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Ace dies with a smile on his lips, magma in his chest and his brother’s heartbroken cries ringing in his ears. He’s never heard Luffy sound so broken. He wants to reach out, wants to fix it, wants to stop it, but everything goes black and floaty until he wakes up choking on mist, not smoke or blood, but soft mist.
He sits up fast, his fists clenched, fire sparking at his fingertips as he glances down at the mist curling around his limbs. He’s lying on something that feels like a cloud pretending to be solid, and his body is whole but wrong. It’s too light, too quiet.
He remembers the fire, the panic of seeing Akainu aiming for Luffy, the split-second decision to throw himself into his path. And Luffy, screaming, sobbing, clutching him like he could hold his soul in place. Ace’s chest aches (not physically, not anymore).
He stands up, the mist parting as he does. Then a question hits him like a punch to the gut.
“Where’s Sabo?”
His voice echoes, swallowed by the sky, but there is no answer. He would’ve expected his brother to greet him here, still trapped in the body of the young boy he was when he died.
Ace starts walking through what he subconsciously realizes is the afterlife. It’s a strange place. It’s lush but quiet, like a dream half-remembered. Spirits nod at him, some familiar, some not. He ignores them all. He’s looking for his brother.
Instead, he finds him.
Gol D. Roger stands beneath a tree that glows like starlight. He’s smiling, open and hopeful. He takes a tentative step towards him.
“Ace, son, I—” he begins.
Ace doesn’t let him finish.
He kicks him in the nuts.
Roger doubles over with a wheeze.
“Okay. Fair.”
Ace doesn’t wait. He turns on his heel and stalks off, flame trailing behind him like a warning. He’s not here to rest or reconcile. He’s here to find answers and a way out.
~*~*~
He tries to break out on day one.
He finds a massive, ancient gate humming with power. A reaper guards it, faceless and unimpressed floating in a black tattered cloak with red beams of light for eyes peeking out from the darkness. Ace fearlessly strolls up to him. Her? It?
“I need to check on my little brother,” Ace declares.
The reaper tilts its head.
“You are dead.”
“Not for long,” he replies with a wicked grin, flames crackling on his fingertips (and he doesn’t know what it means that he still has his Devil Fruit abilities, but he doesn’t really care).
He tries to burn the gate down, but his fire is absorbed as if it meant nothing. The reaper doesn’t even appear to be bothered by his actions.
Ace tries everything: brute force, persuasion, bribery. He stays there for hours. He offers stories of Luffy, promises of chaos and excitement to break up the monotony of death, even a fistful of spectral meat skewers. Nothing works.
The reaper is not swayed. The gate doesn’t budge.
~*~*~
Ace builds a bounty board out of clouds.
It’s not elegant. The mist keeps shifting, refusing to hold shape, so he punches it until it listens. Eventually, he wrangles a slab of sky into something solid enough to carve into. He uses his flames and etches names, numbers, titles.
At the top, in jagged, proud lettering:
MONKEY D. LUFFY
CAPTAIN. PIRATE. IDIOT.
30,000,000
100,000,000
300,000,000
400,000,000
He updates it obsessively. The whispers from beyond the veil about Luffy are pretty dry, nothing concrete, but Ace hoards every rumor drifting in from the edge of the afterlife and carves it into the board like gospel.
Thatch finds him halfway through adding Luffy’s bounty post the War of the Best. Ace is muttering to himself, carving numbers into the clouds with a flaming fingertip. Thatch watches for a moment, arms crossed, before speaking.
“You know you’re dead, right?”
Ace doesn’t look up.
“So?”
“So maybe sit down for five minutes? Take a nap? I don’t know, relax for the first time in your life?”
“I’ll relax when Luffy’s Pirate King,” Ace snorts.
Thatch raises an eyebrow.
“You do realize you’re in the afterlife.”
Ace finally looks up, eyes blazing.
“Which means I’ve got nothing but time to figure out how to get out.”
“You’re serious.”
“I’ve got a baby brother to look out for. And apparently another not-dead brother to punch for not coming back to us.”
Thatch whistles at that.
“Sabo’s alive?”
“Yeah. And he didn’t come. Not for me. Not for Luffy,” Ace replies tightly.
“Maybe he couldn’t,” Thatch suggests.
“He should’ve.”
Thatch steps closer, placing a hand on Ace’s shoulder.
“You died protecting your brother. You did everything you could.”
“Not enough,” Ace retorts, shrugging him off.
“You’re allowed to rest, you know? You’re allowed to be dead.”
Ace grins, wild and aching.
“Tell that to the gatekeeper. I’ve got a plan.”
“Of course you do,” Thatch groans.
Ace turns back to the bounty board, carving in a new title beneath Luffy’s name:
BROTHER.
Thatch watches the flame flicker, the mist shift, the grief settle into this new ritual.
He doesn’t stop him.
~*~*~
Whitebeard watches from afar.
He doesn’t chase Ace or corner him, just waits quietly, steadily. A mountain in the mist.
Ace avoids him like a guilty child. Not because he’s angry, but because he’s ashamed.
He died. After his family put their lives on the line for him, after several died trying to save him, Ace chose to die. Now he has to face the man who gave him a name, a place, a family.
He’s not ready.
~*~*~
Ace doesn’t find her.
He’s storming through the mist, flames sparking at his heels, cursing the afterlife for being too quiet, too soft, too final. He’s already tried to punch a reaper. He’s already kicked Roger in the nuts on three separate occasions thanks to that bastard not giving up. He’s already declared he’s breaking out. All of it has meant nothing. He’s still here, still stuck.
He’s not looking for comfort, but comfort finds him anyway.
Ace is marching purposefully towards the gate, intending to bug the reaper again to try and coerce it into letting Ace leave, when a soft voice cuts through the fog.
“Gol D. Ace.”
He freezes. No one calls him that. His first instinct is anger. If he can’t escape that name even in the afterlife, then there really was no point in being dead. His flames rise as he turns around, rather to gnash his teeth at whoever had the gall to call him that.
“Oi, my name is Portgas,” he snaps, turning to face a woman who he’s never met.
Instinctively, he knows who she is.
She’s standing beneath a tree that glows faintly gold, her strawberry blonde hair loose around her shoulders with a pink hibiscus tucked among the waves, her eyes the same shade as his. She’s taller than he imagined.
“Hi,” she says, like it’s the easiest thing in the world.
Ace’s flames gutter and his knees give out. Rouge kneels with him, gathering him close. Her arms are warm, impossibly so. Ace sobs into her shoulder, the sound raw and childlike, the kind of grief that never got to be spoken.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t— I never—”
She hushes him gently.
“You lived. That’s all I ever wanted.”
They stay like that for a long time.
Eventually, Ace pulls back, wiping his face with the heel of his hand.
“I thought I’d never get to meet you.”
Rouge smiles, brushing his hair back.
“A rare gift in the afterlife.”
Ace laughs, watery and bitter.
“I’m a mess.”
“Maybe, but you’re mine. I wish your life was longer, but I’m so happy you were born at all.”
He doesn’t know what to say to that, so he leans into her again, letting himself be held — not as a pirate, not as a warrior, but as a son.
~*~*~
Ace starts lighting candles.
Not real ones. There’s no wax in the afterlife, but he shapes fire with his powers, small and flickering, each one a tribute.
One for Luffy.
One for his dream.
One for Sabo, still alive.
One for the moment Ace died in his brother’s arms.
He lines them up beside the bounty board, each flame a memory, each flicker a heartbeat.
Thatch calls it obsessive. Rouge calls it devotion.
Roger and Whitebeard watch from a distance, silent.
Rouge finds Ace crouched beside the board one morning, carving in a new rumor:
STRAWHAT REUNION IN SABAODY TWO YEARS AFTER MARINEFORD
Time works differently in the afterlife apparently. Ace doesn’t feel like it’s been two years, but on the other side, it has. Two years of him being dead, away from Luffy, away from Sabo.
His mother doesn’t speak at first, just kneels beside him, her hand brushing the mist.
“He’s strong,” she says softly.
“He’s a force of nature.”
Rouge hums.
“I don’t get to see it,” Ace comments, his voice cracking.
“Maybe not, but you’re here anyway. So be here, Ace. You need to stop running.”
Ace flinches.
“I’m not—”
“You are,” she interrupts, her voice is calm, but commanding.
“You won’t talk to Roger—”
Ace’s flame flares.
“I chose Pops. I don’t need Roger.”
“You’re avoiding Newgate too.”
Ace’s jaw clenches at the reminder.
“I don’t fault you for choosing another father in your living years. You chose love. There’s nothing wrong with that. It doesn’t mean you can’t face the man who gave you life.”
Ace stands, fists clenched. Rouge stands too.
“He left me.”
“And now he’s here. Waiting, hurting, hoping.”
“I’m not ready,” Ace decides, turning away from her.
“You don’t have to forgive him. But you do have to face him, eventually.”
~*~*~
Ace becomes a myth. Not the heroic kind, the annoying kind.
He’s spotted fake-sleeping in a hammock made of mist as a veil to try to slip past the reaper at the gate. He’s seen launching himself off cloud cliffs “just to test gravity.” He starts a ghost pirate crew composed entirely of stubborn spirits and one very confused reaper named Kevin.
Every time Roger tries to approach, Ace vanishes.
Every time Whitebeard offers quiet company, Ace deflects with a joke or leaves as soon as he can.
Every time Thatch corners him with a bottle and a sigh, Ace changes the subject to Luffy’s bounty.
Only Rouge sees him as he is. She doesn’t chase him. She waits.
He returns to her after every failed dodge, every emotional spiral, every moment where the weight feels too heavy. She never asks him to explain, she just opens her arms and he falls into them like he had wished for his entire life.
~*~*~
Whitebeard and Roger drink together beneath the golden tree.
They don’t talk about Ace at first. They swap stories of sea battles, of crewmates long gone, of the ache of legacy, of the world that Roger missed, about the children they’d raised on their respective crews, those who grew into obscurity like Buggy, those who shot to fame like Shanks, those who stayed loyal like Marco and those who betrayed them like Teach.
Eventually, Roger was the to bring Ace up.
“He’s kicked me in the nuts five times since he’s been here.”
Whitebeard laughs, deep and fond.
“He’s got Rogue’s fire. She did the same thing when you first met, didn’t she?”
Roger’s smile fades as he looks into the mist where Ace is currently arguing with Kevin about ghost ship taxes for his ghost pirate crew.
“I want to know him.”
“Then wait. And when he’s ready, don’t ask him to be anything but flame.”
~*~*~
Ace finds Whitebeard beside the bounty board.
Luffy’s name glows at the top, surrounded by titles:
CAPTAIN. PIRATE. IDIOT. BROTHER. HERO. CONQUEROR.
Ace watches from a distance, flame flickering low. He’s been avoiding this moment for weeks. Not because he doesn’t love Pops, but because he does, because he chose that death, because he’s not sure he deserves to be held again.
Ace sighs as he steps forward, deciding to get this over with. He can’t spend his entire afterlife running from his Pops.
“I’m sorry,” he says, voice hoarse.
Whitebeard pauses.
“For what?”
“For dying. For choosing it. For leaving you.”
Whitebeard turns slowly, eyes soft.
“You didn’t leave me, you protected your brother. You lived and died exactly how you chose, as any pirate should.”
Ace’s breath catches.
“I thought you’d be angry.”
Whitebeard shakes his head.
“I was proud.”
Ace stares at the board.
“I didn’t want to be Roger’s son.”
“You were mine.”
“…I missed you.”
Whitebeard places a hand on his shoulder.
“I never stopped being here.”
Ace crumples quietly, like a weight he didn’t know he was carrying finally sloughed off his shoulders.
Whitebeard pulls him into a hug, drawing him into his massive arms and holding him against his steady heartbeat, the kind of embrace that says you are safe.
Ace doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to.
He just lets himself be held.
~*~*~
Pops’ embrace doesn’t stop Ace from still trying to escape the afterlife. He uses his ghost pirates to try to storm the gates and that fails. Tries to create a riot among the spirits which is tamped down by the reapers. Tries to burn through the clouds and ends up right back where he started again and again. He doesn’t stop until his will cracks enough for him to slink back to his mother.
Ace finds her beneath the golden tree after every failed escape attempt, every bounty board update, every moment where grief claws too close to the surface.
She never asks him to explain, she never lectures, she just listens.
Sometimes she hums lullabies. Sometimes she tells stories: about the sea, about Roger’s terrible jokes, about the way Ace kicked in her ribs when she laughed too hard.
One night, he curls beside her like a child, head on her lap.
“I don’t know how to stop running,” he whispers.
Rouge strokes his hair.
“Then rest here. Just for a little while.”
He does.
~*~*~
Later, Ace finds Whitebeard beside the bounty board, a bottle of sake in hand. He’s carved something new beneath Luffy’s name:
JOY BOY
Ace stares.
“You believe that crap?”
“I believe in him. That’s enough.”
Ace folds his arms.
“So what? You think Luffy’s some ancient hero now?”
Whitebeard finally looks up, eyes soft.
“His Devil Fruit was never what it seemed.”
“What do you mean,” Ace frowns.
Whitebeard gestures and the mist shifts, revealing a memory, half-formed and glowing. A shadow of a man laughing, dancing, his body stretching in impossible ways, crowned by drums that echo like heartbeat.
“That fruit was hidden, its true name erased. It’s not just rubber. It is the Sun God Fruit, previously eaten by Joyboy. It is freedom personified. That Fruit seeks those who it believes can bring laughter to the oppressed. One who can dance even in chains.”
“Someone like Luffy.”
Ace takes a moment to think before shaking his head.
“Luffy doesn’t want a destiny or to be a tool of fate. That’s not freedom. He’d hate it.”
“He doesn’t know the weight of what he has. He is simply living, laughing, fighting for his friends. That’s what makes him worthy and it’s enough for now.”
Ace stares at the board, at the titles.
“He’s gonna change everything,” he realizes.
Whitebeard smiles.
“He already has.”
Ace shakes his head as he sits beside him.
“Mom wants me to talk to Roger.”
“So do I.”
“I don’t know how to be his son.”
Whitebeard places a hand on his shoulder.
“You already are. You’re also mine. That doesn’t change.”
Ace stares at the board, at the flames, at the names of the living.
“I miss him,” he whispers.
Whitebeard doesn’t ask who.
“Then let that love carry you forward.”
Ace returns to Rouge that night. He doesn’t speak. She doesn’t ask.
She just opens her arms and he falls into them like he’s coming home.
~*~*~
Ace is getting creative.
He’s built a cloud raft to “explore the outer edges” of the afterlife with his ghost crew. He’s fake-sleeping beneath the bounty board, snoring loudly whenever Roger walks by. He’s dodged every attempt at conversation. Every quiet look from Roger, every patient smile.
He still returns to his mother every day, still curls beside her beneath the golden tree, still listens to her lullabies and stories.
But even she is losing patience.
Rouge finds him mid-escape attempt, halfway through bribing a reaper.
“Gol D. Ace.”
He freezes.
She’s not using her soft voice, not the lullaby voice, not the story voice. She’s using her mother’s voice.
He turns slowly, flame guttering.
“I’m busy,” he tries.
Rouge folds her arms.
“You’re stalling.”
“I’m strategizing.”
“You’re hiding.”
“I don’t need to talk to him,” Ace scowls.
Rouge raises an eyebrow.
“You don’t need to forgive him. But you do need to face him.”
“I chose Pops. I don’t have room for Roger.”
Rouge steps closer.
“You have room for grief. You have room for pride. You have room for your brothers, your crew, your fire. You have room for this.”
“I’m not ready.”
Rouge grabs his ear causing him to yelp.
“Ow — what the hell—”
“You are Gol D. Ace, and you are going to sit down and talk to your father like the stubborn, flame-hearted idiot you are.”
She drags him through the mist like a wet cat. Thatch watches from a distance, wheezing with laughter. Whitebeard sips his sake, smiling faintly. Roger stands beneath the golden tree, waiting.
Rouge doesn’t let go until Ace is seated, arms crossed, flame twitching at his fingertips. She leans down, kisses his forehead.
“You don’t have to be ready. You just have to be brave.”
Then she walks away.
~*~*~
Ace doesn’t speak first.
Roger doesn’t either.
They sit beneath the golden tree, mist curling around them like breath, silence stretching long and taut. Rouge is gone, but Whitebeard lingers nearby, just out of sight. Not watching but waiting.
The first hour is filled with rage.
Ace spits fire (not literal, but close). He throws words like knives, grief like ash. He lists every moment Roger wasn’t there. Every time he hated his name. Every time he wished he’d been born to someone else.
Roger listens without interrupting or defending himself.
“I didn’t want your legacy. I wanted to be free of it.”
“I understand.”
“You don’t.”
“I’m trying to.”
The second hour is filled with silence.
Ace stares at the mist while Roger watches the flames dancing on his shoulders.
The third hour is full of questions.
“Why did you leave her?”
“I didn’t want to. I had to.”
“Why didn’t you come back?”
“I died too soon.”
“Why didn’t you fight harder?”
“I was tired. I couldn’t outrun death forever.”
Ace doesn’t like the answers, but he doesn’t walk away.
The fourth hour is filled with stories.
Roger tells him about Rouge. How they met— a pirate being chased down by a bounty hunter who kicked him in the nuts on their first meeting. He talked about how she laughed like thunder, how she lived like fire, how she chose to carry Ace for twenty months because her love was louder than fear.
Ace listens, wide-eyed and quiet.
“She was stronger than me. She still is.”
“She’s my anchor in this place,” Ace admits.
Roger smiles in response.
“She’s mine too.”
The fifth hour is full of grief.
Ace talks about Marineford, about dying in Luffy’s arms, about the way it felt to choose death for love.
Roger cries, mourns for him.
Ace doesn’t expect that.
The sixth hour is full of laughter.
Roger tells stories about Shanks, about Buggy, about the time he tried to cook and nearly blew up the Oro Jackson.
“You’re an idiot,” Ace snorts.
“You inherited that too,” Roger grins, drawing a scoff from Ace.
The seventh hour is full of pride.
Ace talks about Luffy, about Sabo, about Whitebeard, about the crews that made him feel like he mattered. Roger listens like every word is sacred.
The eighth hour is filled with fear.
Ace admits he doesn’t know how to forgive, doesn’t know how to rest, doesn’t know how to stop.
“Then let us teach you.”
The ninth hour is quiet.
They sit side by side, not as strangers, not as legends, just as men. Just as father and son.
Ace’s flames curl gently around Roger’s wrist. Roger doesn’t flinch.
The tenth hour is peaceful.
Ace doesn’t forgive Roger. Not yet. But he feels… neutral.
He stands. Roger stands too.
“You’re not my Pops.”
“I know.”
“But you’re my father.”
“Thank you,” Roger replied, his voice breaking.
Ace returns to Rouge first. She doesn’t ask how it went, she just opens her arms to him.
~*~*~
Ace doesn’t rush back to Roger. He doesn’t run away from him either.
After the ten-hour reckoning, something inside him settles. It’s not healed or whole, but that voice in his head is quiet. He keeps going back to Rouge and Whitebeard, but then, slowly, he begins to visit Roger too.
Not every day, not with fanfare, just… sometimes.
The first time, he brings a story.
“Luffy punched a Celestial Dragon once,” Ace says, dropping into the grass beside Roger like he’s not sure he’s staying.
Roger blinks at that.
“He did what?”
Ace grins.
“Right in the face. No hesitation. Gramps acted pissed but he was proud.”
Roger laughs, loud and delighted.
“That’s my boy.”
Ace doesn’t bother correcting him.
The second time, Roger tells a story about the time he tried to steal Garp’s ship and accidentally kidnapped Sengoku’s goat. About how Rouge once beat him in arm wrestling and he made her swear never to tell.
Ace listens, wide-eyed, like a child at bedtime.
He doesn’t realize he’s smiling until the mist shifts around him, warm and golden.
Rouge watches from afar. She doesn’t interfere, doesn’t comment, just smiles, soft and proud. Whitebeard joins her sometimes and they watch Ace learn how to stay.
~*~*~
One night, Ace sits between Roger and Whitebeard as they all swap stories. Roger about the Oro Jackson. Whitebeard about the Moby Dick. Ace about the Piece of Spadille, his original crew, Luffy’s crew.
Rouge joins them, eventually. She adds tales about her bounty hunting days and some of the guilds she used to run with.
Ace looks around and realizes he’s not alone. He’s never been.
~*~*~
The veil ripples.
It’s not supposed to, not like this.
Ace is talking to his ghost crew about exploring some of the outer reaches of the afterlife when the sky split, the mist shifts, the air thickens, and the world feels like its holding its breath.
Then he hears it.
“ACE!”
He turns and Luffy barrels through the veil like a comet, eyes wide, arms flailing, voice cracking with joy and panic.
Ace catches him mid-leap, flame flaring instinctively, and they crash into the grass in a tangle of limbs and laughter and sobs.
“You’re here!” Luffy yells, clutching Ace like he’s afraid he’ll vanish.
“You’re here!” Ace shouts back, holding him tighter.
They cry and laugh and yell over each other so much they don’t understand what the other is saying. It’s chaos. It’s perfect.
Rouge watches from the golden tree, tears in her eyes. Whitebeard stands beside her, arms folded, smiling softly. Roger stares like he’s seeing the sun for the first time.
Luffy babbles about Wano, about Gear Five, about Joy Boy and drums of liberation and how he definitely died for like a minute but it’s fine now.
Ace listens, wide-eyed, flame flickering with every heartbeat.
“You’re insane,” he says.
Luffy grins in reply.
“I’m proud of you,” Ace tells him.
Luffy’s grin might as well crack his face in two.
The veil begins to shimmer again, clouds of mist are starting to wrap around Luffy, drawing him back towards the veil.
Luffy’s time is up.
He hugs Ace one last time, tighter than ever.
“I’m gonna make it worth it. Your death. Your love. All of it. I’m going to be King of the Pirates.”
Ace presses their foreheads together.
“I believe in you.”
“I’ll tell Sabo you say hi.”
“Make sure you punch him for me.”
“Shishishi, okay!”
Then Luffy is gone.
~*~*~
Ace sits beneath the golden tree, staring at the sky where the veil shimmered. Rouge joins him. Whitebeard too. Roger sits nearby, quiet. Ace doesn’t speak. He doesn’t need to.
He carves one last name into the mist:
PIRATE KING
Then he turns to Roger.
“I forgive you,” he says.
Roger’s breath catches.
“But I’m still kicking your ass in arm wrestling.”
Roger laughs. So does Whitebeard. So does Rouge.
The mist glows.
Ace rests.