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Luffy sits up in a field of grass, freshly cut by the sharp smell, poking against his skin. The sky's bright and cloudless, the sun a familiar warmth. Birds are singing, there's laughter. It's like he's a kid again. This can't be right, he doesn't remember laying down in a field or stopping at a new island. He was with his crew on the Sunny.
"Sabo!" A little boy shouted. Luffy turned right and someone rushed by his left. "Wait up!"
He spun around, and the kid was still shouting after Sabo, mop of dark hair retreating into the distance towards Windmill Village. Sabo's top hat was barely visible as he darted around a builidng's corner.
"Ace?" Luffy climbed to his feet, running as hard as he could. His brother got closer but didnt' hear him. "Ace!"
He reached out, grasping for the back of his shirt, then tripped and fell into endless shadow. He wasn't falling but he couldn't bring himself to stand either, just stuck lingering in nothingness.
"Ace! Sabo!"
"Monkey D. Luffy," A voice came from everywhere, it resonated like it was in his own head. "What is it you want?"
He blinked and looked around, but there was nobody. "I'm going to be King of the—"
"No. Right now. Where do you want to be?"
"What are you asking me? I mean, this place isn't exactly nice for a chat. Kinda empty. And cold." He shuddered and pulled his black coat tighter around his body. "Okay, really cold."
"Here," The voice said, and an armchair and fireplace materialized in the void. "I can provide you with nothing else until you make your Choice."
That last word echoed, seeped into Luffy's body as he scrambled into the chair. "What choice?"
"Where do you want to be? Aboard the Thousand Sunny, your crew preparing for the next adventure…"
A breeze tore through Luffy and he opened his eyes to see a window floating in the air, on the other side was his crew. Usopp had tripped down the stairs, Chopper was helping fix his bleeding nose. Nami was sketching another of her maps, Franky, Robin, and Brook chatting quietly up in the garden. Zoro was napping, slumped against the mast, and Sanji was passing sandwiches to everyone.
"Or…"
The view of the Sunny burned away and Luffy tried to pry the window open, but it didn't budge. A laugh was muffled on the other side of the glass and he looked up from the stuck latch.
Two men stood at the bow of a ship, leaning over the edge and staring at the water. Sabo said something that made Ace laugh, and Luffy pressed his hand against the glass.
"I thought Ace and Sabo were dead."
"They are," The voice said. "But they aren't."
"That makes no sense! What do you mean?!"
"In this moment, Monkey D. Luffy, your brothers are both alive and dead at the same time. With my power they are alive only in that window. But if you make a Choice, they will be alive in the real world."
"Ace!" He punched the window. The glass didn't even splinter. "Ace! Sabo!"
"Your Choice, no matter which it is, will not affect your goal or your dream. The One Piece… being King… it will not change no matter what Choice you make."
"What are you talking about?!"
"Which world is real, Luffy?" The voice asked. "Which do you want to live in?"
"I want my friends…" He stated. "But Ace…"
"Should you choose your friends, this will all be a bad dream. The Choice, me, this void, you will forget all in time. But should you choose your brothers, it will be as if you all set out to sea together. You never lost Sabo. Ace never died."
The window shifted to the day Luffy left home on his seventeenth birthday. He was on his small boat, Ace and Sabo arguing over how to adjust the sails.
"Luffy, they've been with you the whole time. Don't you remember? Ace helped you win the fight on Skypiea."
"No!" He grabbed his head. Something was screwing with it. More than the words, this… it felt unnatural. "It was Nami and Sanji! You—you have a Devil Fruit!"
"Nami? Sanji? Who are those people?"
"My friends! My crew!"
"Don't you remember when Sabo helped you save Ace two years ago?"
"Stop it! That's not what—" Luffy forced his eyes open, the scar will ground him. As much as he hates it, it's a reminder of what happened and this Devil Fruit is twisting his mind and—
The scar on his chest is gone.
Did he ever have a scar on his chest?
Did Ace… really die?
But the blood… He doesn't remember it well, but he knows there was blood. The Vivre Card burned away. Was it a bad dream?
He's never talked about it with the crew. The Straw Hats.
"What are their names, Luffy?"
"Shut up!"
"Make your Choice. Did Ace die, or did you have a crew?"
His breaths are coming too fast, he grips his hat and pulls it low over his head and falls back into the armchair. His mind is at war with itself because of this Devil Fruit. It's some sort of test. He needs to choose the right answer or something awful will happen to the people he cares about.
The question is, will it be Ace or the Straw Hats?
His brother's face is fading from his mind. His friends' names are coming up blank.
"Luffy! The voice is pounding at his skull. "Make your Choice!"
"Stop messing with my head!"
"Ten."
"No!"
"Nine."
"I want you to leave me alone!"
"I will when you Decide. Seven."
Trying to cover his ears just made the voice louder.
"Six."
"How do I know which one is the real world?"
"Both worlds are real. In this instance, I have created them both, and I can destroy them both. But I will grant you the mercy of the Choice-Choice Fruit. Which world will you live in?"
"I—"
"Three."
"I want—"
"Two."
His eyes burst open and he's in his hammock, sitting up in a cold sweat. Something is deeply wrong, but he can't place what. The nightmare is already fading, and the door to the cabin opens.
"Hey, I heard screaming."
"It was nothing."
"It didn't sound like nothing."
His mind knew another life, a dream that lasted years and years. It's fading fast, like his dreams often do, but he can't help but feel there was something there.
"Luffy?"
"You ever get bad but weird dreams?"
A sigh. "All the time."
"It was a world where things were different. Like… way different."
"Oh yeah? Tell me about it."
Luffy absently grabs the fabric of his shirt. He thinks there was pain there once. Ace climbs into the hammock beside him, and Luffy leans on his shoulder. "You were dead. Sabo too."
Ace wrapped an arm tight around his shoulder, rubbing his arm with an always-warm hand. "Doesn't sound fun at all."
"I told you it was a bad dream!"
"Is that all there was?"
Luffy closes his eyes, but the dream's all but gone. There's a crushing lonliness that having Ace next to him and Sabo out on deck navigating helps.
"No. It was just that."