Haruka & The Great Pirate Era
Sabo was polishing his weapon when Haruka burst in, smiling and laughing and generally acting like a bouncing ball of energy. Sabo rolled his eyes until he noticed bandages covering her right arm, just over the elbow and under her last tattoo. He gazed at it sharply until Haruka nodded noticed where he was staring. She laughed and plopped down on the bed next to Sabo.
"I'm okay." She assured him before tugging the white bandages loose. Sabo looked at her arm, expecting to see a grievous injury, but instead, a tattoo greeted him. A new tattoo. He reached out slowly and touched it.
The mark of the Revolutionaries was now permanently inked on Haruka's skin.
These tattoos symbolize her family.
She had accepted them as family. She had accepted him as her family. Haruka smiled and rubbed her left hand over the new tattoo.
"Does this one need explaining?" She asked, smirking.
"Not at all." Sabo grinned. Haruka smiled back and bounced over to her bed, picking up her parasol with it. Over the past year, Sabo had discovered more and more marks on her skin, some inked on, and some scarred on. He asked her about each and every one of them, and she never explained.
There was a tattoo wrapping around her left ankle. It was several music notes, wrapped around her in such a way that it was impossible to tell where it began or ended. He had managed to get her to play the notes on the flute that she always carried around with her. Surprisingly enough, they were a real song, and a strangely familiar one at that, although Sabo couldn't figure out where he had heard it.
There was a prominent scar under her left eye, a curved half-moon with two stitches in it. She never told him about this either, but she always rubbed on one the tattoos on her arm when he talked about the scar. He never got close enough to figure out which.
Once in a while, he'd accidentally walk in on her getting dressed. She was never embarrassed when that happened, just treating it like a normal situation. It was there when he saw the faint scars marrying her back, long and merciless. On one of her shoulder blades, there was a strange blemish, like she had gotten rid of a tattoo or scar. In its place, there was a small black dragon, flying with its wings outstretched. It was barely bigger than my fist, but it looked majestic. It was poised flying down to her lower back, spitting out flames.
He always wondered about those marks and tattoos. She never told him. Her only response.
"You'll see."
***
4 years ago…
"My daughter's name was Monkey D. Luffy." Dragon said quietly. "She vanished off the face of the earth three months ago."
Sabo took a deep, shuddering breath.
"Well, you see, the reason she's gone," Sabo refused to say dead. "Is because she gave up her life to save me and my brother Ace."
Dragon looked at the letter Sabo gave him one more time before handing it back to the boy.
"Thank you for informing me of her fate." His cold mask slipped on again, and Sabo nodded quietly, looking back at the first copy of the letter they had found the day after Luffy vanished. She had made two, one for each of them.
Dear Ace and Sabo,
I have never been allowed a family. I killed my own mother, and her last words were for me to stay alone, forever. I never knew what it was like to be loved, or have a place to belong. I guess I never will. I'm not a fool, despite how I act. I know what being sold into slavery means. I'll probably be killed in the next few months. So, as my final request, I want you two to do what I never could. Find yourself a family and a place to belong. Live on. Find nakama that will love you for who you are.
—Luffy
***
12 years later…
Sabo couldn't believe his eyes as he read the paper. Roze D. Haruka, the girl who he had shared a room with for four years, the girl who was like a sister to him, was the same girl who had given up her life in order for him to live. He just refused to believe it. But the evidence was staring him right in the eye, laughing at him.
Of course.
Why didn't he ever realize it?
The wounds, obviously gotten from beatings. The age. The strange tattoos.
Monkey D. Luffy was in fact Roze D. Haruka.
Sabo stared at the paper before breaking down. Whether he was laughing or crying, nobody could tell, least of all him.
"Luffy…" He whispered to the paper in his hands. "I guess you got your wish. You found yourself a family."
His mind wandered to the time when they had first met, when she had explained her tattoos.
"I guess you were wrong. Dreams do come true in the end." With that, he smiled and tacked up the article and updated bounty poster to the expanse of articles and posters concerning Ace and Haruka/Luffy.
"That explains why you saved him at Impel Down and Marineford." Sabo grinned as realization dawned on him. Monkey D. Luffy was a mystery. And Sabo was going to solve her.
***
10 years ago…
Ace stared at the girl who had just spent a week out in the forest and came back without a scratch on her. That was practically impossible. That had to be impossible. Yet here she was, and the only evidence that she had been out in the woods was her slightly torn dress. Dadan took one look at her, grumbled about how she was alive, then threw her into the same room as Ace. She backed up against the wall, staring down at her shaking hands, then clenched them into fists. Using the back of one hand, she wiped away a tear that had started leaking.
"WHY DOESN'T IT WORK!" She cried, sinking down to the ground. "Why can't I get hurt? Why do I always fix myself? Why?" She questioned, putting her hands on the floor to steady her shaking body. Ace didn't know what to do. She was too loud to go to sleep with, but he didn't want to hear her self-pity.
"This stupid body of mine… all it does is get in my way!" She growled as she grabbed the skin of her right bicep, obscuring her strange tattoos. "Whatever I do, it never works! Crushing my bones doesn't work. Stabbing myself only dirties the knife! Whatever I do, this stupid body fixes itself without my consent!" She cried.
Ace stared at her. A body that fixes itself no matter what? What kind of body was that?
Luffy cried again, tears dripping down her face as she extended her fingers, changing the nails into claws that could cut steel. She swiped them through her arm, letting the cuts bleed profusely. Ace stared. What was wrong with her? Why did she have claws? Why was she harming herself?
With each strike of the claws against her own skin, the wounds healed, sealing over as if they were never there.
"Why? Why? Why!?" She cried out desperately. "WHY CAN'T I JUST DIE!" With a final sob, she fell to the floor, caked in blood from injuries that were no longer there.
"What am I?" She whispered to herself. "I've lived with this devil's power for as long as I could remember… So what am I?" With a shuddering gasp, she pushed herself up and walked over to the only window in the room, near Ace. She was dripping blood all the way as she gently pulled herself onto the ledge. Slowly, black mist appeared, twisting itself and solidifying into a pair of bat wings.
"I guess I'll never know." She resigned herself in a whisper before taking off to the skies.
***
3 years later…
"Law!" Luffy gasped as she ran up to him. Law smiled briefly before bracing himself as she ran over and hugged him tightly. He ran his fingers through her hair, then looked at her arm, where there were bandages wrapped around it. He furrowed his eyebrows as he looked over at the injury. Luffy laughed and undid it, much to his displeasure, before revealing that no it was not an injury. Instead, Law found that she had added a tattoo to her arm, the pirate mark that he had decided he would be using.
Law grinned as he touched the tattoo. He knew what the ink on her skin meant. It meant she had accepted that person into her family. There were only four tattoos there. The first was what she had said was her own personal pirate mark, what with the straw-hat and all. The second was her mother's symbol. The third was that of the Yonko, Red-Hair, whom she said was almost a father to her. So the fourth was that of her brother's crew. He smiled and hugged her back.
He was her older brother now. No question about it.
***
5 years ago…
"Hey, Shanks! Do you consider yourself my family?" Luffy asked, holding her right shoulder.
"Well, yeah, I guess. Why, ya little chibi?" Shanks asked, poking her. Luffy responded by pulling up her short sleeved shirt, revealing two tattoos.
"These tattoos symbolize my family. I thought I should add you." Luffy explained, tapping the area under the second tattoo.
"Why does a little chibi like you have tattoos already?" Shanks laughed, and Luffy pouted.
"I'm not a little chibi!" She protested. "Will you be part of my family or not!"
"Yeah, yeah, sure. I can have Benn do the tattoo. He does 'em all." Shanks waved his hand to his first mate.
"So you want a tattoo of our symbol?" Benn asked as he looked at the five year old girl.
"Yep! Though can you do it in that special ink that gets bigger when you get bigger?" Luffy asked, rubbing the area where the tattoo would be placed.
"You mean Seicho (Growing) Ink?"
"Yeah, that stuff!"
"Sure, I can mix some into our normal ink. I assume you want the tattoo under the second one?"
"Uh-huh!"
"Let's get to the ship, all my supplies are there." Benn took Luffy by the hand and they walked over to the place where the pirate ship was docked.
***
9 years later…
"Whatcha got there?" Haruka asked, looking over Sabo's shoulder.
"Oh, nothing. It seems my brother's gotten his first bounty."
"That's not nothing. Haruka corrected as she took the bounty poster out of Sabo's hands. "Wow! 50 million! That's pretty good for Grand Line!"
"Yeah." Sabo smiled fondly.
"You should totally go visit him!" Haruka grinned, handing the bounty poster back.
"Well, actually, he kind of thinks I'm dead…" Sabo trailed off.
"If it makes you feel any better, most of the people I know think I died as well." Haruka frowned, rubbing her tattoos.
Oh, the irony.