Chapter 5: Joining
"A girl?"
Ace and Sabo blurted it out at the same time the moment Axel lowered the cloth from his face.
The reaction was immediate, instinctive, and completely unsurprising.
After all, the child standing before them had pale skin, long white hair, delicate features, and red eyes that looked strangely beautiful in the moonlight. Combined with that slight frame, it was no wonder the first conclusion they jumped to was the wrong one.
Only Luffy looked utterly unmoved.
Axel had expected this.
He had expected it every single time someone saw his face.
That did not make it any less irritating.
With a faint twitch at the corner of his mouth, he said, "I'm not a girl. I'm a real boy, so stop looking at me like that."
Ace narrowed his eyes.
Sabo folded his arms.
Neither of them looked convinced.
"Liar," Ace said immediately.
"Yeah," Sabo added, suspicious from head to toe. "You don't look like one."
Axel's eyelid twitched.
For a moment, he considered continuing the explanation calmly.
Then a childish streak rose up in him.
He looked at the two of them and said flatly, "I'm not lying. Do you want me to prove it?"
The effect was instant.
Ace and Sabo's faces changed at the same time. Both of them turned their heads away so quickly it was almost impressive.
"No!"
"Absolutely not!"
Even in the dim light, Axel could see the faint embarrassment creeping onto their faces.
Only Luffy stood there with a blank look, glancing from one person to another as if the conversation had suddenly become a foreign language.
He could not understand how the atmosphere had gone from tense and battle ready to weird and awkward in the space of a few seconds.
Then he remembered the most important point.
His eyes sharpened.
"Ace, Sabo, don't get tricked!" Luffy shouted. "He attacked us!"
That one sentence instantly snapped the other two back to reality.
The strange mood vanished.
Ace and Sabo immediately regained their guard, their bodies tensing again as they resumed fighting stances.
Axel let out a small sigh.
Honestly, he could not blame them.
From their point of view, everything about him looked suspicious. He had arrived with Bluejam's men. He had fought them. He had easily subdued Ace and Sabo. There was no logical reason for them to trust him.
"I already told you," Axel said, "I'm not planning to fight you."
Ace snorted.
"You think we'll just believe that? You came here with those guys, and none of them treated you like an outsider. That means you're with them." His grip tightened around his pipe. "If you want us to trust you, then prove it."
Axel fell silent for a moment.
That was the problem.
He had no proof.
The fact that he came with Bluejam's men was real. No matter what explanation he gave, it would sound flimsy. If their positions were reversed, he would be suspicious too.
So he chose honesty, at least the useful kind.
"I don't have any evidence," he admitted. "I bought information about you, then followed them here."
Ace frowned. "Why?"
Axel spread his hands slightly. "Also, I already had both of you in my hands earlier and let you go. If I really wanted to hurt you, wouldn't that have been the best chance?"
Ace's expression shifted.
Sabo's eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
That point did matter.
If Axel had intended to capture them for Bluejam or cripple them on the spot, he had already been in the perfect position to do it. Instead, he had let them go.
Still, Ace did not lower his guard.
"That proves you're strange," he said. "It doesn't prove you're harmless."
Sharp answer.
Axel could not help but admit that Ace was annoyingly hard to fool.
Ace took another step forward and pressed on, "Forget the excuse for a second. Why did you spend money to buy information on us in the first place? Nobody does that for no reason."
That question landed much harder.
Because unlike the last one, Axel actually did not have a clean, practical answer prepared.
Why had he done it?
Because he was curious?
Because he knew who they were?
Because after suddenly falling into this world, these three felt like the first familiar names in an ocean of uncertainty?
None of those answers were easy to explain.
So the words that came out surprised even him.
"I wanted to be friends with you."
Ace blinked.
Sabo blinked.
For once, even the usually composed blond boy looked genuinely caught off guard.
Only Luffy reacted instantly.
"I don't want to be friends with someone who attacked us!"
The answer came so fast and so straightforwardly that Axel almost laughed.
That really was Luffy.
Simple. Honest. Impossible to bend with smooth words.
Unfortunately, it also made things harder.
Axel rubbed his forehead. "You attacked me first. I just defended myself."
Ace coughed lightly.
That part... was technically true.
At the time, he had assumed Axel was with the enemy and attacked first without stopping to investigate. Looking back now, the logic was not exactly flawless.
Luffy puffed his cheeks a little, stubborn as ever.
"Well... maybe. But I still don't want to."
Axel stared at him.
For a moment, he did not know whether to be annoyed or impressed.
This was partly his own fault.
He could have just explained everything directly from the start. Instead, some stupid, childish part of him had wanted to test the strength of the future monster trio of brothers for himself. He had shown off a little, escalated things, and now he was paying for it.
Serves me right.
Sabo, who had been watching quietly, finally asked, "Why do you want to be friends with us?"
This time, Axel did not answer immediately.
Because the truth was messy.
He had come to this world alone, without warning and without purpose. He had no family here. No dream. No ambition he could confidently declare. He was alive, yes, but only barely moving forward, like a piece of driftwood caught in an unfamiliar sea.
Then he learned where he was.
Learned what world this was.
Learned that Luffy, Ace, and Sabo were here on this island.
And for some reason, the idea of meeting them had taken root in his mind.
Maybe because they were familiar.
Maybe because they were strong in a way that had nothing to do with physical power.
Maybe because he thought that if he stood near people like them, he might eventually find an answer to what he wanted from this second life.
So instead of giving the full truth, he answered with another question.
"Does being friends really need a reason?"
Ace opened his mouth, then stopped.
That question, so simple on the surface, hit him at a weird angle.
For a second, he actually looked stumped.
"Uh..." He glanced sideways at Sabo. "Does it?"
Sabo immediately raised both hands. "Don't ask me. I've got no idea."
Axel almost smiled.
Watching the usually sharp Sabo and the prickly Ace both get stuck on that question was strangely satisfying.
Still, Ace recovered quickly.
"Fine. Leave that aside." His gaze sharpened again. "Then answer this properly. Why did you come looking for us?"
That, at least, Axel could answer.
He looked at the three boys in front of him and spoke more quietly than before.
"I came into this world with nothing. No family. No place to go. No idea what I'm supposed to do." He paused, then continued, voice steady. "After hearing about you, I thought maybe meeting you would help me find an answer."
This time, there was no lie in it.
Not a single word.
And perhaps because of that, the sentence carried more weight than anything he had said earlier.
The clearing grew still for a moment.
Then suddenly, a figure stepped right up in front of him.
Luffy.
Axel blinked.
Luffy was staring at him with suspiciously wet eyes, his face serious in that simple, wholehearted way only he could manage.
Then, in a voice that trembled with raw sincerity, Luffy declared, "Then I'll be your friend! And I'll save a spot for you on my pirate crew too!"
Axel froze.
"Huh?"
That answer had come out of nowhere.
He had not even said anything about becoming a pirate.
At the side, Ace clicked his tongue, though the surprise in his face had not fully faded.
"That idiot..." he muttered. "He's already making friends before we've even finished questioning you."
Sabo walked over and lightly patted Ace on the shoulder with a grin.
"Well, that's just Luffy, isn't it?" he said. "Besides, I don't think he was lying."
Ace folded his arms, shut his eyes, and turned his head away like a sulking cat.
"Do whatever you want. I don't care."
Sabo looked at him for half a second and immediately saw through the act.
It was the classic Ace routine.
Too proud to say yes directly.
Too soft to actually refuse.
With a grin full of mischief, Sabo slipped behind him and shoved him forward.
Ace stumbled two steps before catching himself.
"What are you doing?!"
Now he was standing directly in front of Axel.
The two of them looked at each other.
And to Axel's mild amusement, Ace seemed to be the one having more trouble with it. His eyes shifted slightly, unable to hold the gaze for long.
After a brief, awkward pause, Ace grumbled, "So... what's your name?"
Axel answered without hesitation.
"My name is Axel." He glanced at each of them in turn. "You're Ace. You're Luffy. And you're Sabo."
Sabo's brows rose. "You know all our names?"
Axel gave the most reasonable answer available.
"You three are famous in Gray Terminal. You challenged Bluejam and escaped from him more than once. People talk."
"Famous?!" Luffy's eyes lit up so brightly he looked like he had just been handed treasure.
Sabo laughed. "Wow. We became celebrities without even noticing."
Ace, as always, immediately poured cold water over the mood.
"Being famous in a place like this isn't a good thing." His face hardened. "It just means more people will come after us. And right now, we definitely can't beat this guy."
Sabo sighed. "Ace, you really know how to ruin the atmosphere."
"I'm teaching you to face reality."
Then, after a brief pause, Ace scratched his cheek and muttered with obvious reluctance, "And... welcome, I guess."
The instant he said it, Sabo's grin turned wicked.
"Oh? Is Ace embarrassed?"
Luffy joined in at once, as loyal to chaos as ever. "He is! Ace is embarrassed!"
Ace's face twitched.
"You two..."
Veins almost seemed to pop on his forehead.
For one dangerous second, it looked like he might actually swing his pipe at both of them.
Then he clicked his tongue and forcibly regained control.
"Forget it. I'm not arguing with idiots today." He took a breath, then looked at Axel again, this time more directly. "From today on, there's one more person with us."
Luffy instantly threw his fist up. "Yeah!"
Sabo smiled and stepped closer.
Ace extended his hand, trying very hard to look cool despite the fact that the other two were still obviously trying not to laugh.
"From today on," Ace said, "we're friends."
For a brief second, Axel just looked at the hand.
A strange feeling rose in his chest.
Warm.
Unfamiliar.
Dangerous, in its own way.
Then he reached out.
The four of them stacked their hands together under the dim light of Gray Terminal's filthy sky.
"Yeah!" Luffy shouted.
Sabo laughed.
Ace smirked despite himself.
And for the first time since arriving in this world, Axel felt like he had finally stepped onto solid ground.