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Ace had never expected to see her again.
Not ever, much less so soon, and in the New World at that, and especially in the isolated nation of Wano.
It made him do a double-take. Yet, that vermillion bob couldn’t be anyone else. He knew her height. Her walk. The way she held herself.
The sway of her cute booty, clad in the leather skirt and chains of a beast pirate. When she turned, he could see the X of intersecting straps across her toned torso, marking her stomach like treasure on a map.
He didn’t think she’d seen him. He’d been busy helping most of the town’s vulnerable villagers to safety as Kaido’s men ransacked their meagre homes, taking away what little they had to assert his power.
Ace hoped that they—minus Isuka, who had appeared only after the assault commenced to divert the pillaging pirate’s attention with a new missive apparently from the TobiRoppo—drank the town’s poisoned water.
He made sure Tama and her grandfather were not going to follow him from their hiding space, and trailed after the young woman very clearly posing as a Beast Pirate.
She walked like a marine. Ace had always teased her, that she was too honest for undercover and it was painfully apparent from her harried interventions and the regretful looks she passed around the town that she hadn’t been there sooner. She righted overturned tables and chairs as the Beast Pirates drank and partied loudly in the deserted streets. Ace smiled through his position on top of the straw roof of the shack, looking in to see her placing some fresh food she’d no doubt taken from Kaido’s camps and placed it in the villager’s cupboard. He trailed her as she snuck from hut to hut, doing good deeds where she could. She was brushing up broken window glass when one of the Beast Pirates noticed her and hollered for ‘the newbie’ to get over here and join the party.
Ace was grateful for Wano’s isolation. That they couldn’t spot her as a marine. He still didn’t understand why they had so eagerly accepted her intervention to stop their ransacking, but both the men and women in the crude party seemed eager to accept her into their fold. The meaty arm of one Beast Pirate flung over Isuka’s shoulder and brought her in close under arm while they played a gambling game.
Ace and the villagers waited with baited breath for them to leave, but the band of brigands seemed content to pass out in a drunken pile on the streets after hours of loud makeshift partying. Isuka extracted herself from under arm with a shudder and look of unsuppressed disdain.
Ace could read her body language and the set of her mouth from a distance. She was wearing her sunglasses over her eyes, but Ace just knew they would be full of rage and passion at the injustice of the situation.
He followed her cautiously, keeping to the shadows. She went down an alleyway and out of sight. Ace, impatiently, waited a few seconds before ducking in after her. He worried she was a beautiful daydream, and if he lost sight of her, he’d truly never see her again.
A very real pair of hands grappling with him and shoving him against the building actually had him gasping in delight at the sudden rough manhandling.
“I thought you’d never be a pirate,” Ace quipped, hands raised in apology not taking his eyes off her lenses to look at the sword tilted at his neck.
“Fire Fist!” Isuka dropped her sword and practically slammed into him, pulling him close into a hug so fierce her glasses fell to the ground. She pulled back, looking up at him in awe, a thin sheen of wetness in her eyes. Ace wasn’t unaware of her squeezing his arm muscles, as if to prove he was real. “What are you doing here?”
“What am I doing here?” Ace said with a cocky tilt of his head, looking down at her with half-lidded eyes. “I’m a pirate. I go where I please. What’s a girl like you doing with Beasts in a place like this? No offense, but I thought you’d be safe in Paradise, not exposed to the horrors of the New World.”
Isuka hissed and looked around to make sure no one was listening in. “Official marine business. Don’t worry, I’d never join a tyrant like Kaido.”
“I know,” Ace beamed, but then his eyebrows furrowed in concern. “It’s a dangerous mission to infiltrate his crew though. Do you have any protections for if things go south?”
Isuka shook her head. “I wouldn’t ask that of anyone else.”
“Isuka!”
“I need to do this, Ace,” she frowned. “I need to get back to doing good, and the upper brass have completely halted and impeded my ability to help people after the incident with Dorrow and letting you get away—which was the right thing to do, so I have no regrets. You deserve freedom and blue skies—” she was fierce. Passionate. Looking into his eyes as if she would find her own freedom there.
“Still,” he murmured, bumping his forehead with hers. He didn’t want her to see the anger burning in his eyes. That they threw her to the wolves to die in an isolated country to rid themselves of her. “It must be so hard, pretending to be a pirate.”
Isuka shuddered. “You’re right. It’s important for recon and intelligence, but it doesn’t suit me at all. And I had to infiltrate two separate pirate crews before getting absorbed by Kaido’s to infiltrate seamlessly with less background questioning.”
“Two,” Ace whistled low. “It’s been, what, three months? God, you’re so efficient and effective, Birdie.” To think, he would have been partying with a Yonko among the snow while she was risking her life.
They both lived dangerously. Both feet first, full speed.
“I’m still a marine ensign through and through,” she pulled back and gave him a gentle smile. “I’m amazed every day that they don’t see through the costume.”
“You wear pirate well,” Ace murmured, giving her a quick once over despite himself. “Like an angel in the outfit of a devil. Very unassuming—”
“You don’t think I look fierce?” she teased, raising an eyebrow and nudging his chest.
“I—I think that is very dangerous territory, Isuka.”
“Well, we’re in dangerous territory,” she teased. “But I’m just messing with you. I know I look awkward. Leather just isn’t it for me.”
Ace disagreed. Thoroughly. But bit his tongue.
“My offer still stands,” Ace brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Pirate or bounty hunter, if you want to run off into the sunset together and be crew—”
Isuka just shook her head sadly, wetting her lips as her eyes trailed down to his. “What I want can’t get in the way of what I need to do. Just like you’ll never be a marine.”
A gust of wind blew through the ally way, bringing the miracle of Sakura petals from the Flower capital. They never bloomed here. And yet, just as Isuka stood as a miracle before him, a trail of flowers buoyed on the breeze caressed the air between them.
“Are those petals on your cheeks?” Ace said, tongue heavy as he brushed her cheekbones. “Because they’re looking very pink.”
“Such a gentleman to wipe them away,” she smiled, leaning into his touch, winking as a bit of pollen got in her eye. Ace chuckled and stroked the petals out of her bob, delicate pink amongst the fierce vermillion, fingers tracing down the harsh curves of her Beast Pirate horns.
She shuddered again, rubbing her arms soothingly in the sudden breeze. Ace took off his rucksack, grabbing out his old yellow shirt and wrapping it around her shoulders wordlessly. He pulled her close. To help share some of his warmth, of course.
“You want to see the Spades again? They’re all here. We just got a bit shipwrecked.”
Isuka chuckled and closed her eyes, leaning into his heart. “If I step foot upon the Spadille again, it would be even harder to leave.”
“That sounds great to me,” he kissed one of her horns.
“Such a fiend, trying to steal my resolve.”
“Well, I am a pirate,” he quipped, rocking her gently back and forth. “It’s hard to let go of a treasure. But birds must be free.”
“And so must you,” she traced a finger along his pectoral muscle.
“Have they made you do anything you didn't want to do as a Beast Pirate? You ... you haven't had to hurt citizens, have you?” Ace had to be sure she was okay. Knew she would never recover if made to harm an innocent.
“Thankfully not, I'm mostly in charge of managing other pirate crew prisoners because they think I have a ‘compelling and convincing face for the cause,’ but just knowing the citizens are suffering so much fills me with anger and dread...I feel like I'm bursting with outrage—”
“Take Kaido’s head with me,” Ace blurted. “We can take down evil together, like old times—”
“Are you insane—”
“Probably,” Ace smirked. “But I’m strong.”
“Kaido is a beast—”
“And beasts can be slain, my lady knight marine,” he booped her nose. She frowned, but looked like she was considering his offer. He heard the scuffle of the unconscious beast pirates groaning and coming to. “Meet me in the bamboo forest, where the light glows. I’ll be there. You always had a more direct approach to evil than undercover—”
“… And you’ll drop me off at the nearest island, when we’re done liberating Wano?”
“…”
“Fire Fist—”
“God, I’ve missed you saying my pirate name,” he deflected with a smile.
“ … And I’ve missed saying it.” He couldn’t see her say it, as her face was buried into his chest, but he could feel her lips making the confession, before she let him slip away again.