Tittle: Forgotten Island
Fandom: One Piece
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy / Roronoa Zoro , Portgas D. Ace & Monkey D. Luffy
Summary: Human kindness is his weakness. The love for the brother that he loved (more than anything) his sentence of an eternity of solitude and the joyous laugh of the swordsman the ache on his heart.
Warning: ooc
Words: 2902
Prologue
"I'll do whatever you ask" the boy said in a broken tone, tears streaming down his face while he hold close the dead body of the brother he loved dearly "Take my life instead of his"
"Are you serious about your offer?" The supreme ruler of the gods, Zeus, asked with interest "even if I sentence you of a eternity in hell? is the life of this boy worthy to risk that much?"
"He's worth more than Hell" the boy answered without a trace of doubt "I said it before, I'll do whatever you ask… just bring Ace back, let him have a normal, happy life"
"You're a brave kid, let's make a deal" Zeus said looking to the boy, the 17 years old teenager who faced a war who costed too much "I will bring your brother back to earth and he will have a happy life without any memories of you"
"I understand" the boy said, bowing his head in utterly gratitude "Thank you very much"
"You don't want to know the consequences for you?" Zeus asked and the boy denied moving his head
"I don't need to know," the teenager said, his lips touching the cold cheek in a kiss "If he lives is okay for me any punishment you put me trought"
The presiding deity of the universe laughed in a sardonic way, his eyes never leaving the black ones of the kid.
"Let's see if that strong will of yours stay after you know what punishment I have in store for you"
. . .
"Humans are strange creatures, everything in this world is deadly for them and even knowing this they risk their lives doing things beyond their power" Zeus said in a tired sigh "They don't know their own limits and sometimes they need a reminder of how little they are" The god touched the cheek of his new creation and it trembled "and that's where your existence is necessary"
"You are no longer a fragile human, the best of the qualities of earth and sea are part of you now" The god said "You can walk in the land and bleed red blood if you're hurt like any other human being; but you can breath under the water and swim with the ease of a fish. This island is now your domain in the middle of the sea where you will lure sailors to their early grave with your beautiful voice"
"Is a beautiful place" the boy answered, looking to the flowery meadows around him and taking seat in the rocks from where the vast sea extend
"Remember, Luffy" Zeus said, this time with fatality in his voice "In the end I couldn't bring myself to tear you apart of that gentle heart of yours and that's your weakness…don't let humans aproach to you, it only will make you suffer"
"I understand" Luffy said, looking beetwen his hands, the one under the water have is fingers webbed and his other hand, the one that is resting in the ground is normal "Thank you for giving my brother another chance in life, he deserves to be happy"
"I will keep my promise" The supreme ruler of the gods swear "Keep yours, until the whole world ends"
[-]
He doesn't keep a count of how many time has transpired nor how many humans he had seduced with his voice but Luffy's hair is so long that it drags in the ground when he walks.
He sings about nothing and everything. With promises of treasures, of a city of gold and emeralds, of inmortality, of power and glory, of world knowledge, of food or of eternal love, anything the sailors truly desires in their hearts.
So he sings and sings, until nothing is left, until the sailors lost their minds or their ships capsize and they drown like rats.
(and he sings and sings and sings…)
[0]
"Come here," he sang,"renowned Ulysses, honour to the Achaean name, and listen to my voice. No one ever sailed past me without staying to hear the enchanting sweetness of my song- and he who listens will go on his way not only charmed, but wiser, for I know all the ills that the gods laid upon the Argives and Trojans before Troy, and can tell you everything that is going to happen over the whole world."
Luffy looked to the man, bound to the cross piece halfway up the mast and praying to be set free. His comrades rowing away from antemoesa, in a desesperate attempt to found their way back to home. Luffy laughs, because is amusing the human stubborness behind his actions and how this one is the first human in hundreds years in listen his voice without dying.
[1]
After several hundred years life in Antemoesa became boring. Is no wonder, after all it is a small island forgotten by the gods in the middle of the wide sea and whose exact location is only found in ancient texts in an already extinct language. He's older than time but not as much as the creation, product of the boredom of the god who sought to mortify the humans who had the audacity to sail the seas belonging to Poseidon.
He can walk on land and breath under the water; If he's hurt, his wounds bleed but his own tears are able to heal him. He can bring wisdom and knowledge to the humans but also can destroy them with his voice only. Luffy is no longer mortal, but a scourge of immortality, terrible, painful, wild and invincible but also doomed to spend the remaining time on earth in the flowery meadows of antemoesa waiting for new humans who seduce through his singing.
That's the price Zeus demanded to pay to save the life of his older brother, whose freckled face that plague his dreams and his warm voice reminds him his own name in those days that he thinks that solitude is gonna make him lost his mind.
The conditions were simple and fair enough, seduce with his singing the sailors but never aproach to them because according to Zeus, human kindness is his weakness and it will end to be painful for a being like him.
(Because Luffy is not a human nor a fish. He can walk on land and breath under the water)
Not that it matters too much by now, hundreds of years have passed since the last time Luffy saw a human and sincerely, he doubts to see one in the coming hundreds of years he has remaining.
[2]
At first, when he saw the deplorable ship floating in his direction, he thought it was just another unfortunate ship that had crashed against the rocks or an old ship whose crew died in the midst of the treacherous sea and paid it no mind. The ship docked a few meter away from him and to his utter surprise he heard the sound of groans coming from the ship.
Without even thinking twice, Luffy got on his feet and held the human in his arms to laid him down on the sand, the man has a brutal wound that comes from the right side of his waist to his left shoulder, from where the blood seems to have ceased to sprout but would end up becoming infected if it is not taken care of.
Luffy knelt beside the human, buries his nails in his arms until small drops of blood begin to slide down his arms and tears make his vision cloud, he leans over the human and let his tears fall on the chest of the man whose wounds begin to heal leaving behind a huge scar.
"The first human who passes here after hundreds of years and is half dead," Luffy says in a sigh, looking at the human whose once laborious breathing has returned to normal. "You can't seduce a half-dead man"
(Zeus advice rings loud in his mind but the now peaceful expression in the face of the human and the soft sounds of his earrings moving with the wind distracts him)
…
When the human wakes up three days later after his arrival he seems surprised to be alive and Luffy doesn't blame him after seeing the serious wound in the man's chest. When Luffy dark eyes, black as night meet the intense silver eyes sharp as a sword, that an epiphany hits him like lightning, leaving him breathless.
Luffy sees the bright future that awaits this man who was born to obtain greatness and a title that positions him above all the others swordsman in the world.
But not yet – He still so weak, so fragile…
That if Luffy were to press a little he would collapse completely along with all that awaits for him in future.
('The man they know like Hawk-eyes found defeat by your hand,
the black sword that give you that scar and teared apart your pride,
Is not strong enough in the face of the three swords you carry on your right hip,
your name reachs to the heavens for a talented little girl who died too soon.')
"You helped me?" the man ask, touching the scar on his chest with a wince
"Yes, but I don't really did that much" Luffy responds, as if it were a matter of everyday that a creature like him saves stupid sailors from die of an infection
"My name is Roronoa Zoro" the human says, bowing his head lightly in a gesture of respect and gratittude "Thank you for helping me"
"How did you get that wound?" Luffy asks, curious to know how this man, Zoro, arrived in such a state to his domains
"Fighting for my dream," Zoro answers immediately, with a confident smile and a gleam in his eyes that the merman can identify, having already seen it in a human before.
(Another stubborn idiot, like Ulysses, maybe even worse because Luffy can't bring himself to sing the destiny of this man)
"You must be hungry" Luffy says, with his thumb point the forest behind him "You can find fruits to eat if you walk a little around there"
The human nods, placing a hand on the scar that crosses his abdomen to rise and walk lazily in the opposite direction that the merman points
"It's to the other side, stultus!" Luffy shouts at Zoro, who looks embarrassed while now he walks to the right direction 'I found a very troublesome human' – Luffy sighs, defeated.
…
"Hey, Luffy, aren't you a little too young to live alone in this island?" Zoro ask, hours later with the sun hide behind the clouds "did your boat dock here too?"
"I have more years than you'd know how to count or you could get to have" Luffy answered, taking an apple to bring it to his lips "This island belongs to me, was created by Zeus himself just for me"
Zoro laughs and shakes his head, believing it to be a joke on the part of the black-haired man, Luffy doesn't bother to insist and simply shrugs.
[3]
With the passing of the days they are installed at a comfortable pace of coexistence, where Zoro would offer to go find things to eat and return to Luffy on the rocks where the dark-haired man sit for hours watching the sea while huming softly. Zoro usually remains silent, taking a nap or trying to annoy the merman to kill boredom.
"Why are you on this island, Luffy?" Zoro ask, Luffy doesn't know how many times this absurd man will keep asking the same question "doesn't it get kinda lonely?"
"I'm on this island to sing" Luffy replies, without taking his eyes off the sea as he tilts his head slightly as if trying to found another way to answer but decided against it "That's all."
"You're a strange child" Zoro replies, looking at him out of the corner of his eye for a reaction that soon arrives
"I told you, I'm older than you could imagine!" Luffy answers annoyed, no longer looking at the sea but the man next to him "You're a diaper brat compared to me!"
"I don't know" Zoro says, putting a hand on his chin as if he was seriously thinking about something "I would say that you are definitely a child and a very short one"
"Don't make me hurt you, brat!" shouts Luffy, taking Zoro's cheeks between his fingers and pulling it in a painful way "don't get so cocky, I could kick your ass across to other side of this island"
Zoro laughs hard, putting a hand on his chest where his scar still hurts and without trying to remove Luffy's hand of his cheek.
…
There are times when Zoro joins him and makes him company while watching the sea, the eyes of the human acquire a nostalgic glow as he watches the distant horizon, and it's in time like these where Luffy remembers that the dream and goals of Zoro are not in a place as boring as Antemoesa, but on the open sea fighting against powerful enemies that help him develop his skills until he becomes the best.
Every time Luffy is about to open his mouth to say something the human will simply watch him and start to annoy him about his height or age.
[4]
One night, meanwhile Luffy is trying to calm the fast beating of his heart after that damned nightmare who seems never leave him alone (a battlefield where they tried to achieve freedom, the sound of the cannons, the terrified screams of people dying, the fire consuming everything in his path and the cold body of the person he loved the most in this world). Zoro wakes up, sits beside him and begins to talk like he hadn't doing before.
The human tells him how left his home searching to acomplish his dream, how he lost his way back; in a way that he couldn't no longer get back and his only option would always be moving forward. Zoro speaks of the places he has seen, the things he has eaten, of a drink called sake that is the most delicious of the nectars and about some kind hearted humans and others not so much. He talks about a rival with empty cold-eyes and sword handled as it were a extension of the body of his rival, about an humiliating defeat because of his arrogance and his newfound determination to become even stronger when he leaves this island.
Zoro talks about a future together, for both of them, out in the vast sea searching to make their names reach heaven together, because they can go anywhere… the sea is freedom when you want it to be.
(He remember now, the painful but so warm gentle nature of humans)
Luffy can't leave, not because he doesn't wanna but because he made a promise so many (how many?) years ago, with a god for the sake of the brother who raised and protected him (who must be dead by now, but who cares, Ace was happy, he lived happy, that's all that matters.) yet he's still holding that promise, until the whole world ends, until he dies and he welcomes the final end, singing.
Luffy makes a decision that night while he looked at the peaceful face of the swordsman.
. . .
When the sun comes out the next day and the swordsman wakes up, Zoro seems confused to see his boat in good condition.
"You have to go now" Luffy says, taking Zoro's face in his hands, his thumb touch soflty the strong jaw "Just follow right in direction of the sun for a few days and you'll find dry land, your dream is far away from this place... you say you want your name reaches so high to be heard in heaven, then make the name of Roronoa Zoro be heard on this island too when you become the best swordsman in the world"
"What about you?" Zoro ask "You're asking me to leave you here, alone? After everything I say to you yesterday?"
"I made a decision hundreds of years ago, which I don't regret, and if I left this island, I would be breaking my promise" Luffy explains, the human has a frown in his face and is ready to argue when the merman interrupts him again "You know the valor of a promise and after all I have been hundreds of years alone… please don't pity me"
Zoro seems to think what to say before a smug smile forms on his lips "When I become the best swordsman in the world I will come back and stay with you, so we will both fulfill the promises we have made"
Zoro says, wrapping Luffy in a unexpected hug that last too little for Luffy's taste (how many years had passed since the last time he felt the touch, the warm of another body against his?) the swordsman turns his back on him and begins to move away towards the ship on the shore, climb on it and begin to row away, without looking back even once while with every movement of the waves that move the ship, Luffy's heart sinks a little more because he knows that it is not a promise that Zoro can fulfill.
END.