Hello again everyone! I think I need to apologize for taking so long to update but I've hit a really big chunk of writer's block recently, so none of my little stories have been updated in a while. I'm here to say that that is changing as of now. I have content planned and being written for both stories ready to go and I'm going to be publishing some more stories soon.
I hope you enjoy this chapter. It's kind of a little filler and apology for being gone for so long, so I give you...
Dadan and company!
When Dadan and the other bandits had read the paper that held the story of Ace's death, tears of grief and roars of rage were released in relentless waves, effectively scaring away all beasts for a good three days. Dadan herself had fallen into a deep stretch of depression before she pulled herself out of it and instead fell into a rage so fierce she left a good half of the forest destroyed behind her.
They waited two years for word of Luffy to reach them, a dark cloud becoming more and more apparent each day there was none. They were beginning to think he had died-for real-and the marines had simply not wanted to tell anyone yet when they received the paper that stated the Strawhat Pirates were back and stronger than ever.
More tears were shed but this time, they were from pure joy and relief to see they still had a child who was alive. The ruts they had fallen into disappeared and a small party was held. The bandits rejoiced for two days when a seagull approached and quickly dropped off a wrapped up piece of parchment on Dadan's head. Curious, she reached up and grabbed it, opening it only to find a letter addressed to her in the chicken scratch handwriting that could only belong to Luffy.
Dadan,
It's Luffy! How are you all? Is everyone still alive? Are you still hunting meat? I miss your meat! It was so good and tasty even though Sanji's is better! Nami told me I was supposed to write to you guys and tell you that I'm okay.
But I don't like lying to people, especially not you guys.
I'm not really okay but I will be. I have my nakama with me and they're helping me. They were sad about Ace's death too and were super sorry they weren't with me when he died, even though they don't have to be. It wasn't their fault.
Together we're going to put Ace's death behind us and I know you don't have a whole lot of people to help you do that. I wanted to make sure you're okay. I miss you a bunch and I don't know what happened when you found out. So, are you okay? Is everyone else okay? I hope so. I can't take any more people being hurt when I can't protect them. I don't think I'll ever be okay with that ever again. So I'm sorry if you aren't. I should've wrote to you a long time ago. Sorry.
And there the letter ended. Dadan had fat tears rolling down her cheeks by the time she had finished and the others had caught on to them, rushing over to her to see what was going on. Questions were shouted at her in rapid fire. She merely began reading the letter out loud to silence them.
There was a still silence that echoed around them all when she finished. Nobody moved, nobody breathed, and for a minute it was as if no heart beat. Then they started breaking down into sobs of their own. Sobs of sorrow for their little boy who still wasn't okay, sobs of disbelief at the fact that he was concerned about them, sobs of grief because their boy wasn't so innocent anymore.
Dadan's sobs were the loudest that day although all echoed in throughout the forest. Because it was the knowledge that Luffy was still hurting, still trying to move past his big brother's death, and the knowledge that he was scared and worried about them of all people that destroyed the bandits that day.
