Her e is chapter 25! I hope that you like it! Thank you for all of the favs, reviews and alerts that you guys gave! I'm very happy that you liked this story so far.
Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece, Oda does. I do however own the plot of this story.
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Luffy's POV:
When I woke up I found myself lying in Ace's bed, snuggling against his chest. At first I was surprised by this, but soon this surprise disappeared as I remembered about last night and how I had ended up going to his bed to calm myself and get to sleep calmly. I smiled at this, and I remained in this position, enjoying being so close to Ace. I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep for the time being, suddenly noticing the touch of Ace's hand on my back, which pulled me closer to him. I closed my eyes and snuggled further against Ace, which caused him, who still was asleep, to hug me tighter. I grinned at this, and wondered if it was because of a dream that he was having, and suddenly wondering how Ace would react when he woke up, and chuckling at the mental imagine that I got.
Minutes turned into hours, and I soon was asleep again. When I woke up again I realized that Ace was no longer beside me, and that I was alone in the room now. "He probably went off somewhere with Dr Kureha" I thought, as I got up, feeling a bit of strain, and went back to my bed, lying down and staring at the white ceiling. My thoughts soon went back to the cup, and then to the strange things that had happened inside that temple, more specifically to how the light hadn't affected me and how it had affected Ace though. We were both vampire, so how…? As I started thinking about this I ended up recalling the story that that dragon, or old man, had told us. "So only one of the people who returned remained human, and this one was the best friend of the one that defended him against that other one that had wanted the stone for himself" I thought. "One cup was given to each one of them, and they were referred as the two 'halves'. Why are they called halves though?" I stared wondering.
I remembered the symbol that we had both seen at the entrance of the temple, and how it had been drawn as being divided. It seemed to have the same drawings as the half of the medallion that I had, and I had the part of it where the star and the cup that we had just gotten were depicted in. I had been able to stand that strange light that the temple was filled with, while Ace hadn't been able to. Why was this? One cup was given to each one of the two men, and only when the two halves were reunited and those 'stars' died the path to that other world would open itself, and only if this was done by the two chosen ones, that would be the ones to stop the final plan, that probably involved someone trying to get the stone and using it for evil aims. That someone surely had to be Blackbeard. It was reasonable to assume that one half was represented by the star and the cup that we had recovered that gave light. Stars gave off light, and so had the cup. The light that it had given out had reminded me of the sun's light, and a star was essentially like the sun, only further away, wasn't it? So then one half had to be...
"Day" I thought. "And if one half is day, the other half has to be the opposite, so it has to be night since it is the opposite, and the other half of the medallion and of that picture was a moon and a dark cup" I then muttered, happy that I had managed to get so far with this. It was then when I remembered what I had been initially been thinking about. I had managed to stand that light, while Ace hadn't. Vampires couldn't stand the light of the sun and of day, but I had managed to stand the light that that cup, that represented day, gave out. What did this mean? Was I special in some way? I supposed that no other vampires could stand that kind of light, but I had. Did that mean that I had something to do with that 'half'? Had I been 'chosen' in some way? As far as I remembered by the stories that my mother had sometimes told me when I was a kid there had been no vampires in our family before, and all members of our family had been hunters. All of them had been hunters, and very powerful and known ones too at that. The medallion, as far as I knew, hadn't been from my family before, and yet I felt like it represented and belonged to me. I still liked day even if I was a vampire, and I longed the feeling of the sun on my skin, without the burning of course. I had resisted that strange light in the temple, which represented one half of that whole prophecy. At first I had thought that the two halves were the halves of the medallion Ace and I had, but after what that man had told us... could it be that the halves, the chosen ones were humans and not just physical halves?
I groaned in pain as I felt a headache go through my very being. I didn't like it, and it seemed that it had appeared out of thinking too much about this, although I felt it was necessary. I felt like I was about to reach an important conclusion. I looked around the room, suddenly noticing that it was already night time again. I didn't feel pain in my throat, unlike all of the pain that I had felt when I had first arrived here, so there was no doubt that Dr Kureha had given me blood while she was treating me. I didn't like this thought, but at least I wouldn't have to have more in some time. It was minutes after I had started thinking about the prophecy and the 'halves' that a thought suddenly hit me. One that could explain why all of that had happened inside that temple: "What if I was one of the 'halves'?" I then thought. My eyes widened at this, and as all of the things started to make sense. If this was true all the unanswered questions related to me would be answered, all of them.
I returned to thinking about the whole thing once again, but soon I found that I was far too tired for that now and that I would probably reach no new conclusions or get more answers due to that and the lack of other information that would be essential for it all to be figured out. Of course I wasn't good at figuring out these kind of things in the first place, and that was another severe drawback on me. I groaned, annoyed, as I closed my eyes, feeling sleepy again. I wondered when we would start going to the other temple. After that thought I fell asleep again, this time dreaming about all of those years ago when I was still a kid and Sabo was still around.
When I woke up I felt as if a tremendous amount of time had passed. I sat and looked around the room, this time finding Ace asleep on his bed. I looked around the room, not managing exactly to guess what time of the day it was and how much time had passed since I had last been awake. I then noticed again the bandages that had covered my whole chest area and some parts of my arms, but that now were only covering certain and not so large areas of my arms and chest. I grinned. I seemed that I had recovered quite quickly, or so it seemed at least. I was ready now to get going with our mission, and I knew that in this state Dr Kureha would offer no resistance for me going away, and probably for Ace too. I grinned at this thought, and soon my eyes landed on Ace, that seemed to be sleeping peacefully.
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Marco's POV:
What we would have to do was simple. It wasn't either spying the government or going to help Luffy and Ace, but instead locating the area where the portal to that other world would appear, or was hidden at, and then preparing a defence for that place, since the government wouldn't doubt in attacking it to try and stop us. That was why we had divided all of us into two groups: One that researched about the place where that was at and another one that had to inform the members of the Whitebeard Vampires and the hunters of the imminent battle between our groups and the government, that would be together with the other vampire groups that had been 'absorbed' by Blackbeard. It would be difficult, but if we all worked together as allies we would surely defeat them, and I was sure about that. However this would be no easy task, since we would not only have to defeat the strongest people from the government, but also strong ex-members of the other vampire groups and that now collaborated with the government and also the so called "Sichibukai" that were infamous for being some of the strongest people around. Yes, it was going to be a very difficult fight, but that was why we had to coordinate everything now, so we were ready.
I had been placed in the group that had to do the research about the location of the place, which had been quite surprising, considering that I was the second in command of the Whitebeard Vampires and that I would have been quite suitable for the job of calling the other members. However Rayleigh had told me that I would be more suitable for the job of finding where the place was located. Right now I was sitting around a table that was covered with all kinds of papers and documents at Rayleigh's house. Around the table were many other people, both hunters and members of the Whitebeard Vampires, and even some that weren't members of either of the groups. Some of the people were the very Rayleigh, Ben Beckman, the famous best friend of Shanks, that knew quite a lot about this, several other hunters and vampires and then the famous Nico Robin, that knew quite a lot of history and how to read ancient writing. We were quite a strange group, but we had managed to combine all our efforts and it seemed that we were advancing with the investigation faster than what we all expected for such a tricky and old matter, where information was very hard to find and in most cases completely made up.
We had been hours like this, sitting in front of the table discussing all of the information when a vampire that had been guarding the outside of the house barged in.
"B-boss!" He shouted, as he fell on his knees. His face revealed him to be extremely nervous and even terrorised.
"What is it?" Rayleigh answered the man.
"T-the government!" The man then shouted, stuttering several times while he said it.
"The government?" I asked aloud. I hadn't expected this. Were they going to attack us? Why?
"A-an admiral is coming! It's-" the man started saying, but didn't manage to finish, as soon the door that led to the house was opened, revealing a tired Aokiji.
I had never seen the man before. There were many tales told about him, none too good, but he was famous for his strength and loyalty to the government. He surely was very strong, and it would be difficult and lightly dangerous to fight him. However he seemed to be alone, and quite tired too. He was breathing heavily, and I could see some red spots on his government uniform.
"Aokiji" Rayleigh then stated with a serious tone of voice. "What do you want here?" He then asked.
I looked at the other side of the table and saw that Rayleigh and Ben Beckman were prepared to attack the man if he tried anything strange. Ben Beckman was aiming at the admiral with his gun. I then looked again at the admiral and also got into an aggressive stance.
"Put those away, I don't come to fight you" Aokiji then said.
"Then why?" I then asked him.
Aokiji then was silent for several seconds, not saying anything at all. "It's Blackbeard" He then started saying. "He is planning something, and I have a feeling that it isn't something too good. The man is using the government, and will betray it at any time he finds it reasonable, and I have found proof of this. However I am the only one that sees a threat in him" He then explained.
I was shocked by this. I had imagined Blackbeard being completely loyal to the government now, or them having a steady alliance, but it seemed like it wasn't like this after all.
"Why are you here then?" Rayleigh then said "You could have controlled the situation from inside the government, couldn't you?" Ben Beckman then said.
"I wish I could, but Blackbeard has slowly taken over the key parts of the government, and most believe him, including my superiors and the other admirals. Only a few believe me, and these are willing to help me stop whatever he is planning, but we won't be able to do this in our own" Aokiji then said.
Rayleigh then signalled Aokiji to enter, believing the man. I maintained a cautious attitude to the man that had been my enemy for so long, but I didn't think that what he had said had to be false. Aokiji then sat down, right in front of Rayleigh and Ben Beckman, and stared at them.
"What is Blackbeard planning?" Rayleigh then asked. It was the question that we all were wondering.
"Blackbeard wants to use that stone in that other world for his own wishes, but mainly he wants this: To destroy his world and recreate it as he wishes, him being the supreme ruler" Aokiji then said, shocking all of us.