BRUH
I just found out that Wano is actually islands pulled together by Oars, it was written in the recent release of Vivre Cards. And you know what.
I had the exact same freaking idea that I planned to use for the Empire of Churia. BRUH. I had this planned out for the Empire when the manga wasn't even in Wano Arc. And now i'm revealing it in this way...spoilers kek
Damn you Oda! I don't know whether to be happy that he and I actually had the same idea for once but damn it!
Learn your lesson kids, don't write fanfic until the OG series is done.
Now it's time to decide whether I should continue using the same setting I had in my head for the Empire, or just abandon it all together. Or maybe, I can use this little tidbit about Oars...
After a trip to the river, Tsuki found herself back at the trio's hideout again, sitting in the poor imitation of a crow's nest the brothers had built. Goa Kingdom sprawled before her, Grey Terminal and forests melding into beaches and into the vast, open sea. The breeze had a faint whiff of the saltiness of the seas. If she closed her eyes and listened attentively with Qi, she just might be able to hear the sound of the waves crashing onto the shore.
Tsuki didn't want to admit it, but knowing that there were three humans who hadn't thrown away their humanity sleeping soundly below her gave her comfort.
"What the fuck are you doing here."
Ah. Make that two humans.
The fuming boy might just explode if she turned to look at him. Tsuki heard him coming a long way back. She had no intention of giving up her cozy seat to anyone and she welcomed the distraction anyway.
Though, she preferred to have Luffy instead of the hot-headed cockroach who was getting ready to throw down some fists with her.
"Do you want to take a seat?" Tsuki patted the space beside her, finally making eye contact with Ace, "...Sorry, that was a dumb question."
How rare for her to ask a dumb question, but she was beside herself tonight.
"Get out." Ace growled, poison dripping from his tone.
(Un)fortunately, Tsuki had resistance to poison. "No," she drawled out, enjoying the look of pure rage on Ace's face.
As she anticipated, the raven-haired boy rushed at her with his fists raised, making a feint to his right but ready to knee her in the gut instead. Tsuki dodged him easily, taking the chance to skirt around to his unprotected back and give him a Qi-infused palm strike. She knocked the wind out of him, then swiftly stepped forward to put him in a suffocating headlock.
"Didn't bring your pipe out tonight, Ace-chan?" Tsuki teased the thrashing boy, tightening her grip on him.
"Shut...up...!" Ace choked out, trying to kick her legs out from beneath.
Tsuki was shorter than Ace, so maintaining the position was getting harder. It was a wonder Ace was still able to talk with his back bent and throat locked. Whitey came to the rescue then, casting a binding spell on the boy. Chains of light circled around his body, preventing him from ripping off all the hair off Tsuki's head.
As Ace struggled against the chains, the little girl gave him a very large dose of a 'I'm totally enjoying this' smile.
"Let's talk, Ace."
"Get the fuck out of my base." Ace seemed to have realised he wouldn't be able to free himself and stopped fighting, settling for an icy glare instead.
"I feel really wronged, you know," Tsuki continued as if she hadn't heard Ace. Her shit-eating grin had turned into something sharper, giving Ace the illusion that she was about to sink her teeth into his neck and rip him into little pieces. "First of all, how do you even gather your information? Where the hell did you hear it from?"
"I'm not telling you! Let me go!"
Tsuki crossed her arms, "Fine, I can already guess you heard the people gossiping about it." She studied the boy's expression closely, "And I can also guess that you probably asked one of them, and they told you about how she was a lovely lady, and it was so terrible and oh so sad that she had killed herself didn't they?"
Ace tried to maintain an impassive face, although it wasn't fooling Tsuki. His silence was more than enough for an answer.
"Then, smarty pants Mr. Know-It-All went to investigate her house by himself, didn't you? Saw the mess and all, came up with some wack verdict by yourself. You thought it had been real suspicious that after I visited her, she was dead the next day, so of course how could this lovely lady who had a lovely flower shop just kill herself? It must be me, you thought." Tsuki smirked, "Well, you're wrong."
"Don't think for a second that I'll believe your lies," the freckled boy spat, "Shut your trap and release me already! Oi! White stone thingy! Undo this— these chains!"
Whitey: Σ(°ロ°)
Tsuki couldn't help but giggle at Whitey's surprise.
"Don't you dare laugh at me! I'll beat you up when— when I'm free!" Ace wriggled like a caterpillar.
"I was laughing at Whitey'," she replied, mirth shining in her brown eyes, "But now I'm laughing at you."
"You're crazy! Who the hell talks to a fucking stone?!"
"I'm not crazy! He talks! It's not my fault!"
Whitey: (;´༎ຶٹ༎ຶ`)
Ace scowled at the white stone who floated far away from Tsuki's reach. It had a feeling that it's master might just vent her anger on itself with a vicious slap.
"Back to the topic on hand," Tsuki fixed him with an annoyed glare, "it bothered me so much when I couldn't finish the argument the way I wanted, so I came to win it. Seriously, what were you talking about? Something about you not being like me? Why would you care about that? If I were like you I would never leave the Grey Terminal— 'cause that's where you belong."
He rolled his eyes at her and kept his mouth zipped. There was no way he was going to talk with a psychopathic murderer.
"Just so you know, Ms Chicatory's backstory is...complicated," Tsuki deliberately paused here, dangling the bait in front of the freckled fish, "You want to know how we met?"
Ace lifted his chin, feigning disinterest.
The Churian girl snickered, "It was a beautiful day outside, birds were singing, flowers were blooming..."
"Just get on with it already!"
Aw. Teasing Ace was definitely getting included as one of her favourite pastimes.
"She kidnapped me, took me right from the street and brought me to her house," Tsuki took one look at Ace's dubious expression and added, "I was unconscious, you dolt! Anyway, she fed me poisoned tea, then tried to kill me." Tsuki pondered over their the events of their violent meeting, "Oh, she tried to maim me too."
Ace blinked in surprise, silently waiting for her to continue.
"That's it." Tsuki finished.
"...That's it?"
"Yeah, what do you want? I tried to escape and yadda yadda— but you guys came to rescue me? Remember?" The girl's features softened a little, guilt creeping in. "And I haven't thanked the three of you. So, thank you very much for saving me," She bowed deeply. "Technically, I owe you my life. I should repay this debt to you. Any requests?"
"Go kill yourself," he snarled.
"If you want to wait seven years, sure."
"What?" Ace stared at the Churian girl who unexpectedly agreed to his request. "Are you serious? You're just trying to wriggle your way out of this aren't you?"
She shrugged, "Well, seven years is a long time, so I think you might want another request that I can fulfill now."
"Yeah, go kill yourself."
Tsuki rolled her eyes. "Anything else?"
The freckled boy mulled over it a little, "How about you never appear before me and my brothers again?"
Ace regretted his words the moment he saw a wicked grin spreading across her face. The girl walked slowly around him, grin growing wider as she watched the immobilised boy try to look past his shoulder where she was standing, and failing. She took her place behind Ace, then laughed, "Sure."
Ace said a few expletives that shouldn't be said by any 10 year old.
"You know, I could also leave you like this," Tsuki said in a sing-song voice to the back of his head, "And never appear before you again."
"You bitc—"
"Now that I have agreed to your request, let's rewind back to where we were," Tsuki interrupted. "I was saying, don't be a smarty pants when you have the brain size of a flea." Teasing Ace had improved her mood by leaps and bounds, but she still needed to win that argument. "Just to make sure you understand with that tiny brain of yours, I'm telling you, I was a victim of attempted murder. I did not have any history whatsoever with Ms Chicatory— "
"She hated you!" Ace yelled, "I saw it with my own eyes!"
His voice surged like a sudden strike of lightning, but the wind carried away the expected boom of thunder that usually followed, leaving only an unfitting empty space behind. The silence behind him made his skin crawl, and the fact that he couldn't see the face of the girl behind him was unnerving. The realization that he might be wrong dawned upon him as suddenly as his outburst was.
However, Ace was as stubborn as a mule, and no way in hell was going to admit that he might have made a big, big mistake.
He pushed forward, trying to lay some ground in the argument he knew he had already lost. "S-She hated you. I don't care what happened or what never happened between you and that woman, but she hated you. That's why she tried to kill you. Then you wanted to get her before she could come back to kill you. You probably hated her as well for trying to kill you. So you struck first."
More silence.
Ace was also realizing at the exact moment, that he was completely trussed up like a vulnerable pig waiting to be slaughtered.
"S-Say something!" He wriggled again, but this time in the creeping fear that she was going to gut him from the back. "You...I'm r-right! So that's why you're keeping quiet!"
There was a pause, then: "Oh look, you do have a slightly bigger brain than a flea."
The freckled boy could hear the smile from her words. It only managed to creep him out more.
"Hmm, my hate isn't that cheap. There's only a few things in the world that I hate. So you got the part about me hating Ms Chicatory wrong." The lighter her tone got, the more goosebumps formed on Ace's arms. "But, you did get the part about Ms Chicatory hating me— " She poked his back, eliciting a tiny "meep" from the scared boy, "—half-correct."
She giggled at his reaction, which slightly eased up the pressurizing atmosphere that was keeping Ace instinct's on 'flight'.
"She hated not me, but a specific type of people. People with happy families and happy children," Tsuki explained, "Unfortunately, I might not have become her target if I hadn't lied about being— ah, whatever." She waved a hand in the air. "Anyway, she was under the impression that I had a loving family in Edge Town, and wanted to ruin the happy family by killing me and leaving my mutilated body in front of my so-called parents."
Tsuki poked his back again, giggling when he jerked in surprise. "Why, you ask?"
"I didn't ask anything!"
"Long story short, her ex-husband cheated on her, probably was having a baby with the other woman as well, while Ms Chicatory had to watch her child die. Either of sickness or by the hands of her ex-husband, it doesn't matter. In the end, she went crazy with jealousy and the need for revenge. She couldn't bear to see others living happily, so she preyed on children with those loving families.
"...You still could have killed her."
"Yes."
"Wait. What?! Are you finally owning up to it?!" Ace was shocked. Had he actually been right?
"I am an accomplice to her death." Ace felt her shrugging her shoulders from behind. "I knew she was going to kill herself, and I didn't do anything to stop her."
"Y-You— "
"There was no merit in stopping her. Who knew how many children she had killed before me? I'd like myself to be her last attempt. If she didn't do it herself...maybe I would have done it for her."
The cold, clear-cut logic she laid out was hard to refute.
"Luckily, I didn't have to do it. She tired of everything and decided on her own terms that I was going to be her last victim." Tsuki sighed, sitting cross-legged on the floor behind Ace. The long talk was sapping the little girl of whatever little energy she had left, but it was far from over yet. "So now that you know what happened from start to end, did it change your opinion? Just what were you thinking when you said the two of us were alike? How are we alike at all?"
"Har? No...what are you talking about? We don't have any similarities! Not at all!"
"No, you surely thought we had something in common for you to explicitly say to my face that we weren't alike. You thought beforehand that we were alike, then I did something with Ms Chicatory that you misunderstood with that small brain of yours, so you switched to the stance that you were different from me after all. What were you thinking that we were alike in? Maybe before the discovery of the whole truth has changed your stance? Are you thinking that we are alike again? Or maybe your waterlogged brain finally understood we weren't alike from the start?"
"What— I...I didn't think anything like that?" Ace's eyebrows scrunched together in an effort to follow Tsuki's logic, but the information dump and the pressurizing (slaughterhouse-like) atmosphere was not ideal for formulating thoughts. He was getting confused.
And that was exactly what Tsuki had been trying to achieve.
She didn't give him any more time to think and fired her next question, "Were you thinking that there was something wrong in how I treated Ms Chicatory? You thought I shouldn't have killed her?"
Ace tried once again, futilely, to turn his head and see the little girl sitting behind him. "No— Yes!"
"Huh? Which is it? Yes or no?" Tsuki was about to pat herself on the back for the genuine tone of confusion she managed to pull off, leaning forward as she continued her line of questioning, "What are you referring to? I don't get it! You mean the part where the misunderstanding took place and you thought I really killed her, or the actual truth where I kind of killed her when I didn't stop her?"
"I—" Ace felt like he was doing loop-the-loops in a rollercoaster at top speed, confusion and frustration turning his already jumbled mess of thoughts into a well-blended smoothie. "I'm not talking abo—"
"I'm just asking you what made you thought you were different from me!"
"I don't kill people I hate!" Ace snapped, struggling against his chains in frustration, "Let me finish my fucking sentence!"
"Okay! Okay!" The freckled boy was shouting like she was 20 miles away and had impaired hearing. His bad temper was as easy to exploit as she had expected.
"You can say all you want, but there's no evidence of you not killing her! I-I won't believe a single word you say without evidence! You killed the person you hated, but I'm not like you!"
Tsuki moved to the front so the sight of her would infuriate Ace more, "So? What do you do instead? Huh? Hug them? Kiss them goodnight every night?" She stuck her tongue out at the seething and awfully red-faced boy, "Tch. Don't lie."
"I will show everyone just who is better! I will become a great pirate known by the whole world! I won't live in Gold Roger's shadow forever!"
Tsuki's eyebrows rose. Didn't expect that name to pop out.
Ace took one look at her face and realised he had almost just blurted out his secret. He clamped his mouth shut and glowered at her. It was a miracle his eyes hadn't popped out from all the glaring.
"Hey, hey, what's with Gold Roger? Tell me won't you?" She sidled up to the boy, smiling like the Cheshire cat who had just found a new play toy.
Ace turned his gaze up to the sky defiantly, "...Shut up."
Interesting.
"Hmm~" The little girl circled him, "Why do you hate Gold Roger? If you're aiming to become a great pirate, isn't he supposed to a role model?"
Ace kept his eyes fixed on the fluffy clouds.
"Well, it's a little rude to ask, but did he kill your parents or something? Dadan doesn't look like your mum, and Makino's too young." Tsuki sat down behind him again, giving him a clear view of the scenery so he wouldn't feel like a cornered rat. "And it's also obvious that your two other brothers aren't related by blood."
Tsuki waited for an answer, but the stubborn boy was training to become a brick wall.
"Also, there's something really weird with your logic. If you're trying to escape his shadow, why are you going towards it instead?"
Ace shook, the chains stopping him from turning around. "What. Are you talking about?"
"Becoming a pirate that everyone knows of, aren't you just following in his footsteps?" Tsuki asked the boy who was listening intently for first time. "The greatest pirate in the world is the Pirate King. If you become a renowned pirate, you'll still be under the 'Pirate King'. You get what I mean?"
She paused briefly to rephrase her words, "No matter how famous you get, you'll still never be as famous as Gold Roger. Even if you aim to become the Pirate King in an attempt to overshadow him, you'll only be branded as the 'Second Pirate King'. At least, that's how I see it. "
The trees rustled in the wind, drawing out a small yawn from the girl. Sleep was finally catching up to her. She lied down on the rough wood, waiting for an answer from Ace who was deep in his thoughts.
One star, two stars, three stars...
Her eyelids were getting heavier.
One hundred and eighty-nine, one hundred and ninety, one hundred and ni—
"I just...want to make them jealous."
His voice was so soft that it could hardly be heard over the rustling leaves. Tsuki closed her eyes and kept silent. She was about to fall asleep when Ace suddenly picked up the conversation again.
"Everyone hates me. Just because I...exist." Tsuki could imagine the scowl on his face, though the resentment and anger that coloured his tone definitely was not a figment of her imagination. "I didn't ask to be born as his son. I didn't have a choice. I didn't do anything. Why do they hate me?"
The restraining chains rattled with the boy's trembling figure.
"I hate them too. I hate everyone. So I'm going to become a pirate, and earn so much money, glory and fame that they would be jealous of. I'm going to show them that they are living a more worthless life compared to the person they hate so much."
"Not everyone hates you..." Tsuki muttered, her voice thick with sleepiness, "Luffy and Sabo don't...Dadan too..."
"Dadan?" The boy sneered, "Don't make me laugh. She called me a 'devil's spawn' the other day." Then he went quiet before he relented a little, "Luffy and Sabo are different."
Only the hoot of an owl in the forest answered him. Ace watched the light from the waning moon scatter across the breaking waves like tiny jewels. The crickets weren't as noisy up in the crow's nest, and the breeze was cooling. He looked down upon the kingdom from the nest, where people the size of the ants hurried about their shady businesses under the cover of the night.
Small and insignificant like ants.
Something in the air must have gotten to him because he was already opening his mouth to ask before he even knew.
"Hey," Ace called out softly, "Do you think I should have been born?"
Nothing.
The owl answered him with an echoing hoot again.
"...Oi." The boy shifted awkwardly.
Faint, steady breathing replied him.
"Oi! You! Did you just—did you just fall asleep?! Let me go! You can't tie me up all night!" Horrified, Ace turned to the white floating stone that had moved closer after realising its master was asleep. "You! Stone! Untie me! Let me go! RIGHT NOW!"
Whitey: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
"Didn't she say you can talk?! Why aren't you talking?! Let me go!" The chains clinked and rattled as he strained to break free. "You shitty stone— ugh! Fuck this!"
Ace didn't stay tied up all night.
It wasn't long before Tsuki was plagued with another nightmare, this time featuring hordes of Marines chasing after her, the wind battering against her face as she sped up with Qi. Something was peeling off her face, the corner of it catching on the wind and tearing it further. She reached a hand up to feel nothing but skin.
Dread punched her in the gut. Tsuki dodged into a small alleyway, escaping the eyes of the Marines. She reached up to the flapping bit of skin and pulled—
The girl jerked awake, hitting something beside her. She snatched her hand back in surprise and took a moment to reorient herself.
Oh. It's Ace.
The loud snores coming from the boy was something to behold. They sounded a little similar to the bullets that the Marines had fired upon her in her dream.
Tsuki relaxed and lied back down, signalling for the white stone to release Ace from the restraining spell. The mystic circle and softly glowing chains dissipated in motes of light as Ace fell forward, slamming his face into the wooden floor. Tsuki thought it was a miracle how he continued sleeping despite the big bump growing on his forehead.
"..." She stared at the snoring Ace a little longer, trying to recall their conversation from when she was half-asleep.
Wasn't there something earth-shattering, mind-blowing and monumental thing that he said?
"...Oh, shit."
Ace was Gold Roger's son?
Tsuki gave him a once-over. Ace looked like he deserved a beating, but she was sure the Pirate King didn't look like that. She stood up to look over the Kingdom, suddenly feeling the urge to shout from the crow's nest: "HEY LOOK THE PIRATE KING'S SON IS HERE AND HIS NAME IS ACE".
Of course, she held back and instead lied back down beside the Pirate King's son.
"Oh, Heavens." Tsuki mumbled, turning to look at the blissfully sleeping boy, and then back to the stars in the night sky. "He's Gold Roger's son! Son of the Pirate King! Did you know that?" She pointed accusatively at the stars, whispering, "But you guys already knew didn't you?"
Well, wasn't that just another nifty piece of information she could add to her collection.
She was sure if she used it to tease Ace, the boy would just explode right on the spot and probably take her with him.
Probably because of her good mood, her remaining sleep was free of nightmares and she slept like a log.
"Wake up!"
A heavy weight flopped right onto her, knocking the wind out of the Churian girl.
"Mystery girl!" The boy on top of her flailed, elbowing her in the face in his excitement, "Did you make up with Ace? Are you guys friends again?"
"Wh— Luffy— " The rudely awakened girl wanted to push the boy off, but the excited Luffy was up and away to flop onto Ace next before she could even try.
"Ace! Ace! Wake up!"
Tsuki blinked the sun's bright rays out of her eyes, and saw Sabo standing awkwardly off to the side. "Uh...good morning."
The blond brother mumbled a greeting back.
Tsuki's brain probably short-circuited when she was awoken abruptly by the rubber boy, so in a truly small-brained move, she blurted, "Did you guys know his father is Gold Roger?"
Luffy, sitting on top of the still-snoring Ace, whipped his head around to gape at her. "Eh?"
"EH?!" Sabo's eyes grew to the size of saucers.
The girl slapped her hand over her mouth, "No, sorry, I was...uh, I was dreaming, um, about Gold Roger. I, just...ignore what I said earlier."
Tsuki died a little on the inside. Was she always this dumb? How could she blurt out his secret like that—
"He told you?!" Sabo exclaimed, pointing at the Ace who finally was starting to stir, "Him?!"
"Um, yeah, somewhat? Something like that?" Tsuki sputtered. Ace didn't say it outright, but she pieced two and two together from his words.
"Shut up! Let me sleep!"
"What happened last night?!"
"We talked, I guess?"
"Ace~! Stop sleeping!"
And then God suddenly said, "let there be light" and the galaxy exploded into light and earth was wiped out.
~THE END~
No, sorry the last two lines were a joke again.
Also, there has been enough talking im getting sick of writing them talking I WANT TO WRITE ACTION ADVENTURE AND ANXIE— uh AND FUN yes. WE NEED PLOT PROGRESSION! WE NEED THE STRAWHATS TO APPEAR!
Dang, by this pacing i think the strawhats will only appear at like chapter 100
i should look into a timeskip...