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It wasn’t even pain, it was just sudden, incredible numbness. Like the life had been shocked out of him. This time he didn’t cry, didn’t scream, didn’t collapse or pass out. He just felt empty of everything. All his will was gone- will to keep going, to speak, to move, to feel.
He could see people moving around him as if in slow motion. Koala was talking to him, but her voice was muffled. Dragon, Hack…they were all shaking him and trying to speak to him, but he didn’t feel it, couldn’t hear it.
It was funny. He had spent ten years without even remembering Ace and Luffy’s existence, but now that he had and they were both gone he felt like he had nothing at all.
He could guess that was what Koala, Hack and Dragon were telling him now: “You still have us, you don’t have nothing”, but he was having trouble believing it.
Suddenly images were flashing before his eyes, the way they were said to flash when you were about to die. Pictures of his time spent with his brothers. Luffy’s smile, so fucking bright. His dream of becoming the Pirate King.
That dream wasn’t ever going to happen now.
Of course Sabo had other reasons to live- his cause, his goal of taking down the World Government. Before the Summit War he’d always thought that maybe it would increase his devotion to the cause if someone he loved died- make him want revenge. But as he was now, he didn’t feel like taking down the government. What was the point of living in a free world without Ace and Luffy in it? …What was the point of living without Ace and Luffy?
He could feel Koala’s arms around him, now. He leaned into them, staring off into space. He didn’t really want to keep living, no, but he didn’t really want to die either. He kind of just wanted to float, weightlessly, in a warm place, forever. Maybe that way he could stop existing but without causing pain for the people left who still cared about him.
“Sabo-kun!”
Koala’s voice broke through the white noise. She seemed very upset, worried by his non-reaction. She’d probably have preferred him to scream or cry, but he just didn’t have the energy. Instead he moved away from her grasp, stood up, and walked to his bedroom to lie down.
He curled up on his covers, trying to empty his mind of the flood of pictures of Luffy that continuously plagued it. Swept away in memory, he lay there for hours.
Eventually he heard a knock on the door. Probably Koala, worried he’d done something bad. Here to tell him it was better to talk about these things. He couldn’t, though. Talking might shatter what vestiges of reason he still clung to. So long as he lay silently in his bed, he wasn’t broken. Something still held him together, allowing him to not be destroyed by the hell that had just engulfed him.
When he didn’t answer the knock, Koala opened the door, then rushed over to him. He heard her let out her breath when she knelt next to him and saw his eyes were open. He looked at her passively. She was so beautiful. So kind. Had been through so much, yet was still so strong. Stronger than him.
He didn’t get it. He’d seen so many people die- friends, mentors, strangers, children…Why did these two people dying, one of whom he’d only spent a few months with, destroy him? Had this just been the final straw? The proverbial nail in the coffin after an entire lifetime of stress and seeing too much? Would he have been able to accept both his brothers dying more easily if he hadn’t already been fucked up by his knowledge of their cruel, corrupt planet?
Probably not, because…
“They were so good,” he said softly. “You should have seen them, Koala…they burned so bright.”
She stroked his hair, not speaking.
“They were amazing. When I was with them, any feeling other than happiness was alien, and ever since I left them I haven’t been able to feel that same level of happiness again. No one gets it. They weren’t just people, they were better than that, they were…I’m not…This isn’t just my loss. I’m not just upset about losing them, I’m upset about the goddamn world losing them…I don’t know…I’m not sure if a world without them in it is something I can handle living in…”
Her hand paused on his head. “I know it hurts. But it is still worth living in. Even if you haven’t met them, there are other Ace-kuns and Luffy-kuns out there, and they deserve saving. They need you to save them, Sabo-kun.”
“I can’t.”
“That’s a lie.”
It was, and he knew it. He could stand up and keep going right now if he chose to. He’d be broken, but he’d been broken after Ace’s death too and kept going anyway. He could do it.
He just had to choose.
It was odd, life after both Ace and Luffy were dead.
He went through the motions. He got up at seven every morning. He showered. He brushed his teeth. Washed his face, put on clothes. By all means, he looked about the same as he did before they died.
It wasn’t as though no one else could tell something was up, though. They knew something was wrong, but they also knew there was nothing they could do. He’d even overheard Ivankov talking one day, saying that he was a lost cause and that the fact that he was functioning at all was a miracle, so they should all just leave him alone.
Koala, Hack, and Dragon, however, refused to stop trying. They kept attempting to wring some sort of emotion out of Sabo’s empty body.
That was how he felt: empty. As if something inherent to him had been taken away, and he no longer had the physical capability to continue running properly. To laugh and smile.
“Do you want to die?” Dragon asked him quietly one day after a report.
Sabo didn’t like questions like that. They required thought and self-examination, things he tried to avoid.
“Sabo, I only ask because-“
“No. …No, I don’t think so. I don’t want to live, either, though.”
“Then what do you want?” Dragon asked.
“To be with my brothers again. And to not hurt anyone,” Sabo said. “But I can’t die without hurting anyone. And I can’t see them again without dying. Maybe not even then.”
Dragon sighed. “You’ve done good work these past few months. I can’t feel very happy about it, though, considering the state you’re in.”
“There’s nothing you can do.”
“You can’t stay like this forever.”
“I’d like to believe that, too. But right now I can’t imagine ever changing,” Sabo said. “Zero times zero is still zero. The absence of anything…is difficult to improve upon.”
“You had a life and happiness before you remembered your brothers. You can have that now.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, but no, I can’t. Don’t you get what this is? I heard Iva-san say it, and I guess that it’s true. This, this emptiness, it’s a defense instinct. You want me to feel again? Well, as soon as I do, it might kill me.”
“Or almost kill you,” Dragon said. He looked thoughtful. “Those same emotions overcame you after the Summit War, and you almost died, but you didn’t.”
Sabo understood what he was saying, but he just didn’t have the will. Maybe it would work. He didn’t really care. He didn’t really care about anything, and certainly not his own well-being, yet here Dragon was, telling him to give a shit about it. He just shook his head.
“Do you want to suffer forever or something?” Dragon said, his voice agitated. “Do you feel like you deserve it? Because if not I simply can’t understand this non-action.”
Sabo just looked at the ground. He didn’t feel like arguing. He just wanted to vanish, disappear, never have existed, but suddenly he was ripped from this idea by Dragon’s hands on his shoulders.
Dragon was gripping him tightly. “We need you here, Sabo. And not like this. You can’t be my Chief of Staff like this.”
“Then fire me, if you think someone can do my job better than me.”
Dragon’s hands loosened. “…That’s the issue. I can’t fire you, because I know right now your job is one of the only things keeping you going. Without the routine of it, you’d just…”
Whither away. Forget to eat or sleep, probably. Let himself rot into the ground. Sabo couldn’t deny Dragon’s concern was legitimate.
“Maybe that’d be for the best. Me dying.”
“Don’t you say that. Don’t you dare say that. We need you, and I know you don’t want to hurt us.”
“I never want to hurt you. Any of you. But me continuing to live like this is obviously hurting you too,” Sabo said slowly.
“Not as much as your death would! I’m sure Hack, Koala, Joe, Ivankov, Inazuma and all the others would agree.”
“So, what? What can you do? What can you do to get me back to normal? Because right now, going back feels impossible.”
Dragon furrowed his eyebrows. “Come with me. We can go back to Goa Kingdom together- I’ve been due for a visit. You can see your old haunts again, and meet with those bandits who raised the three of you. Reminisce.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“You think they don’t hate me?! It’d make them sick to see my face, and know that the one brother who meant the least to them is the only one who survived. The one who couldn’t even save the people he claimed were his family.” The words tumbled out of Sabo like hot pokers, burning his tongue as they fell. “They’d hate me even more if they saw me the way I am now. I don’t even have the energy to smile or cry…they’d call me heartless.”
“Are you heartless?”
“No! You can’t, you could never understand how badly this fucking hurts-“ Sabo stopped himself, not having realized until now how loud he’d been getting.
“This is good,” Dragon said. “Even if you can’t smile or cry, you’re angry. That’s not nothing.”
Sabo wanted to scream, to punch him in the face, but it was pointless, oh it was so pointless, because they were gone-
They were gone.
Suddenly he dropped to his knees.
“They’re gone,” he whimpered.
“I know.”
“They’re gone. Their dreams are dead. I-I’m never going to see them again.”
Dragon said nothing, just nodded.
“I’m…the last one. All alone. I’m alone.” He stared up at the stucco ceiling, eyes wide. He could hear Luffy’s voice echoing in his head, calling him nice, calling him nii-chan. Ace, saying he was going to go out to sea and become a pirate.
Their voices, just echoes now. Their faces only ghosts.
It was too much to bear.
He began to shake violently. It was as if all the feeling that had been denied to him over the past month was flooding into him at once. He’d been tortured before, sure, but this was far worse. He thought he was going to die from the pain of it. He couldn’t speak, or move, or breathe.
With his last remnant of energy, he let out a blood-curdling scream that could probably be heard in the farthest reaches of Baltigo. Then his mind caved in and he blacked out.
It didn’t feel like recovery, it felt like hell. But maybe they were the same thing.
After he collapsed he spent a week in the infirmary being looked after by Ivankov, and after that he was released but put on bed rest in his room. It was probably for the best, seeing as he spent most of his time sleeping, being unable to sleep because of nightmares or hallucinations, crying, and yelling. It was the most emotion he’d shown in years.
It was painful. It was embarrassing. He’d yell at the nurses, at his friends, at Dragon- and afterwards spiral into a state of guilt so deep he couldn’t get out of bed if he wanted to.
“Sabo-kun,” Koala said softly as she entered his room one day.
Her presence made him feel awkward, knowing full well how awful he must look at the moment. He couldn’t meet her eyes, couldn’t meet hardly anyone’s anymore, but he nodded to show he was listening.
“There’s someone here who wants to see you,” she continued.
“Make them leave.”
“I won’t let her in unless you say I can, but…I think you should talk to her. It’s Robin-chan.”
Sabo’s eyes widened. “Robin-san? She can’t see me like this!”
“I understand, I-“
He stumbled out of bed. He was too weak to walk very well and every bone in his body ached from disuse. He only barely managed to catch himself on a filing cabinet to stop from falling over.
“Sabo-kun! You’re ill; don’t overexert yourself!”
“I’m not fucking ill, though, am I?” Sabo slammed his fist again the cabinet, leaving a dent in the metal. “I’m just messed up in the head because I’m sad. I know what you all are thinking, saying behind my back. ‘Why can’t he just get over it?’ ‘Isn’t this an overreaction?’ I tried! I goddamn tried to stomach it and keep working, but apparently that wasn’t good enough either!”
Koala reached out and touched his shoulder cautiously. He couldn’t tell whether the caution was because she was afraid if she pressed too hard he might lash out at her, or because she was afraid that if she pressed too hard he might break.
“For what it’s worth, I agree with Dragon-san,” she said. “I prefer this Sabo-kun. The one who’s messed up but knows it and is trying to get better, rather than hiding it.”
Their eyes met for a moment, and then Sabo pulled away, limping over to the bathroom door. “Does Robin-san know… how I’ve been?”
“I don’t think so. Should I tell her?”
“No. I’ll take a shower and then meet with her. Tell her to please be patient for another half an hour, if that’s all right.”
The corners of Koala’s mouth twitched. “Okay. Don’t push yourself too much.”
Even with his hair washed and his skinny frame hidden under his usual layers, he didn’t look normal. When he looked at himself in mirror, it was like seeing a ghost of the person he used to be. The same, but so different. The circles under his eyes were as dark as his coat, and his eyes themselves had an even darker glint. He was also in serious need of a haircut, he observed.
He put on his top hat and tied his cravat and hoped Robin wouldn’t notice.
She was waiting for him in the Baltigo lobby. Her eyes looked dark, as well. Of course they did. Her captain was dead. They still greeted each other with a smile, though. Two dead smiles.
“It’s good to see you again, Robin-san.”
“And you, Sabo.”
They sat down together with cups of coffee he’d made and brought out. He still remembered how she took hers.
“How are you guys holding up?” he asked. “Are you still…together?”
Robin nodded. “The rest of the crew is in the ship, outside.”
“That’s good. You should stay with each other. It’s best that way.”
“And you?”
“…Hm?”
“How are you holding up?”
That was not an easy question. “How do you think?” he said weakly. “About as well as you’d expect.”
Her expression was soft. Sympathetic. She had her own problems to deal with, so why did she look so bothered about him?
“I was worried, Chief. I thought you might be dead,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Ha. That’s a dark thought.”
“All the same, you seem well. Are you still working?”
Sabo’s voice caught in his throat. His hands started to tremble, and before he had even registered it his coffee mug had slipped out of them and shattered on the floor. “Oh, shit! Oops.”
She helped him clean it up. As he gathered the glass in his gloved hands, he felt like he was standing on the edge of a cliff, teetering on the brink of a total panic attack. He needed to go back to his room.
“U-um, I worked for a while,” he said. “I’ve taken a…sabbatical, recently, though.”
“That’s good. You need time, I’m sure.”
“Yeah.” A lot more time. Several lifetimes of it.
“In all honesty, Sabo, I didn’t come here just to check up on you,” Robin said seriously. “I came here to ask you for something. A favor, you could call it. A very big favor.”
He had no idea what she could mean. “…What?”
“Our crew, understandably, is in a bad place. We have no real captain now. It’s not that Zoro or Sanji or I aren’t strong or capable…but we weren’t built to be captains. And we don’t have the will, after what happened. We need someone who has Luffy’s same will to help us continue to follow his dream. A capable leader.”
“You mean…me.”
“You’re the only person I know on this planet who fits the bill. And…I thought it would be helpful for you, as well. To take a break and sail the seas, especially with other people who have felt and can understand the same loss that you have.”
Sabo was silent for what felt to him like hours, trying to come up with a response. “U-um…”
“Of course, you have an important job to do. I know that. But you wouldn’t have to abandon it if you joined us. We’d help you fight the World Government too. They’re the ones who killed him, after all. It’d be mutually beneficial.”
The idea of helping Luffy’s crew achieve his dream…it appealed to Sabo. It gave the illusion of closure, even. But there was a pounding in his head that kept getting louder and louder, a voice screaming at him.
I want to help Luffy’s crew NO I WANT TO STOP EXISTING but you should help Luffy’s crew it’s what he’d want BUT WHO WOULD EVEN WANT ME AS THEIR LEADER WHEN I’M SO BROKEN-
“I haven’t been completely honest with you, Robin-san,” he said slowly, fighting back the voice. “I haven’t been on sabbatical, not really. I’ve been on bed rest. About a month after he…died, I had a complete mental collapse, or something like it. I’d like to say I’m recovering, but that would be a stretch. I’m…volatile. I doubt you’d want me around.”
“Do you not want to agree to this because you feel it would be harmful to your mental health, or because you think you would be a burden on us? Because those are two very different things.”
He was quiet. “I’m just saying that you don’t want a captain who…is in the state I’m in. I want to help you, but I don’t think I can. You don’t know how difficult it is for me to even hold it together enough to talk to you right now.”
“We don’t need you to be perfect. Of course you’re broken. Your little brother is dead. But so are all of us. We wouldn’t want a leader who couldn’t understand that. Be broken, but weak if you have to. Just help us.”
Sabo started to say “I’m needed here”, but then stopped himself. What use was he here, lying in bed all day? He knew he wouldn’t be able to go back to work any time soon, but he also knew it was killing him to spend so much time doing nothing. Going with the Straw Hats would be less restrictive and demanding than work, but it’d also be doing something other than staring at the ceiling all day being suffocated with regret.
“I’ll need to talk with Dragon-san,” he said finally.
“Of course.”
Sabo excused himself and returned to his room. He immediately sank to his knees and rested his face against the end of his bed, breathing heavily. He felt too hot and too cold at the same time. He wanted, all of a sudden, to become incorporeal, but he also didn’t want to set the room on fire so he opted to remain solid.
One of his subordinates stopped by, looking worried. “Chief, are you all right? Did you go out? You shouldn’t-“
“I’m fine,” he said, standing up. He hung up his hat and coat and then sat down on the bed. “Call Dragon-san for me, could you?”
“Um, yes, of course.”
“Thanks.”
He loosened his cravat so he could breathe a little, and tried to recompose himself. Dragon had seen him crying and screaming, at his very worst, too many times now. He wasn’t going to let that happen again. He was going to go back to being the strong person he used to be.
Dragon arrived quickly.
“Sabo. You’re dressed.”
“Robin-san came by,” Sabo said. “I spoke to her.”
Dragon raised his eyebrows.
“Yeah, I know. Me, talking to someone. Well, I did. And she asked me something.”
“About…Luffy?” Dragon said his son’s name carefully, as if he could lessen the hurt hidden behind it if it were drawn out more slowly.
“Sort of. She asked me to join their crew. As their new captain.”
“They want you to replace him?”
Sabo lowered his head. “I guess.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m…powerful. And a leader. And I know the same pain they’re feeling.”
“No offense, but at the current moment, you are neither powerful nor a leader,” Dragon pointed out. “Are you actually considering this?”
For some reason, even though what he said was true and was exactly what Sabo himself had been thinking, it pissed Sabo off. “Here I was thinking that you were going to tell me not to go because I’m needed here.”
“We do need you here. Even more than that, you need to be here. You’re not well, if the past two weeks have been any indication.”
“And I’m not getting any better, either. Yeah, I’m on the edge of a meltdown right now, but I always am. Staying here isn’t helping me. Maybe going with them won’t either, but it’s worth a try, isn’t it?”
“It sounds dangerous.”
“I’m the Chief of fucking Staff of the Revolutionary Army. Everything I do is dangerous. Everything I’ve ever done.”
Dragon smiled slightly at his words. He took a deep breath. “If you think this is best for you…then I want you to do it. I just don’t want to lose you.”
By ‘lose you’, Sabo got the feeling that he didn’t just mean Sabo would be far away from him. “I’m not going to die,” he said.
It was something he couldn’t have said a couple months ago. Dragon seemed to understand the weight of those words, and nodded.
“Don’t forget that the revolutionaries love you,” he said. “We all care about you.”
Sabo nodded. “I know. Could you tell them for me? All of them…tell them I’m okay, or at least that I’m not dead, and that I’m coming back.”
“Why not tell them yourself?”
“Please, Dragon-san. This is hard enough already.”
“…Very well. I will.”
“Thank you.”
Dragon left, looking back at him with a hint of worry still in his eyes. Sabo got to his feet shakily and put his hat and coat back on. He walked to the lobby, where Robin was still sitting finishing her coffee. The revolutionaries he passed stared at him. Some of them smiled, seeming heartened by the sight of their not-so-fearless leader finally looking like himself again. He felt guilty, like he was abandoning him. In a way, he was.
“Robin-san.”
She looked up. Their eyes met and he nodded.
“I’ll come with you.”
There was silence when he stepped upon the Thousand Sunny. The crew was all there, and when he arrived they only nodded in recognition. That darkness he’d seen in his own and Robin’s eyes was in all of theirs, a dark cloud over the entire ship.
Zoro walked over to him and clapped him on the shoulder. “Sorry for your loss.”
“It’s yours as much as mine.”
“I want you to know that we don’t intend for you to replace your brother. Not in a million years. No one could. We just want…your help.”
Sabo nodded. “I understand. And I want to warn you that I’m not…all right.”
“None of us are.”
“I know. I’ll try to help you. I’ll do the best I can.”
If it was for his little brother, he’d do anything. Even in this sorry state, everything he did was for Luffy’s sake. That wouldn’t ever change.
Yes, it was still odd, living when both Ace and Luffy were dead.
It was even odder feeling happy when both Ace and Luffy were dead.
The latter didn’t happen often, of course. But on very rare occasions, it crept up on him, like when he was reading a particularly good book, or discussing history with Robin, or feasting with the crew. Luffy’s crew. His crew?
The crew didn’t really know how to function without Luffy. Neither did he, of course, but he was pretty good at keeping up appearances that suggested otherwise. He was used to being a leader during even the most extreme, tragic of scenarios. He’d had to do it plenty of times during missions for the Army. This was just another one of those- another one of the worst possible scenarios. Another tragedy to move past.
Of course, he couldn’t. He never would. But it was nice to hold onto the illusion that someday, far from now, he could have closure. In the meantime, it was one foot after the other.
He was still working on allowing himself to be happy. Not catching himself every time he so much as smiled and reminding himself “They’re dead. How can you smile when they’re dead?”
Because they’d want him to smile, wouldn’t they? Ace and Luffy wouldn’t want him to wallow in misery. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. He was trying to cut down on the misery, though. He didn’t sleep often, so that when he did go to bed he fell asleep instantly instead of lying there barraging himself with regret. He ate better. Spent more time with the others.
Some days he’d go out to the deck, lean on the railing and let the ocean breeze wash over him. He would close his eyes and bring back the memories- the ones he’d spent so long without, and then spent so long repressing because he couldn’t bear to think about what he’d lost.
He and his brothers had built a treehouse, close enough to the stars that they’d felt they could almost touch them. They’d run on the beach, their toes sinking into the sand. They’d lit fires and watch them burn down to embers, back when fire was still just fire and not something to harness, something to fear, something to inherit.
Sabo couldn’t remember their exact conversations. A lot of his memories were hazy even now. But he could remember the way Ace laughed, and the feeling of pulling them both into his arms. The sensation of freedom and love and a happiness that felt like it would never end.
Maybe he was romanticizing it, but he didn’t think he was. They’d had it good. They’d had it amazing. Now that he thought about it, actually, it was no wonder things went so wrong. No one could be that happy forever.
So now he was the only one left.
Why him?
That was a question he’d been asking himself over and over since Luffy died. Out of the three of them, there was no one who would’ve chosen him as the one who ought to survive. No, anyone in their right mind would choose Ace, who was so strong and such a good big brother. Or Luffy, who could befriend practically anybody, and who had saved so many with his innocent kindness and powerful values.
But instead it was Sabo. The kid with the short hair and the missing tooth and the martyr complex. The kid who was supposed to have died fourteen years ago. The kid who still sometimes wished he had, because then they could all be dead together. The ASL brothers, wiped from this planet completely. Maybe it would be better than way.
He couldn’t afford to think like that, though. He had a crew now, a crew that needed his protection, not his depression.
He was still that kid with the short hair and the missing tooth and the martyr complex, even if his teeth were all here and his hair was long and wavy now. He still deserved to live, even on the days when his mistakes felt so heavy that he could barely walk.
He had to carry on Ace’s legacy, Luffy’s legacy, the pirate king legacy. It didn’t matter whether or not he wanted to die, he had to live. For them, the little kids with the messy black hair who loved him more than he deserved. And for his young self, who’d had so many dreams for the future. Maybe who he was right now didn’t deserve it, but that kid deserved it. That kid deserved the world, even when his brothers were dead and his dreams seemed unreachable.
It was that kid he could keep going for.
”It’s a winter island up ahead!” Nami called from where she was hanging off the mast, her binoculars trained towards the distant waves.
“Should we stop there?” Sabo called back up to her.
“No, I don’t think so. We’ll go around it. I just wanted to warn you in case there’s harsh winds and snow ahead.”
“All right! Hold steady, Franky.”
Nami was correct, as always. The snow came hard and fast, coating the usually green decks of the ship. She jumped down from her post, shivering.
“Damn, it’s cold,” she said, bumping into Sabo. She stared at him. “Sabo, you’re always so warm! It’s unfair!”
“Sorry. Blame the devil fruit.”
As he walked down to the main deck, the quickly accumulating snow melted beneath his boots. Chopper had sprung into action building a snow man. Usopp joined him after a beat, creating a rather impressive sculpture out of the cold white dust.
They looked happy, but there was a heaviness in the air. The heaviness of the knowledge that there was someone missing who would have loved to make a snow man, too.
“That’s amazing, Usopp,” Sabo said, staring up at his sculpture in awe.
“Thanks, Sabo! Ah-“ Usopp jumped in front of it, blocking his path. “Don’t you come near it, though! You’ll melt it into a puddle!”
Sabo laughed and held up his hands guiltily. “I’ll keep my distance, I promise.”
“You had better! You’ve already lit the deck on fire three times!”
“I know, I know.”
“You’re unbelievable, by the way,” Usopp said.
“What?”
“Dressed like that!”
Sabo frowned and looked down. He was wearing the outfit he’d always worn since boarding the Sunny, a variation on the same cargo pants and tank top that he’d borrowed from the other crewmembers. He hadn’t worn his old outfit since that day.
“I’m made of fire, Usopp. I don’t feel temperature,” he pointed out. “Hot or cold.” He reached out an arm, watching snowflakes vanish before even nearing his skin.
Usopp approached him, watching them melt into nothingness. He crossed his arms. “Huh. What must that be like?”
“It’s just a constant…comfortable feeling,” Sabo said. “I used to think it made things boring, but now I like to think of it as…I don’t know, as if it’s my brother watching over me. Lending me a coat.”
“That’s a good way to look at it,” Usopp said, nodding sagely.
“Yeah.”
It helped, to think of things like that. He had never been a very spiritual person, but after he’d gotten the Mera Mera no mi…he knew it was impossible, but he felt like Ace was with him. Not in a hallucination type of way either, though he’d certainly experienced that before. Suddenly he could understand why people believed in heaven.
In the same vein, no longer wearing his old outfit was a bit of a spiritual thing as well. It let him live his life detached from the Revolutionary Army and not feel as guilty about abandoning them. Of course, not wearing his top hat or cravat detached him from his brothers and his childhood in a way as well. But maybe that was good. He couldn’t be stuck in the past forever. He wasn’t ten years old anymore.
He was twenty-four. He was captain of the Straw Hat pirate crew. He was someone else now, someone who his new crewmates could love, or at least tolerate.
He couldn’t tell whether they loved him. Liked him, probably. He tried his best to prove that he cared about them and that they could trust him. He’d do anything for them, had already taken a couple bullets for them. It was the least he could do to carry on Luffy’s will.
And it was worth it for the times they smiled at him.
For the times he was able to smile back.