#hellwink

------------------

Sorry?

Him? Sir Crocodile? He was the one who had to be sorry? Oh, that was rich. That was downright hilarious. So hilarious, in fact, that the rumbling sound deep in the man's chest.

ah-ah-ah-ah--

HA HA HA HA HA!!

"Oh, that's funny. You always were funny, weren't you, Iva?" He stated as he wiped away a laughter-drawn tear from his eye, before shifting from his spot against the wall. He took a step forward to rest his hand against the cage door and looked through it, yellow eyes glinting from their own light even within that cell door.

"What? Going to help an old friend if I just say the right words? What else can I do? Open sesame?" He snorted as he leaned against the cage doors, that sharp-toothed smile creeping over his features like a wound. "What do I have to say to that?"

He summoned up a small amount of saliva, swishing it around in his mouth, and spat it out on the ground outside the cell.

the world has changed. he bows his head in defeat, shoulders trembling as the emotions overwhelm him.

stay, @hellwink says, as if they can read his mind. or don't. sanji understands the implication. if he leaves now, he'll be too weak to aid luffy in the fights to come. no, he needed to learn what iva had to teach him. he couldn't run off and make rash decisions, no matter how heartbroken he is. he recalls ace's kind smile on the merry, years ago on their journey through alabasta. he sniffles, wiping his forearm across his nose. he lets himself have another moment to mourn before he turns back to iva, teary eyes brimming with determination.

Why does it feel like a mistake then? His chest hurts; an unbearable agony as though the very fabric of his being is trying to rip himself apart, unable to stretch wide enough to accommodate the unimaginable throes of anguish that consume him. He can still feel the warmth of Ace in his arms, feel his life ebb from his body, and the weight of his failure crushing him flat until his lungs burn with the pain of breathing. Why can't it be easier to bear this pain?

Luffy has always been strong; always known the path forward. He's followed in the steps of those before him the souls he's idolised his entire life. Gold Roger... Shanks... Ace... But now one of those pillars has crumbled and fallen and his throat burns with the screams that scratch at his throat, his limbs feel leaden, weighed down with the heaviness he now holds.

"Does it really have to hurt so much?" The voice that escapes him is not the captain claiming to be the next Pirate King but the boy who holds so fiercely to every connection that means something to him. The young man who desperately looks for someone to offer him the answers those he would turn to can't. His crew are gone, Shanks is elsewhere, Makino and Dadan back in Foosha and his father an absent space at his side. Iva is simply here. It has to be enough.