Chapter Text
It was just after leaving Fishman Island that Luffy began to feel off. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary, nor did any of the rest of the crew express feeling similarly. There was no cause for concern, and yet, Luffy had a gut feeling that this was serious; Luffy always trusted his gut.
Not ten minutes later, as he was watching the fish swim by from within the safety of the bubble encapsulating the Thousand Sunny, and that strange wrongness multiplied tenfold. The intense wave of it forced Straw Hat to cling to the nearest solid mass, the railing, or else he would have likely lost his balance and fallen over from the sudden pressure weighing down his entire body. It felt like he’d been hit by a tonne of sea water.
No one noticed his sudden ailment. They were spread out across the grassy deck below, talking and laughing, still high on the joyous feeling of finally being together after two long years apart. None of them took notice of how their captain was literally fading out of existence.
A sickening pull in opposite directions gradually tore apart at Luffy's mind, stealing the breath from his burning lungs. He stepped back in a daze, and then he proceeded to fall. As he plummeted, the wooden boards of what he would’ve smacked into shifted nauseatingly, warping and spinning out of control. It felt like a poison seeping underneath his skin, but it also felt like enlightenment, in a twisted sense, because in that brief moment, it was as if he was connecting with everything and everyone around him on a spiritual level. He was feeling their essence drawing in from every which direction, only for it to be tossed into the background as a different set of life took its place.
While Luffy’s mind was split and sewn anew, so were his surroundings; from ocean to forest, from wood to grass, and from late-dawn to dusk.
When he stopped feeling like he was a step from Death's door and his senses were back, Straw Hat could finally make out his own screaming as it pierced the night's once content silence. His voice quickly died out at the realization, and Luffy instead leaned forward with his hands on his knees as he heaved haggardly for breath that wouldn’t come fast enough.
The fading light of the setting sun casted long shadows on the uneven mounds of grass and root beneath his sandals, and a steady breeze stung Luffy's exposed skin. Being the way that he was, the cold temperature in the area went overlooked without a third party opening up his obtuse eyes to it, and he continued to stare blankly around, mind buffering.
"Huh . . . have I been here before?" He asked the air. A breeze rushing by to ruffle his messy hair was his only response. "How did I get here?"
Luffy was strangely quick to accept the change and only wondered in more depth whether his friends were here too, or if they were still on the Sunny. Although, he was denied the time of delving further into that train of thought when the white noise of the mild activity in the forest was abruptly sliced through by the sudden echo of many howling wolves nearby.
The sound brought up childhood memories, although he found it difficult to discern whether they were nice or unpleasant memories.
Prompted by the rush of nostalgia, he couldn’t help it if his whole self seemed to perk up, listening attentively in the direction they came from; his Observation Haki easily leaked through to assist in his interest. It was too dark to make out much, but it could be gathered that he was deep within an awfully familiar forest, under the light of an early moon, and exposed to a pack of wolves somewhere close by. Luffy had a particular distaste for wolves, and something about this environment was heightening that feeling to a slightly uncomfortable degree. It was at least uncomfortable enough to make the young man antsy on his feet.
Apparently, this was more than a shallow distaste, for his breath had grown considerably quicker. The silence was plastering itself between the layers of his skin, the breeze felt too frigid and destabilizing in its ebb and flow, and Luffy's senses were growing far too heightened for comfort. This wasn’t a feeling that he was used to, and it was throwing off his usual, easy-going nature.
Taking in shuddering breaths, Straw Hat regained a semblance of control over his rising, emotional turmoil, and he forced down his Haki in hopes of quelling the suffocating expanse of his surroundings. In doing so, a soothing calm returned to seep bone-deep, and he felt stronger for it.
That is, until a shrill cry overcame all else and rattled within Luffy's skull. His battle-hardened instincts engaged like the flip of a switch, and his feet were already carrying him off toward the source. He allowed the pre-battle glow he often felt to smooth over his metaphorical jagged edges, picking up speed.
This was familiar. This he could do.
It was much easier to ignore the distractions of his mind when lives besides his own were at risk. No matter where he may be, if someone was calling out for help in a place barren of souls willing to take the chance and make a difference, then Luffy would be there. Perhaps, even, this would give him an opportunity to better understand his situation. It was a win-win any way he looked at it, and so, he continued on through the thick foliage, bounding over rocks and weaving between trees.
Luffy had briefly considered the slight possibility that this could be a dream, but there was no mistaking the solid ground beneath his feet, the chilled air stinging his cheeks, and the senses rushing through and around his Haki, telling him, screaming at him, that this was real.
Soon enough, Straw Hat broke through a blockage of thick bushes to stand before a large ravine. He nearly ran right into it, as the wide crack in the earth was half-concealed by overhanging trees and various-sized rocks.
Something about the sight of it irritated him in an icky 'must keep distance' way. The young man shook his head to keep focus.
The screams that had permeated the air since he had first heard them had now died down to gasping sobs, and the hairs on the back of Luffy's neck raised instinctively.
Every detail of these past few minutes had been nothing but unsettling, and to be frank, Luffy was feeling pretty shaken, although that wouldn't be enough to withhold him from rescuing this unfortunate child.
At least, he assumed they were a child. He knew grown men had the capability to scream like little kids under the right conditions or when pushed far enough. They could cry like babies, too, in a similar sense, but he digressed.
Taking in a deep breath, Luffy hopped down into the ravine, and he was promptly eaten by the earth as its walls rapidly rose up from either side to surround him indefinitely. In the bleak moonlight steadily growing in strength as the night persisted, a clear path at the bottom of the rock where he stood showed notable signs of disturbance, broken twigs and trampled plants as proof.
Following this trail - one traveled through with abandon and frenzied hunger - and by tuning in to the snarls of the distant beasts, Luffy knew he would be upon the pack soon. He was running as fast as he could, as along with the pack, the supposed child would be found as well. Hopefully, alive.
He couldn’t predict how he might feel if he came upon bloody parts of a small, frail body strewn about the ravine floor.
Luffy's experience with wolves had always been unfortunate and sort of, maybe, scarring. Of course, it all began when he was much younger and living with Dadan and the other mountain bandits. The wild animals had preyed upon him at his weakest when he had only wished to seek out . . . as his friend.
Many would have given up sooner. Many would have held a grudge. Fortunately or unfortunately, Luffy wasn't most people and struggled to take a hint. In the end, though, he gained a brother, and that was worth ten times the grueling punishment he had faced in those woods at the nasty paws and jaws of creatures wishing nothing more than to tear into his supple flesh.
Feeling the pleasant tingles coursing through his legs with every heavy impact on the uneven terrain burned a strength in his heart that he knew would take him far. He would see this self-assigned mission through, no matter the cost; it gave him purpose when he might otherwise be lost. Then, maybe, he could return to his crew, if they weren’t here already.
Maybe, this was the reason he had been brought here.
Ah, that was an idea that he hadn’t thought of until now. Maybe he had been brought here for a purpose - this possibly being the one.
"Don’t worry, I’m on my way. Just hold on a little longer." Luffy spoke under his breath, the adrenaline building up his nerves. Saying it out loud rather than thinking it held more weight; it felt like it was giving him more strength to do what needed to be done.
The pack's wild race grew louder, and so did the wordless pleas for help. Whoever they were, they must have quite a commendable store of strength to be able to run as far as they had, and this may save them enough time for Luffy to close the distance.
His sandals pounded into the hard ground, tearing up occasional stretches of dry dirt into dust clouds in his wake and flattening sparse growths of sad looking plants. As time passed, Straw Hat couldn’t help but notice the narrowing path, the walls gradually closing in, and with a spark of intelligent thought, Luffy guessed that the ravine may be coming to a dead end.
He grit his teeth and carried on best he could, following the natural bend of the rocky walls. Someone without stamina like his would have given up and fallen down in exhaustion a long ways back, as the ravine had seemed endless. However, knowing an end was almost within his sights, Luffy’s stamina seemed to sky-rocket from his sheer determination.
Overhead, the ravine was closing up like a wound stitching itself back together. All the while, the walls kept inching closer and closer and closer . . . until it reached a point that Luffy had to squeeze his rubbery self through a small, thin crack in the mountain, the stone roof low above his head to create a messy sort-of doorway to whatever may be on the other side.
He could see the night sky again, dots of white littering the cloudless expanse, and he squeezed the last bit to pop out the other end with a sound of surprise at the suddenness.
Laid before his eyes was an open space of green grass surrounded by trees and hills of stone. In the middle of it all, at the presumed edge of the mountain - a cliff that looked to drop down into a continuation of the thick forest - was a pack of snarling, barking wolves, and a small body clinging desperately to a thin, leafless tree protruding out of the cliffside and above the dense treetops hundreds of feet down.
The boy’s cries were shrill, echoing throughout the small valley and far below, but only one had heard and came to save him.
Luffy rushed forward and swung back a clenched fist. It stretched as he ran, and as the wolves each began to take notice of the newcomer, he launched a fist and struck the closest one. The canine yelped in pain, but it didn’t stop Luffy from rounding up on the next one, and the next, and the next. With every wolf downed or chased off, a pressure began to ease up from his chest, lightening the load that he had no idea was weighing so heavily on his shoulders.
The last carnivore standing in Luffy’s way whined and yipped at the sight of him approaching, and it tore off into the treeline. Injured wolves scurried off in tandem, and only two remained on the ground, unmoving.
“That was so cool!”
Straw Hat’s head snapped up to meet the wide, awestruck eyes of the small child that he had saved. Seeing as how the threat had been taken care of, the kid shuffled and slid back down the tree. He misjudged the stability of the small branch he had grasped, and it snapped off. Off-balanced, the boy tumbled forward head over heels into open air.
Before he could get far, the boy’s tiny wrist was snatched in time, his screams of fright cut short and turned to shaky gasps of shock. Luffy pulled him in from the same motion, the rubber snapping back and throwing the kid into his waiting arms.
The boy’s small, stubby fingers clung tightly to the pirate’s red vest. His body was trembling, and he sniffled away the tears still threatening to fall from the corners of his eyes. When he looked up, his face was stretched by a toothy smile in spite of the salty tracks down his cheeks and the tremors.
“Do you have rubber powers, too!? ‘Cause I saw your arm stretch like mine does, but it was so much better than me, ‘cause you didn’t hit yourself in the face, and I been trying, but aiming it right is hard, but it’s so cool! An’ you took out those mean wolves like it was nothin’, like whoosh and wham!”
When he first got a good look at the kid’s face, Luffy got a strong sense of déjà-vu, and it wasn’t until the boy in his arms openly admitted to having the power of rubber similarly to Luffy that it all clicked into place - that and the straw hat hanging from his neck exactly as Luffy’s did now. Yeah, he could be pretty dumb at times, but even he couldn’t miss something as blatant and quite literally in his face as this.
This kid is me, and I’ve somehow gotten sent into the past.
So, he wasn’t in the now that he knew, but the before, but it still was the now because he’s here and not there, and oh, my head is on fire.
The past. He’s in the past.
Luffy didn’t really understand what that meant, nor what to do about it, but one thing he did know was that he had to get this kid - me - somewhere better than the edge of a cliff in the middle of the night.
“Let’s get you out of here, kid,” he told . . . Mini-Luffy. It was Luffy after all, but calling him Luffy in his head would get confusing, but only using “the kid” or “the boy” felt too weird. So, Mini-Luffy it was.
He set the kid down on his feet, making sure he wasn’t too injured to walk in those few seconds. As he was turning to walk off, expecting Mini-Luffy to follow, the boy gasped so loudly that he was spinning around in a fighting stance, fists raised, half expecting to see a wolf stalking toward the kid. There was nothing.
Mini-Luffy was hopping from one foot to the other, his hand raised and pointing accusingly at Luffy, but not directly at him, more-so trying to see around him. The boy’s brows were furrowed.
“What-”
“You have a straw hat, too! It looks like mine!”
Ah. Luffy knew why, but he played the fool in spite of the itch to reach back and compare his hat with how it used to look before his pirate adventures began. Nami did a good job of fixing up the damage, but it was still scarred and ruined from how unblemished and untouched it used to be. It was a fool-hardy dream, but the young man had hoped to return the hat to Shanks without a single mark on its straw build that’d broadcast his failure in protecting it.
Mini-Luffy was rushing over, but Luffy saw what was coming. He sidestepped the kid with ease, and again when mini-him made another attempt.
“You’re not having it.”
Mini-Luffy whined. “But I need to check! If Shanks gave you one, too, then it’s not fair, because I was supposed to be the only one! Why would he have two hats!?”
“Someone else gave this to me,” Luffy half-lied. There was some truth, as it wasn’t technically this Shanks that gave him the hat, because this Shanks gave his hat to this Luffy of this time, and, well . . . he wouldn’t think beyond that sound logic to avoid it getting more confusing in his head. Being the terrible liar that he was, and a simple-minded guy, this was enough to keep his lips from puckering up in his obvious tell of speaking untruths.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
Mini-Luffy gave in on his chase, but he was still eyeing the accessory from where it dangled.
“If you’re done playing around, we have to get you somewhere the wolves can’t get you again, unless you forgot they nearly killed you?” Luffy was being a tad dramatic just to get the kid moving. After all, he was still alive, wasn’t he? And not because of some older, cooler version of himself appearing in a flourish to save the day.
“Mh!” The boy nodded.
Luffy picked a random direction and started off into the woods. Mini-Luffy followed obediently, and they walked side by side, or, well, hand in hand as the boy had been struggling to keep up with the pirate’s much wider gait.
It was a strange feeling holding onto the smaller hand of a younger version of himself. Ah, and he hadn’t remembered being so annoying, because Mini-Luffy hadn’t stopped talking about this and that since their meeting. He was pointing at Luffy’s sandals, his straw hat (again), his “cool-looking” sash around his waist, and he was stumbling over rocks or his own feet every once in a while, always spouting out words and never missing a beat.
Luffy frowned irritably, but after the traumatic experience mini-him had just come out of, he humoured the kid with brief answers or questions of his own to distract from certain things - like the scar on his chest, for instance.
Eventually, the name “Ace” slipped into one of his many rambles, and Straw Hat stopped abruptly in place.
“Eh? Stretchy Guy? Why’d ya stop?”
A ringing encompassed his hearing as he stared ahead.
If a mini version of himself was here, then . . . It only made sense that . . . Because, at this time, before everything, he was still . . . He was . . .
Oh.
OH.
Luffy’s head was fuzzy. He didn’t know how to feel about this. Was he happy, or was he on the verge of tears? Maybe they were happy tears?
The young man splayed his fingers over his heart as it pounded heavy in his chest. Mini-Luffy was pulling at his other arm, but he couldn’t find the strength to shift his attention, because his older brother was alive. Smaller and grumpier, yes, but alive. And Sabo - oh, Sabo - had died so young.
Could he save him? Could he save them both?
Something was spreading and churning within, wild and achingly desperate. He didn’t care what he had to do; he didn’t care what he had to lose; Luffy was going to do whatever it took to keep his brothers from dying on him like before. After all, he had promised he wouldn’t! And so Luffy was only going to ensure that that promise remained intact.
Unshed tears burned in his vision, and Luffy finally took notice of the worried kid pulling on the edge of his shirt. He blinked away the sting, gulping in stuttering breaths.
“I’m fine, s’nothing,” was what slipped out. “Come on.”
Reining in his emotions to keep up a neutral expression, Luffy walked past mini-him as if nothing had been wrong. Albeit hesitantly, Mini-Luffy bounced after him, unsure and slightly behind with his hands pulling down his shirt. He had his hat on and transitioned to fiddling with the string after a moment.
“You looked like you were going to cry. Why?”
Luffy pretended to not hear him, instead speeding up so that his younger self was more focused on keeping pace than asking dumb questions.
“Was it something I said?”
He really was so annoying. Couldn’t the brat take a hint? He didn’t want to talk about it.
There was a following, blessed silence, but the tension in the air wasn’t so easy to brush off. Feeling was a tiring thing. Oftentimes, Luffy wished he could punch away the stupid, negative thoughts and emotions that plagued his mind, but the worst kind of problems tended to be intangible - AKA, something he very well couldn’t punch.
Eventually, Luffy slowed back down, having pity on the kid when he tripped on a root and scuffed his hands from the fall. The quiet remained as a stifling itch in the space between them.
Straw Hat wasn’t exactly sure as to where he was going, but the forest could only last for so long. He recalled the treehouse he would sleep in with his . . . brothers. That was as good a place as any to hide out in until daylight; a high up space with four walls and a roof.
“I’m sorry . . . Please don’t ignore me.”
The hushed plea was deafening. It cut through his uncharacteristic thinking of all things, and it mercilessly tore at something in Luffy’s heart.
How familiar that statement was. Those four words tugged loose old fears that often still crept up on him in spite of the large family he’s built himself over the years. Fears of being alone; fears of being forgotten or left behind.
Luffy sighed and came to a gradual stop. When Mini-Luffy toddled into view, he turned slightly to the left and motioned toward his back. The boy happily jumped on, snugly wrapping his short limbs around him while shoving aside the straw accessory already there for a better fit. Luffy kept a loose grip on mini-him’s legs to ensure that the kid didn’t slip off at the slightest jostle, and they started off again along the uneven terrain of rocks, trees, and thick bushes.
“Dadan must be worried about me,” Mini-Luffy mumbled sleepily after a while, and it caught Straw Hat off-guard when nothing had been said for some time. As nice as the quiet had been, he was glad that the kid was talking again. The boy’s voice was muffled from where his chubby face was smushed against Luffy’s shoulder. There might’ve been some drool, but it hardly mattered to the young man as the words registered at leisure.
Ah, Dadan. It’s been a while since he properly thought of her. Not much time had passed since he had left the island at seventeen, and yet, with all that has happened since, it felt like so long ago. Luffy’s been too preoccupied with drawn-out fights and close-calls to sit and reminisce about home.
After . . . Ace’s death, it then became a painful thing to think back on the old life he had.
Luffy was glad for a topic change, and he replied with a cheeky, “Yeah, I bet Dadan’s so worried.” He knew Dadan cared, but that hadn’t always been the case. She was probably glad to be rid of one nuisance, at least, until the realization set in that she lost Vice Admiral Garp’s grandson!
Luffy snickered to himself. Yeah, his Gramps could be pretty scary.
The last time he was face to face with the old geezer was . . . when he had punched him hard in the face trying to save A- his brother. Gramps would understand. He did what he had to, after all.
Eh, was he going to see him in this “now?” That thought brought on both intrigue and trepidation.
“Where are we going, anyway, Stretchy Guy?”
“Don’t call me that,” was his flat response.
“What do I call you, then?”
Luffy paused, thinking hard. Obviously, he couldn’t be Luffy here. That spot was taken up. Ugh, but that’s his name! What else would he go by?
Oh.
Well, people did have a habit of calling him Straw Hat (hehe), because they were the Straw Hat pirates, after all.
Yeah, that should work. No need to overthink it.
“The name’s Straw Hat.”
Mini-Luffy pouted and smacked the top of his head defiantly. “That’s so ov-usly not your name! I’m not that gulli- gully- gullible!” Luffy’s brow twitched, and he resisted the urge to hit the kid back, younger version of him be damned.
“Well, it is, so get used to it, kid.”
He could practically hear the boy pouting by his right ear, and that was such a weird thing to experience from his end - he was a notorious pouter.
“If I have to call you by your name - which is so not true, you liar - then you have to call me by my name, too!”
“Yeah, and what is it?” he prompted, despite knowing the answer to come. Mini-Luffy laughed that signature, toothy-grin laugh with a “shishishishi.” He clambered up to sit on the pirate’s shoulders, and he leaned over enough to look Luffy in the eyes from upside down, grabbing fists of his black hair to keep balance.
“I’m Monkey D. Luffy! And I’m gonna be-”
King of the Pirates.
“King of the Pirates!”
They said it simultaneously, because of course, he knew exactly how that sentence finished. It was something that Luffy would say at every given opportunity, and when he was young, it was for acknowledgement and said with unbridled excitement. As he was now, he would say it as a challenge, a promise, and he’d say it with pride and all the confidence he could muster.
Mini-Luffy had thrown his head and arms up into the air at the exclamation, shouting it out for the world to hear. Luffy grinned and chuckled, but Mini-Luffy didn’t take it the way that he meant it.
“Don’t laugh! I’m serious!” He put his hands back into the young man’s raven hair, tugging slightly to make his irritation clear. The pirate wasn’t bothered enough to swat them away, as he was too caught up in his amusement.
“I know, I know! I’m not making fun of you.”
“You’re not?”
“No, I’m not. There’s nothing wrong with having big dreams, as long as you have the resolve to see them through.” He knew he had Mini-Luffy’s undivided attention, and so he asked his follow-up question in all seriousness. “Are you going to give up on your dream like a coward, or are you going to fight for it, even if it costs you your life?”
There was absolutely zero hesitation.
“I’ll fight for it! I will be King of the Pirates!”
Luffy laughed again, bright and warm.
“That’s the spirit, kid!”
“Luffy,” mini-him corrected.
Begrudgingly, Straw Hat repeated back, “Luffy,” as strange as it felt coming out of his mouth.
It was definitely something he had to get used to, and he didn’t like it. Every time he said that name in his head, it had to be preceded by “Mini” to avoid confusion, so to voice it out loud on its own felt like talking to himself - which, yeah, that’s what he was doing, but this was another him, not him-him, and- Ack! Time travel stuff can be so confusing!
The point is, Luffy would much rather call Mini-Luffy “kid,” but he knew little him would make a fuss about it and call him all sorts of rude names in retaliation - something very much in character for him even now. To avoid wasting time fighting over something so stupid, Luffy supposed that he would just have to call mini-him by his given name . . .
Or, he could give him a nickname. It sounded like Mini-Luffy was really making a fuss over being called “kid,” something every child his age was called at least once.
What would be better than “kid,” but less strange than “Luffy?”
They came upon a small stream, and the pirate geared up to leap forward. Mini-Luffy shouted in glee as they flew through the air, the crisp wind biting at their bare skin. No animals had disturbed them since the wolves. For his mini-self’s safety, he had been sending out tiny waves of his Conqueror’s Haki. Not enough to draw too much attention, but just enough to keep the dangerous creatures this forest was known for a safe distance away from the pair.
Suddenly, it came to him. Luffy recalled the nickname his brothers sometimes called him way back when. It wasn’t often, but it meant the world when he heard it; something that spoke in fewer words of their close connection to one another.
It was a special nickname. Yeah, it was a simple one that anyone could think of, but it was his from them first! However, he hadn’t heard it in so long.
This Luffy could stand to hear it more often, the young man believed.
The kid was giggling from his shoulders, and he glanced up into that cheery face. The boy turned his head down at the movement, and their eyes connected, black on black. The same scar was under the left eye - the same owlish eyes, and a mop of raven hair spilled out from the top of their heads, clean skin a pale peach in contrast.
Lu, he thought. I’ll call you “Lu.”