[One Piece] After Becoming Ace's Bound Spirit

* Ace pairing. The heroine is Ace's bound spirit in the early part of the story, then becomes human again later.

I became the bound spirit of a little boy.

The boy's name was Ace. He had a bad temper and would swing a steel pipe at people whenever he got annoyed.

The pipe passed through my translucent, pale body. I felt nothing, but the boy lost his grip on the long pipe and fell to the ground.

His eyes immediately reddened, but he stubbornly held back his tears.

Me: Oh... Wh-what do I do?

I floated in front of him, lazily hanging upside down as I tried to comfort him. "Does it hurt? It looks like you're bleeding..."

The irritable little boy with adorable freckles glared at me angrily. "None of your business!"

Little Ace finally understood what a bound spirit was, after all my explaining.

But at five years old, all he could understand was that I was a ghost who "wouldn't stop following him."

...Which wasn't wrong, in a way.

Ace had a hard life.

The only people who looked after him were a bunch of carefree bandits and a grandfather who might have been a military officer. But his grandfather only came back once every six months, so he might as well not have existed.

As a decent young person raised under the red flag, of course I couldn't stand watching Ace run around outside like a wild child every day.

So I coaxed him into learning how to dress properly and tidy himself up. I also taught him how to identify edible wild fruit and how to roast the meat from animals he caught.

At night, I gently patted his thin, small shoulders and hummed him a lullaby until he fell asleep.

He suddenly asked me, "Do you exist because of me?"

I froze, then laughed. "Of course."

Little Ace's eyes lit up, but he still shyly burrowed a little further into my transparent embrace.

It seemed only people Ace accepted could see me, his bound spirit.

Ace made a new friend named Sabo.

The first time little Sabo saw me, he was startled and jumped back. The familiar steel pipe swung down toward me and passed through my transparent body.

Me: Oh, what a familiar feeling.

A few years later, it happened again, following the same routine. Only this time, it wasn't a steel pipe but little Luffy's rubber fist.

I thought this life would go on for a long time, until an accident made me disappear while protecting the three little ones.

As my spirit faded, amid the shimmering white fragments, I saw Ace's tightly furrowed brows and his hand reaching out desperately.

His hand, already calloused from years of gripping steel pipes, closed around the mistlike fragments of my spirit, then grasped at empty air.

He looked up in shock, dazed, his eyes rimmed with red.

I'm Noya. The Whitebeard Pirates found me.

I heard that when they found me, my injuries were so bad that they screamed in alarm, thinking a bloodied corpse was floating on the sea.

Anyway, I don't remember anything about my past. Now I'm an apprentice pirate with the Whitebeard Pirates.

A man named Ace started following me around.

He rushed over, calling me "big sister," and buried his head in my arms.

I reached out and touched Ace's cheek, hidden against my chest, and felt warm, wet tears on my hand.

Me: ...

Is this some new kind of scam?

--Warnings and Reading Notes--

1. Sweet one-on-one romance, happy ending. The early part features raising ASL.

2. Planned length: around 500,000 characters.

3. I really can't think of any warnings. I'll add them if I come up with any.

4. The cover uses a purchased design template, so similarities are normal.

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Theme: Love