Ace’s breath came in ragged pulls, each inhale sending a sharp ache through his ribs. The lingering heat of your last strike still burned across his chest, the skin flushed and tender. He grimaced, pressing a hand to the injury, and let out a low groan.

You stood across from him, body heaving with your own exhaustion. The faint scent of char hung in the air, the scorched earth around you still radiating warmth. Your captain’s orders had been clear—Blackbeard wanted you to fight Portgas D. Ace, and he wanted you to win.

But wanting and doing were different things.

The moment you’d faced him, hesitation had knotted in your gut. Ace wasn’t just another enemy. Somewhere between the clashes and the near-misses, between the stray conversations and the shared silences, you had started to think of him as a friend. That made each blow land heavier—not on your body, but on your conscience.

Ace sat up slowly, wincing, his gaze flicking toward you. His sharp eyes softened for a moment when they caught sight of your injuries—angry burns crawling across your forearms and shoulder where his flames had caught you. They weren’t deep, but they were enough to make his chest loosen just a little. If you were still standing, if you could still glare at him like that, then he hadn’t lost entirely.

You’d fought before, more times than either of you could count. Those skirmishes had become a strange rhythm between you—steel and flame meeting again and again, each battle revealing another piece of the other’s mind. You’d learned how he shifted his stance when he meant to feint, how his guard dipped slightly when his thoughts wandered. You’d learned, too, that he laughed in the middle of a fight not to mock you, but to shake off his own fear.

And Ace, for all his stubborn pride, had learned you were dangerous in a way that didn’t come from brute strength alone. Your attacks carried precision. Patience. You never struck just to strike—you aimed to end things quickly. That alone had kept him from going all out.

Even now, as the fading sunlight streaked the sky in gold and blood-red, there was no real malice between you. Only the weight of two captains’ commands pressing down on the backs of your necks.

Ace rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth, smudging the ash there, and smirked faintly. “Guess we’re both still terrible at holding back,” he said, voice rough but carrying a thread of humor.