Secrets She Never Knew (OnePiece Fanfiction)

04 | Questions Unanswered

Previously...

Her hand ran through the cool water. A smile graced her lips. She bounded off the surface of the water, taking off yet again.

She looked down. Dawn Island. The island she had landed on three months ago. Three faces came to mind, Ace... Sabo... Luffy...

Something in her snapped. She had to get back. The war inside started again.

Until a gunshot was heard.

- - -

Third Person POV

"Luffy, repeat that sentence again," Sabo asked.

"'I'll be at the place it all started'," Luffy repeated.

Waves crashed onto the shore. Three seagulls circled the skies. Ace, Sabo, and Luffy sat down near the cliff they always go to. It had been a day or two since the Polchemy incident, they hardly ever kept track of time. Sayeko hasn't come back, neither were they able to find her. They had searched all over the Grey Terminal, almost the entire island.

The switch turned on.

"Ace, where did you meet Koko?" Sabo asked again.

He was looking off into the distance, still trying to make sense of everything. Koko was missing. The only person who hadn't criticized him for being his son, aside from Sabo and Garp. She was smart, that much he knew. She should have returned by now. Then again, if what Luffy said was true, what exactly was she? She never mentioned anything about being a demon, let alone shown it. So, why now? Did she have to keep it a secret from them?

"Ace!" Sabo snapped him from his thoughts, "Where did you first meet Koko?"

"Huh? By the beach," Ace replied, "Why?"

"The beach?" Sabo confirmed, "Then, let's go!" With that being said, he, very literally, dragged Luffy back into the forest, "Ace! Hurry up!" Why hadn't I thought of that sooner?!

"Oi! Wait up!" Ace called to him as he grabbed his pipe and ran after the two, "I'm coming!"

- - -

Like lightning, the boys sprinted to the beach, hoping to find who they were looking for.

"The place where it all started." There can only be four places she could be. Her hometown; the place she met Ace the first time; the tree she met Sabo the first time; and their old hideout. They didn't know where her hometown was. Even then, they knew her hometown was no more so it wouldn't do them any good to look for it. They had waited by their old hideout the first day, hoping for her to come back, she hadn't. There was only one more place to look.

- - -

Turquoise waves splashed onto the shore as the clouds frolicked in the wind. The sand beneath their feet, golden like the sun gleaming above their heads.

"KOKO! YOU HERE?!" Luffy started to shout, but was immediately tackled to the ground by Ace, "Idiot! Don't just go and start shouting like that!"

Sabo took a glance around the place. Forests to the right; a tiny rowing boat, gently rocked by the waves, to the right; sand beneath their feet; boulders near the boat...

Wait, boulders?

He cautiously took a step closer to the outcrop of boulders. Moss freckled the cold hard stone, waves lapping against them.