Between saving Ace and Luffy's lives, who would Rosa choose?
save one: ace or luffy? but to save one, you have to kill the other.@xpyre / @xstrawhat
| ♪ When faced with such an ultimatum, one may assume the answer to be clear as day — an obvious choice in which she may have been expected to save the one her heart treasured most, but reality had been far more complicated. As while Ace may have been the one she wished to protect above all, there had been another he sought to protect, above his own life, and perhaps even hers; she would forever be grateful he wasn’t the one suffering the fate of having to choose today.
‘ I’m not afraid of dying ’
‘ An older brother tends to worry ’
Ace’s words on various occasions would ring violently in her ear drums, drawing a pounding headache as the memories rushed in. His smile, soft and proud when he spoke of none other than the boy who could be the cause of his demise. His grin, stretched across freckled cheeks, so full of childlike excitement as he displayed of the younger’s wanted bounty for all to see.
— But he’s already made the choice for her, hasn’t he? Giving up his life once before with no regrets whatsoever to save the younger.
A pair of sobbing indigo had witnessed it all, the fist of magma piercing her love’s heart and charring her own with a wound no time could ever heal in the process. She’d seen a figure never known as anything but strong — one she longed to embrace forever, lose all its strength in but a split moment of impulse and fall, painting the cement underneath with its crimson flow; she’d seen his smile, though leaking blood, more peaceful than she had ever known.
She knew then, if given the choice, he would do it all over again.
To mourn the death of a loved one had been a fate all too cruel and yet not unfamiliar to the hummingbird who had been forced to experience it in its most violent forms during her flame’s absence. The tears, the nightmares, the trauma, the loneliness, the heartache — all of it had been a fate she deemed worse than death itself, a destiny she could not, would not — condemn Ace to.
Thus, her choice had been made.
She would suffer, so he would not have to.
Pounding vessel in her chest tried to demand otherwise but was silenced with teeth biting into sobbing lips until blood dripped across ivory, trembling digits gripping her choice of weapon so fiercely nails dug into skin drawing red liquid spots and turning knuckles white as she embraced her love tightly.
❝I — I love you.. you know that I love you...❞ her words but brittle whispers coaxed with tears as she spoke. ❝More than anything in the world... that’s why — that’s why I have to do this.. it’s — it’s going to be okay, I promise..❞
There would be no remorse voiced, no apology as despite all odds, of one thing Rosa remained certain — this was what he wanted — and thus she would bid him goodbye, taking the life of her true love, with her very own hands.
To any, it may seem like she had saved Luffy’s life — but in reality, Rosa’s choice, always was and always would be in any given ultimatum: Ace.
She may have taken his life but in doing so, had saved him — saved him from an empty life of mourning, saved him from regrets and guilt and blame, saved him from despising his only love for taking his brother away from him.
She had never known herself to be brave, but today she would make her bravest selfless decision yet — she would suffer a lifetime of loneliness and tragedy, so the love of her life wouldn’t. He could rest in peace, watching from the heavens as his brother fulfilled his dreams of becoming king of the pirates while she would spend her lifetime mourning the one she treasured most, so he wouldn’t have to mourn the one he treasured.
