Work Text:
The moon sits high overhead, barely visible from the earth below through the thick clouds. Instead it peeks through the gaps and holes like a lonely child. Wind blows through Isuka’s hair, making her shiver and pull her coat tighter. The ocean is a dark mass that stretches as far as her eye can see.
Though sand crunches under her feet, Isuka feels like she is floating through a dark void. Devoid of all life and light save one. A lone fire glowed a ways before her. It was why she was here. Her ship was drifting on the other side of the sand bar, waiting for her to return, but not before she finished investigating this single lonely fire in the middle of nowhere on the Grand Line.
Pirates were the norm here, powerful ones, cruel ones. This sea was deadly. But she was prepared for a fight should it come to that. Her superior had tried to argue that she leave it alone, that the potential for danger was too high, but she had been unable to shake the feeling that this sad and lonely fire was something else.
Perhaps it was a straggler, or someone shipwrecked. Perhaps it was a cry for help. Her morals compelled her to approach it, consequences be damned.
As she got closer, she could make out the shape of a man sitting in its glow. A pack sat next to him, a hat on his head. There was something familiar about him, about the shape of his bare shoulders and sad gaze.
She stopped just outside the light of the fire. “Firefist?” she whispered. In an instant, he whipped around, eyes flaming pits, ready for a fight. She froze, swallowing under his hard stare before he recognized her.
“Oh, Isuka. Long time no see,” he said. There was no silly, aggravating grin to accompany his words. She bit her lip. Something was wrong, she could feel it. He was a Whitebeard pirate now, a high ranking commander. It was rare and uncomfortable to see one of them on their own.
Even stranger to see Ace alone. Where was his crew? The nervous novelist that was always at his side?
“Are you here to arrest me?” Ace asked and Isuka started. She had been staring.
“I… What are you doing here, Portgas?” she asked gently, stepping into the light. It was warm against Isuka’s face, but somehow she felt colder.
“Hunting,” he said, turning back to the fire. Her eyebrows furrowed.
“Hunting? For what? Treasure? This sandbar is only here when the tide allows, I don’t think there’s anything buried here…” she trailed off with a frown as he snorted.
“Treasure wouldn’t be half as valuable as what I’ve lost,” he said darkly. Dread sat low in Isuka’s stomach. Lost? What had he lost?
“Are… are you alright?” she asked, feeling off kilter. Ace had always been… well, quick with a grin before. Now he seemed like a different person. Though… the ferris wheel on Sabaody crossed her mind. The sadness in his gaze.
This was different though, colder, harsher. Like a live wire right before a child touched it with a fork. That moment before disaster.
Ace continued to stare at the fire, the flames reflected in his eyes. He didn’t answer, and somehow that was worse. “Can I sit?” she tried instead. His eyes flicked back to her and he shrugged. Carefully, making no sudden moves, Isuka tucked her legs beneath her, settling onto the sand. A few hardy tufts of sea grass tickled her knees.
She wasn’t really sure what to say. The Navy side of her was whispering that now was an opportune time to capture him. A Whitebeard pirate all alone was unheard of, she should use it to her advantage! But the part of her that saw Ace as…Ace, was concerned.
“How did you do it?” came his voice suddenly.
“Do what?” Isuka furrowed her eyebrows. He was scowling at the flames now, hands clenching into tight fists on his knees.
“Forgive him,” he growled after a long moment. Isuka stared, bewildered. She looked around, peering into the darkness as if she had missed something somehow. But there was nothing, just them on the sandbar wreathed in the light from the fire. Like ghosts.
“Who? Portgas… A-Ace, what’s wrong?”
He turned to look at her again, eyes bright, intense, like staring down the barrel of a gun. “The man who killed your parents.”
The wind kicked up, sending sparks into the air. Isuka looked away, down at her knees. Paradise was a harsh place, the world was cold and so often indifferent. Injustice flamed everywhere, even in places it shouldn’t. Something bad had happened to Ace indeed.
She stared at the sand, little flecks sparking in the firelight. “You remembered that huh?” she said quietly, surprised. He nodded, looking at her still but with less intensity.
“I didn’t,” Isuka finally said after a long moment. Now he looked surprised, or maybe skeptical. A small frown turned down the corners of her lips. She didn’t know him well enough to know the difference and that made her sad. The marine part of her felt angry at that, but it felt superficial. Like a mask.
“You’re still a Marine though,” Ace responded, accusation in his voice.
“Well of course I am, I didn’t join the Navy because I wanted revenge.” Ace now looked at her like she was lying. “Well, maybe a little in the beginning, but it became more than that.” Truthfully, she had fallen in love with the Navy. Helping people, traveling, forming bonds with others who wanted the same things.
“Even though you know that he lied to you on top of murdering your parents?”
“Forgiveness is something to be…earned,” she mumbled as Ace turned away from her. He huffed and muttered something under his breath. “And it can’t always be earned,” she continued, threading her fingers into the sea grass.
“So then what?” Ace growled, his eyes intent on the fire.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“When it can’t be earned, what do you do?”
She opened her mouth then closed it and looked up at the moon high above, the clouds blowing away. On the island she’d grown up on, it would be autumn. The trees would be hundreds of shades of red, orange, and yellow. A spectacle. She could vaguely recall her mother putting a scarf around her neck to keep out the chill before she went out to play.
Had her parents gone to any of the viewing places to see the trees in all their splendor? Had they brought her with them? Taken family photos and laughed as she jumped in her first pile of leaves? Isuka’s throat tightened and she pulled her knees up to her chest, burying her face in them.
“What happened…happened. It wasn’t fair, or just, or deserved, but…,” the fire flared, bright and harsh, for a moment the logia user was indistinguishable from it. Fear, an old one, but fear nonetheless caught in her throat.
“But I had to let it go, or… or it would consume me.”
The fire sputtered and died, plunging them into darkness.
As her eyes adjusted, the wind whistled, the sound of the ocean waves grew louder. The tide would be coming in soon, leaving this little sandbar to sink below the waves once more. Slowly, starlight made the world brighter, the moon reflecting off the waves. The stars stretched like fireflies from one horizon to the other. Like they were sitting inside a glass ball, just floating in the vastness of space.
Without the fire, cheeks lit by the cold light of the moon, Ace looked sad. Or maybe… even a little scared. He looked less like the fearless pirate that left her breathless with his audacity and more like just a boy. A boy caught up in something far too big.
“I don’t think I can,” his voice drifted on the wind like the sea salt. So small and sad. Her heart clenched. She liked to think that they were friends in the darkness of the night, when she was off shift and just a civilian, not a marine. A bit like when they sat on the ferris wheel in Sabaody.
“Come with me Ace,” Isuka whispered, “Away from whatever is wrong. We’ll go somewhere, far far away.” She reached out her hand towards him. Like she had before. She kept her word, her promises.
He turned to stare at her fingers, and her heart leapt into her throat. He was reaching for her, calloused fingers wrapping around hers, warmth seeping through her gloves into her knuckles. Searing into her memory, the first time he took her hand because he wanted to. Maybe the first of many firsts.
In that moment, she could see the future. They’d run to an island deep in the South Blue. She’d work in the local sheriff’s office, filing away reports on lost cows and kids getting up to silly antics. Ace would run a tiny volunteer fire patrol. They would live in a small house and own a chubby cat and a lazy dog. In the autumn, they would sit on the porch and watch the sunset over the farmer’s fields. A quiet life, a good life.
“I can’t Isuka,” he murmured, squeezing her fingers before placing her hand back down in her lap. The cold of the breeze raked over her body and she wrapped her arms around her shoulders. Something a little like anguish, a little like regret, a little like death bloomed in her chest. Asking why sat on her tongue, the urge to argue, to tell him off.
But something told her that he was on a path she couldn’t follow. That he was in too deep, that he couldn’t turn back. “Did you know it’s Fall where I was born?” she asked softly. In the dark, perhaps he couldn’t see the tears in her eyes.
Ace was looking out at the water now, watching it creep toward them. She’d have to return to her ship soon. “The trees turn all sorts of colors. Tourists come from all over to see them. I remember the sound of them crunching under my feet and my mom holding my hand…” she wasn’t sure why she was telling him this. Something she had never told another. This little piece of her soul that remembered people she had lost.
“I’ve never seen trees change color in fall. Where I grew up with my brothers, it was warm almost all year round with huge jungle trees and tigers and gators larger than houses,” Ace almost grinned.
“That sounds nice, though maybe not the alligator part,” she said. Ace snorted, the hint of a familiar grin on his cheeks.
“I’ve always wanted to see a fall spectacle... with my crew, I’ve seen trees covered in snow so thick I didn’t know they were trees until I touched one. I’ve seen palms in the desert, and even an island with trees that only came up to my knee,” he glanced at her, a tiny smile on his lips.
“Maybe we’ll meet there some day,” she said gently. Ace opened his mouth and looked away.
“Maybe we will.” A tone of wistfulness sat in his voice. Like waiting for winter to be over. Like waiting for the sun to return. Like saying goodbye. “Have you ever seen a whole island on the back of an elephant?” He asked after a minute, pretending not to see the tear tracks glimmering on her cheeks.
“No, tell me about it.”
In the morning, Isuka awoke in the crows nest of her ship. The early gray light was turning to golds and pinks and oranges on the horizon. She got to her feet and stared out at the sea. The tide had come in and the sandbar had sunk beneath the waves.