Archive of Our Own

After his "return", Sabo's top hat was, of course, confiscated. Five years spent in the rough conditions of a jungle were not kind to the fabric nor the stitching. It was a miracle it had survived even this long.

The new one he had been given after a thorough bath—because god forbid a noble go about bare-headed—was purple.

Beautiful, rich shade which, ordinarily, Sabo wouldn’t have had anything against. Years ago, he would have done nothing but roll his eyes at his mother treating him like a dress-up doll.

Now, he was painfully aware that the dye it took to color the fabric—not to even mention the fabric itself, the silk plush only one island in the South Blue produced to the nobles’ satisfaction—cost more than the entire population of the Grey Terminal were able to earn in a year.

But the most glaring issue Sabo took with the purple top hat was also the simplest one: it wasn’t his top hat.

He discarded it—pettily turning it upside down—the moment the lock clicked closed behind him, leaving him trapped within what once was his bedroom.

The room, as far as Sabo could tell, hadn’t changed in the past years at all. He, however, had.

Ignoring all else, Sabo hirpled towards the open window, clambering onto the windowsill and pressing himself as close to the elaborate bars as he could. It didn’t matter how prettily the metal twisted, not when they had been installed for the sole purpose of limiting his freedom.

No matter how he shifted, the placement of his window didn’t let him see the Grey Terminal, nor the jungle; All that was left for him was the sea, stretching under the infinite expanse of the sea.

He would set sail, Sabo swore to himself. He’d be free, just like they all promised. No matter what it took.

If he spotted even a sliver of a chance, the slightest of openings, he would take it.

This was something he owed to his brothers.

Sabo hissed, jerking away from the bars as the metal dug into his bruises. The ring around his wrist, where Luffy had clung to him like a vice, the stripe across his shin where Ace got him with his pipe in their last spar.

It’s been barely over a day since he got them; A little more for the spar injury, a little less for Luffy’s desperate grab. His skin was tender, the angry red slowly transitioning a shade of tyrian purple the dye-makers would kill to get through their recipes.

The last signs of his brotherhood were soon to disappear.

He slammed his wrist against the edge of the windowsill, flinching at the sharp eruption of pain. It felt as if his head was stuffed with wool, mind empty as he hopped off the ledge and kicked the wardrobe.

The pain of wood hitting perfectly over the mark Ace had left on him had Sabo keeling over, knees hitting the floor.

He was doing it for them. He’d do anything for his brothers.

And he wasn’t willing to part with the last physical proof of their connection just yet.

Fingers digging into the tender skin around his wrist, Sabo clambered to his feet, staring out towards the horizon with determination.

He survived after running away when he was five and living rough for another five years; Living in luxury and listening to his parents’ whims shouldn’t be much hardship.

If it meant his brothers would be safe, Sabo would become the prettiest, shiniest fish in the birdcage of his parents’ making.

Just long enough to have them forget the key in the lock.

As if they had known exactly what he was thinking, Sabo’s parents ensured he wouldn’t take a single step outside of his bedroom for the next week. Even his meals were given to him via a flap cut into his doors. Sabo supposed he should have considered himself lucky that they even fed him in the first place.

The invitation to breakfast took him by surprise.

Well. Invitation, he said, as if he wasn’t roused by the frantic servants far earlier than he would have woken up on his own. He was left to try and smack the thick taste of sleep out of his mouth as he stood there uselessly, raising his arms and shifting everywhichway to make the job of dressing him up easier on the people flitting around him.

He was ushered down the corridors he barely remembered, guided straight to the doors of the breakfast parlor and left alone on the threshold.

Sabo couldn’t begrudge that; If he had any choice in the matter, he would have preferred not to deal with his parents, either.

Stelly was the only one to glance towards him when Sabo entered, and even that was only because, as he very vocally complained, he thought it was the servants bringing in his food.

Ignoring his bemoaning, Sabo sat at the last free seat, right at his father’s right-hand side. The spot reserved for heirs.

How… interesting.

Sabo stared blankly at the painted bunches of grapes twisting across the crockery. So far, he had been running on the assumption that his parents had gone through the effort of retrieving him purely to spite him.

They were certainly petty enough to destroy the life Sabo had built for himself on a whim, just because he was careless enough to let his father notice him out and about in the city.

But… If that was it, they wouldn’t have let him sit at the table at all, let alone at the heir’s spot. There was something else going on, and Sabo had to figure out what it was.

He remained lost in thought, letting the petty gossip wash over him without registering a single word of it.

At one point, food appeared on his plate: thick stacks of pancakes, a handful of blueberries arranged artfully on top of it.

Grabbing the first fork and knife his hands landed on, Sabo cut through the pancakes harshly, watching the mangled bodies of the fruits mixed in the batter as they released their juices.

They stained the ceramic deep purple.

It’s been about five years since the last time Sabo had eaten a meal prepared by talented chefs. Five long years of eating barely-cooked meat and plain rice and whatever vegetables the bandits managed to grow.

And yet the food tasted like ash on his tongue.

Swallowing the bite—because one couldn’t waste food, even if it came from a detestable source—the only thought in Sabo’s mind was whether his brothers would have liked this meal.

It’s not like either of them had a particularly sweet tooth—neither have had the opportunity to develop that—but Sabo thought it would be more to Luffy’s taste-

He got jolted out of his thoughts with a kick to his shin.

If it had been Luffy, Sabo would have smiled indulgently, forgiving the little idiot preemptively. If it had been Ace, they would have already been locked in a spar.

But it was Stelly and, as such, Sabo felt nothing but intense murderous intent.

The boy clearly didn’t expect the intensity of Sabo’s glare, startling at the look Sabo had sent him.

“Now, don’t be upset, darling,” Didit cooed, and Sabo hadn’t deluded himself into thinking she was talking to him even for a second. “Being a king is hard work! Wouldn’t you rather be the prince? With all the privilege, but none of the responsibility-”

Sabo might not have had any classes in half a decade, but even then he was pretty sure that’s not how royal families were meant to work.

And then the rest of that sentence registered properly.

“Pardon?” Stumbled out of his lips.

“Figure he wouldn’t be paying attention,” Outlook muttered under his breath. “You better not embarrass us like that during the meeting with the Celestial Dragon!”

Perhaps the food had the unfortunate side-effect of causing auditory hallucinations, because there was no way there was a Celestial Dragon in Goa, and certainly not one who’d be interested in Sabo’s family.

“You were born to the purple, boy.” Didit’s tone was significantly colder, nose pushed up in the air. Now she was talking to him. “And that is the role you will fulfill.”

The dots were connecting into an image Sabo really didn’t like.

“Or what?” He snarled, teeth barred as he channeled his best impression of Ace.

“Or those two rascals you ran around with will pay for it.”

Sabo froze.

His parents hurting him? Regular occurrence, something Sabo couldn’t be bothered to be phased by.

But his parents hurting his brothers…

He forced his shoulders down, projecting confidence he didn’t really feel. “They can handle themselves.”

“Bluejam hasn't had any issues capturing them,” Outlook had turned his focus to the newspaper, as if torturing children was a topic so mundane he had grown tired of it.

They probably escaped, Sabo comforted himself. They were strong, they’d be fine…

“Dealing with pirates now, are you?” He sneered. “Very noble of you.”

Slapping the pages on the table, Outlook didn’t seem to care that the corner of the newspaper was now becoming drenched with the blueberry sauce covering his plate.

“It wouldn’t have been necessary had you not run off!” His face grew purpler with every word, vein throbbing on his forehead. “Filth needs to deal with filth, is what I’ve always said!”

It took a blink of an eye. One moment, Outlook was spewing classicist bullshit.

The next, Sabo had a knife pressed against his neck.

He was certain Outlook was regretting seating him at the heir spot now.

“Do not,” he said slowly, eyes unblinking as he stared into Outlook’s terrified face. “Refer to my brothers as filth. They’re worth a hundred, no, a thousand of you all!”

“We won’t have to refer to them at all if you do what we want you to do,” Didit interjected, though the unaffected facade broke the moment Sabo’s gaze landed on her. “Follow the plan, and we’ll forget those… boys ever existed.”

Sabo considered it for a second.

He was unlikely to broker a better deal—not with his petty idiotic parents—and having them forget about Ace and Luffy would make it all that much easier to escape at some point.

But he wouldn’t be merely a pretty puppet for them to order around.

Twirling the knife between his fingers, he stabbed it deep into the surface of the table.

“Very well,” he leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms. “Tell me the plan. Spare no detail.”

Between one bleak day and another, the small handheld bell had made its way back onto Sabo’s nightstand.

There was no way he’d ever actually use it. He even snorted the first time he noticed it, thinking what a wasted effort it was to provide one for him.

Well, it seemed the joke was on him.

It was the middle of the night, and yet Sabo could do nothing but stare at the embroidered canopy as sleep continued to evade him.

One would think that it would have been easier to go from sleeping on bare ground to sleeping in bed; And yet, Sabo had once again proved to be an irregularity.

He had grown so used to the warmth of his brothers, to the way Luffy would sprawl all over them… The comforter, as thick as it was, failed to bring him any comfort at all.

The pervasive smell of lavender hardly helped.

It’s been scattered all over the room in his absence, hundreds of packets and bars of soap supposed to ward off the moths. The smell was intense, concentrated, even with the window open as long as possible.

He rang the bell before he could overthink it.

The doors opened a short moment later, a somewhat out-of-breath servant carefully poking her head inside.

They all likely expected Sabo to call on them just as little as he did. The servant must have been stationed by his brother’s doors nearby, rushing over to Sabo’s while expecting some kind of a trap-

“Tea. Something sleep-inducing,” Sabo gritted out, not moving an inch. Then, remembering his manners, “Please.”

The servant inclined her head, closing the doors behind herself.

She didn’t lock them, but Sabo didn’t fool himself into thinking of it as an opportunity. His doors hadn’t been locked in a while, his parents confident that he’d keep himself captive in order to protect his brothers.

They didn’t have to lift a finger, now. Sabo did the work himself, just like when he corrected the stupid plans drawn in preparation of putting Goa Kingdom on the radar of the World Nobles.

If he was to be king, after all, he’d turn it to his advantage. If he couldn’t be there for his brothers, he’d turn the world into a better place for them.

The servant girl entered the room again, struggling to close the doors with her elbow while holding an entire tea service tray.

Sabo would have helped—really, he would—but the servants got nervous whenever he moved too close to an exit for their liking, terrified of what punishment they'd receive if Sabo had managed to escape while on their watch.

So. He didn’t move.

He lay, motionless, on the bed, watching the girl putter around the small table. There wasn’t much point in all that ceremony when it was just him, but he had long since stopped bothering to point that out.

The girl took the empty tray under her arm, making for the doors. Sabo obligingly waited until she left the room to approach the table, hardly wishing to stress the poor thing more.

She never left, though.

Pausing halfway through, she fiddled with the frills of her skirt before turning to face him.

Sabo leaned up on his elbows. “Yes?”

In response, the girl produced a small brown-tinted glass bottle from one of her pockets.

Sabo raised an eyebrow, watching as she moved to place it beside the tea set. Poison? He didn’t think any of the servants would be so bold…

“It’s dexamyl,” the girl offered, the words tickling at Sabo’s brain in their familiarity. “Supposed to have calming effects. Mistress wanted us to give this to the Young Master as often as possible, but… Young Master has a reputation.”

“I see,” Sabo smirked. “Thank you.”

The servant seemed relieved to scuttle out of the room, softly closing the doors behind herself.

Sabo gave it a second before tossing himself off the bed, approaching the small table and taking the bottle in hand. He shook a couple pills out, inspecting them closely. Heart-shaped, pale lavender, though their smell left a lot to be desired.

Well, if someone did want him dead, it’d at the very least inconvenience his parents.

Swallowing the pills, he washed them down with the lavender tea—his mouth already burned from years of eating meat straight off the fire—and returned back to bed.

When the nobles wanted something done, they hardly tolerated having to wait. Among all the virtues they lacked, patience was the most glaring absence.

As such, Sabo hadn’t been surprised to find that, after the long years of negotiating with, bribing and ass-kissing the Celestial Dragons, the actual coronation was scheduled to happen barely a week after the final agreement was signed.

If Sabo had been planning to escape, the chaos of preparations would have been his best chance. With how little he saw his minders, Sabo could have had days of headstart. He could have prepared a boat, loaded it up with supplies, take his brothers-

It was all a fool’s dream, of course.

Who was to say if Sabo even had brothers anymore? It’s been years since he last saw them—four years, three months, twelve days, eighteen hours, he couldn’t say it in any greater degree of exactness—and he knew how fast life moved on in the jungle.

They likely cursed his name once they escaped from Bluejam. Threw away any of his belongings, shattered his sake cup, scrubbed the memory of him from their minds-

Sabo collected himself, straightening his back as the palanquin he had been ushered into began to move.

It was hardly the most comfortable mode of transport. The streamer curtains did little to protect him from the chill air of early spring, dancing in the breeze and rustling against each other.

If Sabo closed his eyes, if he ignored the weight of the ceremonial cape crushing his shoulders… He could just about imagine sitting underneath a weeping willow, its long branches swishing around him, sounding like...

Like sand in an hourglass.

Falling all around Sabo—Sabo in the outfit chosen by his parents, sitting on a mountain of pillows painstakingly embroidered just for the purpose of this single coronation—slowly drowning him, suffocating him with the responsibilities and priviledges he never wanted, covering him entirely as he ran out of time-

Something hit his shoulder, jarring Sabo out of his thoughts.

There were spectators lining the streets, of course, minor nobles who had squabbled over the privilege of standing as close to the cathedral as possible. They’ve been tossing confetti and flowers at the palanquin, but Sabo hadn’t expected anything heavier than that-

His heart stopped when he had finally fished the object out from where it fell between the pillows.

A sake cup.

One of the three Ace, Luffy and Sabo used to become brothers- Or, well. Ace and Luffy did, he supposed. The message was quite clear and succinct-

And then elaborated upon with a second missile hitting Sabo right above his ear.

His shoulders jerked; The only physical reaction he had allowed himself. He could hardly go around yelling and flailing while surrounded by observers.

A second sake cup.

And, upon closer inspection: neither of them were the one he used.

When Sabo finally thought to look around—not at the crowds, as Ace would never take Luffy into the mouth of such danger, but at the rooftops—the palanquin had gone too far to spot anything.

It was enough, though, just to know that his brothers had not yet forsaken him.

Sabo hardly thought of anything else for the remainder of the ride. When the time came to exit the palanquin, he had fumbled with the cups, stacking them one upon the other and holding them close, letting his cape obscure them from sight.

It was the first token of his brothers he had seen in years; He wasn’t about to let it out of his sight anytime soon.

Most of the noise cut off with the cathedral doors slamming shut behind him. The interior was shrouded in silence. Or, rather, it aspired to be; It couldn’t manage such due to the sheer numbers of people crowded in the pews.

As much as they might try to be, for the sake of the ceremony, nobles were ill-suited to being quiet.

Oh, they tried, Sabo would give them as much. But they couldn’t stop themselves from whispering meaningless asides to their companions every so often, tittering with excitement at their upcoming ascension.

It was one thing, after all, to be the noble of an island, and an entirely different thing to be the noble of a kingdom. Sabo’s coronation would elevate them all further above the masses.

He was led straight to the center of the cathedral, and offered two objects resting upon purple pillows: an orb and a scepter.

The priest began his speech, expecting Sabo to simply pick up the objects and be done with it. Unfortunately for him, and the rest of the nobles, Sabo was already holding something he considered far more precious than the gemstone-encrusted items.

He reached for the orb, first. It was made from wood as opposed to the more traditional precious metal, simply by the virtue of it being the amaranth wood. Or, as it was more commonly known: Purpleheart.

It had to be imported from a Grand Line island for the occasion, but Sabo hardly cared about that. The purple hue of the wood hardly matched the old sake cups, but that mattered little, as well.

All that mattered was that both were made of wood and, as such, would not be seemingly out of place if Sabo staked them together.

Grasping the scepter in his other hand took no time at all and, soon enough, Sabo was turning to face the crowds.

The priest was still droning on.

“...bringing forth a purple patch for Goa…”

And purple it certainly was. Ever since that first visiting Celestial Dragon vaguely complimented Sabo’s tophat—he doubted it had been a sincere compliment, seeing as Celestial Dragons weren’t known for their constraint when it came to taking the things they wanted—his mother had pivoted hard into making the color as central to Goa as possible.

It had even bled into Sabo’s own title-to-be, the Purple Emperor, and it certainly influenced the choices the nobles made while getting dressed for the ceremony.

Looking through the rows and rows of people dripping in opulence, those sad excuses of human beings so desperate to claw their own little bit of royal purpura… It made Sabo feel sick.

Their efforts were entirely misplaced. Sabo had already had a taste of heaven, held the last sliver of it in his hand right at that very moment; No amount of money could bring happiness when his happiest years were spent being berryless.

The priest, knowing he would not hold the crowd’s attention without holding the crown hostage, wisely kept the crowning until the very last moment.

It was, of course, based around Sabo’s new—he’d always call it the new hat, it’d never be truly his, not without the experiences his blue one had been a part of—tophat.

If nobles lacked patience, restraint was something they had never even heard of.

There was a classic band of gold cinching the bottom of the hat, covering the exact spot where Sabo had placed his goggles on his own tophat. The centerpiece was amethyst, a flawless cut that Sabo had no doubt consumed human lives in order to obtain a piece of such size and clarity.

And each triangular peak out of the seven—for the four Blues, Paradise, New World and Marie Geoise—was topped with a small piece of aquamarine, Sabo’s birthstone. While some might have considered it a weird choice—a cheap choice—they were soon disabused of the notion.

Aquamarine, after all, didn’t naturally come in purple. The deep blue, almost violet droplets of the precious stone were an advance gift from one of the Grand Line kingdoms, showing off their wealth by providing such a rare treat.

The color was not dissimilar from a beetle Luffy had picked up once, his pet for as long as the boy had managed to keep track of it.

Privately, Sabo thought he would have worn beetles around his head with far more pride, if they had been placed there by his baby brother.

Finally, with his short cape being replaced by one that dragged behind him, the ceremony ended.

He couldn’t return to the manor—the Royal Palace, now—in the palanquin, though. It wouldn’t be fitting of a newly crowned king to hide from his subjects.

Instead, Sabo was made to scale some steps placed before a horse—a simple white one, seeing as mother was unable to find a purple one, and the dying attempts hadn’t produced anything viable—the cape draping all over the horse’s curple.

Over the cheering of the crowd, Sabo could have sworn he heard the laughter of his brothers. Sweeping the roofs, even as the horse stuttered into motion, it didn’t take long to spot them.

And yes, they both seemed to be laughing at him.

He raised the orb in the air—certain the two would notice the cups hidden within his grasp—before bringing it to his mouth.

To everyone else, he’d appear to be kissing the orb, but the gesture would be clear to those who truly mattered: his brothers.

Ace held up Sabo’s cup in response, pipe in his other hand, a peculiar mirror to Sabo’s own figure.

When he brought the cup to his lips, a part of Sabo—part that lived in suspense for all those years—finally breathed free.

And then laughed, when Luffy immediately tried including himself—as if he could ever be anything but the center of his big brothers’ universe—tugging at Ace’s elbow petulantly.

He didn’t cry, though. He couldn’t ruin his makeup.

But he looked towards his brothers for as long as he was able to, drinking in the sight of them like a parched man staring at a mirage of a lake.

Right there, at his fingertips. And yet unreachable.

Sabo wasn’t as much a participant in the party as he was the main attraction.

He had expected as much, but it was still jarring to have people talking over him or at him more than they talked to him.

Not that he actually wanted to talk with any of the nobles. Perhaps it was a blessing that none of them considered him anything more than a way to further their own standings.

There was nothing he wanted more than for this party to end, allowing him to retreat back to his room, to finally take off the ceremonial clothes, to discard the crown, to hold the sake cups close as he drifted off to sleep…

But no. As long as there was food on the tables, the feast would go on.

Sabo was sick of purple foods.

Managing to extract himself from the crowds with enough lies and smiles that promised violence if his words were not heeded, Sabo retreated to the balcony. It was hardly a retreat, seeing as it was just as open to the crowds, but there were less people willing to come outside at this time of the year.

The balcony itself was someplace Sabo had not visited before. It was built in preparation for the coronation, a decision which he still didn’t understand, seeing as it would be overlooking the-

He came to a stop at the railing, staring at the sight before him.

Where once the area was covered in heaps of trash, housing the unwanted populace of the kingdom, it was now filled with a sprawling sea of leaves, tinted purple in the light of the setting sun.

Of course, he knew the ube—because it had to be it, the purple yam had become a staple in their meals—had to have been grown somewhere. He just… Wasn’t ever told where. It wasn’t his responsibility to know.

Now, he couldn’t help but wonder if his brothers ever tried eating it.

“...took so long to grow enough for our needs…” His mother’s proud voice drifted by. “...had to burn through the trash first…”

If Sabo had not seen his brothers’ untouched selves earlier in the day, if he wasn’t holding the physical proof of them being alive, nothing would have stopped him from killing all the nobles and then himself.

They’ve gathered all in one place for him, afterall, and they’ve already shown they consider fire to be the correct way for removing what they considered unsightly-

But no. His brothers were fine, and he had a longer game to play.

A game which required him to not blow up at the next person who’d try talking to him.

The balcony did not have stairs leading down to the garden—a grave oversight—but Sabo hardly let that stop him. He’d climbed up and down worse things than the manor’s decorated facade.

His mother noticed, judging by the slightly shrill quality her voice had taken on, but she did not direct attention towards him . Worried about his image, he’d wager. What would people think if they saw him climbing the house like a plebian?

Sabo did not give a single shit.

He cared just as much about the state of his cape. It would never be worn beyond today; What should it matter if the embroidery painstakingly stitched for the past few months unraveled under the stress? What did it matter if the moisture sucked out the dye out of the fabric?

He sat down on the ground once far enough from the party, right at the edge of where the lights from the windows spread through the lawn. The music was still audible, a whisper of a sound, but that was acceptable.

The solace would not be long-lasting; Sooner or later, Sabo would need to return to the party, to the socialites who couldn’t take their eyes off of his gaudy crown.

But for now, there was just him and the snow underneath him.

And the flowers.

They hadn’t been there in the morning, still hidden below the snow, but sometime over the course of the day, the strongest of the flowers had pierced through.

Some yellow, bringing to mind Luffy’s straw hat. Some red, reminding him of Ace’s chosen color.

And some, as much as Sabo hated to see it, purple.

Even out here he couldn’t escape his mother’s obsession.

He plucked the purple flower, punishing it for its mere existence, for the unluckiness of its genes, before it reminded him too much of Ace’s hatred of his own blood.

Not the flower’s fault it’s purple, Sabo thought, petting its petals gently, the stamen peeking through the gaps.

It was yellow. It was so orange it bordered on red.

Even if his outside was purple, he was still loyal to his brothers.

And, like the flower, Sabo would eventually grow past the snow of responsibilities the nobles kept heaping upon him.

Spring was yet to come, but it would arrive, and Sabo would get to be happy again.

The Revelry was just an opportunity to confirm whether any of the nobles shared Sabo’s views at best, and a chore he couldn’t avoid at worst. The only enjoyable part of which was a conversation with Princess Nefertari Vivi of Alabasta, Princess Shirahoshi of Fishman Island and lady-in-waiting Rebecca of Dressrossa, the topic of which being something he held much interest in: the adventures of one Monkey D Luffy.

As much as he would have liked to spend the entire Reverie learning about his baby brother’s mischief, he did have meetings to attend. Thankfully, Marie Geoise was hardly short on creme de violette to get him through listening to all those fools, speaking one after the other just to get to hear themselves speak.

And, as he found out while wandering the halls, indoors meadows filled with butterflies and other insects.

Luffy would have loved to see it.

“This garden is considered off-limits,” an icy voice interrupted his thoughts, and Sabo couldn’t help but straighten his back, scrambling to his feet.

“My apologies,” he offered with a slight incline of his head. “I was not aware of that.”

The… being—for he couldn’t really call them a human—watched him with more interest than Sabo thought was warranted.

“Purple Emperor Sabo,” they said eventually, curious more than mad.

As happy as Sabo was about seemingly getting off scot-free by the virtue of being himself… “You have me at a disadvantage.”

“You may call me Imu,” the being approached, coming to a stop beside Sabo. Looking not at him but past him, at the butterflies Sabo rapidly realized must have been his. “You’re an interesting youngling, Sabo. A promising one.”

“Thank you.”

“Certainly one capable of carrying your kingdom into a new era. The Pangea throne, after all, won’t always be empty,” Imu continued casually, as if it wasn’t blasphemy to even think about filling that throne. It was meant to be empty, it was meant to show equality amongst the members of the World Government- “Ah, here’s the reason for my initial interest in you. One of the oldest pieces in my collection, apatura iris; Also known as the purple emperor. It’s quite interesting, you see-”

Letting Imu monologue about the butterfly, Sabo bit his tongue, tasting blood in his mouth as he tried not to laugh.

The butterfly's wings were blue.

To have an insect bearing his title carry the exact shade of his blue, the shade he himself wasn’t allowed to wear for a decade now… Was it not a sign from heaven itself?

Was it not a sign to stop preparing and-

…was the alarm echoing through the corridors not an instant agreement?

Imu’s attention was quite firmly redirected. He was already rushing towards the exit when he remembered about Sabo.

“You might wish to return back to your entourage,” he ordered, and disappeared before Sabo could agree.

Quite fortunate, seeing how Sabo had no intention of doing so.

He gave it a couple seconds—as long as he could bear to wait, jotting down the details of the meeting, as scarce as they were, in the notebook he carried—before making for the exit, running down the opposite direction than the one he saw Imu take.

Taking the turns at random, Sabo was quite aware of how unlikely it was to find the intruders, how unlikely it was for them to be who he needed.

But he was willing to take that chance when he knew fate had to be on his side.

Running into a girl he did not recognize from neither the talks nor the mingling, he spared a quick thanks to whichever deity had his back today.

The girl cursed, barely managing to catch her beret—the goggles made Sabo miss his tophat, even the crown one he had left back at his room—and took up a stance Sabo had learned about quite recently.

“You know fishman karate?” He blurted out, his surprise taking precedence over half-formed ideas of subtle ways to find out her allegiance.

The girl hesitated, squinting at him. “You don’t sound disgusted at that.”

“I suppose that is a fair standard to hold nobles to.”

“Nobles, as if you’re not one?” Oh, confusing her was quite amusing. “You’re not a slave, though. A servant to one of the visiting royals?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Sabo inclined his head, offering his hand. “My name is Sabo. One day, I’m going to make sure everyone in the world is free.”

The girl grinned, shaking his hand vigorously. “Koala. Revolutionary Army. Seems like we have a common goal, then.”

The noises of the guards running through the corridors approached.

“Here,” Sabo flipped through the pages of his notebook, ripping out the ones pertaining to what he saw of Imu. “Perhaps this could be of use to you. And, when you’re back… You might wanna send someone over to the Goa Kingdom.”

He’d spent long enough preparing, cocooned in the safety of the noble pretense.

Now, it was time for him to spread his wings and act.