"nightmares" - Lulaw

CHAPTER 6 | ASL & snowballs

Third Person POV

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The Straw Hats had eaten breakfast in a comfortable silence, Ussop and Franky chatting about some new idea they had for an invention between bites. Luffy was clearly full of energy and was bouncing his leg idly, he was listening to the inventors conversation, though he didn't understand. So he began to zone out as he watched Trafalgar eat his rice balls in an adorable manner. Law swallowed, and then began to tell Sanji how good the rice balls were and how he needs to get his recipe so Bepo can make them back on his own ship. Law turned his head in Luffy's direction, and made eye contact with him before looking away embarrassed.

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Luffy's POV

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We finally landed on the new island, and I was excited to see what new adventure we were about to embark on. I was already off the ship whenever I heard Sanji yell my name. Usually, I wouldn't listen. But I wasn't given food yet, so I decided to wait and get a tasty reward from it.

"Luffy, you can't go alone," Sanji began. "The groups are as follows:

Nami and Robin, you two lovely ladies are free to go do whatever you want!" Sanji's voice got higher as he said this, and he handed them their lunch before continuing "Franky and Ussop, you two need to go get materials to fix the Sunny, as well as more Cola. Chopper, Zoro, and Me are going to get more food supplies and restock on medical supplies. Brook, you're to watch the ship in our absence, Luffy and Law you two need to scout out the island and see what's going on." Sanji gave the guys their lunches, packing extra for my group so that Law would at least have a chance to eat. 

"Law," Sanji began again "I'm going to trust you with our mini transponder snail. If Brook needs anything, he'll call you." Since I'd gotten my lunch, I decided I'd had enough of what the others had to say and I was about to take off before Zoro put his hand on my shoulder and stopped me.

"Lu," Zoro said quietly. I swallowed hard. Zoro never called me that unless it was important, and I couldn't handle that name right now. Law heard the name, and looked at me to make sure I was okay, to which I just nodded and gave him a small smile. "I know you probably don't want to hear this, but Law is dangerous. He's seemed fine with us for now, but he's a warlord. That's not an easy title to come across, so just be on high alert." I understood where Zoro was coming from, but the same had applied to Robin, and Robin was a true, trustworthy Straw Hat. Besides, Hancock was a Warlord too, and she had been trustworthy. 

"Zoro," I looked at his eye with the scar, "I understand. But Robin was the same. Jimbei and Hancock were both Warlords too, and I wouldn't be alive without them. I wouldn't be alive without Traffy, and you were trained by a Warlord these past two years. So I understand, but please trust my judgment. I know Traffy's a good guy." I smiled at him as I said this, and his eye widened before he nodded in defeat.

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Law's POV

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"I know Traffy's a good guy." Luffy had said. I suddenly felt guilty. When I saved his life two years ago, I never thought I'd be here. I still don't know why I did that. But I was glad I did. Luffy and I had been walking in silence for the past 20 minutes or so, and he finally spoke up.

"Whenever we were kids," Luffy began "Me and Ace and our other brother Sabo, we used to go on adventures everyday." Luffy wasn't really watching where he was going, and I could tell it would be like this for a while. So I grabbed his wrist so that he wouldn't get lost, but he pulled away and grabbed my hand instead, playing with my fingers as he continued his story. "We used to always fight over who would be the captain of our pirate crew. We all wanted to be pirate captains. So in order to decide, we fought a tiger!" Luffy was smiling now, and I liked the sweetness of his smile. "It took us a long time to beat it, but eventually we did and Ace landed the final blow! Me and Sabo were kinda pissed but he won fair and square. We called ourselves the ASL pirates, so I guess it always kinda made sense that Ace would be the captain. But when we acknowledged this, he wouldn't accept it. He said that he wouldn't have been able to beat the tiger without the help of me and Sabo, so it wasn't fair that he took all the credit." Law looked at Luffy briefly, he saw the admiration in his eyes. A spark that only comes from the brotherly rivalry. He remembered the stories he'd heard about Arabasta with Vivi and how kindly Ace and Luffy had interacted and suddenly felt his heart hurt for the younger captain. I started to open my mouth to say something, but Luffy interrupted. "Sabo set sail alone when we were little, but he... he didn't make it. Ace set sail alone a couple years later, and he was doing well until Whitebeard took him in. So in the end, he didn't end up a true captain. But he led an entire division! And everybody has such kind stories to share about my big brother." The ending was... less than bittersweet, I thought. But that conversation was cut short as we left the clearing of trees we were in. We saw a beautiful town made purely of ice, everything seemed so porcelain. Like the smallest thing would break it. I looked over and saw Luffy smile. "We're SO coming back with the entire crew later!" Luffy's smile grew bigger and he said "Ace loved winter islands, he was made of fire so I guess the coolness sort of made the heat less... hot?" I smiled at him,

"The word is neutralize." I said, trying to fight the smile currently present 

"What?" Luffy cocked his head at me.

"The coolness neutralizes the heat" I said.

"...you couldn't let me have that?" I was unable to keep the smile off my face any longer, and I began laughing. Luffy tackled me to the ground and was play fighting with me before I turned around so I was on top of him. We were both out of breath now, and Luffy said 

"No fair," between breathes. "You're bigger than me! And your powers are way cooler!" He pouted, and I couldn't help but chuckle again.

"You could still beat me," I began. This wasn't a total lie, but I think he'd probably have to fight me a few times before he could figure out a way to beat me.

"hmph" Luffy had turned his head to the side, and was still pouting. At this moment I realized I was still on top of him, and I noticed the cute blush that was on his nose and cheeks from the cold. Luffy was wearing red ear muffs underneath his hat, and they made him look adorable. I suddenly felt something cold hit me in the face, and I looked at Luffy in astonishment as I realized he had rolled out from underneath me and thrown a snow ball at me.

Luffy just smiled at me, and he stuck his tongue out at me as he prepared another one to throw. I didn't let him throw this one though. I used my devil fruit powers to take the snow ball from him, and I threw it right at his neck as he turned around looking for more snow to grab. We went at this for a while, throwing snow balls back and forth until we were tired from laughing.

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