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There was fire. Lots and lots of fire. Everything was burning around him, the black smoke crawling into his lungs, choking him. He tried to put it out, taking off his jacket, and then wondered how this had happened so quickly.
He didn't have much time to elaborate on it before the sound of a cannon reached his ears, and pain, pain, pain. His boat fell apart around him, and he sunk down, down, down, drowning, trying to get air but only inhaling more and more water.
In his last moments, all he felt was the pain of drowning, and the pain of knowing that he wouldn't get the chance to see his brothers on the wide, blue ocean.
Free.
Sabo woke up suddenly and violently, clutching his chest and throat as he coughed, eyes watering.
I'm on the floor, he noticed distantly as he stood up shakily, breathing harshly and shaking his head to dispel the images of a burning boat and the deep, dark sea laid out on all sides of him.
That will not be the last time. You do not belong here, child.
Sabo turned around sharply, looking everywhere but unable to find the condescending voice.
Oh, look at that. I'm finally going insane. It only took getting to the afterlife. Sabo thought sarcastically, dismissing the voice as unimportant.
Wishing he was still able to drink a glass of water, he felt a pair of eyes on him. There, sitting in his bed and looking up at him, was Ace. He flinched as he was spotted, before he spoke. "You okay? What happened?"
Sabo looked at him hesitantly, not knowing whether or not telling him what he dreamt of was a good idea.
"You know," he started, laughing nervously and sitting back down on the ground. "I didn't even know I could sleep. And I haven't, not a single night since I'd started traveling with you. It just sorta happened, but I don't know if I could really even call it that. It was- weird."
Ace looked at him seriously, urging Sabo to continue. He did, but his reluctance to give a direct answer was obvious. He averted his gaze.
"I had a bad dream. That's it, Ace. I'm fine, so, you can just go back to sle-"
"No." Sabo flinched, looking back up at Ace. There was a weird kind of determination in his eyes, and Sabo immediately knew he'd lost. "Tell me. I know something's wrong."
At this point, Ace just looked desperate for answers. It was almost as if he already knew what it was, but was refusing to believe it.
Sighing resignedly, Sabo looked back to the floor, biting his lip in apprehension. "I dreamt about my death."
There was a small intake of breath from Ace, and then Sabo continued; albeit with a cringe.
"Look, I'm not gonna go and make this dramatic, okay, Ace?" Sabo told Ace almost irritatedly, looking at him with narrowed eyes. He was fed up with the tension in the room, and whilst he could've made it melodramatic and sappy, he'd rather stray away from the guilt and self-loathing Ace was guaranteed to adopt after his little show.
"Alright, yeah, I'm dead. That's kind of depressing," Sabo began awkwardly, watching as Ace face-palmed; knowing that Sabo was no longer taking their conversation seriously and had moved on to something completely different. "But at the end of the day, there isn't any going back, so I'd rather dump the whole 'regretting life choices' thing than getting all sad about things that could've been. We're supposed to be living a life without regrets, aren't we?"
Sabo nodded to himself for his little speech, before adding (mostly to himself), "Well, I mean, I'm dead, so I don't actually have much of a life ahead of me."
Sabo laughed quietly to himself for a second before bidding goodnight to Ace, who had slumped back down into his bed after about five seconds of his lecture.
As Ace fell asleep, Sabo felt proud of himself for not revealing how much he really wished he was still alive.
The days went by fairly quickly after that. It wasn't too long before Sabo found himself behind a large wall of fire, shouting for Ace as the latter looked up challengingly at the strongest man in the world; Whitebeard. He was battered and tired from his five-day battle with Jinbei- a Shichibukai, as well as one of Whitebeard's friends- but still determined, nonetheless.
"Ace, you can't! He's too strong- he's the strongest man in the world!" Sabo shouted, worriedly staring through the blazing fire and almost not seeing Ace get knocked back to the ground.
"Dammit," Sabo cursed, clenching his fists and hardening his resolve. Squeezing his eyes shut, Sabo braced himself and ran through the raging fire, opening his eyes when he reached the other side.
Looking down at his unharmed body, Sabo berated himself for being such a coward before he was reminded about Ace's predicament as the Yonko began to speak.
"Gurararara... Cheeky brat. You're a hundred years too young to be going up against me."
Ace tried to retort, but was unable to as he leaned exhaustedly on his elbows; still half-laying on the rocks. His fire was dimming, and it was already dark outside.
"If you still want to fight... Then take my name and roam the seas, wild and free!"
Whitebeard bent down and held his hand in front of Ace. His eyes widened.
"Become my son."
After that, Ace joined the crew. It was more like a different form of kidnapping, actually, and Ace was not having it. It had been barely two days with Ace having refused any offers of food, staying in his little corner on the railing of the Moby Dick, and Sabo was worried.
"Ace... I know you don't trust these people, and I don't completely trust them yet, either, but you have to eat something," Sabo told Ace exasperatedly, arms crossed. Ace ignored him, purposefully avoiding his gaze. Sabo glowered at him for a moment before throwing his hands up in the air and walking away; knowing that it wasn't worth the effort and, instead, decided that exploring the ship and observing the crew members would probably do some good.
After exploring the deck some, he made it to the hallways where the living quarters were. He peaked through some doors for anything of interest before coming across the fourth division commander's room, with said commander in said room.
This particular room had caught Sabo's interest because it was the man who, throughout the day before, had frequently come to Ace to offer food. He had been fairly nice, even a bit funny, so Sabo wanted to observe a bit and see if he really is the man he was portraying.
'Oh, I have a great idea.' Sabo thought, seeing as the man (Thatch, was it?) was doing paperwork.
It was something that had worked for him before, when he was with Ace on the ship and wanted to push the limit on what he could and couldn't do.
Writing, it seemed, was one of those things he could.
So when Thatch put his quill down and began murmuring to himself about pineapples and how they shouldn't be giving people paperwork when they weren't even sentient beings (a mouthful indeed), Sabo approached his table, picked up his quill, and wrote on one of the half-blank pieces of paper that Thatch was still working on.
Thatch, is it? Hello, I'm Bo. Nice to meet you.
When Sabo put the quill back where it was and looked up, Thatch was staring; dumbfounded at the sight of the new words on his important paperwork and the fact that he saw a pen writing by itself.
This lasted only a few seconds, however, before he scrambled out of his chair with the piece of paper and ran straight out the door, frantically calling for a man named Marco.
"Oops." Sabo said to himself. He didn't actually care all that much, though the reaction was fairly amusing. "I guess I'll go follow him."
He caught up to Thatch just before he ran into Marco, who was in the process of talking to Ace. Sabo jogged up to Ace, before leaning on the railing next to him. "I might've done something," He said, earning a raised eyebrow from Ace before they both looked back over to Thatch and Marco.
Thatch was waving his paper in the air in front of Marco's face, and the phoenix's eye was twitching.
"MARCO! My pen was floating in the air when I put it down because pineapples and it wrote a note on the work you gave me and Ithinkthere'saghostontheship-"
Thatch's startled babbling was cut off by Marco, who put a strong hand on his shoulder and looked at him irritatedly.
"Slow down, yoi. What the hell are you talking about?"
Thatch showed him the piece of paper, which Marco took and read aloud. "It says... 'Thatch, is it? Hello, I'm Bo. Nice to meet you.' ... What?"
As soon as Ace heard the name "Bo", it took all of his willpower not to look at Sabo and face-palm. He did, however, glare mercilessly at the piece of paper in the phoenix's hands.
Noticing his look, Marco turned to look at Ace curiously. "You know something, yoi?"
Ace looked towards Sabo for a moment, contemplating, before narrowing his eyes and looking the other way with a huff. "No. And if I did, it's not like I'd tell you."
Marco studied Ace at his answer, before shrugging and turning back to Thatch; returning the sheet of paper. "Here. Whatever it is, it has manners and hasn't done any harm, so I think you'll be fine. You'll have to redo that work, though."
"Dammit, and I worked so hard, too. Whatever," Thatch sighed resignedly before sullenly walking back to his room.
Marco was about to follow, before he turned back to look at Ace once more. "You know, you can eat. It's not like we're sticking any kind of poison in your food, yoi. Pops invited you onto the ship because he likes you; we have no reason to kill or hurt you. He isn't that kind of guy."
Ace stubbornly avoided his gaze. "Why do you call him 'Pops', anyway?" He scowled.
Marco smiled fondly at the question. "Because he calls us his children."
Ace finally looked over at Marco, eyebrows furrowed. Marco said nothing else, finally turning to leave. Sabo and Ace were left alone by the railing.
"Hey, Ace," Sabo called quietly. Ace turned to look at him with questioning eyes.
"I think you can trust him."
Some time passed. Ace finally accepted food, but refused to trust the Whitebeard's completely quite yet. He even tried to attack Whitebeard himself numerous times despite Sabo's insistence (utterly losing every time), but after a few months, Ace started begrudgingly warming up to the crew.
Sabo stayed around Ace most of the time, sometimes wandering around the ship to listen to the crew's lighthearted conversations and watch some pranks being pulled by Thatch and another member named Haruta. He would have tried writing more to the fourth division commander, but he and Ace both knew that it would just cause trouble, so he - although annoyed - agreed not to do it again.
Well, "never again" was a big commitment, so he wasn't going to keep to that completely. He probably wouldn't be doing it any time soon, of course.
But he would definitely be doing it again.
Back to the point, after a few months, Ace had begun to grow attached to the big crew of kind pirates. After enough time, he had officially joined the crew, and gained a huge tattoo on his back which he proudly showed off every day due to his lack of shirt. Sabo was unbelievably proud of his brother, as well, and grew to trust the pirates just as much as Ace did.
It was in the middle of a random night, both Ace and Sabo leaning on the railing next to the figurehead, when Sabo suddenly grinned at his brother; his slightly translucent form glowing slightly in the light of the moon.
"What?" Ace asked, looking at him weirdly.
Sabo's grin went soft with melancholy as he gazed up at the stars. "You've found yourself a great new family, and I can definitely say that I'm proud of you and that I trust them to take care of you if I ever have to leave."
Ace's eyes grew sad and he moved over to sit closer to his brother, sighing. "I'm glad."
They didn't say anymore, relishing the time they had together.
Later, after Ace would become second division commander, Sabo would feel something odd in the presence of a member of the second division and the fourth division commander. Something not right, something looming and eerie.
Something bad was coming. And he wouldn't know what until later.
Ahhhhh. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, this took way longer than it should have. And it's totally my fault, I just put off writing a lot of this due to laziness and procrastination. But I finally got to it, and out of it came a longer chapter, so I hope that makes up for it just a little. I'll try to get the chapter after this out way sooner than this one, especially with that cliffhanger at the end.
Thanks for hanging in there, and thank you for the reviews on the last chapter! You have no idea how much I appreciate them.
I'd love feedback! Please, leave a review!