a/n: First off, Happy Chuseok! Second, I feel like I didn't warn everyone enough that this will be my personal output for angst!Luffy and (over)protective!crew after finally reading the war arc for the first time. My focus is solely Luffy and his crew so the pacing of the story might feel quick(I plan to end this within three more chapters), but feel free to ask questions. I promise I will reply(&reply to reviews) as soon as I can.

There is intentional quoting of chapter 590, no infringement intended and no profit being made. On a side note, I found out that the title of 590, translated to 'My Brother' in English, was 'otouto-yo' which is not a noun but a call, not just 'brother' but 'little brother.' It's painfully bittersweet.

Ace is dead.

It feels like years passed from how the fact is heavily settled in his chest, but the blood on Luffy's hands has yet to dry. His gaze drops to them-and he has to double over to empty his stomach. Acid is bitter in his mouth but the heavy knot remains trapped somewhere between the base of his throat and stomach along with the memory of Ace's last moment in his arms.

It was a bullet to the heart and death was instantaneous. Almost, instantaneous. Luffy had just enough time to pull his brother into his arms and beg him not to die. Ace had enough time to press a grin into his brother's shoulder and say goodbye.

Luffy doesn't remember much after that.

Somebody must have pulled him away from his brother's body. Somebody must have pushed him into the alleys until Luffy's body understood what his mind could not and began to run for safety.

He stumbles now, barely saving himself by digging his fingers into the brick wall for balance-only to end up collapsing against it. He doesn't recognize where he is but it isn't far enough for it to be safe; the air stinks of steel and gunshots echo in the air. However, Luffy doesn't run; he slams his forehead against the wall because he was weak and dumb and his brother who taught him how to fight, stole his food whenever he wasn't guarding his plate enough, and visited Sabo's grave with him every year is dead.

In a different lifetime, Luffy might have still had a reason to continue on. He might have lost all he ever looked up to and yet found the strength and courage to move forwards for something equally important, something his to protect and depend on. The gaping despair in his own chest would have been the same but Luffy, through blurry tears, would have counted his blessings and moved on to become stronger.

In this one, Sabo is gone, Ace is dead and Luffy is now alone. He cannot go to Dadan or Makino for the danger it would put them in. He will not go to Garp and by default, the police, because he trusts his grandfather, but Luffy is the son of the most feared terrorist of the century and he will not force Garp to choose.

A rise of sheer dread clouds his vision; Luffy should push it down, swallow the regret and self-hate and, however much it hurts, focus. He won't count only what he lost. What is gone is gone, so what is it that he has left?

Luffy distantly hears a broken sound like a dying animal keening, and Luffy's last thoughts before his vision spirals into darkness are to wonder if it lost everything too.

It is far past midnight when Brook tucks his violin into its case. Most people have returned to the warmth of their own homes but today, Brook couldn't quite walk away. He sighs and is adjusting his case straps when his normally quiet puppy starts to bark.

"Laboon?" Brook twists around in surprise. "What's-"

The musician cuts himself off because he sees what is wrong (or maybe what is right) in the form of a slight boy slumped on the back of a teenager. The teenager stands less than two feet away, still and wary like a feral dog, yet it is the sight of the raven head resting on the teen's shoulder that has Brook stepping closer. He doesn't remember placing the violin down though he must have because both of his hands are free to touch the tousled head, carefully, gently the way one would hold a newborn baby-or something equally incredibly important.

It is so intimate a gesture; Brook doesn't know who is more surprised: himself or the wary teen. The teen has seemed to have pulled out of his initial shock but he stays where he is and allows Brook's inspection.

"He's bleeding," Brook's fingertips come back crimson red.

"I think he got shot too," The teen's voice is low and rough but surprisingly calm. "He needs a doctor but somebody who won't call it in. Someone discreet. Someone who can keep him off the radar."

Brook should find it strange for the teen to confide in him. He answers like he had been on that very corner of the street in that very city until that very moment, waiting for the two all along. "I know a man who knows a man. Come with me, he will help."

The doctor is well-known for not caring where his patients or their wounds came from. His only rule is to keep the fighting off his property, one all parties gladly obey for a safe place to sleep and rest when recovering from would-be fatal wounds. His dingy office, situated just between the third and second district, is within reach of both innocent civilians and those who choose to live on the other side of the law. His medical school peers try to recruit him but he remains resolute in his belief that even those who cannot pay for treatment are still patients and it is his obligation to provide it.

Chopper is damn good at his job and between treating scraped knees for sniffling children and knife wounds for 'if-I-told-you-my-name-I'd-have-to-kill-you's, he became highly accustomed to emergencies like two people barging in at one in the morning with a third, unconscious person in tow.

All the same, he stills for a moment when he sees the two. The taller one, who left a gigantic puppy at the doorstep has to be the friend Doctor Hiluluk called him minutes ago about. Chopper has no idea who the younger one is, but the front of his white shirt is splattered in blood and the sight strikes Chopper strange. He dismisses the thought to order the teen to carefully settle his injured friend into his surgery room-and stills again when he sees his patient.

It is a boy who looks much younger than he probably is, with his disheveled hair and pale skin in contrast with the blood. He is battered and the darkening patches on his skin indicate defensive bruising. The boy has a shattered collarbone, three broken ribs and a fractured femur and it feels wrong, as if the boy having broken bones is against the very laws of nature. All of it comes after the gunshot wound though. The bullet is lodged in the center of his chest and it is nothing short of a miracle that it avoided major arteries and the spine.

"What's his name? Patients tend to react better if you call their name to them," Chopper asks as he prepares for surgery. The two take it as a cue to step back but not before the teen answers.

"We don't know. He wasn't very responsive when I found him," The teen pauses and if Chopper turned around, he would have seen the teen at the doorway, head tilted. "You'll save him."

Chopper has heard those same words as a sobbed plea, a hopeful question and even a poorly-veiled threat. From the teen, it is simply an observation. The sky is blue, the grass is green and Chopper will save the boy.

He replies. "Yes."

"Bakanky?" Iceburg looks back and forth between the blaring TV and his friend who is poring over an unfinished blueprint on his workdesk. "Are you okay?"

Franky never looks up but he answers. "Yeah."

Unsatisfied, Iceburg glances at the TV again. "And you're sure you don't know this Portgas kid?"

"Yeah."

"But you keep the news on in case they have something new about him."

"Yeah."

"You never watch the news."

"Yeah."

"Franky?"

"Yeah."

Iceburg frowns and carefully steps around the paraphernalia scattered around the floor; both of them have too much respect for each other's work to be anything but obsessively careful in each other's work-space. He peers by Franky's feet and grimaces. Behind Franky's desk are four empty coke bottles and it is barely nine in the morning. Things are serious.

Iceburg tries. "Are you secretly harboring a gay crush for Portgas?"

"Yeah."

"Are you secretly harboring a gay crush for me?"

"Yeah."

Things are serious. Time to bring out the big guns. "Did you know we're out of coke?"

"Yeah-what?" Franky's head snapped up but he frowned when he saw Iceburg double over in laughter. "Not super man. You don't joke with a man's supply of coke."

"Cocaine maybe. coke, not so much. You're planning to build a house?" Iceburg takes a look at what Franky is working on. He whistles. "Scratch that, is this a house or a fortress?"

Franky settles back and grins. "Pretty sweet huh?"

"Uh huh... Wait, are you being commissioned for this?"

"No, why?"

Iceburg frowns at the number of rooms on the second floor. "Because that's oddly specific."

"Ten seemed like too much, eight seemed like too little," Franky shrugs, sheepish. "But I'm thinking of moving all the rooms up a floor and clearing the space for two rooms instead."

One room would have a private bathroom and separate room in lieu of a closet. It would probably have a wall full of books and soft rugs by the beds. The other room would be larger, with bunk beds and worn couches and possibly some handhold consoles in the corner of the room.

"It's weird," Franky taps the blueprint with his knuckle. "This was always floating around in my head but I never wanted to put it down on paper. Now, it's like I can't keep this in. That news about Newgate's kid dying-it wasa wake-up call."

It stopped him from hesitating with the but for who? and answered with the urgency of nownownow.

Now, Franky grins. "It's gonna be the greatest house in the world."

Iceburg doesn't know but the house will have a lion mantle on the oak wood door, a library and its own aquarium. It will have an enormous kitchen, a gigantic yard and an even bigger living room for movies and ghost stories and afternoon naps.

Franky doesn't know but it will be the greatest house in the world because it will be their home.

Brook and Chopper are in the hall, no doubt discussing their available options for an injured boy who refuses to say a word. Zoro, who was left in the room to watch the kid, watches the kid. The kid hasn't taken his eyes off from the doorway since the two left and Zoro can't tell if the kid is waiting for a chance to run, or terrified of who might walk back in.

"The tall one was Brook. The doctor's Chopper," Chopper said the kid's vocal cords weren't physically damaged and the cause was likely to be psychological. Zoro figures the kid will talk when he feels like it. "Both of them spent the past twenty four hourss at your bedside while you were out. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't go through all that just to off you when you get better."

The boy's gaze from the door doesn't move but the boy's breathing changes, ever so slightly. So the boy isn't as far in his own head as the others thought."And I'm-huh?"

Zoro pulls out his phone and squints at the screen. It's Kuina and scrolling down his call history, Zoro finds that during the past day, he missed twenty three calls and eleven text messages. Eight calls and one text message are from Kuina's father. The rest are from Kuina herself and the texts vary from curiosity("Not comin to get ur butt kicked tonite :D?") to worry("Where are you?") to apoplectic rage("ASSHOLE PICK UP THE GOD DAMN PHONE"). He snorts, and texts back "busy." The reply is immediate.

Call me or I WILL break Kitetsu.

She's serious. Zoro should know; the last time he scared her boyfriend away with a "chat" a man gave to one attempting to court said man's foster-sister, she threw him Yubashiri, challenged him to battle, and then proceeded to break it. Rubbing the back of his neck. Zoro condemns himself to his fate for the sake of his sword.

He's about to pick himself up when for the first time, the boy's gaze slides to him.

It is the boy's first acknowledgment and Zoro stills. The boy only stares at him with the same look he had since waking up-a strange mix of desperation and vague panic-but for a split second, his gaze flickers back to the door.

Oh.

Zoro flips his phone close and buries it back in his jacket.

"I'm Zoro," He tells him, the same way a person would say don't worry, and stays.

Three days of silence later, the boy tells them his name.

"Marco, has Vista reported…" Edward Newgate, founder and president of WB, trails off as he enters his office. He tells the shadow standing by his desk. "You've got guts coming here brat."

Robin smiles. The man is as tough as they say; if Newgate was surprised upon finding an uninvited stranger in his own office, Robin cannot tell.

"I came to make a proposal. Nothing else," Robin says. She slipped past the security once but in a building as secures as the headquarters of WB, she cannot use the same method twice. Especially after announcing herself like this. She is essentially without an escape route in enemy grounds and it is, in her own way, a sign of goodwill.

Newgate seems to recognize it as well for he raises a hand. Marco takes a step back and Robin clicks the safety of her gun back on. "There are only a handful of people with the skills to get in here. The ones with the guts to actually do it are even less. Nico Robin, what do you want?"

Robin smiles again, but this time, it is full of teeth. "Everybody knows that you plan to take Teach's crew down. I want in."

"And you offer..?"

Robin places her gun on the edge of Newgate's desk and slowly pulls out a manila envelope from her bag.

"I take you to Teach," Neither of them show a visible response but the tension in the air increases. "This information is only valid for the next forty eight hours but I found them once. I can find them again. The man you sent, Vista, will never find him because he's good but Teach is better," Newgate raises an eyebrow and Robin smoothly adds. "I'm best."

Marco speaks up for the first time. "How much do you know?"

It is a wise question, testing her and her intel. However Robin is not bluffing and she will gladly prove it.

"The police wanted the son of Dragon and Teach wanted the entire southern part of the third district. The two struck a deal; a hostage in exchange for territory.

"Teach, like most others, only knew one thing about the son; the son was sworn brothers with 'Fire Fist.' He spread word on the street that 'Fire Fist' was taken by his crew and the child," Probably having no one else to ask, "Believed it. He ran straight into Teach's arms, thinking he was going to save his brother. Teach's plan could have been efficient and perfect."

However, the fatal flaw in the plan was that Teach had no idea who 'Fire Fist' was.

"Teach is clever, almost dangerously so. However, he has not been in the city long enough to understand what the most of us already knew: that Fire Fist was Portgas Ace and Portgas is yours. He suspected Fire Fist would come but thought it would be inconsequential. He thought he could handle it."

Teach was wrong.

"He claims that Portgas was killed in the crossfire," Robin pulls the coordinates from the manila envelope and offers them to Newgate. "But I believe that matters little to a man who lost his son."

Newgate scans the papers in silence before passing them on to Marco. "Why do you offer this Nico Robin? And don't take me as a fool; I know exactly what happened with Crocodile and CP9."

It is the final and trickiest question because Robin is well aware of her own reputation. If she tells him the truth, that there is no reason at all but that she saw a photo of the boy named Luffy and decided to do so, he will never believe her. If she lies, he will sense it and refuse to trust her and her information. Robin is not naïve enough to believe that she can take down Teach and his crew by herself; Newgate is her best bet.

Robin opts for honesty.

"Few things anger me Mr. Newgate. It seems that Teach is one of them," Robin is calm but something cold and terrible and ancient gleams in her eyes. "I've decided that if he asks for battle, I will give him war."

Newgate returns the gaze with the same steel and Robin knows their deal is done.