Chapter Text
Akainu’s fist raced through the air, ready to kill, wanting to kill. It was aimed at Ace’s little brother. It was aimed at Luffy who knelt defenseless on the ground. Who wouldn’t have stood a chance even if he wasn’t worn down already.
Ace’s little brother who was the light of his life. Luffy had given Ace a reason to live. He gave him joy and love. And now he was the target of a vicious murderer who wanted to snuff out that light.
“Luffy!” Ace yelled in panic as crushing fear swept through him.
Luffy looked up from his brother’s Vivre Card on the ground to see the magma guy flying towards him. The magma guy was going to kill him, but Luffy couldn’t move. His eyes stared at the glowing red fist that cut through the air to end him.
Ace got up from the ground to throw himself before his little brother. He didn’t even hesitate. He would always risk his life to protect Luffy. And Ace knew this time it would cost him his life. But he didn’t regret it one bit as he jumped in front of his little brother and waited for the fist that was going to end his life.
The fist hit its target. It went through Ace’s back and came out on the other side, destroying everything in its path. Searing, excruciating pain shot through his body, but Ace knew it would never be as painful as losing Luffy would’ve been.
Tessia woke up screaming. Her heart was pounding hard against her chest and she could feel her breath going fast and erratic. Her first reaction was jumping out of the bed and preparing to be punished for being too loud. It took a few moments before Tessia realized this was not going to happen anymore. She felt relieved but sad at the same time at the thought of no one coming.
She didn’t like being alone. There was someone Tessia wished would come, just like it had happened when she’d been a child. That thought was threating to open up a box of emotions Tessia was in no way ready to deal with right now, so she sat down on her bed again, started rubbing her forehead and thought the nightmare over she’d just had.
What the hell was that? Tessia thought.
She had never met or even seen the people she had just dreamed about, so why was she so goddamn panicked? For some reason she knew this hadn’t been just some nightmare. It was more. It had felt too real. These boys, Luffy and Ace, had felt too real. And Ace getting punched through the chest definitely had felt way too real.
Tessia forced herself to calm down. She took a deep breath and tried to figure out what just happened. She could feel tears running down her cheeks as she thought about the conversation the two boys had had just before one of them died. Tessia had felt the pain of Ace and Luffy as if it was her own. The loss. And Luffy’s reaction after his brother’s death had been absolutely heartbreaking. Tessia could relate to losing someone close way more than she’d like.
Tessia had no idea what was happening, but one thing she knew for sure. If this was actually real, if this was going to happen, there was absolutely no way she could just stand by.
I am so crazy, Tessia thought.
Not because she had accepted over the last weeks that that nightmare was about to be reality, there were stranger things out there than precognition and there was just too much evidence at this point. She was absolutely crazy because of what she planned to do with that knowledge.
There are a lot less painful ways to kill yourself, Tessia kept thinking while she packed her things into the small bag she carried around. She didn’t have much, so it didn’t take long.
Why was Tessia even doing this? Her chances of success were worse than nonexistent, the most likely scenario was her getting killed along the way without helping one bit. Someone like her would be a fly to the people involved. A dead fly. Dead within a heartbeat…
Tessia sighed and finished packing. There was no point to those thoughts. She’d known from the start she wouldn’t stand by if this was real. There would be so much pain, so much loss. She couldn’t let that happen. Tessia wasn’t questioning her helping in general, she was questioning her plan. Why did the only way she could help have to be so dangerous?
With another sigh Tessia left the place she’d spent the last few weeks at and went to the docks. She made sure to stay out of sight, she really couldn’t afford any kind of attention right now. Tessia got to the docks and stared at the ship she was about to sneak on. A Marine ship headed to a Marine base where she could get the intel she needed.
This is insane!, Tessia thought while she stared at the ship and the Marines on and in front of it. I’m never going to make it.
She should just borrow a Den Den Mushi and try calling again. Would be a lot easier and a lot safer. Tessia turned to leave the docks to go into the center of the town, but a way too familiar dizziness started to appear. She stopped and the dizziness disappeared again.
Tessia turned resignedly back to the Marine ship. At this point she really should know better. There was no alternative. She wouldn’t be doing it this way if there was. The world wasn’t going to make things easy for her. It was naive to think things would go her way for once. They never had and they never would. But this time was different. It wasn’t about her. As depressing and terrifying as it was, if Tessia didn’t succeed, Ace would die. There was no room for failure, no room for doubt. She needed to do everything she could and it had to be enough for once.
Tessia took a deep breath and readied herself. No more second guessing. She was doing this, insane or not. Tessia stared determined at the Marine ship and waited for an opening. She had a few people to meet to get where she needed to be.
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Shanks inspected the girl in front of him curiously. His lookout had just brought her to him and his crew, claiming the girl wanted to meet him. The last person to do something like this had been Fire Fist Ace and something told Shanks this was going to be similarly interesting. Shanks would’ve used Haki if it hadn’t been clear the girl wasn’t here for a fight. She was covered in bruises and her clothes showed clear signs of a battle. Apparently, she’d gone through quite an adventure just to get here.
“And who might you be?” Shanks asked. She definitely wasn’t someone whose bounty poster he’d seen.
“My name is Tessia,” the girl answered. “You can call me Tess if you want.”
She appeared to be eighteen or nineteen at most, average size and lean. A part of her brown hair had been tied into a knot on the left side, the rest fell open over her shoulders. She wore a white blouse with a black leather vest over it and a knee-length dark blue skirt over black pants. A blue ribbon was tied around her waist and her feet were in black leather boots. A small bag hung on her side. She seemed a little tense, but somehow Shanks got the feeling it wasn’t because she was standing in front of him and his crew while they were sitting around their fire.
“Why did you want to meet me, Tessia?” Shanks asked.
“I want you to train me.”
Some of Shanks’ crew members laughed at the ridiculousness of the statement which obviously had to be a joke. Shanks however didn’t. He looked at Tessia and tried to figure out her reasons. There were five kind of people who would dare to make a joke like that to one of the Four Emperors of the Sea.
- Someone incredibly stupid
- Someone incredibly insane
- Someone with a death wish
- Someone incredibly strong
- Someone incredibly brave
Tessia definitely didn’t look stupid or insane and she definitely didn’t seem to have a death wish. She seemed strong, but not nearly as strong as she would need to be for such a joke. And even though she looked brave enough, there were two things that kept Shanks for putting her in that category. The first was that no one would seek out an Emperor to make such a joke. If someone happened to meet one coincidently it would be a different story, but Tessia had come all this way. Finding Shanks wasn’t an easy task, the island he was on right now lay nowhere near normal routes, not even mentioning the fact of him being in the New World.
The second reason was the fact that Tessia was clearly not joking. Her face was dead serious. In her eyes shone a steely determination which made clear she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Considering who she was talking to, maybe she was insane after all. But Shanks only grew curious.
“What makes you think I would do that?” Shanks asked.
“You’ve met Fire Fist Ace a short while ago, haven’t you?” Tessia said. It wasn’t a question, though, it was a statement. She already knew the answer. “I’m not entirely sure about the timeline, but he’s going to die during this year or the next.”
Shanks and his crew fell silent. Something about Tessia’s voice made clear she still wasn’t joking. For some reason she absolutely knew Ace’s future. Or at least she thought she did.
“Because he’s going after Whitebeard?” Benn Beckman asked. That had been Ace’s plan after all.
Tessia chuckled weakly as if she knew something the others didn’t. “No, definitely not.” She grew serious again. “Considering the fact of Ace being Luffy’s older brother and your connection to Luffy, I’m certain you don’t want Ace to die in front of Luffy with a hole in his chest.”
Shanks had no idea what she was talking about, but his Observation Haki told him Tessia wasn’t lying. And that was a terrible thought. Luffy had been an innocent bundle of happiness when Shanks had met him. From what Ace had told him this hadn't changed, but if Luffy had to watch his brother be killed in the way Tessia described, it would destroy him. Shanks wasn’t going to let that happen. And he had liked Ace, so he didn’t want him to die for his own sake, too.
“Alright, you have my attention,” Shanks said and gestured Tessia to sit down. “I’m listening.”
Tessia was clearly relieved as she sat down and started to explain.
“You had a dream of Ace dying in front of Luffy?” Shanks summarized. His crew exchanged contemplative looks. Only the officers of the Red Hair Pirates were present now because Tessia had asked for the others to leave.
Tessia nodded.
“Please don’t tell me you came all this way because of a bad dream you had after seeing a bounty poster of Fire Fist,” Yasopp said.
Tessia gave him a look somewhere between anger and annoyance. “Of course,” she retorted sarcastically. “I broke into a Marine base, spent months travelling and fought a whole pirate crew to get here just because of a bad dream!”
That certainly sounded like an adventure you wouldn't just do out of the spur of the moment. It also reaffirmed Shanks’ impression of Tessia’s fighting strength.
Yasopp shrugged. “Weirder things have happened.”
Tessia was obviously still annoyed, but she sighed. “I’m pretty certain I hadn’t seen Ace’s bounty poster before I had that first dream. And even if I saw it and processed it subconsciously, it still wouldn’t explain how I knew about Luffy and his relationship to Ace.”
Shanks realized the validity of her statement. There was no bounty poster of Luffy (yet, that was), so Tessia couldn’t have known about him. In a way Shanks had proved her dream being more than just a dream when he confirmed Luffy being Ace’s brother.
Tessia sighed again. “And it wasn’t just this first dream. I started just knowing things afterwards, things I had no way of knowing. About the past, the present and I’m pretty sure the future. There is one other reason I’m certain I’m not just crazy: Since that first dream, I’m not able to swim anymore.”
“You ate a Devil Fruit?” Shanks asked.
“That is the weird part, I didn’t. But when I went to do my usual swim training, I couldn’t move as soon as I dove in. I nearly drowned. And before anyone askes, no, I didn’t eat a Devil Fruit without realizing it. I went swimming in the evening, too, and didn’t eat anything after that.”
Now everyone was confused. Tessia’s description sounded like the usual problem of a Devil Fruit user, but if she didn’t eat one… Shanks however started to remember some old legends he’d once heard, even though he’d never entertained the thought of them being true. Maybe it wasn’t that ridiculous after all.
“Let’s just assume you’re right about knowing the future,” Shanks said. “You want to change Ace’s fate, don’t you? So why not tell him directly? Why come to me?”
Tessia now had a frustrated look on her face. A really frustrated look. “I really tried to find a better solution. I have a pretty good understanding of the events that will lead to Ace’s death and trust me, I would definitely change some of those if I had the chance. But apparently, I’m not allowed to. I saw Marco just a few days after realizing I wasn’t crazy” – was she talking about Marco from the Whitebeards? – “but when I tried to talk to him, I got so dizzy I almost passed out.”
That part of the story just fit way too well with what Shanks was theorizing.
Tessia sighed yet again. “I realized soon afterwards that certain events apparently need to happen and I’m not allowed to meddle with that. And from that point of view it makes total sense why I couldn’t talk to Marco. Considering Ace hasn’t joined the Whitebeards yet it would mess up too much.”
Shanks wasn’t sure he’d heard right. Ace was going to do what? But regarding the situation he didn’t follow up on that fact.
“And telling us all of this is not messing things up?” Benn Beckman asked.
Tessia shrugged. “Apparently not. Though you do play a role in the events leading up to Ace’s death, it’s not that big. And you don’t meet Ace or Luffy again until then. It’s only after Ace died you become very important. As far as I can tell that means I’m not changing anything by telling you. However, it probably would be best if you behave like you would’ve without meeting me because what you do after Ace’s death is definitely something I don’t want to mess up.”
“And that would be what exactly?” Lucky Roux asked curiously.
Tessia opened her mouth to answer, but then she blinked and seemed quite disoriented for a few moments. “I hate this,” she murmured. The disorientated look vanished. “I’m sorry, seems like I’m not allowed to tell you,” Tessia said apologetically.
Shanks’ crew exchanged a few looks, but let it go afterwards.
“So, you’re not allowed to tell Ace or anyone too close to him directly,” Shanks continued. “Then what are you planning to do?”
Tessia’s eyes became absolutely determined. “There is more or less only one promising plan I don’t get dizzy from. I’m going to stop Ace from getting killed right at that moment. But to do that I need help from a certain someone. I’m certain that someone can stop Ace from being… let’s go with hotheaded, so he won’t end up in that last fight. And I’m also certain that someone will absolutely want to save Ace, too. In the original timeline he’s not present at Ace’s death, so I’m probably not messing something up by involving him. The problem is getting to him. I had two ideas to do that and since it turns out in terms of Marines in the way it’s way easier to get to an Emperor than to a Warlord, I’m here now.”
“You want me to get you to someone?” Shanks asked while trying to figure out who exactly she could want to find.
Tessia shook her head. “That won’t be necessary. Mihawk is going to come by one of these days for a reason I’m not going to spoil and he can take me to who I want to meet.”
Since Mihawk was a Warlord himself, he certainly could take Tessia to another Warlord in case he wasn’t the same Warlord Tessia mentioned earlier. But…
Shanks frowned. “What makes you think he would do that?”
“I have a plan,” Tessia said. “Like I said in the beginning I want you to train me and that is exactly the reason why. Having a better chance to save Ace is a great bonus.”
Tessia then started to explain what she had in mind and it only made Shanks frown harder. “I can’t say that’s a good plan,” Shanks noted. “You’re not strong enough for that and I honestly doubt you can get there that fast.”
Tessia obviously didn’t care about that assessment. “That’s going to be my problem. Please, I don’t have another option. I promise I won’t be a burden to you and your crew. Just train me and let me stay with your crew until Mihawk visits. I’ll do everything you say.”
Shanks still wasn’t convinced. But if Tessia was correct, she really didn’t have another option. If this was the only way to save Ace, Shanks was going to help Tessia as much as he could. Maybe he could convince Mihawk to take her with him without Tessia having to act out her plan. Maybe he could help her come up with a better plan while she stayed.
“Just tell me one thing,” Shanks said. “Why are you doing this? From what you told me you’ve never met Ace or Luffy in person. You risked a lot just coming here and I’m guessing you’re going to risk a lot more. Why would you just drop everything to save a stranger? Isn’t your own family worried about you?”
Tessia grew very still and avoided his gaze. “My parents are dead,” she answered. “It’s just me and my sister now…”
Shanks could tell there was a really depressing story here, but he didn’t press it.
Tessia raised her eyes again. “But I know she would want me to save Ace.” She would? So Tessia couldn’t ask her? “And because I’m a sister, too, I can absolutely understand Luffy’s and … I know how devastating this is going to be for the brothers. I can’t just stand by and do nothing knowing where it’s going to end. And because of everything I know about Luffy and Ace and their past, they don’t feel like strangers to me even though I’ve never met them.”
This whole story was just one weird thing after another, but Shanks was certain (and not just because of his Observation Haki) Tessia wasn’t lying. Even though there seemed to be a lot more to her than she said, she didn’t lie about her intentions and her determination to save Ace. Shanks had immediately understood what she’d wanted to say just now.
Shanks gave his first mate Benn Beckman a questioning look and he shrugged. Shanks considered everything Tessia had said and inspected her again. She had not a single ounce of doubt in her eyes. It was rare to meet someone this determined. Maybe, just maybe, this determination was going to be enough. And even if she just stood a small chance of succeeding, Shanks was going to take it.
“Fine then,” Shanks said. “I’ll train you. But it’s not going to be a pleasant time for you. You’ll have to put up with a lot if you want to get strong enough.”
Tessia’s blue eyes lit up with relief and even stronger determination. What was up with that girl? “I’m good with that,” she said.