Hello there ! New chapter for you ! I hope you'll enjoy it !
Just some insight in one day of the life of Ace... and some lines just to introduces Shikki. So hop you'll like it.
Also, I'm going back from scratch more or less so this story can be more easy to read (sorry for being french)
"Well Ace, you have your work cut down for you…" noted Thatch when Namur hung up, after Shirohige's call.
"It's mostly strange that Oyaji insist that you go for two missions simultaneously, as everyone know that you wanted to stay at Shabaody to see your brother again, before his entry in the Shin Sekai." muttered the fishman.
Ace continued to stare silently, with a glare, the newspaper talking about some island's destruction, in the East Blue. Fortunately, Dawn wasn't touched yet.
"No, on the contrary, Oyaji did a good thing" assured Ace. "If Luffy see this article, he will turn around to make sure that everyone is alright, to Dawn. And a lot of his nakamas are from East Blue, too, so… We will probably see each other on the way, or directly at home. It's been a while since I had news from Makino-nee-san… since I sailed the sea to become a pirate, in fact… For what is about finding about Doma's disappearance, it's normal for it to be me, he is a friend. And he is the only one of our allies to know the truth about Ann, besides."
A pirate entered the cabin where the commanders were gathered around the denden.
"Shabaody in sight, Taïsho-tachi", he stated.
"We're coming", assured Jozu.
Ace took the denden and composed a number.
"Who are you calling? Inquired Namur.
"My little brother to see what he will do, exactly about this."
Ace entered in the bar, and was surprised to not see Shakky around. Only Rayleigh, behind the bar, reading a newspaper.
"Heya, Ji-chan! Shakky abandoned you to your fate?" Ace smiled while advancing to the counter.
"Ace, my boy! I knew that I would see you around these days" answered Rayleigh closing his paper. "Shakky is still in her bed, she is resting from a food poisoning. What do I give you?"
"A coffee. I'm not staying long. I have to adjust my log, and visit someone… any news from Sabo?"
Rayleigh shook his head, his expression darkening.
"Me neither. Not since the incident from Enies Lobby. He scolded me because he was the last to know, this time!" said Ace.
Rayleigh chuckled and prepared a coffee for his godson.
"I tried to worm the information out of the Revolutionaries… it's someone named Sherry, apparently a friend of Sabo, who told me that nobody had any precision on Haran's mission. Everyone is in the dark", sighed Ace.
"You tried speaking to his girlfriend… Edessa if I'm not mistaken?"
Ace just continued drinking his coffee without answering.
"Come on, you won't make me believe that you don't know, that your brother has a girlfriend…" smiled Rayleigh.
"I didn't have any occasion yet to go see her," answered Ace.
"Talking about boyfriend…"
"Ji-chan! I thought you would leave me alone about my relation with Marco!"
"I have some problems understanding your relationship with Marco, to begin with, that's all, Ace, and that's why I'm wondering and worry a lot…more so with how old he is."
"What do you want me to say, Ji-chan?"
"That you enlighten your old uncle, that's all, Ace… And give me a good reason to not worry."
"I'm the fire, Ji-chan… I feed from what I consume, and if something resists, it strengthening me… I didn't change from when I was a kid. I throw myself without thinking, fully in things, and too bad if I'm hurt in the end… But Marco…"
"But?" Asked Rayleigh attentive.
"The first time I saw him, I wanted to consume him, too. I was thinking that after taking Shirohige's place, our two crew could stay in good terms, like it happened with Otou-san's… that I could have one or two one night stand with him, and to draw so sort of way to subsist, like the fire burn because of the wood… It was what always happened after my adventures… But it was before I really learned to know him. The time passed on the Moby Dick, I saw that I had underestimated him. I fell for him. The others commanders say that I drove the Phoenix crazy, but for the first time, I was consumed. Without even taking the next step with him… For the first time, I took the time. Not by choice, more for fear to sell myself. By fear that by doing like before, by throwing myself in a one night stand, I would be consumed… scared that in eating me so much, I would cease existing, to be me. I tried to resist… but with him, I was more the flame, I was the moth, who, drawn to the light, fly happily to his death…"
"Ace… from what you're telling me, I want to tell you to…"
"I'm not over! It was before we began to have a relation! Don't cut me, it's hard to put it into word all of this. I had to give an easier to understand version to Lu'…"
Rayleigh raised his hand, and indicated to Ace to continue.
"When we finally took the next step, I was scared. Fearing of being the one to be consumed. But I think that a sort of… I don't know how to explain what happened… on one side, I know that my relation with Marco changed me, in one way. However, … I'm still me. I wasn't consumed. I think that we ended up feeding from each other's' warmth, of the affection… of all those little things… I believe that today, who I am is inseparable to what Marco did to me, from what I am with him. It's strange this sort of thing… And I'm happy. I believe that if I found myself with wing on of these day it wouldn't surprise me!"
"Feelings don't always have a rational explanation, you know. It like trying to explain the link we have between us, or you and your siblings; Things are like they are, you don't have to understand. You just have to appreciate them."
Ace stared at his godfather who smiled at him with affection. Smile that the dark-haired man answered.
The young pirate swallowed the rest of his coffee and stood up. He took his hat on the bar and put it on his head opening the door, letting enter a ray of raising sun, lighting his silhouette.
"I'm going, Ji-chan. I'll see if I can have some info about Sab', and I come back to change before Ann go down to the East Blue… I'll need a zodiac, though. Ja ne!"
"I'll try to find you that", assured Rayleigh.
«I'll go greet Edessa, too, just in case...» though ace closing the door.
Rayleigh look at the sign and sighed, a little smile on his lips. Ace, his boy, his nephew, had grown well, since the restless boy he had raised…
"You are quite early, Ray-chan", commented Shakky coming down in the main room of the bar.
"Oh, Ace was too. I'm going to the casino, after I found a zodiac for Ann. See you soon."
Ace could see Edessa's door, when his denden rang. He sighed and opened his bag to take the receiver.
"Portgas D. Ace listening?" He asked.
He retained the best he could a yawn. He will need another coffee, if he didn't want to have a narcolepsy attack in the following moments.
"Ace-san? It's Edessa. I called the number you gave me and was directed to this denden..." said the hesitant voice of a young woman.
"Normal, I was given a personal and untraceable denden. However, I think it's useless of us to talk to the denden when I am two feet away from your house."
"Oh mm, very well, I'll wait for you then. A coffee?"
Ace chuckled.
"With pleasure."
And he hung up.
He cleared quickly the distance between Sabo's girl's house and knocked on the door.
"One moment" called the voice of Edessa from inside.
There were some noises, and the door opened on the tousled woman.
"Sorry for the mess, I wasn't expecting visit anytime soon", she apologized. "How are you?"
"Quite busy, but well enough" answered Ace entering in the house.
He raised an eyebrow before the mess. It was in the same state as his cabin, when Marco wasn't here (he did the effort of tidying it before the Phoenix was back). Edessa showed him a chair cleared of paperwork and clothes, before putting on an empty corner of the table two mugs of very hot coffee. She leaned on the sofa.
"I won't do the stupid thing such as asking how you are, since you are visibly unwell," stated Ace taking his mug.
"What make you say that?" Inquired the young woman.
Ace gestured toward the living room, and then Edessa's face in front of him.
"You cried recently. I presume that you don't have any news from Sabo either."
Edessa lowered her head.
"I tried to get information from the revolutionaries. But none seemed to know what was Sab's mission; Nor Rayleigh, and knowing Shakky, if she knew, she would have told Ji-chan. I have to sail down the Grand Line, under my captain's order. I'll ask around on the way."
"Thank you" breathed Edessa.
"It's natural. He asked me to look after you. You have his Vivre Card, by the way?"
"No, and you?"
"Neither do I, unfortunately", lied Ace drinking his coffee.
He didn't want to worry her more than necessary, nor that she put herself in danger for nothing. Sabo wouldn't forgive him. And if she saw the state of the Vivre Card…
"Would… would it be a problem if you stayed a little here, just some minutes to discuss?" Asked Edessa. "You could tell me stories on your childhood, or tell me why some subject seemed taboo for Sabo. Not that I want to betray his trust, or anything, it just that I want to understand the reason of his cautions, sometimes. I suspect that it must be important, for him to not talk about it. I talked about it with Shakky-san, and she told me that it isn't his secret to tell."
Ace leaned against the back of his chair, without a word, attentive.
"He… he told me of the link between your younger brother and his boss. I presumed then that you were half-brother, and that…"
"Wrong. We aren't even half-brother."
Ace reclined his hat on his face.
"Where are you from?" Ace demanded.
"Where is the link?"
"You want to know more, so I first need to know how to approach the thing."
His hand reached for his necklaces, nervous gesture that he developed each time he talked about a subject that came close to who he really was.
"If you want to know about one of probably the biggest secret that Sabo drag, with Luffy's kin and his state as a revolutionary, I have to know how to approach the subject. I am the one who is concerned, and believe me, it's not something I talk easily about. If my captain hadn't discovered by chance, I would have never told him, and it's only a little time that my crew is in the know. Except for this, only those who saw me grow up, those who proved to me that I could trust them, and this bastard of Sengoku, really know everything. Will you answer my question, or not?"
Edessa raised an eyebrow, and end up saying:
"South Blue. Is it enough, Ace-san?"
"You know Baterilla island?"
"Who doesn't! Everybody heard about the slaughter that the population endured for an unfunded rumor! More so since Roger's daughter come from the East Blue! The poor girl… so many people must make her responsible for this incident… I'm very sad for her."
"She doesn't need it, believe me."
"Hmph! What do you know about that?!"
"I am in no case Luffy's half-brother, even if I would like that, to, maybe, know at least one of my parent, and that he doesn't have to live with the fact that Dragon never wanted him. And what I know, it's elementary… I am the reason of the slaughter of Baterilla. I barely escaped it as I as in the womb of my mother."
"I thought that Sabo was from the East Blue?!"
"Oh, but Sabo really is from the East Blue. Luffy, we don't know where he was born, so, we say the same thing. But for me, I was born on Baterilla. My mother died in childbirth, after a prolongation of pregnancy. She held me for twenty months. When Rayleigh found her, with Garp, she was pregnant for eleven months. Sabo told you about them, didn't he?"
"Yes…"
"It doesn't sound strange to you that the man who send Roger to his death, never did anything to his first mate, and that his grandsons, as he calls them, call the Pirate 'Uncle'?"
Edessa didn't answer. Ace was beating around the bush, he knew it, and he didn't like it. It was more like Sabo to do this, but he didn't know how to approach the subject with this girl.
"All of this to say what?" Finally asked Edessa.
"If we leave out Luffy, the son of the Revolutionary's leader… Why would Dawn live in fear of a Buster Call during seventeen years? Why did the Mei-Ô found necessary to hide in the weakest sea of the four, other than the fact that it is there that Roger died? More so on the island here Genkotsu no Garp is from? And why did he decide to raise children in the first place, when he doesn't have any blood in common with them?"
The young woman's eye widened as she puzzled everything out.
"I created from nothing the one called Gol D. Ann, so that no one noticed the strange similarity between the dead Kaizoku Ou, and me, the Kaizoku Ouji, Gol D. Ace. That's why, that since I'm little, Luffy and me, we learned to mistrust, and be careful of what we tell others about us. That's why, that Sabo refused to run away from his house, when a lot of time, we proposed him to come live with us. He didn't want to cause trouble, and for it to be discovered that Garp kept the existence of the Kaizoku Ouji or the Leader of the Revolutionary's son hidden, and even less the fact that he was hiding the Mei-Ô. That's why, in part, that Sabo learned to control the information he gave to others. A lot of them would wish our death, to Luffy and me. We are demons, freaks, we should never have been born, but, we are here, and it displease some! Even in Oyaji's allies, I know someone who want my death for being the godson of Roger's first mate. That's all. I don't even want to imagine his reaction if he come to learn that I am the son of this man. For our life, and our survival, we keep information to us. Sabo probably has more secrets, it wouldn't surprise me. I may be older, but there are things he won't tell me, even to me, and I respect that, even if it pisses me off, because even if I'm his brother, whe chose our way, our lives, our adventures…"
Ace emptied his coffee, stood up and without a word, walked out, not wanting to be judge. Not by her, not the girl his brother loved. He wouldn't be able to answer to his actions if it should happen, and his brother would never forgive him if he hurt Edessa when he had promised him to take care of this girl.
He closed the door and caught sight, not far, of Thatch sitting on a bench, reading a book.
The young commander went to join him, and began a conversation just on time, because Edassa had just opened the door:
"Heya, Thatch! What are you doing around here?!"
He forced a smile on his face. His partner noticed, raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment.
"I keep an eye on you", stated Thatch with a smile. "You don't cheat Marco, at least?! And with a girl… seriously Ace, I believed you more attracted by three-piece suit, than by a pair of boobs!"
"Very delicate of you, to not change, Thatch… What are you reading?"
"The legend of the Seven Seas. It's a great novel!"
Ace took the book from the hands of his friend, and walked away reading.
"Oi! it's my book!" Huffed Thatch.
"Don't care and now it's mine. For all the time I search for it, you could have signaled me that you had found it! It's my brother who wrote it!"
"That I know, it isn't written Sabo for author."
Ace rolled his eyes.
"It's a pseudonym, baka. Well, I still have to go down the Grand Line, me…"
"You are prudent with the gasoline, aren't you?" Asked Rayleigh.
"Ji-chan, I'm not a child anymore !" Ann said, offended letting her bag fall on the zodiac.
She began to tidy the jerrycans to her taste.
"Here."
Ann caught just in time an Eternal Pose that her Godfather threw at her.
"It's for the Twin Cap. You'll greet Crocus for me, please?"
"Yes, Ji-chan. Thanks."
"On my side, I'll see if I heard from Doma. If I have some info, I'll reach you on your denden. Don't part with it."
"I'll repay you for that, seriously, Ji-chan."
"One last thing, Ace."
Ann arranged her black hat on her head to look at her Godfather, her coat hanging on one of her shoulder.
"You may not be a child anymore, but for me, you will forever stay the ten-month-old brat who made his first steps walking straight in my arms calling me 'Ji-chan'," smiled the ex-pirate.
Ann blushed and bowed her hat on her face.
"Ja ne, Ji-chan," she whispered concentrating on the layout of her zodiac.
She had preferred to not go down under her appearance of the Nibantai Taîsho. She didn't know what to expect, better not implicate Oyaji uselessly. So, the Striker had to stay at Shabaody.
Rayleigh moved away, leaving her alone.
Ann rolled her sleeves and crouched down to put in a corner her coat, and put delicately her log on it. She searched then her pocket to pick her medicine.
She was going to swallow them when she sensed Edessa's presence.
The young woman stopped near the Kaizoku Hime, a little breathless, as if she had run.
Ann just took her pills without a word, then check the level of the gasoline in the motor. She did her best ignore her.
"You didn't leave me the time to talk, earlier."
Ann shrugged.
"I have things to do, I can't pass all my day chatting uselessly, when I have the life of a friend probably in danger. Doma is, among Oyaji's allies, the one I can consider my best friend, compared to the commanders who are big brother to me. If something happens to him, when I am responsible of dragging his ass back to the Shin Sekai, I would never forgive myself, muttered Ann. Plus, it's not doing nothing that I will know more about Sabo's case, and if something happens to him, I think that nobody want to discover what would happen at this moment… my death would probably be bemoaned, but the death of the ones responsible, that's for sure… And I most of all, don't want to receive injure to my face, or anything else…"
And she starts the motor.
"If you have something to tell, it's now, or never" Ann told her refusing to look at her.
She didn't want to see hate or disgust… she saw enough of that every day, when she was 'Ann'.
The motor began to run happily.
"I don't judge you. I can tell that it mustn't be easy every day and I understand why Sabo is so careful on what he said… I… I pity you."
"I hate pity."
Edessa gave a poor smile.
-You shouldn't pay for your father. It was an incredible man, from what I know. Very brave."
Ann looked at her inclining her hat toward the back, rather surprised. She ended up shrugging and did the last check on her embarkation, before saying:
"Portgas D. Rouge was from Baterilla."
And she sailed away.
Ann woke up from a narcolepsy attack, feeling weak.
Shit, someone had put some Kairoseki on her wrists.
Keeping her eye closed, without doing anything showing that she was awake, she concentrated to the maximum, to use her Haki in this situation.
She was lying in a room, with two guards.
Humph! She was underestimated!
Outside, Ann sensed Nami's voice. What? What was she doing here?
She was with someone else, too. Rather powerful, but not enough to worry her.
Ann opened one eye, and turned it toward the room around her. The guards' back was turned.
Leaping, even with a reduced strength and her hindered hands, she was on her, and knocked them out. She rushed then in the wall in front of her, passing in it, as if it was paper, breaking it.
When the dust dissipated, we could see Ann, standing before Nami, on one leg, the other stretched out in contact with a sword… a sword taking the place of a leg.
Picturing the golden mass in front of her, the pirates knew who she was before.
"Kinjishi no Shiki. What do I owe this disagreeable surprise?" Hissed Ann taking back her leg, still on guard.
"Jihahahah! As strong as your father, Gol D. Ann!" Laughed the pirate. "And for your presence here, well, I though, when my men found you unconscious in the sea, that I could invite you to my palace, to talk business!"
"I don't know where the One Piece is, nor if it exists. And for the coordinates of Raftell I don't know them."
"Jihahahaha! Who other than you could know about that?! It isn't good to lie, Baby-chan!"
"Oi, the redhead… nothing broken… ?" Asked Ann above her shoulder.
"I'm alright, Gol-san, thank you for worrying." replied Nami.
"Call me Ann and don't be so formal, I'm not that old… What are you doing here?"
"He kidnapped me on the ship of my captain for my abilities as a navigator…"
«So Luffy will be here quickly, normally. »
Ann broke her guard and held her tied hands toward the legend of piracy.
"Since I am a guest it may be good to untie this, no? I promise to be good boy so long as nobody touch the redhead."
"Come on, Baby-chan, when you are a Lady, you have to use the feminine…" scolded lightly Shiki with a smile.
"Fuck you. You free me, and I'm good boy. Touch this girl behind me, and it's my fist in your face, with or without kairioseki. Your choice."
Shiki took out a key from his kimono and freed Ann from her handcuff.
Massaging her wrists, she turned toward Nami, the time to give her a comforting smile; Her two missions were going to be delayed…
