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Something Worth Dying For	By : slj812000 Category: +M to R > One Piece Views: 10730 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 18
- 19
- 20
Chapter Nineteen: Ace
Ace knew the only thing that was saving his and Nojiko's life at the moment was the fact that they were in a skinny hallway that fed off of the entryway. That long, scary looking sword was way too big to be swung in this size area. But the man could use it to jab at them, and was pretty quick in doing so.
Ace had put himself in between the wannabe killer and Nojiko, and was backing her up further into the house her family lived in. His goal was to get them, or at least Nojiko, outside so she could make a run for it. Nojiko had at one time been on the school's track team (somehow fitting that in along with tutoring and an after school part time job) but since Nami had gone missing, she had dropped out of the club to search for her sister.
If Ace got her outside, she could run to the train station and board it probably before the sword wielding thug could catch up to her. Because Ace sure as fuck wasn't going to let the bastard near her while he was alive. It wasn't atonement, per se, to give up his life to make sure Nojiko was safe; it was love.
He might die in the next few minutes, so why not admit it? He loved her. Those shitty feelings had snuck up on him and got their claws into him while he wasn't paying attention. And the idea of Nojiko dead and still and cold on an autopsy table somewhere burned and stabbed deep in his chest more painfully than any wound he could possibly receive ever would.
On that thought, the stabs of the sword were getting very tricky to avoid. The bastard was quick, and after every stab he would swing the sword slightly in a miniature slash at them. Ace had never been so grateful to have spent his early years running around doing parkour with Sabo in their attempts to ditch Luffy. They were hardly ever successful at ditching him though; Luffy was actually better at parkour than either of his brothers.
But still, good or not, parkour was saving his life at the moment.
He jumped and spun and skirted out of the way of the blade rather agilely, while simultaneously racking his brain for how to delay the killer long enough for Nojiko to get away. Because once they got outside, that blade was going to be able to be swung freely and Ace doubted he would last long. Not that he thought he was going to last very long in the house either. Just longer inside.
Or maybe not…
There was one huge fault to Ace's assumptions, he realized quite suddenly. The man in the red coat pulled the blade back to himself and, despite the tiny area, made a large swing with the sword. The blade tore through the ceiling like it was made of cardboard, not wooden joints, floorboards, and plaster. It arced down on them way to close for comfort and though it missed them (barely), it cut through the floor just as easily as the ceiling.
The power behind the man's swing and the sharpness of the blade had changed the game; it was even more dangerous. Seeing that the man was not limited by the smallness of the space, Ace made a snap decision.
"Cardio!" he called out, hoping Nojiko understood the insinuation. She'd told him back when she was still in track that for cardio exercises, she would run up and down the stairs.
The stomping of feet headed up stairs told him she did get his message. Ace backed past the stairs further down the hall, wondering who the man would follow. Not that Ace knew what he was going to do if the killer followed Nojiko. Ace doubted there was an unprotected area on that man's body, despite how vulnerable it may look to the eye. The man gave a brief glance up the stairs before his eyes focused on Ace again, taking a step towards him. Good.
"Technically, she is the primary objective, but her end is to be slow and lengthy," the man stated calmly, not even breathing hard from the exertion of handling his sword. "Yours does not have to be. And I do not need the nuisance of the authorities butting in while I do my job. So if you don't mind, I shall dispose of you first."
"Nope, not at all," Ace answered. "Just curious though, how much is Arlong paying you for this?"
The man swung sideways abruptly, and to avoid, Ace had to duck into the master bedroom. Well, it was fine. This room would do either way.
"Ten million," the man replied in that frustratingly calm way of his as he attacked. He wasn't winded in the least. Nor did he appear surprised that Ace knew who his employer was. "Plus expenses for witness elimination and slow torture. Probably twenty million when all is said and done."
"You're getting screwed," Ace told him, leaping over the bed. "We paid Arlong a hundred and four million this morning to keep her alive."
The man narrowed his eyes slightly and Ace took the man's moment of pondering to do something that went against the grain: he turned his back on him. With all the strength he had in his legs, he leapt towards the window, bracing his forearms over his head to protect it on impact.
The glass did shatter, but his forceful jump did not manage to get his whole body out of the window. He was halfway out and trying to wiggle his lower half out when the blade connected.
"Fuck!" he screamed, falling the rest of the way out of the window limply in pain. He hit the ground of the gated back yard jarringly and his eyes sought out his leg to take stock. It felt like his leg had been cut off.
The right thigh was deeply slashed and bleeding like crazy, but still attached. But in all seriousness, did the killer hit an artery? There was so much blood for only three seconds to pass.
Ace rolled sharply to the left, feeling the grind of broken glass digging into his skin and barely missing the impact of the blade. It sunk deep into the ground as Ace scrambled on glass to try and get himself moving.
His right leg was hardly moving at all. It was dragging him down; literally. Ace felt another stabbing pain, this time in his left leg, and saw as he stumbled to the ground that there was a short throwing knife in his calf. He was completely immobilized now.
The man in the red coat was easing himself out the window and had his hand on his sword again. Feet planted firmly on the ground, the man easily pulled the blade free of the soil and eyed it briefly for damage before setting his eyes on Ace again.
Well, this was it then. Eighteen years of misbehaving along with the world's best brothers. Pretty fucking good, he had to admit. Plus these last couple months with Nojiko...
He was so glad he'd kissed her. No regrets.
Well, one.
Nami. He hadn't saved her. And he wasn't doing too hot at attempting to save her sister either.
He thought of Nami, and everything he knew she'd been through, as well as the things he suspected she'd lived through. And yet somehow, she had never given up. Always doing something to save or protect those she held dear.
And he was going to give up now just because he had a couple wounds in his legs? Was he really that weak?
No. He refused to be that weak. He was going to be strong for her. For which her, Nojiko or Nami, he didn't know. Probably for both.
He reached for the knife I his calf and pulled it painstakingly from his leg. With his legs incapacitated, parkour wasn't all that helpful anymore. Best he could do was drag himself around. So he was going to do as much damage as he could with the thin blade.
The assassin smirked at him, raising his sword above his head. Ace searched the man for his weakest point. Probably a leg. Not a bad idea to injure it, especially if he wanted Nojiko to make a run for it.
Nojiko. She must still be hiding upstairs. She needed to get out of the house now. How could he tell her to run to the train station without the man knowing that's where he was sending her? He couldn't think of one. Well, at least, he could create some confusion on her final destination.
"Noji!" He yelled at the top of his lungs. "Go to the old man! He's at the Baratie!"
With a little luck, the hit man wouldn't know what the Baratie was. And Nojiko would remember that he'd told her that the old man was at the station.
He had no luck.
Nojiko didn't leave the house; she opened the window on the second floor and stuck her head out to survey them. Her eyes widened at the sight.
The man swung his sword and Ace rolled to the side again. It didn't work. He was sliced in the flank, up high near the ribs. Ace let out a gargled cry and wrenched his body around. He swung the knife in an arc towards the man's leg but the knife was easily kicked from his grip. The man was over him once more and Ace took what was likely to be his last breath.
The muted crack was an alien sound that Ace wasn't expecting to hear. He was pretty sure getting stabbed through the abdomen sounded a lot...wetter.
The hit man dropped the sword and fell to the ground himself, groaning and clutching his head. Ace saw blood dripping down from him. In the split second it took for Ace to look up, a dumbbell fell onto the hit man again, though not clocking his head. It hit him in the shoulder as Ace watched Nojiko jump from the second story down to him and grabbed his arm.
The hit man was incapacitated for the moment, but Ace knew that he did not have the ability anymore to pick up the sword and kill the hit man (he was starting to get dizzy from blood loss) and he didn't think Nojiko would have the mental strength to kill someone, even if they were there to kill her. Worse still, they both would not make a clean get away. For one, Ace would bleed a trail that led right to them.
"Go without me," he commanded, even as Nojiko pulled him along with her. "I can barely move. Go! Just go!"
Nojiko gave him a look that was a combo of distress and fury. She yanked him along again and pulled him to the gate and hastily unlocked it. She shoved him through and hesitated before running back towards the hit man.
"Noji!" Ace cried, watching the hit man carefully. He was starting to get his bearings back. Nojiko grabbed the long sword and stumbled a bit at its weight. Was she really going to kill the man? No, she was dragging it towards the gate and himself.
"Bike," she huffed, pointing to the chained bike that was along side of the house. He angled himself and tried hobbling towards it. He could barely move and mostly fell in its direction.
Nojiko leaned the sword against the house and worked on unchaining the bike while Ace dragged himself the rest of the way toward it.
"Get on," she commanded, hauling him up so he could sit on the seat. "I'll push; you steer and hold the sword."
Nojiko still had her mind straight it seemed. She was going to get them both out of there, rather efficiently too. Ace did his best to hold both his balance and the sword, but it was difficult to do both and steer. The bike wobbled quite a bit as Nojiko laboriously pushed it.
"Downhill," he recommended for a direction. It was the opposite way of the train station, but as long as they got away...
It was stumbling and awkward for the first few seconds but finally, Nojiko got them both moving and even up to a jog. She headed for a downhill slope like he'd told her and soon she was flat out running to keep up.
The problem was that Ace could hardly steer at all at such a high speed. He braked a bit but the bike shuddered and he almost lost his balance. He took stock of his surroundings and realized he had no idea where he was. He didn't know which way to turn, even if he could.
"Bear right!" Nojiko called from behind him. He heeded her word. This was her neighborhood. He did his best to turn right and ended up barreling towards a locked school gate. He grabbed the brake desperately and began to wobble fiercely. Luckily, Nojiko caught up to him and grabbed the back of the seat of the bike and helped steady and pull him to a stop. Ace did drop the sword, though. It crashed to the blacktop loudly.
Nojiko was already picking the blade back up. She handed it back to him and readjusted the handle bars to began pushing him again around the side of the school. He was leaving a pretty clear blood trail at this point but there was nothing to be done. She pushed him to a maintenance entrance and keyed in a code to let them in.
"I can't believe that I'm breaking into my old school," Nojiko murmured, still huffing. She pushed Ace through the entrance and closed it. "What would Nami say if she could see me now?"
Ace thought it would be something along the lines of "you guys get away while I distract him," but he didn't say that. In fact, he was having a hard time not falling over. He was dizzy. Very dizzy. He wanted to help Nojiko and not make her do all the work with lugging him around, but he was fighting to stay conscious.
"'That's my sister'," Ace muttered, only realizing he'd spoken aloud when Nojiko chuckled.
"Probably," she relented.
They ditched the bike near a shed that Nojiko called the maintenance shed. She left him there for a moment while she dragged the sword off somewhere else. It was the longest ninety-six seconds of his life waiting for her to come back.
"Stay with me, Ace," she instructed him. She pulled him up and dragged him rather slowly towards the school itself. Where she still had energy coming from, Ace had no idea. She had to be exhausted. "Keep conscious."
It was hard. He just wanted to sleep. But if he fell asleep, he would never be able to protect Nojiko. Not that he was doing so now.
"We just need to get into the school," Nojiko was telling him. "We'll go to the boiler room. We can lock the door from the inside and the walls are six inches of concrete. The door's metal. Really thick. It will take him some time to find his sword and longer to get into the boiler room. We'll have to think of something by then."
Ace was already thinking of something. There was only one thing left he could do. He felt his shorts pocket for his phone and prayed it still had some juice left. He had charged it a little that morning, but he had only managed to get it to about fifty percent. It had been about five hours since then and the battery was questionable.
They trudged down stairs very poorly, and Ace fell down the last six steps. It was no use; he couldn't even help move himself anymore. Nojiko dragged his mostly limp body to the boiler room. It was a good choice. The door was solid and sturdy metal as Nojiko had promised.
Ace fished out his phone. He lit the front screen and saw that he had about thirty percent of his battery left, but almost no signal. He'd have to make this call before they went in the boiler room.
"There's so much blood," Nojiko whined, looking over him. She stripped out of her sweatpants and tore them in half. She wrapped a fabric leg around each of the wounds on his legs. She stripped Ace out of his shirt as he dialed Sabo. It rang four times.
"Hey, now's not a good time," Sabo greeted him rather distractedly. "I'm kind of on my way to clean up after Luffy."
Luffy? Ace had forgotten about his little brother briefly. No doubt, Ace had been right and Luffy was probably causing a ruckus.
"I have a problem," Ace groaned into the phone as Nojiko pressed his shirt against his side to staunch the blood from that wound.
"We'll probably be safe for a minute, tops," she predicted. "He'll be able to follow us by the blood trail though."
Yeah, Ace figured that too. This would have to be a quick call.
"What's wrong?" Sabo asked, his voice sounding hard but not quite as controlled as he had earlier.
"I was right; they came for her," Ace grunted. "I didn't think it'd be this soon. I'm in a little over my head. I could use some back up."
There was a short, tense pause.
"Tell me what you need," Sabo demanded. "I'll make it happen."
"You need a doctor, Ace!" Nojiko hissed in a whisper. "The bleeding isn't stopping!"
Yep, Ace knew that too. He could taste blood in his mouth and was pretty sure that the long sword had nicked him in the lung.
"I need someone who can stop a hit man," Ace told him. "Because that's what I'm up against, and I'm losing."
There was a second of hesitation. "Where are you?"
"Shells Town Junior High," Ace replied, remembering the name on the sign outside the school. "In the basement near the boiler room."
"I'll figure out something," Sabo promised, and the line went dead.
"We gotta move," Nojiko whispered, but the look on her face showed that she didn't want to. Ace threw a look at the distance between himself and the boiler room. A good ten feet. He knew he wouldn't make it.
"Go ahead and leave me," Ace told her.
"Fuck you," she growled at him and the tears of panic that she'd been concealing very well finally escaped her. "I won't! I refuse!"
"Noji," he reasoned as she began dragging him again, "I'm not going to make it either way. If you drag me in there, I'm gonna still bleed to death before anyone can get to us."
She neither stopped crying nor stopped dragging him. She didn't acknowledge him at all.
"Do you want to live through that?" he asked. "Being trapped in there with me while I die?"
"You're not going to die," she retorted through sobs. She'd gotten him mostly into the boiler room by then.
"I am," he insisted. The only thing left he could do was guilt-trip her. "You want me to suffer through that? A slow death? The hit man would be more merciful."
She grimaced in pain and he hated himself for doing it to her. But her odds were better without him at this point.
"I'm selfish too," she told him, bursting into fresh tears. "I can't leave you out there for him. I can't leave you at all. So I'm sorry, but you're going to die in here, with me, because I can't let you go."
She closed the boiler room door and threw the old, heavy locks into place. A single, tiny bulb glowed above them as Nojiko came back to him and pulled his head into her lap while she firmly held his shirt in place at his side.
It was quiet. And warm. The stairwell down to the boiler room had been cool, but this room was warm. Plus there was Nojiko, holding him, running one hand through his messy hair.
This, in retrospect, was not a bad place to die.
.o0o.
Somehow, he was still alive.
Ace couldn't fathom how it was possible. How hadn't he bled to death yet? Seriously. And the pain, it was almost overwhelming. Just almost. Not completely.
Because he could still hear the distinctive clang of metal against metal that reverberated loudly throughout the boiler room. Ace immediately knew what the sound was: the hit man had found his sword and followed the trail of blood to them to the boiler room. He was now trying to hack his way through the door.
"Do you know what today is?" Nojiko asked quietly between the clangs.
Ace turned his head a bit and looked up at her. She was staring at the door, in one of the upper corners. Ace peeked at it as well and saw that it must be wear the murderer was focusing his attacks. It was starting to bend inward slightly.
Ace glanced back at Nojiko and saw that she had calmed out of her panicked crying and had fallen into silent tears. She looked down at him and smiled slightly. Bedraggled, tear streaked, and heartbroken, it was still the most beautiful face he had ever seen.
"July second—no third, I guess," he gargled out, wincing as he took a breath to speak. It hurt like crazy, but not as bad as before.
"July third," Nojiko nodded, confirming. "It's Nami's seventeenth birthday."
That…sucked so bad. So fucking bad. Nami was being sold off to a sadist and would have her sister be killed (Ace knew he was going to die anyway, with or without a hit man, so he didn't count himself) on her birthday.
"When's your birthday?" Ace asked, wanting to know before he died. He wanted to know every single thing about her all of a sudden. It seemed like his purpose in life was to meet her and now that he had, he wanted to know as much about her as he could ever learn.
"March eighteenth," she replied, looking up at the corner of the door again. "You missed it."
"Sorry," he apologized, because he truly was sorry. He'd wanted to spend at least one birthday with her.
"S'alright," she shrugged. "You can make up for it next year."
She looked down and smiled brilliantly at him. Pain seared through his chest, but it had nothing to do with the wound near his ribs. She was still deluding herself into thinking he'd survive this. Ace hoped feverously that Sabo would somehow come through and find a way to save Nojiko, but he was sure he'd never make it.
"You're not going to die of blood loss, Ace," Nojiko told him again, but this time, it wasn't yelled out of desperation and panic. She was utterly sure that he was going to be fine. His confusion must have read on his face.
"While you were passed out," Nojiko explained, "I took some time to rebandage your legs and side wound. Your legs are bound up pretty tightly since those wounds were deep, and your side wound…"
She trailed off and looked at his side. Ace tried to see himself but he wasn't at the angle to do so.
"That's the one that bothers me most, even though it's not too deep," Nojiko went on. "You had—well, probably still have blood in your lung and it was causing you difficulties breathing. I shifted you so the blood would hopefully leak out instead of go into your lung, and it sort of got better for awhile, but now I'm afraid you're losing too much blood."
Ace had thought that about two pints ago, but he didn't figure it helped to mention that. The clanging sound had become suddenly louder as the top hinge of the door was split through and the large metal door creaked and began leaning inward. Ace could now see the tip of the blade pass through the crack in the seam of the door and slide downward.
"What are we gonna do when he busts through?" Ace asked, feeling the weight of the reality that neither of them were going to survive crash down on him. It was a heavy, suffocating feeling. Sabo wasn't going to come through for him.
"Be like Nami," Nojiko answered calmly. "Face whatever it is head on and unafraid."
Ace looked up at Nojiko and saw that the tears were still coming. Nojiko wasn't deluding herself like he'd assumed; she had awhile ago come to the same conclusion as Ace had. They were both going to die. But somewhere in Ace's bout of unconsciousness, she had come to terms with that reality and decided on her current path: face it like Nami.
Sounded good to him.
He adjusted his resolve to match Nojiko's just in time for the door hinges to be cut through and with a deep boom sound, the door fell inwards towards them, useless. The hit man, surprisingly, did not look angry at them. In fact, he looked rather satisfied. Ace attributed it to the fact that he'd finally gotten to them and they no longer had any place to go.
"I must say, this has been quite entertaining," the hit man said, sounding amused. "I haven't worked this hard on a job in many years. Almost a decade I think. I usually don't agree to kill minors unless they happen to become witnesses and I have no choice, but I think I miss the thrill of the chase. Children have so much more ingenuity than adults. You both gave me quite the work out. And the head ache."
He ran his finger across the side of his head, wiping away some still flowing blood.
"I think I will have to charge more for this kill," the man went on. "Maybe…a hundred and four million, was it?"
"Gouge the fucker," Ace spat out, half choking on some blood. It was very clear that Nojiko's solution for keeping the blood out of his lung was not really that effective anymore. "Make him pay you every penny."
"Such kind words from a kill," the man mused. "Tell me, where does this rationality at one's own impending death come from?"
"The fucker deserves to die," Ace said. "And if he ain't gonna die today, then he should at least pay through his long, saw shark-looking nose."
The moment was ruined by a chirping song coming from Ace's phone. Somehow, with the door opened (or fallen in, whatever), it was able to have signal.
"One last goodbye text before you die?" the hit man offered. "You could do a selfie if you like. I will never understand youth's obsession with the selfie."
Ace fumbled for his pocket but it was Nojiko who pulled out the phone. Her face went from confusion at the image on the screen to horror and she dropped the phone to the ground with a clatter.
"Oh, gross," she muttered, holding a hand over her mouth.
"What is it?" Ace asked. One of his classmates hadn't sent him a string of dick-pics again as a gag, had they?
"It's a room full of dead people," Nojiko told him, still holding her mouth. "And pieces of them."
Another message chimed through.
"You look," Nojiko insisted, picking up the phone again and holding it in front of him. Ace saw that the messages were from Sabo.
"Oh shit," Ace muttered. "He just took down Arlong Park."
"Excuse me?" the killer interrupted. Ace had forgotten about him for a moment as he stared at the carnage of the room full of dead men.
"See for yourself," Ace offered, and Nojiko tossed the phone to the murderer. The man looked at the two images and a third came through. The hit man tsked at the photo and wrinkled his nose.
"So much for a higher pay off," the hit man lamented. A fourth message came through. It was apparently a video because Ace could hear Sabo's voice in the background.
"This is all that's left of the yakuza boss Arlong," Sabo's voice stated. "His reign over East Blue is—"
Ace heard the discharge of a bullet interrupt Sabo's voice on the recording. And then he heard her voice.
"Just in case."
"Nami?" Nojiko asked, displacing Ace a little bit as she tried to get up and go get the phone back. Ace winced and began coughing. It was the most physically painful thing he had ever experienced in his life.
"Well, it seems my employer has passed on," the hit man sighed. "An unfortunate turn of events seeing as he was a good source of income. But there will be others."
Ace, as he recovered his ability to breath partially, felt a brief flare of hope that the hit man would let them live. Reality smacked him with the harsh truth when Ace recalled that the hit man would probably have to kill them as witnesses.
"The Saw Shark did pay me up front," the killer added. "So I guess I should at least earn my pay and kill you, young lady."
Nojiko swallowed once. "You'll let Ace live?"
"The fuck are you talking about?" Ace barked, which brought on another round of coughing. More blood than ever was coming up now.
"Sure," the hit man shrugged. "He won't much outlive you with those wounds, so it doesn't matter."
"Okay then," Nojiko agreed, standing. Ace futilely reached out and grabbed her calf but she easily broke his grasp. The hit man put the long sword to the side and pulled out a small dagger.
"I am not usually kind to those I kill," he said, "but today you have given me a thrill and also faced death not as a coward. So this shall be quick and mostly painless. You will feel the blade pierce your skin, and then nothing more."
Nojiko stood up straight and faced her killer without a flinch, even as he reached out a hand and took her shoulder to spin her around to face away from him. The same hand held her in place as he placed the dagger at the nape of her neck.
"I am going to sever your spinal cord as I push the blade into your brain," he informed her. "Quick and painless."
"Mihawk, if you like the girl enough to not butcher her, why don't you just let her go."
There was a long, loud silence in the pause that followed. Nojiko looked confused again, but thankfully unmoving so the hit man wouldn't accidentally harm her. Ace had finally regained his breathing and was going to shout his proclamation of 'no' when the other voice spoke up and had caused the hit man to do the strangest thing: he looked rather startled.
"I suppose I could have done that if you hadn't just told her my name," the hit man, Mihawk apparently, returned, lowering the blade and letting go of Nojiko.
Nojiko flashed him a perplexed look since she couldn't see what was going on as she was facing away from it, but Ace shook his head minutely at her, hoping she'd just stay where she was. She did.
"Cockswallow. You wear the same uniform to kill people every time. They'd have figured out your name without me telling them."
There was a group of men approaching the boiler room. Mihawk had let go of Nojiko and was inching his way back to his long sword as the group approached.
"All the more reason to kill them," Mihawk replied. "Dead witnesses tell no tales."
"Please," dismissed the man in the lead. "In this day and age of forensics, all dead men tell tales. You'd have to spend some of that precious money you got from that dead yakuza hack to pay off some piece of shit in the precinct to lose your evidence. And that would get mighty expensive since this whole affair falls under Garp's jurisdiction."
"Garp?" Mihawk repeated, eyes narrowing.
The first man, who had the light to his back and the boiler room bulb did not reach, pointed a finger at Ace.
"You have him to thank for that," he said. "He's one of Garp's charges. Portugas D Ace. Remember that name?"
"Probably not as clearly as you do," Mihawk snapped. "Did you come here just to ruin my day?"
"Of course not," the man answered, sounding appalled. "I came to visit a friend but when I got to her house, well, it was obvious that you had gotten there first. Then I just followed the blood."
"Well, then have your way with your visit!" Mihawk snapped irritably. "Don't let the likes of me stop you!"
The unseen man chuckled. "Your temper has not improved with age, Mihawk. This is not my friend. She's at least fifteen or so years younger than Belle."
"Then what the hell do you care of her fate, Red-Hair?" Mihawk demanded. "You know that I don't tolerate your interference into my work very well. Is that why you brought your entourage?"
"My friend thinks of this one as her daughter and is partial to her," the unseen man, called Red-Hair apparently, offered up. "And she's also got ties to the police force, or former police force I think. I do not wish to see her or her children in pain, and I have no doubt she'd be pained at the loss of either of these two."
Mihawk still looked pissed at being interrupted, but his eyes narrowed in contemplation. "Your convoluted nonsense is annoying. State your business clearly, Red-Hair."
Red Hair sighed. "My friend Belle. She keeps something important to me safe. Likewise, if I can keep something that she holds important safe, I can call us even."
"None of this matters to me," Mihawk spat. "Not your friend Belle, not this boy's keeper Garp—”
"What about a grandson of Garp?" Red-Hair put forth. "Perhaps you have not heard of that development."
"A grandson of Garp?" Mihawk repeated.
"Yep," Red-Hair chirped. "Monkey D. Luffy."
Mihawk straightened. "You and I have things to discuss. Now."
And for no other reason that Ace could fathom, Mihawk walked out of the boiler room past Red-Hair's 'entourage' and left his two former targets be. Ace squinted against the dim bulb to try to make out the face of the man who had convinced a hit man to spare them.
"Let's keep what happened today a secret," Red-Hair suggested. "A man came to kill you, you outwitted him, ran here to hide and that's the last you saw of anything until the ambulance got here."
On the heels of his words, Ace could hear a siren approaching.
"What about the door?" Nojiko asked, having finally turned around. She too was squinting at the man basked in shadows.
"It was like this when you got here," he suggested. "Now be good and do what you're told. That's the price today to walk away with your lives."
He seemed to reconsider his previous statement.
"Or hobble, as the case may be," he amended, and left the way he came as well. Within a minute, Nojiko and Ace were alone again. She dropped to her knees next to him and looked him over.
"What are we gonna do?" Nojiko whispered, wincing as she inspected his side. Ace guessed the wound had worsened. Sure as hell felt like it had.
"Take his advice," Ace murmured back. He could hear people descending stairs towards them, shouting to one another. "For now. We'll talk to the old man when everything else has settled, and Nami is safe at home."
Nojiko took a moment to consider his words, and then nodded in agreement.
"Hand me my phone," Ace asked as paramedics came down the last flight of stairs towards them in a jog. "I want to call my brother."
But before he could, Ace lost consciousness again.
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Something Worth Dying For