-ACE-

The room, after several long minutes, had finally begun to quiet down. When Luffy had returned from one of his "walks" through the forest, Ace had been planning on scolding him for leaving the hut without himself, but the sight of his little brother dragging a bloodied and unconscious form through the front door stopped him cold. It took his brain several seconds to register the scene he was seeing. Luffy. An unknown person. Blood. His little Lu covered in blood.

Snapping back to his senses, he ran forward and frantically checked Luffy for any wounds, fearing he had somehow also been injured along with the blond. Ace could barely make out what he was saying through the gibberish and ragged breaths, but from what he could glean, Luffy had found the kid already injured on his way through the glade, and decided to bring him back. It took some extreme self-control for Ace not to scream at his little brother for practically scaring him to death, but the body in front of him was much more important at that moment. Upon closer inspection the kid, probably around his own age, he looked to have several small lacerations and bruises across his face, and a profusely bleeding gunshot wound to his lower abdomen.

After seeing this, he knew there wouldn't be much he could do personally to help the kid. Making a decision, he hurriedly ran into the other room to wake up Dadan and the other bandits, who had probably already heard the ruckus near the front door, now yelling, "wake up you old hag! We could really use your help in here!"

Clearly this was more than enough to get a crowd of cranky and tired bandits where he needed them to be. A lot of angry moans and groans were silenced when they also saw the sight Ace had just come upon. Per Dadan's instructions and moderately quick thinking, not that Ace believed she could think much in the first place, they were able to get the new arrival out of Luffy's death grip and sufficiently patched up for the time being. All while this was occurring Ace was over by his brother trying to calm him down. It wasn't that he had never seen blood, I mean they hunt nearly every day, but he believed that Luffy seeing so much blood on a kid that looked to be Ace's age, it probably gave him a rather large shock considering that could have been his older brother.

He was finally able to coax Luffy into a fitful sleep, seeing him unconsciously grip and ungrasp the straw hat he was holding against his chest; this being the same hat he had received several weeks prior from the man Ace could barely get his brother to shut up about. He was about ready to storm out one day and kill that red headed bastard when Lu had come home with a bandage under his eye that covered a large crescent shaped gouge from a knife, but calmly and in a happy tone Luffy had told him that he had done it to himself. That explanation did not in any way quench his fury, it only shifted it to the seven year old idiot. Let's just say that little Luffy now had a large bruise on his forehead to accompany his new scar, if only temporary.

Now, leaning with his shoulder on the door frame Ace's eyes scanned the unconscious body currently inhabiting a space on their floor. The kid had short blond hair and a rather round face, but as his eyes slid down he couldn't help the frown that spread across his features. Though the coat the blond had on was opened to reveal the bandages wrapped around his ribcage and lower extremities, the detailing in said coat and the designer pants along with the top had that had been found with him all pointed to one thing: this kid, however he got this way, was a noble. If there was one thing he hated with almost as much passion as hearing his father's namesake, it was nobles; the fact that a young noble would be in such a state could only mean trouble for himself and Luffy. Trouble he wasn't sure he wanted to handle with the chance of their secret getting out.

So, there Ace waited in silence for the little noble to wake up, and he would determine what to do from there.

-Sabo-

Burning. All Sabo could feel was the intense burning pain racing up and down his frame, even in his semi-cognitive state. 'Am I dead', he thought, 'no, I don't believe I am. If I was I'm sure Hell would be a lot hotter than this'. Insert internal mind chuckle here. In his haze he thought back to the past week, and the events leading up to his ill-advised confession. A truly stupid decision on his part the more and more he thought about it, but to be fair he truly believed with all of his heart that his closet and lifelong friend could have been trusteed by now with his darkest and most well-kept secret. But boy was he wrong, the second he had divulged it and laid his heart out on his sleeve, the little traitor decided to drive a knife right through it by telling practically the first person he could find. Bastard. Maybe that's how he was miraculously alive, maybe they had found him, if they hadn't they would discover he wasn't already dead and come after him anyway. 'Lose lose if you ask me…'

He had been warned numerous times about the near certainty of this exact situation happening by the strange person who would visit on orders from THAT man. But, being the ten year old that he was, he bet all his cards on the flimsy ties of supposed trust, and lost. Not that he could blame his ex-friend, 'if the positions were reversed I probably would have done the exact same thing, I mean who wouldn't', he groggily thought as he desperately began to try to pull himself out of his unconscious state. Sabo wasn't very successful, it was as if something had a hold on his mind, forcing him to stay in the dark.

'Hey, you!'

'Yeah you, that sad excuse for a human being', silently Sabo let out a shudder.

'You deserve this, you deserve to be here, you don't deserve to wake up and see the sky again, or to be what you want most: to be free' a dark and fickle part of himself thought, laughing. The part of him that truly believed those words, the part that deep down knew that they were the cold hard truth. Sabo quickly pushed that part of himself back into the far recesses of his mind scape. 'To be free', those three words were just the fuel he needed to drag himself out of the darkness and back into the world of light.

…

Slowly, letting out a barely audible groan of discomfort Sabo cracked open his eyes to observe his new surroundings. Carefully trying to push himself up with his shaking arms, and was only semi-successful. Drinking in his new surroundings as his gaze drifted all across the room, he noticed that someone had done him the courtesy of patching him up. How sweet of them. Sabo appeared too sprawled out on the floor of some sort of wooden shack. Oh joy!

It wasn't for several more moments until he noticed a young figure standing in the open doorway; this quickly prompted Sabo to stiffen, ready for whatever this person may have in store, even though he did have a rather large hole currently in his stomach region. Worry about that later, first figure out if this kid is a friend or foe. Hesitantly he met the dark gaze of the freckled child, and what he saw he didn't like, cold, pure, hatred. The first words to come out of the menacing kid struck him so hard he almost flinched. Almost.

"So Blondie, care to tell me how you ended up bloody, and half dead in my little brother's arms? I'm curious", that gaze was everything but curious.

Well shit.

-?-

"Yes, yes, I will have someone right on it."

Click.

The sound of fast footsteps could be heard accompanied by the swift opening of a door. The steps ground to an abrupt stop.

"Sir, I have just received word about a certain incident pertaining to THAT island."

The man behind the desk stiffened and turned, his full attention now focused on the man in front of him. "Tell me every word", he uttered, and so he heard every word. He did not like what he heard. Several long curses were spoken.

"Leave me!" The man then commanded. All of the possibilities flashed through his mind. There was no way this would go unnoticed, it was now past the point of no return. The day he had hoped would never come.

Another shudder.

A tightly clenched fist.

"So now they will finally be found".

Words spoken to an empty room.

Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece, just the story and the plot. :)

A/N: (Might be a long author's note-sorry) Thank you to those who read/reviewed/favorite/followed the past two chapter. I wasn't expecting so many to view this little story I had come up with in just the three days it has been up. I hope you enjoyed this new chapter, and the next one should be coming out soon. On another note, in a review someone asked about the "weather omens" in the last chapter, and as much as I want to just go out and tell you what they meant and what they could mean in the future, I will leave you with at least a hint to whoever may be reading this. In the anime a certain episode caught my eye when it directly used the weather in a certain instance, and I wanted to delve more into that in this particular story. But if you have any interest as to guess, and get it close enough to right, I will possibly confirm it for you. Suggestions are welcome, and much appreciated. See you next time! Review :)