Because Oda has just about stabbed one of Endgame's characters in the heart and left him bleeding in the dust, I am now required to explain to certain people why Ace is still alive in my story. Note, no Lady Emzebel for grammar correction, so excuse the mistakes wherever they may be.

There was battle somewhere outside this moment - a part of him knew that - but right now, he couldn't give a flying fuck.

He sat in the midst of the chaos, slowly brushing his brother's hair. He'd really made a tangled mess out of it while he was in prison.

There was something screaming in the distance. The sound was piercing, high-pitched with pain and panic. Luffy wished it would stop - it might wake Ace up.

There was a sickening squelching sound. Ah. Blessed silence, without even moving a muscle.

[~~~]

Nami and the crew - indeed, the entire world - watched in horror as the blanket of haki covered the injured marine and crushed him like an insect. Blood and matter oozed from under the smoke as the haki moved on to a next victim.

"What has he become?" the navigator whispered, trembling under her personal burden and the adrenaline spiking in her body.

"The devil fruit?" Zoro grunted in stereo, nine swords fending off a platoon of marines as they tried to break the defensive ring the Straw-hats had formed around their captain.

"The curse doesn't do shit like that," Sanji wheezed, pausing only briefly before his legs began swinging out again.

"This is the King's Haki," Robin informed them as her arms broke three backs out of the four men rushing her. The fourth man jumped high in the air to dodge her whip of arms, only to be shot out of the sky by Weapons Left.

"Whatever it is, we need to get Rubber-bro back in his right mind," Franky coughed, fanning the gunpowder smoke from his vision. "We can't stay here!"

"Franky-kun's right! My ammo is already running low!" Sogeking yelled over the bedlam, already using his Impact Dial to dispatch an over-sized marine that tried to carve him up. "Chopper, how does it look?"

The only person close to Luffy at this point was the reindeer man, who was working to heal what he could on the corpse of Portgas D. Ace.

"This is bad, really bad! I'd need to make him into a cyborg to keep him...he's slipping way too fast."

The whites of their captain's eyes - Luffy had long ago gone stark raving mad, but he was still their captain - rose up to stare at Chopper. Haki circled the little reindeer man's neck, but even in this precarious situation, they believed wholeheartedly that Luffy would not kill his own crew mate.

"Help him..."

The reindeer nodded, his eyes brimming with tears.

"I'm trying, Luffy. I'm trying."

[~~~]

"Franky, we will need you here."

Brook's imposing height shadowed Chopper as he worked on repairing what damage he could. The skeleton seemed fey, a surprising state of being for the musician despite being a person who had died and returned once before. The cyborg shifted over as quickly as he could while the rest of the crew held the line.

"Whaddya need, Bones-bro?"

"Assist young Chopper here in remaking and replacing internal organs. You may need to use these."

Dead Bones Brook took a number of jars filled with preserved, human body parts out of his jacket and rib cage; a spleen, a liver, lengths of intestines, kidneys, a heart. Franky and Chopper looked on in amazement as the entire innards of a human were laid out before them.

"How did-?" Chopper began, but Brook waved him off dismissively.

"The island where I landed practiced ritual sacrifice and necromancy, among other things. These are the unfortunate spoils of one young woman. No more time for questions, Doctor-san! Work quickly! We only have a certain amount of time!"

Franky lowered his sunglasses and frowned as Brook withdrew a human leg bone carved into a crude flute.

"Bones-bro, what are you going to do?"

The skeleton looked at his crew, who all watched him with deep concern written on their faces. His jawbone smiled tenderly.

"I am going to bring Ace back."

Zoro and Sanji straightened up. The first mate's scowl grew deeper as he spoke.

"You mean to challenge Death? Are you insane?"

The skeleton chuckled fondly at the swordsman.

"No more insane than I was when he scouted me fifty years ago."

The Straw-hats watched as Brook unsheathed his sword, their eyes widening as Brook deftly rearranged the blade and cane to create-

"A scythe?" Sanji gasped, his cigarette dropping to the ground. "Shit, that means you're a-"

"A Shinigami? Angel of Death? Shepherd of the Damned?" Brook answered with dark amusement. "Yes. I was all of those titles, but I'm on - how you might say - suspension."

The skeleton twitched, the hair on his afro suddenly curling tighter. He swung his eye sockets out to the boiling sea, and a grimace covered his face.

"Roronoa, you have met that being before, yes? On Thriller Bark?"

The swordsman remained still for a long while - he had time, as Killer jumped into the fray in his place. Around the Straw-hats, the melee was growing fiercer, but they were now aided in their defense by supernovas, escapees, and Whitebeard pirates. Buggy was besides himself with rage, his whole body raining down Muggy Balls on any squads foolish enough to approach the area. Kidd, Law, Apoo, and Bonney in particular seemed pissed off to the gills; X Drake and Hawkins were busy taking their rage out on the marines in measured swathes of destruction. Capone and Urouge were more laid back, spreading their destruction a bit more indiscriminately. Marco, Joze, Vista and the other Whitebeard pirates had long gone off the deep end - there was literally an ocean of blood growing in Marineford.

Zoro shrugged away the panorama and answered his crew mate truthfully, "Yeah, I've seen him, but he's not too pleased with me. Keeps saying he needs to take my ass back home."

Brook smiled ruefully - if you could tell the emotion behind a skeleton's smile. He dug a bony hand into his afro and eventually threw a bottle of liquor to the Straw-hats' first mate.

"I thought as much. You need to rest for as long as possible, then get ready to battle him. I am about to anger him, and he is un cabron de puta, as they say in the vernacular - a motherfucking son of a whore."

The swordsman looked at his compatriot with stark surprise, a look echoed by his crew mates. Did Brook just cuss? Was the world about to end?

"Just what are you about to do?" Nami asked sharply. "I don't think we need to battle the fucking underworld right now, not when every marine above ground is already trying to kill us."

Brook cast a calming gaze over his comrades, and sighed.

"Fear not, Miss Nami. What I'm about to do - well, you will all see. But, dear navigator, please stand by with your lightning - we will need it."

The skeleton turned his back away from them to approach Luffy. The young man looked so small and broken under the weight of his own haki - it amazed Brook how misleading some appearances could be. The musician stuck the handle of his scythe into the earth, then gently lowered himself to the ground an arm's-length away from his captain. He waited patiently to be acknowledged. Franky and Chopper tore their eyes away from the tableau to address the pressing needs of recreating the human known as Ace.

Luffy did not turn his head away from his brother's face when he spoke, his voice barely above a cracked whisper.

"Why are you here?"

Brook lifted the flute to his lips, pausing only to answer him.

"I have come to play for the dead."

[~~~]

Ace felt the burning in his body subside, the agony twisting his insides receding as his nerves were incinerated - he would no longer feel pain, he was sure of it. He had already left his body behind, heading towards the light in front of him where the shadows of a large man and a svelte woman were waiting for him.

"Mother?" he wondered aloud, his feet - dead men have feet?- moving faster. How he longed to meet the amazing woman that had brought him into the world! He stretched out his hand to the shadows, now running and stumbling in the silent dark, his breath - why would dead people breathe? - breaking the gloom in harsh pants. He was so close! Why was she shaking her head? Why was the shadow next to her laughing, its huge chest puffing like this was all some sort of comedy?

"Portgas D. Ace?"

The young man slammed into the skeleton and, instead of floating right through it - don't ghosts and spirits go through solid things?- toppled to the ground on top of the piles of bones in an undignified heap. They both groaned as they pulled themselves back up, their heads ringing loudly.

"Who the hell are you?" Ace moaned, clutching his aching skull - I thought I couldn't feel pain! - with both hands.

"Yohohoho! Dead Bones Brook, at your service. I'm here on your behalf."

The young man shook his head in confusion. Behalf? What?

"There are many people who would prefer to see you alive," Brook continued, now standing and brushing off his suit. Ace stared at the skeleton as he offered him a bony hand.

"I can't live. I sacrificed myself for Luffy," he explained to the very lanky gentleman in front of him.

"Yes, well, it would appear that he refuses your generous gift. Furthermore, your parents are none to pleased with this predicament."

Behind the skeleton, the large man waved cheerfully, while Ace thought he saw pearly teeth glisten in a brief, feminine smile. He blinked, and turned his attention back to Brook.

"You're kidding me, right?"

"Afraid not, dear lad. Whitebeard is also quite upset with you, son. Allow me to show you."

Suddenly, with a blast of music - where the hell did the flute come from? - Ace and Brook were floating over Marineford. Ace's eyes widened in shock as he saw the turmoil below.

Whitebeard, barely standing as he was, was bringing about a quake fit to wake the holy undersea volcanoes. Luffy's haki was crushing and strangling everything in its radius. Jimbei had the water frothing with sharks, the carnivores growing fat off of the choice marine bits that he tore off and threw in the ocean. Sengoku was restraining Garp, but he was weakening against Gramps' horrendous strength. It was nothing less than apocalyptic, the violence spreading like an infection from the site of his fallen body.

"What happened?" Ace cried out, struggling against the skeleton's powerfully grip on his shoulder. "They were supposed to escape! They were supposed to run! Why are they still fighting?"

"You do not understand love, do you, Ace? What would you have done if it was Luffy lying there?"

Flames crackled ominously under the Brook's finger bones. The skeleton took heart.

"Wait - what is Luffy's first mate doing? It looks like he's fighting the air."

Brook frantically searched the chaos to find the swordsman - and the cook, not surprisingly - fending off a large mass of absolute blackness carrying a massive scythe.

"Oh dear. We must hurry. Ohohoho, I do hope that they have finished with your body, or this could become a bit gory."

[~~~]

"When he said Death was a right royal bitch, he wasn't fucking kidding!" Sanji gasped, still trying to breathe after the slash that he'd barely deflected. Gods! It had felt as if the blade was going to suck him into an abyss feet first!

"Don't touch him with your skin!" Zoro barked as he blocked a strike with his swords. "He'll take you just as well as he'd take a soul!"

"Roronoa Zoro!" Death intoned, anger tinting its bellowing voice. "Do you think that my kindness on Thriller Bark was an invitation to defy me at all turns? Have you forgotten how your life laid in my hands?"

"I haven't forgotten," Zoro panted as Sanji pulled himself up on the swordsman's right side.

"Sanji! Have you forgotten the gratitude that you gave to me when I granted you release from Hunger's maw?"

"You know I haven't forgotten, goddammit!" Sanji snapped, clutching the burning graze that he earned while dodging Death's initial onslaught.

"Then why are you both facing me now? Is this Ace so important as to warrant your deaths and dreams as well? Who has put you up to this impossible folly?"

"That's none of your business," the swordsman answered defiantly, he and the cook turning subtly such that they stood shoulder to shoulder. Both men took in air to roar at the shade in front of them.

"We will not let you pass!"

[~~~]

Chopper was grimly pleased to note that the magma had been excellent at cauterizing Ace's wounds and cleanly excavating the man's innards. He and Franky were making headway in rebuilding Ace, the body parts proving to be a remarkable fit, except for one.

"Fuck! I need another heart!" Chopper swore loudly as he secured Ace's lungs to the esophagus. "This one is diseased!"

"Where the fuck am I supposed to find you a heart?" Franky yelled, cauterizing a length of digestive tract in the process. "Doc-bro, d'ya think I just have an extra one handy in my stomach?"

"Dammit! I don't know what the hell Brook is going to do, but we need a heart if we plan to save him!" Chopper wailed, gnashing his teeth as he clutched his fists futilely.

"What about mine?"

The dark shadow grew above Luffy, blocking out the paltry sunlight. To find someone still capable of walking through the murderous swath of haki surrounding Ace's brother was a sight to behold.

"Whitebeard-!" Chopper gaped at the bloody man, amazed that the nigh-gigantic yonkou could still move. "I...yes, I guess so, if you aren't sick with anything..."

"My illness isn't contagious - unless my fool son does something like this again. Does old age matter?"

Chopper shook his head, then bowed respectfully as an after-thought.

"In your case, Whitebeard, sir, I am guessing it does not."

There was a sort of silence that spread over the battleground as Whitebeard's trembling hand rose to his heart.

"Please...tell him..." the yonkou began, his voice quavering ever so slightly. He paused, then let his voice rise in a powerful roar. "Please tell Ace that he was my son, with whom I was well pleased!"

With that, an era ended as Whitebeard plunged his own hand into his chest, and ripped out his still-beating heart.

[~~~]

"Pops!" Ace screamed, his fists pounding the insubstantial darkness beneath his feet as his sobs ripped through the ethereal flute music. "No, Pops! Not for me! Why?"

"Do you understand, now, why throwing your life away carelessly is wrong?"

Ace whipped around, only to have his sight covered by swathes of sweet-smelling hair. The woman standing in front of him had her back towards him, her head bowed.

"Mother?" he croaked, reaching out to this beacon of comfort in front of him. She moved out of his reach.

"Yes, my dearest son, my Ace. I am your mother, and as much as I want to be with you, I do not think that this is your time!"

The sharp words made Ace flinch, his fingers curling back as his hand dropped. The woman continued.

"You need to live, Ace. Oh my sweet boy, this is not what your father and I gave up our lives for! We wanted you to live, to learn, to love - to understand that no matter what, there was no wrong in you that anyone should say that you shouldn't exist!"

Ace hunched his shoulders, his mother's rebuke staining his cheeks red.

"But, mother, you know what people wanted to do to me! Even Squad stabbed the old man because of me!"

"No!" the woman shouted loudly. "Squad did that because of himself, not because of you! No child should bear the sins of his father! Those who say so are fools!"

Ace felt fresh tears tracking down his face. The woman in front of him grew blurry and began to distance herself from him. The large man was waiting for her further ahead, looking forward expectantly, as if waiting for someone else.

"Please, Ace. Your fathers - both of them - gave themselves up for you. I bore you through those long months. Luffy is almost at the brink of death himself, due to his efforts... If you value anything that we have ever done for you - please. Please go back, and learn the real meaning..."

Ace wiped the tears from his eyes as the flute music drowned out the woman's last words. When he looked back up, she was with the large man and another, all-too-familiar shadow. They waved at him, never looking back, and the light disappeared.

He was in the dark, but he was not alone as bony fingers patted his crying form.

"Let us go."

[~~~]

Chopper sewed the corpse up and prayed that he was not becoming another Doktor Hogback.

"Brook!" the reindeer yelled, now taking the time to wipe the sweat from his brow. "Brook! He's ready!"

"Whatever you're doing, Bones-bro, do it now! Swords and Cook-bro can't hold that guy off much longer!"

Brook did not respond immediately. His fingers moving over the soundless flute were the only indications that the skeleton was actually still alive. Luffy turned his head away from Ace for the first time, and peered expectantly at his musician.

With a sudden, loud, screeching blast from the flute, Brook stood up. He panted harshly, sweat pouring from his ivory forehead as he stood up on shaky legs with the help of his scythe.

"Miss Nami! I have need of your lightning now!"

"Where do you need it, Brook?" Nami yelled, already twirling her Perfect Climatact.

"Strike Ace with it, please! Now!"

"What the hell? Are you trying to kill him again?" Franky growled angrily, but Chopper placed a placating hand on the cyborg as he scrambled away.

"No, he's right! The lightning bolt might just have enough energy to restart everything!" Chopper exclaimed as he dragged the shipwright away. "Leave this to-"

"Dead Bones Brook! I knew I should not have granted you free time!"

Death shouted loudly as he tried again to break through Zoro and Sanji, the two men barely able to push him away.

"Yohohoho! Long time no see, sir!" Brook chortled, belying his extreme discomfort at the current situation.

"Do not dare to greet me! How dare you defy me?"

Brook bowed low, plucked his weapon from the ground, and strode towards his boss.

"Forgive me, sir, but after all these years, I have found a new crew, and a new captain. They have already sacrificed themselves for me, thus I will do anything and everything to aid these nakama of mine, even if it flies in the face of heaven itself!

With that, Brook's scythe clashed against the Grim Reaper's own weapon, accompanied by a flaming steel shoe and three great swords.

"If this is what it takes to bring my captain back," Brook cried out as he parried the next slash, "I will not stop for you! Nami, strike Ace now!"

The navigator did not need to be told twice. The thunderbolt followed her staff with unerring accuracy to Ace's body.

[~~~]

Luffy found it funny to watch Ace sleep. Usually his brother was so...alive. His body never seemed so still before, even when he dropped asleep while eating.

"Ace, are you having good dreams?" Luffy asked softly, his voice a scratchy breath of air. "Na, when you wake up, let's me and you go beat up those bullies again, ok?"

The rubber man never felt the electricity as it engulfed him.

"Na, Ace? Let's just be together again when you wake up, ok?"

Luffy hugged his brother's head tenderly, awkwardly, as tears sprung from his eyes and his world exploded in light. The young man's haki faded and he slumped over Ace's form.

[~~~]

Luffy woke up with a start. He was back on the Thousand Sunny.

"Ace-!"

"Shh, you idiot! God, my head still hurts, you know?"

In the neighboring bunk was Portgas D. Ace. In a dark corner of the room stood Brook, playing a mouth harp. Luffy 's eyes watered, and the skeleton nodded once before leaving the room.

[~~~]