'One Piece' Reveals One Of Ace's Forgotten Promises

Monkey D. Luffy has made a fair share of friends over the year, but the hero only has a few brothers. Portgas D. Ace and Sabo have their own places in One Piece lore, but it looks like the former didn't get to finish out one of his biggest promises as fans learned not too long ago.

So, you've been warned! There are spoilers for One Piece's latest chapter below!

This week, Shueisha shared the latest chapter of One Piece, and it followed Luffy as he stepped into Wano. As promised, chapter 912 picked up with the Straw Hat leader after O-Tama brought up her promise with Ace who said he would return to Wano for her.

As it turns out, Ace came to Wano Country years ago with his crew. The group had food with them, something the people of Wano are short on due to Kaidou's tyrannical reign. The villagers take the group hostage to eat their food, but Ace's gang was willing to give the Wano people their food without fuss.

As the trip continued, O-Tama became determined to follow Ace to sea. So, she offers a promise to the Flame-Frame Fruit user that he couldn't refuse.

"Ace! Take me out to sea with you," O-Tama asks in a short flashback.

"Tama, you're five years old, aren't you? We will come back here when our pirate crew is even bigger," Ace says, prompting O-Tama to ask if she can join Ace's crew when he returns.

"Pirates have to be strong! If you've become an enchanting kunoichi by the time we come back, we'll take you with us," the man says.

Of course, fans know that promise was never met. After Ace left Wano, he grew close with Whitebeard's crew and became one of the most famous pirates sailing the seas. As the son of Gol D. Roger, Ace became a target for the Marines, and he was eventually killed by Admiral Akainu as such. Now, Luffy is the one who must share the bad news with O-Tama who has been waiting years for her friend to return, and her reaction is as heart-wrenching as you would expect.

Do you think Luffy will try to fulfill Ace's promise in his stead? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!

Eiichiro Oda's One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has been collected into 87 volumes, with a few chapters yet to be included. It has been a critical and commercial success worldwide with many of the volumes breaking printing records in Japan. The manga has even set a Guinness World Record for the most copies published for the same comic book by a single author, and is the best selling manga series worldwide with 430 million copies sold worldwide.

Eiichiro Oda also revealed some upcoming news for One Piece's future in a recent interview. Stating that he was about 80% done with the series at this point with the Wano arc, fans are curious to see where One Piece will go next. The arrival of Wano Country has been one of Oda's most-awaited arcs to date, so readers are expecting plenty to go down between Luffy and the Beast Pirates occupying the isolated nation.