Sakura Blooms (Yamato x Male Reader)

Chapter 7 - After

Yamato's age: 28

Y/N's age: 30

Y/N watched as Yamato ran. Ran to catch the future Pirate King. He heard her shout something.

"Luffy!"

Y/N walked over to her slowly, as she beamed up at him. "We've done it." she whispered, then looked down at Luffy, who she'd caught in her arms. "He's done it. We're free, Y/N."

Y/N dropped to his knees beside Yamato, and together they watched as the sky lit up with wishes written by the people of Wano. People who were now.. free.

-

"Hold on! I'm not your enemy." Yamato quickly added as Y/N bared his teeth at the Strawhat Pirates.

"In fact, I've been wanting to meet you all for a long time." Yamato grinned. "Anyway.. I've been wanting to sail with all of you from now on. I go by Kozuki Oden, but you can call me Yamato."

Y/N's eyes widened as he turned to look at Yamato. "You're... You never told me that." he breathed. Yamato stared back at him, and there was a look in her eye that he couldn't really explain. He turned back to look at the Strawhats, who stood in silence.

"HUH?!" was the initial reaction. Then the skeleton, Brook, and Vinsmoke Sanji ran forward.

"Yohohoho! I approve."

"Goddammit, not as much as me!"

Yamato grinned widely at them, while Y/N looked away, pissed, but also amused.

"We'll need confirmation from the captain before I can approve."

Y/N nodded towards the former warlord, Jinbe. Someone with actual brains.

-

"It's the first time I've been up here." Y/N was breathless by the time he pulled himself over one last tile and sat next to Yamato. Whatever breath he had leftover when he got to the top of the roof was swept away again by the sight of Wano.

"I come up here all the time." Yamato sighed.

"It's goddamn beautiful, Yamato. Wano, I mean. And you're just gonna... leave it all behind?"

Yamato sighed again. "I don't know anymore."

Y/N watched as a petal from a cherry blossom fell, swaying in the breeze until it landed in Yamato's hair. He reached out a hand to pick it out of her hair. From the corner of his eye, he saw Yamato watch him as he played with the sakura petal.

He looked up at her. She opened her mouth to speak, then decided against it and shut her mouth again.

"Go with them or not, Yamato. I'll go with you. Anywhere. Always. I promise you, we're free now."

Finally, Yamato nodded, her face set with determination. "I've made up my mind."

Suddenly, a voice rang out from somewhere below them. "Are you gone too, Yamato?? Y/N?"

Yamato grinned at Y/N, and shouted back. "Not yet, Momonosuke. But I know what I'm gonna do. I'm about to head over to Luffy. I'll finally get to... Live like Oden did."

-

"We're back here. Where it all began." Y/N looked around at the courtyard. "We're gonna have to ask for people to start tending to it, huh?"

Yamato nodded. "Maybe they can get the sakura trees to bloom again. Or they can plant new ones."

And in this moment, time seemed to freeze. Y/N and Yamato, bound together, by love and a promise. Y/N had wished for moments like these to last forever. However, nothing lasts forever. Nothing. Because then, pain racked through Y/N's body, and he let out a gasp.

"What is it?" Yamato turned to look at Y/N.

"I– I don't–" Y/N choked, and stopped talking. Panic clouding her eyes, Yamato jumped to her feet, about to run for help. When someone came into the courtyard.

-

"Y/N?" Yamato whispered. It was a woman, and an old one at that. But her resemblance to Y/N was uncanny. "You.. what? Who are you?"

The woman said nothing. Instead, she took out a hidden knife and struck a bleeding wound on her forearm, a wound Yamato hadn't noticed. The moment the knife touched her skin, Y/N let out a cry of pain.

"Stop it!" Yamato growled, her eyes flickering from Y/N to the woman.

"Y/N." the woman suddenly said. The name seemed foreign and strange spoken through her tongue.

"So this is what has become of my son."

That explained the resemblance. But what??

Y/N whipped his head up towards the woman, even though pain glazed his eyes at the movement.

"Kaido's never told you? After all these years of keeping me imprisoned, that piece of shit never let you know?" the woman hissed. "Y/N."

Again, the sound of his name in her mouth made Yamato want to strangle her.

"Y/N, you were an experiment. A failed experiment."

-

Y/N watched his.. mother. She was beautiful, if not in a cruel and cold way.

"How?" he whispered, the vibration of his vocal cords sent pain lacing through his throat, and he coughed.

"I'll tell you how."

-

The girl sat on the freshly mown grass, hanging up the laundry.

"Tooru!"

She turned around to see her mother.

"You're putting up the laundry for me? You're so goddamn sweet!!" Tooru's mother wrapped her arms around Tooru.

"Oi! Let go of me, I'm only doing the laundry because you twisted your ankle yesterday."

Tooru's mother let go of her, and she continued her work with a huff.

-

"Bandits!! Help– run!"

Tooru heard the cry before she saw the people, and ran as fast as she could to her mother. Her mother looked up at her from where she sat at the table.

"Mother– you heard them, right? We gotta get the hell outta here!"

Grabbing her mother's hand, Tooru pulled her towards the door. Then she remembered something. She looked down at her mother's ankle, twisted from falling off a stool while doing the laundry. Her mother followed her gaze, and looked back at Tooru.

"You have to run. They're bandits, we can't hide here." Tooru pleaded, desperation in her eyes.

So Tooru half-dragged her mother out the door, and they looked down the hill as the large group of bandits ascended.

"Run." Tooru's mother breathed, and they took off. Not long after, Tooru's mother fell over.

"Mother!" Tooru grabbed her mother's hand, attempting to lift her up off the ground. Her mother gritted her teeth in pain, trying to push herself up.

"Leave me Tooru. Run."

Tooru brushed away tears. "Never!"

There was nothing they could do as they tried, they really tried, to get Tooru's mother off the ground while the bandits reached them.