Chapter 18: The Yami Yami no Mi

It was, in the end, the longest and least eventful standoff Ace had ever been involved in. Unlike the Brink Lightning Pirates, he knew about his family's reinforcements. So, unlike them, he knew this battle of attrition was temporary. They thought they could just wait him out, that he was being an idiot and making a final stand that could only end one way when his stamina ran out.

That end came after just over an hour, time he spent poised and ready to ignite the ships, eyes trained on the village and ears attuned for any cries from the locals while his headache gnawed at his every thought. Its hunger spiked every time he tried to lean on his depleted haki, and the empty wells where that haki had been were hollow enough to yank on his insides like they had a hunger all their own.

Bruised, dazed, tired, and swaying on his feet—that was how the members of the support fleet found him. So focused on him, so ready for the moment he keeled over, the Brink Lightning crew never even saw the Mini Moby approaching in the dark, and the Whitebeards had been smart enough to douse the lights to make themselves even harder to spot. Ace only realized they'd shown up when the shadow of a sail blotted out the stars and familiar faces jumped onto the deck.

Relief shot through him, relief that swiftly blew away the fumes of strength that had been keeping him upright. As the Whitebeards ran through the Brink Lightning pirates like several dozen knives through butter, as a fiery blur of blue and gold dropped down in front of him, Ace finally let himself relax a little.

His headache, injuries, and exhaustion seized on that weakness, and the last thing he heard as his whole world tilted into the black was Marco yelling his name.

In retellings, particularly any that happened when Luffy was in earshot, Ace would skip the part where he passed out. Instead, he held strong and eventually allowed himself to get taken to a local doctor to get checked out. In reality, as far as he knew, he went from falling on the deck of the Brink Lightning flagship to lying on a bed in the span of a single blink, the hours between those moments lost completely.

Per the local doctor taking care of him, there was a deep slash in his back to get stitched up, a dozen cuts to clean, and a broken rib and myriad of bruises he'd just have to deal with. Most of those injuries, Ace could ignore. He'd had way worse. But the cut to his back stung; one more injury to his back. One more disrespect to Pops's mark.

He needed to do better. Make sure that never happened again. Even if the tattoo was already gone, its spirit remained, and he sure as hell didn't want to be the kind of coward who ended up with a back more scarred than his front. He didn't run. He wasn't about to let the world think he did.

At some point after his return to consciousness, he fell asleep—or passed out again, it wasn't clear—and he woke up with the rising sun.

The doc was busy tending to other patients, villagers caught up in the previous night's violence before Ace put a stop to everything, so Ace offered a quick and heartfelt thanks before he slipped out the door. His head was feeling better and his stomach was settled, so he detoured to a local restaurant for a filling breakfast before anything else.

He found himself inundated with double, triple, quadruple portions and a proprietor who ardently refused to even mention any form of payment. Not that Ace had been nursing any plans of dining and dashing in the present circumstances, but that generosity killed even the idea of it completely. There wasn't any fun in running from someone who wasn't going to get upset about it.

Stepping out of that restaurant and picking the remnants of some crispy bacon out of his teeth with a toothpick, he paused on the threshold and tried to figure out what about the sight of the port was so strange. There were, he realized, fewer masts visible over the tops of the buildings than before—some of the Brink Lightning fleet was gone. Under the waves, probably. But he recognized the flags from the ones that remained. That second ship Marco had promised must've arrived while Ace was out. And a few others, too, apparently. They must've been the ones to sink nearly all the Brink Lightning fleet.

That mystery solved, he set out at a brisk walk for the castle and the swamp beyond. He had to let Emi and her father know things were safe enough now for them to return to Foodvalten.

It turned out he didn't have to go all the way to the swamp. In fact, he didn't even have to leave the village. There, in front of a random house, stood Emi, her father, and—

"Marco?"

The old bird glanced at Ace. "Finally awake-yoi? We were starting to get worried."

"How are you here? The Moby Dick—"

"Is docked right over there-yoi. You were out for over a day. According to Emi here, you were using a lot of haki with a severe concussion-yoi. That's asking for it. Tasuka wasn't thrilled with you."

Ace blinked. So, this wasn't the following morning, it was the following following morning. No wonder he felt so much better, or why he'd been so hungry. "She never is, I think. Doesn't explain why I remember seeing you show up with the Mini Moby."

"When you in particular can't make promises about being reckless-yoi, I might get worried. I left the Moby and caught up with the others just before they arrived. And I was right to do it; you were a sitting duck, passing out like that."

Ace reddened and pursed his lips, not wanting to admit just how much trouble he would've been in if he'd been left to their mercy. They probably would've tried to use him as a hostage, same as he'd done to their ship.

"It's good to see you're feeling better," offered Emi into the silence. She nudged her father forward. Forward he went, awkwardly extending a hand to Ace.

"Thank you, for helping my daughter, for…all of it."

"You're, uh, you're welcome." He had a firm grip, and the shower and change of clothes he'd acquired since Ace last saw him had done wonders for his appearance. The telltale feather that marked all residents of Foodvalten, naturally, remained. "You're looking a lot better."

Emi was quick to explain. "After your family arrived, they routed the other pirates and found us in the swamp. One of the villagers was kind enough to let us stay with them last night instead of the cabin—"

"Which was very…cozy, with twenty people in it," her father added.

"—and now they're saying they'll take us back to Foodvalten." She looked to Marco. "Right?"

He nodded. "Right. Those other pirates are currently being held prisoner on their ships while we decide what to do with them. Thatch took point on finding and collecting their spoils."

Ace did his best to hide the lightning strike that shot through him at that, but of course Marco noticed. He didn't say anything, though, instead turning to Emi and her father to explain the logistics for getting them back to their island. Only once he'd sent them on their way did he address the issue.

"Teach returned to the Moby Dick two days ago," he said without preamble. "He's there now."

Ace stopped in his tracks.

"You don't look surprised."

"No," Ace admitted after a beat. "Where's Thatch?"

"Either in the castle or on the ship—he was almost done last I heard, just working with Haruta to crack a vault connected to the king's bedroom."

"If he's on the ship, then we should be too."

Ace started walking again and Marco fell into step beside him. "Are you going to explain-yoi?"

"You're acting like you already know."

"I like to have things confirmed."

Well, he had given his word. "Like I said, when Thatch finds the Yami Yami no Mi, keep an eye on Teach. I'll explain everything after that."

"How did you know Teach would make it back?"

Ace pressed his lips into a grim line. He wasn't inclined to believe in fate or destiny—if he did, he'd have been screwed from the start—but sometimes it felt so close to being real it was practically a noose around his neck. "I just did."

Ace's first order of business when he was back on the Moby Dick was locating Thatch. This wasn't hard: the fourth division commander was standing over a large pile of shining golden loot with his arms crossed while members of his division scurried around it, shifting the pile little by little.

Behind him, Whitebeard sat in his deck chair with a couple nurses trying to cajole him into drinking what had to be some kind of medicine judging by the disgruntled expression twisting his mustache. He shifted in his seat, the motion of his boot pushing Ace's gaze back down to Thatch, and then lower still when something caught his eye.

There was a small wooden chest at Thatch's feet.

Marco's shoulder brushed Ace's. "Trust me," he muttered, before leading the way to Thatch. "How much of this is going to new pans?"

"Marco, and hey, Ace! Anyone tell you that you sleep too much? No, it's not for pans, it's for," he hesitated, "things. I'll get you an itemized list later."

"Pops," Ace greeted.

"I heard you were reckless again," Whitebeard noted, handing off his drink to a disappointed nurse. "Are you recovered?"

"Enough. How'd you make it here so fast? I thought the Moby Dick was more than a day's travel."

Marco coughed. The nurses glared daggers at Whitebeard. Whitebeard just smiled. "The ocean favored us."

The last time Ace had heard Whitebeard use that line, it was because the man had used his devil fruit to conjure tidal wave after massive tidal wave that—when they weren't threatening to capsize the Moby Dick—shot it across the ocean at incredible speed.

"You didn't have to," Ace began awkwardly, but Whitebeard just waved the protest away.

"We're here now."

Someone grabbed Ace's head and shoved it down into an awkward bow.

"Sorry, Pops," came Thatch's voice. "We keep trying to train him to say thank you, but he's still just awful at it, so I'll say it on his behalf."

Whitebeard's rumbling laugh vibrated the planks under Ace's boots and completely drowned out Ace's protests. "Accepted. One day he'll learn."

"Here's hoping."

Thatch then guided Ace a little way away, since the nurses were looking progressively more annoyed that their medication schedule was getting delayed. Ace smacked Thatch's hand off his head and adjusted his hat.

"I can say thanks just fine," he said. "I was taught how."

"Uh-huh, sure."

Deciding to salvage his dignity by changing the subject, he gestured at the treasure. "Is this all from the castle?" He pretended to scan the pile as though the entirety of his focus wasn't on that tiny little box once more near Thatch. No, not the entirety, because amidst all the activity on deck was one presence he couldn't ignore if he tried.

Small mercy that Teach wasn't approaching him to congratulate him on yet another recovery. Maybe it was his proximity to Whitebeard.

"Ace, buddy?"

"What?"

"You're on fire."

Ace glanced down at himself and, sure enough, there were flames licking up his arms. He brushed them off and leashed the simmering tension tighter and tighter until it was contained beneath his skin. "Better?"

"Maybe. Seems like something's on your mind."

"Yeah. Where all this," he waved at the pile, including that chest in the motion, "came from."

"Some of it is from the castle," Thatch confirmed. "We're not taking everything—the Bring Lightning crew—"

"Brink."

"What?"

"Brink Lightning."

"Ew, that's worse. The Lightning crew already did serious damage to the local economy and Pops isn't in the business of destroying islands these days, so we're leaving enough to let them get back on their feet. It's all from the Lightning's coffers, generous souls that they are."

Ace cast an eye back over the island, skipping over a few spots where his efforts two days earlier had left visible damage. "Are we leaving anything else?"

A crooked grin settled on Thatch's lips. "A flag, you're thinking?"

"Not my decision, but…they could use some protection, or this'll keep happening to them."

He didn't miss the pointed look between Thatch and Marco, nor Marco's sigh.

"We're thinking about it-yoi," he admitted. "There are…factors."

"Factors."

"We can talk about it more later. For now, we should finish taking care of this." He nodded at the loot, the pile of which was already looking far leaner than it had when Ace and Marco first made it to the deck.

"Which reminds me," Thatch bent down and scooped up the chest and Ace's heart right with it, "I found this in the captain's room—the one he commandeered from the king who, by the way, was actually hiding out in the—"

"Thatch," Marco prodded, probably catching the look on Ace's face that he couldn't hide if he tried.

"Right, well, I'll regale you with his excellent taste in marinades later. But the captain was keeping this little thing secret, so I figured I'd crack it open so we can all see what's inside. A proper mystery—anyone want to take bets?"

Ace bit down on the urge to tell him to get on with it, to throw the chest in the ocean, to keep it secret and say not a single goddamn word. People were looking, and of course Thatch would make it a little bit of a show, that was what he did. Anything else would be strange. Anything else—

He barely heard the guesses his family tossed out. Most erred on the side of unfathomable riches, but one person, Izo, offered a devil fruit.

"The pool needed variety," he explained when he got a few questioning looks. "Besides, it's been a while since we welcomed a new anchor."

"If Thatch becomes an anchor, who's left to pull Ace out of trouble?" mused Vista.

Do not burn do not burn do not, Ace chanted to himself while he watched Thatch flick off the chest's lock with a haki-infused finger. Everyone was watching when he lifted the lid. When the midday sunlight spilled over the rich velvet interior. When it washed over the purple fruit nestled in the center of it, over its many swirls and bright green stem.

Izo grinned while curses went up from those who'd bet wrong. Ace was deaf to all of it. A chill was coming from behind him, from the last place he'd seen Teach, and Marco was—

Marco was next to Thatch, Ace realized, having thrown an arm around his friend, but it was all an excuse to put Teach in his field of view and he saw it, right? He had to have seen it. Whatever dark impulse had Ace's observation haki blaring a warning, Teach couldn't hide it all. There would've been a flicker, a crack in the mask, there had to have been.

"Ah," Thatch said, staring at the fruit in disappointment, "I was hoping for a new set of swords."

"The chest was way too small for that, buddy," Marco noted, clapping Thatch on the shoulder and letting him go. "Why don't you put that in your room for now-yoi, and we'll finish organizing all this? Ace, go with him, knowing him he'll get distracted and accidentally try to cook it."

A flimsy excuse, but an excuse all the same. Ace was pretty sure he didn't manage a full breath until he and Thatch were in the relative privacy of Thatch's quarters, and even then, there was something pressing on his lungs that kept him from inhaling all the way. Maybe it was the cramped nature of even a commander's room, the wooden walls pressing in, the tiny porthole letting in too little of the outside.

Or his broken rib.

Oblivious to Ace's inner turmoil, Thatch shut the door and wandered over to his bed, tossing the chest almost carelessly. It bounced off the mattress, the fruit popped out, and Thatch dropped into a seat on the edge of the bed with his back to the fruit that had turned the entire world on its head.

"You're stressing me out," he said, waving at his desk chair. "Sit down, Ace."

"Thatch—"

"Even time travelers don't get to look down on me while we're having a conversation. Sit."

Ace sat and then processed what Thatch had said. "You—you knew—"

"Easy, easy. Let's just wait for Marco. He'll be here in a minute."

For that minute, Ace was left to grapple with both the idea that Thatch and Marco had planned that whole fruit reveal and the idea that Thatch and Marco knew about the time travel.

When the door opened, he jumped to his feet. "How?" he demanded of Marco, who raised his eyebrows at Ace's tone, glanced at Thatch, and then spent a deliberate several seconds closing the door, locking it, and then finding a seat on top of Thatch's footlocker.

"Sit down, Ace."

Ace opened his mouth again, but seeing the look in Marco's eye, he slowly sank back down into the chair. "How?" he asked again once he was seated, marginally calmer this time.

"Well, you were being so subtle about it—" Thatch stopped when Marco threw a glare his way. "Sorry."

"Ever since your injury, you've acted different-yoi." Of all the ways to describe the way Ace apparently blew up and then blabbered nonsense during his recovery, that was probably one of the most diplomatic. "We had our suspicions for a while that there was something more going on, but we couldn't find an explanation that fit, and you weren't forthcoming with one either."

"So," Thatch continued, picking up the slack, "we decided to hang back and be there for you—like always, like family. And in the process, we noticed a few things. Well, Marco noticed things. I noticed the way you reacted to Teach."

Even now, Ace bristled at the name, and Thatch nodded.

"Exactly."

"Then there was your notebook," Marco added. "The dates, locations, events, it was impossible to explain. When you demanded to be put on the Foodvalten mission, when you told me about the fruit and to keep an eye Teach—that, and the way you'd been reacting to Teach all this time—that was the last straw-yoi. I did some investigating of my own."

He reached inside his shirt and pulled out a handful of papers from an inner pocket. "This isn't close to everything, but it's a summary."

Ace took the papers when they were held out, wincing when the stretch pulled on the still-healing slice through his back, and skimmed them. Numbers weren't exactly his game, but he could recognize the names in the labels. "Blackbeard. You…connected him to Teach."

"He is Teach, isn't he?"

After a beat, Ace slowly nodded. No point hiding that now, not when Marco had dug up the proof, not when time travel and everything else was already on the table. If they were going to accuse him of being crazy, the conversation never would've gotten this far. Still…

"You believe me?"

Marco and Thatch exchanged another look and then both were nodding, but it was Thatch who spoke.

"I wish you'd trusted us enough to tell us everything sooner, but I think I get why you didn't. You were worried we'd think you were crazy, right?"

"I was out of my mind enough to attack you, so. A little."

"The next time you go through time, I hope you'll give us a little more credit."

"I'll," Ace's throat was burning, and he needed a second to swallow the feeling down, "I'll do that."

"So," Thatch leaned back and smiled, "that's our side of things. I believe you promised Marco here—and, by extension, me—your side. The full picture, not just what we could piece together on our own."

Ace stared down at the papers. Then, remembering, he produced the paper he'd stolen from the marine base and added it to the pile. Even Marco hadn't turned up any proof that the marines recognized Blackbeard.

The room was at once suffocatingly silent. Ace licked his lips and swallowed again for good measure because his mouth was dry.

Seeing him hesitating, Marco said, "You could start with the fruit."

Start where it all started. Sure. It would work as well as anything else. "Teach wants the Yami Yami no Mi. The first time, he killed Thatch, stole it, and fled."

Thatch stiffened and Marco narrowed his eyes, but neither said a word. Which was good, because Ace wasn't sure he could start up again if he stopped. That was the most absurd thing out of the way; nothing left but the aftermath.

"I wanted to chase after him. No one else wanted me to go." He couldn't really remember their reasons; he hadn't heard them over the blood roaring in his ears, that undeniable rush that demanded he move. "He was in my division; it was my responsibility. I went before the trail could go cold. When I found him, he'd already eaten the fruit, and it…it gave him the advantage. I lost and he turned me over to the marines."

"Bastard," Thatch whispered, the word slipping through the cracks in his control. Marco gave the barest hint of a nod.

"They put me in Impel Down. Because of—it doesn't matter, they decided they wanted a public execution, to make an example of me, and they wanted it to happen at Marineford." He could tell by the looks on his brothers' faces that they were starting to put together all the things they'd overheard while Ace was feverish and delusional. "All of you tried to save me. My own kid brother tried to save me. Pops was willing to give his life for me. And I—"

His voice caught. He closed his eyes and loosely flexed his hands, trying to drown out the echoes of Akainu's taunts with the Moby Dick's gentle creaking, the feel of the wood pressing into his thighs, the pressure of his nails in his palms. The ache in his chest, the creeping cold, the trembling of Luffy's hands holding him up.

God. Luffy.

With some difficulty, he managed to continue. "I did something reckless, and I nearly got Luffy killed, and I died trying to save him. Broke the most important promise I ever made." He hoped Luffy got out. He really, really hoped.

He swallowed with some effort and opened his eyes, which he had to blink several times to clear. "I woke up on the Moby Dick, and none of that had happened. You," he looked at Thatch, whole and alive and staring in mute horror and not splayed out in a pool of his own blood, "were alive. Pops was alive. And Teach was still part of the crew. No one knew what he was going to do. After hearing how bad off I was, I thought trying to tell the truth right out would make me look crazy. I tried to find proof but I couldn't. I figured the best way would be to set a trap with the fruit, get him to prove to everyone the worthless family-murdering traitor he is, but I didn't think the mission in Foodvalten would turn out like this."

With that last line spat out, he realized more flames had leapt to life along his limbs. Scowling, he put them out.

"Are you…having trouble?" Marco asked.

"It's—fine. I'm fine." He took a deep, shuddering breath, and then waved the papers. "We can use this instead. It's safer."

"It's bad," Marco acknowledged, "but it's not damning. I could use it to argue for him to be removed from the crew, but Pops might try for rehabilitation. He's done it for worse cases-yoi."

Ace let the papers fall before he accidentally set them alight. "I only ever tried to kill him, and I never made a secret of it. I stopped when I joined, too."

"Point being, it's not a guarantee. Either he stays on the crew under watch—which could end with his guards getting murdered and another escape attempt—or Pops cuts him loose, disavows him, or Pops agrees he should die for working against his own family for personal gain. Do you want to take that chance?"

No. No he didn't.

"Seems like there's only one thing to do," Thatch said. He reached behind him and collected the fruit from where it had fallen and gotten stuck in the small gap between the bed and the wall. He held it up. "Let's set that trap."