Kefi - Eight

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I want to give a fair warning that this chapter contains a spoiler for chapter 1084 of the manga and a somewhat major one at that (no character death, but certainly a character reveal); so please be cautious of that. If you wish to skip it, for whatever reason, please skip the portion where Sabo is talking to Ace about his recent breakthrough! When originally thinking of this idea, I had hoped the anime would have aired the episode by the time I released this chapter (I had realistic goals for my writing speed at that time; I figured it would be out before I reached this point, but oh well; I got pretty close). Sorry about that (and for the A/N in the beginning)!

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"What is it?" Luffy asked, blinking dubiously as his fingers travelled the intricate etched letters of a foreign language. Beside Luffy, Ace stood with his arms crossed and a permanent scowl carved into his features. Sabo opted not to mention it.

"It looks old," Sabo murmured, crouching to run his fingers down the crevices. The eroded stone was not without hints of cracks along the edges, but it was largely intact. Removing the moss revealed more large scribbles. "I don't recognize this language. It's probably dead." He remarked, thoughtful. It was unfortunate that he had come across something so remarkable only for it to be essentially untranslatable.

Ace scoffed, "So?" He didn't seem remotely impressed by the giant cube. He kicked at it, finding that the rock didn't give as he expected it to. It was resilient, if nothing else. Regardless of that fact, Sabo protested the action.

"Can you not?"

Ace promptly ignored him. "What now? I mean, it's raining cats and dogs outside—" Luffy gasped, dashing to the entrance.

"Ace! There're no cats or dogs, you liar!" Ace let out a hefty sigh from beside Sabo; in the back of his mind, Sabo wondered how Ace grew so close to Luffy prior to Sabo. He clearly lacked any patience. And what with Luffy's soulmark—they were questions for another time. Luffy came bounding back, avoiding the fire by a hair as he huffed. His black locks were still dripping, stuck to his skin as he pouted.

"It's an idiom," Sabo offered, silently adding it to the list of things he'd have to teach Luffy. Turning back to the stele, his hands wandered across its surface. "I wonder..." Nothing in existence was incapable of being learned again, even if it was long forgotten. The core of humanity was ingenuity; did that not extend to relearning a possibly dead language? Ace flicked his forehead, bringing him back from his stupor.

"Stop thinking so much. You're giving me a headache." Sabo frowned, weighing his words.

He didn't have to speak, however, as Luffy was running back to the fire and settling his sweater against a rock. "We should make sure these are dry." He explained and Ace followed after him, fixing Sabo's coat so that it was far enough away from the fire. Sabo's lips tilted up—Luffy had his rare moments of foresight.

"I think I'm going to try to decode this," Sabo murmured, as the crackle of the fire engulfed the cave and draped them in a familiar warmth. Even with his drenched pants and his hair beginning to mat, he felt comfortable amid the cave and his friends. Though, the word friends didn't exactly encompass the relationship between the three. Sabo didn't have a word for it, yet, but he knew it ran deeper than anything he had had before. "I mean, for all I know, it's not so dead." He shrugged, letting his words fall over the room.

Ace was silent, beside the fire. "I don't know what it is." The flicker of the fire shadowed Ace's features. "I just know it isn't anything good." He was serious, Sabo realized. Sabo's hands stopped their movements, glaring at Ace's slouched back. His tanned skin was darker with the lack of light and as Sabo moved closer, he found that the fire illuminated each speck of freckles across his gaudy cheeks.

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