A Black Heart Does Not Always Stay Black

A Traumatic Experience

Luffy stood in front of the large mirror in the bathhouse bathroom, staring at his tattoo with a frown, covering it up with his hands, as it was longer than one could cover, and trying to hide it to see what he looked like. His eyes were brighter now, he noticed and his brother's pointed out, who were in the bathtub. Ace was in the shallow part made specifically for the devil fruit users.

Luffy smiled, but it wasn't true. It wasn't creepy or unsettling, but it wasn't the true smile he reserved for his brothers.

Still looking in the mirror, he shifted into his humanoid version of his devil fruit, standing and looked really creepy. He had no face, but could still see, hear and smell. When he opened the palm of his hand after making a fist, his fingers were stuck to the base of his hand before they snapped back apart.

He saw his brothers watching him, but paid them no attention. From the half form, he changed into his full version, four legs and no head. He tried hard to rein the stickiness in, make himself more solid instead of looking like he was melting to the ground, but it wasn't possible. At least, not right now. The stick stayed on the ground, only snapping up when he walked away, still watching his appearance.

Since he was so strong in this form, the sticking to the ground was no problem. It didn't take much strength to unstick his feet from it. While he was in that form, a couple pirates walked in and watched him for a bit before he self-consciously changed back and hurried to his brothers in the tub.

Despite looking like he was melting, none of the stick remained after he was back to human Luffy. He left no mess or any evidence of being there. He undressed except for a towel around his waist and sat next to Ace in the shallow part. Both were drained of energy, and Ace was clearly irritated with the feeling.

"This is annoying," Ace grumbled, slowly picking his and up, feeling so weak.

"At least you'll be able to move afterwards," Sabo commented, now the only one able to go into deep water or swim. "Luffy falls asleep right afterwards."

Luffy sighed. "Sorry," he said quietly. Ace shot Sabo an annoyed look.

"Not your fault, Lu. Besides, since everyone found out about your fruit, they've been willing to carry you to our room. You're not a burden. Marco said so, too," Ace supplied. He had shared his talk with the first mate with his brothers when they were feeling down about not being allowed to fight some pirates and feeling like people thought they were useless.

Ace tried to catch on fire only for it to fizzle out with a little steam right away. He sighed, not having gotten any better at his power in the last week they were on the Moby Dick. He was going to practice with Sabo after the bath while Luffy rested in their room.

After then were nice and clean, Ace relaxed and Luffy falling asleep, they left the bath and got dressed. A pirate from the fourth division offered to carry the boy to his room. The three had talked to him before, his name was Lee. He was very nice to them after the announcement. More than once he'd carried Luffy with the brothers walking beside him.

"Thanks, Lee," Sabo said.

"No problem," the pirate replied. When the three kids first got on the ship, they expected everyone to be cruel and mean, especially towards Luffy after capturing their first mate, but after the last two weeks, most had warmed up to them. Not interacting with him specifically, but didn't glare and waved or smiled when passing them.

Some even cheered on the boys when they were practicing. Over all, almost all of the pirates had forgiven Luffy for kidnapping Marco. Many now laughed at the man about it, earning glares from the commander. The ones who teased him most, though, were his fellow division commanders. He could not punish them, and they knew it, so they did most of the joking and jabs.