ONE PIECE Imagines

Ace's Mission Part 5

ACE'S POV

"How?" she questioned. "Is that also a Devil Fruit power? Do you have two Devil Fruit powers?"

I laughed maybe too hard.

"Of course not." I said, patting her head playfully. "It's just obvious." Rachel lowered her chin shyly. "You can tell, though, right?"

"Well, you seem to distance yourself away from people often. Why's that?" Rachel shrugged.

"I'm not very fond of here. Maybe because I'm the child of a pirate. I'll never know. Men treat me like a toy. Women look down on me in disgust. How am I suppose to know what other people think of me? Now that is a Devil Fruit Power I would like to have."

"To read people's minds?"

Rachel shrugged again. "It's just a idea."

"You know, it's not so bad being a child of a pirate." I gazed out into the wavy horizon, but I could see Rachel out of the corner of my eye, staring at me like I just threatened to shoot her. "I'm serious." I added. "I, too, am a pirate's son, and I've also never met the geezer." (Yes, I am talking about my biological father...not Whitebeard.)

"Doesn't that make you angry?" Rachel's tone changed. "Doesn't that make you just want to run away from everything? Knowing even your own father would leave you and your mother behind without even letting his child see him. My mother lost her soul because of what her husband did. She's alive, but dead inside. She sits in her rocking chair, swinging to and fro continuously, staring out the window to the ocean, as if she is waiting for him to come back, when everyone else on this damn island know damn well he is never coming back!!"

Halfway through her outburst, she began to cry. Tears had threatened to fall the entire way until the point when she mentioned her mother, she couldn't hold back anymore. She whipped her back to me and rubbed her eyes violently.

"Go away." she mumbled through her fingers. "Leave me."

Instead, I reached out and touched her shoulder blade, rubbing my palm gently across, back and forth. "Both of our dads were bastards, but at least you have a mother." The sniffling stopped. "I never knew mine."

Rachel didn't move for a moment. Everything seemed to slow down in time. And suddenly, Rachel's arms ended up around my chest, her cheek kissed the front of my shoulder. Her tears were still falling.

"Rachel...I'm sorry." I gently closed my arms around her tiny body. "I didn't mean to make you so upset."

"No..." Her voice softened as her body relaxed. "I'm happy...I promise..."

"I think we are more alike than you think." I pulled her away and stared into her wet eyes. Smiling, I pecked her nose. As I did, a bright boom exploded in the dark starry sky. More followed, a painting of splashing colors. My arm wrapped comfortingly around her shoulders, her temple pressed against mine.

Together, we enjoyed the fireworks show.