Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece. I only own Yami.

Author's note: Tadaimaaa! Wish you lots of fun with this chapter. Well, actually it's not that funny. But I hope you'll enjoy it.

By the way, Yami, I'm sorry - cruel things are probably awaiting you. I know I wouldn't wish that for my most awful enemy, and I know it's not fair. Just know that I love you ... *sighs heavy-heartedly*


Chapter 54: This Ain't a Lovesong, This Is Goodbye

"Jeez! That's not fair, you know."

Yami sighed contentedly as she rolled onto her side in the sun-warm sand, facing him. "It's the fairest thing on earth, Cowboy. After all, you suggested this, isn't that right? I got three questions left …"

Ace grumbled something intelligible, then pouted and said, "You meanie!"

"Mean? Me? Are you crazy?" She poked him in the cheek with her forefinger. "Who was the one going all or-else on me just now, huh?" She was still feeling the aftereffects of his 'special treatment' throughout her body. This rich feeling of satisfaction, her sex still slightly throbbing, wet from all the excitement, her arms and legs heavy as lead.

It was a great feeling.

"That's … not fair."

"It is. Now tell me." As she looked at him expectantly, he turned over to his back, staring up at the bright sky with his brows drawn.

"Damn. You just tricked me …"

"Nope." Maybe a bit. "And look who's talking, anyway."

He gave her a dark glare from the side, before he heaved a sigh and gave up. "Okay. But don't forget the hint you owe me."

"I won't. Just let me think a bit." The truth was, her brain was still slightly mushy from all that had occurred. Out of nowhere, he had gone and given her the greatest orgasm ever. Doing some thinking right after? She was just human, after all. "But tell me first."

He sighed again, folding his arms behind his head. Then, he said a name.

Yami frowned. Okaaay, she'd known her brain wasn't quite up to speed right now, but the fact that it was making her hear things was a little worrisome. "Say that again, I guess my ears aren't working," she prompted.

Ace hmph-ed. "I guess your ears are working just fine." He said it again, and this time she was concentrating.

She sat up, supporting her upper body with an arm. "Are you fucking with me, Cowboy?"

"No, unfortunately not."

Trying to be funny or what?! "Oh, fine. If you won't tell me, I won't give you no hint. So I guess we're e–"

"The hell I won't! I already did, you idiot!" He was obviously annoyed now, but …

Wait. Wait, wait, waaaiiit.

"Y-you mean that?"

He shrugged, now sitting up himself. "Why should I lie."

"B-but he … that man … he didn't have children!" Because that just couldn't be true.

He raised his hands in a can't-help-it gesture. "Apparently, you're wrong. Cause here I am."

She blinked once, twice. Trying to speed up her thinking. "Y-you …"

He shrugged again, staring ahead darkly. "Yeah, but I don't care, okay? So don't blow this up or something."

"B-but …"

"Listen, that's exactly what you meant when you said that if I knew whose sister you were, I'd look at you differently. Now you're doing the same. And I hate it."

Hate it? Oh.

She inhaled deeply, her brain doing the steeplechase in her skull. "I … I didn't know …"

Ace scoffed. "Yeah, because that wasn't obvious at all."

"You're unfair now!" she blurted, and his head whipped around towards her, eyeing her sharply. "Jeez, gimme some time to stomach that! You can't just mouth-fuck me into oblivion, then drop a bomb and just assume I'd be able to keep up with that!"

When a slow grin spread on his face, she was confused for a moment. Ah, the oblivion part. Men and their stupid pride issues.

"It's like that, huh? Sorry," he said, grinning like an idiot.

Yami rolled her eyes, then rubbed her temples with both hands. "Just … let me think this over for a second, okay?"

He nodded, then lay back again into the sand, closing his eyes against the sun. He was smiling.

Okay. Okaaay. If he's the son of … then why don't the Marines … and why doesn't anyone … and how did he … and when … and what the hell?!

"Can you explain why nobody knows that that man actually had a child? Before he …"

"Died?"

Yami nodded.

"You can vocalise that, you know. I hate him."

"Why?"

Ace smirked and looked up at her. "That's question number three already, you know."

"Like I'd care. And you haven't answered number two yet, anyway."

He drew a deep breath. "Hm, okay. So it's like this: some know, some don't. I guess some of the upper ranks of the Marine know, because gramps does. I mean, Luffy's grandfather. And …"

"Wait, wait, wait. Luffy's grandfather is a Marine?" she exclaimed incredulously.

"Yup. Monkey D. Garp, don't you know that old man?"

Yami narrowed her eyes in thinking. "Maybe I've heard …"

"So almost nobody really knows. Which is just great. I'd be really angry if someone bothered me because of that." He scoffed. "Whitebeard is my only father now. Anyway … my mother gave her life for me, so that nobody was able to find out. Well, almost."

So that's why he doesn't bear that name, huh?

"I never knew her, or both of them, for that matter. If that guy lived, I'd probably beat him up."

"Why would you?" Yami asked, even though she understood that feeling. Half of it. Because, what her own mother had done … She didn't hate her for it, true, but she didn't love her either. As she had always done, before that.

She saw him clench his fists. Oh, how she knew that. "I owe him nothing. He's a bastard for dying and leaving my mother alone, and he's a bastard for driving her into what she did. And for making me problems even after he's dead."

"Hm." Yami brushed some stray red strands out of her face. For making problems even after they're dead? Then I should hate my parents to death, actually. "Didn't she do what she did for you, and not for him?"

"If he hadn't impregnated her, all this wouldn't have happened," he said darkly. Sitting up again, he rolled his shoulders back to work out a few knots.

"So the essence of what you're saying is that you shouldn't have been born?" she inquired, furrowing her brows and giving him a disbelieving glance. "Because if that's true, it's the biggest load of bullshit I've ever heard."

He stared at her, and his frown only became deeper and deeper. "You don't fucking know! You can't know!" he growled. "You don't know what it's like to be judged just because of what parents you had! To be regarded as the devil's child! To …"

She didn't let him finish. Because she knew that arguing would just lead to more arguing, which she didn't feel like doing, she simply grabbed him by the jaw and yanked him forward with both hands, so that he almost fell into the sand again. Instead, he fell against her, she went through with the plan and kissed him, and because she also didn't feel like using any strength for holding him up, they both landed back on the ground. Thanks to Yami holding him close, their lips were still locked, even as he tried to support his weight with his arms next to her shoulders.

"Why'd you do that?" he asked when she finally let go of his face. "I was just getting into a good fret there."

"Because you were talking shit, that's why," she said while beaming up at him.

"I wasn't."

"You were."

His dark eyes had become even darker as he was staring down at her. He opened his mouth to say something, but seemed to change his mind.

"You know," she said, gently brushing his dark brown hair out of his face, "I do know how that feels like. Being judged. Back there, I was captured because I'm the child of my parents. And there was nothing I could do."

His expression changed. There had still been that hard look on his face, telling her that even now, he hated the man who had fathered him so much that it hurt. Now, his face became softer, almost gentle. "I'm sorry," he whispered. "I forgot."

She smiled. "Just … it's better if you don't dwell on that. The past. It's gone, you can't change it. It's enough that you're always carrying it around with you but … let's move on. Together." She drove her hand through his smooth mane. "Ace."


After they had collected their few things, they had decided to go and visit the next city they could find. Ace had hidden the raft somewhere so that nobody could find it, just in case, and they had started walking into the forest, where Ace had discovered a narrow path. He supposed it led to a town, or at least some civilisation of whatever kind.

"So where's my hint?"

"Lemme think!" Yami complained. "I can't think when you're bugging me all the time!"

Ace just smirked. "Now you see what it's like. Payback, shadow girlie."

She just grumbled something unintelligible. It sounded suspiciously like she was cursing him to all that was bad on earth.

She was cute when she was like that.

"Okay, I'll tell you something," she sighed and Ace pricked up his ears so as not to miss any of her words. "He's older than you."

"Hey, hey, hey." Ace frowned. "Now tell me something new …"

Yami threw him an irritated glance. "You wanted a hint. You got one."

"That wasn't a hint, that was an observation. You already told me how old he is," he stated determinedly. "Try again."

"But …!"

"Don't 'but' me. Everyone in Pops' crew's older than me. You could just as well have said, "he's male"."

She quickly glanced away, and he suspected her to have at least thought about it. "Ohh, come on! Forgot what I did to deserve it, huh?" Suddenly, he grabbed her and pushed her against a tree, cornering her with his body, at which Neela, who had found her way back to them again, had to flutter around to not get squashed, and squawked indignantly. He smirked down at her and enjoyed her wide eyes. "I can do it again, anytime. Just so you know."

"God, have mercy with the poor and satisfied," she murmured, then pinched the bridge of her nose. "Okay, okay. So here's an amendment: he's already been in Whitebeard's crew before you were even born. That enough?"

"Now that's something I can work with!" he beamed and managed to quickly kiss her on the forehead before she shoved him away.

Older than … hmmm. That excludes … hmmm … Izou? Damn! He could have bitten himself in his own ass – he didn't even know how long every single nakama of his had been in the crew! And they all looked so old, they'd never talked about age and stuff … Well, at least now he knew it had to be one of the higher-ranked pirates in the crew, since they were the ones who'd been there the longest.

Well, wonderful. At this rate I'll never guess it.


They actually found a small town as they stepped out of the woods, and immediately started searching for bars. Ace, for his part, needed more information, and Yami, for her part, needed some alcohol, as she stated.

They found the town's market in no time, since it was the largest place in the small town, and decided to saunter around for a bit, enjoying the sun and eyeing the things for sale. Lots of fruits and vegetables, also some they didn't know yet, and colourful cloth. Housewares, and a salesman with a few domestic animals, like chicken, goats, geese, and multicoloured rabbits which looked quite curious. Neela became excited from all the ruckus around them, and started tripping from right to left on Yami's shoulder.

"How much is this?" Yami asked a merchant, pointing at a grindstone. Ace supposed she needed it for her daggers. She hadn't used them in a while. Which did not mean didn't have to use them, oh no.

The merchant looked at them with his mouth open, and Yami frowned when she didn't get an answer. She just shrugged and went on to the next booth, but Ace saw the peculiar way the merchant continued staring after them. He pulled her with him until he couldn't see that man anymore. It made him somehow nervous, that glance.

To her questioning gaze, he just shook his head. "That guy had a strange way to look after us. I just didn't like it …"

Soon they had seen all there was to see, and were on their way to leave the market behind them. In a side street, Ace had spotted a little bar called 'Juicehead', and they thought it quite agreeable.

They had just crossed the street on their way into the side street when Yami grabbed him by the arm and stopped.

"What's it?" he asked. "Seen anything weird?"

"No …" she mumbled, her eyes wildly scanning the surroundings. "Something … something's not right … I guess …"

"Not right?" Ace raised his brows. "What do you mean?" He looked all the way around the both of them, but couldn't detect anything extraordinary. "Hey, are you sure? I don't see anything, and –"

The moment he heard the whirring sound, she had already given him a hard shove. His first impulse as he was thrown to the side was to curse at her, but from experience, he knew better. Rolling to avoid crashing to the ground, he felt the fringe of something soft and yet hard touch his shoulder, and his body almost caved in.

He jumped back, at the same time opening his palms to two giant-sized fire balls, and –

When he fully perceived the situation they were in, he stopped.

"GO!" Yami yelled at him. She was cowering on the ground, buried underneath a large net.

Kairoseki.

When he heard the footsteps, the fire raged in his hands. He threw himself around to confront whoever it was, and –

Is that … a motherfucking army or what?!

"GO!" Yami repeated. "GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HERE!"

"Portgas D. Ace! Lady of the Shadows! You're both arrested!" one of the Marines shouted. He was wearing a captain's mantle slung over the shoulders, and in his hands was a large rifle, no doubt filled to the brim with kairoseki bullets.

Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.

His brain spun around in his head, trying to make sense of it all. They'd captured her, but she had gotten him out of the way, they were many, they had rifles and kairoseki, but if he tried he'd surely get away – FUCK THAT!

He'd never leave her! He'd fight! He'd …

"We have your little girl, so be reasonable, Portgas."

"GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE, COWBOY!"

But …!

"Be sensible, Portgas. Hands over your head. If you don't want us to hurt her then –"

"Fine," Ace said, shrugging. He let the fire disappear, and raised his hands in the demanded surrendering gesture. Behind him, he heard an agitated yell. The Marine was coming nearer, rifle still pointed at him. He whipped out a pair of kairoseki handcuffs.

"Now stand still and –"

Ace chose this point of time to jump into the air and throw a large ball of fire at them all. Then, the next one, he designed especially for smoke, so that several of them started to cough their lungs out.

"As if I'd care for her!" he then shouted in mid-jump. "Nice diversion … but nothing more. She was annoying anyway. Bye-bye, crazy girl!"

Bullets were whizzing around his head, and they were shouting. But he knew he could get away. He was already on a nearby roof, ready to make a run for it, when he turned around once more.

Her eyes were filled with tears, from the smoke or from her feelings, he didn't know. As their eyes met over the battle scene, he silently said his goodbye.


Coming up:

How I've missed this, she thought dryly as she took in her surroundings. – And once again … I'm sorry, Yami.

She had discovered that when you were alone and had only to care for yourself, it wasn't only easier but suited her far better. – Some (interesting?) inner monologue on Yami's side.

In that situation, she had acted subconsciously and instinctively, for the good of them both. – That's what she says …