Chapter 5: Dance with the Devil

"Not that I'm against helping you, but I'm pretty sure Commander Thatch would've been fine with sending food to your room."

Leaning heavily on Tasuka, Ace gave her a sheepish grin while the salt-laden breeze tossed his hair in his face. "I've been stuck in my room for three days, Tas. I needed to see the sky again."

Though he'd gotten a little more strength back over the last few days, he was nowhere near recovered. Even now, even with Tasuka acting as a crutch, his legs were shaking and his skin was clammy. He probably looked half dead; every time he glanced in a mirror, the dark circles under his eyes seemed to get worse.

The last time he'd looked, there had been a healthy growth of stubble, and he'd felt the overpowering urge to claw his own face off.

So, the mirror in his room was now a bunch of shards on the floor. He'd deal with that, and managing a proper shave to get rid of any whispers of a mustache, later.

"Thank you for helping me walk all the way up here; I wouldn't have been able to do it without you."

She sighed. "You're just too polite to get angry at. You know, your division's galley was closer."

"That one doesn't have Thatch's cooking."

"Fine, fine. In we go."

The moment she pushed open the door to the grand mess hall of the Moby Dick, all of the muffled noise it had been holding back washed over Ace in a wave.

Well, "grand" was one word for it. The room was big, sure; it had to be big to house to many hungry pirates at once. But "grand" implied elegance, opulence, and expensive décor. The Moby Dick had none of those, but it made up for them in volume, population, and life. The energy of the Whitebeard Pirates might as well have been a living thing; it ebbed and flowed through the air, congregating where conversations broke into uproarious laughter and weaving through crowded tables of low conversation, only to swell again where other pirates were bursting into song.

But the moment they realized Ace was the newest arrival, all of that energy swelled and crashed down directly onto him. He froze up under it, for an instant feeling his knees on a platform and shackles on his wrists, only for the sight of Tasuka putting herself between him and the storm to snap him out of it.

"Hold it, you lugs!" she declared, one hand extended while the other kept Ace on his feet. "If any of you even think about thumping him on the back or anything like that, you're signing up to be test subjects, got it?"

The encroaching crowd halted instantly. Tasuka nodded.

"That's what I thought." She glanced at Ace. "Do you think you can make it on your own from here?"

Confidently? No. "I can manage."

She carefully extricated herself, and once she saw he could stand on his own, took her leave. When the threat of her needles was gone, the pirates broke into motion once more. No one touched Ace, but he was hit with a barrage of smiles, congratulations, and welcome-backs that all blended together as a haze of gratitude. No one even seemed upset about how he'd apparently almost barbequed the Moby Dick; they were all focused on his recovery.

Even with the tens of faces pressing in around him, he could pick out the ones he'd last seen from on top an execution stand.

All of these people had been ready to give their lives for his. Some of them actually had.

"Ace, that really you?" Thatch shouldered his way through the crowd into Ace's small Tasuka-enforced bubble. He grinned wide, went to shake his shoulders, and promptly stopped when all of the other pirates hissed a warning. "O-kay then. Well, you're here now. Ace?"

How many people in this room had died for him?

Thatch flicked his forehead, heedless of the way everyone drew back with fearful glances towards the door. "I told you not to space out, especially not in my domain. Come on, let's get you a table and some food. Anything in particular you want?"

A little dumbfounded, Ace trailed after him to a sparser section of the mess hall. A glance at Ace was all it took for the nearby pirates to make plenty of space. Ace practically had a table to himself.

Three days of rest and whatever strange medicinal cocktails Tasuka cooked up in her free time meant that Ace's body wasn't the only thing on the mend. His appetite, too, had begun returning, so when Thatch returned with a tray for him, Ace sheepishly rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry to send you back there, but I think I'll be needing more than this."

It was as though he'd just handed Thatch a million beri. The man brightened instantly. "Don't worry about it at all! Wait here, I'll be right back."

And just like that, he was lost in the crowd. Ace turned his attention to his food. There wasn't any need for Thatch to tell him to wait where he was; he wasn't going anywhere. As he regarded his food, though, he swallowed, left hand hovering over his stomach. He could do this. He'd had three full meals yesterday for the first time, even kept it all down. The nausea sucked but getting through it was the only way he was going to get his strength back. After a bracing breath, he picked up his fork and got to work.

Per Tasuka's orders, nobody touched him, but as he ate, he had a steady stream of well-wishers winding past his table nonetheless. He thanked those he could—often with a full mouth, which they seemed to find heartening—and nodded to others. The vast majority were from his division, but even pirates from other divisions swung by. After several minutes, though, the line dried up. Most people were content with just seeing Ace moving around again.

The clatter of a tray being dropped down next to him brought his attention away from his food. He looked over the massive pile on that tray to Thatch's beaming face.

"Did you leave anything for the rest of the crew?" he asked around the bite of meat he'd stuffed into one cheek.

"Look at you, being all considerate." Thatch sat next to him, a tray for himself in his left hand. "How is it?"

"It's exactly what I needed."

"Glad to hear it." He sampled a bite of his own pancakes and nodded his approval. "It's good to see you up and about. When you cooped up in your room last week I was worried Tasuka was going to hunt me down for dragging you out too soon."

Swallowing and chasing it with a swig of water, Ace shook his head. "She wouldn't do that."

"She threatened everyone in here with drugs to keep away from you."

"She…probably wouldn't do that?"

Thatch sighed. "At least you still have your sympathetic sense of humor." He frowned, attention dropping to Ace's wrist. "Are you still wearing that bracelet?"

"Marco made it pretty clear he was worried about me exploding again."

Thatch's abnormally serious gaze seemed to pierce right through that weak excuse. "Right, I can understand why Marco's worried. I don't understand why you're just as worried as he is." His frown deepened. "Is there something else going on, Ace?"

Something else. Something else.

Something like knowing what his own burning flesh smelled like. Something like the memory of his insides melting overwhelming him every time he reached for the key. Something like his powers, already on an emotional hair trigger, having injured tens of his own brothers and sisters.

Ace took a deep, shuddering breath. He'd bent his fork and so set it down carefully. His appetite was gone. Even though Thatch had probably seen every single thought cross his face, Ace still took another few seconds to compose himself.

But those few seconds tore everything apart.

The door to the mess hall opened—as it had been doing for the past hour almost constantly—but this time, the new presence demanded Ace's attention. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled and an instinctive tide of anger swept through him, making whatever excuse he had been about to make die on his lips.

Now, Ace had never been known for his haki; he was "Fire Fist" Ace for a reason. People tended to focus on his devil fruit powers before they looked any further, and it was a rare day that Ace felt pushed to use what skills he had.

No one got to the New World without picking up a few tricks, though, and Ace had picked his up from any crewmembers—and even some opponents—willing to indulge his curiosity. Ace was a quick learner, and though his observation haki was good in a fight, he struggled to use it as well as, say, Marco did in regular life.

But he would never fail to recognize the feeling of the person who had just entered the room.

He was turning, standing, burning before he even fully realized what he was doing. Memories of mocking laughter and darkness filled his mind's eye and he remembered that dark night, then the hunt and the battle that followed. The taunts, the threats to Whitebeard and to Luffy—they all rang like claxons in his skull.

There would be no forgiveness, no mercy, no hesit—

"Ace?" Upon hearing the familiar, concerned voice, and feeling the hand on his arm, Ace glanced down and saw Thatch giving him a confused look. Alive, breathing Thatch. Who was holding his arm because Ace had that bracelet around his wrist, and he wasn't burning, he was freezing. Every ember he'd unconsciously summoned had been drowned in a tide of oceanic frost. "What's going on? Is something wrong?"

He tried to look where Ace was looking, but Ace swiftly tore his eyes from the traitor. Teach's presence moved to the line for food. Ace tightened his hands into fists, wanting desperately to rip off his bracelet and burn the man to a crisp, but now more people's eyes were being drawn to him and he couldn't just up and murder a traitor before anyone knewthat he was a traitor. If he killed Teach now, he would be the one in the wrong.

And with how icy the sea stone felt on his skin, if he released it, he would be putting all of his family in danger. Though he hated it, hated the way logic was stopping him from doing what needed to be done, he forced his hands to relax. He breathed deeply, schooled his expression into a blank mask, and sat back down, ignoring Thatch's assessing look.

"Sorry. Thought I heard something."

One of Thatch's eyebrows crept up. "Really. What kind of something?"

"It's nothing."

"What kind of nothing can—"

Marco's voice from behind them pulled him up short. "There you are, Thatch."

Ace stiffened, ready for Thatch to tell Marco what had just happened, but Thatch did nothing of the sort.

"Marco, buddy, are you here to tell me you approved my new budget? I patched that freezer pipe but we could really just use a whole new one."

Marco shot him a droll look. "Keep making requests for absurd amounts and I'll start slashing it instead-yoi. You're getting an additional ten thousand beri next month for new equipment. That's it."

"That's barely enough to pay for a decent pan."

"Do you want me to start asking whyyour excuse is always that you need new pans, even though at the prices you claim, they're supposed to last for years? If your division really needs new equipment, give me an itemized list. If you just want to try every new gadget they put on the market, give up." Thatch withered. "Anyway, that's not the only reason I wanted to find you. I need you to start spreading the word in your division. We're stopping at an island soon and Izo has made it clear we're all expected to have formal clothing for something this week. Ace, you too."

"Right," Ace said numbly. Thatch had definitely noticed something was wrong, Marco had even interrupted him in the middle of calling Ace out on it, but now he was acting like nothing had happened at all. Was it a kindness, or was Ace going to hear about it later?

"Formal clothing?" Thatch asked. "Why?"

"I don't know for sure, but given that Tallie has been making the rounds of this room for a few days now, I'm sure they've got a celebration of some kind planned."

"Now that you mention it, I think it's someone's birthday," Thatch mused. "She was asking about cakes yesterday. Or was someone getting married? No, wait. Having a kid?"

"Whatever the reason," said Marco, "try to have something, or Izo will never let me hear the end of it."

Thatch saluted with a grin. "I'd hate to be the cause of that."

"And I expect a revised budget proposal by tonight-yoi. I don't want you coming to me later claiming that I meant to give you a hundred thousand more and just forgot a zero on the form."

Thatch's grin died. "One more day?"

Marco had a smile of his own. "No."

While Thatch attempted more doomed negotiations, Ace tried and failed to convince himself to eat a little more. Teach's presence was making him feel sick, threatening what food he had managed to take in. The longer he sat here, the worse it was going to get. If Marco said anything, if he pushed at all, Thatch would probably tell him everything, and then Ace would be cornered.

So he stood. Abruptly. "I need some fresh air. Excuse me."

And he walked away. Abruptly.

"Ace?"

He bit his lip and ignored the concern in Thatch's voice. Caught up in thoughts of Teach and the fact that the traitor was approaching Thatch and Marco, he barely realized he'd made it all the way out onto the deck without support. The moment he processed what that meant, his injuries made themselves known. He staggered, hissing through his teeth, only for someone to grab his arm and pull him back up.

Vista looked down on him with knitted brows. He wasn't taking his hand away, for which Ace was grateful. The ship was still spinning as much as it was rocking. "Are you well enough to be out here alone, Ace?"

"I just got a little dizzy, that's all. Thanks for catching me." He noted that Vista had both of his swords and a bag thrown over one shoulder. "Are you going somewhere?"

"Just a little bit of scouting ahead to make sure we don't have any fools interrupting our journey to Toraburu Island."

Ace frowned. He also managed to stand straight, a silent signal that it was okay for Vista to let go. "Is there something wrong?" Marco hadn't said anything about them running low on food or weaponry.

Vista awkwardly scratched his chin while he regarded Ace. The motion drew Ace's eyes to his mustache, which was looking noticeably thinner and patchier at its start and far shorter at its ends. "Well, ah. The Moby Dick took a fair amount of damage recently. The port side is holding for now, but a stray cannonball would be…problematic. We already have all of the fishmen keeping the sea kings away."

"I—" Ace swallowed, then bowed his head. Marco had probably been trying to keep that from him. What if the whole party was just a cover? No, they wouldn't go that far to coddle him. Regardless: "I take full responsibility. It's my fault."

"No, don't worry about it, don't worry. We all know you wouldn't do it on purpose. No one blames you." In the periphery of Ace's awareness, Teach's presence began moving for the door. He probably wanted to check in with Ace, division member to division commander, just like everyone else had been doing. "Anyway, if you see Marco, let him know I've headed out."

"Wait!" The word burst out before Ace could stop it. Vista paused, raising one eyebrow, and Ace had no choice but to keep going. "Can I come with you?"

"You are still injured, are you not? Has Tasuka released you from her watch?"

He had less than a minute until Teach reached him. "Please, Vista." His gaze flicked to the mess hall doors and then back to Vista. "Please." When Vista only pursed his lips, Ace held up his braceleted wrist, hoping that the desperate tremble to his voice wasn't as obvious as his mind was telling him it was. "Look, I won't cause any trouble. I just need to get off the ship for a minute. You won't even know I'm there."

Twenty seconds. If Vista said no, Ace was going to have to make a run for it and pray someone got between him and Teach. He'd nearly lost all composure just sensing the man; he knew himself too well to think he'd have any kind of control if he had to talk to him.

With a great sigh, Vista let his shoulders drop. "Very well." He then held out an arm for Ace to take as support. "This way; my ship is tied near the stern."