Kat

https://archiveofourown.org/works/67260661

Would look just like you

With a temper like you, run around like you

Hibiscus fields wake me

The unfamiliar woman brings warmth implacable

The riverside calls me, the wind carries my wish

I find the sun there, burning, not burning me

The puzzle is complete, I cannot stay

The clouds open, I am pulled

To the sky I belong, I am the sun.

I am found by the moon

I do not know it, I am blind

I am guided, surrounded, and then—

Aware

Not to be a burden, I draw away

I am followed, I do not move

I am guided, surrounded, and then—

Loved

To the moon I belong, I am the sun.

One thing comes to an end

I return to one I once knew

Spilling on the ground,

I pick it back up

The forest invites us with open arms

We travel through day

To the earth I belong, I am the sun.

Painted red

The blindness finds me again

I cannot feel the sky

Cool warmth bleeds to wash it away

I am with the moon, we remember the sky

I’m not alone anymore

The moon and sky love me, I am the sun.

We remember the sky

The one who cannot speak, cannot feel

Cannot be felt, only thought

Offerings pulled from our pain

Time that cannot return—

Yet on the earth finds us again and again

“ACE!”

He continues running as the figure flinches violently before jumping to a stand and whipping around to face him.

The moment they meet eyes, Luffy collapses.

“LUFFY!”

His tears blind him, but he feels himself being gathered into strong arms. He clings back desperately, gripping hard enough that his fingernails dig into warm skin. Over his own intense sobs and wails, he hears Ace speaking to him.

“Luffy! What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here! You… you can’t be here!”

He can only manage to cry harder. “ACE!”

A hand begins rubbing circles on his back. “Okay, okay, calm down Luffy, it’s okay. Shh, shh, I’ve got you.”

“Ace…! You’re alive…!”

The hand pauses. “Shit.” Ace pulls back, gripping Luffy’s shoulders and burning a gaze of fire into his eyes.

“Lu, I need you to listen to me. We’re… this is not… this isn’t what you think it is. What’s the last thing you remember before waking up here?”

Luffy blinks a couple of spare tears from his eyes. “Before? I was…”

His eyes widen, breath catching in his throat. He stares, disbelieving. “I was fighting Kaido. I was in Gear 4, then I ran out of energy, and… and I passed out. Oh! This must be… a dream… then.”

He can’t help the way disappointment bleeds into his tone. However, Ace’s expression does nothing but refute his conclusion. His older brother squeezes his eyes shut and exhales heavily. When Ace looks at him again, his eyes are pained.

“It’s not a dream, Luffy.”

Confusion colors the younger’s gaze. “Huh?”

“You died.”

You died.

He knows that should upset him. Knows that it would upset most people. But all it feels like is puzzle pieces fitting into place, completing the vague fuzz of confusion that has followed him since he first opened his eyes to those hibiscus fields. So it would seem his time ran out. It’s okay, though, because death comes whenever it feels like, and you can’t do anything more than accept it.

So it was like the ear-piercing blare of an alarm, snapping his eyes wide open and flinging him to a sitting position, when he heard his brother’s quiet sobs.

~~

Femji 💖

Whaaaat I didn’t forget to share my new fic on here of course not. Anyway. Zosan Hanahaki for the win

https://archiveofourown.org/works/67699556