It was one of those moments where it felt like time had stopped and stood still for a short while. The mind goes into hyper drive and a million thoughts race across, then as a light bulb lit up, some part of the brain clicks, and everything falls into place. Ace wasn't quite sure what to do, now that he had actually met him, his supposed alternate self in an alternate, crazy world, which all sprouted from this insane dream he had during a coma.

It wasn't supposed to be real. Not at all.

He stared at himself, unable to form any words or proper thoughts. To be honest, he didn't think beyond stopping him, because all that was on his mind was that the dream was real. A tiny part of him sighed in relief, glad that he wasn't going insane, at least not yet. Yet, if anyone saw them… there was going to be a big problem.

Similar thoughts were racing through pirate Ace's mind as he warily examined his other self, trying to comprehend the situation. Their appearances were the same, down to the last freckle. It was honestly strange, looking at yourself, how you would've become if you had been born in different circumstances.

Then, another realization sprung up, a delayed response thanks to his shock.

Mafia. Meeting himself. Ending up in a random alley.

It took a moment for him to figure out he was in another world that was completely different from his own. It was something he should've realized sooner, but the buildings and structures were so similar to some places back in his world. Now. Ace didn't quite know how he ended up there, and that stupid blank memory refused to spring back. There were still just those strange clips that didn't make sense, but told of something upsetting.

Suddenly, his other self seemed to snap out of whatever reverie he was just in and dragged him brusquely by the collar of the stolen jacket, hauling him inside an apartment building. Ace barely registered the act and had nearly fallen over from the abrupt movement. That, and been dragged backwards. His double's eyes darted around nervously, as if afraid of anyone seeing them. Ace was about to open his mouth and politely object to been pulled around, but his other self spoke first. "What the hell are you doing here?!" he hissed furiously.

Well, that wasn't exactly what he had expected him to say. He crossed his arms, his temper flaring up swiftly. "I don't know either. I ended up in a coma, lying in a stupid alley, not knowing what the hell happened. And right after I woke up a few guys decided it was fun to attack me. My mind's still messed up."

There was a moment of silence as the other tried to digest this information. As if struggling to find proper words, he said hesitantly, "… But how did you know that I was you?"

"Because… you look exactly like me? Isn't that a rather obvious answer?" Ace had an inkling of an idea of what he was asking for, but pretended to be stupid. Just in case he was the only one who had freakish visions.

His double looked as if he was resisting the urge to knock some sense into him. He was fairly proud to say that one of his best skills was to annoy people. "No, not that. Did you happen to have strange dreams of some sort?"

"You had them, too? Guess I'm not the only nutcase here, then."

"Otherwise I wouldn't be asking you that, idiot. And I assumed what you saw was my life?"

"So you saw all of mine, then." Ace had to admit that it seemed to be easier to talk to yourself. Everything clicked together faster as the brains were almost like they were synched together.

Another pause.

Now, if his other self had seen all of what happened to him, then that meant he would know about the strange battles and the magma fist. He would finally be able to figure out that blank part in his memory. A strange gut feeling, though, told him to not ask the question. But he decided to ignore it. "Then…" he paused, thinking about how to phrase it to not sound like he was sure he died. "You know about… my last moments, right?" He hoped that phrasing would get the meaning across.

The other's face darkened, tensing. "I do." From the troubled expression, he obviously didn't want to talk more about it.

"What happened?" Something bad, obviously. He felt himself beginning to sweat from the nerves. He didn't really die, did he? Wasn't that just paranoia?

His double studied him for a while. "You forgot," he surmised. "I would expect so. I'd want to forget it, as well. Are you sure you want to know?"

Ace nodded.

"You died," he stated simply, expressionless. "And your last words were, even though I'm so worthless-"

"Even though I carry the blood of a demon, thank you for loving me" Ace finished in a whisper, remembering the words all too well. The beginning had acted as a trigger, and that horrifying experience was starting to come back. "… Oh… oh god…"

"It's coming back to you, isn't it?" His other self had an expression of sympathy.

Ace felt tears welling up in his eyes, threatening to spill. He didn't even dare to imagine how Luffy was coping right now with his death. When Sabo died, he cried so hard, and they didn't even know each other for very long. Ace had spent a good seven years living together with him. They were so close. If he had died… What was he going to do? Who's going to protect his weak little brother? Both Sabo and he were gone now. And Luffy had gone through hell and back to save him, going through all the levels of Impel Down to get to him, then fought tooth and nail in the Marineford war.

He just had to have his anger get him. It got him killed.

That was the most stupid thing he had ever done in his life.

Pops and all his brothers-in-arms, and all of Pops's allies had put their lives on the line to save him.

Ace was unaware that his legs were shaking and his breathing had picked up.

Heavy guilt.

Mafia Ace observed him with concern; he knew what he was thinking about. Luffy and the Whitebeard crew. He must be really worried about how his little brother would cope after his death (even though he was clearly alive in this world), and what happened to the Whitebeard in his world. He still remembered how the veteran pirate had stated that he had intended to die at Marineford, letting his sons escape. What had happened after Ace had died? Did he still…? Ace was unable to continue thinking, not wanting to imagine his death, even if he was from another world and not Ace's.

He had to admit that those were some nasty experiences his other self had gone through previously, especially with their world's Impel Down. Everyone in the underground business had dubbed it as Hell, because it was, pretty much, Hell. Watching it had made him feel incredibly lucky that he hadn't gone through such events – at least not yet.

His other self had begun to hyperventilate, and Ace figured it was a good idea to snap him out of his trance. "Hey," he said, shaking him gently.

"It's all my fault," the other muttered miserably, "My stupid fuckin' temper."

Guess the anger issue never changed. If Ace remembered correctly, the same problem had him ended up in the hospital. He really didn't know what to say to his pirate self, and so he decided to quietly lead him back to his apartment. He will need some time to cool down and have everything sink in.

"You know you'll have to snap out of this eventually."

Ace knew that his mafia self was right, and to stay like this would be unhealthy, but … it just wasn't possible.

The guilt. The overpowering guilt that had swallowed him. All the death he had caused, all the pain and sorrow, when all boiled down it was his fault.

"Seriously."

Ace paid no attention. He heard the other sigh in exasperation and proceeded to poke hard him in the shoulder repeatedly. "Oi…"

His hands curled into fists. Son of the devil, indeed.

"Quit it."

He thought he had answered that question, if he deserved to exist. The answer became ambiguous once more. He felt like everyone else would be better off if he was dead.

"Seriously!" Ace was roughly shaken by the shoulders. His other self looked at him in the eye, their faces pressed close to each other.

"Listen to me," he commanded. Ace only stared back blankly.

"Think of it this way. You're obviously not dead, because you're clearly alive and breathing at this moment. Somehow you were transported to this dimension instead of dying from your wounds."

A numb nod.

"All we have to do is find a way to reverse what had happened and we'll send you back to your own world."

It took a full minute for Ace to fully register his other self's words. As they finally sunk in his mind, he jumped up in excitement and nearly sent his double toppling over. "You're right!" he exclaimed. He had actually never thought about it that way. Some part of his mind had believed he was maybe just a ghost, or maybe it was some twisted version of Heaven.

Mafia Ace sighed. "You can be awfully dense," he remarked.

Ace raised an eyebrow. "You know you're also insulting yourself, right?"

"… I do realize that."

An awkward moment of silence passed, then Ace heard a tune coming from his other self's… pocket? It was a catchy little tune, and he found himself humming along with it. His other self reached inside and pulled out a thin, black rectangle that was playing the song.

"What the heck is that?" he questioned. He had never ever seen anything like that in his entire life.

"That's a phone. Do you people not have these?" Mafia Ace waved said object in front of his nose. He saw that it was vibrating as well, with two buttons showing up on the screen, one green, one red.

"A phone? Like a den den mushi?" Those things were apparently used for communication, and the only thing they really had were the useful snails equipped with some other stuff Ace never bothered to find out about.

"A den den- what? You mean those snails you guys use?"

"Uh… yeah…" Now that his other self had pointed out, Ace realized just how weird it was to use those little shell creatures for communication. And they could make all kinds of faces that corresponded with the speaker, which was pretty amusing when he thought about it.

Mafia Ace had picked up his phone and was enthusiastically talking into his iPhone, until-

THUNK!

… Holy shit…

Pirate Ace stared in horror as his double had just fallen unceremoniously over on his face and began snoring loudly, the phone slipping out of his hands and landing on the ground in synchronization with him. It seemed that narcolepsy had kicked in, at a very awkward timing, as well. He panicked briefly, wondering what to do next. Should he reach for the phone? Or just hang up and pretend that the call had broken off? But he didn't even know how to hang up the weird thing.

Taking a breath, he took the phone and pressed it to his ear, like his mafia self had done. "Hey, sorry about that. My hand slipped and the phone fell," he lied smoothly to whoever was on the other side.

"It's alright, yoi," said easily an all too familiar voice.

Ace breathed in relief, glad that this was Marco he was talking to and not someone he might not be familiar with. He'd at least sort of know what to say without messing up and revealing the fact that he didn't exactly know how his own life went. "So, what were you saying just now? Didn't manage to catch it."

"Nothing really. Just makin' sure that you're doing well. Pops doesn't want you to work for another week or so. Wants you to rest up more, yoi."

Work. Ace took a wild guess into thinking that work meant mafia work. He knew that he would complain. "Why?! I'm perfectly fine! I sound fine to you, don't I?" he said in a protesting tone.

There was a sigh on the other end. "Fine," Marco gave in. "Then I'll be in your apartment in a few to brief you."

Now he wasn't expecting that. "Erm, alright," he responded, mind racing fast. What was he going to do? It was so not a good idea to have Marco come in at this time, when he didn't know when his other self was going to wake up from his narcoleptic spell. It was going to cause a lot of unwanted questions if he saw the two of them.

The only solution was for Ace to pretend to be his double. Grumbling under his breath about how bad a timing it was for the stupid disorder to hit, he dragged Mafia Ace roughly across the floor and into his bedroom. Flipping through the wardrobe, he changed into what his other self would wear on a daily basis, tossing his own away. They were pretty tattered anyways from prison and war, so he might as well throw them away. He hoped that his other self won't mind.

Rushing back to the living room, he took a few deep breaths and composed himself, hoping his acting skills were good enough to fool his double's best friend. And one always knew it was hard to fool your best friend.

The doorbell rang shortly. Ace got up and walked towards the door, trying to calm his frantic brain. The door swung open to reveal a man with balding yellow hair that stuck up in spikes. He smiled. "Hey. How's everything goin', yoi?"

Ace forced a grin and said, "Everything's fine. Just still a little tired from getting out of the hospital, I guess. So, er, come in." He gestured towards the empty living room.

As the duo settled down onto the two couches, he briefly went through all the stuff a person would usually do or say when they invited someone to their home. He never really had to go through those friend visits, because he spent most of his life with bandits where no one ever visited, and the Moby Dick, where no one would visit as well, because everyone lived together.

"Want something to eat?" he offered. Of course, there came the downside of finding an empty pantry and refrigerator, or not knowing where everything was. It was a chance he had to take.

"Nah," Marco said. "I just had breakfast awhile ago."

Thank goodness. So fate didn't hate him that much yet, apparently. "So er, the briefing. What are we doing tonight?"

"There's nothing much." Marco leaned back onto the couch. "We're just doing a patrol to make sure Kaido's not up to something fishy. He's been quiet a little too long for the old man's tastes." He ran a hand through his hair.

Of course. Things like that had happened back in his world, but it was too hard to do a full round around their territory. It was too vast, and traveling on the ocean was slow. He guessed that technology here were more advanced than theirs, or that their world was too crazy. "Sounds simple."

"It is. But Pops wants us to be careful anyways. We don't know what Kaido could be thinking, yoi."

"You know, he might've fighting against Shanks for all we know."

"Possible. However, we would've heard, don't you think, yoi?"

The conversation continued with fighting strategies and all sorts of hypothesizes. Ace was having fun chatting with his best friend, even if he was from the other world. Everything was flowing better than he had hoped. The only thing that bothered him was when his other self would wake up. Hopefully it'll be one of those long episodes, so he'll wake up after Marco had left, to avoid any questions.

But as always, things never worked out the way Ace would like to, because right at that instant, a loud yell sounded across the apartment. "What the hell, Ace?!"

Marco got up, surprised and wary. No one other than the two of them should be in the house. He shot a look at Ace, who had paled and was sweating bullets.

Ace began panicking for the third time in an hour, trying to figure out what to do next. Obviously, his other self had woken up, and Marco had heard him. Crap! What am I going to do?

Things got even worse when his double had decided to step out of the bedroom with an annoyed expression, then stopping in mid step to take in the scene in front of him. "Shit!" his other self cursed, realizing what he just did.

Just spiffily fantabulous. He just had walk into a scene like this, Pirate Ace irritably. It was when everything was going so well, too! "I can explain," they said simultaneously.

Then they glared at each other. "Stop copying me, you-"

"Will you quit -"

"Stop saying what I'm-"

The duo shut their mouths completely and crossed their arms irately, deciding to refrain from talking altogether.

Marco was, to put it lightly, perplexed, as he studied the two Aces bicker. He didn't know what was going on except the fact that there were now two of his best friend, and currently they were giving each other the cold shoulder. "I'd really like to know what's going on," he said.

Both of them leaned against the wall and sighed. "Alright, we'll explain," they muttered wearily.

"Please."

I'm terribly sorry for the late update, but life decided to screw with me. So homework and personal issues combined had left me no time (and in no mood) to write. This chapter was so meh in my opinion. x_x I have rewritten it again and again, then looked over it repeatedly, but I just didn't like the way it turned out, even now. However, I hope you all will enjoy it.

No promises on the next update, other than the fact that it shouldn't take as long as this time. Please review! I'll give you a sugar cookie! XD And it motivates me to write faster. ;)