onepieceyaoi100 | This waited until the last minute...

Why, why do the plotbunnies always show up when I'm looking the other way?

Title: Making His Mark
Pairing: None
Rating: G
Word Count: 184
Topic: Time

He lays claim to them, as many others have tried and failed before. He looks at them with wide dark eyes, and somewhere within, in that deep, trembling place where only a select few have been allowed, they can feel him branding them.

Past all the traps constructed by years of hard living and pain he comes, smashing through walls reinforced by sleepless nights and loneliness, leaping moats of bitter tears and blood, tearing down each twisted thorny vine of lies and self-doubt until he reaches their secret heart.

He touches that place with the Word of Power.

Nakama.

If those who would dare abuse or defile it challenge him, he wields it like a sword of flame, roars it until the earth quakes, becomes its avatar and strikes with all of its weight. He lights the world with it, and those who are chosen cannot help but glow with him.

And that is why, in that secret place they carry within, there is The Time Before Luffy, The Day I Became Nakama, and The Future. And that is all that can ever be.