A/N: Uwah, a new chapter? Have I finally gotten inspiration? Is my work gonna be better? Oh, hell no. Nothing can achieve that. So I decided to do one on law, jinbe. I was gonna do wano as well but was like nah. Though you have the latest manga chapter referenced here.
DISCLAIMER!! I DON'T OWN ONE PIECE, OTHERWISE I'D BE THE PIRATE KING.
H is for Hope...
In just a few more days, law will die. It is what he's planned, and he sure as hell likes his plans to go without a hitch. And along with his death, he's gonna drag down the pink flamingo bastard is going to go down with him. And he is sure that it will happen, with help from this rambunctious crew he allied with.
How one crew can have so little worries, and generally not give a fuck about anything is beyond him.
The entire crew is borderline crazy, he decides, and is satisfied with his decision. Dressrosa will 100% not end with him getting out alive, but it will end up with taking down that bastard he decided to kill since childhood.
For Cora-san.
Something tells him that the cheery feather adorned man who took care of him would disapprove, but he ignored it. His new allies seem to have not grasped the severity of the situation, and he momentarily curses himself for allying with the most unpredictable crew on the grand line.
He can only tolerate three of the asinine crew, but doesn't want to form bonds. He will not be here for long. He sure as hell can't tolerate Mugiwara-ya though.
Roronoa-ya seems to be the least bothered out of them all. He supposes that being the first mate of the stupidest person on the four seas requires one to be reckless. Nico-ya and kuroashi-ya seem unbothered as well. The entire crew is off the rails.
He will die soon. The soft ringing slowly gets louder, but he ignores it. He will always ignore it.
This crew really has no sense of danger...
And unfortunately, this turned out worse than he planned. Getting one upped by the smiling bastard and getting a pain in the ass admiral involved was NOT part of his plan. But do they care? Nope.
Roronoa-ya and Mugiwara-ya cheerily carry on a conversation while he's being held as a skateboard, talking about random shit while doflamingo's forces surround them.
Did roronoa-ya really just kick dellinger into machvise? And did it seriously just work? What the actual fuck is wrong with this crew?
Neither of them seem to worried about anything under the sun and they just think forward. Are they seriously expecting to finish this without a hitch?
For fuck's sake, he needs to find doflamingo and take him down with him.
Oh god, he regrets allying with them.
He will die in some time.
The ringing slowly gets louder, and he pays it no mind. He doesn't need to. He doesn't want it to deviate him from his goal.
If you told him that they would take down doflamingo and he would still be alive by the end of the whole ordeal, he would laugh.
And he sure as hell doesn't believe it now. He's still alive, and doflamingo is down. The feathery bastard is going all the way to impel down, and the marines are not catching them.
The ringing stops. It stopped the moment he took down doflamingo, the moment he let go of the heaviness in his heart. The moment he felt a will to live.
All because of this stupid, idiotic, reckless crew.
He knows that being with them for too long will probably make him go insane. But it makes him feel lighter. Like when he was with cora-san.
The ringing changes into a soft, familiar laughter that he heard in his childhood, a tone that no longer carried sadness and heaviness. Cora-san is happy.
He feels lighter, but there's no reason to smile.
He can't believe that the most ridiculous crew gave him something he thought he had lost years ago.
Hope.
Fishman island has always been plagued by pain. Fishmen hunted for slavery like objects, treated less than human. Why? They didn't understand it. They don't understand why people treat each other differently based on appearance. After all, they're all born on the same sea. So why? Why are humans so insistent on proving their superiority?
So much oppression, so much tyranny. At the hands of the tenryuubito, the slave traders, the humans. But they were stronger. What made these humans think so highly of themselves? Years of oppression and hatred gives rise to hatred. And jinbe knows that no matter how much people like the sun pirates try, or people like otohime give their all to try and bridge the gap between the two species, the hatred and distrust will never go away. That is just how it is.
The name of whitebeard protected them for a long time, making people run away due to fear of invoking the wrath of Edward Newgate. That was, until marineford occurred. The death of whitebeard produced ripples throughout the world, and left fishman island without a protector.
The world is unfair, oh so unfair.
They needed protection, so they took up another yonko's rule. Big mom. Jinbe can safely say that this was a bad decision, but like everyone else, he has no choice.
The world is hardly fair.
Fishman island will always sway due to the decisions of the world, always be plagued by hatred and insecurity. The divide between fishmen and humans is deep, and for every person like otohime and fisher tiger, there are many others who are fed up of living in fear. Who decide to oppress the humans instead.
Hate gives rise to hate. And jinbe knows that the divide can't be removed so soon.
Oh how wrong he is.
He would not have imagined the divide to shatter like glass just because of a certain crew, a pirate crew no less. And that man, Monkey D Luffy, a man who he has seen at his lowest, somehow managed to bring them all together. They don't want to be seen as heroes, for they are pirates.
Something that both the captain and first mate support with extremely unnatural and similar definitions.
Reckless idiots who pick a fight with an emperor as soon as entering the new world.
Reckless idiots who fight for their home without even knowing anything about the deep scars of hatred.
Reckless idiots who don't give a damn about public appearances.
"Are we good or evil? That is something you have to decide for yourselves."
"Join our crew Jinbe!!"
Oh and how he wants to. But he can't. Not right now. Big mom protects this country. Maybe... Maybe in the distant future. Maybe he might join.
The hope they offer them is scary, dare he say frightening, but it feels so refreshing, so joyous. Makes them feel similar.
It hurts, but in a good way. Maybe he will join them. Maybe these are the people fishman island needs. Nakama.
"There's no way a man that intends to join the crew of the pirate king will cower before a mere yonkou."
For Luffy is the man who will become the pirate king.
"Wuhahaha, sorry for the little monologue, Luffy, as promised I came back alive!"
And he will stand alongside the pirate king. For he is the one who gives them hope.
I was thinking bout doing wano as a part of the "hope" title as well, but decided against it. So we instead got law and jinbe. Yayy