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-----Monkey D. Luffy-----
Luffy was getting ready to enter the colosseum arena when he felt the first hints of his soulmate getting into trouble. That was inconvenient, for the most part they had managed to stay out of serious fights at the same time, which was incredibly lucky because even if they both had incredibly high pain tolerance, and Luffy just guessed that fact about is soulmate, it was a bad handicap to fight with two persons pain. That was just the way things was, however, and a lot of people fought together with their soulmates and learnt to fight through it, the Marineford war was proof of that if nothing else, and Robin and Franky had always managed fine. But right now Luffy didn’t have time to think about that, Ace’s devil fruit was on the line and he would not let anyone else have it. His soulmate could take care of themselves, they had after all been in a lot of fight before, not to mention those years when Luffy was young that he didn’t really remember very well. So Luffy ignored the marks and the pain and went in to secure a victory and the safety of his brother’s devil fruit. It wasn’t really a difficult fight, but the high point was definitely when he clashed with Chinjao in a duel of conqueror’s haki. It probably would have been easier if he wasn’t slightly distracted by the pain of his soulmate, whoever they were they probably had a hard battle. Luffy hoped they stuck it to their opponent just as bad.
After a very weird conversation with the rooster guy Luffy was happy to meet up with Zoro and Kin’emon.
“What did you do, Captain?” Zoro asked when they met. “Those guys couldn’t have been that strong!” Luffy didn’t understand what his first mate was talking about.
“Yeah, it looks quite bad”, Kin’emon added. Luffy looked down at himself, which seemed to be the problem.
“Oh! No, those are not my injuries, it seems my soulmate is in a fight as well”, two pairs of eyebrows went up.
“Bad timing”, Zoro commented. “To have succeeded in not fighting at the same time this far, only to do it now.”
“Yeah”, Luffy answered. “But they’ll be fine, they’re the soulmate of the future pirate king after all!”
“Of course”, Zoro agreed before they shifted focus to the plans for the country and the brewing coup. It really seemed to be much worse that they were expecting, and Luffy was itching to beat up Mingo at this point. The three-way snail call was slightly chaotic, but they had just come to some decisions when Luffy felt someone get in a very good hit on his soulmate. It even made him loose track of the conversation for a second and Zoro looked at him in worry. That was of course when someone fell from the sky and Doflamingo arrived.
“Really bad timing”, Luffy muttered at his aching body. He really had too much on his plate right now to be distracted.
That’s when the dust and smoke cleared and suddenly Luffy’s world shifted slightly at the sight of a beat-up Law on the ground. Did that mean..? His question was answered with a gunshot. And although Luffy could see Mingo aiming at the ground, he could feel the bullet tearing its way through his body.
“TOARO!” He screamed in panic as the realization of exactly who his soulmate was accompanied another two gunshots. The pain was extreme, Luffy had never been shot before but he hadn’t imagined that it would hurt this bad.
-----Roronoa Zoro-----
Zoro was frozen in shock at the sight of their ally being shot in the chest by the guy they were trying to take down. How did it happen? He gave Luffy a quick glance to figure out his orders, but at the sight of his captain the truth hit him like a brick. It was there in Luffy’s panic and in the marks that had suddenly appeared on his chest. The marks from earlier, the reason Torao had gone to Marineford to risk his life to save a stranger, that weird moment Luffy had heart problems at Punk Hazard. It all added up to this one truth, Toaro was Luffy’s soulmate. And now that soulmate was shot in the chest right in front of Luffy.
“Kin’emon! Take Torao back!” He screamed at Kin’emon and charged. He would not let his captain’s soulmate die here, he would not let that happen to Luffy, not after Ace.
That became quite a tall order when a freaking admiral showed up, Zoro couldn’t fight him and all the Marines so in the end they had to retreat and regroup. He had expected Luffy to react in some way, but he hadn’t really expected his captain to be blubbering hysterically when they met up again. Luffy was the kind of person who became angry when his nakama was hurt, not sad. And now here he was crying a river and babbling about a brother? Had the realization broken him in some way? And who did he trust his brothers devil fruit with? Either way, they didn’t have time for that now. They needed to save Torao and kick the shit out of Doflamingo.
-----
Almost everyone was asleep in the small house in the middle of the sunflower field. Most of them had been awake at some point, but not the two captains. Law was so beaten up and full of holes and stitches that even Zoro was impressed, and he himself was usually the one bleeding. Luffy looked slightly better, but that was only because he hadn’t been shot or lost any limbs. When they’d collected them both after the battle was over, Law had been sitting next to Luffy on the ground, but Zoro wasn’t nearly stupid enough to miss the hand that was oh so casually resting against Luffy’s arm. He supposed it was a good thing, that they could have at least some respite after fighting the most brutal tag battle of their entire pirate career, with twice the pain for every hit. It was for that reason that Zoro had stepped in when they got to the house. Law was seemingly pulling into himself once more when they were surrounded by people, but he was swaying dangerously on his feet and Zoro doubted he had many seconds left to remain vertical. So when Princess Mansherry and a doctor had looked over both captains Zoro just pushed Law until he fell over. It didn’t take much force at all, and the middle finger he got for the trouble was probably the most half hearted thing Zoro had ever seen. Despite the grumbling Law was out like a light just a few seconds after falling to the bed beside Luffy. Law’s good arm was slung over Luffy’s torso and both men seemed to deflate slightly at the resumed skin contact. Their breathing got less ragged and heavy as they relaxed, and it wasn’t until their faces smoothed out into calmer expressions that Zoro realized in just how much pain both of them must have been in. Luffy was usually completely out for several days after a big fight, and this time he was also handling bullet wounds and severed limbs, something that was completely new to him. The same could probably be said for Law. Despite how suspicious Zoro had been, and still was, because soulmate or not, someone always had to watch the captain’s back, he was happy that the two captains had each other right now. Who knew what tomorrow would bring, but right now Luffy and Law could rest easy and painlessly, and that was enough for Zoro.
-----Monkey D. Garp-----
Garp was marching through the corridors of a smaller marine base with determined steps. He’d come here to see Sengoku, because even if they had both stepped down to take different positions, it was hard to just stop seeing an old friend who he’d spent so much time with. So they tried to get together as often as their respective work allowed them, but it had been a while now. Last time had been just after Sengoku left Doflamingo at Impel Down, and they’d had a rather difficult conversation about Sengoku’s son, and how he apparently had a pirate grandson now as well. Garp had always liked Rocinante, and it was weird to think that he’d given his life to save a boy who’d later grown up to save Garp’s own grandson. At that time Sengoku had been very shaken up about the realization, but since then the facts had sort of settled and now he had even adopted the same awkward pride that Garp felt over his grandson. They had after all taken out Doflamingo and saved an entire country. The old men’s snail calls after that had been full of talk about what their grandsons had accomplished, and Garp was almost relishing in the relief of having someone else in the marines to talk about Luffy with who wouldn’t judge him.
This time his mood before the visit was slightly different. A few younger marines had actually turned around to run when they saw him coming. In his hand he held an almost completely crushed newspaper. Sengoku was in his office when Garp stormed in and from his shocked expression he had not read the newspaper yet. Garp slammed the door shut behind him before slamming down the newspaper on the desk. It was a big article about the Straw Hat and Heart Pirates latest victory, but even the news of a fallen emperor kind of faded in sight of the front image.
It was a surprisingly clear picture of the aftermath of battle, most of the surroundings were rubble and in the middle of the destruction stood the two pirate captains, completely absorbed by each other. They had their arms around each other and were touching forehead to forehead, Law very crouched down and Luffy standing on some broken rock, and they were both smiling. Luffy usually smiled but this time his eyes seemed to shine, and Law, who the marines probably didn’t have a single smiling photo of, had such a soft look in his eyes that it felt like intruding just looking at the photo. As if all that wasn’t enough, probably the most attention capturing part of the photo were the perfectly matching marks and bruises on them both.
Garp was shaking with rage as Sengoku was scanning the picture and headline, the shock growing on his face for every second. Then he collected himself and looked up at Garp.
“So, it would seem our grandsons are soulmates”, that was one calm word too much and Garp slammed down a fist on the desk.
“Get up old man!” He managed to reign in his strength in the last second so that the desk didn’t get completely crushed, but it still got some serious cracks and a fist shaped hole.
“We’re going to Impel Down right now, you still have enough sway to get them to look the other way, right?” If Sengoku had looked shocked before, he now looked more confused.
“Impel Down? Why are we going there? You’re not mad about Law and Luffy?”
“What? Why would I be mad about my grandson finding his soulmate?” Now it was Garp’s turn to be confused. “But you did say that Rocinante met Law during his time with Doflamingo, and I know when he died, and I’ve also got some very unpleasant information about Luffy’s younger years, and therefor we’re going to go visit a certain former warlord in prison.”
In the end Sengoku managed to convince Garp of the futility of going to Impel Down to beat up someone who the concerned parties had already taken down. It was Law, and in extension Luffy, who got hurt, and they had already gotten their revenge. That piece of logic was finally enough to calm down Garp, so when Coby came to collect the hero of the marines he found the old man in a bragging match with the former fleet admiral. They were both good and properly drunk and a lot of the bragging seemed to be repeated stories, because they couldn’t really focus enough to remember details.
“Hey, Coby, you believe Luffy’s gonna be the pirate king, right?” He asked with a hiccup. “This old man thinks that his adopted, eh, double adopted? Second generation adoption? Whatever, he says his grandson’s going to be pirate king but he’ll be the pirate queen to my grandson. Or the pirate king’s consort? Is that a thing? Coby what’s Trafalgar’s title gonna be?”
Coby stared at the now bickering old men, decided it was way above his paycheck and closed the door again. Even if he did believe Luffy was going to become pirate king, he wasn’t going to say it in front of the former fleet admiral. Who apparently was the grandfather of the Surgeon of Death? It was just too much, would Helmeppo even believe him?