Chapter Text
Hot.
It burned. cauterising warmth crawling through his lungs. Bitter blood on his tongue, words sweet on his lips—what were they again? He doesn’t remember.
Only a deep rooted yearning rustling its leaves, petals of emotions he cannot grasp, too many swirl over his head. The sweet smells mix with copper and he wonders if those petals have the answers to questions he has yet to ask.
Nausea turned his stomach, his heart lead.
He knew those feelings. It was dread and regret woven into sea stone. It was the way Sabo cried when he told him Luffy was kidnapped, his little kid brother enduring torture because he was that scared of being lonely.
They had saved him, so why is he feeling it again?
Like he broke something irreparable.
‘haughty promises carried by the wind, teary please–‘
LUFFY—
He woke up with a gasp and tears lacking warmth.
Everything was cold.
“w-what?” He choked on the words, his throat raw—but no pain. His hand shot to his chest, his panic urging him to claw out the burning in his chest.
But it stopped, as if pulled taught by a string. He didn’t know why but everything inside his head screamed at him, angry words that he couldn’t yet make out. With garbled coughs he lowered his hand to the rubble beneath him, his nails finding new purchase in the crimson soaked ground.
But what caught his bleary eyes was the dulled color shining through his hand, the small stones beneath his hand were unmoved. His transparent arm shook in the air, his dark eyes wide open, simultaneously staring at the see through appendage and what is beyond it. His eyes flitted to the rest of his body. Crouched on his knees he could clearly see underneath himself.
“OH MY FUCKING SEAS I AM A GHOST!!” His voice loudly vibrated in the air, yet silent to the soldiers around him. Not that he noticed with the spike of panic.
“FUCK!” his fingers roughly ruffled his hair, his ghostly hand seemingly able to interact with itself.
“POPS GONNA KILL MEEE!!! NOT TO MENTION—” the hairs on the back of his neck stood at the thought of their first division commander's threatening lazy smile. His shoulders locked up, his head sinking between them resembling a turtle withdrawing into its shell.
He audibly gulped.
“Okay okay okay!” He shook his head. He needed to keep a level head if he wants to get out of this alive—
Alive.
“Oh” the previous perceived coldness seeping back into his bones.
Alive isn’t something he can be anymore
“I am dead, aren’t I?” he knew it, instinctively, that those words rang true. He wanted to brainstorm the possibilities of it being some devil fruit, he knew stranger things have happened to him, yet he couldn’t.
It was as if the world spoke to him, soft whispers tickling his ears, they were comforting him.
And welcoming him back.
They called him their child.
He didn’t want to know who they were, even if their names tickled the back of his mind.
He growled at the onslaught of voices, the heels of his palms pressed firmly onto his ears. The voices muddling together into white noise. It was familiar, a strange comfort settling in his chest.
Susurration of the sea.
A lullaby he breathed in with the day sun, unwavering in the way it demanded to be heard. No seaman could ignore the call of the sea. He was no different. The same voices which grated on his mind grounded him from the sense of loss he felt.
I let myself die.
Because even in death the lost boy found the blame within himself.
In the next few days he learned three things.
He was truly a ghost, no one could see or sense him, not even with haki. It was as if he truly didn’t exist anymore.
A war was fought on the marine base he woke up in, the war of the best yet he had never heard of it nor could he understand the circumstances the marines gossiped about, their words muted by the sound of the sea.
(The implication of his ghostly self waking up on a battlefield were ignored)
He couldn’t leave, and it wasn’t for his lack of trying.
No matter how many times he boards a ship, he doesn’t make it far before he is sent back to the battlefield he woke up in.
“Something is pulling me back to this place…” he didn’t want to face the previously ignored reasons for his anchor point.
He felt it after he scoped out the debris, some places had more of a pull. He concluded that it was something between the rubble which his soul is bound to. But with his body he could only phase through the debris.
So he entertained himself with the seagulls who occasionally visited the ruins, his days filled with experimenting the extent of his worldly influences. It was harmless as far as he had judged, so he just kept doing it.
Monotonous days with marines visiting every few days turned to groups, workers and men in suits cleaning up the debris until tents were struck for the workers. He would have made a complaint about the noise levels, smashing boulders was not the quietest pastime, but the chatter of soldiers tugged painfully on his homesickness, it reminded him of the chaos on the Moby, of his brothers squabbles and drunken nights.
Then a woman broke his monotony.
Ruby eyes which hadn't looked through him but at him and he was absolutely ecstatic, after a…misunderstanding he positively stuck to the jewel eyed woman.
He wasn't alone again anymore.
He caught himself watching her far too intensely at times, he wasn't naive enough to trust the…mercenary? Villager? She was in a position to demand anything from him yet she kept her intentions vague.
It irked him that he had to remind himself to be vigilant. Maybe it was a ghost thing he has yet to make sense of.
Because the woman felt like home.
It didn't help that the voices were echoing around him in reluctant agreement.
But that couldn't be, he had already found a home. It was Oyaji and brothers, luffy and Sabo.
He felt like his senses were going haywire around her.
Because only once he met the woman he realized something frightening.
He could not remember the faces of the mrines around him.
The same group which he had watched for weeks…there was not one face he could imagine.
The details blurred in his mind everytime he closed his eyes, even though they were clear when he saw them, they had eyes a nose a mouth…and nothing once he looked away.
It felt like a veil had been lifted once he locked eyes with hers, crimsons that reminded him of dawn, basking the horizon in a sea of fire.
He had never seen eyes which reminded him so much of the sea he loved…and what a strange though it is to tie the red he usually though of as his fore to the endless blue of the sea.
Once again he reined in his scattered thoughts, he couldn’t afford to lose himself in the mystery of the ghost seeing lady.
“–you alright there?”
His hand reflexively went to his face, covering what he could of his rising blush. His red dipped ears were a lost cause, he just hoped his ghostly appearance reduced the heat's appearance on his skin.
“FINE—I mean ahem…I am okay, just…daydreaming” he rubbed his chin, hoping that his blush had enough time to lessen.
“...if you say so” she gave him a contemplative look before she strutted ahead, deeming the situation not important enough to comment further.
Oh seas….I am actually going insane.
The way her eyes crinkled was unfair. How her ruby eyes shimmered in honesty when she tried to reassure him. It clenched something tight inside him that endeared the fang peeking from behind her lips.
She was beautiful in way flowers were on a steep side of a cliff, dangerous if you attempted to get closer.
And he could already tell she would be deadly.
He pointedly ignored the voices which chuckled in mirth, reminding him that he didn't need to worry about that.