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Ace startles, it was like he woke up, but he'd always been standing; like a horse rousing from slumber when it sensed danger. It wasn't danger Ace felt, but a sense that he had just done something life-altering. Like he was forgetting something important. He thinks it's pain he feels in his lower limbs, it's there but not? It aches in the bones, the muscles, but it's faint, faraway, almost not even there. It feels like fire licking at his toes, perhaps even further than that.
His head throbs with numerous and uncountable memories, but he can't grasp any to recount it clearly. Faces of people, he presumes he knows, flash in his mind; they feel important, but he can't remember their names.
Straw hat, wide and radiating smile (regret and sadness ache in his chest); Top hat, missing teeth (grief and a vaguely familiar voice calls out to him); Curly hair, red beaded necklace (he thumbs the one around his own neck); Green hair and gentle hands (he hears a hum of an unintelligible song); An imposing figure and big fists (he feels the ache of an injury to the top of his head); Mint hair, and a journal in hand (fondness radiates through his being); and many others too, it makes him wonder how many people he met.
It's too dark to make out anything on the horizon, and at the same time, the area is too bright; heavenly light shines upon him akin to a spotlight on a stage. He looks around, absentmindedly putting a hand to his chest, expecting a grave injury, or hole. He doesn't know why he expected there to be an injury, or why he was surprised to find his skin untouched.
Oh.
That's right. He's dead, isn't he? He doesn't have a life to change anymore.
Luffy was holding his dead weight (he couldn't do it himself with his spine rendered useless), and the faces of his devastated crew encircle them. His nakama, his brothers held him and surrounded him in his dying moments. He didn't find Deuce in the crowd around them, part of him wondered if he had perished in the war too; part of him selfishly wanted it to be true, so he wouldn't be alone in the afterlife.
But where exactly was he? Surely the child of the devil would end up in hell.
He wants to see Sabo. Would Sabo even be down here with him?
He hopes he doesn't see that man.
He's disrupted when he hears a choked sound, at the edge of the light, he sees the bottom of a dress.
Dress pristine and white, sandals, and pale skin. The woman steps into his spotlight, hands covering her mouth as tears run down her freckled face. Her eyes are set but soft, frame small, even shorter than himself. He feels a vague familiarity with this woman, but he can't comprehend why.
Her hair is a strawberry blonde, a red, hibiscus flower settled behind her ear, she reaches out a tentative hand to him.
He wants to back away, but he wonders why he would ever do that?
"Ace," she speaks, and his heart stops, or skips, or beats so fast he can't count. It doesn't matter, but he feels it in his bones, his soul, he knows that voice. He remembers her pitch, her softness, her heartbeat. The very woman he named himself after, the very woman who fought for his right to live, the very woman who gave him life.
His mother; Portgas D. Rouge.
What should he do? Run into her arms? Back away? Cry? Ask how she could still love him, or if she even does? Does she regret meeting that man? Did she even want him as her child? Does she forgive him?
Ace stares like a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding car.
Rouge clutches her heart with the hand that was reached out to him.
Say something.
"Hi," He responds, voice weak and cracked, unsure.
Rouge sobs and opens her arms as she runs towards him.
Ace allows for her to entrap him within her embrace.
They fall to the ground, Ace softens the impact for his mother.
Rouge tries to cover her son's larger frame with her body, caressing his back, and petting his hair. Her hair splays over Ace's head like a curtain, and he thinks she smells nice, like flowers, like a garden.
She holds him for an immeasurable amount of time, but at some point Ace relaxes in her arms.
It feels good, he thinks, to be held.
He wonders what it would've been like if she had lived. If he hadn't killed her.
Does that even matter now?