A/N: I swore to myself that I would never write about Ace's death, but here we are. So I am sorry ahead of time for the sadness that this may bring.
"Thank you for loving me."
His final words.
He choked them out with blood, with tears. He needed to tell them. He needed to tell him—his brother. As the words finished leaving his mouth he saw a figure in front of him, kneeling, with eyes that he couldn't see, but with long hair flowing out of that black hood, and small lips peeking out from under that macabre mask; he knew it was a girl. But what was she do—?
She held her hand out to him. She didn't say a thing. She just held out her hand. The sleeves of the black cloak that she wore slid down her arm and hung loosely from the limb.
Then he understood.
A small smile graced his features because he had been able to tell him. He had been able to tell Luffy what he wanted to be his last words.
He could go now.
He stretched out his arm, reaching for her hand, but it was difficult in his current state so she finished the task for him; she placed her hand in his and intertwined their fingers.
So cold, was all Ace could think; her hand was so cold. He felt it become easier to breathe and his eyes started to droop.
And then there was darkness.
There was darkness. A dimly lit darkness, but still darkness.
He felt the coldness that had been encasing his hand slip away and looked over to his right to see the girl from before. The cloak, a black that blended in with the darkness, still covered her form and the mask still hid her face. He looked down at himself and saw no blood, no hole, no anything on his chest. He looked back at the girl. She was only a few feet away from him, but facing away.
"Where am I?" He asked her. There was a moment of silence shared between them before she replied.
"This place has no name," she told him. Her voice was light, soft, airy—it was almost angelic, but there was something about it that wasn't. Something about it that was eerie, that made a shiver crawl up his spine. "This is where you will remain until your soul is done being judged."
"And how long will that be?" She turned her head to face him.
"In an instant and in an eternity." Ace furrowed his brows as he looked at the girl. She wasn't making any sense. Knowing the unspoken question, the girl decided to elaborate. "Time does not exist here." Ace didn't understand how that was even possible but he decided to shrug it off, at least for now. He walked closer toward her and brushed his fingers over the lower half of her cheek, which remained uncovered by the mask. Her skin was so cold, inexplicably cold. Not the cold that you feel when you touch ice, not the cold from when you jump into a pile of snow, not the cold of the biting, winter wind—but cold; cold like—
"Are you who I think you are?" Ace asked her. She pulled away from his touch and he let his arm drop back to his side.
"Who do you think I am?" She asked back. Ace paused for a moment and pursed his lips.
"Death," he stated. The girl hummed as she rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet.
"I have many names," she said. "That is one of them."
"What are the others?" Ace asked her. She slightly puckered her lips, raising the left side a bit higher than the right—she looked like she was considering something, like she was wracking her brain, running through all the names that had been given to her and choosing which ones to present.
"I am the Grim Reaper," she started. "I am Anubis; I am Charon. I am Tarakeshvara and Vanth." Ace hummed as he processed what she said.
"Which name do you prefer?" He asked her. "I need to call you something if I'm going to be here for eternity or never or whatever."
"What?" She uttered.
"What do you want me to call you?" Her lips turned up into a smile at the words. A laugh escaped her lips and Ace raised an eyebrow at her.
"You're just like them," she told him.
"Like who?" Ace asked her with confusion spread across his face.
"Roger and Rouge, of course!" She exclaimed. "I had the honor of being the one to ferry them both. Rouge asked me the same thing you just did. When I told her that no one had ever asked me what I wanted to be called, she was absolutely appalled." Ace smiled at that. He didn't remember anything about his mother, but he couldn't help but love her dearly; so anything he learned about her always filled him with joy.
But then Ace's lips quickly turned downward.
"And...?" He hesitated. He had never thought fondly of his father. And it didn't help that, in the end, Ace's own death could be blamed on the fact that he was his father's son.
"He was fun to have around," she told me. "He told me that I better stay away from his son for a long time." Ace wasn't sure what to make of her words. "He was a good man and he loved you dearly. He kept asking me to let him get a glimpse of you; even after I kept telling him that that was beyond my power." Ace's frown lightened into a soft smile, but he didn't say anything in response to her statement.
The two stood in silence for a while, for—Ace wasn't sure for how long they stood there since time didn't exist in that place. Did that mean that they hadn't sat there at all or—? Ace shook his head. This was way too complicated.
"What now?" He asked her. She simply shrugged.
"Don't just shrug!" He shouted at her. "There has to be something; I'm here for eternity, right?"
"You're here for only an instant."
"That makes no sense," he told her. She sat down on the ground; it was as dark as her cloak but it reflected the dim light that filled the area.
"I wouldn't expect it to make sense to you," she told him. "Human minds cannot grasp the concept of time not existing." Ace's eye twitched; he let out a deep sigh and sat down next to her with his legs stretched out and his arms supporting his weight behind him.
"This is not what I expected of the afterlife," he told her.
"No one ever does," she responded. He looked over at her.
"And you are not what I expected Death to be like." She looked over at him her with her head tilted to one side.
"What did you expect?" She asked him curiously.
"I don't know. But not a pretty girl." She looked away as a blush crossed her cheeks, though it was hidden by her mask; congratulations, Ace, she thought, you just succeeded in flustering an Absolute being.
"There are many incarnations of death," she told him. "I am but one amongst many." Ace furrowed his brow.
"Half of the things you say make no sense, y'know?" A smile graced her lips.
"So I've been told."
"Yet you keep doing it?" He questioned. Her smile shifted into a smirk. He couldn't help but smile in amusement at the change.
"So Death is mischievous then?" She opened her mouth to speak, but he spoke before the words could leave it. "Yeah, I know. Several incarnations or whatever." She chuckled lightly.
He decided that he needed to do something so he stood up and started walking around the area. He walked in a straight line but, somehow, always ended up back where he started. After the 17th time, he threw his hands up into the air and yelled out in frustration. Death sat there as she had before, crossed-legged, and unmoving, staring at the blank space in front of her with her mask still covering her eyes.
"This place is a void," she explained to him. "So direction does not exist here." Ace huffed and sat down in front of her with his legs also crossed. He stared straight at her, but she remained still. She didn't even fidget out of uncomfortability.
"Why do you wear that mask?" He asked her. Her expressionless face set itself into a frown. "Are you trying to look scary? Cause then it's not working." When she didn't respond, Ace moved his hand forward toward the mask but all he got to do was brush his fingers against the rough surface of the bare skull; her hand wrapped tightly around his wrist stopped him from moving any farther. The sudden coldness against his skin made him gasp and he pulled his hand away.
"You got a pretty strong grip there," he said as he rubbed his wrist. Death simply bowed her head as she interlaced her fingers on her lap. Ace placed his hands on his knees and frowned as he looked at her. He stared at her and noticed that her shoulders didn't rise and fall; she wasn't breathing, she didn't need to breathe, he thought. She was Death, after all. He wondered if she had a beating heart. She lifted her head up and looked at him with a sorrowful smile.
"Your mother asked me the same thing," she told him. "She kept harassing me to tell her." Ace smiled.
"And did you tell her?" He asked.
"Only at the end."
"There's an end? But I thought—."
"There's always an end," she said vaguely. Ace decided not to question that, knowing that she would only give him answers that would further confuse him.
"Will you tell me too?" She gave him a short hum; he wasn't sure if it meant a 'yes' or a 'no', but it led to a long silence, much to Ace's dismay.
At the sight of his frown, Death stood up and walked a few steps away from the freckled man. She didn't want to see him unhappy. She didn't want to see anyone unhappy, but with him—in no place or time or plane of existence was that his due; he was—his soul was too precious for that. Her mind flickered with different pieces of information, different manners of which to go about this, different words to utter along the way.
Death smiled when she found the perfect combination of the three.
Ace's eyebrows rose at the sudden change of demeanor that he saw on her face.
"Ace," she called to him in a sing-song voice. Ace stood up and walked toward her, and with every step that he took forward, he saw her take one back. He noticed that her smile had turned playful and he wanted to know why.
"I know something you don't know," she sang out in a teasing voice. That's why, thought Ace.
"Of course you do," he told her. Death huffed at Ace's reaction. Ace couldn't help but smile at the childish action that didn't seem fitting for a figure with a nature as dark as hers.
"I know something you wish you knew," she amended. Ace looked at her expectantly and she shook her head at him.
"Well, if you're not gonna tell me," Ace said and then shrugged, showing that he didn't care. Death huffed again and Ace couldn't help but find it so cute.
"I know something you wish you knew about your brother." Ace's eyes snapped wide open. If his heart had still been beating, it would have paused for a moment. Death sighed softly as she saw the frantic look that consumed him face. "It is nothing unpleasant." She watched as Ace's shoulders dropped back down, relaxing. He furrowed his brow for a moment wondering why he was even believing her. He realized that she had yet to give him a reason not to.
He was lost in his thoughts for a while, or at least that's what Ace assumed because when he came to focus on his surroundings again, the skull mask that Death wore was right in front of his face. He jumped back in shock. The mouth that was visible below the mask was set into a worried frown.
"So...umm," started Ace, "what is the thing that you know?" He watched her mouth curve back up into a smile.
"I'll tell you, but," she paused as she took several steps back. "You have to catch me first." She grinned at the man and then ran off.
Ace stood there for a moment in complete and utter confusion. Did Death just invite him to play a game of tag? He couldn't help grin at the realization that she indeed had. He ran in the direction that she had gone and started to chase after. She ran around in circles; she ran circles around him; she ran backwards sometimes—she was just downright teasing him.
And then the fun ended. He watched her mask move slightly forward and then down. She gasped as she tried to catch it before it completely fell off of her face, but she failed. Ace quickly grabbed it for her before it hit the ground. When he looked up, he froze as his eyes caught hers. He found them to be absolutely beautiful. They were dark but with specks of bright; it was like an entire galaxy was encased within them.
And then he noticed the red and puffiness that surrounded them; and the dried remnants of tears that lay below.
"You're beautiful," he said in a breathless tone. "But why does it look like you've been crying?" She turned her head to look away from him. He didn't like that her previous smile had been replaced by a frown.
"Because I have," she told him.
"I don't—."
"I wear the mask because it wouldn't be appropriate to see Death coming for you as a crying girl. What would you have thought if you had seen me like that?"
"But why?" Ace asked with a furrowed brow. "Why do you cry?"
"Why does anyone cry?" She asked rhetorically. "It is sad. Death is sad. I am Death, but...it hurts to take away those that did not deserve to die, that had so much to live for, that leave people behind, suffering." She looked at Ace and took a step closer to him. She placed her left hand against his right cheek and rubbed her thumb against his skin. Her hands were cold, but Ace didn't mind.
"You did not deserve to die," she said softly. Ace frowned at her words. He wasn't liking seeing her sad.
"And you don't deserve to be so sad all the time," he told her. "Why don't you just stop doing this?"
"I can't. This is the sole purpose of my existence. If I am not Death, then I am Nothing." Ace let her mask drop from his hand onto the floor. He placed his hands on her cheeks and pressed his forehead against hers. Her eyes widened and a blush settled on her cheeks.
"You're really cold, y'know?" He said. She looked at him questioningly before finding herself being pulled into a tight embrace. "I know I don't have my Devil Fruit abilities anymore, but I can still make you a little warmer, can't I?" Death felt her eyes start to tear up at the gesture. She moved her arms to wrap them around him. Her head lay against his chest, but she still managed to shake her head.
"Don't worry," she told him. "You're the perfect temperature." He smiled at that.
They remained like that for a while—for eternity, Ace hoped. He wouldn't have minded spending eternity holding her in his arms. But, like Death had said, there is always and end.
She was the one to pull away and end the embrace. She picked up her mask from the ground silently.
"It's time," she said after the mask was in her hand. Ace's eyes widened, he hoped that she didn't mean what he thought she meant.
"Time for what?" He asked nervously.
"Your soul has been judged so it is time for you to depart." She stepped aside to reveal a door behind her. She opened the door and Ace was hit with a bright light that hurt his eyes. Once he had adjusted to the light he saw that it was coming from the other side of the door, but that was all that he could see on the other side of it.
"What? No! You said I would be here for an eternity!" Ace reminded her.
"And you have been."
"Then an eternity isn't enough!" He shouted. Death's eyes widened at his statement. It caused her to smile at the freckled man before her.
"I'm happy that I got to be the one to ferry you."
"No. I don't want to leave you. I can't leave you. You'll be all alone. You'll be sad. You'll be cold."
"I'll be alright, Ace," she reassured him. She stepped closer to him and grabbed his cheeks pulling his face toward her until her lips met his own in a kiss; Ace felt a shiver crawl up his spine at the action. He moved his hands upward with the intention to hold her face so that he could properly kiss her back, but before he could she stepped back and away from him.
"I will always treasure this," she told him with a smile. "Oh. Remember that I know something you don't know." He looked at her with expectant, but sad eyes. "I'm not supposed to tell you. I'll probably get in a lot of trouble, but I don't care. I've grown to love you so much, Ace. You deserve to know—Sabo is actually alive. So don't worry about Luffy being left alone."
"How—" he began to ask, but before he could finish the question, Death gave him a sad smile and pushed him through the door and into the white light. The door quickly shut on it's own and tears immediately began to stream down her face. She placed her mask back on.
It was sad. Death was sad. She was Death.
[Several Decades Later]
"No," he told her as she stood over his death bed. "I don't want to go. I have people here who need me."
Death smiled at the black-haired man's stubborness.
"You're only making this worse for yourself," she told him as she ran her cold fingers across his cheek. "You cannot fight Death for Death is inevitable.
"No." Death sighed.
"I know that there are people that you would leave behind here, but there are also people that you'd find again if you come with me." She smiled at him. "I know for sure that there's a certain freckled brother of yours that would love to hear about how you became the king of the pirates." Luffy's eyes widened at her words.
"Ace..." He said softly. Tears started to gather in his eyes. He nodded at the girl and let his body relax. He reached his hand out to hers and she intertwined their fingers together.
There was darkness. A dimly lit darkness, but still darkness.
She explained to him, like with everyone else, where he what was to happen, but he didn't care much for it. He just wanted to see Ace.
Death smiled at his willfulness.
There passed an eternity and an instant. And then the door with the white light appeared.
"When you go through that door, you'll go where Ace is." Luffy nodded at her to show that he understood.
"But could I ask a favor of you?" She questioned. Luffy looked eager to go already, but paused to listen to her request.
"When you see Ace, could you tell him that Death says 'Hello'?" Luffy gave her his signature grin.
"Of course," he said. And with that he was through the door and gone.
And Death was left alone again.