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In their world there is no Tri-ni-sette, no tired immortal Shaman; in their world there are no mobsters, no immortal zombies, no crazy strong men that, by local standards, would be considered civilian; in their world there is no knowledge of the Dying Will Flame, of the Flame of the Seven ('eight', the dead laugh) attributes — in their world there is knowledge of the will, haki, covering their bodies with black ink, tempering the mind with sharpness and overwhelming the weaker.
In their world there is no knowledge of the Sky, Storm, Rain, Cloud, Lightning, Sun, and Mist.
But that doesn't mean they don't exist.
For a doctor who was not the first birth in his practice, it was strange to see the baby's eyes go from green to deep blue, like a forest fire biting at your heels; however, after blinking and getting rid of the obsession, the doctor decided that it was a color play, and the baby's eyes were originally blue. Nothing out of the ordinary.
The boy was smart beyond his years and understood things far more than he showed adults. He did not know why or how, but he knew what he should not know; he could see what no one else saw; he knew the next phrase of his interlocutor ahead of time or exactly what could be meant by the words "cute kid".
Knew the looks: dozens and hundreds of shades of lies, contempt, condescension, coldness, and falsity — how good it is to grow up among such people, to become more calculating.
Illusions, smiles, deceptions, and sweet words came like a second breath, sliding from one person to another, not-knowing-and-knowing their emotions and secrets.
The boy with the golden hair smiled properly politely and courteously, flashing his iridescent blue eyes, memorizing all the nastiness he saw and absorbing-absorbing-absorbing...
...until he threw up that crap called "truth of life" by others, and disappeared with silent steps, accompanied by the silence and darkness of the night.
Sabo is five years old when he meets Ace, for a second or two he thinks the other boy's eyes are burning purple, until he blinks and sees an angry gray stare. Sabo shakes his head, grins, puts on his best smile and goes to make introductions, because the kid across the street sure didn't want to make any introductions. There was a previously undiscovered fascination in pestering him.
Mists cling to Clouds, from words to teasing, from smiles to hugs, from trying to kill to dancing laughter.
Ace smelled like the sun and the storm threatening to come upon him, despite all his senses, eyes and ears — Sabo had always compared him to thunderclouds floating and thickening into a storm, leaving a calm and desolate aftermath.
Ace was angry, scowling, spitting, cursing, and did not understand this strange boy, who apparently decided to find a new life purpose in his pursuit.
Sabo laughed softly and patronizingly; followed him as silently and carelessly as if he had glided through the air; appeared out of nowhere, dressed in three layers of blue and white, flashing his eyes in derision at his startled cry of surprise; said-said-said as much as he had ever heard in his life — and Ace hated him.
Completely and self-forgivingly.
Sabo laughed the first time they tried to kill him — Ace called him crazy, angry, snarling, defending himself and his territory as a whole Mt. Colubo.
Cloud hated Mist, that was almost always the case; though, some could come to a mutual agreement and live in peace.
Ace didn't understand him (Mist smiled a little sadder than he usually showed), and that made Sabo feel strangely lonely.
Finding someone he liked, even after trying to kill, swear, fight, and spill blood, he felt great.
It was as if for the first time he had found a piece of the puzzle.
What, why, and how many pieces it had, Sabo didn't know, but for now, he was content, and the world stopped seeming like something you wanted to paint with blue fire.
He chuckled at his cursory thought; there is no such thing as blue fire.
His name was Luffy, but Sabo might as well have said it was the name someone in another language, dead and drowned, called Heaven and Sun, Earth and Ocean, Air and World.
Luffy was glowing, creating something around him that Sabo might have called "the way to breathe". It was as if he had never been able or known what it was before.
Of course, Sabo didn't realize it right away, probably somewhere between trying to kill the boy and wanting to scratch the pirates' eyes out with a rusty shard of metal torturing the brat, but...
Luffy is breathing. His and Ace's. Even if for some reason the latter doesn't see what he does. Ace screams and punches Luffy, grunting and lecturing as the latter is eaten once again by a crocodile. Sabo looks at the marshes and rivers, at the murky and clear liquid, his eyes melting blue like waves running toward the shore, and the animals understand the warning. But the reptiles migrate and change through the seasons, die more often than anyone could tell, and in two years everyone will have forgotten the eyes that promised something terrible, something their instinct for self-preservation guarded them against.
Mist hides his Sky, hiding him in illusions and sweet half-truths, promising protection, comfort, and sound sleep while Cloud could do his job.
In fact, Sabo would like to say that he never lied to Luffy, but... it could be as true as his family's desire (the word reeks of heat and campfire ash) to be a Marine.
Sabo was more than happy to be brothers with Luffy and Ace, though he considered them his family and life without such formalities, but... to live without regrets?
What a nasty big lie, Mister.
And Sabo laughs a little, curling his lips, but he drinks the sake, and he chalks the grimace up to the good taste of the drink. He's tasted worse. The irony sinks into his stomach, digesting and dissolving in his blood; the sky is soft blue, the clouds fluffy white, and there is almost no fog in this region, after all, this is East Blue, the sea with the most stable climate; Luffy shines brighter than the sun, Ace is not as sullen as usual, and Sabo can accept his lies, can believe himself.
Did you know that if the Mists believed in something very-very, it would happen?
Sabo believed he could be more human.
Sabo, indeed, loved fire for a reason unknown to himself. He loved the flames, shimmering in the twilight, orange-red, bright yellow, merging with the evening sky, with the passing day, and feeling peace and longing as he heard the breathing of the two sleeping brothers behind him.
Sabo loved fire, even if it devoured Gray Terminal, leaving the smell of rot and decay and smoked flesh; even if it was ruthless and took a part of himself from him; even if there was a chance it might take his brothers from him — he could not find it in himself to hate the bright orange flame.
Szabo loved fire as it burned in his lungs, on his skin, reverberating with pain, crushing his body and crashing into him with shrapnel from a shot exactly to the head.
(And he would hate magma, never fire, never flame.)
He didn't know who he was, who he was and who he would become.
He did not know what, how, why or when.
Didn't know his name or his appearance or his family.
Didn't know anything.
Except to be free and lie.
So yes, when the man with the face tattoo asked if he wanted to join the revolutionaries (he saw them, saw their good and bad sides, saw this man through his eyes, saw the saving and killing of people, saw good and evil), yes, he agreed.
Hardly anyone could have waited for him.
The Mists don't go away first, ever. They can wander, wriggle, laugh, change, laugh again, smile on their bloody hands, and live-live-live.
Sky is always grieving for them, even when those promise to return; even when those, in fact, never left them; even when their Mists are lost in themselves again and need help.
If anything, (as Destiny laughs, flashing a predatory smile) the Clouds are always the first to go.
Koala recognized him when he was ten: a boy with blond hair and aristocratic facial features; a boy with a chipped tooth and a laugh like the howl of old uninhabited houses; a boy with a smile honed and polished into a modest and inappropriate one.
His name was Sabo. Probably. It wasn't exact.
Koala recognized him when he was twelve: a boy with thin wrists and unreadable handwriting; a boy with ideas beyond common sense and a penchant for breaking rules; a boy with blond curls and the bluest, bluest eyes she had ever seen.
His eyes burn with mirth, mockery, and bloodthirstiness. Maybe. I imagined it.
Koala recognized him when he was fourteen: a young man in an unnaturally always ironed black and blue coat that's two sizes bigger, but fits like a fit, as if it were adjusting itself to one's needs; a young man that's below the age of most operatives in recruits, but somehow snatched himself an assignment that no one could or would take; a young man who smiles so coquettishly and vulgarly, letting his "assignment" touch him so (climbing into other people's beds easily, as if he had been doing it all his life), that she is ready to believe that she is really seeing this man, who exactly three minutes ago was her partner, for the first time.
His voice sinks into her mind, she believes every word he says, unable even to argue as he crumples another man's head with his bare hands, another man's blood runs down the edge of his lips and he licks at it, smiling. Or so the light fell. Or it blinked.
Koala recognized him when he was seventeen: a young man with no dreams and such a ton of lies that their island must have gone downhill from outnumbering them; a young man with a nerve greater than all the Grand Line novices combined and such possessive instincts that it gets scary; a young man with eyes full of fire and ocean boiling you alive, and having a hundred percent success rate on his tasks.
His appointment seems expected, and he seemed to hum in something of anticipatory amusement. Perhaps. She's not sure what she saw or heard.
Koala recognized him when he was eighteen: young man with bloody hands and plans stretched out over the years, that exaggeratedly slow chatting with an informant who betrayed them about a harvest on a tiny island somewhere in North Blue, while drowning a scream from broken bones that, it turns out, can be broken at least five times; the young man who follows Dragon-san and waves off serious talk with a wave of his hand, and you blindly believe every word that follows while you look into his shining eyes; the young man with the laugh that makes you shudder when your nature screams, screaming that there is a madman before you.
His lips fold into words: I love you, I am faithful to you, I belong to you, — and they are real, true, but something tells her, some part of doubt incessantly screams that he must meet someone, and that someone will take him away from them. No. It's not true.
Koala recognized him when he was twenty: a man with a cry of utter despair and grief and pain that screamed so hard and loud that the whole world should hear him; a man whose voice broke into laughter and tears poured in an incessant stream, and he gasped at how hard and long he laughed, so much so that his chest tightened and he coughed up his ability to breathe, but laughed-laughed-laughed; a man who had regained the ten years the world had stolen from him, who looked in the mirror with the kind of hatred with which he looked at the knower, and smiled at them without even trying to pretend to be whole.
They ask him: if he will leave them? — and he answers "no", his eyes covered, not flashing, and somehow appearing green. This is the most implausible thing she has ever heard him say. And it makes her want to cry.
Mists have very fragile minds; unstable and shaky; so they seek Sky for support, or Clouds for the removal of some of the steam, finding their constancy in their relationships. Mists tend to wander within themselves, and forget what people think is "right". Mists laugh and dance, naturally displaying a hidden cruelty.
If anyone asked the revolutionaries what slow madness looked like, they would, whispering and looking around, give the name of their Chief of Staff. Just the name, as if it explained everything.
A name and a decade of Mist without memories, lost years with their Sky.
If anyone asked Dragon what the concern was, he would poke a fountain pen in the direction of his Chief of Staff without looking, even if he wasn't in the room.
Perhaps he was not adapted to this kind of Mist; perhaps he should not have picked up someone else's Mist in the first place, and sooner or later, he would have found his own way home; perhaps he has his own quirky Mist with a penchant for recruiting people into his orientation, and changing sex at the dictates of his left heel.
Meeting his little brother — his Sky — almost knocked down, stained with other people's tears and snot — responding with a hug so strong it squeaks his rubber body — he inhales the smell of sea, salt, wood, and home.
Sabo wonders how long it has been since he last breathed.
Luffy's eyes are stars and suns, they are strength in will and the stubbornness of kings, they are laughter out of joy, life and happiness; and Sabo enjoys it, basking in it so long that he only wakes up when he is in the arena, surrounded by enemies and the Devil Fruit of Ace as the grand prize. Sabo crunches his wrists, black glasses concealing a gaze full of indifference and calculation, something in the back of his mind, not haki, telling him that his little brother is far away. The Mist exposes his teeth in a grin.
He doesn't have to leave his opponents alive, does he?
"It seems that's what Hak and Koala wanted to avoid..." he draws thoughtfully, pulling down his red-wet gloves, immersed in other people's cries of either delight or horror from the audience, out of the corner of his eye seeing his brother's pale friend. Bartolomeo, is it? "Never mind, though".
The Sea King leaps up out of the waters and the Mist smiles sharper, eyes shimmering blue, the order flies silent, the warning spreads and reaches the beasts, and everything stops.
"Oh, thank you", laughs Sabo, stroking the trembling animal, picking up the trunk, and seemingly smearing someone's brains on the coliseum with his boot without slipping or noticing it.
—fire flows through veins, looking around welcoming and spreading out inside, it reeks of correctness, integrity, and a bit of sadness—
Mist misses his Cloud.
He is danger, brutality, and death. You can tell at once by the smell of ash and the shade of red on his blue-black clothing; his smile is the equivalent of a cursed blade, and the laugh of a kairoseki bullet and a covered haki at once. His eyes are equal parts fire and ocean, which is probably why Zoro pulls out his swords before the door even opens.
He smiles a little contentedly, meeting the blades with steel and khaki, the stranger's cylinder flies off, the stranger's blond hair in blood, somehow immediately clear that it's not his own.
The stranger's laughter is like the threshold of a nightmare, but the man takes a step back, he has a peaceful smile, hands up, even though he is still clutching his weapon, eyes covered and slight wrinkles lurking in the corners — Zoro is not fooled, this man is very dangerous, and his captain is injured and unconscious at his back.
"Wait-wait, Zoro-sempai!" shouts Bartolomeo, standing to the side of him, but not in front of him and the enemy, good choice. "That man is Luffy-sama's brother!" he adds, though with a hysterical note of incredulity.
Zoro doesn't believe it either, not one bit. Ace was Luffy's brother: strong and memorable, bright and funny, friendly and caring.
The man in front of him has none of these traits.
The man laughs again (goosebumps run against his will; it sounds like a dying ship creaking), behind him Torao reaches for his sword, and Chopper pulled out one of the pills, before Robin steps forward.
"Sabo-kun, long time no see", she says, acknowledging him, without: good to see you, nice to meet you. Zoro feels her tension, palms clutching sword handles tighter, Haki's burns across his nerves in warning as he meets blue-blue eyes. "You haven't changed, though, I see".
"Gone without saying goodbye, Robin-san", he says with something in between rebuke, wistfulness, resentment, laughter, and even flirtation. Robin doesn't quite tense up, but her smile becomes mechanical. "And if that's what you mean", he swipes something resembling ash and bits of skin from his coat and shoulders, as if it were routine, "me shoveling garbage", the smile grows wider, and to his fear and horror Zoro sees something of Luffy in it, but four hundred times more distorted and cruel, on the eve of the gates of hell when you are greeted with praise.
Robin doesn't exactly turn her back on the blond, her arms folded across her chest so that she can apply her Devil Fruit at any moment, her voice smooth and soft, but no one is fooled, they can feel her nervousness.
"It's true, Sabo-kun is Captain-san's older brother", she confirms as if reading a newspaper about some hidden Marine atrocity.
Ears again catch the beginning and end of the laughter that only a madman can bestow on the world.
"Well-well, I don't want to alarm you all", he circles everyone with his boiling ocean eyes, a smile that tastes like a sky woven of poisonous clouds, "I just want to ask you to keep taking care of my younger brother", real tenderness slides into him for the first time, "Luffy can be very troublesome at times", Ace's words are repeated so precisely that it makes you sick how much anxiety this man has for them when the dangerous blue eyes find everyone again. "Luffy loves you, so I can't kill you", easier than a feather, laying syllables into sentences and threats into nitrogen, "but that doesn't mean I won't kill someone else you care about if something happens to them".
Again the smile, so bright and so similar to Luffy and Ace that the words come a mile-second after the rest. Just as quickly as the blink, the man disappears into the flames, leaving ashes, the smell of blood, and echoes of grave laughter.
One second.
Two.
Three. And a sigh for a scream.
"What the hell was that?!" yells Usopp, and it's the most logical question that's come up all day.
Later Robin will tell them about the monster of the Revolution, a monster so shunned by his own people, the madness that he does not hide among his own and shows even more vividly in fights.
Later Robin will tell them of the pleas from the interrogation rooms and the shouts of the Marines, colored with laughter and lavishing everyone with easy smiles.
Later Robin will tell them how deceptively cozy it can be to stand beside this man as he successfully and skillfully suppresses the cruel part of himself, hiding it behind a veil equal to the depths of the ocean, that one might even be oblivious to it.
Later Robin will tell them about rivers of blood, about clothes changing more often than the same red and black gloves, about plans for dozens of paces and tweaked backup plans for backup's sake, about the effectiveness of violent methods, which therefore cannot be noted.
Later Robin will tell them of such a demon's obsession with their captain, of Dragon's uneven tense glances, of the obsession to fill the missed twelve years with anything, of stalking her and coaxing out any, even the most unnecessary crumb of information, of being almost impossible to escape the conversation and impossible to hide from someone else's insistence.
Later they wake Luffy up and ask him about Sabo, their captain smiles a little guiltily (which is totally out of character for him) and says:
"Sorry about him, he can often be crazy, shi-shi-shi".
And doesn't that give them a lot of horror at the realization that this is Luffy talking?
Mist, who has regained his Sky, will do everything and more for him, even if Sky itself disagrees with him, his methods and his gestures of love.