•Black Hat•

•18•

The days went by until one morning everyone's fear came true. Luffy woke up. His screams from inside the submarine could be heard all over Amazon Lilly. He destroyed it as he emerged from his golden like walls and landed in front of us yelling:

"WHERE IS ACE?!"

Law and his crew tried to immobilize him and Law was trying to convince him to stay still because if his wounds reopened he would most certainly die. However Luffy easily pushed them away and disappeared inside the forest.

"Jinbe!" I said as I was ready to run behind him.

"I know! You stay here!" He ordered moving me aside and then running behind Luffy.

I turned to look at the others and my eye caught Law. He shrugged his shoulders as if he was telling me:

None of my business kiddo, do what your gut tells you.

Without wasting a single moment I followed Jinbe inside the forest. It didn't take me long to find what i was looking for, Luffy's cries as he hit his head on the trees around the glade he had created, drove me to him. He kept shouting at something to disappear, which must have been the memory of his brother dying. Jinbe appeared next to him and pulled him away.

"Stop it, stop it! The war is over, Ace is-"

"Shut up you bastard! I'm going to beat you if you say another word" Luffy yelled at him as he kneeled on the ground folded in half.

"Do it if it makes you happy. I'm injured too but I'm not going to get beaten by you in that condition!" Jinbe said as if he was provoking him.

Luffy got up and extended his arm to punch Jinbe, but the Fishman grabbed it and laid him flat on the earth. He remained there, breathing loudly and Jinbe sat next to him. I was looking at the scene hiding behind a bush. Suddenly Luffy bit Jinbe's arm and even though the act must have been painful for the Fishman I couldn't hold a giggle, which I immediately regretted. Luffy acted like a beast, not like a human being. Jinbe threw him off of him and pinned him against a rock, his hand pressing Luffy's throat. The beaten up boy brought his hands up in a desperate attempt to free himself.

"Can't you see things clearly now?" Jinbe shouted "You believed that you could overcome anything. You never doubted your strength; but all those formidable enemies took away your confidence and your brother who was your lead at the sea! I know that you've lost that too. I know it's painful now, Luffy, but you have to bottle up those feelings. Don't think about the ones you've lost. You can't get back what you've lost! What is it that you still have?!" Listening to Jinbe's speech made me tear up. Luffy let his hand fall to his sides and Jinbe removed his hand from his throat letting him slide down to the ground.

While still crying, he started slowly counting with his fingers. When he got to eight he stopped and lifted his head to look at Jinbe.

"My nakama, I still have them!" He cried.

Jinbe looked at him "Then live for them!" He said and left him. But Luffy continued to weep. It broke my heart to see him like that so I emerged from the bushes and approached him.

Most likely he heard me but didn't turn to look at me. I kneeled next to him and hesitated for a moment, it was clear that he avoided to look at me. I'm sure that he was afraid of what I would tell him. Maybe I should have yelled at him, punch him in the head and call him a crybaby, but I thought that it would remind him of Ace and it would only make him cry even more. So I pulled him inside my hug and pressed his wet face on my bare shoulder. It was so hot on Amazon Lilly that I only wore a thick stripe of black fabric around my chest and a very loose pair of dark green sweatpants. He wasted no time. His hands were wrapped around me pressing me closer to him as if he found peace on the warm feeling of my skin against his. He kept crying for what seemed to me like a good one hour and the whole time I held him tight, caressing his hair without saying anything.

When finally his sobs seemed to quiet down a bit we fell to the side still hugging each other but not as tightly. Luffy brought his hand between our bodies and placed his right fist over my heart.

"I'm alive" I told him and he seemed to relax. "but I shouldn't be!" I added and he lifted his eyes to look at me silently asking me what I meant. "I had promised him..." I muttered "promised to protect you, and help you but it seems to me like I can't do either of these things!" I said and closed my eyes "Why didn't I jump instead of him?" I whispered but Luffy heard me.

"I killed him right?" He asked me and his eyes watered again.

"No no!" I cried and attempted to press his head against my body again to prevent him from saying any other stupid things like that. But Luffy pushed me away and peered inside my eyes.

"Tell me the truth! Don't you believe that I killed him? If I wasn't as useless, if I hadn't insisted on grabbing his vivre card he would have been alive!"

"If Akainu hadn't spoken like that about Whitebeard, if Ace hadn't been provoked he would also be alive! He was stubborn and fell right into that bastard's trap!" I returned.

"But-"

"The only ones responsible for Ace's death are Akainu and Ace himself!" I yelled and Luffy stopped as if I had scared him. I waited for a few moments to catch my breath and then continued. "If Ace didn't want to die, he would have stood still, in his place. He knew that what he was doing meant death Luffy and you're not responsible for his decision to protect you. He died with no regrets hence the smile on his face, don't blame yourself ever again about it!" I told him. Luffy bit the inside of his lips and swallowed the rest of his tears. And then I did something that till now I don't why I did it.

I kissed him on his forehead.