Chapter 24: Hard to Kill
"Why's the flame blue?" Thatch, repeating Ace's question, glanced over his shoulder from where he was taking some kind of torch to his latest dessert. "It's hot, obviously."
"So's this," Ace replied, holding up his hand and letting it turn to flame. Thatch chuckled and turned back to his work— brûlée, so he'd said. Something about making sure the top of the dessert was perfectly crispy.
"Sure, that's hot, but it's not hot enough, not for this. It would take way too long. Ignoring Marco's weird phoenix flames, blue fire's way hotter than red or orange or even yellow fire. I bet it could even burn you."
Ace scoffed. "Not a chance. How can fire burn fire?"
"Well, devil fruits have tiers, right? The Mera Mera no Mi is powerful, sure, but maybe there's another heat-focused fruit that's a step above. You don't want your cockiness to get you into trouble there, do you?"
He pointed the torch as a mock threat, but Ace only had eyes for the flame. Critical eyes. Doubting eyes.
"Lemme try it."
"Absolutely not."
"Thatch, c'mon. I wanna know. So do you."
"I…It's a bad idea, Ace. You know Marco wouldn't approve."
Spreading his hands, Ace looked around as though the man would appear. When he didn't, he raised both eyebrows at Thatch, who heaved a sigh.
"You know what? Fine. Don't say I didn't warn you." Thatch turned away from the countertop where he'd been prepping the deserts and readied the torch. "Hold still."
"I can do it mys—"
"Nope, if you freak out and drop the torch, I'm not getting blamed for the whole ship going up in smoke. Just tell me when it hurts."
"If."
Rolling his eyes, Thatch kneeled in front of the seated Ace and once again hesitated. Ace reached out and flicked his forehead. "Get on with it, unless you're gonna chicken out."
Indignation did the trick. Thatch scoffed and put the torch to Ace's skin.
He put it to Ace's chest. Ace had been expecting the hand, or maybe the arm, maybe even the thigh, but chest?
"Thatch, I—" his voice caught when the flame got close. Heat prickled on his skin, then poked, then jabbed, then ignited. Ace tried to flinch back, tried to tell Thatch to stop, tried to do anything except watch that flame blacken his flesh like those desserts but he was locked in place and it burned it burned it BURNED—
"LUFFY!" Ace screamed, launching himself upright and slamming his forehead into the man who'd been leaning over him. The man, doctor by that coat and a familiar one at that, reeled back with a yell of pain, clutching his head, and Ace likewise brought a hand to his forehead while he stared around the—the infirmary, on the ship, that they've been traveling in to clean up Pops's territory. Not the Moby Dick's kitchen. Right.
As reality overwrote the nightmare, so too did the pain of the arm that hadn't responded when he went to grab his head. He bit down on a groan and hunched over, reaching down without touching because heat of an entirely different kind than the comforting waves of his devil fruit radiated from the skin.
"Commander?"
"Sorry, doc," he managed. "Didn't mean to hit you."
"It's okay, it's just my head. I'll, ow, let the others know you're awake. Try not to move your arm—the admiral burned it pretty bad."
Burned. Ace wanted to laugh, but if he opened his mouth, that groan would definitely escape. Thatch was right. Fire burned fire.
"Don't go messing with it, now, Commander," the doctor warned. "It took Deuce and I hours to patch you up, and he told me to tell you that he's going to personally throw you overboard if you 'botch it.'"
"I hear you." Deuce was so paranoid. Ace could investigate a wound without worsening it, thank you very much.
The moment the doc ducked out, Ace turned his attention to his arm.
He had to see how bad it was.
Though his stomach twisted at the thought and the smell of burnt flesh was making the room roll even on calm waters, he forced himself to look at the damage.
…Which he couldn't see. Because his right arm, from wrist up to and around the shoulder, was swathed in bandages. Something glistened at the edges of the cloth, probably a salve of some kind. Carefully, gingerly, he flexed his fingers, and he breathed a sigh of relief when they all moved, even if it sent fresh pulses of pain up his arm.
Small mercy that it was his left arm that bore Sabo's jolly roger; that mark had escaped unscathed. He didn't need Akainu ruining both of his tattoos. Unfortunately, his shirt was ashes in the breeze, so that first victim of Akainu's wrath was on full display.
Ace bit his lip. He had more shirts in his bag, but he didn't relish the thought of putting any of them on over the sticky salve and bandages.
The scar, when he ran his fingers over it, made him shiver.
He'd gotten away.
He'd survived.
That was what this scar was now, he decided. Not a mark of his shame, of his failure, of his weakness, but a declaration that despite it all, he had survived. It was a scar on his back but only because he'd done it to save Luffy. He'd carry a hundred scars on his back if it meant Luffy would live. He'd given his life for his family and something, somehow, had decided he got another shot at things. The World Government tried to say he didn't deserve to live; in answer, the world itself, and everyone who mattered within it, had declared that he did.
This scar, including the marred jolly roger still visible at its edges, was defiance.
He could stand to let the world see it.
He could also, probably, when his newest burns healed, get a simplified version of Whitebeard's mark on his shoulder. Just to make it once again clear to the world who he considered to be his father.
The door to the infirmary opened and light, people, and noise poured in. Deuce was at the front of the pack, the doc a step behind, and Ace picked out several other members of his division—but not all of them.
"Commander!" they chorused, a unity that broke apart as everyone found a different way to ask if he was okay.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," Ace assured them. "I'm more worried about you. Where is everyone? Did the marines…?" His expression darkened at the thought and flames licked at his shoulders.
"Oh, no, everyone's okay," Bront hastened to say, only for the doc to pointedly clear his throat. "Okay, we got some bumps and bruises—"
"Dottie lost two fingers trying to stop that cannonball," the doc interrupted.
"—but we're still here, and that's what matters. They're all just busy bailing water right now."
Ace furrowed his brow while his flames calmed. "Are we sinking?"
Deuce wiggled one hand in a so-so gesture. "A little."
"How bad?"
"We did some quick patch jobs, but they won't hold forever. Shadi put us on a course for the nearest island and she's pretty sure we'll make it as long as we keep most of the water out. You've been out for a day."
Ace grunted, swung his legs over the side of the bed, and stood. "I'll help."
"Whoa, wait!"
He staggered a step but smacked away Deuce's helping hand. "I'm okay. Just hungry." On cue, his stomach rumbled. Deuce scowled and the doc straightened up.
"I'll grab you something from the galley. But no physical labor with that arm! I could've sworn I set aside a…oh, I'll find it. If you must do something, you can watch for sea kings. They've been circling for hours now."
Ace grimaced at being benched but nodded. "Thanks. I'll be on deck." The doc hurried out.
"I'm guessing I won't convince you to lie down and get more rest," Deuce said.
"You know me so well."
They followed the doc at a slower pace, Ace leading the way. He glanced back to ask Deuce if there'd been any sign of marine presence while he was unconscious, only for his head to slam into something. Deuce's palm slapped against his back, keeping him upright while he hissed a breath in through his teeth and brought his good hand up to his head.
"Wouldn't have hit it if you rested more," Deuce said mildly.
Ace shot him a glare.
When he dodged the door and made it out in the bright sunlight, he had to shade his eyes from the glare. He shifted his other shoulder, wincing. There was no comfortable way to hold his bad arm, and the other bandages covering the less severe burns all over his body pulled awkwardly at his skin. Everything was going to itch horribly once the healing really started.
"Your hat's in your quarters," Deuce said, noticing him squinting. "You want me to get it?"
"No, it's fine. I'll grab it later. How far are we?"
Shadi's lilting voice came from the raised aft section of the ship behind him. "See that smudge on the horizon straight ahead?"
"Yeah." It really was just a blackish blur. On anything other than a clear day like this, it would be invisible at this distance.
"That's our destination."
"What's with the smoke?"
"I don't know. It's not labeled as volcanic on any map I've seen."
Ace crossed the deck to lean on the prow and stare at the column, which grew ever larger as they got closer. He could faintly smell things burning on the breeze, and he knew that too would get stronger with their approach.
There was…a lot of fire in his life, lately. And it never seemed to bring anything good.
A thought struck. "I should let Pops know what happened." An admiral attacking a Whitebeard division commander was, he knew, a pretty big fucking deal.
"Already did," Deuce said. "Pops is probably taking a nap right now, but you should call Marco to let him know you're okay. You were still out when I reported back."
Ace hid a wince at the thought of what Marco would have to say about Ace forcing his own crew to run and staying behind to tangle with an admiral. "I'll do that once we've reached that island and figured out repairs."
"Yeah, I bet you will. Stop picking at your bandages or I'll throw you overboard." Deuce eyed him and Ace bristled while he brought his hand away from the bandages, which were starting to feel uncomfortably stiff.
"What?"
The man was unperturbed. "You did it again. Taking everything on yourself. I thought I told you that you don't have to do this alone."
A bit of guilt made Ace shift uncomfortably. "You know I don't run."
"I know. Forcing the rest of us to, though?"
"This was different. Akainu—I'm never letting him take anyone else from me. No one, not ever again."
"Commander!"
The doc was back, and with the cook trailing behind him. Ace's mouth instantly began to salivate at the big pile of food teetering precariously on the plate in the cook's hands. But the doc stepped up first with a bundle of cloth.
"A sling," he explained. "I couldn't remember where I'd put it, but I finally found it. We'll need to make sure to stretch your arm morning and night to keep it flexible, but in the meantime, please use this to ease some of the discomfort."
"Is that really necessary?"
"Some of the damage was to your shoulder joint, so humor me."
A glance around the ship showed the handful of people not stuck bailing water sneaking worried glances his way. They'd all been worried for him. For a minute, some of them had probably thought he was giving his life for them. The medical attention, the food—that was all they could do to help right now.
The final straw was Deuce crossing his arms and raising a challenging eyebrow. If Ace didn't capitulate, this would turn into an argument, and Deuce knew way more than Ace when it came to medical stuff. Ace'd had enough of his head spinning to last a lifetime, so he'd pass on having Deuce lecture circles around him.
He sighed aloud and gestured for the sling. "Fine, fine."
When he was situated, fed, and both the doc and the cook were satisfied, Ace was left alone—save for Deuce, who stayed by his elbow and joined him in scanning for sea kings.
They hadn't spoken in months. Before this mission, Ace had been busy with the second division, and Deuce had been hopping between divisions. Last Ace had heard, he'd been learning from the nurses on one of the mini mobys.
"The crew been okay?" he asked to break the silence.
"Some better than others. Generally, yes. Leonero and Kukai went back to their home islands. Kimei's dropped off the map. But the rest of those idiots are still scattered around the fleet."
"I should be keeping better track of them. I didn't know about Kimei."
"Part of dropping off the map is being quiet about it. I'm not surprised it didn't reach you. You've got your own problems to worry about—flushing out a traitor, for one."
No one knew the full details of Ace's involvement in that other than the commanders and Whitebeard, but everyone in the fleet knew Ace had been the one to reach Thatch first.
"I'm glad they're doing right by you," Deuce continued after a beat. "Would've kicked their asses if they didn't. Tried, really. We both know how it would've ended."
"I'm glad you didn't get your ass kicked," Ace offered in return. Deuced smiled thinly.
"Thanks. I try to avoid it, when I can. Unlike you."
"It's not like I go looking for it."
He snorted. "Could've fooled me. From the second you burst onto the beach with that slapdash mess you called a boat, you and trouble have never been more than arm's length apart. And this time, it got way, way closer than that." He sobered. "It didn't change you much, did it?"
"What?"
He made a vague gesture at all of Ace. "You're still ready to throw yourself between the people you care about and the things that want to hurt them. I know you don't run," he added before Ace could repeat himself. He sighed and leaned more of his weight on the railing. "Do you know there's a chance the people you care about don't enjoy watching you do that? Especially not twice."
"I'm not dragging you into a fight you can't win just because I was stupid."
"Maybe I would've gotten in the way. Maybe I would've been a burden. But I don't want to be forced onto the sidelines while you burn out. On your crew or not, I'm your second. If I'm watching, I'm failing."
For a moment, Ace was reminded of Luffy. The utter joy and relief in his eyes in those brief minutes at Marineford when he and Ace had fought together for the first time in years. When Luffy had been able to prove just how strong he'd become. "I…I didn't think about that."
"Got plenty of other things to think about, so let me worry about this one. You just focus on recovery. The next time Akainu comes calling, we'll be ready." He nodded at the rest of the ship. "All of us."
Seized by a sudden need, Ace gripped Deuce's shoulder with his good hand. "Join the second division."
Deuce raised an eyebrow. "They split us up for a reason."
True, the Spade Pirates had been broken up and scattered around the Whitebeard fleet; unlike other crews, they hadn't joined as a full crew. Their captain had been ripped away and the rest of them assigned where they could be useful, far enough apart from each other to avoid risk of trouble. But that had been long ago. "I'm a commander now. It's different."
Deuce searched his face for a moment before he nodded. "I have a few things I need to wrap up after this mission, but when that's done, I'll join you. Clearly, you need more patching up than one doctor can manage."
Them ending up with two doctors on the same ship—Deuce having refined what he learned growing up with what he observed with Whitebeard's nurses—was a quirk of them having to pick up Deuce on the way to their territory. Ace wasn't too bothered about it; unlike the other doc, Deuce was also comfortable in a fight.
Ace squeezed his shoulder and then let go. "Maybe we can track down Kimei together. I want to at least make sure he's okay."
"Agreed."
"By the way, I meant to ask—any marines since that island?"
"No, no pursuit. Seems he really was acting alone."
"Good."
In the lull that followed, Ace stared down at his hand. He let it turn to fire, and he stared at those tongues of flame in thought. With the distant scent of the island burning, there was no room for his brain to insert any smell of burning flesh. Besides, after that second fight with Akainu, he felt closer to his flames than ever. With a little concentration, he could tinge the orange with blue.
Yeah. If Akainu tried again, he'd be ready.
They stood in companionable silence for a while, watching the water. A few sea kings were fighting off in the distance—visible only as the occasional fin flashing within sprays of water—but none were approaching their ship, at least not yet. Ace began to fiddle with his sling before he glanced at his companion.
"Deuce?"
"What?"
"Thanks."
"For…?"
"Everything."
Deuce tilted his head but slowly nodded. "Anytime."
In the hours it took them to reach the island, several things happened. First, a vicious sea king took exception to their ship passing through its territory. After the fish shrugged off his crew's attacks and even Ace's weakened lefty fire fist, Ace solved that problem with a burst of conqueror's haki that left him feeling only a little like he was going to pass out.
After the sea king, one of the New World's freak weather events opened up a whirlpool right under them. Under Deuce's quick direction, Ace solved that problem by jumping into Striker and using the smaller craft to tow the other ship clear while his crew, the ones not stuck bailing out ever more water, rowed for all they were worth. While doing that, Ace tried not to think about how low in the water their ship was sitting and how little it moved with the waves that rolled under it. He hadn't seen any of that damage before he passed out—they hadn't taken on enough water by then. And he'd been a little distracted.
Finally, the column of smoke proved to be an entire city's worth of burning buildings. Ace picked out relatively few active fires judging by the brightness, but what had burned before was still smoldering, and a choking haze hung over the water for several miles in every direction.
"Not the best place for repairs," Deuce muttered, standing next to Ace on the prow.
"Yeah." Ace set his shoulders—shoulder, when the other one complained. "But we don't have a choice."
Under the veil of smoke, the island was relatively small, probably just a hair larger than Dawn Island. The kingdom it boasted had set up its castle on a tiered hill overlooking the port town, its triangular construction matching the very uniform mountains that ringed the area like crenelations on a tower. Everything about the island, in fact, was pointy in some way, from the roofs of every building to the canvas screens stretched over the streets to the tops of the posts holding up the pier.
But the castle was more than pointy—it was very well defended. Booms they'd been able to hear when they were still an hour out were now near-deafening, and their source was a series of massive cannons set into the castle walls. Whenever one of those fired, a beat later, a massive explosion ripped through a section of the island. At least they were targeting the land; the pirate ship had, for now, escaped their list of priorities. The haze was providing a little bit of cover.
"Gotta be some kind of civil war," Dottie noted, adjusting the polka-dot scarf that was the source of her nickname. She frowned when the motion was impeded by the bandages on her hand.
"And we're sure there's no chance we can make it anywhere else?" Bront tried.
Deuce shook his head. "Water in the bottom level got all the way up to my chest thanks to the whirlpool, so, yes, we're sure. Unless Ace figured out how to use those flames to fly more than just himself."
Ace, peering at the dock and seeing no sign of any local authorities coming out to greet them, barely heard him. "Sorry, no can do."
He jumped down to that pier when the ship was close enough. The landing jarred him to his bones, and all of his burns pulsed with a warning shot of pain, none stronger than his arm. He ignored it.
Though the town was clearly in the middle of some kind of conflict, no one was paying much attention to the port. A glance around showed only a handful of other ships docked, and pretty much all of them—save for one set apart from the rest that was rather garishly decorated and sported exclusively triangular sails that had to belong to whoever was defending that castle—were nondescript. None were flying a jolly roger.
Deuce's boots thudded down onto the planks of the dock until he was stopped behind Ace. "What's your thinking, Commander?"
"It's definitely not a raid." Ace scanned what he could see of the streets and houses. The clash of steel and bang of gunfire rang out all over, so frequent and overlapping so much that it was impossible to pinpoint a single source. "I don't see any marines, either. Whatever it is, it's been going on for a while."
"Dottie's probably right about the civil war."
"Yeah." He pointed at a handful of warehouses a hundred yards away from where they'd docked. Most looked intact. "I'm betting we'll find timber and other ship supplies there. If we—"
He stopped. There were people approaching: a fishman with green skin and some kind of white uniform tied with a belt at the waist, a young redheaded woman with a scarlet cap and gold goggles resting upon its brim, and a third guy dressed in a scorched tunic with the remnants of a triangular cape fluttering behind him. They'd come out of a nearby alleyway, not the little shed at the end of the dock where the authority typically camped.
"Afternoon," Ace greeted, stepping forward so they wouldn't get too close to his ship and crew. "Are you the welcoming party? Only one of you looks local."
"What brings the Whitebeard Pirates here?" the woman asked. Her voice was pleasant enough but it couldn't cover the tension blanketing her whole group. "We weren't aware you were in the area."
"We had to take an unexpected detour."
Her eyes darted down to his arm. He gave her a lazy smile; injured arm or not, he was still plenty dangerous. To ease the sting of any implied threat, he jerked a thumb back at the ship, which, even with all the bailing, was still sitting low. "We need supplies to repair our ship, then we'll be on our way."
She frowned. "That's it?"
Someone else dropped down from the ship behind Ace, making the woman and her two friends brace themselves.
"Commander," the cook said quietly, "we're also running low on food. If we're going to sail out of here without risking scurvy, we need something other than fish to eat."
"I'll take care of it." He eyed the woman, who looked far more inclined to kick Ace and his crew firmly out to sea with only a barrel between them than offer help. What were the odds they'd let Ace go shopping?
The odds were pretty high. At least, they were after a lot of negotiating and Ace pointing out that what was worse than a boat full of Whitebeard Pirates was a sinking boat full of hungryWhitebeard Pirates. Thus were Ace and four of his crewmates escorted toward the market street. The rest, including Deuce, stayed by the ship: some to collect supplies to repair it, some to defend it, and some to continue the endless bailing until those repairs could be done. Ace's escort was the woman, and just the woman; the other two split off within a couple of streets.
"Fighting has largely coalesced around the castle," the woman—Koala, as she'd introduced herself—explained to Ace as they walked. "The markets should be safe enough for you to get what you need."
"Should be?"
"No guarantees. The soldiers have been getting rather desperate and those cannons aren't going anywhere."
"How long has all this been going on?"
She sighed. "This is the third day."
No wonder there was so much smoke, and so few civilians. Everyone Ace saw was either a fallen soldier bedecked in triangle-patterned armor or a resistance fighter in far more slapdash armor. Their rallying symbol was apparently a pair of crossed triangular pendants waving in the wind.
"That castle," she indicated the one squatting above them all, "is ancient, and its defenses were for ages considered impregnable. We're working on that, but it takes time."
"And who's we? You're clearly not from around here—no offense."
"None taken." As she walked, Koala scanned their surroundings. At first, Ace attributed it to justifiable caution since they were walking through an active battlefield. When she crouched next to a body lying facedown on the edges of a collapsed house and gently rolled it over, only to let out a silent breath, he realized she was looking for someone. "At first, we were just here to scout things out, but while we were here what we thought was a slow boil turned out to be a lit fuse, and you can see the results."
What he could see was an oppressive haze of smoke and dust, dozens upon dozens of bodies scattered around, and the choked sunlight shining off innumerable weapons and bullets lying near their fallen owners and targets alike. And that she'd avoided answering his question.
He absently scratched at the bandages near his wrist, only for his crewmate to slap his hand away. Ace scowled at the guy, and the guy scowled right back. Knowing he was being saved from a Deuce lecture, Ace let his hand fall.
After the sea-king-induced haki headache, he'd been wary of using his haki again. So when a guy in pink-and-orange checkered pants careened out of a nearby alley yelling for Koala, it was all Ace could do not to reflexively kick him into the only building on the block left standing.
"Sevens!" Koala's shoulders dropped with relief. "Are you—"
A bullet punched through Sevens' leg and he dropped like a stone. Koala caught him and dragged him out of the line of fire while Ace retaliated with a continuous flame gun that mowed down the squad of soldiers who'd been giving chase. They went down with screams of pain, their triangle-festooned armor accents proving to be quite flammable. The rest of the Whitebeards readied themselves for more, but no one else appeared.
"Sevens, stay with me! You're okay, it's just a shot to the leg. It looks like it missed anything vital." Koala reached into the small backpack she'd been wearing and produced a bandage, which she expertly tied as a tourniquet just above the bullet wound in Sevens' thigh. "That'll hold for a few minutes. Where's Sabo? Wasn't he with you?"
"Went," Sevens gasped, face streaked with sweat and blood, "went into the caves under the castle. Royals detonated a trap, cave was collapsing. Didn't see him come out. I had to run, I had to, I'm sorry."
"No, it's okay." Koala glanced up at the sound of more approaching footsteps. It was the fishman again. "Hak, good timing. Can you take him to the field hospital?"
"Yes," Hak hefted the man up into a bridal carry. He whimpered when his wound was jostled. "I was coming to tell you, they put up a fresh barricade on the service entrance we found earlier. Though we haven't found any sign of the missing children yet, I spotted Sabo making his way here. I told him you're looking for him."
Koala let out a relieved breath that ended as annoyed huff. "If he'd answer his stupid snail, I wouldn't need to look, or worry that he's been buried alive. But thanks, I'll keep my eyes peeled."
Hak nodded and took off at a jog whose every jolting step had to be agonizing for the guy he was carrying judging by the cries. Ace's shoulder throbbed in sympathy, but he barely noticed it, too distracted by something else he'd heard.
"Sabo?" he asked. He remembered her examining various bodies along their route. In hindsight, he realized they'd all been blond. "Is that who you're looking for?"
She hefted her backpack over her shoulders and stood straight, eyeing him critically. Evidently deciding there was no point hiding the information, she said, "Yes, he's a bit of a loose cannon partner, running off the way he does. He said he would get back before you lot reached shore, but that didn't happen. He should've been the one to talk to you."
"I think you did fine."
"Of course I did, but he's the one who's always had a curiosity for pirates. Anyway, let's keep moving. We're getting close to the market."
It was an obvious deflection away from the topic of Sabo. Shrugging, Ace let it go. He'd been curious about this stranger who shared his brother's name, but making sure his crew was taken care of came first.
"Thanks," Koala said after another block.
"For what?"
"Handling those soldiers. This isn't your fight; you didn't have to."
Ace stepped over the body of a fallen soldier. Someone had stripped the armor off, but some of the triangular bits of cloth remained. "They'd attack us too. Besides, it felt like the right thing to do."
Another booming explosion from the castle's cannons firing shook the air.
"A pirate with a moral compass? Though, you are one of Whitebeard's." She tsked when she saw a makeshift barricade blocking their way, then led them on a quick detour through a nearby alley where someone else's barricade had been ripped apart. "This place has been ruled by corrupt kings for centuries—people without any moral direction. Or just enough to point them solidly away from what's right. And those kings gathered a lot of like-minded nobles who are putting up quite a fight to maintain their right to exploit and abuse their people."
Ace considered the castle. From this far away, it didn't look too big, but the people swarming its battlements were barely visible. "Nobles, huh?"
"Spoken like someone who doesn't like them."
There were a couple chuckles from the other Whitebeards. It was an understatement, and not just for Ace.
"Can't say I'm a fan. Though," blond hair and blue eyes flashed through his brain, "I've learned they're not all bad."
Koala snorted. "Yeah, well, these guys are all bad, and they've promised their militias a lot of money to make sure no one in this kingdom ever thinks of revolution ever again. Before you got here, they were trying to set the castle village on fire with casks of explosives they'd smuggled in earlier. Fortunately, we noticed and stopped most of them, and the remaining fires are mostly under control. All these people, their people, and they were just going to kill them and destroy their home? For what? It's despicable."
"Because they can."
She glanced at him in confusion.
"Why they do it," he elaborated. "Because they can. Because doing it means they can hold onto power, and it reminds the trash of their place." It took him a few steps to realize Koala had gone pale and put another step between them. He pulled his flames back and forced himself to exhale slowly. "How is it going? The revolution, I mean."
"I didn't think a pirate like you would be interested in one island's politics."
"I'm here now and my ship is going to take a while to repair. Even if the nobles end the revolution today, I don't think they're going to take kindly to pirates docked on their shores if they're willing to burn their own people. Maybe I'm interested in making sure the needle moves one way." Besides, he tacked on silently, you've got a guy with my brother's name fighting for you. Sabo was dead, sure, but maybe he felt a little inclined to help out the guy carrying on his name, so long as he proved to be worthy of it.
"Well," she hesitated, "we're not really in the business of contracting with pirates. We can handle this ourselves."
"You still haven't said exactly who you are." Though, at this point, he had a guess.
She noticed the street sign at the next corner and brightened. "We're here. I think a handful of the shopkeepers came back after the fighting moved away from here, and if not, you can take inventory and leave some b—"
They rounded the corner and she cut herself off, eyes widening in shock.
"Huh." Ace tipped up the brim of his hat. "Guess I'm not the only one who wants supplies."
Halfway down the street, a large platoon of noble militiamen—easily identifiable by their vibrantly colored uniforms wholly unlike the pedestrian garb of the local residents—was razing the shops. The bodies of the few shopkeepers who'd objected lay cooling on the cobblestones.
"Secure the supplies we need, secure the day!" yelled the presumed lieutenant to his fifty men. He slammed the butt end of his pike against the ground. "Just burn the rest."
Fury stirred low in Ace's chest. Nobles taking whatever they wanted, damned be the rest of them. Same as always. Possibly even worse than Goa Kingdom; at least there, the nobles had normally seen fit to toss their trash where the rabble could have it rather than burn it.
Then again, rare was the day anything truly valuable made it to the Gray Terminal. Sabo had speculated once or twice about how the nobles discarded the really good stuff—the things that would've doubled, tripled the value of their paltry treasure hoard with just a couple items—and how they probably made certain those things never ended up where the dregs of society could find them.
At some point, he didn't know when, he'd stepped forward in front of Koala. He was vaguely aware of her shocked expression, her upraised hand, the question of are you really—
But before he could hurl a torrent of flames building in his left hand at the soldiers, something else hit them from behind. Bodies flew up and crashed back down, and shouts of surprise and pain carried on the smoke-laden wind between flashes of some metal weapon that moved too fast for Ace to see what it was. He slowly lowered his fist as the platoon was ripped apart by…a single man, he realized, while the remaining soldiers fled and their attacker stowed his weapon on his back and dusted off his hands.
The haze made it hard to see details until the man was close. When Koala didn't look alarmed at his approach, Ace figured he was another revolutionary, so he hooked his thumb on his belt, leaned his weight back, and waited.
He made out a top hat, long coat, and hair that was either brunette or blond before Koala was striding past him. The man opened his mouth to say something only for Koala to pinch his cheeks painfully.
"Why didn't you answer my calls?" she demanded.
"Shorry, I wash bishy," the man, who was coated in so much dust and soot he looked like he'd lost a fight with a chimney, managed to say. Koala released his face and he rubbed his cheeks, wincing. "That leader was the last of the nobles' generals; their command structure should be in disarray now. I couldn't sneak up on him if I was talking to you." He glanced past Koala to Ace, a light of surprise shining in his eyes. "Fire Fist Ace, right? I saw your ship approaching earlier. What brings you here?"
Puzzled by the man sounding vaguely familiar, Ace shrugged. "Repairs."
"I've always found pirates interesting. What's it like to be on an Emperor's crew?"
Koala pinched his cheeks again. "NOT. THE TIME. SABO."
Ace's eyebrows shot up. Sabo? So this was him. The fitful breeze was pushing the haze away, and as it cleared, he could get a better look at the guy. The hair, under the dirt, was indeed blond and fell in short waves from under a black top hat sporting a pair of goggles that sent a pang through Ace's chest. Plus that napkin at his collar, the pipe on his back…
His gut said that was too many coincidences. His brain, though, knew the truth.
Sabo was dead.
The Grand Line was a big place; it wasn't impossible there was another brat like him wandering around. Even if this one was close enough to make Ace's heart hurt.
When the breeze caught his hair, it moved enough to reveal some kind of scar over the man's left eye, something Sabo definitely hadn't had. Besides, this guy wasn't acting like he knew Ace. Just to be sure, he stuck out a hand, interrupting Koala's lecture.
"Portgas D. Ace. Nice to meet you."
The man who called himself Sabo blinked in surprise and then, with a tiny shrug, shook Ace's hand with a firm grip. "Sabo, the same to you. I'm afraid I don't have a lot of time to chat at the moment—"
"Damn right you don't!" Koala snapped, yanking him away. She paused just long enough to ask Ace, "Do you know the way back?" He nodded and she added, "Take what you need and leave some beri, we'll handle it." Then she refocused on Sabo. "Like I was trying to tell you, Hack discovered they barricaded our service entrance into the castle. We need to find a new one." She kept going, but she was pulling Sabo away, and their voices were lost to the chaos. Ace still watched until they were out of sight, unable to look away from that top hat and the shock of blond hair below it.
He never grew it out when we were kids, he mused. His parents wouldn't let him, and when he lived with us, he said long hair was too much of a target.
Seeing this guy now, he thought the look would've suited Sabo as a kid just as well, if not better.
He shelved that thought for later melancholy and turned to his crewmates. "Let's see what we can find."
They found some, but not all, of what they needed. Ace's shipwright determined they could make temporary repairs—enough to get them to another island in a less unstable state—but no more than that thanks to a cannon shot having taken out several warehouses before their arrival. And with the revolution still going on and stray shots coming uncomfortably close to their craft, there was the chance any repair work could get undone before they even left this island.
Between this and what he had unintentionally done to the Moby Dick, he was having terrible luck with ships lately.
He cast a critical gaze over the island from the deck. It seemed, no matter what, they would be stuck here until things calmed down. As the commander, Ace should stay with the ship; he was, after all, a pirate responsible for his crew, and one who had no reason to care about anyone involved in the revolution. But that Sabo character wouldn't leave his head.
A pointed cough from the doc, who was carrying some medical supplies toward the entrance to belowdecks, reminded Ace to stop absentmindedly fiddling with his sling. He sighed and pushed off the railing to find something small he could carry without aggravating his wounds.
He couldn't abandon one family to chase the ghost of another.
Halfway through turning, he was the first to see the cannon shot from the castle's defenses flying right for them. He aborted his turn, kicked off the railing into the air, and called on his devil fruit to push him just a bit farther into the right spot. Right as gravity started to take hold, he lashed out with a spinning kick, balancing his devil fruit and haki so his black-sheened shin slammed into the cannon ball while fire gave him the force he needed. The cannonball careened back the way it had come. Ace dropped to the dock, staggered a half-step, and watched a deceptively small section of the castle wall explode.
The shock of landing jarred his burned arm and his strained shoulder let out a sharp pang of protest to counter the dull ache of tapping into his haki. He stifled a wince. Good thing the doc was busy with those supplies.
An icy presence washed up behind him. He froze.
"Commander," Deuce said, voice hauntingly pleasant, "I thought you were taking it easy, on account of nearly dying."
"I'm fine, I'm fine!"
"You almost fell into the water."
"I didn't!" He turned around to plead his case and saw that Deuce had his arms full with a few sacks of grain he'd been in the middle of ferrying up the gangplank. That was an opportunity if Ace had ever seen one.
"Keep working on repairs!" he yelled to the whole ship, adjusting his hat. He had his excuse; they'd fired on his family. "I'm gonna go make sure they don't shoot at us again."
Deuce's eyes went wide. "You—"
"Want a hand?" This question came from a couple of his division members working on repairs nearby. Ace waved them off.
"Keep defending the ship. Leave the castle to me."
"Commander!"
Aaaaand there was the doc. Deuce was hunting for a place to drop those sacks, probably so he could tackle Ace and drag him into the infirmary. "C'mon, you two, I'll use my legs!" Even if Fire Foot Ace made him sound like some kind of dancer.
The man heaved a long-suffering sigh. "Please be careful."
Deuce glanced up at him in utter betrayal.
With a grin and flippant salute, Ace struck out at a jog until he was far enough from his ship, then blasted himself up into the air and flew towards the castle. That, he was sure, was where he'd find Sabo.
First, he'd take care of those cannons in the wall. Then, he had a few questions. Just a few.
Brushing ashes off his sling, Ace peered around the castle courtyard. The smoke from his fiery doll attack made it really hard to see, and in the haze, all the rubble looked like bodies until he got close.
Approaching the castle had been easy. Even when a couple of the cannons noticed his approach and fired on him, they were meant for much larger targets and, even the one time they got lucky, they were useless against a man made of fire. From there, all Ace had needed to do was blast himself up and over the wall, at which point he had a clear shot at the defenders gathered in the courtyard behind the main gate.
But man, he'd raised hell here and now it was damned hard to see. He chanced a weak test of his observation haki and his head pulsed in reply—but he got a sense of the courtyard around him. No signs of Sabo or Koala.
He spun on his heel to head for a door leading into the keep. As he entered, he was faintly aware of the locals who'd been tentatively watching him approach the castle breaking down the weakened front gate behind him.
Good for them.
Inside, the castle continued its obsession with triangles. Even the hallways had ceilings that angled up into sharp points, which had to have been hell to build.
His head was still hurting, so he held off on more haki and tracked Sabo the old-fashioned way: looking for the biggest fight he could find. This involved a lot of opening triangular doors. Most led to empty rooms or identical triangular hallways. By the third, Ace was annoyed. By the fifth, irritated. By the tenth, angry.
When he opened the eleventh door, an entire barracks' worth of soldiers stared back at him.
Oh. This was a barracks.
"Never mind," he said, and closed the door. He made it five paces away before the door crashed open and a tide of soldiers poured out.
"HOLD IT!" they yelled, along with, "STOP RIGHT THERE!" and "INTRUDER!"
Their armor decorations once again proved to be flammable. Ace shook out the flames lingering on his fist and ignored the twist in his stomach at the sickly-sweet smell in the air. At least the wind from the hole he'd just made in the wall was clearing it quickly.
"Shoulda stayed in there," he told their bodies with a jerk of his chin toward the door.
He finally found the fight he was looking for in what proved to be the throne room. When he finished dispatching the guards outside and kicked the oversized doors open, he lowered his foot in surprise. The hinges, which had looked so sturdy as he approached, were apparently pretty flimsy because the doors had ripped free and sailed clear across the room to embed themselves in the far wall with a thundering crash.
"Sorry," he said to the crowd, which was full of faces looking at him or the doors in stunned disbelief. Then Ace looked closer at those faces. There was Sabo, standing on the red and orange triangle-patterned carpet that ran from the doorway, up the three stone steps to the dais, and pooled under a couple of chairs with gleaming diamond-encrusted triangled sticking out their backs. Old habits had Ace briefly calculating their value before he dropped his gaze down to the man and woman sitting on them. By the gaudy crowns and clothes, they had to be the local rulers. Which made all the other gaudily dressed people in the room nobles. The ones who weren't soldiers, anyway.
At the foot of the dais, several of those soldiers had a number of children on their knees with blades held to their necks. More soldiers had blades leveled at Sabo, who was too far away to reach those kids before the blades cut their throats.
The situation was clear: Sabo, probably using Ace's attack on the courtyard as a distraction, had snuck inside in an effort to take out the king and queen. Anticipating some kind of attack, the nobles had used kidnapped local children as hostages to stay Sabo's hand.
"Fire Fist?" Sabo asked, confused. Hearing his own epithet fall from Sabo's lips rather than his name and having it feel about as comfortable as nails down a chalkboard solidified things in Ace's mind: this was Sabo. His Sabo. It had to be—or Ace was going crazy.
The last time he'd thought he was losing it, he had really and truly traveled back in time. Compared to that, Sabo somehow surviving the Celestial Dragon attack was borderline mundane.
Didn't explain the mystery of why Sabo didn't know him, but he'd burn that bridge when he got to it. The current priority was dealing with the triangle-spangled idiots pointing their weapons at his brother.
"Look at you," he told Sabo. "What would you do without me?"
Indignation furrowed Sabo's brow, but before he could reply, Ace gathered what little haki had pooled back in his reserves, packed it down tight, and then unleashed it in a devastating wave. The haki itself was invisible. The effects were not: every single noble and soldier in the room fell back as through struck, their weapons clattering harmlessly to the ground. Sabo and the kids were the only ones unaffected.
Sabo was looking around, stunned. "Color of the supreme king?" he whispered.
Grinning with pride at his control, Ace wiped away a bit of blood trickling from his nose.
"See?" he said, and blacked out.
Unlike his usual narcoleptic attacks, this one was really unwilling to let Ace go. Maybe it hadn't been narcolepsy at all. He dredged his way up from the darkened deep until he had a vague sense of his own body. He was lying down somewhere hard, with something soft under his head, and the gentle slap of water against wood and the smell of the ocean coming from all around him. For a second, he thought he was on a ship—but no, the ground wasn't moving.
It took a few tries for his brain to connect with his body. When it did, he sat up with a jaw-cracking yawn and peered around through eyes slitted against the pounding in his head. "Why am I back at the docks?"
"Because you overdid it, you idiot!" Deuce snapped, slapping Ace upside the head. It was a gentle slap, though, and there was more worry than anger in his voice. "The revolutionaries had to carry you down here!"
"Oh." Nice to have his theory about who they were confirmed. He found those revolutionaries—Sabo, Koala, and Hack—having a quiet conversation among themselves while seated on a few supply barrels a few paces away. Upon hearing Deuce's yelling, though, they glanced over.
"Sorry for the trouble," Ace called. "I apparently overdid it. I didn't mean to be an inconvenience."
"Doc's gonna have your head," Deuce muttered.
Sabo hopped off his barrel and strode over while a combination of Deuce and Bront helped Ace to his feet. "No worries, we appreciated the help. Didn't expect you to collapse like that, though."
Ace shrugged his good shoulder. "It happens sometimes. Not usually like that, I'm just…"
"Recovering?" Sabo surmised with a glance at Ace's arm.
"Yeah."
Sabo nodded at the Whitebeards' ship, and in particular the damage still visible around the ongoing repairs. "Speaking of trouble, can I ask what caused so much for you?"
Ace scratched his chin. Couldn't hurt, really, to tell them about Akainu. They'd probably want to know an admiral was nearby anyway. So he shared an abbreviated version of that confrontation and how it had led to them limping their way to this island.
"Can't say I'm upset to hear you gave as good as you got," Sabo said when Ace was done. "Koala, can you spread the word? We should be careful. Even if he wasn't out here on official assignment, I don't want him deciding to unofficially assign himself to investigating our activity in the area."
Koala saluted and pulled a Den Den Mushi from her pocket.
"Your repairs are making good progress," noted Hack in her absence. His voice took on a tone as pointed as his teeth. "When do you plan to move on?"
"Well, my crew's gotta report back to Pops, recover, and probably get a new ship on the way too, but," Ace's eyes landed on Sabo, "I think I'll stay with you."
"WHAT?" roared his crew, making him wince. Sabo and Hack were similarly flabbergasted, and at the look on Sabo's face in particular, Ace couldn't hide his smile.
To his crew, he said, "We've taken care of the threats to Whitebeard in this area and it's time to regroup with the rest of the fleet."
"Still," Deuce protested. "Of everyone, you're the one who needs to recover the most."
"I'll be fine. It's nothing a few good meals can't fix."
"Why do you always do this?" He pinched the bridge of his nose and heaved a long-suffering sigh. "You'd think I'd be used to it by now."
"If I may," Sabo interrupted. "You haven't explained why you're staying behind." His polite tone was just the slightest bit strained. There were other tells, too, things Ace only recognized as betraying Sabo's confusion and irritation because they matched his childhood observations: the tilt of his head, the asymmetry of his smile, and how he'd leaned the slightest bit closer to Ace to add a tiny bit of pressure most people wouldn't consciously notice. "Surely the commander should report back too."
"You are such a hypocrite," said Koala, having just returned. "Where's this attitude when you finish a mission?"
"This is my first time running into revolutionaries," Ace lied. In truth, he'd encountered them a handful of times over the years, but usually in fleeting one-off interactions or in the distance. And never had he heard about Sabo being part of them. "I'm curious, that's all."
Sabo narrowed his eyes. "Curiosity can be a dangerous thing."
Ace answered that with a lazy smile. To Sabo's left, Hack was bringing Koala up to speed. Her expression went from confused, to stunned, to annoyed.
"Curious or not," she said, "we can't have you tagging along. You're far too recognizable, and while you may not like the World Government either, there's a world of difference between being a pirate and being a revolutionary to them. You don't want that level of attention."
Oh, the irony. "I can handle it."
Sabo pinched the bridge of his nose in a way strikingly similar to Deuce and Koala looked a couple more words away from trying to toss Ace into the ocean. Rather than do that, though, she grabbed Sabo and pulled him away into a hissed discussion. Apparently, neither of them knew that Ace had picked up on how to read lips back when he was a kid.
He didn't catch everything, of course, but the gist was easy enough to follow: they couldn't figure out how the hell they were going to give the second division commander of the Whitebeard Pirates the slip, they were considering sabotaging his ship, and they were worried about any retaliation.
"Sabo," Ace called, interrupting their hurried discussion. "Can I talk to you? Just you. I'll make it fast. I think it'll change your mind, too."
Sabo glanced at Koala, who threw up her hands. He sighed and strolled over to Ace, who'd retreated a little from his men for privacy's sake. "What is it?"
"Those scars," Ace nodded at Sabo's face while the man bristled, "they're from a Celestial Dragon's attack in the Goa Kingdom, right?"
Sabo's reflexive anger tumbled into shock. "What?"
That answer was all the confirmation he needed. "Let me sail with you a while, and I'll tell you how I know that."
"And if I refuse?"
He shrugged. "I haven't decided yet."
Only after saying it did he realize how ominous it sounded, but really, he just hadn't figured it out. Sabo's guard slammed right back up.
"Look," Ace placated while trying not to make it obvious how badly he wanted Sabo to agree to this, "I have some information I think you want, and I have no intention of ruining whatever mission you came out here to do. I just want to talk to you."
"Me, specifically."
He nodded and Sabo sighed, staring down at the ground in thought. There was a familiar furrow in his brow that spoke to the conflicting goals he was trying to balance. Knowing better than to speak, Ace merely waited. Finally, Sabo raised his head.
"Let me make some calls."
While Sabo made his calls, Ace fended off the questions from his crew. They were all used to his whims by now, but this one easily took the case for most inexplicable, and they wanted answers—especially when they'd have to answer the rest of the fleet's questions about just where the hell their second division commander was running off to this time, and while he was injured to boot.
Ace placated some of those by promising to call Marco before he left. He placated the rest by saying rather simply that Sabo was his brother, he just didn't know it yet. After that, he was left mostly in peace, though the grumbles about his capricious nature remained. Ace tried to ignore the doc saying he was going to talk to Tasuka about ways to make Ace cooperate with his own recovery in the future. He tried even harder to ignore Deuce's pointed, "Told you so."
Belowdecks, he found his Den Den Mushi and rang Marco, who picked up after several seconds of quiet purupurupurupurupuru.
"What is it-yoi?"
"It's me. You heard what happened from Deuce?"
"I did. It's good to hear you're awake." Marco's voice turned heavy with displeasure. "Akainu overstepped."
"Yeah. We were lucky to all get out."
"Your ship was damaged, right?"
"Yeah, we're docked at an island to do repairs now. When that's done, I'm sending my crew back to the Moby—something's come up."
Marco's sigh echoed across the Grand Line. "Ace…"
"I'm not going after Akainu," Ace hastened to reassure him. "Remember Luffy?"
"Straw Hat? How could I forget?"
"Well, I had another brother. Thought he was dead. Turns out I was wrong."
Ace could count the number of times he'd seen Marco gobsmacked on one hand, but the snail was doing a pretty good job conveying the expression. After a beat, though, Marco collected himself with another sigh that Ace knew meant he was rubbing his temples.
"At least you gave some warning this time. Any other long-lost family I should know about?"
Garp's face flashed through Ace's brain. He shuddered and elected to keep the rest of his living family to himself. The dead ones weren't worth mentioning.
"No, no one else. I don't know when I'll be back, but I will be back, I promise. This isn't a," he paused when he realized the phrase "Blackbeard hunt" wouldn't mean as much to this Marco. "I know what I'm doing," he amended. "My brother needs some help, so I'm going to travel with him for a while."
The thought that Sabo would refuse no longer even crossed his mind.
"Well, take care of yourself. And if you happen to run into more marines or troublemaking crews on your way—"
"I got it, I got it. I'll be careful, you don't need to mother hen me."
They hammered out a few more details—where Ace's crew was coming from and how long their repairs would take, mainly—before Ace hung up and went back to shore to see if Sabo had wrapped up his end of things.
Deus stopped him on the deck. "Here," he said, passing over a sheet of paper and a satchel. Ace took both with his good hand and raised a questioning eyebrow. "Care instructions for your burns and the supplies to do that care. You'll need his help for some of it."
Ace knelt down and carefully fit the satchel and instruction sheet inside his watermelon bag. "Thanks, Deuce."
"Yeah, yeah. You'd better take care of yourself, understand?"
"I understand."
The moment his boots hit the stone pier, though, Koala was striding up to him.
"What are you trying to do?" she asked. Ace hefted his bag a little higher on his shoulder and gave her a grin that invited suspicion.
"What do you think I'm doing?"
She scowled. "What do you want with him? What did you say to him?"
Pleasure stripped the wild edge from his smile and made it something far more genuine. "Ah, he's letting me tag along? If he didn't tell you why, it's his business."
"You expect me to believe the second division commander of the Whitebeard Pirates happens to come to this island at this particular moment and happens to take particular interest in Sabo?"
"That's what happened."
She put her hands on her hips while worrying at her lip, and worry it was, Ace realized.
"Hey," he said, softening his voice, "I'll take good care of him. I have good reason to."
"The worst part," she said after a moment of searching his face, "is that I believe you. Ugh! You and him are perfect for each other, the way you do whatever you want."
"There you are, is Koala giving her blessing?" Sabo was striding down the pier, a small bag of supplies slung over one shoulder. "She means well."
"I can tell. My ship isn't meant for two—mind if I tie it to yours?" Ace pointed to one of the other ships in the harbor, and Sabo cocked his head.
"Who's to say that's mine?"
"You revolutionaries came here on those two," Ace indicated the two most nondescript ships rocking gently amid all the other craft. They were the only two that were conspicuously free of any damage. "I'm guessing most of your people came here on the larger one. Stands to reason, if you're striking off on your own, you'll take the smaller one."
"Am I? Striking off on my own, I mean."
"The way you didn't want me snooping on you at all, yeah, I don't think you want me watching everyone else, too. Which is fine by me; like I said, I just want to talk to you."
An appreciative gleam in his eye, Sabo nodded. "Sure, you can tie yours to mine."
Ace lazily touched two fingers to his forehead in a mock salute and jumped over to Striker to untie it from the Whitebeard craft. He put his back to land so no one could see that his hand was shaking as he worked at the knot one-handed.
Sabo. Sabo Sabo Sabo. Every blink brought a new memory: their first time meeting, their first spar, the first treasure they ever put into their hoard, the first time Ace showed Sabo the right way to dine and dash, on and on and on.
There was a smile on his face he couldn't hide if he tried.