Work Text:
Ace really doesn’t want to leave Oro, but- they need supplies. There are big nets and plenty of fishing poles, but the ship can’t make rice out of thin air, and Makino insists they need fruits and vegetables and more stuff too.
The magic that makes Oro alive stops working when they leave the ship in a rowboat, so Ace and Sabo handle the oars, carefully skirting around the island they’ve found, Oro staying out of sight of the village on the shore. Makino’s perched towards the back, holding on tight to the bag full of berri they got out of Oro’s treasure room, while Luffy bounces up front calling directions for them to aim further left or right. He’s not all that good at it, but with a couple corrections from Makino here and there, they manage to get the rowboat beached without running into anything.
Sabo helps Makino out, and then Ace and Luffy tug the boat up higher, past where the tide might pull it back out to sea without them. “Okay,” Makino says when they finish, taking a second to touch Ace and both his brothers on their shoulders. “We’re going to stick together and do this quickly, right? There’s enough money I’m not worried about haggling for the best price, as long as no one tries to badly overcharge us.”
“If they do, can we steal their stuff instead?”
“No, we’re trying to keep a low profile.” Makino frowns, but she looks more scared than mad. “No stealing, no fighting if possible, nothing that makes us stand out.” In case people ask questions. In case that stupid fancy guy comes here, looking for Makino.
Her hand is back to resting on top of her stomach, and the baby inside.
Sabo leads the way, head on a constant swivel to watch their surroundings as they head up the beach and onto a proper path. Luffy stays right next to Makino’s side, both for her sake and his. Ace brings up the rear. He’s got his shitty old man’s stupid sword slung over his back; better for intimidation, if anyone gives them trouble, not to mention it just- helps. It helps. The dumb thing’s practically got a mind of its own, like Oro, just a lot smaller, and it feels just as pissed off at the guy who flung them aside a week ago like they were bugs.
(“I’m gonna get stronger,” Ace told the sword the first night he and his brothers spent aboard Oro at sea, chasing after the ship that took Makino. “And you’re gonna help me, and no one is going to hurt our family again.” The blade turned hot where it sat across his palms, but it didn’t burn, and Ace would have sworn he saw a flicker of a wide, fierce smile reflected in the steel.)
They get plenty of looks and second glances inside the actual village - the place is only barely bigger than Foosha, and with way smaller docks tucked into their little harbor. Probably not many unknown visitors dropping in. Ace makes sure to glare at anyone who stares for too long, and keeps a lookout each time their group stops at a market stall for Makino to buy stuff. The first thing she does is rent a narrow handcart, just big enough to lay three big bags of rice side by side, and then more purchases on top: fresh cuts of meat wrapped in brown paper, a basket each of things like tomatoes and peppers and string peas, netted bundles of fruits that Ace can recognize but not name. They skip anyone selling fish, but do buy a sack of clams from a ramshackle shed being operated by older kids with wet trousers and sand up to their knees.
Makino definitely gives those guys a few more berri than they asked for, but Ace figures that’s just normal for her. And it’s good to have Makino be normal, to see her relaxing and smiling the longer they go without anything bad happening.
Which is why it’s so damn annoying to hear somebody yell, “Hey, Red Shirt, you know how to use that sword?”
“Fuck off,” Ace says immediately, turning on his heel. At least it isn’t a grown-up trying to throw their weight around. The green-haired kid looking him up and down is almost the same size as Luffy, but between the bigger muscles and pair of swords hanging from his belt, Ace isn’t about to let his guard down. “You want a fight, you can wait until I’m not busy.”
“Okay,” the stranger says, entirely too easily. “How long until you’re done?”
...uh. What?
Familiar fingers gently settle on top of his head before Ace can think of a response. “I’m afraid that won’t be any time soon, sweetheart,” Makino says easily. She’s smiling, but it’s a worried one, her eyebrows pulled too far down. “We need to finish shopping and then get everything back to our ship.”
The stranger deflates, looking disappointed. “Oh. S’too bad, it’s a cool sword.” Then for some reason he brightens right back up. “Would your shopping go faster if you had help? We aren’t busy, our chores ‘n shit are done for today.”
“We?”
Even as Makino asks, another kid comes trotting through the crowd right up to the green-haired boy, a sword on her belt too. “Zoro! I told you to wait by the well! Are you picking fights again?”
“Yeah, I found someone new!”
He points, and the blue-haired girl follows it to look at Ace’s sword where the hilt sticks up over his shoulder, before actually looking at Ace himself. Her gaze goes all the way down to his shoes and back up, the frown underneath getting deeper. “Do you know how to use that sword?”
Is that all anybody asks around here? “Yes,” Ace bites out, fists clenching.
“No he doesn’t,” Sabo chirps, hiding on Makino’s other side, the traitor. When Ace growls, his stupid brother adds, “Swinging it around like it’s your pipe doesn’t count, idiot. Even I know there’s forms ‘n things you’re supposed to use to really swordfight.”
“Don’t think fucking Porchemy cared about forms when we took him down.”
“Well, no. But other swordsmen will.”
“And why the hell should THAT matter-!”
“If you don’t actually know how,” the girl interrupts, hands braced against her hips, “Then you should learn. My father runs the local dojo; Zoro and I are his best students, we could definitely teach you some things.”
“I don’t want to teach, I want to fight!” A split second later ‘Zoro’ yelps when the girl’s heel comes down on his foot. In spite of himself, Ace snorts.
“Food first!” Luffy hollers, popping up next to Sabo to add himself to the conversation. “Makino says we aren’t supposed to fight on empty stomachs! Well, not unless we’re hunting for food-” Sabo hooks an arm around their little brother’s head and over his mouth, and yet the chatterbox keeps on talking even with his words coming out too muffled to be understood.
Still. Makino chuckles. So that’s okay. “Well, if Zoro here was right and you two aren’t busy, I suppose we could trade some help carrying groceries with lunch and a swordfighting lesson or two.” The local kids grin like jungle cats about to start a hunt. It’s enough to make Ace lower his guard, just a bit, and think maybe this ‘sword lesson’ might not be so awful after all.
These guys are pretty cool.
None of them bat an eye at how Zoro talks and acts, or at how Kuina’s just the same under the manners she grew up learning, and so far there hasn’t been a single sneer or scoffed or even a raised eyebrow at her knowing just as much about swords as him.
Ace acts angry, defensive by attacking first, something Zoro recognizes pretty quick. But he also snags his little brother’s shirt before Luffy can go bouncing off when something catches his attention, just like Kuina will catch Zoro’s elbow when she insists he’s going the wrong way. Sabo teases and smirks, and charms the vendors into giving better deals or extra treats, but every time Ace’s attention is drawn to someone watching their family just a little too long, the blond falls in shoulder to shoulder with him, that smirk going sharp and dangerous. Luffy is all bright smiles and eager shouts, happy to see everything he can see and swing from Miss Makino’s hand, he’s the youngest and the smallest and he seems like the dumbest, until Zoro asks where they’re going next on their ship, and the kid’s eyes go dark when he answers “Anywhere. Away from the bad man.”
His brothers are distracted at that moment, arguing with each other about whether to backtrack or take the shortcut Kuina knows to the beach. But Miss Makino hears. And her whole face twitches, fighting hard to keep up a smile, as she puts a hand on top of Luffy’s too-big hat and the other presses flat to her rounded belly.
She’s obviously going to have a baby, sometime soon.
The older boys are careful to keep themselves in-between her and the market’s small crowds.
‘Away from the bad man’ sounds like something serious.
But that’s none of Zoro’s business, is it? So he just says “Okay. Here, let me hold those,” and he takes the basket of eggs from Miss Makino to put on top of the crate of melons he’s also holding.
“Man, I’m telling you, that woman is loaded, I got a look at her bag and it’s stuffed with cash.”
“And what, you want to snatch it out here? In broad daylight?”
“Doesn’t have to be here, I heard those kids talking about a rowboat - they aren’t docked in the bay, they’re heading back to that little beach half a mile up the shore! We could totally beat them there and grab the money-”
“Nuh-uh, I’m out, I’m not robbing a pregnant lady and her kids.”
“Well screw you, that means more for the three of us, right guys?”
“...yeah, alright. Not like we’re gonna hurt ‘em or anything, just grab the money and go, right?”
“Right!”
“And what happened next?”
“W-well- like I said, three of them had swords, and after my buddy shot the first one who attacked us, the others all came running in and started slashing, there was too much going on for me to keep track of it all-”
“-uncertain if the two locals from Shimotsuki Village willingly joined this band or were coerced, but the swordsman who runs the local orphanage insists they must be found and returned to him.”
“Hm. Guardian?”
“And father. The girl is his, the boy a distant relation. According to the pair of surviving victims, both fully participated in the fight, and their deceased comrade died of a stab wound through the chest.”
“Which could have been one of the locals, or could have been the third child, the one who’d already been part of these, raiders. What exactly is it they raided?”
“According to all the other locals we interviewed? Nothing. The woman and three boys were seen doing business for over an hour before the two local children joined them. Wary and hostile, to varying amounts, but not outright aggressive until they encountered this trio on the beach.”
“Hrmph. Sounds to me more like these ‘victims’ were the ones raiding.”
“Yes, sir. But- in the absence of an alternate account of events, and both the locals vanishing with the others, I’m not sure what else we can do.”
“Leave it alone, Ensign. We can leave it alone. If the Shimotsuki children turn up we will, of course, return them home, but otherwise I’m not inclined to stir ourselves over a story that’s half lies and panicked deception.”
There is blood on Kuina’s hands.
Not physically, anymore; once they arrived at the waiting ship and she and Ace got Sabo into the infirmary, Miss Makino told Luffy to take her and Zoro to the bathroom so they could wash. A distraction, for all three of them.
Ace didn’t leave his brother’s side. Makino didn’t bother to try to send him out.
Luffy’s oddly stretchy hands are still clinging to Zoro’s belt, as they have been since the fight finished, since Ace dropped beside Sabo and grabbed on to stem the bleeding. Since Makino threw the last of their supplies into the rowboat, and Kuina and Zoro took up the oars, Luffy tucked against their backs audibly trying not to sob while Makino and Ace did what they could. He kept giving hitched directions, guiding their strokes away from the beach and the idiots who got scared by a pipe of all things.
Swords are far more deadly than a thin, rounded pipe.
(But pistols seem to have them both beat, in terms of sudden, unexpected damage.)
Kuina doesn’t even remember much of the fight once it properly began; just the rage in Ace’s scream, the give of flesh beneath Wado Ichimonji’s blade, the blood splattering over her face and chest and hands.
The stillness of a body when she struck the final blow.
(He was the one to fire the shot. He was lifting his pistol again to take aim. Sabo laid too still on the ground.)
(Kuina refused to let Zoro fall too.)