Chapter Text
That night, just before the Straw Hat crew left Arlong Park, Nami approached Aladine with an important message that sent Aladine on a long swim across the seas.
(“I have a plan.”)
Aladine surfaces, knocking twice on the hull of the Moby Dick. It’s fair weather in midday, where most of the crew should be present on deck.
“Captain Whitebeard. Permission to come aboard?”
“Come on up, Aladine. We’ve been expecting you.”
(“The Commanders, the members that have been in the crew for decades, the alliance captains that are present… make sure as many people hear you.”)
Aladine gives Marco a cursive nod, and meets eyes with the unfamiliar yet not at all unrecognizable figure on the ship-- with a top hat, blonde hair, and haki of great notoriety-- Aladine is surprised to see the Revolutionary’s second in command.
She only mentioned she had a contact down the line-- she didn’t mention he was the chief of staff, of all people.
But he composes himself.
“Nami has contacted me with a request,” he says, carefully phrasing his words as he brings up a casual smile onto his face. “She says it’s very urgent.”
“A request?” Thatch echoes, curious. “That’s rare.”
Rare indeed. It’s almost unheard of, and for those that knew her personally, it was almost strange to hear.
Everything they’ve ever done for Nami was quite literally coaxed onto her, from the mark to the arm to the occasional help in physical therapy, everything except the initial request for Jinbei to save her island.
For her to send such an important message, only for it to be something as simple as a request? Now this better be some world-breaking help.
“Gurararara!” Whitebeard laughs, the incredulity the least surprising thing in the world, as far as he knows. “Well, that’s alright. I’ll always be willing to go to extreme lengths for my daughter.”
Someone scoffs, probably Whitey, “well isn’t that true.”
The crew erupts with laughter.
Sabo stays still and patient. His shoulder is caught by Ace’s arm, and he still rubs moodily at the large bump on his head.
(“It’s better for you to ascertain for yourself than for me to tell you,” Nami had said. “You’ve always been more sensitive to wavelengths and intentions than the average person. Koala’s like that too.”)
(Aladine had to whirl back in alarm, the sake leaving his lips, immediately sobered. “Wha-- how do you know that name?”)
(No one spoke of Koala in the presence of Nami. Bringing up their similarities would be poor conversation, so they agreed on only spilling at a later date.)
(And yet Nami snickered, as if she knew so much more. “That’s beside the point, Aladine! Now, back to the plan.”)
“She’s looking for a Devil’s Fruit,” Aladine says, closing his eyes. His arms are crossed before him-- and subtly, so subtly-- he expands. “It’s called the Yami-Yami no Mi, and she knows where it is.”
The reactions in the crew are a spectrum.
“Nami wants a fruit, huh…”
“Girl with a metal arm, a Whitebeard mark, and a devil fruit! She’s brewing up to be one crazy individual alright.”
“What next, challenging a Shichibukai?”
“Hey hey, you read the news. She’s not the captain of her new crew, so she can’t do that.”
“Unless her new captain is even bigger of a nutcase!”
“Yami-Yami no Mi, huh… sounds like an eerie one alright.”
“Think it’s like the Kage-Kage?”
Some are wary. The name indicates a possible logia, the direct juxtaposition of Kizaru’s-- but that was just an assumption. Mostly, it’s curiosity, and confusion. Nami had never expressed interest in fruits before-- she was a navigator and lone sailor, after all. She valued her ability to swim greatly.
And yet, just one voice flickered sharply.
So, so sharply, Aladine had to resist the urge to flinch.
It’s so sudden, someone who had been paying less attention would have dismissed it as someone being briefly surprised at a familiar term. But this is different.
(Aladine felt it hundreds of times, back on Mariejois. The flare of a good (bad) idea, a lick of a heart that could only be darker than darkness-- an evil desire.)
(On a pirate ship, that shouldn’t be a strange thing. They are pirates, after all. Murder and pillage are things that happen on a day-to-day, it’s almost frowned upon to go against that cruel demeanor when things don’t necessitate it.)
(However, this is Whitebeard’s ship, and there are strict rules. It’s already gone, doused by the mask of an ever-perfected act-- but the timing confirmed every suspicion he had.)
“Well,” Aladine speaks up, feigning his smile so the perpetrator wouldn’t notice his strained shoulders. “Let’s talk about the details in the mapping room, shall we? I have the coordinates, but I have no ideas where that could ever be without the skills of a navigator.”
Marco steps forward. “Of course. All Commanders, with us. Everyone else who’s here using their time to gawk instead of doing their chores, you’ve got a second to scram!”
In mere moments, the deck erupts in chaos, and all hands either return to their brooms, pretend to look out into the horizon, or go under the deck.
Including the voice that flickered.
-
Aladine finds himself in the navigation room, arms crossed and brows furrowed.
The door closes on them, and all commanders turn their eyes to Aladine.
“So Nami wants a fruit?” Whitebeard asks to lead.
“No, that was a lie,” Aladine says.
None of the commanders are at ease. They are all aware, with clear context clues, that the story of Nami wanting a Devil Fruit is clear bullshit. A clearly crafted story only meant to subvert the attention of the target of Sabo’s message-- the apparent ‘traitor’.
“It’s Teach.”
When he finally breaks the news, he braces himself for some sort of backlash. And it does come, in the form of Ace’s furious exclamation.
“Wha-- that’s impossible!” Ace slams his hands against the table.
“Ace,” Marco warns him against lashing out, because they’re in a particularly burnable room at the moment. “I’m sure he can explain himself.”
(Nami had really given him a risky job, hasn’t she?)
Aladine sighs. “Her exact words are as such:” he decides to start from the beginning. “There is someone on this ship that has his allegiances set a step below his goals. In the case of either coinciding, there’s no doubt which he would cast aside.”
Ace’s gaze is sharpened in the most heated of tempers.
As disbelieving as this is-- he can’t find himself thinking past his anger to even try to acknowledge it. Teach has been on their crew for much longer than almost half the crew! There’s no way he…
(But Nami has no reason to lie.)
(He knows her. They all do. Someone whose life has been carved with selfless devotion for her family, even if none of her families share blood in any way , she was the last person in the world that would ever lie about something like this.)
“You’re implying that Teach would betray the crew if their goal is in reach?” Marco asks. “What kind of goal would that be?”
“Oh,” Thatch realizes, “the Yami-Yami no Mi, is that it? It was strange that you led with that out there. So it’s actually a thing?”
“Yes, and it is under Nami’s suggestion that I mentioned it in the presence of the crew,” Aladine explains, mirthful. “I was keeping a close tab on his Haki as I spoke. I can tell-- Teach knows exactly what the fruit is, and his desire to acquire it is clear.”
They’re all abundantly aware that for a pirate of Aladine’s caliber, his instincts should not be dismissed.
(The problem lay in the fact this was Teach, a Whitebeard pirate and one of his valued sons-- and Aladine did not have the right to cast doubt into their opinions of his allegiances. Nor did Nami, for that matter, even if she was a daughter.)
“I… I actually felt it too,” Haruta admits, to everyone’s surprise. “I was right by him, after all. And for a second-- only a second, I swear-- it just felt all prickly and disturbing and--”
He shivers, looking away.
“Reminded me of old things,” he finishes, lame and weakened by the lack of words he could find for the situation. He doesn’t elaborate, but they all knew what he was likening Teach to.
(Haruta, like Aladine, used to live on a certain wall.)
(Living on the edge of that sort of lifestyle tended to sharpen someone’s senses for judging people up to a life-riskingly high degree.)
“But wanting a devil fruit and being willing to betray the crew for it are different matters,” Thatch disagrees, “I mean-- if he just asks, I’m sure we’d give it to him.”
“Yeah, this is a little flimsy of a theory,” Jozu agrees, “What’s the basis on her belief that he’ll actually betray the crew, to begin with?”
“She sent two messengers, isn’t that already an indication of how sure she is?” Aladine returns. “The way his Haki spiked in that moment-- I just don’t like it.”
“Wha-!” Ace interrupts, “hey, you’re just saying that because you don’t know him well!” he insists. “Teach wouldn’t betray Oyaji just for a damn fruit!”
“No, he might,” Sabo finally speaks, gaining everyone’s attention. “The Yami-Yami no Mi… depending on what kind of a fruit it is, one could gain enough power to rival even you, Whitebeard. In that case, there would be objectively no reason to be working under you-- one could grasp the title of Pirate King for themselves.”
And sure, that sounded incredibly enticing.
Especially when Whitebeard himself held no interest in taking the King’s title.
But then again…
“But it makes no sense!” Ace yells. “Why would Teach--” he stops himself, because the other question struck even more glaring in the situation-- “why would Nami even know that? She’s known Teach for even less time than me .”
And that really was the question.
(How did Nami know so much?)
(Who is her source of information?)
-
After being bashed in the head by Ace and unfortunately not magically regaining his memories (he then bashed him right back and, in an attempt to stop them, Thatch’s pompadour was sacrificed,) Sabo was left confused.
He remembered nothing, but Ace was undoubtedly a link to his past.
When Aladine revealed the name of the traitor, Sabo, for one, simply pinpoints the name of ‘Teach’ as a man that he had crossed briefly on his ship tour just earlier that day.
He was a little murky in his demeanor, a little sinister in his subtle behaviors-- but that was nothing out of the ordinary for a veteran member of such a notorious crew.
(Sabo had always been able to distinguish the worst of the hoodlums from the other, peace-main thugs they interacted with. It’s like an old, danger-sensing instinct for him, though Inazuma can’t for the life of them know where he cultivated it from.)
(Sabo had dismissed it, initially. It was normal for the crew to be wary of him, and Teach was far from the only one that mistrusted him greatly.)
So, is this his mission done? He sent the message, waited for Aladine.
No, that didn’t sound right either. Now he had to aid in taking care of the threat-- and there had to be a reason they requested him specifically.
“It just doesn’t line up that she wanted me to come here. It’s an inside matter for you guys, after all,” he says.
To begin with, the Whitebeards wouldn’t want outsiders butting into their business. So Nami must have sent him as a little more than a messenger-- as a delivery?
(“Send your best brew.”)
Knowledge-- that was something Nami had, beyond everything else. To an almost unnatural degree-- and they were beginning to see it.
Which begs the question.
“Wait,” Marco seems to have realized it as well-- “did Nami send you because she knew about your connection to Ace?”
Now that.
That was fucking ridiculous .
(But there’s no better explanation.)
“This is starting to make no sense,” Thatch groans, running a hand through his hair. “And I'm not talking about the traitor stuff.”
“The fact that it makes no sense is what makes it uncomfortably believable, though,” Whitebeard admits. “Nami wouldn’t go to such lengths only to deliver such a poorly constructed lie. She’s much better than that.”
That, everyone could agree on. Though mirthful, they might have to at least accept it for now, at least on an observational basis.
But Sabo is still reeling.
(If she knows so much about him-- even things about himself that neither him nor Ace were aware of-- then it’s no stretch to say that her use of the Revolutionary code was part of her information arsenal, too.)
(No wonder he didn’t know who that agent in Loguetown was.)
(No wonder he used a code that only the higher ups would know.)
“The Burglar Cat…” he says, fists clenched tight, and fear plaguing his mind-- “who on earth is she?”
(The information she might have on her hands is dangerous.)
(Dangerous enough, she might be a threat to the every party if this comes to light.)
The Whitebeards are known to be proud brothers and family members. They would never hold back on a chance to boast about their fellow siblings.
But now, none of them could say a thing.
“We can only trust her,” Whitebeard says. “Chart the course.”
“Understood, Oyaji.”
-
-
When Ace, Sabo, and Thatch return with the fruit in their hands, happily declaring their obtaining of a Devil Fruit on their scavenge, Teach is present.
And Marco sees the way his eyes widen, his Haki spikes with excitement-- but that isn’t proof. Anyone would be excited at the aspect of a new fruit.
“Sweet!”
“Now we just have to deliver it to Nami, huh?”
As far as the crew knew, Nami had found a lead to a fruit in the New World, and though she was desperate to attain it, she was nowhere near the area. So she asks her loving brothers to secure it for her, and she’ll compensate at a later date.
That was easy enough. This island, uninhabited and full of jungle, was a perfect spot to rest and restock for their huge crew. It was like a vacation spot.
Finding the island and pinpointing the location of the fruit, according to Nami’s instructions, was easy enough.
(How did she know where this fruit would be?)
(If this is Teach’s target, and he’s a traitor-- why would Nami lead us right to it? It’s better off remaining nowhere near him, right?)
The questions just kept stacking up, and at this point they were hesitant to do anything at all anymore. But there was no better way to ascertain if Teach is actually a traitor (or confirm his undying loyalty for the crew) than to dangle it before him.
(“Is this part of Nami’s suggestions too?” Marco asked.)
(Aladine nodded. “She didn’t tell me what the fruit could do-- but she told me that, no matter what, I can never let the fruit fall into the wrong hands.”)
The fruit is then wrapped up, and given to Sabo.
“I will handle the delivery back to her,” he says. “It’s been nice to enjoy your hospitality--”
“Whaaat,” Thatch whines, “you’re already leaving? Stay for the party!”
Sabo, despite knowing the plan, is still surprised. Because he didn’t hear anything about a “party?” The plan was supposed to be for him to stay one more night.
Ace slings an arm around his shoulder, happily declaring that “of course! We’re on a deserted island, and we have so much food! You and Aladine aren’t going to leave without a party!”
Because the only ones that needed to focus on the situation are the commanders. There’s no better swing-by and distraction than allowing the whole crew to have fun.
Marco will be the one in charge of keeping watch, after all. They can all lose themselves for a moment.
Sabo suddenly realizes, “you guys just want a reason to drink!”
“Exactly!”
“Don’t confirm it!”
Thatch laughs, “Well, time for a great feast, Fourth Division!” he declares loudly. A crowd of people cheer back, some in exhausted determination and the others in a spiteful fuel of energy.
“Anyways guys, I didn’t tell you before, but this is my brother!” Ace happily announces to the crew, grabbing Sabo by the arm.
“No I am not!” Sabo denies. He barely realizes he’s been swung right into their chaotic pace. He would despair about this later.
Ace pretends not to hear it, “he was dead for a bit, and now he doesn’t remember me, but don’t kill him!”
The crew reacts explosively. From general oohs and aahs to disbelief in all corners. The only part of them that was similar was the unnatural tone of politeness Sabo had, that Ace often sported in different situations.
Someone observes them amusedly, “but you don’t even look alike-- oh, that kind of brotherhood, alright I can get behind that.” Then he raises his mug and cheers, for some reason.
“Sucks to kind die, huh. I feel ya,” said a man with a terrible scar across his forehead.
“I hope he remembers you soon, Ace!” another exclaims tearfully, because of course someone’s already in tears from the story that was barely told.
Another gleefully suggests, “have you tried giving him head trauma?”
To which Ace whines, “yeah, but it didn’t work!”
Sabo is entirely sure that this entire crew is insane, and he hates that he kind of likes it. It’s the exact sort of idiocy a part of him inside feels very much at home in.
Maybe, inside, the part of him that was the brother for Ace still exists.
Maybe they can coexist, and Sabo isn’t sure how to feel about it.
(But he shakes away the thought, knowing he has to focus now. Tonight is his last night on the ship-- Teach would strike today, and he will have to keep watch for the moment.)
“I’ll leave the fruit in Ace’s room for now, with the rest of my things,” he says, gesturing at the Devil Fruit, raising his voice so Ace who is already at the other end of the deck, (along with everyone in between) can hear him. “Is that fine?”
“Yeah!” Ace hollers.
Now it’s just the waiting game.
-
-
For Marshall D. Teach, life was finally looking his way.
A series of strange, coincidental events-- a convenient little sister that’s earned apparently everyone’s favour, of which he knows almost nothing about because he didn’t bother interacting last time around-- and suddenly, the Yami-Yami no Mi is right there, laid out and defenseless, where he could reach it.
But he couldn’t pounce just yet. He’ll be caught and he’ll be questioned. Running away from Whitebeard unnoticed would be very difficult on the blue sea, after all.
So he was careful.
The party was such a clear invitation for an attempt, he just had to tr y, if only to see what would happen. He parties until the moon is high in the sky. Marco’s nowhere to be seen, the deck is quiet-- and the road to Ace’s room is silent.
Then he opens the door and their Revolutionary guest stares back, sitting lackadaisical to indicate he’s been waiting all along.
Ah, so it was a trap.
As practiced, Teach croaks out a laugh. “Oh! Wrong room,” he says, burping before moving to close the door.
“No no, it’s the right room,” Sabo interrupts him, his demeanor cheerful. And the man raises the Yami-Yami no mi in his hands. “You were looking for this, weren’t you?”
Teach’s expressions fall for just a second.
“Yeah, it’s interesting! I was thinkin’ I wanted to get a closer look,” Teach admits, “I’d rather look at it when I’m sober, you know.”
“So, now?”
“Do I look sober to you?”
“Well absolutely,” Sabo’s response is immediate, and Teach knows he can’t keep up the act any longer.
Not that it would matter-- this is their guest, this isn’t a crewmate.
(Maybe he could just kill this one guy and if he plays it off as innocent everyone would trust him. Yeah, that would work.)
Teach laughs.
“Saw right through me, didn’tcha? Well don’t mind if I take a closer look then.”
He steps forward, a hand reaching behind him to the blades he always keeps under his sleeves. The Chief of Staff won’t be easy to take out, but he can handle this much.
“Do you know what the fruit does?” Sabo chirps up some small talk. “None of us can quite figure why Nami would want it. And I heard from Ace that if anyone on this ship would know about the fruit, it’d be you and your archaeological knowledge.”
That makes Teach feel a little smug. “Course,” he says, “I don’t hold a candle to some of the others in the scholar division, but I know what I need to. It’s in the Devil Fruit encyclopedia, this one.”
Sabo makes an amused noise. “So is it a Logia, or a Paramecia?”
“It’s a logia,” Teach grins, knowing this is far more than tactically advantageous to share, but it doesn’t matter. “Not just any logia-- it’s a Special logia. Like that guy from Big Mom’s crew with the Special Paramecia-- this one’s fabled to be the strongest of the Logias. In fact I joined this crew because I wanted to find it.”
Sabo holds the fruit up to the light, slightly fascinated. “Tough case, huh. It’s what you wanted, but since we’re giving it to Nami, you can’t have it. That’s a shame.”
Teach shrugs at that. “Sometimes, a big brother just has to tough it out for the happiness of their younger siblings, you know.”
They chuckle awkwardly in unison.
Then Teach strikes.
He thrusts his blade forward, colliding sharply against Sabo’s pipe, deflecting off the surface and narrowly missing its target. His other dagger comes forth, and Sabo kicks up his pipe to swat it out of his hand.
The blade whirls, embedding onto the roof of the cabin.
Sabo whirls out of his spot, expertly maneuvering past the blade and regaining his balance, Devil Fruit still in hand. He straightens his posture and gains some distance.
“So,” Sabo inquires, in a way that meant he anticipated it perfectly. “What was the meaning of that?”
Teach laughs. “I mean, it would be a shame if our Revolutionary guest turned out to have heinous intentions,” he says, constructing his story on the fly. “Let’s say that I ate it out of desperation in an attempt to retrieve it, shall we?”
Sabo makes a disgusted face, “well, fair point.”
“You ain’t dealing with a saint, you revolutionary scum,” is Teach’s rebuttal. “You’re dealing with a pirate here.”
And Sabo has to admit, that was true.
“Unfortunately, my orders were specific here,” Sabo sighs.
(There’s someone there that can hurt our cause. Do everything you can to stop them.)
He didn’t elaborate fully to the Whitebeards. Obviously, you don’t reveal the full extent of code words to another party, after all.
(“Nami warned me, very closely, that this fruit should never land in the wrong hands at any point of history. Revolutionary Army-- you know the importance of such a thing.”)
(And Sabo did.)
Slowly, he turns the fruit around, so Teach can get a clear look at the one section that was quite specifically bitten out of.
“Well, my boss will probably be mad at me for this,” he shrugs. Gripping a fist before him, it erupts into black wisps. “But when I do things. I like to be thorough.”
Teach’s stomach plummets.
Then he explodes with rage-- “you-- how dare you!” he snaps. “I spent twenty years getting this far! How dare--!!”
He freezes mid-rant.
“But it’s fine,” he grounds out, the smile on his face lunatic above all else. “I can just kill you here, and it’ll be reformed as one of the fruits in the pantry, or even on the island. Then I can seize it for myself and say goodbye to this damned crew once and for all!”
Sabo tosses the fruit aside, rather amused.
“Heard that, Marco?” he asks.
Teach’s eyes widen.
“Yeah,” the door opens, and Marco ruffles his head mirthfully. “Loud and clear, unfortunately.”
-
When the door bursts open, people jerk awake in alarm.
Marco winces, unhesitatingly tearing out the knife embedded in his eye. It erupts immediately in blue flames, and people cry out in horror.
“Hey, Marco!”
“Stay back,” Marco orders. “Get Oyaji here right now.” Though he’s probably already on his way, not having stayed far to begin with.
Ace arrives in the next moment, fire licking his forearms as he prepares for further attack. “Where’s Sabo?” he demands, and Marco gestures forward.
Right on cue the doorframe shatters, and Sabo is thrown out of the fray.
Spitting out a broken tooth and cringing, the revolutionary quickly straightens. The Devil Fruit tucked securely under his coat, he keeps his hat on his head and joins Marco and Ace by the rest of the crew.
“So we’ve got our answer, huh?” Ace mutters, looking disgruntled. “I hate this.” Someone from his own division, too...
“Was he always this strong?” Sabo asks.
“Obviously, since he’s one of our oldest members,” Marco mutters, his eye healed fully now, “but I’d be lying to say I knew he was this strong.”
“What’s going on?!”
“A fight?”
Some of the drunkards are waking up now-- and seeing as the first thing they recognize is Marco getting stabbed, they’re going to panic. The commanders step forward, holding the crew back from addressing the threat before they understand what’s going on.
“Situation, Marco?”
Izo asks, though all commanders are quite sure of it now.
Teach steps forward, his fists coated in a black sheen. Emerging from the shadows, it was hard to see his face. But it was low, his brows twisted together in a furious gleam.
His infamous smile was nowhere to be seen-- and the only attention emanating from his features was a sheer, uninvolving rage that didn’t have elsewhere to go but out .
Marco fixes an eye on the man he once called brother.
“We should hear it from Teach.”
All heads turn to meet Edward Newgate as he arrives-- and the startling presence of his Haki told them everything they needed to know.
“Right, Teach?” The question is more patronizing than inquisitive. “Do you have something to say to me?”
The sound that comes from Teach is a mocking scoff.
“Yeah, I bet you want to hear all about it, going into the theatrics,” Teach sings sarcastically, utterly disgusted by this display. “Well, I’m done playing this charade with you buffoons. I’m leaving the crew, Oyaji. ”
The last word is spat out with such disdain, Ace instantly bristled.
“Teach!” he roars, lighting up in a fury of red and orange. “You cannot be serious here! Explain yourself right now!”
Teach raises his hands in a placated manner. “I joined this crew for one reason and one reason only,” he says, “now that the reason’s gone, I have no reason to play this retarded family game any longer. Dumbed that down enough for ya, Ace?”
“Ret--” there was no better fuel for the dismay that coated everyone’s faces. “Teach-- are you saying everything was just-- was just stupid to you?”
“Where’s the Yami-Yami no mi?” Whitebeard asks, though there was an underlying, suppressed ire in his voice, threatening to break through.
“I ate it,” Sabo says, to everyone’s surprise. At the pointedly offended looks from a few people, he defends himself. “What? It’s not like Nami actually wanted the thing. If she made me her gopher boy, she sure as hell can’t complain when I eat it.”
“You ate a devil fruit, which makes you unable to swim, on a ship full of pirates you don’t trust,” Thatch asks, incredulous.
Sabo rolls his eyes in response. “Priorities change depending on the situation.”
“Awh man, now there’ll be no one to fish us out of the water when Luffy falls in again,” Ace says. “Are you an idiot? I thought you were the smart brother.”
“Be quiet, Ace.”
“Stingypants,” Ace retorts, like a child.
Then he immediately lets the smile fall, turning to Teach with a deep, burning breath-- before stepping forward. No one stops him, but there are looks, and a few hesitate. There was no way they were letting him go alone here.
Teach had nowhere to escape, unless he really fought his way out of it in the confusion amongst the crew. Whitebeard would be impossible to face-- but Ace?
“What do you want, commander?” he says, the title coming off in jest. “Gonna pretend a punch can turn me back into a nice guy for you?”
Ace pauses for a moment.
Then he sighs. “So you’re serious, huh?” he steps back, flames churning in his elbow. “Everyone stay back.”
At his request, protests arise. “Hold on, Ace! This is a problem for all of us!” and “Oyaji’s the one that decides what to do with him”, but Ace wasn’t having any of it.
Teach was outnumbered here.
For Ace, Teach was one of the first few to acknowledge his ascension to the position of Commander. Aside from Thatch and Marco, Teach was the one that showed him the ropes of the division, cemented his bond with the rest of the members, and helped him feel belonged.
To Ace, Teach was an important brother.
And yet, here they were. It hurt a lot to have to face him with anger in his veins, long-forgotten foul words threatening to rise form his throat once more.
“I’m the commander of the second division-- I’ll deal with my misbehaving members on my own,” he says.
And no one could rebuke that.
Except one.
“Hey, that’s a little selfish, don’t you think?” Sabo mutters, crossing his arms. “I have a bone to pick with him. Almost literally, because you know, he knocked out a tooth of mine and I can still taste the blood. It’s fucking gross.”
Ace almost facefaults from that.
“Can’t you tell this is a dramatic moment? Butt out already!”
“Don’t wanna. In fact, you’re the one that came in between my fight.”
“Excuse me?!”
“Yeah, dramatic bitch . I fought him first.”
“He’s in my division! I have a responsibility!”
“Responsibility? You know what responsibility means?!”
There, side by side with their fists in line-- it was almost like the old days. Even when Sabo still didn’t remember a thing, they turn and strike in tandem. They were still arguing, but it was almost like they’d practiced this same move a hundred times before.
Teach dodges the first strike, but doesn’t avoid the next. When he’s engulfed in flames, the pipe is always two steps behind him.
None of the Whitebeards interfere.
(If there were still any doubts on Sabo being Ace’s long-lost brother, they were all gone now. There was little more fascinating than watching twins battle together.)
But Teach is not so simple a man as to be defeated so easily.
-
-
Teach escapes.
Like a duel rather than a banishment, they battle on the shores of the island, away from most of the crew. The fight lasted for three days and ended with Teach embedding a haki-infused blade in Sabo’s stomach, before escaping into the sea.
He wasn’t unscathed, of course. Those burn wounds would scar him forever, and if he didn’t get most of the bruises treated, he would most probably lose most of his right arm’s functions from now on.
Sabo remained in a coma for the next week.
“They can’t turn intangible,” Haruta reveals, reading out of the Devil fruit encyclopedia they’ve managed to dig out of Teach’s old items. “Apparently, it’s quite the opposite, and pain is amplified.”
Marco soaks in the new information contemplatively. Ace has already mostly recovered, and he now spends most of his time watching Sabo in hopes he’ll wake up soon.
“It’s his own fault for eating the fruit without knowing what it is,” Ace rationalizes, chuckling though his expressions are strained. “But he’s tougher than that. He got blown up by a cannon and survived-- he can probably live through being fucking impaled.”
“That doesn’t sound like a great track record of injuries,” Marco remarks.
“But everything else this says about the fruit is pretty terrifying,” Haruta hands the book to Marco so he can look for himself. “I think I’m quite glad Teach didn’t get his hands on it after all.”
It still stings to think about the fact that Teach had jumped ship.
Ace hasn’t been able to look his division in the eye. People have been staring dazed instead of doing chores, and a few have walked around with their clothing inside out. Even Oyaji has been indulging in more alcohol than reccomeneded nowadays, and Whitey can’t quite force him to reduce the consumption.
(They all needed time to let it sink in.)
But the problem now was Sabo.
For Ace, Sabo was always the first. From the very beginning, there was no one else he opened his heart to first. He's also the first he learned to lose and cry for, but that was now history that could be forgotten because he's here, with him again. And that meant more than anything.
To Ace, there could only be Sabo, but once you took Sabo away, he learned to let other people into his heart again.
It was an important change in his life. But now he didn't need that trigger again, he just wanted Sabo back by his side, giving him those snarky remarks because he's a pretentious bastard and Ace doesn't hate that at all, though he would always say otherwise.
(He just lost a brother in Teach.)
(He doesn't want to lose Sabo, too.)
There’s no telling how long the Revolutionaries will leave the Whitebeards alone if their Chief of Staff stays out of contact for so long. There’s no easy way to get in contact with them, either, so it was a stressful wait. Let’s hope misunderstandings don’t occur.
What’s more, the injuries he sustained were dire.
Counting in the extra pain factor-- they had pain medication, but it only went so far. If he wakes up with severe chronic pains, trauma, or other mental repercussions-- as a doctor, Marco was incredibly worried for him.
(He wasn’t a brother, not directly, but Marco knew how much he meant to Ace.)
Now, they could only wait.
(They’ve been doing a lot of that recently.)