Boy With a Scar

Chapter 23: The Stranger on the Dawn Island (Part I)

-around 2 years ago, the Dawn Island-

Luffy sat in his favorite spot on the cliff overlooking the sea. The sun had already risen and now bathed the world in its ethereal golden and red light.

A soft sigh left the boy's mouth. He missed Ace.

It had been six months since his brother left to become a pirate and chase after his dreams. Luffy longed to see Ace, the loneliness dragging him deeper into that dark place where he never wanted to be again.

He missed Sabo, too. Oh, how he missed his cheerful, kind-hearted blond brother.

Sad black eyes wandered around, following a random wave at the surface of the sea, then flicking to the lonely seagull that flew towards the shore, passing above a strangely shaped washed-up log on the beach.

Luffy squinted at it, but apart from its odd form, nothing seemed amiss. At this distance and in the dim light of the dawn, he couldn't really determine what exactly piqued his interest. His curiosity getting the better of him, the boy quickly stood up and slid down the slope onto the beach.

When he was a few steps away, Luffy immediately stopped when he realized that the 'log' was a person. The rubber boy scrunched his face up in disgust; Ace, Sabo, and he once discovered a drowned person washed ashore, and it wasn't a pretty picture. None of them could even look at the food for a whole day without wanting to throw up, and with his and Ace's appetites, that was telling a lot.

The boy sniffed the air. No smell yet, so it meant that the body got carried here tonight and wasn't exposed to the sun thus far. He really needed to bury it before the sun reached its peak and birds found it.

With his mind set on this task, the young teen approached the body. It was a man, as far as he could tell, with dark short messy hair and wearing a hoodie with the hood raised, one of his arms twisted under.

Luffy reached to roll him over, but the moment he grabbed the hoodie, he heard it – a quiet, almost inaudible groan. With eyes wide in alarm, he jumped away from the stranger, ready to defend himself if needed.

For the next few moments, the boy held his breath in and strained his ears to listen. However, there were no more sounds or any kind of movement from the man. Furrowing his brow, he nudged the not-so-dead guy with his feet instead. Nothing. He squatted down and carefully rolled him on his back, eliciting another silent groan.

The left hand that was previously hidden under the man's body, now rested on his chest, and Luffy froze at the sight of one side of metal cuffs locked on it. He touched it with great caution, and withdrew his hand as if it was burned the instant that it touched. Sea prism stone. He would never forget the feeling of that accursed thing touching his skin, draining his strength, leaving him weak and hopeless and at the mercy of—

A shake of his head banished those awful memories back into the darkness from where they had crawled out, allowing him to focus again on the stranger.

The left side of his hoodie, including its sleeve, was shredded and burned, stained with dark blotches that Luffy knew immediately were blood.

Luffy's frown deepened. He couldn't just leave this guy here. If he was a Devil Fruit user, he would definitely die from that kind of nasty injury with the sea stone cuffs on and drenched in seawater on top of it. And if he was on a run from someone—which he most certainly was—he needed a safe place to recover and figure out how to take the manacles off.

Decision made, the straw-hatted teen maneuvered himself so that he could heave the stranger on his shoulders and carry him to the treehouse.

Travel through the forest with such a heavy burden was pretty slow, but Luffy persevered. Once he reached the treehouse, he decided against hauling the injured man up. It would have unnecessarily aggravated his wounds, and a bonfire would help to keep him warm during the night; Luffy could already feel the stranger's skin being clammy from fever.