AN: The song I used for the title of this chapter is "Just One Yesterday" by Fall Out Boy, which is one I've wanted to use since forever because I like the song.

Only it was never appropriate for the actual mood of any chapter in CYB. [cough]

The first section takes place immediately after the end of chapter 4, the second takes place during the gaps between scenes in chapter 5, and the third one takes place during chapter 9. The very last one? Current events.

"FUCKING TURTLE-BASTARD!"

It said a lot that that sentence was the most coherent thing anyone had said for the past hour.

Ace hadn't thought much about the stray beachcomber when they first found her—okay, he remembered thinking she was a man until Thatch threw an onion at his head—but whatever. It didn't matter where Kei'd come from or what she'd been like or some other things Ace couldn't put into words, but she hadn't deserved that.

Namur broke the news. He'd been following Kei for a bit since he was a Fishman and could swim after her. He could do things like that when a lot of people would've drowned. And then there'd been a Sea King out of nowhere, too big to fight and eat or do something about and it ate her. Ate Kei, boat and all. And then got away.

I would've drowned, Ace thought, while his thoughts went vague toward the ends. But… He wasn't sure what.

"She n-n-never even got to eat my pies!" Thatch wailed, leaning heavily on Vista and sobbing openly.

"All of them?" Izo asked, from the next table over.

Thatch's pompadour bent against the table. "Sh-she missed the pecan and the lemon meringue and th-th-the cherry one!"

Ace's head slipped off his hand and his chin thumped against the tabletop, jarring him enough that he almost focused again. In front of him, there were two sake bottles, but he was…not sure when they got there. And then there were three.

He shrugged to himself, since it didn't matter that much. Oh well.

Jozu had taken the big painting Kei did, put it on a easel or something, and it sat in the center of things next to Pop's chair. They didn't have a picture or a painting of Kei, but they did have the painting she did, and that was kinda shitty, but it was what they had. Thatch said Kei said it was supposed to show something from her hometown, but the picture was all gray and kinda blurry and only really looked like water after some squinting, when Ace was pretty sure he was drunk.

There weren't any flowers or anything under it since there just weren't, but Izo got a black cloth and it didn't look as bad as it could have.

"She was supposed to be strong," muttered Haruta, and Ace couldn't begin to guess how many he'd had. He was hanging off Jozu's shoulder. "Strong 'cause of the water thingy and tricks. But I guess the water thingy wouldn't be all that good against giant turtles…"

"Picked out her sword meself," was what Vista managed. He was flat on his back on the floor, and Ace didn't remember when he'd gotten there. So was Thatch.

Sinbad muttered into the floor, "…so happy when we got those paint—uh, the things…"

"Ate the Grand L—the—lead thingy. Fish! That was the word," Eastwood said, swaying in place. Ace saw two of him for a second, and was about to tell him to stop doing that, but Eastwood became one Eastwood again when he continued, "Freakiest thing I ever saw."

"No, see, the freaky thing was… Uh, it was…?" Thatch trailed off, then smacked Vista with the back of his hand. "What am I trying to say?"

"I dunno," said Blamenco, fishing a handkerchief out of the pocket on his face. The one on the left, maybe? Either way, he blew his nose with a noise like a dying bag-based musical thing.

"She beat me?" Ace guessed, while Vista shoved Thatch across the deck until he rolled to the base of Pops's chair.

"Tha's not tha' bad," said Fossa. Probably Fossa. The came from the direction Ace was pretty sure Fossa was in, anyway. "Pops beat you fer… three months? Straight?"

"Wasn't on the crew yet," Ace grumbled. "Doesn't count."

"The hell it don't," Fossa argued halfheartedly.

Ace stumbled to his feet, then made his way over to where Marco sat. He almost tripped over Thatch and Vista and Sinbad and maybe a couple other people, but he didn't. Like Marco, he stuck his legs out between the posts in the rails or something, then leaned heavily on the only sober one because Marco was always sober. It was kinda unfair. To Marco.

"…I'm gonna miss her," Ace said into Marco's shoulder. Pretty sure it was his shoulder. If not, maybe his knee? Whatever. "What kinda idiot beats me and then j-just gets eaten like that? It's not fuckin' fair."

"Couldn't tell you," Marco replied, while Ace muttered a low string of curses into his pant leg. "Just don't fall asleep on…you're already asleep, aren't you?"

A loud snore was his reply.

Marco sighed aloud while Ace drooled onto his pants. Leaning back a bit, looking up at the starry night sky, he said, "Kei, wherever you are… I hope you're smiling down on us."

Pops's low, rolling laugh drifted across the ship. "I don't doubt that she is."

But that wasn't the end of it.

Within a few weeks, stories drifted back to the Whitebeard Pirates from across the New World. Ghost ship stories were pretty common. Hard not to be when there were countless fools jockeying to be the biggest, baddest pirates of the age. But what made this different?

Well, it hit a bit too close to home.

"It's been appearing on and off the Blues…" someone would say.

"Gone for a week and then popping up on the other side of the ocean," would be a rejoinder later, accompanied by shaking heads.

"It is said to wait for a passenger willing to travel the seas," cackled the greengrocer Thatch met on the shores, while trying to restock on pumpkins, "before disappearing into the fog like it was never there. The people who pilot it are never seen again."

The final straw was an old man, probably older than Pops by two or three decades, telling Vista, "I heard that if one man goes out, another person will come out the other side. That it carries the willing to another world."

Though with that story it could have been just reminiscing and half-remembered stories from other years and other ships. He looked to be ready to head to "another world" as it was. Still, it was getting out of hand.

A ship with Whitebeard ties appearing at random across the sea was not something to be ignored, especially when it became clear that the rumors were all too true. Someone had snapped a picture of the former skiff they'd given to Kei, being captained by a young man with white hair instead of their friend. Though the Whitebeard Pirates hadn't been able to make Kei a part of their family while she was alive, they thought of her as one now.

No one insulted their sister's memory like that.

"I'll go after it," Ace volunteered. On Striker, he was the fastest of the Whitebeard Pirates aside from Marco, who needed to stay with their flagship. "I'll make that white-haired creep pay."

"There's been more than one," Marco said, handing Ace a list of descriptions he'd put together. "I don't know if he's the fourth or fiftieth person to use it, but the consistent part is it's Kei's boat. And I don't care if none of them are ever seen again. Get it back."

Ace nodded, but turned to Pops before he made any move to leave.

"Go, my son. Make sure this insult is avenged," was the response he was looking for, and he got it.

It was almost a month before they heard back about that.

"—shoving, for fuck's sake… Oh. Is this thing working?"

"You've reached the Moby Dick," Thatch said, frowning as he answered the snail. The voice sounded kinda familiar, but maybe a little more irritated? Who was this?

"Hey, Thatch!" Ace's voice cut in, and the snail grinned wide enough to nearly split its head in half. "I found out what was going on with the ghost skiff thing!"

"Does it have anything to do with the woman I just heard?" Thatch asked, still trying to place the voice. Wait…

Ace burst out laughing. "You have no idea!"

"Who's on the snail?" Izo asked, sticking his head into the comms room.

"It's Ace, but I can't get a straight answer out of him," Thatch complained, while the snail continued to cackle.

There was an "oof" from the other side of the call as someone kicked Ace off the connection.

"Jerk," said the same woman, who picked up the receiver. "So, uh… Um. This is kind of awkward." She cleared her throat. "Yo. It's been a while, Thatch."

Izo had both hands over his mouth, his dark eyes widening.

"KEI?!" Tears dripped down his face before he even completed the word, because he finally knew whose voice he'd been hearing. "KEI, WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?!"

Izo ran out of the room, eliciting an "OW!" from Blenheim. Still, his call of "Everyone, Kei's alive! KEI IS ALIVE!" was heard far and wide.

"…There's no way that was Izo, right?" asked Kei's voice, while the transponder snail picked up her suddenly meek expression.

"Oh, you know it was!" Ace crowed. "See, Thatch, Kei had the boat the entire time!"

"WHAT?!" bellowed Vista as he barreled into the room. And it turned out he was just the first person in line in what turned out to be a mob, because every Whitebeard Pirate who could fit into the comms room was making a damn good run at pulling it off. The ones who couldn't were left sticking their heads into the room or demanding that their fellows pass on messages, though anyone who tried would need to fight Thatch for access to the snail. And he wasn't giving up.

"I'm so sorry for making everyone worry," Kei's voice told them, but she sounded more baffled than anything. "I didn't realize you all cared that much."

"OF COURSE WE CARE!" roared the Whitebeard Pirates as one.

"…Ow." Kei's voice was replaced by Ace's, and he went on with, "Hey, where's Pops in all this? Did anyone tell him the good news?"

"Izo told most of us," Rakuyo replied. "But he's not back yet, so he must be telling Pops."

"We need to take the snail to Pops," said Janey, forcing her way to the front of the pack. "Thatch, come on."

Thatch couldn't be pried away from the snail, not even by Jozu, and so they carried him with it to the deck of the Moby Dick. While the procession moved through the corridors, everyone could hear Thatch sobbing something about lost kitchen helpers and all the pies, but the rest of it was too indistinct to interpret. Ace's laughter blasted from the snail with only occasional interruptions from Kei in the form of semi-frantic apologies.

"THE WAKE WAS AWFUL!" Thatch yelled as they finally reached the deck.

"What wake?" Kei asked, while the snail looked flabbergasted. "Ace, you didn't say anything about a wake!"

"That's because he drank so much he doesn't remember most of it," Marco said, once Thatch was dumped at the foot of Pops's seat. He didn't attempt to take the transponder snail away from its stranglehold in Thatch's hug, but it was a close thing.

"I remember everything just fine!" Ace protested reflexively. There was a pause on both ends of the call, silent except for several pirates sobbing openly, before Ace admitted, "Okay, I remember like five minutes, and not all in a row."

"That's not important!" Janey said from the back of the crowd. "Kei, we didn't even have a picture of you for it! We need to change that right now. Come back to the ship so we can get Fossa to make something!"

"How did you survive being eaten by a Sea King?" Namur demanded. The rest of the Whitebeard Pirates quieted down, because Namur had been the last one to see her before her "death." The sharpness in his tone was fed by guilt, and the others knew it.

"It spat me back out," Kei said, while Ace muttered something indecipherable in the background. "But I couldn't find you again, so I just…" The snail's face twisted into a regretful grimace. "I've got a knack for disguises, so I figured I'd just keep going with my mission."

"Why didn't you just ask for help?" Haruta asked, climbing across a sea of heads and shoulders until he made it to Pops's chair. "We could have done something!"

"I… Um. I…didn't want to…get you in trouble…?" Kei's voice replied, and the transponder snail turned faintly red despite the fake mustache stuck to its face.

Silence reigned for a brief, perfect second.

Then there was a snort. Like someone was trying to avoid laughing. At the same time, the transponder snail's face contorted again, its mouth practically vanishing in an attempt to bite down on—

Ace's "HAHAHAHA!" burst from the snail at the same time that Pops broke into a loud, "GURARARARA!" In a wave, laughter spread across the ship in various levels of hysterics, with Thatch at the laugh-sob combo end of things and Izo tittering with his fan hiding his mouth. Haruta fell off of Pops's chair and landed on Marco, who immediately tossed him to Blamenco and initiated a multi-pirate pileup.

"I know, I know, it sounds pathetic," Kei griped as the laughter died down. "But hey, now I'll be traveling around with Ace, so everyone can blame him when we run into trouble."

"Take that back! You're the one who got eaten by a Sea King before you even got an hour away!"

"Well, I see Kei's adjusting to being one of us just fine," Vista commented, brushing a tear from his eye while Ace and Kei continued to trade barbs. The mock-anger was sort of endearing. "It's like she's been here for years."

"What happened to the polite young woman we got to know?" Izo asked, having somehow made his way to the front of the crowd. He had his hand on the grip of one of the pistols in his yukata, and loomed over the snail that had quite suddenly gone still. "Ace, have you been a bad influence already?"

"Uh… No?" Ace replied. When Izo's frown deepened just a bit, he said, "You don't understand! Kei's really like this. The politeness is a lie."

"Sounds a lot like you, actually," Marco said, and the pirates laughed off Ace's offended, "Hey!"

"Polite or not, we're all happy you're alive," said Pops, while his children finally quieted again. "When are you returning?"

"I can't until I finish my mission," Kei replied instantly, and the snail bowed its eyestalks. "I'm sorry, but I don't know how long that will take."

"I'm gonna stick around and help her navigate," Ace added, though the grin on the snail was perhaps too wide to be fully believable. "Someone's gotta look after this disaster."

"Uh-huh," was Kei's concise, skeptical response. "We'll call you again soon, okay? Just so none of you worry."

Pops didn't reply for a brief moment, and Marco looked up to meet his eyes. There was concern there, under layers of patience with his children. Neither Ace nor Kei had told the entire truth, though the crew as a whole hadn't caught on.

"Once a week?" Thatch suggested.

Ace replied, cheeky as ever, "Or when we can find a snail. Later!"

There were more than a few tearful faces by the time the snail call ended with a click. But now they knew they had something to look forward to.

Ace hadn't ever seen someone get burned as badly as Utakata and live.

Sure, the burns disappeared quickly under bandages and that bizarrely accelerated healing rate Kei explained as the new normal for people like her, but Ace had a lot of experience with fire. Between Edge Town and learning the quirks of his Mera Mera no Mi powers, he'd seen more than a few examples of just how destructive fire could be. Caused a few of them, too, before he figured out exactly how to determine what would burn and what wouldn't.

And Utakata wasn't burned just by fire, but by Admiral goddamn Akainu, the Marines' mad dog. Utakata was lucky he wasn't dead already, but Ace had no idea how long that would last.

"We need to work fast so Kei can repair his seal," Yugito said, and that had started it off.

Patching Utakata back together honestly passed in a kind of blur. Ace was no doctor, nor had he ever pretended to be, and neither Yugito or Kei really seemed the type. But between all three of them, they got the work done. Maybe it wasn't as fancy as one of the nurses back on the Moby would have, but oh well.

And then came the really weird part, which he didn't understand and Kei didn't explain. Watching the ink lines almost materialize under her brush, marking up a big circular area under Utakata and on Isobu's back, was fascinating at the same time it was just plain weird. While she'd freaked out at him over the paper box, and done weird things since then with the paper inside, she never really tried to make him get it.

"Do you mind telling me what—wait, no, you mentioned this. This is the same sealing ritual you talked about before." And while that had sort of made sense, in a vague kinda way, he didn't really know what the ritual entailed beyond ink and blood and a lot of weird energy. Ace looked up at Saiken, then asked, "Hey, what happens to you if this thing breaks?"

"I don't know! I've never had it happen before," Saiken replied, wiggling around like he was made of some kind of goo. "And I don't want this to be the first time, either!"

"If a jinchūriki's seal breaks, ordinarily the host dies and the Tailed Beast goes on a rampage," Yugito filled in. When Ace blinked at her, she went on in a flat tone, "I don't know what will happen if Utakata dies like this, but we will do our best to make sure it doesn't happen."

"…'Host?'" Ace repeated warily. That… That didn't sound like a good thing. Not at all.

Kei never talked like that. Oh, sure, she could talk about ugly parts of her hometown's history like she'd been there for some of it, but this was different. There was something hiding behind Yugito's dark eyes, a feeling so deep and dark he nearly recoiled before he recognized it. Yugito always did her best not to let her emotions show on her face, but she didn't react quite fast enough to mask it.

Deep down, Yugito hurt.

It was like looking into a mirror.

Kei ignored both of them, mumbling under her breath as she wrote and more across Isobu's shell. She didn't seem to even notice Yugito's anger.

"Kei always said you were partners," Ace heard himself say, because he couldn't have understood Yugito correctly. "That she and Isobu are in this together."

The look Yugito turned on him could have struck a man dead. Her eyes didn't change color, but they didn't need to. However headstrong, confident, or controlled Yugito seemed, her self-hatred flowed through like a riptide. It lurked there, out of sight, but remained a threat to the unwary.

Ace shivered. What a time to find someone exactly like him.

"Did I deserve to be born?"

He'd never expected to find that question staring back at him out of someone else's eyes.

"She's an optimist," Yugito responded, giving no hint about her internal conflict in her voice. "And got very, very lucky. There have been others—"

Ace interrupted her, "The one that exploded."

There was no way Yugito wasn't speaking from some kind of experience. Of someone going before her and then crashing and fucking burning, staining the water for miles around.

Or tainting a bloodline.

Then again, the shinobi had something called the Clan Wars era. Maybe they knew all too well what being hunted for something as thin as blood could be like.

"He was not the first," Yugito said coldly. Her fingers flexed, her nails turning briefly into claws before she got ahold of herself. "Not remotely."

Shit.

"We aren't called 'jinchūriki' just because we like the way it sounds," Yugito told him, her expression twisting in on itself. Her tone dripped with acid.

Kei's voice rang out through his head, replaying their conversation weeks ago. Yugito must not have slept through it.

"What the Tailed Beasts wanted never came into consideration, and none of us humans were asked for our consent either. The word we use for it is 'jinchūriki.' In a word, 'the power of human sacrifice.'"

So this was the puzzle piece he'd been missing.

Yugito bared her teeth, showing long eyeteeth that didn't look entirely human. All of her anger made sense now. "Entire nations—our nations—view us as monsters in human flesh. And if we can't be controlled, we need to be disposed of before the death toll mounts."

"What do you think the World Government would do if they found out we were hiding him?!"

It wasn't Dadan's voice, but it was close enough to draw a wince. The World Government had scoured the world looking for Roger's child, fearing that exact thing. Any child of a demon would grow up to be one, too. They'd taint the world around them like a poison or a plague. Everything connected to them—him—would be destroyed utterly. Any child of a demon needed to be disposed of before… Before…

Thankfully, Kei's voice interrupted the thought before Ace could finish it. When he looked up, her expression was totally unaffected by any of what Yugito had said. But didn't it apply to her, too? "Ace, Utakata is a Water Release user like me. You may want to back up a bit, just in case."

"Thanks, but no thanks," Ace said, choosing instead just to sit there, well within range if Utakata got his shit together. It was obvious that Kei was uncomfortable with the idea, but she didn't say anything.

So what if Utakata did, say, leap up and try to strangle Ace with his necklace? Yugito and Kei would deal with him just like they dealt with everything else.

…Maybe that thought was just a bit bitter, even for him.

Nothing happened. Utakata, at most, twitched a finger before going still again except for his breathing. While Kei and Yugito briefly discussed where to put him before Yugito hauled their unconscious fourth group member away. Ace still wasn't sure if Utakata would be a friend later, but there'd be time to figure that out after knocking Teach's teeth in.

Ace watched Yugito hop down Isobu's shell with Utakata over her shoulder, trying to gather his thoughts into some kind of order. For lack of anything better to do, he crouched on one of the big spikes that overlooked their ships. Below, Striker and Nautilus looked almost like toys compared to the Tailed Beasts. It didn't take a lot of guessing to figure out why people would treat the jinchūriki—would treat Kei and Yugito and Utakata—like ticking time bombs.

Like they were gonna snap at any second.

The Tailed Beasts argued, as he was starting to realize was a regular thing, and Ace let them since Kei didn't seem to care. Saiken was just worried over Utakata, so it wasn't like he was hurting anyone. Isobu was just being a good brother and letting Saiken do what he had to.

Kei started packing her equipment back into whatever pocket dimension she liked to use. "We might as well head down, too," she said, like nothing Yugito had said had fazed her at all. When she finally got to her feet again, she just shrugged and went with, "Teach isn't getting any more dead."

Ace held out one hand, making Kei pause since it was in her way. Words got caught in his throat, but one made it out. "Wait."

"Need something?" It was like nothing touched her. Like Yugito's pain wasn't universal.

Still, Ace remembered the moment she offered to join his hunt and chase Teach across the sea. He'd been surprised, sure—it was Whitebeard business, Ace's grudge and not hers—but there had been understanding there, between the glee in introducing him to Isobu and the easy rhythm they'd settled into afterward.

There was just as much darkness hiding in Kei, but it sat further back. Tamed somehow, where Ace's self-hatred gnawed at him when it was given half a chance and Yugito's had been drawn to the surface. How had she done it?

You're like me.

You're like both of us.

Why couldn't you tell me?

"Why didn't you tell me how bad it was?" Ace asked, peering toward her with his hat's brim set low. He could see Kei's hands—could judge her reaction—before lifting his head and meeting her eyes.

She blinked, confused. "How bad what was?" Then the light came on. "Ace, it's not a big deal. The people back home who'd give me crap because I'm a jinchūriki don't matter. The ones who matter don't mind."

How?

"What would you do… if the Pirate King had a son?"

He'd gotten a dozen answers over the years. And yet some part of him kept asking, though he knew the responses by heart.

"A son? That devil of a man?!"

"It'd only be right to kill him, of course!"

"Would serve him right for carrying that demon's blood in his veins!"

Ace pushed the voices back, instead asking, "And Yugito?"

"Yugito grew up in a town where one of the previous jinchūriki couldn't handle the power, so his seal broke. People died," Kei explained in a quiet voice. Her voice was heavy with something like empathy—she knew what Yugito had gone through and understood it, but the pain wasn't hers anymore. "She got more pressure on her, and it's clearly still a problem that people don't let her forget."

Ace tried to imagine what it would have been like, being blamed for something that happened to someone else when it had nothing to do with Yugito or her actions. Something that killed a ton of people and made enemies of the survivors.

It took no time at all.

"They'd have to make it public, so the whole world would know! They should burn the little bastard at the stake!"

"And you?" Ace asked, trying to shake off those voices. Sure, he'd gone back more than once and beaten the shit out of the people who'd answered his question like that—all of them—but it didn't make the words cut any less.

"Like she said, I got lucky." Kei made a little motion with her shoulders that might've been a shrug, but that would have implied she even cared that much. "I was already an established shinobi by the time Isobu and I met, and I helped stop another attack on my village. There were procedures in place by the time I needed to go public with it."

That couldn't have been all of it, not going by the slight hesitation in her expression. People had hurt her. Had hurt Yugito.

Saving a town didn't change what people thought. Hurting people with the right backers didn't, either. If it did, the Marines would all be burning in hell for what they'd have done if they found anything on Dawn Island that linked back to the Pirate King, or to the Revolutionaries. If it did, Luffy would have one of the lowest bounties to ever come out of East Blue, not the highest.

Maybe this was enough digging for one day.

"I…guess I can kinda see your point," Ace said anyway, though he hesitated before continuing. Maybe if I… "But you could've told me a while ago. I would've understood."

What would she say if he posed that question one more time?

"There wasn't any point," Kei said, facing him full. Her gaze was clear, unclouded by anything like the hatred he and Yugito carried. Though her fingers twitched toward the scar on her face, she didn't break eye contact.

The words were on the tip of his tongue. Kei didn't know enough to be one of the people who'd been touched or hurt by Roger. She was from strange, faraway world that had never even heard the name. Oh, she knew what the Great Pirate Era was because the Straw Hats were Luffy's, and because Luffy dreamed big and wanted to succeed Roger, but she didn't know. She'd never heard the horror stories. She just saw the Pirate King like any other random person she'd know was famous, and then think nothing else of for the rest of her life.

What would you do if I told you I was Gol D. Roger's son?

"I could tell you why I have this scar on my face, or how my mother died, or a million other things if you wanted a personal horror story." Kei said, when he couldn't get the words out. While he stared, she went on, "But while those experiences helped shape me, they're not everything I am. Then or now."

How did you do it?

Ace almost didn't feel it when she patted his shoulder, trying to make him understand that she was fine. "So I don't let them define me."

How?

Sabo had dismissed the question as a concern, just citing that he was a noble anyway, and weren't both of them running from their pasts? Sabo had been a test, and the fact that he'd passed—the fact that Ace had even admitted it to someone who wasn't Gramps or the bandits, who already knew—had been a gift he hadn't known he wanted. Hadn't thought he could wish for. And Luffy—

"Hey, Ace! Can you tell me about the Pirate King?"

—had been an idiot, but so completely honest that there was no doubt with him. Knowing Luffy could accept him made it easier, made it possible to tell Pops anything. Sure, half the reason he'd been so tied up in trying to kill Pops back then related to proving himself against what, in the end, was the memory of a man who'd died before he was born.

What did he have to prove here?

"You're a really frustrating person to talk to, you know," was what Ace said aloud, rubbing his face. He couldn't do it. Not just before confronting Teach. "Just really, really frustrating."

"I've been told that before, and by you," Kei replied, her tone light as she walked down Isobu's shell ahead of him. "What did you want to talk about?"

"…Nothing." I'll tell her after Banaro. When—If it goes bad, it'll be a clean break. No regrets.

"If you change your mind later, I'm all ears."

And that was the end of it.

He never got the chance, and now he never would.

A drop of water fell from the ceiling of the cell and hit the back of Ace's head for the sixth time in a minute. Sometimes it was more than that. Sometimes it was less. There wasn't any pattern to figure out, but his mind insisted that there had to be something to make sense of down here. But the inside of Impel Down, in truth, was simply designed from the seabed up to be nothing short of hell on earth. The truth was that the unknown architects had succeeded beyond anyone's expectations.

There were two hundred and fifty-six bricks on the ceiling, including the one that was dripping on his head. The floor was the same, though the walls varied from that count. The cell door was sixteen bars high and thirty-two wide, not counting the door. Aside from the four lengths of sea prism stone chains keeping his arms and legs bound, the wall had room for two more full sets.

Though that was just his cell. In the distance, he could hear dozens if not hundreds of voices. Giants in a cell nearby were snoring, while someone else laughed and rocked themselves going by the clinking chains. He could hear prisoners speaking to each other in low voices, but others hurled insults at each other at the tops of their lungs. He'd seen some of them while being dragged to this little slice of hell, but even now he wasn't sure how many of the other prisoners he even recognized as people anymore, never mind any old bounties or anything else. Oh, they'd been the right shape, but being alone down here…

Ace shook his head slowly. This isn't helping, he told himself. Even if he couldn't even move enough to scratch his own nose, and even if blood still dripped down his face and pooled on the damp floor and his half-dozen cracked ribs burned like fire couldn't anymore, there was no reason to give up entirely.

There was still a chance Kei and Yugito had made it out. Maybe the barrier had held up after Teach had beaten him unconscious. Maybe the gut wound on Yugito hadn't been real—it had to be less than that, something less fatal. Maybe the reason he hadn't seen them was because they'd been able to run away. Maybe they'd been able to use Komushi and call Pops.

Maybe he was lying to himself because it was easier than facing the truth.

Bet Isobu's pissed off now, Ace thought with a bitterly amused tinge to his thoughts. Only question is if he's more pissed at me for fucking up or if he's gonna go after Teach alone. His eyes slid closed. Maybe he'll swing by here. If I could be half that lucky…

It'd be quicker—cleaner—than anything the World Government would dream up. Biting his own tongue off wouldn't be either, and he'd seen the medical response team work all too quickly on a prisoner who tried that just after he arrived. Level Six might've been a lonely hell, but it was one the staff seemed to want to draw out as long as possible.

Besides, Ace didn't have any illusions about what would happen next. Not once his father's name—the one he hated, the one that didn't have the right and had never claimed him—got out. Not when his execution would draw the wrath of Whitebeard right into the Marines' waiting jaws.

I wish I could have been better, Ace thought, looking up at the ceiling as though he could somehow see the sky one last time and throw his wish to the wind.

A better brother. Luffy's face flashed across his mind for just a split second, and the realization that he'd never see his brother again hit him like a sledgehammer to the stomach. Immediately after, Sabo's gap-toothed smile appeared like a vision. The aching, long-healed scar across his heart twinged like a faint aftershock of the moment that Ace and Luffy had lost him. And now Ace was here in this living hell, like Sabo had never wanted. Like Luffy would hopefully never know.

A better friend. Yugito's self-satisfied smirk after discovering milk she actually liked, and Kei's embarrassed little smile when she realized she didn't need to hide from the world just to keep the Whitebeards safe. The two of them hadn't had the slightest fucking clue what he'd been yelling about before, in that last discussion, and he wished desperately that he'd been able to make them understand. That he'd had time.

A better son. Pops and the others—Marco, Jozu, Thatch even though he'd barely recovered from Teach's attack—would be coming here, and Ace was honestly half-terrified that they'd arrive in time. He wanted them to be as far away from this giant goddamn trap as they could be, and yet there was no doubt in his mind that they'd chase him to the ends of the ocean.

Ace's head drooped, his hair falling forward where it wasn't stuck to his head by water or drying blood. But this is it. This is all I can do.

This is all I am.

I'm sorry.

Footsteps echoed strangely in the dark, and Ace glanced up automatically as they approached. Maybe it was one last laugh at his expense—one last-second chance for some kind of hope before the jailor crushed him down to nothing.

"...Here he is," said one of the interchangeable guards that patrolled Impel Down, though Ace hadn't heard much from them since arriving. Oh, sure, they dunked him in boiling water and expected him to scream, but that was nothing.

This was worse.

"Vice-Admiral Garp—"

"Please, be careful!"

It was his grandfather. Garp the Fist, hero of the Marines and probably the only person who had ever insisted that the Marines were Ace's future, and reinforced that idea courtesy of the Fist of Love every time he wandered back into East Blue. Like Ace hadn't known since he was five that the only future he'd have with the Marines was "a short one."

One last kick in the gut, then. And here Ace had thought he'd get to march to his death without another lecture on how much of a disappointment he'd been.

The guards drifted away, leaving just the old man sitting in front of the cell.

"This is a fine mess you've gotten yourself into," he began. There was the briefest pause, and then Gramps leaned forward slightly, peering into the cell. "You still alive in there, Ace?"

What a great way to start one of the last days of his life. Still, Ace lifted his head just a bit. The old man deserved that much, even now. "Hey, Gramps…"

Maybe, just maybe, there was one last chance. One more thread to pull before there was no going back—no way out. While Ace was plenty of things—a rogue, a pirate, a disappointment, a worthless bastard—he was no coward. And he could see a tiny glimmer of a hope that somehow, he could keep his family safe. He'd be a coward not to seize it.

Ace would trade his life for theirs in an instant. Anything to stop them from chasing him to their deaths. So he said, in a low voice that barely carried out of the cell, "Kill me now, while there's still time..."

It would be better that way.

But Gramps barely twitched. "'Kill me?'" he repeated, like the idea had been just another harebrained scheme. "Don't get ahead of yourself, now. That won't do any good at this point."

Shit. Shit, shit, shit, Ace thought while his gut churned. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead, stinging his injuries for what little pain mattered now. Too late. I'm too late.

"Even if you were to die right now, that wouldn't stop Whitebeard," Gramps said, like Ace didn't know. No one ever attacked a Whitebeard Pirate without facing the consequences. "Nothing will stop him now."

Not the World Government, not the risks of bringing the entire family to Paradise, not Ace's death. Not Teach, not a Tailed Beast—

"We have already angered one of the Emperors," Gramps concluded grimly. Because what else could possibly happen?

Ace bit down on the inside of his cheek, glaring at the floor of the cell. He kept from snapping, barely, but his thoughts twisted in on themselves like a berserk snake. If Teach had just fucking killed me—but no, that'd be too easy. Now they get to use me to try and kill Pops and everyone—they'll walk right into it.

Why does everything I care about get ruined because of me?

"I do wish you and Luffy had become great Marines like I wanted you to…" Gramps said, like Ace had given a reply at all. Or maybe he thought the silence was too long and needed to fill it. Down here, only the screams and moans of the damned ever did anything with the ambiance, so why the fuck not? "To think that you'd do the exact opposite and become pirates!"

Ace didn't reply. There was the lecture he'd been expecting. Just a bit later and with fewer punches attached. Didn't matter now, not much, but his shoulders hurt a little less as some of the tension left them. This, at least, was familiar. This was as subdued as Gramps ever got.

"Oh, yes," Gramps said, like he'd just remembered something. Like this was just an everyday conversation. "Come to think of it, I told Luffy about his father… He was surprised to learn that he even had one!"

Sounded like Luffy. Sounded just like him.

But Gramps didn't get it. Couldn't. If this was gonna be their last conversation, Ace wanted to at least try to get the old man to understand.

Ace took the deepest breath he could, slowly. When that failed and nearly sent him into a coughing fit, he tried shallow ones instead and hoped it would work.

"It doesn't matter whether…" Shit, he couldn't get enough air. But he had to keep trying. "We know it or not…Luffy and I have the blood of a global-scale criminal running through our veins…" Ace barely remembered the parts of his childhood when he'd been blissfully ignorant. Not that it would have lasted even if Gramps hadn't told him. "How could we possibly become Marines…?"

The second their bloodlines were discovered, the World Government would have killed him and Luffy out of hand. Luffy was as safe as he could be and still be Luffy, because as long as he was a pirate he was staying out of their hands. It was better that, of the two of them, Ace was the one rotting in prison. Luffy needed to be out there in the world, chasing the dream he'd had since they were kids. It was what he deserved, more than anything.

"But…" Ace began again, through uneven breaths, "I took the name 'Portgas' from my mother…who I owe for my life…" And hadn't that been a pointless trade? Her life for his? Why his mother had thought his life was worth so much, Ace didn't pretend to know. "I don't give a fuck about my useless father… I never met him… Don't owe him anything…"

Ace closed his eyes. The closest Roger had ever gotten to showing he gave a fuck about fathering a child had been long before Ace had been born when he'd asked Gramps to take over, and not long before the Pirate King's death. What could he possibly owe a man who'd given his mother a death sentence and a child neither of them would be around to care for? Nothing at all.

"Well, I suppose that makes sense," Gramps admitted, like he was surprised or something. "That guy being who he was…"

Not yet, Gramps. Haven't said my piece. Drawing a breath that almost seemed to rattle in his chest, Ace said slowly, "And that's why… Gramps…"

A huge hand, extended his way as a peace offering. A deep, rumbling laugh and a voice that said, "Take my mark and become my son!"

"I have only one father…" Ace lifted his head, meeting his grandfather's stoic expression with a bloody grin. "And that father is Whitebeard."

Time passed. Ace didn't have the slightest clue how much time, either, because between the utter lack of natural light and the irregular guard rotations, there wasn't anything to judge time with. Unending hunger pangs didn't help either, because he was almost always hungry anyway and the guards didn't bother providing food to someone who'd be dead before he starved. Or maybe that was his well-practiced cynicism talking.

Plip.

Oh, and the water droplets still hadn't decided to become consistent. Still, Ace tilted his head to one side to see if he couldn't make the water run down his neck a little differently. Just for something to do.

"You're awake," said a voice, and Ace's eyes slid to his left.

Well, that was a sight for sore eyes. Finally, someone Ace could talk to.

The Warlord Jinbe was bound differently than Ace was. Maybe because the wardens feared a fishman's strength differently than that of a human with Devil Fruit powers in the face of sea prism stone, Jinbe had his arms pinned to his stomach by the chains. They'd even had the courtesy to make sure Jinbe's arms were inside of his yukata. Maybe that was what he got out of being a Warlord, because clearly the rest hadn't mattered.

If he was being honest, Ace was a tiny bit jealous—he'd lost feeling in his hands ages ago and, when he got feeling back, immediately wished he hadn't. Between his shoulders, his ribs, and everything else, the idea of moving was a double-edged sword. If only breathing didn't count…

"Alive, too. For now," Ace agreed, his voice cracking from disuse. "You?"

Jinbe sighed. Air hissed faintly through his triangular teeth. "Despite my best efforts, here I am."

Great. Then something had gone to hell. This one, even.

And, like everything that seemed like a spark of hope in this pit, it turned out that Jinbe was helpless. Oh, he'd gotten the Sun Pirates and the other people he cared about out of the line of fire—Unlike me, Ace thought bitterly—but he'd seen the writing on the wall. Tried to tell the World Government that even if they ordered all seven Warlords to fight the Whitebeards, the Knight of the Sea wouldn't take part. The Marines and the Five Elder Stars, it turned out, didn't like being told "no." So Jinbe got to sit down here and rot, locked away until the Marines got their war with the Whitebeard Pirates. Until Ace's recklessness doomed not just his family, but everyone from Fishman Island to Foodvalten who had ever dared rely on them for protection from the real monsters on the ocean.

Hearing Jinbe say he hadn't given up hope—that he still believed there'd be some kind of miracle—just made the cold lead in Ace's gut heavier still.

Once the laughter stopped—because Level Six was so far from empty that it was almost funny—Jinbe shifted his weight as he settled into a more comfortable position. Sure, he could move all of a smidgen in any direction, but Ace recognized the attempt. Ace wouldn't have killed for a chance to move his arms, but the idea floated through his head anyway. Wasn't like there was much else to focus on down here.

His mind wandered, because Jinbe had fallen silent and Ace didn't know what else to do.

"You—you were trying to protect us? Y-you wanted to protect one of the Four Emperors? From who?"

"I don't know. Maybe someone who doesn't even exist."

Ace let out a faint sigh. Doubt this is what she meant. But I can see it now.

"What's on your mind?" Jinbe asked.

Ace didn't lift his head, but he glanced over toward his cellmate anyway. "Someone who got killed helping me…chase a traitor."

Jinbe's eyes narrowed. "Marshall D. Teach."

"Fucker's probably a… Warlord by now." It would be just like the World Government to give Teach exactly what he wanted. "Only reason he bothered…taking me alive."

"This person who helped you," Jinbe began slowly, in a low voice that wouldn't carry far out of their cell, if it did at all. "Were you close?"

Ace closed his eyes until they stopped burning. "I was… I wanted her to be one of us. To be our sister…" Breathing still hurt, but it was like Jinbe had said before—his heart ached more than his body ever could. "But fighting Teach on Banaro… I got Kei killed, got Yugito stabbed through the gut…"

I never should have let them follow me there.

"Can you tell me what happened?" Jinbe asked. "I won't force you to talk, but here…here, you have the time."

Had too much time, maybe. Too much and too little at the same time.

"We talked, right before the...fight," Ace began, his voice barely reaching Jinbe. "They wanted to take out the whole island…" Ace shook his head slowly, though his shoulders ached to hell and back. Maybe he could get this weight off his back. Maybe Jinbe would know what he should have said or done. "They didn't even understand why it was such a big deal… Not at first."

Kei hadn't been able to meet his eyes, because she caught on first like he'd half-hysterically hoped she would. Yugito just backed off, but he didn't doubt that she'd disagreed with his call. He still didn't know what effect, if any, his little power trip had on how the two of them acted in the fight afterward.

What if I made them hesitate? What if I—

"But you got through to them," Jinbe guessed. When Ace glanced at him, Jinbe leaned forward and said, "I know you, young Ace. And I know the Whitebeard Pirates. You would never allow anyone so callous to take your father's mark or call them your friend."

"Don't know. That was the last… I can't believe that was our last conversation…" Ace closed his eyes briefly, wincing as his ribs twinged. "I just… How couldn't they know? Is that what it means to be a soldier?"

"Sometimes, it seems like it must be," Jinbe said quiet tone. "The Marines who follow Moral Justice sound like they are the closest thing to your friends. They follow the World Government's will, but there is something there a man can respect."

"But they still follow someone's orders," Ace muttered. "Someone… who orders them to do things like sink islands…"

"What is a sword without a hand to direct it?" Jinbe sighed. He shifted his weight again, tilting his head back toward the ceiling. "In absence of another goal or another mission, they chose yours. Don't blame yourself as though your friends couldn't make that choice on their own. You don't need to carry any more regrets."

"They weren't weapons," Ace whispered. "They were never just weapons."

Yugito scolded him when he took unnecessary risks, like that infiltration scheme at G-2. Kei laughed it off, fussing instead over that box of paper. Both of them putting their heads together to save Utakata from his godawful burns, while still afraid he'd wake up and attack them.

"I wish I could have made them understand better or…" Ace let his head hang, his bangs blocking Jinbe from his line of sight. "Maybe understand them more... I don't know."

"In the end, you did help them understand," Jinbe replied. "You let them remember that they were people and not monsters. What happened past that point lies squarely at Teach's feet, not yours." Jinbe's chains clinked together. "I hope it helps you to hear that, even from me."

A low, raspy laugh made it out of Ace's throat before his ribs hurt too much to let him continue. "Yeah, it… It helps, Jinbe. Thank you."

As it was, the two of them lapsed into silence as Ace let Jinbe's words sink in. While he doubted Banaro would hurt less for a while, knowing that someone didn't blame him for those deaths—for the failure, for everything that had come afterward—helped a bit. Not that he'd have long to regret it anyway.

He was just about to open his mouth and tell Jinbe about Luffy—the one bright spot still left in this situation, because Luffy would be well out of the blast radius—when heavy steps echoed across Level Six. Ace's teeth clicked shut around the words, while the strides grew closer and closer. A metallic scraping noise, echoing off the stones and the cells, and everyone on Level Six seemed to have gone silent.

Not good.

The giant hulking bastard who appeared, just out of Jinbe's line of sight, was either from Kuraigana Island or else looked like some kind of Zoan. Ordinary animals didn't get that big or quite that uncanny-looking, even in the Grand Line. The bull-creature didn't get any less creepy as it traveled through each patch of light. And it was carrying a spiked mace the size of a person, which was never a good sign.

It made a snuffling noise when it reached their cell, a large snot bubble stuck to one nostril. Its vacant eyes swung slowly between him and Jinbe, then it made a noise Ace had last heard from Moda's tiny herd of cows. Just bigger, and a lot more menacing. And it was still smart enough to use the keyring on its belt to get the cell door open.

What is this thing?

Jinbe met Ace's questioning gaze, then opened his mouth.

Which was about when it swung its club directly into the side of Jinbe's head. Jinbe couldn't roll with the impact, but he ignored the blood pouring down from his scalp and snarled with all of his teeth bared, right into the bull-shaped bastard's face.

THOOOOOOM.

The entire prison lurched to one side, throwing the bull Zoan into the wall next to Jinbe's shoulder and bouncing Jinbe's head off the bricks. Ace's shoulders burned, but being so tightly bound to the wall spared him a bonus concussion to go with his other injuries. Outside, dust and the occasional mortar powder cascaded down from the ceiling, followed by a loose brick. Prisoners all across Level Six were swearing and screaming, and one or two of the prisoners were laughing, because something had happened and no one had anything better to do.

A baby transponder snail, attached to the bull-thing's belt, shouted, "Minotaurus, report to Level Three! And make it snappy, or no Sea King steaks for you!"

"Mwoh?" the bull-thing twisted its huge head around and looked at its belt, though it looked more like it was staring at its own armpit.

"Move it or lose it!"

"Mwoh?!" The creature picked up its club again, stomping out of the cell and slamming the door shut behind it.

"Jinbe, you okay?" Ace asked.

Jinbe twisted his head a bit, as though checking that his neck hadn't been tweaked. Then, "This is nothing."

Well, that was something.

"But what was that… noise?" Jinbe asked, his eyes focusing on the wall the impact had to have come from. The word "noise" did not remotely cover the situation.

It had felt like nothing less than something hitting the outer wall of Impel Down, but nothing was that… big. A Sea King, maybe, since Ace knew Impel Down sat square in the middle of the Calm Belt and for all he knew the creatures were doing a mating dance underwater. But even a Sea King would have either the sense or the navigation ability to avoid hitting a stationary object. The Blugori and the Jailer Beasts ate them, so they had to know to stay away.

Isobu, on the other hand…

"I might have some idea," Ace heard himself say in a bleak voice.

I'm down here. Come and get me.

"Not sharing, I take it," Jinbe said, but there was no judgment in his voice.

Ace shook his head. "I… Did I ever tell you about my brother?"

Insofar as he could, Jinbe settled in for story time.

AN: Ta-dah, the highlights of Ace's POV. It was kinda fun to get a chance to work in third-person in past tense again.

Also, posting early since this is an intermission, and because some people were dying to see what Ace was thinking for the past however long. I'm still not sure how it got to nine thousand words long, but it did. The next full chapter will definitely be Impel Down proper.

(And thanks to everyone who helped this thing hit a hundred reviews! Over on The B-Plot there's another hundred or so, so it's really like this thing has over two hundred!)

EDIT: And since formatting keeps getting stripped from this, I've had to process this document about four times. I think things are fixed now.