The terrible, raging fire had finally extinguished itself with the help of Dragon, that strange hooded man, and his men (there was one woman, a purple haired eccentric who may have been second in command.) Sabo sagged against Goa's filthy outer wall as pain and exhaustion weighed down his limbs. He'd give anything for a lungful of air that didn't make him wheeze and cough and seared his throat.

That same strange man was striding towards him now, stained with soot but no worse for wear. Sabo braced himself on the wall and struggled upright; there was something about this man that stirred respect and pride inside him, a fellow Goa high born that rejected the miserable way of life High Town offered. Dragon was a free man. Sabo wondered how that felt.

Dragon pulled back his hood as he approached, revealing a wild mane of black hair and a tattoo that swallowed half his face. He was fierce and intimidating but for a split second Sabo saw something of Luffy in him. Sabo knuckled his forehead to be rid of the image. His little brother was brave, but a bit of a crybaby. Nothing at all like the commanding presence towering over him now.

"Do you know who I am?" Dragon asked, surprising him. Sabo shook his head. He knew the man's name, knew he'd been born here. But who he was and why he was here, now of all times, was still a mystery. How had he known about the plans to burn Grey Terminal to the ground?

"I, and all the men you see here, are revolutionaries. We incite change and dissent where we can to one day overthrow the World Government currently in place." Dragon stared at Sabo without blinking. He felt measured, judged. "Goa Kingdom is just one example of a deeply corrupt system. What you've seen here tonight is not uncommon."

"You mean mass murder is normal?" Sabo was too tired for this. When Dragon nodded and said "In a way," he thought fuck pride and sank to his knees. Sabo just wanted to crawl to the tree house he helped build and sleep for a week. "Why are you telling me this?"

"You may be young, but I see the spirit of a revolutionary within you." Dragon waved a hand, an expansive gesture that included the remains of Grey Terminal, the mass of homeless men and women, the screaming children, the men who'd swept through like a hurricane, armed to the teeth and ready to fight the inferno. "Many of my men fled situations similar to yours."

Sabo couldn't believe what he was hearing; it sounded as if Dragon was offering him a place in his army of rebels. Maybe the smoke was making him hallucinate. "I'm only a kid, you know."

"And in four years you won't be." Dragon's lips curled in what barely passed for a grin. "There's a lot I can teach you in four years."

Sabo peered groggily up at the crazy guy with the crazy ideas and couldn't help what he said next. "My dream is to sail the world and write a book about what I see. The people, the places… And I wanted to do it as a pirate." He was so very tired. "You think I can still do that, mister?"

"Wherever there are the subjugated, that's where we'll be. If the Government searches for us in West Blue, we're in South Blue. They seize to South Blue, we're in North Blue, or the Grand Line. The Revolutionaries have no headquarters." Sabo startled as Dragon gave an actual grin. "And when you get so sick of it you'd rather shoot yourself than stay, the seas will still belong to those that fly the Jolly Roger."

Not far away, Ace and Luffy emerged from behind a hill of fried trash. (If Sabo'd been paying any sort of attention, he'd have seen Dragon's face soften infinitesimally at the boy with the straw hat. It was the same buried instinct that had Dragon kneeling in the street with a weeping child. His son.) Sabo watched as Ace dragged Luffy to a stop and beat the ash from his clothes with deceptively rough hands, heard Luffy thank Ace, loudly, for not leaving him behind. Ace batted Luffy's hands away as he tried to return the favor, and rubbed at a dirty cheek in an unconscious gesture of embarrassment Sabo could recognize with his eyes closed.

Ace was becoming an excellent big brother.

The Bluejam Pirates were long gone. The gate guards had seen him (his back ached where he'd been kick into a trash can; the irony was enough to make him laugh, and laughing hurt.) His father would assume he'd burned. They had another son now, one who was (butt ugly) a genius who would, obediently, make them proud. Ace and Luffy were safe. He'd miss his brothers, could feel a part of his heart cramp at the thought of leaving them so soon. But they'd made a promise. A bond, woven with the taste of sake, that would surely bring them together again.

I'm going first.

"Alright mister," Sabo said. "I'm your guy."