It's the weekend, so I was able to work on this more, even though I have two projects I need to work on. Damn you plot bunnies!
Obvious disclaimer is obvious.
Chapter 3
A few weeks later, the Devil arrived in the form of Luffy's grandfather, spouting crap about marines and the navy. When he discovered her devil fruit ability and the Pirate King's hat on her head, he decided that enough was enough and dragged her off to the mountains while Makino watched fearfully. She would've liked to say that it was a day of great misfortune and terror for all, but it only applied to her. Sadly.
And so she was dragged off to the home of mountain bandits in the middle of nowhere, where if she died and they could blame it on wild bears. Lovely.
While her gramps was busy announcing his dumping-of-granddaughter onto the bandits, Ace came out of nowhere and spat in her face. She was about to yell at him angrily when she remembered why he was so foul, so she forgave him, since he was going to be her big brother. Someday. Hopefully soon. The manga made it seem hopelessly long, though. Well, she wouldn't know until she tried, right? Everyone had their bad days! Maybe he stubbed his toe on a tree on the way back from… wherever, and got into a bad mood.
Of course, Dadan didn't get special privileges. When she called her a brat, Luffy had to call her a fat old man, even though she was fairly sure that the lumps of meat on her chest were boobs. Or maybe they were man boobs, since they didn't have a very solid shape, but who cared at this point? She was not surprised when she only received a bowl of rice for dinner that night.
"You only get a bowl of rice and a cup of water every day," Dadan told her. "Anything else you want, you have to get yourself!" She readily agreed, having already suffered a weekend in the jungle, which seemed to surprise the large woman. It didn't stop her from trying to stea– borrow some of their meat, though; it looked freaking delicious!
The next morning, she spotted Ace heading out somewhere (cough Sabo cough) and started to follow him. The bandits had ordered her to help around the house, but there was no way in hell she was doing chores – not only because she had no idea had to do them, but she'd probably get distracted by a passing butterfly and drop a pot onto Dogra's foot. Oops.
"Hey Ace!" she called out to him. She was chasing him through the forest, and he stopped when he heard her. "My name's Luffy! I forgive you for spitting on me; we all have bad days, right? So let's be friends! What should we do today? …Hey, what are you doing?"
Suspiciously, Ace went up to a nearby tree, and then kicked it with so much force that it fell and started rolling towards her. Her eyes bugged out.
"HOLY HELL, THAT'S A TREE!" If she was someone else, she would've thought, Yeah, no duh, dipshit. And then she was crushed.
Thankfully, she was made of rubber, so after a lot of struggle and stretching (she still had to get used to that) she freed herself and made her way towards the direction Ace was headed. She had no idea if she was going the right way, but somehow got lucky and ended up on a bridge. Ace, ahead of her, paused and turned back with slight shock on his face (she did get crushed by a tree, after all).
She smiled and waved. "Hey! You must be in a really bad mood today, huh? I know, let's go get some ice cream down at the–" And then she was knocked off the bridge by a pipe to the face. Into a valley, where she couldn't see the bottom.
Luffy ignored how sinister Ace's face was, and attempted to Gum Gum Rocket her way back to the bridge. Distantly, she could see the great surprise on his face, which was new. Unfortunately, she was not able to calculate the amount of force she needed to stretch a certain amount of distance back to safety. And so, she fell to bottom (and bounced a couple of times, the first bounce at least ten meters high – hey, new record).
There, she was able to live a new way of life – for a week. She did think (hope) that all of these experiences would be helpful one day, such as the time she flew for about half an hour, the time she spent a weekend in the jungle, and that one time her grandpa threw her into a bottomless ravine. Now that she thought about it, that ravine was incredibly similar to this valley, except this one had wolves instead of empty space. Speaking of wolves, she should probably start running right about–
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
When she returned to the bandit base a week later, after being nearly mauled to death by wolves, she was half-expected an "Oh my god where have you been?" or a "What happened? Are you okay?" However, the other half was not surprised when Dadan just screamed "What the fuck?! You're still alive?!"
Ignoring the rest of the questions, Luffy dragged herself to a random room and collapsed with a sigh. Chasing after Ace proved to be more difficult than she was expecting, but it was only the first try. She'd get him next time. Hopefully.
A couple days had passed, but Luffy hadn't made much progress. However, the way things were going…
"Hey Ace! Let's be friends– WAGHHHH I THOUGHT THOSE WERE LOGS!" Luffy screamed as several crocodiles jumped up to eat her.
…they weren't really looking good.
She made it a little further that day, which gave her some hope. At this rate, she and Ace would be friends in no time!
"Ace! Let's get some ice cre– FALLING ROCKS?!"
She just needed to adapt, that's all. It was a good training exercise, at least? Distracted by her own thoughts, Luffy shrugged to herself and got crushed.
(Ace looked back at her and thought that she must be mentally retarded.)
This time Ace left without eating. Luffy assumed he was going to eat later or with Sabo, but she worried that he'd get tired while making the trip and slip up.
"Yo Ace! How about we go get breakfast or so– WHERE DID THOSE SNAKES COME FROM?!"
She understood why he was trying to shake her off, but did he always have to watch as she fell into his traps?
Luffy frowned at herself in the window. It was night out, so she was able to see her own reflection and examined herself closely.
Why didn't Ace like her? Well, she knew that he didn't exactly like other people, but come on; she was a kid (physically)! Wasn't she adorable? Didn't he just want to cuddle her? Her gramps certainly loved a good cuddle from his little girl, but maybe it was because he was so old he didn't get a chance to see cute things as much?
She tilted her head. Was it her face? She let it go slack, and personally thought it was a little bland. Well, Luffy had never really put that much effort into looking sweet. But she thought that since she appeared to be a little girl, maybe she'd appeal to him more if she looked cuter. But how would she go about it?
An idea popped into her head. Back when she was about five or six years old, she had seen a child about her age use puppy-dog eyes against her father, and she was instantly showered with hugs, kisses, and most importantly, food. But, ahem, maybe it'd work for persuading Ace to be friends with her? Now, how did that girl do it again?
Pouting – dammit, she needed to pout for it in order to work. Looking around her to make sure no one was watching, Luffy pushed her lower lip out in a sad frown, and looked at herself again. No, that didn't seem right.
Ah right, the rest of her face needed to look sad, too. So she pushed the sides of her eyebrows down to look more miserable – but there was something else missing. Although she looked sad, she didn't look adorably sad.
Racking her brain, she finally came up with the answer a couple of minutes later. Her eyes had to look watery and shiny and big and… stuff. Probably sparkly too. So she widened her eyes as far as she could, threw some dust into them so that tears would form, found some flashlights and hanged them next to her eyes, and voila! …Well, maybe not exactly. She'd have to work on the sparkly bit.
(Around the corner, Luffy was completely unaware of Magra's "Awwwwww!"s and Dogra's "Shhhhhh!"s.)
…Of course, when Luffy tried it on Ace the next day, his only response was to knock her lights out (literally), jab her in the face into a pit of scorpions, and walk away.
As she screamed in terror and desperately tried to Rocket her way back up the pit, Luffy made note to practice those eyes later.
(By now, Ace was definitely sure that there was something wrong with her head.)
Today Luffy faced giant birds. As long as they stayed perched in the trees where they belonged, she wouldn't have a problem with them.
That is, until they started pulling on Hat. That was when war started.
At least they tasted delicious. Too bad the meat distracted her long enough for her to lose track of Ace, so she tried to lure him with the smell of meat.
"Ace! I got a bunch of meat here ready for you! Wanna be–" Then a tiger came out of nowhere, and she had to flee for her life before she got eaten. She attempted to bring as much meat as she could with her, but ended up having to drop all of it when a bear walked into her path and tried to take her along with the meat. It was a pity, but when the animal nearly bit her face off she decided that she should just book it already.
It was raining that day. Luffy looked at it somewhat fondly, as this had been the first time she had seen it since Shanks left. It made her feel melancholic, and it was on days like this take she truly took time to think about her past and all of her decisions so far.
Then a flash of red crossed her vision, and she was barely able to see Ace running back into the forest with only his tank, shorts, and a pipe.
Stea– Grabbing an umbrella from inside the house (ignoring Dogra's cries of "Hey! That's mine!") she ran out only wearing her shirt and shorts.
When she finally caught up to him, she yelled, "Hey Ace! You forgot to bring an umbrella!" She waved the blue umbrella around, when the damn tiger and bear came out of nowhere, and she nearly peed her pants before realizing she could run and fled.
After realizing that Ace got away due to her cowardliness, she resolved to not be afraid of anything again. (Which failed miserably, but she tried, okay?)
The day of salvation came; she had finally reached the end of the forest! If she knew how to say it in Japanese, she would've fallen to her knees and screamed, "PRAISE THE LORD HALLELUJAH!" Before she could scream anything, however, her nose instantly cringed at the smell of a thousand different things, most of which were rotten, rusty, or just plain dirty. Looking below her, she got a full view of Gray Terminal, a "city" of trash, the future resting place for burned innocents.
In the distance, she spotted Ace headed from the terminal into the woods, and rushed to keep him in sight. She stumbled several times due to the effort she had exerted in order to get that far, but continued a kilometer or so into the woods.
"…we need to buy a pirate ship." Luffy's ears perked. That didn't sound like Ace, so it must've been Sabo!
"Dunno, but we still got a ways to go," she heard Ace say. She looked up from the foot of the tree she was standing next to, and could see them conversing and something sparkly. "Close it already; you don't know who could spot us."
It was probably about now that she had to cut it. "You guys wanna be pirates?!" she called excitedly. She couldn't wait for them to be siblings, because then she wouldn't be all alone! But she felt like she was forgetting something… "I do too! I didn't know that you came this far every day, Ace!" Overhead, she heard whispers as the two discussed something furiously, and she couldn't help but grin and rock back and forth on her heels.
The two boys gave each other one last serious look, then bounded down, grabbed her forcefully by the arms, and tied her to the tree trunk. She was really confused by that, but she was too focused on the fact that now she had older brothers! Well, they weren't really her brothers yet, but same thing! But if she wanted to be friends with Sabo, she couldn't mysteriously know his name out of nowhere, so she had to introduce herself.
"My name's Luffy!" she told him. "Are you Ace's friend? Let's be friends too!" He ignored her, but she was too happy daydreaming about her future with them to notice that they were planning her death, until…
"Let's kill her," Ace decided.
"Agreed," Sabo replied.
She froze. The first thing that popped into her head was the bang of a gun, the splatter of blood, so much, therewastoomuchblood–
She couldn't help the tears that surfaced, and she whimpered, "N-No…" The duo paused at her waterworks – until she started screaming. "I DON'T WANNA DIE! HELPPPPPP! DON'T KILL ME!"
"Shut up!" Ace yelled. "Sabo, hurry up and do it!"
"What are you saying?! You do it!"
"I've never killed anyone before!"
"Neither have I! How am I supposed to do it?!"
Luffy stopped screaming once she realized that they wouldn't actually kill her. "Are you two panicking?"
"SHUT UP ALREADY!"
"I hear voices from over there!" someone called in the distance.
"Crap, we gotta go!" Sabo whispered.
"Untie the girl first; then we run!"
Once her binds were gone, they dashed away. Luffy looked around the area, confused. Where had they gone? What were they so scared of that they had to run and hide?
When she thought she heard them, she walked in the direction of the noise until she bumped into one of the tallest, biggest men she had ever seen in her life…
"Wow! You're huge!" Her eyes might have been sparkling – well at least she figured out that part – since he looked kinda cool, like some kind of punk rocker. "You have cool hair!" She felt like she shouldn't be complimenting him, but she couldn't help it! It was so spiky and long, like a horse mane or something!
Raising one nonexistent eyebrow, the big purple-haired man picked her up around the waist using his gigantic hand and gave her a stern look. "Tell me, kid, have you seen some brats called Ace and Sabo?" His voice was threatening, and it didn't exactly sound like this guy and Ace and Sabo were friends…
Luffy realized that this person was a bad guy, started sweating, and avoided eye contact. Faking innocence, she answered calmly, "Who? Never heard of 'em."
Purple-mane man narrowed his eyes. Dammit, he was onto her! "Well, looks like we'll have to remind you then." And then he started walking away with her in his hand. She immediately started struggling. Curse grown-ups in One Piece and their unnatural size!
"Let go of me, purple-mane guy!"
"WHERE DID THAT NAME COME FROM?!"
Luffy glared at her captors. "I already told you, I don't know those two! Now untie me!" How many times was she going to get tied up today? It was getting really annoying!
Out of nowhere, purple-mane guy pulled out a wooden mallet probably ten times her size and she gaped. Where did that come from?! And then with a battle cry, purple-mane guy tugged it downwards, onto her. He let it rest on her for a few seconds before her rubber body caused it the mallet jump to upwards again, leaving no physical effect on her. Several of the men (pussies) screamed at the sight.
"…Looks like she's eaten a devil fruit. Get my gloves," purple-mane guy ordered. He pointed at one of his subordinates, and someone pulled up her rope so that she was hanging from the ceiling. "Listen closely, you little shit; your friend Ace stole important money for our crew. I know you know who they are, and where the cash is. So–" Pain blossomed in her gut, and she could feel spikes barely ripping into her body and tearing her body open. "–tell us already!"
Luffy breathed heavily, and she tried to keep her fearful eyes to herself. She could see the puddle of blood – her blood, too much blood – in her peripheral vision, but she didn't want to look. It'd bring up bad memories, and she didn't want to get Ace and Sabo in trouble. Her life liquid dripped down her stomach and some of it had splashed onto her face. Her shirt, a favorite from Makino, was now ruined; the white cloth was stained red.
"You shouldn't make pirates mad," purple-mane guy told her. "Especially our captain, Bluejam – he's even worse than me."
She gritted her teeth when tears unconsciously started to fall from the pain. Her fists clenched. She couldn't give up so easily and she couldn't give in, no matter how much it hurt and even though she had no idea what was going on, because the information she had was her soon-to-be-brothers' treasure. When those two had threatened to kill her, somewhere inside she knew they weren't going to hurt her. Even though Luffy had been scared at the thought of two people who she trusted and believed in before she even met them turn on her, she didn't want them to hate her. She didn't want to them to leave her all by herself.
She smirked rebelliously. "Y-You can go and… shove a sausage… up your butt…" That was as close as she could get to a "Fuck you," she supposed. And then the torture began.
He knew she was retarded. He knew there was something wrong with her, but he'd never expected her to be this dumb! She must've gotten it from her idiot grandfather!
Ace had despised the little, seven-year old girl that came along with ji-ji the moment he laid his eyes on her. She was just another one of them, someone that wasn't him. Someone who already hated him, even though she didn't know who he was. If she ever knew, she would – but he'd make sure she never knew. She would just be another casualty.
He didn't know why she started following him that day, asking to be friends. Oh right, because she didn't know, but sooner or later she would and she'dhatehimlikealltheothers–
So he tried to get rid of her. When his first attempt didn't work, he was slightly surprised that she had survived, but he didn't really care how she managed that. Annoyed at her survival, he knocked her off the bridge, and then she stretched. He had openly gaped at that, but then quickly closed his mouth and prepared to keep her from getting back up. But then her arm fell short of the bridge, and she dropped to the bottom with a ear-piercing scream. God, her voice was aggravating.
That night he had brushed off the bandits' questions, and went to bed with the comfort of knowing that there would be one less person in the world out there against him.
He was irritated when she came back alive the next week. Was she immortal or something? Then the next morning she just chased after him again like she hadn't nearly died because of him! He was determined to see her fail, to see her finally give up on him because he wasn't worth it, but the process continued for three months.
The first time he thought she was truly stupid was when she didn't move after he sent an avalanche after her. Instead, she had stood there with a slightly pensive look on her face, shrugged to herself, and then was crushed.
The second time, Ace was absolutely sure she had some type of mental disorder. She had walked up to him with flashlights hanging next to her eyes and then proceeded to pout, throw dirt into her eyes, widen them to superhuman sizes, and turned on the flashlights. Naturally, he broke both flashlights, as they had been blinding him, then jabbed her in the face with the end of his pipe into a pit of scorpions.
The one that confused him the most was a rainy day. She had been chasing him, calling out to him and waving an umbrella around when a giant tiger and bear came out of nowhere, fighting. Instead of running away like he expected her to, she stood stock-still with fright. He had stopped, waiting for her to run. Why hadn't she been moving? Then she finally managed to gather her wits and run away, bringing the umbrella with her.
What had he been expecting? After all, she was just like all the others – she had just proved it herself. He wasn't worried about her, dammit.
Then one day, she had actually appeared at his and Sabo's treasure hideout. He had been prepared to actually kill her when he realized that he had never killed someone before, and he was actually afraid of taking a person's life – or was it because the girl had never been actively hostile towards him? Because so far, she hadn't done anything to hurt him yet? Because she was innocent for now?
Somehow the idiot allowed herself to get caught by the pirates he had stolen from, and he and Sabo had to rush to move their treasure before the doofus revealed their hideout. It was only a matter of time before she cracked, after all.
"Ace!" Sabo yelled. He sounded panicked – or was it worry? What for?
"What's wrong, Sabo? Have they gone after our loot yet?"
"No, and I don't think they ever will!" Ace made a questioning noise. "That kid … she still hasn't told them!"
They gave each other a look. If she had lasted this long, then it was highly unlikely she would ever give in. They couldn't let that girl sacrifice herself – she clearly was, for whatever reason – while they got away scot-free! Because it didn't feel right; he couldn't treat someone else like how everyone treated the mere thought of his existence.
They had to save her, because whether they liked it or not, they owed her. They had to save Luffy.
It was hard to focus; she had lost too much blood in the past couple of hours, and everything was blurry. She could barely hear what purple-mane guy was saying, which sounded like a distant voice spoken through a wall. There was blood all over her body – it painted her like the color of her skin, a second coating, and had even soaked her ropes all the way through. She dangled limply from the ceiling, and she didn't even have any strength left to cry out in pain. Her body had numbed long ago, her eyes were dull and dry, and right now the only things she was thinking of were "I hope the hat didn't get dirty" and "It hurts… so much… when will it be over?"
She didn't understand why she had to go through this. Would she die like this? Hanging from a rope, left to bleed to death? Would she ever be able to set sail? She couldn't leave her nakama behind…
A stabbing pain sparked on her face. "You fucking brat, you think that keeping a secret will make you grown-up?!"
"Y-You… can go… to h-hell," she gasped. "I-I won't say it… I w-won't say it…" Just make it stop, make the pain stop already. She didn't want to look at the blood anymore, there's too much, toomuchbloodEVerYWheRe! She imagined that if she focused for long enough, she'd be able to see some flesh and possibly some guts as we– stopitshedidntwanttothinkaboutit!
"Fine, this is getting pointless," she hear purple-mane guy say. "Die."
Would the pain finally stop now?
"STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!" She heard the battle cries of… Ace and Sabo? They were here?
Luffy peered her eyes open, and couldn't help but start sobbing at the sight. "AAAAAAAce…! Saaboooooo…!" They came to save her! Why were they here? Didn't they hate her guts? Bad reference, she really shouldn't think about guts right now.
The sounds of a fight broke out, and she could dimly see the forms of her future siblings battling purple-mane guy two-on-one. A moment or two later, her binds were broken and she was caught by either Sabo or Ace.
"Let's run, Ace!" the person carrying her called out. Ah, so that was Sabo.
"You two go on ahead!" Ace replied.
"Wha- you idiot!"
"Once I've faced an enemy…" she could imagine his face growing serious, prepping himself for the battle. "...I never run!"
Sabo dropped Luffy, and she groaned. It was getting hard to stay conscious. She slowly pushed herself up so that she could see what was going on, and she was met with the sight of Sabo and Ace kicking purple-mane guy's ass.
"Wow…" Luffy breathed. They took him down in a split second…! Could she ever be as strong as that?
Her eyes started to close, and she fell into a dreamless sleep.
When Luffy woke up, she was heavily bandaged and her entire body burned from pain. Her hat was left lying next to her, and she sat up and quickly as she could and plopped it back on her head. She scanned her surroundings, noticing that now she was in the forest, and spotted Ace and Sabo talking a ways away from her.
Several minutes later, when she was finally able to craw– walk over to them, she sat down with a sigh of relief. It took way too much effort just to walk a couple of meters. Then she started crying silently. That was even worse than when Roo shot that bandit! How many times was Oda going to traumatize her?!
Her blond brother was currently scolding Ace. "Are you trying to die?! Saying 'I'm not gonna run' when you're facing a real pirate… and now Bluejam will never forgive us! He's going to target us!"
Ace ignored his friend and pointed at her angrily. "How long are you going to cry?! I hate weaklings that just cry all the time! You piss me off!"
Luffy hastily rubbed her face of any traces of tears, then remembered what they did for her. "Thank you very much," she bowed, "for saving me!" For some reason, Ace erupted with an angry "Damn you!" and Sabo had to placate him.
"Why didn't you tell them?!" he demanded. "They're criminals that would've easily killed you as if you were a pig for slaughter!"
She gave him a sad frown. "If I told them, you wouldn't have liked me, and then we couldn't be friends."
"But that'd be better than dying, right?! Why do you want to hang out with me so much!?" Sabo watched the conversation silently. "Do you have any idea the amount of shit you put me through, after you've finally followed me all the way here?!"
"I don't have anyone else…" she murmured.
"Hah?"
"I-I don't have… any other friends!" she cried. "Ji-chan won't let me go back to Foosha Village, and the mountain bandits don't like me, and Shanks left months ago… if I didn't go after you–" What would happen to him, without a Luffy to love? "–I'd be all by myself… and being alone hurts more than getting hurt!"
Ace paused. "What about your parents?"
"I don't have any."
Ace looked like he had a sudden epiphany, yet still didn't believe it. "…So if I'm with you, then it doesn't hurt… but if I wasn't there, it would?"
"Yeah."
"Y-You want me… to live?" Did he just stutter?
"'Course I do!" What could Monkey D. Luffy be without his brothers? How could she get through the next seven years without them? How could he get through the next seven years without her?
Relaxing again, he told her, "Hmph… but I still hate spoiled brats like you."
Her temper flared easily, since it had been dormant for so long. "What are you talking about?! I'm not spoiled; my punch is as strong as a pistol!"
"Yeah right! You're just a weak little girl, and you're a crybaby on top of that!" Now he was crossing the line!
"What's wrong with being a girl?! I'd say that I did better than you would've! Plus, I'm only seven – when I'm your age, I'll be even better!"
"Don't compare me to you, dumbass!" A vein pulsed. He was almost as bad as Shanks, except Shanks always did it in that infuriating way of his that made it seem like he didn't care!
"I'll be stronger than you and Sabo and Shanks and everyone in the world, because I'm going to be the Pirate King!" She better, because there was no way Luffy was never going to be King in canon! The only question was if she would be able to do it…
"You?! How could you ever become Pira–?"
"Hey, you two," Sabo interrupted calmly.
"WHAT?!" Luffy and Ace screamed. They were in the middle of an argument here!
"I've lived here all my life, but now we're all going to be wanted by Bluejam's crew," he told them. "If I stay here, I'm going get killed all by myself."
The two looked at each other, a truce temporarily formed, and then grinned. "We have the perfect place for you…"
"ACE! LUFFY! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!"
Dadan was not happy when she discovered that the amount of children in her home had grown overnight, but Luffy didn't really care, because she was as tired as hell. But at least she had her brothers now. She could let her life grow into a pattern of training, food, sleep, and happiness for ten more years until canon.
Luffy visibly deflated. Sabo… he was going to die, wasn't he? She wanted to stop that, but did she have to ability to? When she wanted to prevent Shanks's arm from getting eaten, nothing changed. Would she be able to change Sabo's fate? …But she had to try, even if it seemed impossible!
Ace and Sabo ran out of the house, and Luffy shook out of her stupor. She stumbled after them, since her body was still sore, and called, "Heyyyy! Wait for me!"
"Luffy! We'll bring back some grub for you, so you don't have to come!"
"No way, don't leave me with the fat old man!"
"WHO ARE YOU CALLING A FAT OLD MAN?!"
Everything had to get better and better. She didn't know what kind of state she'd be in if Sabo died… again.
Extra/Omake
Ace wavered. He had to look away, but he couldn't pull his gaze from her face. Her cute, adorable– no! He couldn't give in, no matter how mesmerizing it was! How could he call himself a man if he allowed her to affect him like this?
But he still wondered how the hell Luffy was able to go from the flashlights to this… this monstrosity!
Luffy sat in front of Ace, looking up at him due to her short height (which did not help his situation at all!). Her lower lip was stuck out in a frown, her eyes were big and watery, and she sparkled! She fucking sparkled! And it wasn't any regular sparkle; it was the bunnies-and-flowers kind of sparkling! What was this witchcraft?! Where did it come from?!
Just a few months ago, she had to throw dust or dirt in her eyes to make them water, and she always brought out some random flashlights from nowhere to make them "shine." But now, at the worst times, she was able to do all of that without even breaking a sweat! All just for getting more meat for dinner, too!
Somehow he couldn't stop himself from wilting. Beside him, Sabo was determinedly looking away from their cute baby sister; otherwise he'd be sucked into her evil plan for extra food, too. He hesitated, about to turn his head away, when more tears formed in Luffy's eyes.
Holy shit, was she going to cry? He couldn't make her cry, the last time she cried his chest hurt, and it made him feel terrible! Ace started to panic, desperately looking for a way to cheer her up, and ended up shoving his entire plate of food towards her. "Here! Don't cry, please don't cry!"
Instantly, Luffy's mood did a complete 180. Her tears vanished, and her face lit up. "Thanks!" she grinned, and started to stuff her mouth with his dinner. He was about to scold her for being so manipulative, maybe even punch her upside the head, but then he realized that she was still sparkling. Dammit, he couldn't hurt Luffy while she was still– still like that!
He slammed his head on the table. "Goddammit…"
Sabo patted his back comfortingly. "A hundred times in a row, Ace."
"THAT DOESN'T MAKE ME FEEL BETTER!"
Ji-ji: A rude form of grandpa that Ace uses a lot in canon. In the anime, it is usually translated as "old man."
Purple-mane man/guy: Like last chapter, Luffy uses this to refer to Porchemy, Bluejam's subordinate, since she doesn't remember his name.
I felt like last chapter didn't have as much of the short attention span Luffy had in the first chapter, so I tried to add a little bit more of that in the beginning. Because when it starts getting into the more detailed sections, there's more focus on narration rather than Luffy's thoughts. I also tried to make it a little bit more funny in the beginning (see previous reasoning for excuse).
In other fem!Luffy fics, Ace usually has some type of overprotective streak for Luffy, not only because she's his precious little sister, but also because to him she is freaking adorable. I got this idea a while back of Luffy trying to figure out how to be "cute," since I really doubt that if canon!Luffy was a girl she'd try to be cute before meeting Ace or at all (and since this is a self-insert, she doesn't automatically get awesome Luffy-cuteness).
Poor Luffy, she forgot that she was going to get tortured in the near future, and she got even more traumatized in the process. I guess if she really should blame anyone, she should blame me, haha. I was also honestly confused by this part in canon, since if Porchemy had spikes sharp enough to hurt Luffy, wouldn't the spikes stab into his body and damage his insides? Yet at the end of it all he just ends up with a bunch of bandages and cries of "It hurts"? And I think Porchemy would look like a pretty cool guy if he wasn't a bad guy, but oh well. He's dead now, so I can't really regret it.
!SPOILERS!
For those of you currently caught up to the manga/anime, you should know that Sabo actually turns out alive. However, seeing how it's very recent, I decided that Luffy would only know events as far as the Fishman Island/Punk Hazard arc. I haven't decided how far her knowledge should go yet, but it definitely won't reach as far as Dressrosa. So Luffy thinks that Sabo is going to die – now it's just a matter of if she will be able to save Sabo. I already have something planned, but let's just say Luffy might get even more traumatized...
!SPOILERS OVER!
I attempted to do Ace's POV twice, but I'm not sure if was very good. Comments?
And so Luffy exploits Ace's weakness for her cuteness. Good or bad attempt at fluff/humor?
I actually feel pretty proud of this chapter, but still feel free to let me know anything that's bothering you. Good thing I had the common sense to make the Author's Note shorter this time.
Thanks for reading, and have a nice day! :D
- Kana-chan