Chương 27: Flash-forward
Luffy was a four feet tall seven-year-old boy with black shaggy hair, round black eyes, and a cheerful smile. He wore his trademark straw hat, short blue trousers with cuffs, and a sleeveless red vest. He has a scar with two stitches underneath his left eye. He was carrying a metal pipe.
Bolt felt Luffy's actions were too similar to Leo's. He felt as if he was looking at a smaller version of him.
When those three were still far from them, Leo noticed them approaching with his senses. Even though Leo knew that they were going to encounter this trio, still he felt it was too sudden, he wasn't ready at all.
Leo looked at Luffy who was happily stuffing himself. He finally met the character he idolized the most. Luffy was the one who made him cry and laugh for so many years, he almost touched every single of his emotions. Finally, he was in front of him, but Leo didn't know what to say to him, he felt nervous, his mind completely frozen. Unknowingly he handed the meat in his hand to Luffy.
"Thank you!" Luffy thanked while spraying bits of the meat in Leo's direction.
Some bits fell on Leo's face. "Now this is Luffy," he thought inwardly as wiped the bits from his face, and then started laughing. This made Leo's nervousness vanish, he felt relaxed.
Bolt initially thought Leo was going to fight with this boy for eating the crocodile meat. But instead, he saw something impossible that shocked him to his core. "What just happened?" He rubbed his eyes. "Am I seeing things?" Once the sun might rise from the west, but Leo offering the meat he was going to eat, that was just impossible. But he witnessed that impossible thing.
Just then Ace and Sabo arrived, "Luffy!" they yelled while frowning. They thought how he could just start eating with some strangers.
They were surprised seeing these two boys because for the first time they were seeing someone around their age in the forest. From their height and not so mature face they could guess that they weren't much older than them.
Sabo, Ace, and Bolt were of the same age, and Leo was eight years old. Because of their height, Sabo and Ace got the wrong idea that they were older than them.
Leo and Bolt looked at them.
Ace was a four and a half feet tall ten-year-old boy with curly black hair. He wore a t-shirt with two-kanji phrases in front, knee-length shorts, a black elbow guard on his left arm, and dark brown flat slipper-like shoes. His expression looked very serious as if he was angry at the world. He was carrying a metal pipe in his hand.
Sabo was a four and a half feet tall ten-year-old boy. He had round eyes, a missing tooth, and short curly blond hair. He wore a large black top hat with a pair of blue goggles wrapped around it, a blue jacket with sleeves rolled up, a cravat and a pair of light blue cyan shorts held up by a belt with an elaborate flower-design buckle. He was carrying a metal pipe in his hand.
When Leo saw Ace he remembered the scene of his death. In which Luffy was hugging wounded Ace, and yelling at the doctor because he said he wouldn't be able to save Ace.
"What do you mean by that? What are you saying?! Do something! Hey…Hey! You are a doctor, aren't you? Then how could you say that you can't save him," Luffy yelled angrily at the doctor. He clearly understood what the doctor was trying to say, and he also knew that no one would be able to save Ace, as he had seen how badly Ace got hurt by Akainu. But he didn't want to believe it, he was looking for hope, maybe somehow Ace would be saved.
"It's no use Luffy. I can feel that my life is ending," Ace said with difficulty. He was in tremendous pain, everything inside of him was burned, if it was someone else he would have died already. But Ace held onto his consciousness with pure willpower. He can't let himself die until he conveyed his final words.
"That's not true. No way. You promised that you'd never die. Ace!!" Luffy yelled in grief. He still wanted to believe that his brother could be saved.
Ace knew how it feels to lose someone, so when he heard Luffy's words his heart broke into pieces imagining how much Luffy was scared of losing him. Luffy already lost his one brother, now he was going also going to leave him. He didn't want Luffy to go through that suffering again. But he couldn't do anything about this, he apologized to Luffy inwardly for not being a good big brother.
He could die at any moment so he decided to end everything as soon as possible.
"Did I even deserve to be born?" Ace said as he recalled how everyone hoped for Roger's son to die in the most excruciating and humiliating way. "No one wanted me to be born. I probably wouldn't even have a will to live if it weren't for Sabo and a crybaby brother like you."
Luffy listened to Ace's words with clenched teeth, doing his utmost to stop himself from crying.
"There is one thing that wants me to stay. That is my desire to see you fulfill your dream."
"Then don't die. Don't say you are going to die. Live to see me achieve my dream," Luffy said desperately in a crying voice. He hoped for a miracle that could keep Ace alive.
Ace continued. "But I'm sure that you can do it! Because you are my brother!" He remembered the day when they promised each other to live without any regrets. "Like we promised that day, I have no regrets in my life."
"That's a lie! Don't lie to me!" Luffy thought Ace still did not achieve his dream of becoming a great pirate whose name will be known throughout the world, to be the pirate with the most fame. Ace said to him that this was going to be the proof of his life.
"I'm not lying. Something tells me that what I truly wanted was not fame. What I wanted was the answer to the question: Did I deserve to be born?"
Ace finally felt he found the answer to that question after seeing how everyone put their lives on the line to save him. He remembered Luffy's and Pops' words.
"I'm your brother! You can say whatever you want! I'm going to save you even if it means death!"
"Just tell me one thing, Ace. Are you happy to have me as your father?"
Tears rolled down Ace's cheeks. He could feel only a little bit of strength left in him, he only had a few more moments to live. Ace took a few pained breathes with difficulty. "I can't raise my voice to let everybody hear me anymore. Could you tell them what I am about to say now?"
Luffy continued to listen to him with suffocating grief, he knew these were going to be Ace's last words.
"Pops! Everybody! And you Luffy. Thank you for loving someone worthless like me, who carries the blood of a demon in his veins. Thank you for loving me up to today," Ace said as his voice became weaker and weaker, the last tears flooded his eyes. He gathered the last bit of his energy and said, "Thank you!"
After this, there was only silence.
Leo came back to the present. He looked at Luffy and Sabo, he remembered how devastated they felt at Ace's death. He wanted to hug three of them and cry his heart out. Leo tried hard to control his emotions, but he couldn't. Silent tears streamed down his cheeks.
Leo's expression made Ace and Sabo feel unexplainable sadness, they felt as if he was crying for them. They looked at each other with a puzzled expressions.
"What's wrong with him?" Sabo asked.
Ace shrugged. "How would I know?"
"What's wrong with you? Why are you suddenly crying?" Bolt asked with a puzzled expression.
Seeing everyone (except Luffy who was busy eating) looking at him, Leo quickly gathered his emotions as he wiped his tears.
He smacked on the back of Bolt's head. "What do you mean by crying? It's just something got into my eyes."
Bolt rubbed his head feeling wronged. "You were clearly crying," he murmured inwardly.
Leo stood up, then walked to Ace. "I am Leo," he said as he held out his hand for him to shake.
Ace completely ignored Leo and walked towards Luffy.
Leo could hear the stifled laughter of Bolt coming from behind. His face turned red in embarrassment. He curled his fingers and took his hand back. "Shit! How could I forget that right now Ace is in a phase where he doesn't trust people or get close to them easily? Even Luffy took months and a lot of effort to become friends with him, he almost lost his life in the process. What was I even thinking?"
"Hi." Sabo raised his hand with a little apologetic smile. "Don't mind him, he is always like that."
Ace walking towards Luffy turned back at Sabo's words and yelled angrily. "What do you mean by I am always like that?"
"See." Sabo pointed at Ace. "I told you. So don't mind him, he is just acting as usual."
Ace clenched his teeth. "Hmph. I will see you later," he muttered to himself as approached Luffy.
"It's okay. I don't mind," Leo said with a still embarrassed face.
"We have never seen you, two," Sabo said with an inquiring tone.
"Oh. We aren't from this island. We just arrived yesterday," Leo explained.
"They came from another island!" The same thought came to Sabo and Ace. They were surprised and a little envious at the same time. Surprised because these two boys weren't much older than them but they were already journeying on the sea. Their goal was to go out to the sea one day, seeing someone achieving that they felt envious.
"You left your island to be pirates, right?" Sabo asked. He thought these two might be in a similar situation as theirs because generally, someone with a happy family wouldn't go out to the sea.
"Hmmm. You can say that." Leo thought for a moment. "To be more specific, we came to this island to be a pirate."
Ace and Sabo had puzzled expressions at this. "What does being a pirate has anything to do with their island?" As for Luffy, he didn't care because he was busy stuffing himself.
"We heard Bluejam pirates are staying somewhere around Gray Terminal, so we came here to join them," Leo explained.
"What?" Ace standing beside Luffy, and Sabo said simultaneously. Their expression turned a little defensive and hostile.
"You aren't from here so you don't know how bad Bluejam pirates are. They rob and kill blindly, they don't have any bottom line, and I heard some of them even enjoy skinning people alive. The Bluejam pirates are pure evil. So take my advice, don't even think of joining them." Sabo had a good impression of these two so he warned them sincerely.
Leo had a nonchalant expression even after what he heard. "It doesn't matter. We will first see how it feels there, if we don't like we will leave them and join some other pirate group," Leo said casually.
Bolt was standing beside Leo, his expression looked as if he agreed with what Leo said.
Ace and Sabo frowned at this, their expression became even more hostile.
"How could you say that it doesn't matter? It seems my judgment was wrong. I thought you two were of the good kind, but you are just as those scums of Bluejam pirates," Sabo said angrily. He shouldn't have cared if these two joined or not. They were just strangers, he couldn't understand why he was getting angry at them.
Leo and Bolt just smiled at Sabo's outburst.
Ace was of the same thought as Sabo. He also thought of their attitude towards being pirates. "How could he take being a pirate so lightly? How could he casually say that he would change the pirate group if he didn't like it?" Being a pirate was his dream. It was something sacred to him. So seeing someone taking it so lightly he didn't like it.
"Ace! Let's go. We will hunt somewhere else," Sabo said. He wanted to get away from these two as soon as possible, or else he might beat them.
"Okay." Ace nodded. "Luffy, let's go."
"What? I want to eat more," Luffy said with a mouth full of meat.
Ace knew he wouldn't listen to him, so he grabbed his collar and dragged him away.
"Ace! Stop. Stop. I am still not full." Luffy struggled.
"When we catch something you can eat all you want," Ace said.
"Really?"
"Yes."
"Okay then." Luffy stood up and started walking with them. "Where are we going? Didn't we decide to hunt crocodiles?"
"We will catch something else," Sabo said with a serious expression.
"Okay," Luffy said with a wide smile. It didn't matter much to him as other animals' meat also tasted great. With a watering mouth, he began imagining what they might catch.
Before they would be out of their sight, Luffy turned back. "Thank you for the meat," he yelled as he waved at Leo and Bolt.
Leo waved back at him with a smile. Bolt just smiled at him.
Luffy wanted to say something more, but he couldn't. "You stupid!" He got punched on the head by Sabo and Ace.
"What was that for?" Luffy yelled at them, feeling wronged.
"Just keep quiet!" Sabo and Ace dragged him away.
Sabo and Ace's mood was a little depressed.
Even Ace, who had trust issues, who kept almost everyone at distance, assumed them to be of the good kind. Of course, becoming a friend with them didn't even come to his mind, but still, he had a good impression of them. But after seeing their true colors, he felt betrayed. Not by them, but by his judgment. His assumption of the world became even more firm.
Leo kept looking at their backs until they vanished into the trees. A regretful sigh left his mouth. He hadn't wanted to part them with such a bad impression, but he thought it would be better to tell them earlier than they seeing them with Bluejam pirates. After all, joining the Bluejam pirates was in his plan.
"It seems they hate those Bluejam pirates," Bolt said.
"They certainly do."
"That boy with a straw hat is truly a little version of you." Bolt said smilingly. "He was so busy eating that he didn't hear a thing you said to them, or else he wouldn't have thanked us for the meat."
"Even if he heard he would've still thanked us," Leo said smilingly. That's how Luffy was.
Bolt was puzzled at this, but seeing Leo wasn't going to explain further, he did not ask.
After this, they finished the remaining crocodile meat and headed in the direction of Gray Terminal.
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