Shout-out to Reviachi who used reverse psychology on me and made me finish this chapter much faster xD (Discord inside joke! Consider joining my channel to avoid being left out: discord. gg/a7tQPPa)


Ominous

Siblings


The Mt. Colubo forest was ominous and decidedly uninviting during the night, but there was natural peace in its solemn ambiance: the silvery moonlight trickling through the canopy, the soft susurration of the branches, a symphony of crickets, distant hoots of owls and roars of night predators.

Leaning on the rickety railing of their tree house, Luffy inhaled the musty scent of leaves, the fresh soil, the scent of things in different stages of blooming and growth. A quiet purr at the back of her mind calmed her down even further. Wild woods at night to the Ds were a place to truly feel alive, to be in complete harmony with their inner entities. Her demon seemed especially content in the embrace of darkness.

"—ffy."

A breeze picked up, mussing up the girl's black hair. With her eyes closed, Luffy savored the salty chill on her skin that the wind brought from the distant sea.

"Luffy!"

An angry hiss almost next to her ear made the girl jump. She blinked once, then twice as she unearthed herself from the lull of serenity. While her demon growled his annoyance for the interruption, she turned to look at Ace. Briefly, her gaze moved to the sleeping form of Sabo behind the boy, only the bare foot of the blond visible from under the blanket. But Ace's presence demanded attention, Luffy focused back on him, tilting her head at the boy's scowling expression. What crawled up his ass this time?

Finally having her focus on him, Ace's face darkened even more. In a hushed voice he started, "How do you…" and then proceeded to mumble something under his breath.

So quiet that even Luffy couldn't hear what he was saying. "What?" She squinted as if that would help to hear him. "Speak louder, Buttface."

Ace shot a glare before looking away. He crossed his arms and stayed silent for another beat. "How do you put a protection mark on someone?" he finally ground out. Well, more like demanded, but this time Luffy was too preoccupied with what he was asking to take notice of his tone.

Luffy didn't know when or how, but Ace became just as important to her as Sabo, so lately she started thinking about how to convince her fellow D to accept her mark. She doubted he would without any good reason. But this? This was a perfect opportunity, gifted to her on a silver platter.

Ace instantly grew weary of the wicked smirk on the girl's face. "What are you smiling for?" he hissed with venom. If she started mocking him now, he would never forgive her.

"I can show you," Luffy said airily. "But you'll have to accept my mark on yourself."

Ace was already scowling, so his expression didn't change at all. "Fine," he bit out finally. "But I'll test it out on you first."

Luffy's grin could have rivaled the sun at how bright it was. She had no problem with carrying Ace's mark. In fact, the thought only made her happier.

"Guyyyys…" Sabo moaned from inside the tree house, squirming under his blanket to tuck in every limb and preserving the warmth. "You're so loud. Normal people like me need to sleep. Go to sleep…"

"Sabo!" Luffy cheered. She darted around Ace and ducked under the blond's blanket, throwing her straw hat on the floor nearby.

Sabo sucked in a breath at the contact with her chilly body. "You're so cold," he complained, yet made no move to remove her from his bed.

The girl wrapped her arms around his torso and snuggled closer with a murmur, "And you're so warm."

Ace padded to the futon next to Sabo's and lay down. With his hands under his head, he simply stared at the ceiling.

Sabo wiggled in place, getting comfortable with a new weight on his chest. He glanced at the thoughtful-looking Ace and then down at smiling Luffy. "What did you two talk about?" he wondered. Being so rudely interrupted in his rest, he didn't feel like going back to sleep now.

"Shishishishi," Luffy giggled, feeling mischievous. "Ace said that I'll definitely become the Pirate King!"

"No, I didn't!" the other D snapped immediately. "Don't make things up, Ugly!" He twisted in his place so that he could lash out with his leg at what he assumed was Luffy's side.

It wasn't.

"Ouch!" Sabo cried out, glaring at his friend. "Why did you kick me?"

"Ah, sorry," Ace muttered. "I was aiming at Luffy."

The girl stuck her tongue out at him.

"Oh, you little…" Ace growled as he reached for her. This time no mistakes were made. He grinned in triumph as his fingers circled her ankle and yanked it towards himself.

Luffy squealed when she got dragged away from her cozy spot.

Together with Sabo's blanket.

"Aaaaaace!"

Ace's eyes widened. He released the girl's leg to fend off the other boy pouncing on top of him. Sabo tripped over Luffy, who tried her best to untangle herself from the blanket now that he was free, and accidentally head-butted Ace. They both went down, the raven's heel performing a perfect uppercut to Luffy's chin.

"Owwww…" all three groaned in unison, sprawled on the floor in a mess of bodies, limbs, and bedding.

Any thought of sleep completely gone now, Sabo flopped on his back, positioning himself in between two Ds just in case. "Hey, guys," he called out. Quiet hums from both sides told him that they were listening. "What do you think about setting sail at seventeen?"

"Seventeen?" Ace echoed. "Why seventeen?"

"Men of noble birth are accepted as true nobles when they turn eighteen," he explained, unable to stop some of the bitterness leaking into his voice. "So I have to leave this place before that," he whispered, lifting his hand, reaching for the ceiling as if grasping at his distant goal. "To be free."

"To become the Pirate King!" Luffy exclaimed, raising her own hand.

Ace was not far behind. "To live without regrets." He smirked. "And also get a higher bounty than Luffy!"

"What!" Luffy squeaked in indignation before she scoffed, making a show out of it. "As if you can get a higher bounty than the Pirate King, weakling."

"Pff, as if you can become the Pirate King being a girl, idiot."

They must have felt very lazy at this moment, because despite taunting each other, neither made an effort to actually do something. That was what Sabo thought, contently dozing off already…

…until a stray kick hit him in the shin.

Luffy and Ace froze, staring with wide, startled eyes, like kids caught with their hands in a cookie jar. Or more like the kids caught in the middle of leg-fencing.

Ds had too much energy to spare. Sabo heaved a weary sigh… and bonked both over their heads.

"Ow!"

"Sabooo~!"

"Sleep. Now."


Luffy brushed the knife across her finger. Blood instantly pooled along the cut until it broke through and trickled down.

Ace watched, unblinking.

"And once your demon blesses the blood," Luffy said, closing her eyes. When she opened them a moment later, they were glowing crimson. "You let it guide your hand to paint a pattern for your mark." A bloody finger touched Ace's forehead. Her hand didn't waver in the slightest as she drew the lines, brow furrowed in concentration.

Ace felt warm blood creating the pattern and he made an effort to stay still. He could sense it, Luffy's demon rising, coming closer and closer, simmering just underneath the skin. So close to the surface, it seemed like he could see it in her eyes.

Her demon stared back at him.

Ace's breath hitched.

"There, done!" Luffy cheered. Her smile fell once she noticed the boy's expression. "What's wrong?"

"N-nothing…" Ace muttered, turning his head away, his heart still thundering inside his ribcage. He clearly felt it—the gaze of the demon. How could that be..? How could Luffy keep the rationality of her mind when that thing was obviously in control?

"You did the same thing to me too?" Sabo asked from where he was leaning against the tree nearby, arms crossed and his trusty pipe resting against his shoulder. "I'd remember something like that, no?"

Luffy broke into a sunny grin. "Remember that day when you woke up with me rubbing at your forehead?"

Realization flashed across the blond's features. "You said a bird pooped on me!" he accused.

"I lied! Ahahahaha!"

Sabo watched Luffy bellow with laughter with a sour look. "I knew something was wrong," he mumbled before sighing and letting it go. He could understand the reason behind it after all. "So? What does it do exactly?"

"Oh, it's, er…" she floundered. "Ds can sense it and it's only natural for us to avoid hunting people carrying someone's mark."

Sabo observed her skeptically. It was amazing in its own right, but… "That's it?"

"It's more, but… I know that it's important!" Luffy insisted, unyielding in her conviction. "Dad said so! I just…" she trailed off, gaze flitting somewhere to the side. "I just don't remember much..."

The blond scratched his chin in thought. "Where is your dad anyway?" One of Luffy's shoulders rose and then dropped. It was such a dispirited shrug, Sabo gulped down the sudden guilt for asking.

Ace didn't quite listen to what the other two were talking. He nicked his finger with a knife a while back and now continued to stare at the drops of blood. Nothing happened. His demon rumbled somewhere at the back of his mind, but it didn't bless the blood nor offer any guidance. "How do you do it?" he growled, still staring at the cut on his finger. "How do you make it bless the blood?"

Luffy cocked her head to the side. "We're partners," she replied. "It usually wants the same thing as I do. I don't even have to ask for something like a blessing."

The boy couldn't understand. "How do you know what it wants?"

"What do you—" Luffy cut herself off, eyes widening. "Ace, you… you haven't linked with your demon yet?"

Ace's head snapped up. "Linked?" he questioned. His lips curled up when his demand was met only with dumbfounded silence. "What does it mean?!"

"No wonder you're so weak."

He couldn't help the snarl that slipped through at her words, but he didn't follow it with any action. Because Luffy was right. He could beat her if they fought without the support of their demons, but the moment they came into play she pummeled him into the ground every single time.

Ace took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. Losing his temper would help no one right now. "How do you do it?" he asked, clenching his fist. "Linking?"

Luffy opened her mouth, closed, opened again, closed again. Then her eyebrows knitted together.

Ace tsked. "How did you link with yours?"

"Oh!" The girl perked up. "It happened during—" Her voice died at the back of her throat, face blanching.

Both boys shared a glance, one more openly showing his concern than the other.

"Something happened. Something… attacked. I—" Luffy muttered in half coherent sentences, her thoughts tumbling over each other faster than she could speak. "There were explosions and the smell of blood. The screams. The bad guys. I was scared, I wanted to survive. It wanted too, so it helped me."

Sabo was next to her, arms reaching out to pull her into a hug.

Luffy pushed him away. "I-I want to be alone," she mumbled as she spun on her heel and soon disappeared into the forest.

"Luffy!"

Ace grabbed Sabo by his shoulder before he could go after her. "Let her be," he said, the intensity of his gaze seemingly penetrating the line of trees. After a moment, he shook his head with a sigh, "She'll be fine." His focus inevitably returned to the cut on his finger.

"It seems Luffy, uh, linked with her demon during some kind of traumatic experience."

Ace hummed in agreement with his friend's comment. Knowing that didn't help him in the slightest, however.

"Maybe you can, I don't know," Sabo racked his brain to help at least one of them, "try meditating or something. Try to search for enlightenment that way. Like those characters in fantasy books."

The raven looked up in utter disbelief. Sabo shrugged, out of ideas, and Ace ruffled his own hair with a click of his tongue. "Worth trying, I guess."


It didn't work out. Not even after several weeks of trying. Didn't help that Ace felt too wound up sitting still for any period of time, not to mention for hours.

So, he decided on the second best thing.

"Guys, did you know," Ace started as he wiggled the cork of the sake bottle. It came out with a loud pop. "If you exchange drinks, you can become siblings."

"Whoaaaaa!" Luffy exclaimed, staring at the older D filling up three sakazuki cups with wide eyes. "Real siblings? Really?!"

Ace ignored the question. Instead, he picked up a knife and pricked the tip of his finger. Holding it above the filled-up cups, he let a drop of his blood fall into each of them. Only then he grinned and replied, "Yep."

Luffy's grin was up in all its megawatt glaring glory. She grabbed the knife next and mixed a drop of her own blood into the sake.

Sabo's smile held no hesitation when he mirrored the action of two Ds.

All three watched as their blood swirled inside the sake, intertwining and blending and tying their destinies together.

"No matter where we'll be or what we'll do in the future," Ace was the first one to pick up the cup, soon followed by Luffy and Sabo, "the blood bond we're going to share will never fade!"

The three kids clashed their cups together—

"Starting today, we're siblings!"

—and chugged it down.

Luffy scrunched her face, expression shifting from sheer delight to pure disgust. "Blergh!" She lolled her tongue out and tried to clean it with her hand. "Sake is awful!"

"Don't spit it out, idio—" Words got strangled somewhere along Ace's throat, his eyes going wide and red in an instant.

Luffy also froze, staring at him with an equally shocked expression. Letting out a happy yip, Luffy's demon bowled over Ace's demon which answered with a playful rumble as they rolled around in a friendly tussle.

The second presence inside them, the sensation of their demons touching another of their kind—it was an unexpected and absolutely overwhelming new experience. Weird, yet not violating.

Neither of them noticed Sabo suddenly doubling over with a choked noise, somewhere between a gasp and a cry. His hand shot up to grip at his heart, fingers clutching around the handful of his shirt, nails digging into his skin.

As soon as it came, the pain was gone.

Sabo panted, face beaded with sweat. His heart hammered against his palm.

Ace and Luffy still gawked at each other. The strange incident ended, the sensation of two entities inside their souls was gone now. Their demons whined, left all alone again.

"What was that?" all three asked under their breaths.


A/N

Not the most exciting or well-written chapter, but eh… Good news though, one more chapter and we'll jump straight to canon! Yay!