~ ... Last Will & Testament ... ~
Luffy was probably his most emotional by far, but he didn't know how else to feel. Among the letters in Ace's Lodge, he finally found one that made him ultimately snap. It was one addressed to him. He must have read it over 30 times by now. He was livid at his sworn brother! Nami, Zoro, Sanji... they all kept checking on him from time to time as he waited for Nesi to return home. Every now and then, one of them would wait with him at her house until it got late, and they walked him back to Ace's Lodge or walked with around town. Nesi's neighbors would stop by to check on him or talk to him to see what was wrong, but he usually responded positively and asked what they knew about Nesi or Ace or how they felt about them. For the most part, the neighbors loved Ace and wished him well on his journey. That just made Luffy feel worse. No one on the harbor knew about what happened on the Marineford. It was such a big deal! How didn't they know? Even if they didn't know Ace was there, they'd know if the place was attacked. As advanced as Seven Silver Mills was, nobles and the like were here. There had to be a broadcast or news article somewhere. What gives? Ultimately, Luffy did return to the lodge to sleep, but he didn't sleep very long. The crew knew something was wrong when his appetite reduced little by little.
Nami finally went upstairs into Ace's room and noticed that Luffy wasn't in there again. Light was coming from the library part, so she sighed and walked across the little bar and sitting room until she spotted Luffy's feet on the floor. He wasn't reading the letters or journals anymore. He was just covering himself with them. That's where he was now. Lying on the floor, stretched out, like he did when they were confronted by Kuro and the Black Cat pirates. She just sat next to him like before, taking notice to his mood. This wasn't the first time she had been in the stationery room; in fact, she explored it and realized just how much different Ace was compared to Luffy. She knew he was smart, but Ace's selection of books varied from horror stories to academic journals to maritime law. That was a different kind of smart. He even had notes in them like he studied from each text. He was studious, even if it was for a short period of time. She did wonder if Nesi had something to do with that because of how regal and manicured she was, but she heard her story just like everyone else did.
She was a country girl who got tired of being mistreated just because someone she never met had the audacity to say that they could. She was getting beat up publicly. No one could stop the attackers, but Ace did and she saw him as her light of hope. That it was possible to stop the bullying and the nightmares of poverty. She hauled ass to get him to teach her how to fight. He wouldn't at first, but he eventually changed his mind. From there, she became a member of his crew. The townspeople were the ones who corrected them on her story if the Straw Hats said something inaccurate. They were very defensive over Nesi's story. Though she joined the Spades, Nesi wasn't a crucial member like Nami as the navigator or Sanji as the ship cook. She was a floor scrubber. Everyone seemed to emphasize that. She worked dirty jobs for a while and Ace was relentless in making that time hard on her until he just up and changed one day. The Spades had docked on an island where a true privateer was located. That privateer wanted to train Nesi and followed her from afar until it was time to take her.
That was when Ace changed. Luffy knew the story in pieces from there. It was in the letters. Makino and Garp were giving him advice on how to talk to Nesi, understand her, train her. After he had gotten Garp's first letter about being a mentor, Ace must've started changing up her duties from floor scrubber to whatever he felt Nesi worked best as. Enter the privateer, who was taking her away just as he was figuring out how to properly lead her, and his journals, where he was documenting Nesi's progress and how she was learning things at a rapid pace. To a point where it was getting difficult to keep up, and he had to find things for her to do to slow her down, but he was able learn more about being a better captain and formed alliances with a few other crews in the meantime. The alliances were fairly successful, according to his brother's journal about them, and Ace managed to rack up a significant amount of money and equipment to improve the state of his ship, Bloody Doubloon. He got the name from an old myth about playing cards. An all-black suit hand in a card game meant someone was going to die or perish. With his crew being called the Spades, one could put two and two together. As he was learning how to negotiate with the other captains to form a proper fleet, the weight of Nesi leaving so early on got to him. That's where part of the story just ended. Luffy tried to find out more about what happened, even went through the case with Nesi's portraits and wanted posters, but it was a collection of unfinished thoughts after that. He found Shanks' invite to his birthday party. After that, the trail got cold and stopped.
Obviously, the story didn't end there. The truth about Nesi was like the truth about Marineford. Someone didn't know something about "the big deal". Luffy reread the letters and journals to find any semblance of a clue as to what happened next. Some of the books Ace said he started collecting were related to leadership skills. Luffy found them all, read the titles to confirm, and spotted the notes. Robin interpreted the more complex stuff and put things in layman's terms whenever she went upstairs to check on Luffy, but she never hid the fact that she was impressed by the collection to the others. The creepy folktales, legendary beast myths, and stories of conquest were almost traditional for a boy's collection of books, but that privateer pushed him in the direction of an educated leader. There had to have been something written about him. A name or portrait or something. If there was, it wasn't in the house... because Ace said so in the letter.
"Nesi will be out for a while. Why do you want to talk to her?" Nami asked, seeing that her friend and captain was just blank despite being covered in papers.
"Because she's in his last will," Luffy said quietly. His voice had a number of emotions mingling together, but it wasn't cracked and soft like he was crying. It was steady like a low tide on the shore. "Ace said so."
"Do you think your grandpa will show up here?" Nami asked.
"He hasn't yet. That doesn't mean he won't," Luffy replied.
"You didn't really show us the letter. What was in it that made you so mad with him?" Nami asked.
Luffy went deathly silent before he finally said, "She's my sister."
"Y-your... what?" Nami questioned, straightening up at this.
"It was by accident, and it might not count legally, but... they were married," Luffy answered, fingers twitching. "She's my sister..."
"Why is that eating you up so much?" Nami asked.
"He forbade what happened from being broadcasted to this island..." Luffy finally said. "I don't know how, but that's why no one knows. It was part of his will. If anything happened to him, no matter if it was at Marineford or somewhere else, he didn't want anyone to know. He wanted Garp to personally tell her and to live with her for a little while to get to know his granddaughter-in-law. If I wanted to know more about them, then I would either have to ask Nesi or wait for Garp..."
Author's Footnotes: Well, guys, this is the last chapter of my anime short story. Thank you for taking the time to read this. Big shoutout to lauraschmol, Hellibleri, and BethxAngel once again for favoriting and/or following this little short. One day, I'd like to come back to this and fully expand on it in the future as a political drama. There was a Pirate Code that restricted a decent handful of activities among the pirates, and I want to share that historical piece of information with you. It's very interesting stuff that I don't think anyone knows about including myself to an extent. I didn't know that they had a curfew for drinking. That's never shown! So, yeah, I wanna make this into one of my smaller story projects in the future and make it into a historical/period drama.
The privateers were also a big part of the era of piracy, and, from what I know historically and what I had to clarify while writing this, they were part of the reason why piracy ended worldwide. Privateering became illegal right around 1850-1870 beginning with the Declaration of Paris to outlaw it, which inevitably triggered the hard stop on all acts of piracy. Though pirates still do exist today, they're largely stationed toward the south of China Sea. The latest news that I remember hearing about them was when they tried to attack a NAVY SEALs ship a few years ago. Had to have been right before COVID. Bad idea on their end, but I ain't got nothin' to do with that. 0_o
All in all, I enjoyed writing little snapshot moments of Ace's time as a captain of the Spades. He was one of my favorite characters in One Piece before it ultimately stopped airing in my area, so I'm glad I got to expand on his character just a hair. However, I leave the decision to transform this story into a historical piece with you, my audience. If I get about three reviews to continue, I'll add this to my projects for completion and work on proper drafts and episodes. I won't make it too serious because that's not how One Piece is, but I'll give Ace's life story more of an impact. His fate will remain the same. I just want to mature him some more within his short piratical career. But again, up to you. I did what I came to do.
Anyways, thank you once again for tuning into this silly adventure. I'm sorry I couldn't put more action in here! X3 I was going to include the privateer wars in this, but Nesi left the Spades just before the first war and that's where I wanted to cut the story off. Since I posted all the silly stuff instead, it took up the space I would've needed for the war.