One Piece: Dream of Immortality

Chopper was absolutely not pleased with Cherry's casual disregard for Luffy's internal organ health.

"I just got him back in good shape! Why are you like this?!" Chopper shouted.

"Relax, Chopper, he's fine!" Cherry said, slapping Luffy on the back. "Isn't that right, captain?"

"Yep," Luffy agreed, more blood dripping from his lips.

"I don't care if you're some kind of miracle worker! Don't rupture somebody's stomach for fun!" Chopper glared at her something fierce.

"Alright, alright. I won't do it again," Cherry raised her hands in surrender. "Luffy should have gotten enough from the one experience to help anyways."

Luffy nodded, apparently not trusting himself to keep his blood inside. The rare thoughtful expression on his face told her that he meant it too. Luffy had an unfortunate tendency for learning things the hard way.

When he wandered off to train some more, after Chopper gave him the go ahead of course, he proved that he was actually paying attention. Cherry could sense the way he was shifting his haki around had changed from just moments ago.

"I can't believe it… he's making progress," Hyougoro stroked his tiny chin beard. "That's insanity."

"That's Luffy. He's way too hard headed, so you have to bash lessons into his skull until they stick," Cherry said. "Or into his guts."

"I understand," Hyougoro said, but he didn't look like he did.

"Don't worry about it, old man. We'll be out of your hair in no time," Cherry assured him.

In the meantime, though, Cherry could use the time before the raid to test some things as well as help Luffy bring himself up to snuff with Kaido.

…

"It's been a while, hasn't it?" Ace said as he watched Wano's coastline grow closer..

"Aye, it has," one of his original crewmates, Masked Deuce, agreed. "About four years now."

"I wonder how much it's changed? Hopefully not too much for the worse," Ace sighed. "It's about time we're doing something about it."

"It couldn't be helped," Deuce said.

"I don't know that I agree, but I understand why Pops didn't want to risk his sons for it," Ace shook his head.

Ace thought that his old man, Whitebeard, had grown a touch too cautious in his old age. Starting a war with Kaido would never not be destructive, but in Ace's mind it was also inevitable. Not everyone was willing to let the status quo remain untouched like Whitebeard was. Kaido had been building up his forces for a while now; it was only natural that he'd want to use them some day.

"It's too quiet," a tall man in a red cowboy hat, Mihar, muttered.

"You always say it's too quiet, Mihar!" the original Spade Pirates' resident mermaid, Banshee, accused.

"I said it right before we all got turned into toys, too," Mihar claimed.

"Even a broken clock is right twice a day," a man with a literal skull cap, Skull, shot back.

"Then this is number two," Mihar said.

"We can handle whatever Kaido throws at us, if he even knows we're here," Ace spoke with confidence. "Besides, my kid brother is supposedly somewhere in the country. I'm sure he's the one drawing all the attention away from us."

"If you say so," Mihar relented.

"I do," Ace nodded.

Anyone but Kaido himself should be easy enough to deal with. Ace reckoned he could take King if he showed up, even if he was on his own. In fact, Queen would probably be trickier to deal with. Bringing fire to a fight with a guy made of fire was just that bad of a matchup.

Their ship pulled ashore, hidden in a little inlet surrounded by trees where it wasn't likely to be spotted.

Ace was filled with a sense of nostalgia as he breathed in the air. The smell of the wilderness, with just a hint of the pollution that plagued the land.

They marched onwards into the overgrowth, seeking out the little town they found the last time they were here. They brought all their food with them, too, ready to see some hungry people.

They did not find hungry people. Amigasa village looked to be abandoned, only signs of the violence that happened here long ago revealing what happened.

Ace nearly set fire to one of the straw houses in his anger.

"Ace?!" a tiny, familiar voice called for his attention.

The relief that Ace felt when the little girl he'd met four years ago barreled into his chest was indescribable.

"Tama," Ace heaved a sigh.

"You came back!" Tama's eyes dripped with tears as she looked up at him with a smile.

"I promised that I would," Ace said with his own smile, tears threatening to spill from his eyes.

"Mm!" Tama nodded.

A real sappy reunion took place in which Ace regaled her of his adventures in the time since they parted, primarily that of joining Whitebeard's crew. Tama had her own adventures to speak of as well, albeit not as exciting as his.

"Now I can join your crew, since I'm all grown up!" Tama declared.

Ace and his men erupted in laughter, causing the girl to pout.

"You've still got a lot more growing up to do, Tama!" Ace managed to say when he'd stopped laughing so hard.

"I'm super strong now!" Tama rejected his rejection. "Momonosuke can't avoid my sneak attacks at all!"

"Well, I don't know any Momonosuke, so I can't say how impressed I am," Ace grinned.

"He's the rightful Shogun of Wano! He traveled forwards in time twenty years to take back our homeland!" Tama narrated.

"I'm pretty sure everybody travels forward in time," Ace said.

"Not like that!" Tama stamped her foot. "He moved forwards without living any of it!"

"I've seen stranger devil fruits, so i guess that's possible," Ace relented. "I just recently got turned into a toy monkey and everybody forgot who I was."

"Eh? That's why?" Tama asked.

"You noticed? Do you spend all of your time thinking about me?" Ace smirked.

"No!" Tama denied. "I was just confused about the drawings…"

"Drawings? Let me see," Ace stood and started making his way to her home.

"There are no drawings! I lied!" Tama tried to outpace him, but it was hopeless. His stupid long legs were too quick!

To her horror, the other former Space Pirates were faster than her as well!

"Noooooo!" Tama cried out in despair as she arrived at her home to find Ace already looking through her homemade art pieces. "How did you find them?!"

"You put them in the same place you hid those candies I gave you four years ago," Ace said. "These are pretty good!"

"They really capture your essence, commander," Deuce chuckled.

Tama desperately snatched at them, but Ace was used to playing keep away with a kid whose arms could stretch.

He might be teasing her, but he actually did think the drawings were pretty good. Even the older ones, despite their crude quality, showed how much effort she put into them. The newer ones were actually impressive; anyone who saw them could honestly say that it was Ace.

"How come you didn't draw any of us?" Mihar asked.

Tama went beet red.