WARNING: The following contains spoilers for One Piece, Chapter #999 by Eiichiro Oda, Stephen Paul, and Vanessa Satone, available in English now from Viz Media.
Just because a character has died, it does not mean their role in the story is necessarily over. The final triple-digit chapter of One Piece, Chapter #999, proves this extremely well, as we finally learn more about Ace's time in Wano and his relationship with Yamato, Kaido's son.
The chapter opens on a flashback to a fiery contest of wills between Yamato and Fire-Fist Ace. As the previous chapter revealed, the Spade Pirates came to Onigashima so that Ace could take Kaido's head, thus raising his own level of infamy as a start-up pirate. Fans of the Ace spinoff novel, One Piece: Ace's Story, might recognize a few of Ace's crew, including Kotatsu, the lynx that Ace befriended, and Mihar, the teacher wearing a top hat who joined Ace's crew to teach children across the many islands of the world who are unable get an education.
We learn from Yamato that Kaido and his officer pirates happen to be off on an expedition, which is bad news for Ace's assassination attempt. But as they keep fighting, Ace notices the cuffs around Yamato's wrists. This bothers the flame-flame human, even as he keeps fighting Yamato.
As the battle wears on, Ace questions why Yamato chooses to fight for his father. He already has him imprisoned here, so why choose to keep serving Kaido on top of Yamato's servitude? Seeing Ace's point, Yamato breaks off the head of Kaido's dragon statue in an act of both defiance and longing to go out to sea. Ace smiles before joining in and punching the statue, causing it to melt and distort, which explains how it ended up in the sorry state we saw in the present-day at the end of the previous chapter, #998.
Their quarrel ended, Ace and Yamato toast in celebration of their new friendship later on. Since Yamato can't go out to sea because of his explosive cuffs, he asks Ace about the other pirates sailing the seas. Yamato listens with childlike wonder as Ace lists off some notable pirates: Trafalgar Law, Eustass Kid and Capone Bege.
But Ace says none can hold a candle to Luffy, even though the rubber boy hasn't even set sail on his journey yet at this point. Yamato then remarks on how often Ace brings up his brother. From that statement, it's clear Ace finds any excuse he can to gush about his kid brother, which is just really sweet and sincere. It also makes a lot of sense how quickly Ace and Yamato became friends given what they have in common. Both are people with a lot of resentment towards their biological fathers and have had a dream of setting out to sea since they were young. They also both greatly admire someone who, at some point, opposed their biological parents -- Whitebeard and Kozuki Oden, respectively.
We then get another flashback, this time from Pheonix Marco's point of view. At this point, Ace had just joined the Whitebeard crew. Ace asks Whitebeard if he can go on his own to Wano to fight Kaido, free Yamato and reunite with Tama, but the veteran pirate won't allow it. Whitebeard knows Kaido's strength and manpower; not even Oden could beat him, and he doesn't want to see Ace throw his life away so easily.
We also witness both Izo and Marco reassure Ace that when they do return to Wano, they'll lend Ace their support. A sincere but sad message, considering how in the present-day they are back in Wano, but fighting without Ace by their side.
It's sad to think Ace never got to see Yamato or Tama again after this auspicious encounter, but seeing Luffy in the Wano arc fighting for not just he and his allies' freedom, but all of the people of Wano, would have definitely made his older brother proud were he here to see it. Now that Chapter #1,000 is almost here, fans will doubtless be excited to find out what other surprises Oda is going to pull out to commemorate the remarkable milestone.
