to say it. It was true that he wanted to take this opportunity to deal with Mr. Mori, but he also couldn't let Jide go.

Such a guy is too dangerous for Odasaku, who has already decided not to kill anyone. He must die!