【One Piece】Dawn in the Darkness

"I understand. How much do you want to pay?" Ace stared at Bluejam and said calmly in a serious voice.

……

"Ace, I feel so bad when Sabo is not here!" Luffy complained. "Lucci is not here either."

"Be patient, me too." Ace continued, "Lucci is very strong. Since Bluejam didn't find him, Lucci should be fine."

"But, Sabo...!" Luffy turned around and protested with the box on his head.

"No" Ace interrupted Luffy, "I want to find him too."

Ace knew that Luffy was easily deceived and rarely doubted anything his brothers told him, but Ace had to lie to him. When he thought about Luffy finding out, he became more defensive. "But I don't know what true happiness is for Sabo. We'll see what the situation is. Sabo and Lucci are very strong. They won't be in danger. Sabo will definitely come back if he doesn't want to."

Luffy didn't complain anymore as he moved the boxes, his only complaints were being hungry and simply crying out Ace's name.

"Let's go to bed" Ace muttered "We have a lot of work to do tomorrow morning, if you want more breakfast we want to wake up early."

"Okay" Luffy replied, silently crawling under the blanket "I wonder what Sabo and Lucci are doing..." Luffy muttered quietly under the blanket.

"Luffy! Go to sleep. Didn't we agree to forget about Sabo and Lucci for a while?" Ace said gritting his teeth.

"Okay..." Luffy sounded frustrated.

'He might be happier this way' Ace muttered quietly as he looked at the wood above him. 'I have to at least make Luffy believe that he is happy until I figure out a way to bring him back' Ace thought.

"Saab..."

Ace listened to Luffy's haggard voice and sat up again, ready to scold "Luffy!" Before he could say anything to Luffy, he saw that Luffy was already fast asleep, and his blanket did not completely cover him. Ace looked at Luffy sleeping, he watched for a few minutes more, sighed and covered Luffy with the blanket again.

……

Goa Kingdom Gaozhen Inspection Station

"Sabo, tell us about how those two guys threatened you to join," Sabo's father said to Sabo.

"I can't tell. It has nothing to do with Ace and Luffy," said Sabo.

"What do you mean you can't tell? You won't be threatened by those two guys and not be allowed to tell," Sabo's father said with a gloomy face.

"They are not that kind of people!" Sabo retorted loudly.

"If you have a criminal record, not only will your family's reputation in Gaozhen be affected, but you will also be barred from entering Gaozhen," said the guard who was checking.

"You were instigated by those two men and were forced to get involved in the violence, right, Sabo?" Sabo's father said to Sabo in a gloomy voice.

Sabo lowered his head and suppressed his expression in silence.

"Sabo, your two friends in the garbage mountain are still in the hands of the pirates. What to do with them is a matter of a word from me. If they are really that important, you should know now. You should think carefully about what to say." Sabo's father approached Sabo and whispered threateningly in Sabo's ear.

Sabo stood up angrily and shouted to his father, "Didn't you promise me that you wouldn't hurt them? That's why I came back with you!" Sabo turned to the guard who was questioning him and said loudly, "We dare to take responsibility for our actions. We all relied on our own consciousness..."

"Snapped!!"

Sabo fell to the ground after being slapped by his father, interrupting his unfinished words.

Sabo's father took out a roll of Bailey and placed it on the guard's table. "Really, I'm unlucky to have such a stupid son." He added proudly, "You know what I mean, right?"

"Parents are so pitiful." The guard looked at Bailey on the table with a smile on his face and added, "Don't worry, I'll take care of the transcript."

Under the setting sun, Sabo lowered his head and stared at the house in front of him with empty eyes. Sabo didn't know how he got in. He walked into the previous room numbly. This house made him feel suffocated like never before. He stared at the book in front of him in a trance. In his mind, he repeatedly recalled the scenes of living with his brothers. He kept missing his brothers. This was not his home. His home was where his brothers were.

"Hey! Brother, I heard that you are a fool. Your parents keep saying that about you behind your back..." Sabo looked at the adopted noble child in front of him in silence.

"But you are really lucky. Tomorrow night is [Burnable Garbage Day]. If you stay in the garbage mountain, you will definitely die." The noble child continued to wave his hands arrogantly and said, "But for me, it is best that the biological son of this family cannot come back!"

"What did you just say? Explain it to me clearly!" Sabo grabbed his collar angrily and shook him continuously.

"Ah! What are you doing? You're rubbish. You stink. Let me go!" The noble boy struggled desperately.

"Are you going to burn down the Uncertainty Terminal!?" Sabo grabbed the noble boy's collar and shouted in shock.

"Yes, because you have been living in the garbage mountain, you don't know. It has been decided several months ago..." The noble boy smiled proudly, "Do you know that the World Government's inspection team is patrolling the East China Sea? They will come to this Goa Kingdom in three days. The world nobles, the Celestial Dragons, are also on the ship this time. In order to please them, the royal family decided to burn the stain of this country! As long as the garbage mountain is gone, this country will be spotless!"

"What are you talking about! There are still many people living there! If this happens, everyone will have no place to live!" Sabo shouted angrily.

"Let me go!" The noble boy broke free with an evil look on his face. "Didn't I tell you to burn all the stains on this country?"

"Not even letting humans go!?" Sabo murmured in shock.

Sabo quickly put on his coat, took out his pipe from under the bed and jumped out of the window 'I'm going to investigate, it can't be true' Sabo thought, quickly moving through the alleys and coming to the door where the guard was working, listening to what the guard inside said.

"Are all the arrangements for tomorrow complete? There must not be any negligence!"

"We are safe. The only problem is whether the pirates can successfully ignite the garbage. They are spreading fuel and explosives all over the garbage mountain."

Sabo listened in shock. "It also involves the Blues Pirates... It seems to be true, such a ridiculous thing." Sabo began to walk back, and continued to return to that house. He wanted to wait until tomorrow morning. He wanted to see what the situation on the street was tomorrow morning. He still couldn't believe it...

"Good morning, Sabo, you must be the brother of the genius Stelly, I am a tutor," said a woman with a polite smile.

Sabo didn't hear what they said. He was still immersed in what he heard yesterday. "Everything is the same as before. Is it because no one knows? It's too quiet. What happened yesterday felt like a dream... I want to go to the street to see everyone's reaction."

"What? Sabo is not at home? That prodigal son! Search the entire Gaozhen for me! It's not that easy to get out of Gaozhen!" Sabo's father shouted.

Sabo breathed a sigh of relief as he saw the calmness of the streets. "Everyone seems to be just like normal. Nothing has happened at all."

Sabo found an old man who was drinking tea and asked, "Did you know that the garbage mountain is going to catch fire tonight?"

"Of course I know about this, so what?" The noble uncle took a sip of tea leisurely and continued, "Whose child are you from?"

Sabo looked at him in shock, he knew. Sabo turned and ran away in fear, and met an old grandfather who looked very kind. "Did you know that the garbage mountain will catch fire tonight?"

"Ah... We know about the fire. It's something that everyone agrees on!" The old man said to Sabo in a low voice with a kind smile on his face, "It would be bad if it got to the ears of people outside Gaozhen.