Huge thanks goes to kawaiikittey who beta-read this part! She's a star, and the reason I could post this now.
I know it has been forever... but neither am I dead nor this story. Thank you for your patience with me, I will finish this and it hopefully won't take too long anymore. :)
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The Dumb Smile of the Knowing
Part 7 - His Spirit, Still a Fugitive* I
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"This is no place for you to die."
It's Whitebeard's voice, old and wise, loud and proud - and ridiculously close to almighty.
At first Ace thinks it's mocking, then he realizes how it really feels: low and warm and almost charming; it passes his ear, and dives right in, crawls further and deeper, reaching to his very soul, setting it-him- on fire, burning-
xxxxx
Ace opened his eyes, seconds before his face would have hit the muddy ground. He could smell rotting leaves right under his nose, but caught his fall in time. He fixed his irritated glare onto the colors before him, bright colors molding to a sort of orange. Were those bushes?
Oh yeah, there we are again.
He blinked a few times before he realized that his eyesight wasn't going to improve; at least, not much. He felt heavy and strangely light at the same time; nasty shivers rippled through his body. Something wasn't right. Well, something as in something additional to the many other "somethings" that were just plain wrong.
There also was the weight of the nurse on his shoulder. As reassuring as it was to feel her still there...his shoulder blade ached, his back ached, heck everything on that body side down to his toe ached, and while it was great that he could still distinguish where exactly it hurt, that certainly wasn't any consolation.
If he remembered correctly, his goal was to hide behind the bushes. They were probably only waist high, but Ace, cowering deep down on his knees, with the weight on his shoulders pushing him even further into the ground, was robbed of all his energy. The simple bushes appeared as towering, insurmountable hurdles. He felt like a fly with torn-out wings, very distinctly feeling the nerve bundles twitching where only useless stumps were left, knowing there was a huge, hungry, spider approaching from behind, while the wall before him was high enough that he could not see its top.
Faced with that, with no strength left, and all hope crushed, most would see no other option than to give up. Ace though had lived his whole life facing obstacle after obstacle, always, somehow, achieving the impossible. Maybe that was what kept him going. His hope might have been gone just a few days ago, but his will was unchanged, stronger than any fear, or rational thoughts. If his wings were torn he would become an ant, and continue crawling; if his legs were broken, he would become but a worm and slither, face first, through the dirt.
He'd bit his lip subconsciously, as his heated mind – unbidden - pictured the scenario vividly for him, but Ace revered in the coppery, bitter, taste of life for only a second. He pushed forward, into an opening that definitely was not there, right through the thorns and branches cutting his clothes, his face, but not his spirit. His spirit was well beyond the bush already, and did not look back to the body that was still fighting its way through while leaving behind small sacrifices of flesh and garment.
Yellow. Red. Pretty colors they were. As soon as the tearing and biting stopped, they melted into one blurry image.
xxxxx
Luffy's shirt is orange although not much of its original color can still be determined; his hair is unruly and muddy, just like he is, basically. However, now he sits in the corner and he's calm.
It's quite disturbing considering he's not asleep and, well, it's Luffy.
The woman puts the snail back on the cupboard, and from Ace's side he can't watch her expression but he knows she's probably frowning because that's what she usually does whenever the three of them are in the same room. Luffy's still staring at the phone, as if he was pondering something.
Ah, and there's the painful facial expression again! It seemed he really is thinking.
It had been the old Marine geezer again. Asking how his grandchildren were doing. Promising to come and visit again soon.
When the woman had asked why he hadn't returned at Ace's birthday, there had been a short pause. Then the stupid laughter again. In the background, his subordinates had screamed about some cannon ball smashing their quarters. No apology though.
It's not as if Ace wanted one. Ace isn't sad; he's not even disappointed. The thing that gets him is the boy in the corner.
Lips pouted, eyes determined: Luffy's sulking.
The fool hasn't asked once for his father to come to his own birthday. So how he's acting now might be hilarious, but Ace decides it isn't.
For a moment, Ace feels a little pounding in his chest, muscles contracting at places that can't be trained, places he obviously doesn't use very often. Of course, deep down, he knows what it is and he cherishes the awkwardly good, suffocating, feeling. Luffy-
He jumps from his stool, and with one leap he's in the corner, tackling the rubber boy, who had started up with his intent clear on his face.
"Ace," his brother bursts, "I'll make gramps apologize."
"Wait a minute, Luffy," Ace interjects, "It's no big deal, really!"
But the words seem to infuriate him only more. If he wasn't still such a kid, he'd appear intimidating by now.
Ace knows what comes next. "Yeah yeah, I know, your fist is like a pistol," he teases before the boy can speak.
Luffy still seems unforgiving and Ace thinks that it's gone on for long enough. He doesn't want him to be angry for his sake, not with anyone. There's a radiating smile that's supposed to be in the boy's face and Ace doesn't want to be the reason it's not in place.
Ace bends forward and ruffles the dark hair. "Really, it's okay." Whispering he adds, "You think I'd have enjoyed playing Marine Boot Camp on my birthday?" He bites back all bitterness and revels in the thought that indeed having his brother there with him and caring for him was more than enough.
Then, he smiles.
xxxxx
Ace's lips felt dry. Leaves whirled over his face, danced over his chin, tickled at his nose and softly caressed his jaw until they were blown off again. Into his nostrils surged the heavy scent of decay, with it's disturbing combination of disgusting rot and cozy warmth. A smell he faced too much lately. It gave the feeling as if death itself might taste sweet despite all bitterness. Was this what this whole island was about?
An eternal second passed in which Ace's thoughts rolled through his hurting head, storming through the empty storage rooms where there should have been ideas on how to solve his current predicament, all culminating in an earth shattering over-all realization: Shit.
Ace turned around, stemmed his arms back into the mud and raised his head. His vision still hadn't fully returned but he tried to look around. The forest was almost noisy, too much rustling, sizzling, scrabbling, and so his ears were no good in finding out if people were approaching.
He pressed a bit more into the mud, until he sat upright and had a view on the beloved ocean in front of him: free, wide, blue, behind an orange bush wall. To his side were huge trees, like long, dark creatures, covering the sky with leaves in impossible colors.
A path meandered through the coppice, leading to a small hill. Not a very high one, but it would probably suffice for a dangerously good view over the area. Of course, it was only dangerous if he was seen. Ace studied it a bit, even if only to avoid drawing the logical conclusion just now. They'd have to move again.
The corner of his eye caught a motion where the hillside started, something very quick and lithe. Ace's gaze darted back, following the shadow: a creature was there. Quick movements, lean muscle, spotted fur, and a menacing aura…a leopard?
Ace blinked again, but the spot was empty. However, his instincts screamed at him that he was being watched-by something dangerous.
A fist was rammed into his shoulder blades, gaining his attention through a quick stab of pain. The hit had lacked in strength but it had nevertheless made contact with his already beaten bones. Ouch.
"You-!" The female voice quickly rose high but then died down shortly after. Maybe the nurse had realized it was him and not the bull guy who'd attacked her on the ship?
"Mornin' miss," Ace replied dryly.
The nurse directed a disgusted look at him. "You abducted me," she said, a bit more calmly this time.
Not only because of the headache was Ace not ready for more of this mess right now, so he simply nodded. "Yeah." The woman hated him anyway and there was no reason she'd believe a thing he said about what had happened. Thinking about it, there was nobody who'd actually believe that kind of crazy story. Believe that a strong guy broke into a Marine ship's cell and without trying to free the captive pirate would rather attempt to kill a simple Marine nurse - really, who would, especially if it was the notorious pirate telling this?
Thanks to this stupid decision of trying to 'save' the woman, he was now in even more trouble, if at all possible.
For the first time since he'd fled, he looked at her. From under the blanket a face with furrowed brows and dirtied cheeks grimaced at him, a burnt hairline was framing it and only on the back of her head some more brown locks seemed to have survived. On the other end of the blanket, mud had glued leaves to her once white shoes. Overall she now looked more like a forest witch than a Marine nurse.
And she behaved like it too. Her lips twitched again, her nose ruffled, and then the nurse asked, "What are you planning?"
For a second a bizarre grin split Ace's face. If only I'd know that . . . !
Maybe he should have said something instead. Maybe that face wasn't exactly reassuring to her. Maybe she was just too exhausted, but without further saying a thing the woman closed her eyes again.
Ace sighed, feeling dizzy. Shit, A nurse would have been a good aid right now . . .
He squinted, his eyes loosing focus somewhere in the distance. A bright blue sky blazed above him, dotted with dark, fast moving clouds . . . Ace fell back. Just for a moment. Just a moment longer, lying here, then he would move on.
Yelling. One voice shrill and angry.
Another low-pitched and pleading.
Smoker was good at many things, one of them was being like a rock through the small waves of misconduct, misunderstanding, of quarrels and everything else that involved civilians. As he moved through busy streets, eyes darting left and right, searching for a pink-haired, pizza-munching, ridiculous hat-sporting pirate, he was trying to be oblivious to the raging middle-aged woman on the balcony a few steps onward in his walking direction.
Unfortunately, ignoring generally wasn't as easy to Smoker as it might have been to other people, his enhanced power of observation, always active and scanning prohibiting total ignorance. So while he'd decided to ignore the quarrel over there, he'd still recognized that the woman held a fine crafted, probably expensive brown flower pot with two shaky hands, a pitiful violet orchid grew in there. Blue veins emerged visibly on the skin of her hands before those let go of the pot, throwing it against a man on the ground, who, according to the woman's loud voiced and equally not easily ignored opinion deserved to rot in hell.
"I honestly don't know, darling, I swear!" The man's voice conveyed so much uncertainty and fear that Smoker would have almost pitied him if it wasn't for the fact that Smoker never pitied anyone. Not even the innocent flower which had become the faultless victim of the lover's spat.
"Don't you dare call me darling you, you," the woman paused, obviously trying to find a fitting word, something brutal, hurtful and yet it seemed to Smoker that she had led a good life before since she hadn't come across people who might have enriched her vocabulary in that respect.
Bastard, shithead, . . . oh indeed, Smoker could have helped her out plenty. He preferred not to think about what that said about him. Continuing his walk, since the couple's private banter held no direct interest to him, he had almost passed them.
The man's voice was louder now that he was so close. "I don't know where that woman came from! I only helped the little girl, she was all alone and lost and hungry-"
Another pot flew. "Oh but that little girl had really grown fast thanks to your selfless aid!" A pause, then crumbles of potting soil landed on Smoker's shoulder, before he heard a third pot cracking on the ground. "I trusted you!" the woman screamed again.
Smoke tendrils snaked up from under the Commodore's jacket and took care of the dirt on his clothes. Love, trust, people getting all emotional, and for what? It always ends like this. Broken hearts, broken pottery- He turned his head to blow the last remaining dirt from his shoulder.
"But you can still trust me," the desperate husband pleaded to his wife.
The woman finally lowered her voice, but Smoker knew that change in intonation. It meant that her burning anger had turned into sour disappointment and sadness. He hurried to get away, this was getting worse and he didn't need that kind of mood right now. Just stop the whiny emotional crap!
Smoker knew something like that wouldn't happen to him. For he had learned that there were things you could count on more than the fleeting feeling of a warm smile turned to you. Most smiles were false anyway! More than an understanding gesture that made you feel at home. As if there was something like 'home' to a man of the sea! More than even tears of gratitude in the eyes of an enemy-Dammit.
Rules were the anchor of his world. He had erected clear borders in his mind, and thus there was perfect order: one side with the good things and the good people and one side with the bad things and bad people. He couldn't confuse them because they were labeled clearly. That's what a brain was for, and that's why the heart should be ignored in those matters, or better yet, always. Of course, he'd had his weak moments as well; just remembering the Strawhat boy and his ridiculous "I don't hate you!" statement brought a sour taste to the back of his throat.
But he'd learned from those. He'd learned more about the rules he should follow. He'd realized that he couldn't trust other people's rules. It was his own he should put all his confidence in, his own rules, his own judgment, his own justice. Yet, whether a pirate liked him or not didn't do a thing to change the fact that he was a pirate, and in every way such a man had labeled himself clearly to be standing on the bad side. It was simple.
Smoker loathed admitting that he was probably not thinking about the Strawhat boy anymore but a certain other . . .
The wife said something again, silent enough that Smoker couldn't hear anymore from where he walked. "To think that if I'd known you were into pink hair, I'd have even colored mine for you . . ."
xxxxx
Not much later, still lost in annoying thoughts, Smoker spotted a new, not yet expected person. One hand on his bike, the other fumbling at his vest, Admiral Aokiji leaned in a relaxed posture against a blue painted fence only a two houses ahead. His eyes were hidden by the sleeping mask the man always carried with him.
Smoker had suspected more than once that the thing was useful to the Admiral as anything else but a sleeping device. He'd imagined there to be small slits that the man would use to spy on his surroundings while feigning a blessed sleep. Now that he approached him, however, he heard a snoring sound: a short grunt from the depth of the throat that languidly rolled out and turned into multiple little sizzlings in the nose. It was the kind of sound that he was not going to think a healthy man would ever want to feign.
Stomping his feet a bit more forcefully into the ground, Smoker hoped he would be loud enough to bring the Admiral back from sleep. When his action didn't seem to attain the effect, he kicked a stone from the ground and right against the man's bike. The metal frame gave a light clack upon the collision and Aokiji immediately jumped to attention as he lifted his sleeping mask and scrutinized the source of the noise for any potential damage.
For a moment Smoker caught himself wondering if the bike was the other man's weak point, the thing he cared about or if even that might be just another of the things he did for show, a game to make people believe they knew him. Then Smoker focused on him again, because, games aside, the man was competent and there would have been a reason for their meeting on this island, a reason that surely wasn't connected to the touristic nature of the place no matter how hard Aokiji tried to make him believe that.
Finding no scratch on his beloved bicycle, the Admiral turned his attention to the man before him. Muffling a yawn, he greeted, "Ah, Smoker?"
A cold nod was the answer he received.
"I hadn't expected you to be here already. We were supposed to meet in a few hours time-" Watching the other man fume at his relaxed behavior, Aokiji quickly offered with a friendly smile, "let's go to the inn, I'll hand you your new orders there."
Smoker's brow shot up, his face reddening in the process. "What the hell? New orders?" The reaction was to be expected, as the man had already hated being ordered away from the search for Monkey D. Luffy, the pirate he'd chased since before his return to the Grand Line. He didn't like orders and thought he'd made that clear enough already.
Grinning slyly, Aokiji clapped a hand on Smoker's shoulder. "Yes, new orders, old boy, from the Buddha personally."
The mention of Sengoku's nick name was enough to see an expression of unwillingness hush over the grumpy face, but in the end Smoker simply sighed and nodded. "Ok. To the inn. Now."
Aokiji nodded and showed the way.
xxxxx
The Admiral slurped his tea without a worry in the world. Leaning back into the comfortable couch cushion, the man held out a basket with sweets to Smoker. "Take a bite. I know you don't like sweet things, but these are made from hazel nuts, they might be savory enough for your tastes."
Smoker's glare pierced right through the basket. Aokiji pulled back and rubbed his hand subconsciously, as if it had been hurt by the look alone.
"Just tell me what's going on!" Smoker finally burst, unnerved by the man's ritual fun in delaying his message as much as possible.
Aokiji put down his tea cup and fidgeted a letter out of his pocket. Stretching out his arm he held the paper under Smoker's nose but didn't loosen his grip, then said, "My friend, you will like these orders so much that you really could consider being a bit nicer to the man who delivers them."
Smoker quickly took the paper, ignoring Aokiji's comment not completely by honoring him with a puff of smoke from the one cigar currently in the corner of his mouth, and then opened the seal.
How come you know I'll like it when you couldn't have peeked into it, sly fox? The way the Admiral's information network worked was indeed intriguing and more so was that nobody had ever seen any proof that he had such.
The next minute was filled with silence, as Smoker opened the letter and read through it. His brow furrowed more with every word and by the end he looked up to his companion in utter disbelief.
"See, I told you you'd like it!"
Running a hand through his hair, Smoker stared down at the paper again, surprise still on his features. "Why now?" he asked, not caring to explain what he meant since the other had obviously already knowledge of the letter's content.
"Don't ask me. If you're that curious, you should call Sengoku if you wa-"
Smoker shook his head, vehemently. No, calling that man was never a good idea. Who knew what ideas he would get of ordering him around from now on if he deliberately called him?
Still - this . . . Smoker's fingers touched the parchment and travelled over the ink.
It was really true.
He was allowed to take his leave from the Fire Fist transportation. He was allowed to get back to his search for the Strawhat. No, he was even officially ordered to catch the pirate and his crew. They'd risen in importance, or danger, just as Smoker had predicted would happen when he had seen them for the first time.
It was what he wanted. Although rather, he admitted to himself, it was what he had wanted.
For some odd reason that he refused to think about, he had grown quite used to his current task, to the point that he had wanted to see the end of Fire Fist's "journey". He could not quite put his finger on it but he was unable to feel the relief about the news that he knew he was supposed to feel.
Nodding, he folded the letter again and stuffed it into his pocket which by now started to bulge a bit due to the amount of papers he'd already stored in there.
Not that he would consider getting rid of any of those.
"Is that everything?" he finally asked.
"For now, I guess so."
Smoker stood up, nodded reluctantly towards Aokiji and left the "Squirrel's Nut" without another word.
The Admiral watched him in curious amusement. If this was Smoker's "happy face" then it had not exactly been something to look forward to.
Seeing Smoker glare burns into the pigeon that crossed his path by the door, Aokiji remembered that he also had another meeting to attend, one that was equally important and equally fun.
Well . . . Hopefully. Yawning, he rose from his seat.
(tbc)
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* The line (and inspiration for the chapter) is taken from Dante's Divine Comedy, Inferno Canto 1
