An Eternal Bond

Memories of Ace

Me and Luffy looked at each other. "We remind you..." "Of Ace?"

"You're Y/N, right?" I could imagine their grin behind that mask as if they were meeting a friend after a long time. "He spoke about you so vividly, I imagined you as a goddess."

I felt my face get warm and I put my hands over my face. "I'm sure you're just exaggerating."

"No, I'm not! He would tell me about how your eyes lit up when you get excited, and how your smile was brighter than the very flames he produced, and how you would get excited when it was windy or raining, and how you would hum to him at night–"

"Alright, alright, alright!" I jabbed my palms into my eyeballs and turned away from Yamato.

This boy... even in death, he's got blood rushing to my cheeks like I'm being held upside down.

Trust was something fragile. Something that could be broken with a single wrong move, as if it were a bridge made of glass. It could be gained just as easily as it can be broken, if you're not careful.

That's a lesson that was engraved in my brain. And it wouldn't get out.

But Ace was either the key or the lock for me.

"I want to succeed Kozuki Oden. I want to be able to live as he did, and while he was alive, he was against Kaido. Against my father." She pressed her fist against her chest, looking down. "And he had a reason. But, I want to open up Wano. Like what he told his successors just before his death. So, please, let me fight alongside you."

The way she said it so sincerely, while it would normally shake someone to trust, I was still hesitant. That was until I remembered something. Something I don't quite remember doing.

"Hey... did we ever have drinks together?"

She gave me a confused glance. "No...? I wasn't even entirely sure of your appearance before today."

"Hah?" Luffy tilted his head. "I didn't think you would be allowed to drink from how protective your crew was. Did you do it secretly?"

"No, sorry. I just... I'm not sure." I thought for a few seconds. "Alright. I'll trust you. We need all the help we can get." Especially since we're going to fight a freaking dragon. "But, I don't think those bracelets are going to be of any use."

Luffy and I looked at each other. "I'll do it." He walked past me and held the bracelets between his fingers.

I turned the area around my heart to diamond. "Be careful." I bit my thumbnail as I watched Armament Haki encased his arm and...

"Back up!" I stood in front of Luffy as the bracelets exploded, sending us flying out the now open wall. "YOUR DAD WAS PLANNING ON ACTUALLY EXPLODING YOU?!!"

I landed on the ground with Luffy still in my arms. "Sorry, you've been carried a lot today." I put him down and scanned the area.

It seemed like a courtyard, soldiers scattered across the area with their swords armed and ready.

And said soldiers were all looking at us.

Luffy put his arm in front of me. "Some of your old crew is here, right? Otherwise, I don't think you'd be here at all. Where are they?"

"Well, Izo's with the Akazaya Samurai. Marco went to deal with the Big Mom pirates back at the borders. Why?"

His expression had this unfamiliar seriousness to it, his eyes staring down the Beast Pirates looking at us. "Alright. There's Momonosuke, over there." I looked to where he was pointing and saw that there was a little boy right next to Kaido and one of his subordinates. "Wait, the kid?"

"Yeah. Do you think you could get him over here?"

"Using Tra-chan's Devil Fruit? Probably. But isn't putting him right in the middle of the battlefield a terrible idea?" Luffy hummed. "Yeah, you're right."

"That didn't cross your mind at all?!"

I looked around, all the soldiers still dumbfounded by our explosive entrance. "Alright, I'll try to-" "Wait." Luffy put his arm in front of me. "This isn't a war that'll start on my call this time."

I tilted my head. "What do you mean?"

"This war isn't mine."

Alright, so this is a short chapter... after like, three weeks and I'm very sorry (o′┏▽┓｀o) I didn't expect to get this far in the story since it was supposed to end right before Wano started, but I ended up really wanting to write Wano before ending it. So I had to write out plans for the next chapters until the story ends, so I needed to take a while off of this story to write it all out. Chapters will be more frequent in the near future, I promise!