Chapter Text
Ace, Luffy, I hope you guys weren’t hurt in the fire. I’m worrying about you both, but I believe that you’re okay. I’m sorry to say this, but when you get this letter, I’ll already be out on the sea. Things led to things and I decided to set out to sea before you. I’m going anywhere but here, and I’m going to become stronger and become a pirate. The three of us have to become the freest pirates ever! One day, let’s meet up again somewhere, somewhere on the wide open sea! Definitely, someday!
By the way, Ace, which one of us do you think is the bigger brother? Two big brothers and one little brother. It’s odd, but our brotherhood is my treasure. Luffy is still a weak crybaby, but he’s our little brother, so take good care of him!
Ace’s hands shake as he lowers the letter— Sabo’s letter—down to his side. He’s barely able to finish reading it, gritting his teeth in an effort to keep the tears at bay, an effort which inevitably fails after he reaches the final words.
He sits there for a few moments as tears run down his cheeks, making his nose run. Ace traces his finger along Sabo’s handwriting, messy and bordering on chicken scratch, yet Sabo has— had —the best handwriting out of the three of them.
The anger rushes in rapidly and suddenly, replacing the anguish, yet Ace welcomes it. He’s angry at Sabo, for dying and for leaving him and Luffy alone. But more so, he’s angry at the world—the celestial dragons, Sabo’s “family” (even calling them such makes him scoff), and the entirety of High Town, rotten to the core—all of them being the reason his brother was killed.
Yet, overwhelmingly, Ace is angry at himself, thinking back to the moment they had found out about Sabo’s death.
“Sabo wasn’t happy!” Luffy had sobbed.
We let him go , Ace despairs, recalling Luffy’s words. We should’ve done something — gone back to get him —anything!
He welcomes the fury, the flame steeping in his stomach. It’s an emotion Ace wears with practiced ease. This time, there’s no one he can fight and make pay for his brother’s death. Those people are all well beyond his reach as Dadan had said, all too powerful for a jaded ten-year-old. A joke is all would be to those bastards, just like what Sabo was to them, too.
As quickly as it came, the anger dissipates once again into anguish. Defeated, his chest heaves as he lets out a sob, and then another, until all he can do is let out ragged cries. Ace thinks that a part of his heart must be down there, at the bottom of the ocean, with his brother.
“Ace, I-I wanna get stronger… stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger, so that way I won’t have to lose anybody, ever again …”
“I’ll never die! … I promise that I’ll never die. How could I leave a wimpy little brother like you behind?”
…
Luffy is still a weak crybaby, but he’s our little brother, so take good care of him!
I promise, Sabo. I won’t let you down. I’ll take care of our crybaby brother.
Ace has two promises, one for each of his brothers.
He almost breaks his promise to Sabo only a few days later. It’s almost funny, but in reality, it’s really not.
“Ace! Help me!” Luffy says nervously.
Ace glances down from where he’s lounging on a sturdy tree branch, absentmindedly picking at his teeth with a fishbone from their lunch. Towering over his little brother is a giant bear, fur split by scars. Luffy had wanted to train, so Ace decided they should come to a small clearing in the forest and let Luffy fight whatever animal inevitably came following the smell of their meal. Sure, the bear was a little stronger than Ace was expecting, but he brushes the concern off.
“I thought you wanted to become stronger, Luffy,” Ace dismisses, leaning back to rest against the tree’s trunk. “You’ve gotta learn to win a fight without needing my help all of the time.”
Without Sabo’s help , is what he doesn’t say.
Luffy gulps, trying to steel his resolve. Everything happens so fast as he jumps up, swinging his pipe at the bear—which discernibly does nothing to it—and then the bear’s large paw, practically the size of Luffy himself , comes bearing down on him. Luffy barely gets the chance to let out a cry of fear before everything goes deadly quiet.
Ace has only just managed to sit up properly, fishbone discarded for his own pipe, when he finds himself met with the sight and smell of blood.
So much blood .
He desperately yells Luffy’s name, scrambling down the tree, body moving faster than his mind as he swings his own pipe down onto the bear’s head with an audible crack . Ace's thoughts race, Sabo, Sabo, Sabo . I already lost Sabo, I can’t — Luffy! I —
His brother is bleeding badly. The slash marks across his chest are gnarly, far too big for a body so small.
Ace’s brother might die—his only brother left, his little crybaby brother who Sabo had told him to look after—and Ace had sat there and let it happen.
Ace hardly spares a glance towards the now incapacitated bear before he’s up and moving. He raises Luffy up into his arms and runs to their treehouse. His noisemaker of a brother is completely silent and still, aside from his faint, ragged breaths. Upon reaching the base of the tree that holds their old hideout, Ace climbs the rickety ladder, hyper-aware of his grip on his brother.
He releases a breath he didn't know he was holding when he makes it to the top of the rickety ladder. Ace runs to grab a few of the first aid supplies they’ve kept stocked, despite not having lived here since the fire. He presses a cloth to Luffy’s chest, only to feel the wetness of blood rapidly soaking through the fabric. Ace’s hands are shaking, knowing that his brother needs stitches.
Cursing, Ace grabs a nearby tarp that had been discarded in the corner, wrapping it around his little brother. He hefts Luffy up onto his back once more and climbs down their treehouse as fast as he can without dropping him in his haste. The second his feet hit solid ground, he readjusts Luffy’s position, glances at the sky— it’s going to rain, he has to hurry —and takes off, running as fast as he can to Dadan’s.
By the time he reaches the bandits’ hut, Ace is soaked to the bone, not just with rain, but also with his little brother’s blood, a grim reminder against his back. He barely remembers pounding his fist against the door, pleading for someone—anyone—to come help—barely remembers Luffy being lifted off his back by Magra, who hurriedly instructs another bandit to grab the medical supplies.
Awareness comes flooding back to him at the sound of Luffy whimpering. Ace finds himself sitting against the wall with rainwater (and blood) still dripping down his skin. Luffy’s still body— far too still, far too quie t—is across from him. Magra is dozing nearby, telling him that most of the bandits must've gone to sleep after the commotion died down.
At first, Ace thinks Luffy might be waking up, and he breathes a sigh of relief. However, Ace swiftly realizes that Luffy is still unconscious, his whimpers being ones of pain. Luffy’s face is twisted up in agony, an expression so uncharacteristic that it chills Ace to his core. For all his complaining and teasing regarding Luffy being a crybaby, Ace wishes his brother would just wake up and cry. Ace wouldn’t make fun of him this time, because at least it would be a sign that his little brother had enough strength to bawl his eyes out.
For a few hours—which feel more like years—Ace numbly sits across from Luffy, listening to his minuscule groans of agony. Ace, for all his usual strong-headedness, has no clue how to fight his brother’s pain or fear for him.
I wish Sabo was here , he thinks, tears welling up in his eyes. He would know what to do. He wouldn’t have let Luffy get mauled in the first place.
The tears quickly turn to full-fledged sobs, which rouse Magra from his rest.
“He’s very lucky,” Magra says, seemingly trying to reassure Ace. “If the cuts were any deeper, he would’ve died, but he should recover.”
Ace clenches his fists. Luffy could’ve died, all because Ace was being stupid and stubborn in all the wrong ways.
“You three fought together, didn’t you?” Magra asks softly. It’s a rhetorical question, and his voice seems to hesitate on the word three .
“I shouldn’t have let him fight alone,” Ace sobs. “It’s all my fault!”
Normally, Ace would rather bash his skull against a rock than cry in front of anyone like this, especially any of the bandits. He isn’t someone who wears his emotions on his sleeve, instead Ace tends to brandish them into an ugly thing as he fights anyone who would look down on him. A ratty child raised in a jungle, staring up at bar-goers more than twice his age and his size, hatred in his gaze.
What if the Pirate King had a son?
“I’m not good enough. I’m not good enough at all! I’m sorry, Luffy!” he sobs.
Luffy lets out yet another whimper—almost a cry—and Ace finds his body moving on its own until he’s sat by his little brother’s side. He hesitates for a few moments. Luffy would be better off without a terrible brother like him. And yet…
“Being alone is worse than getting hurt!”
Remembering Luffy’s tearful words, Ace works up his resolve as he pushes his thoughts down. He grasps his brother’s hand, all that he can think of doing. Yet, as if such a simple gesture was a miracle cure, his brother’s expression slips from pained to more peaceful. With Luffy now calm, Ace eyes start slipping shut as exhaustation finally catches up to him.
The next morning, when Ace wakes up (draped in a blanket that hadn’t been there the night prior) to find Luffy wrapped around him like a rubbery octopus, he just smiles. Loving someone and being loved in turn are concepts he tends to close himself off from, but Luffy’s open affection has wormed its way past his cynicism.
Ace stares at the most treasured thing he has left in his life, heart filling with resolve. He hasn’t completely broken his promise to Sabo, and he refuses to come close to breaking it ever again.
When Akainu turns his wretched, hateful gaze away from Ace and says, “Watch what I do,” he feels the chill down his spine before he can even figure out where Akainu is looking. He spins around to see Luffy on his hands and knees, reaching for his vivre card. His brother doesn’t even realize what’s about to come hurtling toward him.
Without thinking, Ace moves faster than he ever has in his life, and then he all that knows is he’s burning ( no longer the familiar warmth of his own flames ) and Luffy is holding his weakening body.
“Thank you, for loving me,” is what he tells Luffy—tells all his brothers and sisters who are fighting a war for him. He’s a cursed boy—grown up now (but far too young to die)—who’s spent his whole life angry at the blood coursing through his veins. Yet, sitting on the execution platform, Ace had realized how many people would fight and die for him. Even after Sengoku told the world whose son he was, they fought tooth and nail for him.
Overwhelmed with love, Ace allows his thoughts to drift to sorrow. He’s dying in Luffy’s arms. He won’t get to see Luffy grow up and accomplish his dreams. He feels guilt for his crew—the Whitebeards and the Spades—who he’s leaving behind in this hellscape, and for Yamato and Tama, knowing he won’t get to see them again.
He can’t tell what Luffy is trying to say, but he can hear the disbelief in his brother's voice turn to desperation, a raw and terrible thing.
I did it, Sabo , Ace thinks, a smile creeping onto his face. I made sure to take care of our little brother, just like I promised.
Despite his fading consciousness, Luffy’s voice ever-so-briefly breaks through the fog in his mind. “You promised me!” he wails.
I’m sorry , Ace thinks, unable to speak anymore. He knows he can’t keep that promise. As his eyes close and the feeling of the stone beneath him and his brother’s arms around him fade into nothingness, Ace finds himself desperately wishing that he could.
And then, his flames burn.