A Chapter With Him {Portgas D. Ace}

||5||

After an hour or so, we decided to finally head back. It is now already past 5 in the evening. The time we spent there made us much closer than we were before that we haven't actually considered the time.

Laughter filled the air as we were joking around from time to time while walking. When the entrance to the village is in sight, I gave Ace his hat back and ran towards it and leaving him behind.

Walking inside the entrance of the village, I heard noises coming from the people, they were shouting.

"Why are you not going in?" he said, still not aware of the current situation. Then when he looked at what is before us, he understood.

"Where's (Name)!?"

"Put out the fire!"

"(Name) is with Ace and they are nowhere to be found!"

"Deal with the fire first before it spreads!!"

It was chaos. Everyone was unprepared today, they didn't anticipate this sudden huge group of pirates to come for us, unlike those before. Everyone is running in circles, others are helping, while some are too injured to move.

"(Name) there you are! Where have you been?! You need to hide, now. This group of pirates is not like the once before!" A friend of mine came in sight making his way towards me.

"I'm gonna help too!" I am panicking this time, everyone is fighting with their lives, to protect me and our island, but here I am just standing here.

I won't accept it, I need to fight for myself too.

I fell to my knees, shivering in fear because of the state of our village, I didn't notice that I was about to cry until Ace moved from my left side,

"(Name)! You stay here and find yourself a hiding place. You're not in the right state of mind right now. I'll be back to come and get you" Ace said putting his hat back on me as he noticed that I would cry any second now. He put it on me so I looked up at him, he smiled, a reassuring one.

With that gesture of his, tears started streaming from my eyes. I didn't know what to do because what was happening is unlike before, right now, this is a nightmare.

"S-save us... Ace" I held his hat down and hold tightly so that he won't see more tears. He patted my head and crouched down to my eye level.

"I will (Name), I will, so you need to hide yourself. You got it?" I nodded at him and smiled at me again before rushing off to the chaotic place.

And with that I had the courage to stand up and followed my friend so that we can hide.

We ran deeper into the forest down to the small cabin which is an old food storage. The place is dark but we don't have any choice.

He head inside first and signalled me to come when he had finish checking the inside.

It felt like eternity waiting outside this small shelter. When I could not hear any noise outside I decided to come out, my friend following from behind.

"(Name) it's still too dangerous right now, we don't know who might have tailed us coming here"

"I won't be able to sleep after this night if I just lock myself here, not caring about those who are fighting for my safety!" I said as tears were evident on my eyes. I wiped it off and started walking again.

He decided to stop and followed me quietly when he heard about my very own feelings.

We carefully walked and hid behind tree after tree so that no one would notice when I accidentally walked on a branch making a loud creaking noise to which, we didn't know that there were 3 pirates scattered here in the forest.