Logic! Meet Straw Hats!
Hi, this is my first ever story. I'm actually kind of embarrassed it has taken me so long to actually update any actual content on this site, I started off just having the profile to read and review but I do like writing as a hobby. Since I would feel a little less worthless if I posted this, I hope anyone else who reads it finds it enjoyable. No flames please, I don't care for them, constructive, well-meaning criticism is okay, I'd welcome it, even, but being cruel and rude about it is just bad behaviour, no excuses. But I do know most people are accepting, encouraging individuals, even if they don't review.
First warnings, this story is a One-Shot that cheerfully ignores the little itty-bitty lines of canon. It's purely for entertainment purposes – DISCLAIMER HERE, I don't own One Piece, it belongs Eiichiro Oda and Toei Animation among others – and focusses on Sabo's thoughts about Ace's death, meeting Luffy again and revenge. It's mostly a character piece on how horrible he must feel for not being able to remember his brothers and how much of lives he missed once he did.
Okay, enough rambling, on with the show!
Like Sunlight
The pure white environment of Baltigo took time to adjust to.
The stark, glaring uniformity of the pale colour was made blinding by the sun and heat radiated off the ground and reflected back, only adding to the arid climate of a summer island in the New World. As the Chief of Staff of the Revolutionary Army, Sabo was intimately familiar with every inch of the island and even so, it took him days to adjust from the vibrant bursts of the colour other islands offered to the almost alien white landscapes. As of the moment, Sabo was still training his new Logia body – being made entirely of fire was a weird, creepy experience and he had been banned from handling anything flammable by EVERYONE in the base until they could be reassured he wouldn't set it on fire. In all honesty he was glad to have a legitimate excuse to get out of doing his paperwork for a while and already dreaded the days when he would be forced to return to that torture.
Sabo was relatively tall – among most normal human-beings at least – and for once was not wearing his usual black overcoat. His signature top hat was perched atop his wavy blond locks as always, the bright blue goggles catching the sunlight and if he looked close enough, the broken blue reflection could be spotted moving about in tandem with his careful practiced movements as he went through a series of kicks and punches, trailing flames behind them. His face would be called handsome, with it being neatly proportioned and lacking any odd facial features – aside from the large pink burn scar that trailed over his right eye, slightly concealed by his long blond fringe. He was wearing black pants tucked into grey boots, a navy-blue long-sleeved shirt with ruffled sleeve-cuffs and had a light grey vest over top with a white ruffled cravat at his collar. After a long day of training he felt nearly exhausted; with a slight shaking in his arms and a burning in his limbs that had nothing to do with his new Devil Fruit, all the while he was practically drenched with sweat.
The sun cast ruby-red and black shadows over the white rock formations and the ocean and the sky lovingly mirrored one another with the gentle winds singing with the birds.
"I don't think I'll ever get used to this," Sabo muttered aloud, starring at his gloved hand. Said hand was nothing special – take off the glove and you'd find a normal hand, covered in hard-earned callouses and long-time scars from a night that still haunted his mind.
He hated fire.
At least he did, before he remembered.
Sabo stared at the cheerfully burning flames as he gingerly took of the dark brown leather glove, flexing his fingers even as the sparks and flames continued to play over his skin. Licking at old burns without the discomfort even mild heat used to bring him not even a week prior. It was fascinating and almost repulsive – only almost because the Mera-Mera Fruit had belonged to Ace and Ace had made it his own, these flames were Ace's legacy in this world and far be it from him to resent these flames due to his own inability to get over childhood trauma.
But that was the problem, Sabo couldn't help but think of Ace when he used his newfound abilities.
Ace was much like fire himself. From what he remembered of the lonely but angry, bitter child Ace once was – he had raged like a bonfire. He was reckless and he was uncontrollable and if you got too close you'd only end up getting burned. Sabo didn't even know how they really ever became friends, now that he thinks about it. But Sabo was much like fire himself, a quieter, more contained flame maybe, but he was still fire and he had grown into a raging fire the moment he escaped the fancy golden cage he had once been kept in. Fire was unforgiving, but it was also warm – that was like Ace.
The Ace that was warm was probably more apparent to someone like Luffy though.
It was bitterly ironic that Ace had died burning. Sabo had nightmares about it – he didn't witness it, not like Luffy did – but he was intimately familiar with the feeling of burning alive.
Hair catches fire like the tip of a match and burns just as quickly.
It took him weeks to grow his hair back, unconsciously his hand ruffled through his longish blond locks, pulling on the lightly tangled snarls slightly as he clenched his eyes shut.
Flesh burns with a sickening stench – one that never leaves your mind, once you get one whiff of it, you'd recognise it anywhere, Sabo knew he did – peeling off layer by layer.
All but Sabo's worst wounds had healed. If it wasn't for Emperio Ivankov being present that night Sabo doubts he would have survived with just a few burn scars. He would have had to have his arm amputated and his right eye would have been useless, nothing but an empty socket. He looked down at his hand again and spied the webbing of raised pink, puckered flesh – stark against his warm tan skin and traced over them – knowing that they ran all the way up his arm, encircling his bicep and hugging his shoulder and spreading across his chest, clawing around his neck and up his face. A permanent memento of exactly how rotten the world was and why he had to change it, because no one should have bear scars like this, not for some stupid reason like bloodlines.
He vaguely remembers the aftermath. How his wounds still burned even after the fire stopped and he fell into the water – it had been so hot he would still swear to this day that his blood had been boiling and he didn't believe he was delusional when he stated that he felt his cells incinerate into ash as time felt like it stretched into a single moment of eternity.
And Ace had to die like that!
"Akainu…" the name of the Fleet Admiral was a curse spitting from his lips and his vision turned brilliantly red for a single moment.
How he wanted to be the one to kill him. The increasingly macabre and gruesome thoughts and daydreams of taking revenge on the horrible, disgusting bastard who killed his brother in all but blood was nearly overwhelming and before he knew it his flames snapped from his control and he exploded like a star. He was a bright, blazing inferno – but even the light of his flames was lost in the brilliant blood red light from the sunset behind him.
"…one day…" Sabo promised himself. One day he'd get his revenge.
But then again, if anyone deserved that pleasure, it would have to be Luffy.
His surviving younger brother was a lot like Sabo and Ace, like fire. But unlike them, he was more special than that. He was no patient volcano that erupted seldom and brought forth unstoppable rage and wrath. He wasn't a bonfire either – for bonfires were too harsh a way to describe Monkey D. Luffy. He was fire however his brother could never be mistaken for anything else. He was just special, Sabo really couldn't describe him any better than that.
Like sunlight.
The sun was a perfect way to describe his brother. From the gentle first dawn in the mornings, to the burning height of noonday sun and the sombre, gentle ruby-red sunsets. The sun could burn, bring forth horrible dry, droughts and yet it also provided warm and lit up every corner of the world. Like a beacon. Yes, that sounded like Luffy.
It was the knowledge that Luffy was alive and well that kept Sabo from losing it completely once he found out Ace had died and mourned the twelve years they had missed out together.
Even now, on their separate jouneys, he knew they'd be okay.
Sabo had a world to save.
And his brother…he was going to be King of the Pirates.
But even then, they were still brothers.
End Note – Okay, this is a first for me, I hope you liked it. I probably wont update much more content. I only really felt compelled to post this because I wanted to have something up on my page, since I most just read on this website. But maybe if you want to see more you can let me know…
Anyway, Sabo has been a favourite of mine since he was introduced, and his backstory is tragic in true Oda fashion. His relationship with Luffy and Ace was beautiful, and I cannot help but be sad for him, missing ten years of his life and only remembering his former life and Luffy and Ace after Ace had died. Man, Oda can be cruel sometimes. So, this little story was born. Just a little head-canon and a few too many fire metaphors.
Bye-bye, yours truly
Hate-The-Player-Never-The-Game