Chapter 10: Relapse
Disclaimer: Unless I suddenly became a different person over night, I am not Oda, and definitely do not own One Piece.
*The continuation of this one-shot is now up under the same title!*
He wondered who exactly he could blame. He couldn't figure out how he could not have noticed, so his stubborn mind told him that it had to be someone else's fault.
Not that there was anyone else within a hundred mile radius that he could even interact with.
Because the dead were invisible to the living.
But his mind was stubborn anyway, and repeatedly told him "No, you idiot, you are not at fault."
He had given up arguing with that voice in his head. If that was really what his mind believed, then he had been wrong about who was the idiot in the family his entire life.
Or maybe his mind was trying to prevent him from going into a grief-and-guilt-induced state of mental shock.
His mind went quiet. That was definitely the reason.
He continued to watch the figure that was the cause of his recently ended mental civil war. Said figure had finally recovered from what had happened earlier and was staring out at the sea with a mask that was slowly fading away as his emotions returned to a normal state.
Ace had never been more jealous about his little brother's ability to "bounce back" from just about everything. He had never been happier about it either.
Now that his thoughts had slowed down as they tried to comprehend everything he had just witnessed, Ace discovered that he couldn't seem to form a coherent word- much less a thought.
With a sigh that went unheard by his very much alive little brother, Ace forced his stunned mind to relive its experience from just moments ago so he could sort himself out.
At the time, he had been debating whether or not being dead and discovering that there was an afterlife was a blessing or a curse. On the bright side, he could finally meet his mother and had discovered that Sabo wasn't dead- that bastard was in for an earful when he did finally pass on. He had also discovered that until he "moved on" to the next word he could spend as much time as a ghost as he wanted to- which meant that he could literally watch over his brothers until the day they died- the Whitebeard pirates included, of course. On the downside, the person whose blood alone had caused his death was also in the afterlife. Ace sighed as he thought about that and subconsciously reached upwards towards the wound that had caused his death- or, he tried to, at least.
He had been in shock when he had discovered that the hole in his torso had been slowly closing as the days passed. He wasn't sure exactly why, but had more or less come to the conclusion that in the afterlife, you looked like you did in your prime, but the exact age and appearance was influenced by how happy you were with your life at that point.
Or so he would like to say. Considering that another ghost had told him that when Ace had stumbled upon him, stressed over the fact that his death wound was disappearing. It wasn't like he wasn't happy about it, but it's not like he expected it out of the blue. On the plus side, when he had final gathered the courage to turn and look, he had seen that the symbol of the Whitebeard pirates had returned as well.
All of this had been crossing his mind as he had left his watch of Sabo- which he had been doing for the past week- and hunted down Luffy to watch him for a week- as had become his routine. Being a ghost definitely had its perks. Such as not having to listen to physics that told him that he had to swim to get through water- if only for a minute or so. Other than that, he could walk through walls and such when he felt like it, and crash into them when he didn't feel like it- or when he wasn't paying attention, but that was beside the point.
Ace officially came to the conclusion that he was, in fact, oblivious, because he wanted to be. All he had seen for the last two years was his smiling brother's face. Now, he couldn't be so oblivious that he hadn't seen the look on Luffy's face when he wasn't training (did he mention how proud he was the Luffy had practically mastered the basics of all three forms of Haki in a year and six months?), so he knew Luffy had grieved, and he wasn't going to pretend that he didn't know Luffy missed him. A lot. Which somehow made Ace happy and sad all at the same time.
But he was apparently oblivious enough to assume that his little brother had finally managed to not only accept, but completely recover and move on from, Ace's death.
He mentally face palmed at the thought. It had taken Luffy long enough to get over Sabo's death- granted he was seven, and Ace was at fault there as well- so why he had assumed Luffy was fine two years later, after witnessing what he believed to be his only remaining brother's (Sabo better quit being a coward really soon or Ace was going to come back to life just to knock some sense into him) death right smack dab in from of him after he had literally gone through hell and back (twice) to try to save Ace, was completely beyond his capability to understand. So he had completely dumbfounded himself. He deserved some sort of award for his stupidity level at the moment.
He had at least blindly hoped that Luffy was more okay with his death than this.
Now, his thoughts approached the shadow haunting him at the moment.
Apparently, Ace's forever missing luck during life had finally decided to make an appearance during his afterlife, although it was still minimal, and had just decided that he needed no more good luck. He fortunately had never before witnessed what he had just seen, and apparently Luffy went to great lengths to ensure his crew never noticed (Oh, how he wished he could smack Luffy for that).
Ace had just rudely discovered that his little brother was in no way completely over his death.
He felt worse than an idiot for not noticing that.
It had started out as a normal day on the Thousand Sunny, and would probably end as a normal day to everyone else. Ace, however, would never get a normal day again until he could someone find a way to reach Luffy from the afterlife.
Ace was drawing a blank on what could have caused Luffy's… "relapse." If he could call hiding from the rest of the crew while biting back screams a "relapse." If he assumed correctly, Luffy must have had another nightmare last night, which the crew knew about and everyone here knew that that was completely normal. In fact, Ace was positive they would think it strange if Luffy didn't have nightmares from time to time. It was common knowledge that the "War of the Best", as it was called, was downright horrifying. And that Mugiwara no Luffy was smack in the middle of it all.
He needed to kill Luffy for making him worry like that, but his stress-induced heart felt revenge would have to, hopefully, wait a long time.
The previously stated nightmare must have been worse than usual, considering Luffy looked complete and totally drained and haggard, and had triggered quite the terrifying relapse, and Ace had to force the memories of Luffy's nails digging into his skin with brutal force out of his mind. Luffy's previous state of appearance had reminded Ace painfully of the end of the battle at Marineford. Which brought up all sorts of bad memories. He pushed them aside and worked unwillingly through his thoughts.
Luffy could, apparently, somehow know, when a relapse was going to happen, since he had looked increasingly worried, stressed, and fearful throughout the day (although Ace only noticed this in hindsight, his little brother might be a horrible liar, but he was a pretty good actor) and had finally appeared resigned as he disappeared from the eyes of his nakama and withdrawn to the depths of the Sunny while waiting for the unavoidable and ever growing relapse to finally take over. Ace had been puzzled about why Luffy had moved away from his nakama for a while, until his eyes had spotted Luffy's trembling frame.
Shortly followed by the worst experience of Ace's life. Erm, afterlife.
When the relapse was finally over, and Ace realized that no- weeks had not passed by, Ace was forced to wait as Luffy's breathing calmed, but nothing seemed to stop the violent trembling- or the blood streaming from where Luffy's nails had pierced his own skin.
When the two had finally emerged from what Ace named Luffy's Personal Torture Chamber (in an attempt to release some of the anger he held towards Luffy for not seeking help from his crew and for suffering alone), Luffy had gone to stand by the rails and watch the waves to calm his mind while Ace sat on said rail and worked through his thoughts.
Which brought him back to the present.
Ace sighed as he finished sorting his thoughts and accepted what he had just been forced to realize.
And went back to blaming himself for being oblivious. To his mild guilty disappointment and sorrowful relief, the voice in his head did not argue with him this time.
The sun had completely set and the moon was approaching its peak by the time the last of Luffy's mask, that was hiding his lasting sorrow and pain, slipped away and his little brother gave a genuine smile, even if it was much less enthusiastic than usual.
Luffy discovered another purpose for his sleeves as he tugged them down a bit lower to hide the angry red marks where his nails had dug into and pierced his skin and tipped his hat down some to hide his still far away eyes. Just in case someone in the guys' room was still awake.
Now that Ace was thinking calmly, and less obliviously (screw it, he had been in denial), he realized something he had missed. Every time he had come to watch over Luffy, his little brother had disappeared for a few hours at least once a week. His eyes widened at the thought.
Ace snapped. Screw afterlife physics. He was going to help his little brother. No matter what he had to do he was going to make certain the crew found out about these relapses of his. And that he got the fucking help he needed.
Now, Ace just needed a plan.
I'm hopelessly cruel to Ace. Poor guy, I just had to put him in oblivious denial with his good luck popping up at all the wrong moments so he missed all of Luffy's previous relapses. And then he had to witness the worst one. And I didn't go too far in to detail with the relapse 'cause I wanted to make it seem like Ace wasn't keen to dwell on the actual relapse for too long.
Now, I'm sure your like: "What does he do?" And I'm just going to grin evilly at you.
This is a one-shot, yes, and I originally intended to make it longer, until I realized that I was writing a mini-series on one MS word document. So this is like an unofficial "prologue" to an unwritten miniseries about ghost Ace trying to help his little brother recover. If you all want me to continue this, nag me in the reviews or PM me or something and I will, but if not, I'll just leave this as is.
Hope you enjoyed this chapter of Ace discovering a hard reality. XD
Seriously, hope you enjoyed the chapter ! :P
Edit:My story "Relapse" is up. The continuation of this one-shot!