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Chapter Text

Law woke up as his mattress dipped. He struggled for a moment to get a grasp on his surroundings, still muddling through the waters of a deep, deep sleep. Then, a little body crawled over him, a knee digging into his ribs. 

“Ow!” he hissed and reached out to pull his sister all the way over. 

Lami burrowed into his arms immediately. His shirt had risen up slightly in sleep and one of her cold hands landed on his bare stomach. She giggled when he yelped. 

They settled after a moment, facing each other. Law’s arms went around her as she lay curled against him. “Bad dream?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Was cold,” she replied and wriggled closer. 

Law adjusted so the blanket wouldn’t let in any chilled night air and hugged her tight. One of Lami’s hands lay against his chest over his heart and he could count the rhythmic sounds of her breaths against his neck. 

It was soothing and sleep started creeping back. But just before he dropped off, Lami whispered his name. 

“Are you asleep?” she asked.

He grunted. 

Lami was quiet, warm breaths puffing against his skin. 

“What is it?” he asked finally. 

“Can you read them again?”

Law pulled back slightly to look at her. This close he could easily make her out despite the low light. It was very dark tonight with clouds covering the moon. Her eyes were open wide and she was very awake. 

Reflexively, his hand drifted to the back of her neck. He brushed his fingers over the marks there, tracing the crooked lettering lining her nape. Law couldn’t see them now, couldn’t feel the lines that were as smooth as tattoos, but he had memorized them long ago. 

“Hey you, come in here, the storm’s getting worse!” 

Lami mouthed the words while Law spoke them out loud. She shivered slightly and ducked her head but Law saw her shy grin. 

“And you say…” he prompted like always. 

“No, come and join me!” she chose this time, one of her favorite responses.

Law poked at her words. “And what’re you doing out in a storm?”

Lami’s eyes glittered in the dark. “Dancing in the rain. Having an adventure. ” 

“You would.” 

One of the first words Lami learned was storm and she loved rain ever since. When the heavens rumbled and the clouds darkened and the skies turned gray, Lami would be out the door, face turned upwards, embracing the water tumbling down. It didn’t rain often in Flevance and she hoarded every moment like it was the most precious treasure. 

“What will they be like?” she wondered. 

Law repeated what he said last time, the answer that always made Lami light up like a lighthouse. “Someone who will follow you into a storm.” And she did, smile stretching from ear to ear, chasing away some of the gloomy night. 

“Someone kind and fun and beautiful,” whispered Lami, echoing what their mother always said.

“Someone good enough for you,” Law agreed, just like their father. 

She basked in that, smile wide, eyes soft and excited. Then she moved the hand over his heart to instead curl around the back of his neck. “And what will they be like?”

Law reached back as well, fingers brushing over where hers lay. “Someone who will push me,” as their father said. “Someone who will make me smile and laugh,” like their mother hoped. 

“Someone you can go on an adventure with,” said Lami, all she thought about. 

Law’s fingers pressed down. “Maybe.” 

“Definitely.” Lami’s fingers flexed under his but didn’t move, still resting over his words. “I wonder what you’ll say.” 

Law wondered too. So did his parents, who always seemed a bit puzzled by his words. It was more than likely that Law was the one to speak first in the pair, usually considered a bit unluckier since it was harder to guess at the situation where they would meet and having no control over what words they would speak. 

Maybe university, his father always offered. Or some sort of conference. You’ll be a great doctor someday, Law. And you’ll need someone who will challenge you to be even better.

His mother thought it might be more romantic. Who knows what you might say? Maybe it was love at first sight. Maybe it’s someone who you’ll chase to the ends of the earth. 

Law always wrinkled his nose at that and his mother always doubled down until he turned red with embarrassment. 

Lami whispered, “What will you say?” demanding they finish their game. 

There were lots of things he could say. He’d tested many before, rolling the words on his tongue, trying to find the right combination. Not that he had the luxury to choose, as he would not know until his soul words were reflected back to him. 

Lami watched him carefully, eagerness shining through. Just yesterday, Law’s teacher shared with him that Lami had announced to her entire class that her big brother was going to become the best doctor that ever lived.

“I’m going to change the world,” he landed on today and her smile lit up the room as her fingers tightened around his neck. 

“We’ll see if your conviction holds,” she said back, having long learned the difficult word, and he mouthed the syllables along with her. 

She snuggled into him then, cold long gone and body fully relaxed. She kept her hand around his neck and he kept his around hers and she tucked her head beneath his chin. “I can’t wait,” she murmured into his throat and he held her tighter, feeling her brown hair tickle his nose, and after he was certain she was asleep, admitted quietly to the night, “Neither can I.”

When the sickness started getting worse, the schools announced they would be shutting down. Temporarily, they said, but everyone knew the truth. On the last day, Law and his classmates gathered around in a circle. Law was across from Sister Annalie and between a girl named Leyte who was sort of a friend since she didn’t cry when Law brought a dead frog to class and a boy named Hogue who was a friend even though Law never joined in his games. 

Hogue was alright still, hadn’t even coughed once, but Leyte was as thin as Lami these days. 

Law didn’t like looking at her. He wanted to be back at the hospital reading Lami stories when she was awake and helping his father whenever she was asleep. He supposed he’d be able to from now on. 

Sister Annalie started off with the niceties every adult was reciting these days. Don’t be scared, everything will be alright, we’ll get help, a cure will be found, the World Government is on their way. 

“I don’t want to die,” Leyte said beside Law, a broken, trembling sentence that still cut through the room. 

Sister Annalie quieted, bowed her head. Her lips moved, like maybe she was saying a prayer. When she raised her head again, she had a smile on her face and a soft look in her eyes. 

“Have you met them yet?”

Leyte shook her head no. Sister knew that, since no one in Law’s class had met their soulmate yet. Last year, before the sickness became obvious, one of the kids in Lami’s class met their soulmate in one of the neighboring kingdoms and everyone in school had been really jealous. Lami told them all about it, how every weekend now her classmate traveled to the neighboring kingdom to visit their other half. 

Law wondered when that stopped. 

“What’s a soulmate?” Sister Annalie asked in her teacher voice. 

Hogue answered for Leyte, when she took too long. “The missing half of your soul.” 

“That’s right. Every person has their own individual spirit which makes up our personality, our dreams, our goals, who we are. But, each of us have a soul which is the very essence of us. When we’re created, our souls are split in two and put into different bodies. We are born with only half a soul.” 

“And Fate gives us words to help find the other half,” another classmate piped up.

Leyte gripped her neck. 

Sister’s smile widened. “That’s right! It’s a special gift. Your soulmate, this person who is a match for your soul… you are incomplete without them. You are not whole until you both meet, until your souls intertwine. You are a reflection of each other, a perfectly designed set.” Sister Annalie’s hand drifted to her heart. Many of the children throughout the room imitated her or reached back to touch their words. 

One of the kids asked, “So what happens when you meet your soulmate?” 

“You fall in love,” said a girl with a dreamy look on her face. 

Another said, “Your words burn and you feel your soul come together.” 

“They don’t burn!” protested a boy, who Law saw around the hospital sometimes. His parents worked there just like Law’s. “My mom says that’s a psychological hallucination! There are studies!” He spoke in a very important-sounding voice. 

“They do, dummy!” shot back the girl. “My mom said hers burned.”

“Your mom is—!”

“Okay,” interrupted Sister Annalie. “No fighting.” She paused, mulling over something, as the ruckus died down. 

In the quiet, Leyte said, “My sister said that when she met her soulmate, she knew that everything would be okay.”

Sister Annalie brightened. “Oh?” 

Leyte nodded, hand still grasping her neck. “She said…that everything slotted into place. That before she didn’t even realize she felt alone but then she knew she never would again. That she felt whole, all of a sudden.”

“My dad said time stood still,” offered Hogue. Law had heard him say this before with a vaguely disgusted expression as he repeated his parents lovey-dovey words, but now he looked serious and thoughtful. 

Everyone began chiming in with the stories they knew. Law thought of his own parents, of asking about their words and his mother grasping his father’s arms to pull him from his desk, whirling around the room in one big circle before holding each other in a close embrace. 

My friend dared me to speak to the most handsome boy in the room and that’s you. 

Law’s father turned very red, his mother teased, and even with nineteen years of planning a response, all he could come up with was, Oh, I—it’s you.

Law’s father blushed even twelve years married as she recounted the tale.

In reality, there was no burning in the neck. Time didn’t stand still, the world didn’t disappear, no one was pulled to another plane of existence. If it did, it was all in the imagination. But, Law’s mother explained, you just knew. Your whole life you had been missing a piece of the puzzle that you weren’t even aware of and suddenly it was there and without it you were certain you would die. 

“But what if you never meet your soulmate?” someone asked. 

“Some don’t,” said Sister Annalie. “Some have to search far and wide for them. Sometimes you don’t meet them until you’re very old. Sometimes your soulmate is born long after you. And sometimes your soulmate is born very far away and Fate isn’t kind enough to bring you together. Sometimes—”

“What if your soulmate dies?” 

Leyte’s voice was louder this time but, right next to her, Law could hear the tremor lining it. 

A shadowed expression crossed Sister’s face. Rumors spread quickly and everyone knew the gossip of what lay beneath her habit. 

Someone coughed and it set off a chain reaction. Law felt one catch in his throat as well, nasty and choking.

“A soulmate is a sacred bond,” said Sister carefully, when the coughing stopped. “The words are there to help you find your special connection. If they die, your connection with them withers and your soul words fade from black to gray.”

“That’s why we wear gray to funerals,” said Hogue and Sister nodded. 

“Do you feel it?” asked the boy next to Sister. 

There was a distant expression in Sister’s eyes. “Not exactly,” she said, looking unsure. “I—perhaps it’s different for everyone. Some people who have known their soulmates a long time say they feel it. Some who have never met say they felt it. But some… don’t even notice when…” she trailed off and her hand twitched like she wanted to reach back.

“Will my soulmate feel when I die?” asked Leyte. 

Sister Annalie didn’t answer that. Law watched her look around the room, at pale faces and shaking arms. He thought of Lami, too tired to get out of bed, of his mother moving from one hospital room to the next, of his father collapsing from exhaustion on top of his research.

He thought of his own soulmate, somewhere in the world, with vivid black words on their neck. Law wanted to know what was written.

“Have faith,” Sister said instead. “You have been blessed. Each and every one of you has words on your neck. There are some unfortunate souls without any words at all.”

“Cursed,” said one boy solemnly. 

Sister nodded. “But you, your soulmate is out there, waiting for you, wondering about you, dreaming of you. It is okay to be scared, but do not forget that Fate gave you those words for a reason. You were created for a reason. We all were. We’re all children under the stars, we’re all part of Fate’s design. When you find yourself losing sight, think of them. In dark times, your soulmate is a light, guiding you out. Do not give in to despair.” Finally she smiled again, not quite as wide as earlier but still genuine. “Have hope. Hold onto it. Don’t ever let it go.” 

And they moved on, as class time started ticking down to the end. Sister Annalie promised that though classes were over, she would still be at the school should they need somewhere else to turn. She hugged each student as they shuffled to the door, arms gentle around their shoulders, a fleeting touch to the neck. 

Her optimism trickled down to the students and even Leyte looked a bit lighter as they left the room. 

Law went back to the hospital and slipped into bed beside Lami, clutching her skinny hand in his own. She smiled at him and leaned against his chest and asked for a story. He pulled out her favorite book even though he knew the whole thing by heart. Mother was tending to patients, giving them comfort and medicine. Father, the most brilliant man Law knew, was down the hall searching for a cure, certain he could find something given time. 

Halfway through the book, Law felt Lami turn her head away. He looked down at her, face paler than ever, her huge dark brown eyes speckled with little flecks of gold half-lidded in pain, and then followed her gaze to the hospital window, where outside the skies had turned gray and the clouds covered the sun and light rain began to patter against the windowsills. 

Lami couldn’t move from the bed so Law reached over and opened the window and grasped one of her hands in his own, bringing it to her neck. Her fingers moved weakly beneath his, tracing the word storm over and over again. They lay together for a very long time, as the scent of rain filled the room and the sounds of the busy hospital faded away, while thunder rolled in the sky and raindrops sprinkled on the sheets. 

Many soul words turned gray the next day. 

It’s such a beautiful day, isn’t it?  

The words were starkly black, contrasting the deadly white skin where it was written. Law wanted to turn his head away but even with the jarring bumps of the road tossing the corpses this way and that, he was terrified to move. 

He closed his eyes again, to try and block them out. He wondered if they were ever spoken or not. He supposed it didn’t matter now. 

The wagons trundled along, packed to the brim with a morbid cargo. Law tried desperately to play dead even as the stench of decay began wafting into the air. He wasn’t sure where they were taking the bodies. They were burning the country down anyway, he thought viciously, one encompassing mass grave, so why bother with the bodies at all? 

He couldn’t say how long it was before the wagons rolled to a halt. He strained to listen as muted voices called out around him. The body on top of him shifted, the words sliding down from his eyes to his mouth, nearly suffocating him. 

It happened all at once, with no warning. The wagon shifted beneath him and all the bodies went tumbling down, dragging Law with them to free fall for a brief, heart-stopping moment before crashing to the ground. Law landed on someone’s back, panicked mind catching on to the unnatural angle their neck was tilted, before something impossibly heavy landed on him and knocked the breath from his lungs. 

He might have blacked out for a moment but it was hard to tell what was happening at all. Time had lost meaning. He could not say when the siege began, whether it had been hours or days. The fires burned strong in Flevance, blotting out the sun. 

Muffled shouts floated above him. He could hear more thumps, presumably the sound of corpses dropping from the wagons. Law was very aware that if more bodies came to land on him, he would be trapped, buried alive amongst the remains of Flevance’s people. 

But he couldn’t move now. If the people out there saw him, well…

There was a lump in Law’s throat, overwhelming. He could scarcely breathe. His neck ached and he turned his head, a minuscule movement so as not to attract attention, nose and cheek brushing against the sweaty, bloody shirt covering the body beneath him. 

He couldn’t make out the soul words on the body. He couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman, just that their neck was broken and their marks were faded. 

Unbidden, his parents flashed before him, collapsed in a broken heap, blood pooling beneath them. Law hadn't checked their pulse. He hadn’t needed to. Their words were gray. 

No tears came. A bone-deep exhaustion settled. The terror that had clung to him like a second skin faded ever so slightly. 

Perhaps… perhaps being discovered would not be so bad. 

Law’s gut roiled with a sharp pain as his stomach began gnawing on itself. There was an excruciating pounding in his head and his wrist throbbed from when he landed. It might be broken. He didn’t care. 

The sounds of bodies being dumped into the mass grave continued all around him, a steady beat of flesh hitting flesh, of lifeless lumps of meat hitting the ground where they would be buried or burned and slowly fade to nothing, becoming one with the earth. He wondered if anyone else remained alive, if someone had gotten away, or if he was truly all that was left, the single living organism in the once thriving ecosystem of his country. 

Maybe it would be okay if he was buried here. His parents were gone. His classmates were gone. His home was gone. Lami was…

He thought of the words on his neck and if they were still black. They probably were. Flevance was a small country, overall. They were probably still alive, still out there, maybe brushing their hands along their neck, just as Law sometimes did. Either way, there was no point in dwelling now. 

We’ll see if your conviction holds, his soulmate was supposed to say. 

But the buildings of his country crumbled, his people slaughtered, hopes and dreams squashed one after the other with bullets and flames. A promise of help and rescue turned to terror and pain, walls closed in all around as once-friendly faces gunned down neighbors like prey. 

What was left?

Two to three years, his father revealed when Law insisted. He handed him his chart and Law read it all, listened as his father explained every word on the page until Law understood how the poison laced his veins. Law’s mother had already read it and cried. When Law looked up after examining the report, he saw tears in his father’s eyes as well. "I’ll fix it," his father said, "I just need time." 

"Your father’s an optimist," his mother murmured later that night. Law sat with her while she stroked Lami’s hair as she slept. "You and he are so alike in so many ways, but I fear you took after me in this regard." 

"Do you think we’ll die?" Law asked. 

"Not without fighting to our last breath," his mother replied. 

Law could taste the acrid smoke in the air. Was the hospital still burning? Was Lami’s body still…

The wave of fury that coursed through him left him as breathless as the corpses. It burned, this white-hot rage that rippled through his lungs. Lami had shook like a lamb from the lead in her blood but her expression was full of strong confidence that Law would return to save her. Stay here, he had said and he wondered if she suffocated or burned and when exactly she realized he was not coming back. Were his parents’ bodies still on the hospital floor, soaking in their own blood, or were they being carted through the streets like trash? What of Leyte, or Hogue, or Sister Annalie? Were they still scattered on the stone streets of the city or were they sprawled like animal carcasses here beside Law?

No, Law decided, he would not die here. He was still alive and he would live. He vowed this to Lami and his parents and to all of Flevance. He would live until the poison in his veins drowned him and until the moment he collapsed under its weight he would take his revenge on all the people that turned their backs. 

Do you think my soulmate is close by? Lami always asked, looking to the east and the west, at the neighboring kingdoms and maybe they were, maybe they were there like so many were, watching with glee as the White City burned to ashes and their soul marks turned a matching gray. 

I hope you burn, Law thought, willed, swore. I hope you all burn. 

When all was silent, Law crawled out of his grave. 

He lived for two months on his own, a haggard waif trying to relearn the world. He stumbled upon a small town that had recently been raided by pirates. Fear hung like a rotten stench. A man’s body was still strung up like a scarecrow. The townsfolk spat on it as they walked by. 

“He led them here,” the fisherman explained, when Law bartered passage. 

“Who?” asked Law, with blood on his mind. 

The fisherman shuddered. “The Donquixote Family.” 

Law walked through a kingdom of junk with grenades on his chest. The tallest man Law had ever seen, as tall and as skinny as a lamppost, yelled at him to stop.

“Let me join your pirate group,” Law said. He spoke to no one in particular, or perhaps to the tall man and the shorter one beside him, a disgusting-looking fellow hunched over on himself, or maybe more to himself, affirming the intentions born from his burning rage. Then he looked up, up, up, to the large, foreboding figure seated above them all.

Donquixote Doflamingo, perched like a bird of prey atop a mountain peak scouring the ground for little mice scurrying below. The executives laughed like Law had handed himself over to be a meal. Reflective glasses hid his eyes but Law could feel them on him, burrowing in, and Doflamingo’s lips curled in an eerie grin. 

Wrath licked through his veins and he cast Doflamingo a scorching glare. “I want to destroy everything,” he declared to him and him alone and satisfaction rumbled beneath his skin as Doflamingo’s face slackened as if surprised. 

Law spoke his resolve for the room to hear but he watched Doflamingo, watched as a blank, stony expression settled, watched for any minute response. His words flowed freely. “Towns, houses, people, I want to destroy them all.” The other two men stopped laughing. “It doesn’t matter,” he promised, “because soon enough I’m going to die.” 

Silence reigned. Doflamingo was a gargoyle, looming above in petrifying stillness. The two executives shifted in the corner of Law’s eyes, calculating how best to kick him out without disturbing the grenades. He refused to turn his head, staring straight into those fathomless glasses. And as one of the executives began to move towards him, they were halted in place by a hand.

Doflamingo’s gaze was piercing. Slowly he rose, that fierce, pressurized stare never wavering from Law, pinning him in place as he descended from his mountaintop. Law’s neck had to crane back with each step until it was forced in an arch so he could peer up to where Doflamingo towered above him. The silence lingered on and the atmosphere weighed impossibly heavy. Law was trapped by the sight of his own image, reflected twice back by the red lenses, a shadowy wraith with death on his skin. 

Doflamingo’s lips stretched into another grin. Different this time, wider still, white teeth shining in the dim light. Where before it was a poised, carefully crafted expression, now it was sharply genuine, a ravenous, pleased smile like one given moments before ripping into a delicious feast. 

Law was ensnared. He could not move if he tried. 

And Doflamingo, claws already sunk in, finally spoke. “We’ll see if your conviction holds.”

Law’s heart skipped a beat. His neck tingled, a hallucinatory itch as though the words were burning. There was no thunder clapping in the sky, no bells ringing, no band marching down the street, but there was no doubting the truth of the words once they were spoken to the soul. Doflamingo’s grin stretched further still and for a moment the whole world fell away. It was just the two of them, these two halves of a soul cautiously feeling out the jagged edges of where they might meet. 

It was a moment which Law used to cradle in secrecy, too embarrassed to admit he dreamt of just like Lami, this moment he thought lost, burnt to flames like everything he held dear. This moment where everything was supposed to slot into place with the promise that everything would be okay, because though the world could go wrong, loneliness would have no place, that even in the darkest night there would be a single burning light. 

The world came rushing back, the moment shattered as Doflamingo brushed past him, barking out something that Law missed and then hands were upon him, ripping away the grenades on his torso, the jeering laughter and taunts returned. He was flung into a wall once it was ensured he could not blow the place up and through his wavering vision he watched the haunting figure clothed in pink feathers disappear into the blinding light outside. 

We’ll see if your conviction holds, echoed in his mind, a dearly familiar sentence repeated throughout his life, one held close and picked apart, that now held a new intonation, a new timbre, a new meaning. 

Despite the aches and the pains and the shock of it all, Law struggled to his feet as the executives made to move in again, the anger that thrummed through his bones now mixing with a wholly new buzzing determination. 

It will hold, he vowed to himself, to his soulmate, to Lami and his parents, to his classmates and his people, to everyone he had yet to meet and to those he never would. It will hold. 

Chapter Text

The Donquixote Family’s base was a trash heap on Spider Miles, a country with sunny skies blocked by the haze of the factories. The air was often crisp, a staple of most Northern islands, but there was a suffocating weight from the toxins spewing about. 

It was a far, far cry from the clean, bright streets of Flevance. 

The Family had quarters set up within the Processing Plant somewhere, but Law slept under the invisible stars. Every night he lay awake, staring up at the night sky blanketed by the constant haze. He never slept well, despite the constant exhaustion and the beatings he now received daily. His head was always too full with a horrifying kaleidoscope of images from Flevance’s fall. Nowadays, a new face would appear, all-encompassing, gobbling all the gruesome scenes away and leaving him with a buzzing restlessness. 

Donquixote Doflamingo. 

The Family, Law learned, were rising in notoriety, a carefully maintained slow growth while they executed plans under the Government’s nose without much fuss. There were bounties on the executives and the captain, though Law hadn’t yet seen the amounts. They had been attracting recruits for some time now and the Family was incredibly picky about who they chose. Since Law had arrived, a handful of people had shown up hoping to become a part of the Family and subsequently been chased away with little fanfare. 

Law was not so weak-willed. He would need to earn his place with the Family and he was determined to do so. 

The words on his neck, mostly out of sight from the collar on his shirt, had never felt so bare. He brushed his fingers against the words, memories of small fingers doing the same, and a young, innocent voice whispering, “Law, what do you think you’ll say?” 

And the same young voice, trying to be brave, promising she’d be okay as the closet door slid shut…

It took a long time to fall asleep these days. 

Law landed hard against the junk heap. Sharp metal scratched across his arm, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. 

Diamante barked with laughter. “Is that all, brat?”

Another familiar voice grated at Law’s ears. Trebol had wandered out to watch, beheheing from his lookout. 

Law gritted his teeth and tasted iron. He swiped at the blood trickling from his head to his mouth. His whole body ached, protesting the continued abuse.

“That’s not all you have, is it?” tsked Diamante. 

“Behehe, Laaaaw, don’t take a nap now,” called Trebol. 

Bitterness licked at Law. He struggled to his feet, body shaking with adrenaline and exhaustion. Days upon days of being beaten up by the executives and nothing to show for it except the bruises on his own body. Law’s fists clenched, his knuckles scraped and sore from landing punches that only managed to harm himself. Fury churned beneath his skin. He needed to do something different, he realized, as Diamante shifted, his sword glinting in the sunlight.

The light caught the smooth metal of the scalpel as his father showed Law how to grip it. For the first cut, his father’s hand covered his, guiding the blade through the belly of the frog. 

“Good,” said Father, a kind but honest man who only said what he meant and whose praise made Law glow. “You have steady hands. You could be a surgeon one day.” His hand was warm as it helped move the scalpel, slicing through flesh as easily as butter. “This is a deceptive blade. It looks small and harmless, but it is a powerful tool. One wrong move and you could kill someone. Instead, we use it to save lives. Never forget what you wield, Law.”

And he let go. 

It was natural for Law’s hand to grope past the heavy pipe, the old pistol, the glass shard, and grasp onto the sword. He pulled it from the wreckage, a rusty, chipped lump of metal, barely sharp, and held it before him. 

Diamante boggled at him for a split second before he erupted into another round of laughter. 

“Neeee, Law, is that really a good idea?” yelled Trebol, a joyous glee in his voice. 

Perhaps it was a poor idea to pull a sword out against a swordsman but Law only clenched his hands tighter. His arms shook from the unfamiliar weight and the pain lacing through him and the barely constrained rage that always coated him like a second skin these days. 

Diamante was an open target, still caught up in his amusement. Law charged forwards, aiming the sword straight for the gut but he didn’t even see Diamante move, just felt the flat edge of a sword hit his back and Law staggered again into a trash heap. The sword he held hit the pile of junk first and Law fell into the pommel hard, his breath knocked out of him as he collapsed to the side. His stomach throbbed, a nasty bruise already forming. 

Trebol’s abrasive laughter rang in his ears. 

“Come again, brat,” chuckled Diamante. “I’ll give you one even better.” 

Law staggered up. The sword was stuck sheathed in the junk pile. Law’s abdomen ached, a rhythmic pain blooming out. He tried to breathe steady breaths but the air came out harsh. 

Diamante began moving forward. “I won’t wait for you to catch your breath!” 

A flash of pink in the corner of Law’s vision snagged his attention. Despite himself, despite everything, despite the sun in his eyes and the ongoing fight, despite Diamante stalking towards him and Trebol’s taunts, despite the anger and confusion and yearning as days dragged on, despite the promise to himself that he would stop looking until he earned it, he glanced over, gaze drawn like a moth to a flame. 

Doflamingo exited the building. Señor Pink was beside him talking in his ear as they turned towards the direction of town. It looked like they had business. 

As they walked towards the stairs, Doflamingo’s head turned, almost imperceptibly, and Law knew he was looking at him. 

“An old mentor of mine always scolded me for being too tense. He would always nag at me for letting my stress go into my joints. But he was trying to teach an important lesson. Look, Law,” and his father stretched out his hand, still holding the butter knife. His hand clenched tightly, knuckles turning white, and his whole arm shook and then his hand relaxed and it went still. “It’s not as easy as that, of course, when it’s a matter of life and death, but that comes with confidence, trust in yourself,” and his father looked thoughtfully down at Law, adding, “and some innate skill.” 

Then he offered Law his sandwich and laughed at Law’s disgusted face. 

Law grasped the sword again. Diamante was right up on him, sword arcing through the air. Law ducked, pulling his sword from its makeshift sheath and when his hand automatically tightened, he consciously loosened it, remembering the feel of a scalpel held like an extension of his fingertips. 

He swung it, imagining a grand-scale dissection right in front of him. His sword grazed Diamante’s side, the jagged tip cutting through the fabric and nipping at the skin. 

“You fucking brat!” Diamante roared and kicked him in the head, sending him crashing through the junk heaps. Law’s entire body was one enormous bruise now, an ache radiating from head to toes. His vision blurred and he probably had a concussion. Mixed in with Diamante’s continued curses was a cacophony of laughter, mocking and hysterical, Trebol’s vicious enjoyment joined by Buffalo, Baby 5, and Giolla, who had left the building just in time to catch sight of the spectacle. 

And another laugh, further away. Law pulled himself up, vision blacking as he tried to straighten and his arms trembled as he fumbled for his sword. Wildly, he cast his gaze about and it landed again on the blurry figure in pink. 

Doflamingo had stopped to watch. His caustic laugh echoed across the junkyard. 

Law’s vision slowly swam back into place as Doflamingo’s laughter died away, replaced by a sharp grin. Even with the great distance between them, his stare pierced Law right through to his core. It was impossible to read his expression from afar, though Law could hardly claim to have such a talent anyway. But suddenly, inexplicably, Law realized Doflamingo had not been laughing at him. 

All the nagging pains in his body seemed to fade. There was an interest in that look that Law had been desperately craving. He stood straighter and his chest burned with an invigorated fire. 

So many days, so many beatings, and finally, finally—

Doflamingo began walking away and disappeared behind the building but the weight of his eyes lingered on Law’s shoulders. 

Diamante had finished yelling at their spectators and refocused his outrage. He stormed across the junkyard, weapon ready, but his furious shouts were meaningless to Law who kept replaying that sharp grin in his mind over and over. 

Law took up his sword and went again. 

“There are rules,” said Baby 5 primly. 

“Rules!” shouted Buffalo, flying above in dizzying circles. 

“What rules?” asked Law. These two gave him a headache. 

Baby 5 peered down at him from her perch on the railing. “For the Family. But you’re not one of us.”

“Not one of us!” mocked Buffalo. 

Law frowned. “I will be.” And he would be, no matter what these two irritants thought. He pondered ignoring them. Maybe they were pulling his strings, making fun of him like they always did. Or maybe Buffalo was trying to set in stone some dumb rule like always needing to buy him sweets on sunny days. But… maybe not. “What are the rules?” 

Baby 5 swung her legs, looking very pleased. “Do you need me to tell you? You do, you need me, right?” 

“What are the rules, Buffalo?” Law asked.

Baby 5 whacked him on the head. She put quite a bit of power behind it too, overcompensating for the lean down from the railing and his head snapped forward from the force of it. He whirled around, shooting her a ferocious glare and she held out for all of five seconds before bursting into tears. 

“You’re such a child!” Baby 5 wailed. 

No you! 

Law managed to hold back the childish retort, instead snarling, “What are they? Tell me or I’m leaving.” 

Buffalo found this all hilarious, still whirring around above them, laughing non-stop as loudly and obnoxiously as possible. 

Baby 5 waffled about for a minute but seemed too eager to relay her information to delay for long. “First,” she began with an air of great significance, “there is nothing more important than Family.” 

“Nothing!” echoed Buffalo. 

Law rolled his eyes. “Are you just going to sit here and tell me obvious things?”

“Shhh, listen! You have to remember these!” Baby 5 held up her hand, flicking up two fingers. “Second, you can never draw blood from the Family.” 

“Or else!” cried Buffalo. 

Baby 5’s eyes gleamed. “Or else! I can explain! Do you need me to?”

“No.” Law frowned harder. “If you hurt someone in the Family, they’ll kill you.”

“Doffy will kill you.” Baby 5’s expression turned serious for a split second, regarding Law. “Family’s important to the Young Master. Back to rule one!” She dropped one of her fingers, so just her pointer remained. “And if it’s important to the Young Master, then it’s important to us, but that’s jumping ahead of—”

“I get it, Baby, what’s next?” huffed Law, increasingly annoyed. 

Baby 5 stuck her tongue out, but lifted three fingers this time. “Rule three! Once you’re in, you can’t ever leave the Family.” 

“Why would I want to?” asked Law. 

“Who would want to?” shouted Buffalo, beginning a complicated aerial maneuver and nearly braining himself on a jagged out-of-place pipe. 

“I don’t know.” Baby 5 had a genuine look of puzzlement. “But it would make you a traitor to the Family. If you want to get out, get out before you’re in.” She sounded a bit like she was quoting someone. Maybe Señor Pink. Law couldn’t be sure. 

“I’m not going anywhere.” Law’s hand twitched up but he clenched it in a fist before it could move, holding it tightly to his side. He could feel his hair brushing against his neck, the cool breeze from the oceanside air rustling the fabric of his collar against his words. 

No, Law was not going anywhere. Doffy knew that. He had to. And if he didn’t, Law would prove it, until there was never any doubt ever again.

Buffalo barked out a giant guffaw. “You haven’t met Cora-san yet!” 

Law’s brow wrinkled. 

“That’s right.” Baby 5 nodded, affecting the same pose as a wise old man, legs and arms crossed, a sage look on her face. “If anyone would get you to leave, it’s him! He’ll try! He hates kids!” She paused, head tilted up, looking thoughtful. “He might trip and accidentally squash you first though.” She cracked herself up at that and Buffalo joined in.

“Who—” Law tried to ask but the door burst open above them, Giolla shrieking about damn brats, always late to my wondrous lessons! and Baby 5 and Buffalo scrambled away before imparting any more dubious wisdom (“I’ll tell you the other rules later!” called Baby 5). 

Cora-san. Law rolled the name around in his mouth, turning it this way and that. He didn’t know who it was, hadn’t heard it mentioned before, but already the dislike settled in, fierce and instinctive. 

Law turned, walking through the junk, away from the center of the Donquixote base in search of a weapon. If lessons were starting, Diamante would be out prowling soon enough, eager to carve some scars into Law. Law was steadily improving but that didn’t make the cuts bleed less. 

It was quiet for now. Law located a sword that might last one or two fights and scrambled up onto one of the junk heaps. He cast his gaze out over Spider Miles. 

It was a desolate place and the individuals who lived here were a far cry from the distant memory of home. But, in these past couple of weeks, despite the vicious fighting and the aching pain, despite being pushed beyond his limits and being beaten within an inch of his life, he had found something to hold onto. 

Law looked out to sea. It stretched endlessly, the water glittering under the afternoon sun, not disturbed by the never-ending haze that persisted over Spider Miles. 

Soon enough, Law would die. But until that time, Law was here to stay. He would become a member of the Donquixote Family 

Alone in the junkyard with no one to see, Law brushed his fingers against his words. 

It will hold.

Anyone who tried to stop him, who tried to keep him away from where he was meant to be, would be an enemy.

Law was no stranger to blood. He had never been squeamish, knew how to handle a wound, how to wash it off when it dried, knew when there was too much and what a person looked like with not enough. 

His hand tingled, phantom blood lingering on his fingertips, though he’d scrubbed so furiously he’d nearly bled himself. 

Now he knew what it was like to draw blood when trying to kill someone. 

Doflamingo gestured Law closer. Beside him, very much alive, sat Law’s failed assassination target. 

One step forward. And another. Law ground to a halt, face blank. 

It had been a moment of panic and heady anger. Law couldn’t even finish the job. 

Cora-san will send you away. Cora-san will make you leave. 

The resemblance was staggering. Beyond the shallow similarities of their dress, there was the shock of blond hair, the imposing stature, the set of their jaws, the crackle of strength at their fingers… 

Corazon is Doffy’s younger brother. He’s absent-minded but he’s strong, maybe because of his blood. 

A storm raged in Law’s head. All the old whispered stories of a soulmate killing their other half tumbled about. The mad king who sacrificed his soulmate for power. The soldier who murdered their soulmate on the battlefield. The woman who killed her soulmate from an enemy country to honor her family. The son who slew his soulmate to avenge his father’s murder. 

“Law.” 

Law’s fists tightened. A deep regret flowed through him and just as quickly it was gone, replaced by a numb emptiness. He wished he had proven himself. But he understood. He wondered if there was anyone he wouldn’t kill, if it could save Lami, if it gave him even a chance at having her back by his side. 

(Would even he stoop so low to trade a soulmate for a sister?)

And then Doflamingo continued and Law’s ears buzzed. 

His head jerked up, watching Doflamingo’s mouth form the words Law had been waiting for: “I’m officially welcoming you to the Family.” He glanced at Cora-san, hunched over and face shadowed, not looking his way. 

“But,” Law protested, mind awhirl, and just managed to blurt out something not incriminating, “I’m going to die soon.” His chest was tight, caught between the confused elation of finally being accepted in and the bewildered terror that it was all a trick. 

Doflamingo let out a barking laugh. “We deal with many different businesses. You have three years, you say. In that time, who knows what sort of Devil Fruit we may come across. There are many impossibilities we can get our hands on.” He leaned forward and Law was drawn into his gaze, hidden behind those red glasses as always but ensnaring him nonetheless. For a brief moment, the room fell away. Gone were Giolla and Machvise, muttering in the background. Gone was Corazon, a ticking time bomb. 

It was just the two of them, teetering on an edge. A connection stretched between them, over the yawning distance. Doflamingo felt it too, Law could see, for all that he had kept Law away. Those nights where Law wondered if he had even spoken Doflamingo’s words at all faded fast. He wanted to reach across the abyss and hold tight but he knew he had only taken the first step. 

He met Doflamingo’s gaze firmly. 

It will hold.

Doflamingo’s grin was ravenous. 

And then Cora-san gasped, shattering the hold they had found themselves in. 

“What is it, Corazon?” Doflamingo asked sharply. 

Just like that, the elation in Law’s gut fizzled out and his stomach was awash with dread. He had almost forgotten, in that moment. 

Cora-san attempted to straighten and Law saw blood on his side. A crackling fury cut through the air as Doflamingo stood up, roughly pulling at Cora-san’s black feathered coat. 

“Who did this?” he hissed. The atmosphere in the room was electric. Law’s hair stood on end. With a singular clarity, he accepted this was to be his end. “Who hurt you?”

Cora-san was going to take him away from Doflamingo after all. 

He watched Cora-san shakily pull his notepad out as if the world had turned to molasses or Trebol had sneezed all over the room. As Cora-san wrote, his hands turned steady and he slowly faced Law’s fate towards Doflamingo, black ink scratched on white. 

Even from the distance, the words were clear. 

An enemy. It’s taken care of.

Blood rushed in Law’s ears. He didn’t understand. 

Doflamingo scoffed. “You took care of them? Tch. You need to be careful, little brother.” His hand smoothed over Corazon’s coat. If one didn’t know better, it could almost be mistaken for a gentle touch. Doflamingo’s next words were clipped orders, as Giolla came closer to stare curiously at the red staining Corazon’s shirt, as the room began to disperse, everyone going their own way, as Law’s heart began to slow to a normal tempo but a headache grew, pounding away. 

It was right there in the rules. Baby 5 had told Law from the beginning and Lao G had said so again just the day before. A blood law, that Law had broken. All Corazon had to do was say something. 

But Corazon remained silent. Notebook firmly tucked away, not a word, not a glance, not a single missed step. He hadn’t looked at Law even once. 

Why?! Law despaired furiously. 

It was a question that would not be answered for a very long time. 

Law might have stayed in the hallway forever if he had been given a choice. He lingered far too long in front of the door that seemed to stretch up for miles before he finally knocked, palms clammy. 

“Enter,” came the call.

Donquixote Doflamingo lounged at his desk. As Law entered, he thought the Young Master seemed amused. Abruptly, he realized Doffy had known as soon as Law showed up outside his door and probably counted how long it took him to knock. 

Doflamingo’s voice curled around his name. “Law. Come sit down.” He gestured to the chair set in front of his desk. 

Law took the seat. Doflamingo was reading a book with a blank cover. He lazily turned a page, leaving Law to stew in his chair, alone with Doffy for the first time. 

The room was not too large but it was open, with light streaming in from the window and rows of bookshelves lining the back wall. The huge wooden desk took up a large chunk of the room. There was a suffocating quality in the air, though Law could not pinpoint the source. Perhaps it was simply the oppressive presence that Doffy carried himself with. Perhaps it was Law’s nerves, laying heavy in his chest. Perhaps it was just bad air, wafting in from the junkyard outside. 

The clap of the book as it was shut startled Law. “This book was written by a philosopher who has come to influence many great kings,” said Doffy, leaning forward. He set the book on the desk, hand hovering on the cover. “You read, of course.” 

Law nodded. 

Doffy slid the book towards him. “A man will be judged by the people he surrounds himself with. A sentiment discussed in a later chapter. Often, the first opinion others form are not wholly of you yourself, but of those you associate yourself with. Especially a leader.” One long finger tapped on the book. Doffy’s teeth flashed white. “I expect it will not take you long to read.”

Law shook his head, reaching out to pull the relatively small book against his chest. 

Doffy leaned back again, his long body stretching. “You will be joining lessons with Baby 5 and Buffalo. All the executives have wisdom to impart. You will attend each one and learn.”

Law nodded again, clutching the book closer, determination flourishing. 

“You favor a sword?” 

Law blinked. For a split second, it felt as though his heart stopped. Was Doffy suspicious of Corazon’s wound still? Had he somehow found out? 

Keeping his face blank was a herculean task. Law willed his heart to settle, as he recalled he’d used a sword almost exclusively in his last few brawls with the executives, some of which Doffy had viewed from afar. 

Y-ye-,” Law cleared his throat, “Yes.”

“Speak with conviction, Law. You will have personal sword lessons. Your technique is amateur but you wield the blade with little fear. There is great potential in how you already strike with intent and precision. You could be a great swordsman one day.”

“You could be a great surgeon one day, Law,” and his father had looked so proud. “But never forget, it’s a great responsibility. Every cut matters.”

“People can die from just a single unlucky cut,” Law offered, trying to explain. 

The light caught Doffy’s glasses and they gleamed. 

“Oh? Fufufu, and how do you know that?” 

“My parents were doctors. I used to study medicine with them. I wanted to be one too.” Law’s hands flexed over his thighs, trying to chase away the now painful memories of his father’s guiding hand. 

Doffy stood up abruptly and moved to the bookshelves. He pulled a massive book off and set it on the desk. As he went scouring the shelves, Law squinted at the tome. Essential Anatomy, it read. Another book dropped on top of it. Atlas of Human Anatomy, read this one, and it was followed by Dissection of the Human Body. 

“To start with,” chuckled Doffy. 

A throb of excitement rippled through Law. “Really?” he breathed, pulling the books close. They were monolithic, hundreds upon hundreds of pages each. The book on top was all black aside from the white text of its title and the blood red of a human heart. He had long accepted his days of medicine were behind him, another thing lost in Flevance’s wasteland. 

“We have Family doctors. You will take lessons from them as well.” 

Law smiled. His lips ached as they stretched. He hopped off his chair without even thinking that he hadn’t been dismissed yet, already staggering under the weight of the tomes. 

Doffy laughed. “Knock on my door when you finish.” He loomed over Law and they stared at one another for one electric moment. “I look forward to hearing what you’ve learned, Law.”  

Law shivered at the sound of his name from Doffy’s mouth. 

“I’ll be back,” he promised and left the room to begin reading. 

The island the Family had docked on was in the midst of a massive spring festival. Normally, as Law learned from the play going on in the middle of the market, the island was covered in snow, eleven months out of the year. This was the only time they had to celebrate green grass and flowers and they took advantage of it by having the entire large island crowded in one place. 

Giolla had told the kids to get out from underfoot after Buffalo gained a big bruise from Cora-san tripping over him. Law and Baby 5 had gone scrambling after Buffalo when Cora-san sent him sailing through the air. The Young Master watched them leave, leaning against the railing of their ship. 

The crowds were stifling and the stalls were crowded up against each other, lining the streets, all stocked with food and trinkets and games. It was easy for wandering fingers to grab things unnoticed. 

The kids watched the play for a time before Buffalo got bored and then they squabbled over a target game until the owner yelled at them to leave. There were rumors in the crowd of a fireworks show on one of the beaches that they wanted to go see. But as they traversed through the winding streets, they lost Buffalo in the crowd. 

Baby 5 and Law sought refuge by ducking to the side of a slightly unpopular vendor who glared suspiciously at them. Baby 5 wanted to look for Buffalo and Law told her to go. She demanded he accompany her then cried when he glared. 

“He’s probably just eating ice cream,” sighed Law, exasperated. He turned around in place again, as though Buffalo might magically appear this time. “I’m not wasting my time on him.”  Even having ducked to the side of the street, he kept getting knocked into by the throngs of people passing by.

“I want ice cream!” 

“Then buy some.” 

Baby 5 sulked as Law regarded the moving crowd. He wasn’t exactly thrilled to be here. There were too many people and it wasn’t like stall hopping to taste test all the foods sounded appealing. He’d tried three separate stalls and was already full. 

“Boo,” said Baby 5. 

“He’ll just get back to the ship by himself. It’s not like we’re his babysitters.” 

“Boooooooo!” 

Baby 5 stuck out her tongue and Law stuck his own out before he could help it.

“Let’s just go to the beach. You wanted to see the fireworks, didn’t you? Buffalo might even be going there on his own.”

“I guess.” Baby 5 looked despondent. “But you’re so mean! You’re just abandoning him!”

“He abandoned us first!” 

“He needs us to find him!”

“He doesn’t need us at all! He can just fly back! We’re stuck on the ground!” 

“You don’t have a heart!”

“You don’t have a heart!” 

“Waaah, you’re so mean!” 

“You’re mean!” 

“Your face is so scary!”

“Your face is more scary!” 

“Are you kids lost?”

Their argument died. A man had stopped by the vendor, stepping outside the flow of the crowd to peer down at them.

“No,” said Law instinctively. Baby 5 sniffled beside him. 

“Awww, is he being mean to you, sweetheart?” the man asked her. He was well put together, nicely dressed with coiffed brown hair. 

“Yes,” Baby 5 pouted. 

“Now why would you do that?” the man asked Law, without taking his eyes off Baby 5. 

“We’re fine,” said Law quickly. He grasped Baby 5’s hand who looked down, surprised. “We’re just going home.” 

“So soon? Awww, that sucks. There’s a lot to do on this island still. Lots of fun activities. Say, you two wouldn’t happen to have some free time, would ya? I got a stall overflowing with customers and I’m off to resupply. Could really use some help. A couple capable kids like yourself is just what I need. I’ve got food for—”

“We’re fine!” said Law again, trying to pull Baby 5 away but it was too late. 

“You need me?” Baby 5’s eyes shined. “I can help!” 

“Baby, let’s go,” Law hissed. 

The man barked with laughter. “Baby? Yeah, you’re just what I need, Baby.” He extended his hand out. Baby 5 dropped Law’s own lightning fast and reached out to grasp the stranger’s. 

“Baby, we need to go back,” Law tried desperately but she was already in step with the man, stars in her eyes and Law had no choice but to follow. 

It was difficult, pushing his way through the crowd to keep up with them both. He kept his eyes locked on the man’s head. He wore a loose tank top and his black words stood out on his neck. You this cute with all the girls?

The man led them to a side street off the beaten road. The sounds of the crowds and merriment faded fast. It was a stark contrast, walking down the nearly entirely abandoned cobblestone path. The man opened a nondescript door, just like any other, and shouted, “Honey, I’m home,” as he walked inside. 

Law hurried after them, having not felt so helpless since his country burned. 

A woman met them inside. She looked haphazard, all angles and frizz where the man was ironed and pressed. 

For a moment, Law wondered if he had misread the situation. If maybe the man really did just need some help with the stall and had yet to learn to tone down his creep factor. 

The woman examined Baby 5, combing over her little black curls and perfect red bow and dimpled smile. Her eyes were dead. When she turned to the man, Law caught sight of black words on her neck. Hey lovely, what are you doing for sex later?

Danger screamed from all corners. The man released Baby 5’s hand and drifted up to her neck. Law was frozen, unable to do anything to help. Desperately, he wished Doffy was here. 

“Baby,” he tried one last time, “we should go.” His hands shook. 

Baby 5 looked back at him and he searched desperately for any hint of apprehension in her but found none. “He needs me, Law,” she said, like she was letting him down gently. 

Behind her, the woman grimaced. Panic erupted in Law’s chest. 

Later, he could not say how long they were in that room. It felt like hours, maybe even days, but the reality must have been only minutes. He had been rooted to the ground in horror, seconds ticking by like a broken clock that never moved, his neck tingling something fierce and a deep pit in his gut, when the door crashed open. 

What Law would remember in vivid detail for the rest of his life, was not the woman who watched the entire proceedings as though detached from reality, nor the man who had rot in his brain and venom in his veins and a sickness deep in his heart, but Baby 5, who only cried when Doffy pulled her away. 

Baby 5 wept, “But he needs me!” 

“The Family needs you more,” replied Doffy and it was a kindness. 

Baby 5 gasped and stopped crying, face turned up to Doffy with worshipful adoration. It only strengthened as the strings came out and the screams began. She went to stand by Law when Doffy ordered her to move, this time clutching Law’s hand tightly in her own. 

The man had not gotten far, had barely touched her in the end, but her dress was slightly askew and the ribbon on her head was completely out of place. The scent of blood filled the air and when Baby 5 leaned forward eagerly, her neck was bare. 

Law stared. Despite the massacre happening in the background, he could not look away. He had seen many soul words in his time, beautiful black and devastating gray. He’d seen ribbons and tattoos, collars and necklaces, all designed to cover the marks. Baby’s own outfit strategically covered her words, with the high collar and long hair and ribbon tied at her nape. But it was naked now, the skin on her neck. All too naked because there was nothing there. 

Law’s hand spasmed in her grip. She didn’t notice, too busy drinking in the scene that had faded from Law’s periphery. 

It’s a curse, proclaimed Sister. The stars, the universe, God has forsaken that person. They are a broken soul. They have no other half. How horrific, to be someone so terribly alone, that Fate has deemed unworthy. Turn away should you find someone with a bare neck. Their souls are black. The stars have no love for them. 

The sounds died down. All that remained was a gruesome wet gurgling. “He needs me,” Baby 5 breathed, eyes bright, and her hand slipped from Law’s as she went to Doffy as if pulled by strings. 

Mother frowned when Law asked. Her hand clasped her neck, an unconscious motion of reassurance. It’s a tragedy, she explained. To be fated by the stars to be so dreadfully alone… how could it not be a curse? 

Father’s hand slid over hers. “Something to be pitied, I think,” he said and bent to kiss her close.

Baby 5 walked past the eviscerated dead woman, feet scuffing the blood across the floor until she stood before Doffy who bent down to draw her in. Baby 5 disappeared into the pink feathers falling around her. Doffy rose with her nearly hidden in his coat and he stepped over the trash who lay drowning in his own blood. 

Doffy stopped in front of Law and through those impenetrable lenses, their eyes met. An indescribable emotion bubbled up in Law’s throat. A hand landed heavily on his head, pushing his eyes to the floor for a moment before tugging him back up so he couldn’t look away. 

Doffy’s hand was huge, no trace of blood. His fingers curled possessively in Law’s hair. 

“Let’s go,” said Doffy and released him, leaving through the front door. 

Law breathed, just for a moment, in that stale room down a dark street where they should never ever have been. The room was not yet silent though it would be soon enough. 

Inexplicably, Law knew Doffy had found the two of them through him. He could not say how. The tingling in his neck had died away but there was an urgent pull to follow Doffy home. So Law collected his hat which had fallen out of range of the pools of blood and did just that. 

Not long after that incident, Doffy walked Law through his first kill. It was different than the attempted assassination Doffy would never know about. There was no heady passion, no surge of impulsive desires made manifest through violence. It was very deliberate. A pathetic, sniveling man who had turned against the Family and thought he could get away with it until he was tied to a chair before Donquixote Doflamingo. A knife, all too similar to a surgeon’s scalpel, handed over with weighted expectation. 

Law had seen the Family’s business by now. He grasped the knife and his hands were steady as he sliced the man’s throat. It was quick, in the end. 

Doffy hummed his approval and his hand curled around Law’s neck, right over his words. “Good,” he said, and Law heard, Next time you’ll be even better. 

Sometimes, in the secret emptiness of night, Law wondered about his parents and what they might think of Doffy. And, in the loudest and darkest of nights, what they might think of Law. 

But then he would remember how they died, how their words turned gray, how long Flevance burned, how Lami’s body shook as Law helped her to the closet, how trusting she was as he left her to her ashen end, and he decided it didn’t matter. 

After the first kill, Doffy began bringing Law along to the Family business. The executives side-eyed Law at the beginning of Doffy’s blatant favoritism. Law had long figured out no one knew they were soulmates. He had never seen his words on Doffy’s neck, usually covered by the massive pink feathered coat. Perhaps Doffy had covered them long ago. Perhaps he wore a patch over them. The executives had been with Doffy a long time and Law wondered if they had ever seen the black words written there. 

I want to destroy everything.  

What did Doffy think about the words etched in his skin?

Law wondered if he loved Doffy. What Doffy felt about him. What being a soulmate really meant and what they were supposed to be.  But that wasn’t how they worked. He and Doffy were not like Law’s parents. They were different. Maybe one day, Law could ask Doffy what he thought, poke at his brain, draw out some truths. For now, he settled with the chats in Doffy’s rooms, the exchange of books, trailing behind him on business, being by his side. 

Law overheard Diamante complaining to Trebol that Doffy was allowing Law too much. “What does he see in that brat?”

Trebol snorted, his normal disgusting sound, and then said, “I think the Young Master sees himself in the boy.” He sounded perturbed at such a thing. 

Diamante scoffed and voiced more complaints but Law left before he could get caught and beaten up. 

As the days passed into weeks and months, then a year and then two, Doffy allowed Law ever closer to his side. It was funny, how life changed. Eventually, Law realized it had been days since he thought of Lami, or his parents, of Flevance and all he lost. Instead, his mind was filled with Doffy, of Baby 5 and Buffalo, of the Family and their antics. Giolla’s uncomfortable attempts of mothering and Lao G’s endless lessons, Señor Pink’s advice, Gladius’s impatience, and Diamante’s ego. Of Trebol’s irritating presence and Machvise’s loud laughs, of Pica’s ridiculous voice and Cora-san’s clumsy frame. Law’s days were filled with sword practice and medicine, of arguing with the other kids and following Doffy when he got a chance, of Family business and Family fun. But sometimes, it felt like Law’s chest was scraped hollow, as Doffy pulled further and further beyond his reach, a carefully crafted distance Law could not hope to cross. 

Law asked Doffy only once what he wanted from him. Not long after that first kill, after overhearing Diamante and Trebol, when Law was reading a newly published medical book quietly across from Doffy’s desk, he asked. 

Doffy lowered his own book. He was leaning back in his chair, legs stretched over the desk and sunlight filtered in, the sea breeze salty. “I’ll raise you to be my right-hand man, Law. You are going to be beside me for it all.” 

A promise. Law nodded. They returned to their respective books. 

I’m supposed to die soon, he thought to himself, turning the pages. He grew paler as the white patches on his skin grew outward. The last remembrance of whence he came. But he felt almost calm. Doffy was offering him what Law wanted most. Revenge on the cruel inhabitants of the world, a chance to destroy those who had dared turn a blind eye on Law’s wrecked home. 

What more could Law possibly need? This was enough. He would earn every inch of his place by his soulmate’s side. 

There was nowhere else in the world he was meant to be. 

Four bodies lay limp in the warehouse with a fifth strung up, struggling for air. 

“You have a son, do you not?” asked Doffy casually. His strings were nearly invisible, barely catching in the dim light, hanging like silvery spiderwebs. 

The man garbled something low and gasped when the string cut into his skin at the movement. Doffy chuckled and flicked a finger. The man’s head was forced forward. 

“And a soulmate,” Doffy observed. 

Diamante leaned forward to read the black words. “I’ve had to live with that sentence on my neck my whole life, you bastard.” 

A titter throughout the room. 

“Maybe he won’t be missed,” suggested Gladius, sounding equally bored and restless. 

The strings flickered into view as Doffy’s fingers deliberately twitched. “No. He’ll be missed.” His voice rose. “Law.” 

Law jerked up and came to stand beside Doffy and the gasping man. 

“Did you finish that book?”

Law wasn’t sure which book Doffy meant but he’d finished them all so he nodded. 

Doffy’s grin split his face. “How many cuts until a man bleeds out?” 

Ah. That one. “A human can survive over 3000 cuts.”

“And how long will they live?” 

Law looked at the man, dangling like a puppet, a bug trapped in a predator’s web. “Up to three days.” 

Doffy’s hand landed on Law’s shoulder and he squeezed. Law’s body subconsciously turned towards Doffy, seeking the validation as pride surged through him. Doffy approved. The strings glittered in the gloom. 

The Family was in town on business. The man and his posse had made the poor choice of trying to cheat the Donquixote Family out of their fair share. They were just a small part of a much larger gang on this island and the Family was making it explicitly clear how they dealt with anyone who crossed them. 

The port town was bustling but seemed wary of pirates and Doffy had told them all to keep close. Marines had been spotted not too far away and the Family was in the process of decimating one of the local gangs which usually caused some upset. 

Unfortunately, the Family had been on sea for several weeks and back on the ship, tempers were running high. Tracking down the initial members of the gang and stringing them up helped to ease some tension but the ship felt unusually small these days. Only docked for a couple days, and they all needed air. 

“Get these brats out from under foot,” Giolla squawked when Buffalo knocked over her newly purchased perfume. 

Dellinger picked up a shard of glass and began chewing on it. 

Pica hit his head coming into the room and Baby 5 looked like she was about to burst trying not to laugh. 

The executive meeting room was stuffy and suffocating. The dim warehouse they had been in the day before seemed almost inviting in comparison.

Law, in the middle of a game of chess with Doffy, glared down at Dellinger who was crawling around his feet, looking for more glass and bumping into the table. 

“Corazon,” Doffy called, sitting back. “Keep an eye on them.”

“Booo,” yelled Baby 5. Siccing Cora-san on them usually meant Doffy was highly annoyed. Cora-san was no fun at all. 

Corazon stood up, ambling towards Buffalo who shrieked and ran outside, followed by a whooping Baby 5. 

Law watched them go and turned back to the board, only to be stopped by Doffy’s look. “I’m not being annoying,” he complained. “You said you were going to discuss the next steps.”

“Get out of here,” said Lao G, hovering behind him and waiting to snap up Law’s chair the instant he gave it up. “G, there’s the G!”

“Go,” said Doffy, moving his piece. Law stared at the board. He’d just been checkmated. “You’ll join later.” He smiled with his teeth. “Bring some creative ideas.”

With an exaggerated sigh, Law slid out of his chair. It was claimed immediately as he went outside.

Law frowned up at the sun, far too bright on this island, scratching at his left arm where the biggest white patch lay. He was significantly paler these days, the patches growing out of control. 

Baby 5 and Buffalo were waiting for him. They took off for town, trading laughter when Cora-san tripped his way down the gangplank. Unfortunately, for all the man’s clumsiness, he was an excellent watch and caught up to them in no time. 

The kids wandered for a bit, keeping an eye on their silent babysitter. The port town’s crowds seemed to have a sense of hostility about them. Law wondered if the man in the warehouse was still alive, bleeding to death, or if he’d long died. It had been nearly 24 hours since the first cut but he knew Gladius and Machvise had gone back to check a couple times. They’d extracted good information from him, before he became too incoherent. Señor Pink and Diamante were out looking for more members right now. Doffy’s promise of Law’s involvement echoed in his ears. Law smirked, creative ideas already forming. 

“The park!” Buffalo called. “Let’s go to the park!” 

“The park, the park,” chanted Baby 5. “Law, let’s go.”

Law informed them, “The park is dumb.” Baby 5 wailed that he was mean and promptly got over it when Law followed them anyway. 

It was a park right on the water, cobblestones lining the paths, decorated by rows of sturdy pine trees. The kids settled by the water, messing around, while Cora-san took a seat a distance away. They could almost forget he was even there. 

Baby 5 and Buffalo got into a daring match about who could balance right on the edge of the water. Both Cora-san and Law were nearby so there was no danger if they fell in, but Law loudly informed them he would not bother rescuing them if they did. 

It grew boring quickly. Law lounged on the stone wall, wishing Buffalo really would fall in. He distracted himself by imagining all sorts of scenarios that might make Doffy grin and tried to guess how many gang members they would round up by the end. 

The Donquixote Family name was growing ever larger these days. More eyes were on them. More recruits turned away and more Marine encounters than ever. 

“Ugh,” said Baby 5, after Buffalo wavered but then righted himself. “This sucks!”

“Ne ne ne,” taunted Buffalo, sticking out his tongue. “Toldja I wouldn’t fall! Buy me candy!”

“No way! Let’s play something else.” Baby 5 pursed her lips, pondering. They’d exhausted nearly all their games in the past few weeks at sea. But then she brightened, and exclaimed, “Oh, I have an idea! Let’s exchange real names!”

Cora-san’s voice was low and rich. There was a timbre in it similar to Doffy’s but smooth where Doffy’s was harsh. 

His words were a blow, a sledgehammer straight to the skull. 

“You’ve been lying to Doffy?” asked Law numbly. 

“He assumed I was mute. I never said otherwise.” 

“That’s the same as lying!” 

Cora-san snapped his fingers. The street noise dissipated to nothing. Law started back at the sudden silence. 

“You—wha—?”

A cat darted past chasing a rat. Its mouth was open in a snarl but no noise released. It was eerie, as though all sounds in the universe besides the breath in Law’s lungs had been sucked through a vacuum. 

Cora-san lowered his hand. “No one can hear us. Just as we can’t hear them. Think of it as a barrier around us. Like we’re in a room where no sound can penetrate in or out.”

Law realized, “You’re a Devil Fruit user.” And then, after a beat, “Doffy doesn’t know.” 

No one knew. The Young Master’s little brother, clumsy Corazon, executive of the Donquixote Family, holder of the Heart seat, supernaturally strong but strangely hapless at times. Ever silent, prowling at his brother’s side and tripping on cracks in the sidewalk.  

Law could scarcely believe it. “You’re keeping secrets from the Family?”

Cora-san breathed in the smoke from his cigarette slowly. “What I’m trying to do is keep my older brother from losing control.” His gaze went distant. “Our parents were soft-hearted. Too soft-hearted in some ways. I wonder sometimes, how Doffy was born from them. He has no humanity.”

Law inhaled sharply. 

Cora-san zeroed back on him. “That name… the secret name, ‘D.’ Trafalgar D. Water Law…” He shook his head. “There’s no mistaking it, you’re a part of them. The fated family of D.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Law. His heart rate was beginning to speed up. The familiar thrum of anger began brewing under his skin. 

“Growing up, Doffy and I used to be told stories about ‘D.’ When we were kids and we misbehaved, we were warned that we better be good or we would be eaten up by D. I used to cry myself to sleep at night thinking I would be gobbled up.”

Law’s heart hammered ever louder in his chest. In the unnatural silence around them, it was thunderous. “What are you saying? That I’m some kind of…of what?”

“I don’t know what you are. But, there are some who call the Family of D, ‘the sworn enemies of the gods.’”

The ash from Cora-san’s cigarette trickled to the ground. The silence around them was oppressive. 

“D will bring another storm,” murmured Cora-san, almost to himself. 

None of what Cora-san was saying made any sense. None of this made any sense. Law felt like he had just been dropped on some strange alien island. Just minutes ago he was messing around with Baby 5 and Buffalo and now he’s been kidnapped by Corazon who was speaking, talking out loud, spouting nonsense. Law almost felt he was dreaming except not even in his dreams could he have imagined something like this. 

The blood rushing in his ears and the organ thumping in his chest were near deafening. 

He couldn’t understand what Cora-san was saying about “D,” about families and gods and storms. What he could understand was the simple truth in front of him.

“So you’re lying to Doffy,” he summarized. “To the Family.”

Cora-san tensed. “What I’m saying is it’s dangerous for you, Law. Your name, ‘D,’ it’s dangerous. You can’t ever tell anyone. If Doffy finds out…” he shook his head. “Law, you have to get out of here!” 

You haven’t met Cora-san yet. If anyone would get you to leave, it’s him! 

Things were different now, three years on from Corazon’s original attempts to be rid of Law. Law knew who he was now. Knew who he was meant to be, with Doffy. Cora-san didn’t know, of course, anymore than anyone else knew. All these years later, all this time spent with the Family, and Doflamingo’s lying little brother was still trying to chase his soulmate away, none the wiser that Law couldn’t be fooled. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” he declared. “I’m exactly where I want to be.” 

Cora-san grabbed his shoulders tightly. “You don’t understand the danger you’re in!” He shook Law, fingers digging deep bruises. “Doffy’s a monster!” 

The words stabbed at Law’s heart. As though punctured by a knife, an overflow of raging fury washed through him. 

“Traitor!” he hissed. A toxic loathing bubbled up. “You’re betraying the Family! I’m going to tell Doffy everything.” 

The cigarette dropped from Cora-san’s painted lips. Law took deep satisfaction from the look on Cora-san’s face as he realized how much trouble he was in. 

Cora-san was quick but in this moment, Law was quicker. He dodged past the grab and put all his weight to driving his elbow into Cora-san’s temple. Cora-san grunted at the impact and wavered back, then slipped on his own feet and came crashing down. 

Fueled with adrenaline, Law shot past him and out the alley where he’d been dragged. 

The onslaught of noise was beyond cacophonous. Law staggered, overwhelmed by the sudden multitude of voices, the clatter and clamor of the streets, the birds and the wind and the rustle of cloth. 

But Corazon would recover in no time at all. Law shook it off and raced down the street, trying to gain his bearings. 

Baby 5 and Buffalo found him, ever nosy and inquisitive. He would never admit he relaxed when they did, secure with the safety in numbers. Cora-san could hardly get rid of all three of them that easily. They were easily dissuaded from further prodding with ice cream. Law’s mind was awhirl as they made their way back to the ship. 

Doffy would be upset. Corazon was Family. Law could see it already, the frown pinching Doffy’s brow, the deep downturn of his mouth, the vein throbbing in his head. Law wondered what Doffy would do. He would punish Cora-san of course. He had lied. But he was still Doffy’s little brother. 

He would be proud of Law though. He would put his heavy head on Law’s head or his shoulder and would squeeze tight, maybe smile a special grin just for Law, and Law’s heart would burn. 

“Why do you look so happy?” asked Baby 5, licking her ice cream. 

“Leave me alone!” Law snapped. 

Baby 5 hid behind Buffalo, tears in her eyes. 

The Numancia Flamingo poked its head above the horizon, a garish bright ship standing proud in the water. Some of the Family were already boarded, looking slightly harried. Corazon was nowhere in sight. Law wondered if he had run. 

It wouldn’t matter. The Family always caught their traitors, in the end. Corazon knew that. 

In this moment, preparing to defend the Family from a rat, Law felt almost giddy. He walked up to the Numancia proudly, remembering when he first boarded it, still so nervous and unsure of his place amongst the others. 

Of course, he’d had reason to be wary then. 

Law ground to a halt. Like earlier, when all the sound had faded in an instant, his elation vanished in a blink. 

It had been so long ago now. 

“Who hurt you?” demanded Doffy and Law knew he would kill him, soulmate or not. Cora-san raised Law’s death sentence in his hand and Law almost missed what Doffy said from the white noise in his head. “You took care of them? Tch. You need to be careful, little brother.” And his touch almost seemed gentle.

Cora-san never looked at Law once. Not then and not after, not for days while Law waited for the other shoe to drop. Law waited and waited until he almost forgot it happened at all.

Law owed him nothing. It didn’t matter, shouldn’t matter. Cora-san was a traitor to the Family. And the first rule Baby 5 said all those many moons ago was clear. 

There was nothing more important than Family. 

Baby 5 paused at the top of gangplank, turning back to call to him in confusion. 

Law should just go up and tell Doffy. He would believe him. Even if there were doubts amongst the Family, Cora-san had a Devil Fruit. Just toss him in the ocean and he would sink like an anchor. Law knew that now and soon so would everyone else. 

He’s a traitor, Law would proclaim, and Doffy would step in front of Law, shielding him from the man who had tried to take him away. 

Both Baby 5 and Buffalo were peering curiously at him now. Buffalo waved a hand wildly, trying to get his attention. 

Doffy’s a monster!

Law frowned ferociously at them both and Baby 5 yelped, scurrying away chanting about his glare. “Scary!” she shrieked and Buffalo guffawed. Law made his way up slowly, wondering where Doffy was. 

The knife had gone in so smoothly. There was scarcely an easier target than someone’s turned back. 

Never forget what you wield, Law. 

Law reached the top, stepping onto the ship. Doffy stood at the stern in a tense discussion with Señor Pink. There was a flurry of activity on board. Doffy turned his head towards Law, watching. Waiting. 

Law paused. Doffy’s gaze was heavy. 

“Come here, Law!” yelled Baby 5. “Diamante stubbed his toe!” 

“Silly!” cheered Buffalo. “Looks so silly!” 

Diamante roared in anger. 

“All you damn brats better be helping!” came Giolla’s shrill cry from below.

Law broke Doffy’s stare and went over to where Baby 5 was pointing and laughing at Diamante. 

Just this once. One pass. Cora-san, the traitor, would reveal himself soon enough anyway. Maybe Law would even be the one to catch him again. If he came back, Law would be watching. More than likely, Cora-san would flee and Law would help find him then. 

A debt repaid. That was all.

Law woke up to salt water filling his mouth and coarse rope tying him to a mast. Black feathers filled his vision and Law tried to shout above the tempestuous winds. 

Corazon promised, “I’m going to find you a cure,” without even turning to look at Law. 

Never before had a decision turned around so quickly to slap Law in the face. 

On the first night, Law cried in silence. His arms were still tied. Cora-san had tried to make him comfortable but gave up after Law kept kicking him. The tears flowed in the darkest of nights, no moon in the sky. 

Not forgotten but faded, those memories of being so utterly reviled. 

Doffy had never tolerated such a thing. One askance look and the strings came out. It had lulled Law into false security. He could walk tall and proud beside Doflamingo. 

Cora-san shifted in his sleep and Law seethed. 

The hospitals may have burned but Cora-san brought him there in the first place. 

“Doffy will look for me,” he informed Cora-san in the harsh light of the morning. 

Cora-san frowned and accepted Doffy’s call later that day. Law tried to yell but Cora-san silenced him and he could only hang in defeat, listening to Doffy’s distant voice. 

“You think you’ll find a cure in these Northern hospitals?” scoffed Doffy. The den den mushi’s face twisted. 

A single finger tapped away.

Doffy was silent a moment. “So be it. I’ll indulge you for now, Corazon.” Law tried to shriek but of course, no sound came out. “You’ll come when I call.”

The den den mushi slumped down with a ker-chuck. 

Law went limp in disbelief. That was it. Doffy was leaving him with his lunatic traitor of a younger brother who was carefully tucking away the only form of communication with the Family in his overgrown coat. 

Visceral regret swirled in Law’s gut. That’s just what he got for trying to do something nice. 

Cora-san dragged him kicking and screaming to the next hospital. It went up in flames in less than an hour. 

It was days later that Law lay awake under the bright stars, wishing he was back on the Numancia and tracing stark white patches of skin. They had grown exponentially now, covering the dwindling healthy skin. 

He wondered how often Doffy looked for Devil Fruits. Law was not heavily involved in the Family’s fruit dealings, but he knew Doffy kept an eye out for one that may solve his problem. 

His finger combed over a large patch on his forearm. It was one of the first that ever formed, a small dot about the size of a mole by the time he noticed it. Now it covered half his arm, blending in with other patches that had formed over time. 

Law had long accepted that he would die at thirteen. The promise of a Devil Fruit with a perfect answer seemed an impossible dream. He had always known that. 

It occurred to him suddenly, that perhaps Doffy had finally come to realize Law was running out of time. 

Law reached back and brushed his fingers over the words on his neck. Sorry, Doffy, he thought, rolling to look up at the twinkling stars. 

No one deserved soul words that turned gray. 

A few weeks in, Cora-san set himself on fire. Law helped him put it out and didn’t feel any remorse when he stomped on his fingers. Accidentally.

Cora-san shrugged out of his oversized coat. “Whew!” He fanned himself. He looked like an idiot. 

“You’re an idiot,” Law informed him. 

Cora-san gasped and clutched his heart and nearly knocked himself out of his seat. 

Law rolled his eyes and grumpily stirred the rice. He’d taken over the cooking. It was better for all involved. 

As he sat upright, Cora-san chuckled to himself. Law scowled at him, getting the sense Cora-san was finding him amusing, for some reason beyond Law’s comprehension. Law tried ignoring him as the bastard moved around, but the more he scowled at the rice, the more amused Cora-san seemed to get. Fed up, he shot a vicious glare over only to stop short with a sharp intake of breath, eyes wide.

Cora-san paused, in the middle of adjusting his shirt. 

“Sorry,” muttered Law, whipping back to the rice. 

On edge, he remained highly attuned to the movements rustling behind him. 

“It’s okay,” said Cora-san, after a moment. He walked into Law’s peripheral, taking a seat by the fire and Law instinctively shoved the buffoon’s foot away before it came too close to the flames. 

For a time, the only sounds were the crackle of sparks and bubbling of boiling water. 

“I never met them.” 

Law looked up. Cora-san’s face had dancing shadows. The shirt was fixed but he hadn’t put his coat back on. He looked equally less weighed down and more tired for it. 

“They’ve been gray for as long as I can remember. My parents said they were black when I was born but they turned gray sometime in my first year.”

You and me, we’re in this together. 

A breeze tickled Law’s neck. Instinctively, he reached back and brushed a hand over his black words, then caught himself. Red-faced, he jerked his hand back down. 

Cora-san caught the movement and smiled at him. He did that a lot these days, Law noticed. Corazon had always been a glum, lurking figure. But now, even through Law’s repeated insults and abuse, he smiled day after day. 

“Don’t worry. I would never begrudge someone their words. I’ve had a long time to come to terms with it.” Leaning back on his arms, he looked up at the sky. “When I was a child, I used to be so jealous of Doffy who had black words and scarcely seemed to care.”

The stirring halted. 

“I wanted to know my other half so much. It felt deeply unfair that I would never be given a chance. Would never know what my words would be to him or her or whoever they were. How we were supposed to meet. What they sounded like when they laughed. I used to wonder if it would not have been better to be born with no words at all.” 

As Cora-san fell silent, he reached back and traced the faded words on his neck.

“Do you?”

Cora-san twitched. “Do I what?”

“Think it would have been better to have no words?”

“Hah!” Cora-san’s hand dropped and he leaned forward, resting on it. “Some might. But I’m glad I have them. An old saying, you know. Better to have loved and lost than not loved at all.” 

Law frowned. “I’ve never heard that.” For the first time in a long time, Lami’s face flashed in his mind. It was fuzzy. He couldn’t be sure what color her eyes were. 

“Someone very dear to me told me that when I needed to hear it most.” Cora-san’s mouth turned up again. Doffy smiled a lot too. They both tended to smile with their teeth, but Doffy’s were all angles, every centimeter of height signifying a warning of how to react. Cora-san’s were all in, huge rounded grins, unafraid in their boldness. “I hope you never have to feel your words turn gray. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But I know you’ll make someone very happy someday, Law.” ” 

Law blinked. Then frowned and looked away. 

“Did Doffy never want a soulmate?”

Cora-san sounded surprised. “Oh, well, he never didn’t want one. Doffy has always had a strong sense of destiny and a soulmate is a part of that. It just didn’t matter much to him when he was young but I think, as he grew older, well… Doffy likes people. Likes surrounding himself with people.” His tone harshened. “Likes using people. I imagine a soulmate would be an especially useful tool.” 

It was fortunate the rice boiled over right then. The chaos raised distracted them both and when Law went to sleep that night, he carefully thought of nothing at all. 

Weeks turned to months. Cora-san dragged him to hospital after hospital, smile never wavering, though with each disgusted cry, each horrified gasp, each doctor and nurse who turned them away, his eyes dimmed. His temper erupted each time, violence flowing from his limbs, and then he’d take Law and leave, promising the next would be different. 

The next never was. 

In the in-betweens, it was just the two of them. On the road or on the sea. During this time, Cora-san had cracked open his own shell. Though Law had known Corazon for over two years, it was like that man was a stranger. Somedays, he could barely remember what Corazon used to be. Cora-san was a wholly different beast. He told bad jokes and tried his best to impress Law (Law made sure to never be impressed), suffered scrapes and bruises, kept Law tucked close when the night grew too cold. Cora-san was careful with his touches, never pushing too far, but each one was warm. A hand on the back to steady Law after stepping off the boat. A poke to the cheek, trying to encourage a grin. An emanating heat by Law’s side, protecting him from the harsh elements. 

Cora-san cried for Law, when he thought Law couldn’t hear. More than once, desperately wishing Law would be okay, would stop hurting. 

Law never told him he heard. He always lay quiet, listening, his own pain flayed open, long banished to the empty abyss in the back of his mind but always present. 

Every morning, Law would look to the sea and think of Doffy, feel the breeze against his neck. Was Doffy ever thinking of him? Was he looking so desperately for a cure like Cora-san? 

“Why do you care so much?” asked Law, after one particularly brutal day. The whole town had chased them out, terror on their faces. Cora-san had carried Law as they ran, protecting him from the projectiles. 

There was a small gash on Cora-san’s cheek. His back was bruised but he waved Law off earlier when he tried to see. Law had gotten mad and then was swept up in Cora-san’s arms, being gushed over for being so cute. 

Law delivered another bruise in revenge. 

Now, far from the town, protected by a bundle of trees with Cora-san sitting by his side, it was calm. Law felt like he was on another island, one where violence couldn’t live. He felt safe.

Cora-san said simply, “You deserve to live, Law.” 

Did he? Law could not be sure. Why did he deserve to live when his parents had died? Why should he live when Lami was so long gone? Why Law out of everyone in Flevance? Why him out of everyone who suffered in the world? 

“What do you want from me?” Law groused. 

Cora-san’s smile was soft, just a quirk of his lips. “I want you to be happy. I want you to be free.” 

Happy? Free?

Law frowned up at the leaves rustling overhead. The light from the darkening sky peeked through the branches, pink-orange spots amongst the dark green. 

“I was where I wanted to be,” he said. He didn’t dare look at Cora-san, not as the silence stretched on. Somehow, his defense sounded weak, almost uncertain. Cora-san didn’t respond. After a time, they both lay down, watching the colors in the sky fade to inky blue.

Cora-san was a traitor, Law reminded himself. When Doffy called, they would return. Law would have to watch Cora-san and report back to Doffy. Would have to explain the months of traveling with him, how his voice sounded, what his Devil Fruit did. 

There was a lump in Law’s throat. 

Belatedly, he wondered what Cora-san would say if he knew the truth about Law. Cora-san had long made his stance on Doffy very clear. 

Law’s heart sunk to his stomach. He hadn’t even considered it, too pissed off at Corazon at the beginning and then too flabbergasted at his new set of circumstances, and then fragilely hopeful that maybe, just maybe…

Cora-san, as always, was trying to get Law away from Doffy. A side mission on this quest to save Law’s life. 

Doffy’s a monster!

So what would he want for Law if he knew? 

Law resolved to never find out.

He pushed those thoughts far away. Instead, he wondered about his parents. They came to mind more these days—after months upon months of not allowing himself to think of them—as the weakness in his body grew heavier and the deathly white crept further. About what they might think of Law. Where he was, what he did, who he had become. About Doffy, about the Family, about the life he lived. 

What would they think about Cora-san? 

Law glanced over, as discreetly as he could. Cora-san was still awake, hands latched behind his head, gazing up at the trees. His long limbs stretched out, a massive giant beside Law and the average Northerner. His shirt, covered with hearts, was wrinkly. The feathers from his coat brushed his cheeks. The make-up under his eye had smudged during their flight from the town. Law had no idea what his face was like without the colors. He looked like a clown. 

An inexplicable ache formed in Law’s chest. He darted his eyes away, before Cora-san could catch him staring. 

Who could say what his parents would think of Law? But perhaps, just maybe, they would have liked Cora-san. 

Doffy called with news of a Devil Fruit. His voice held a ring of victory, keenly pleased. “Come home,” he said pointedly and Law’s salvation was in reach. 

“Then we’ll leave,” said Cora-san. “Find an island just for us.” 

The plan, for all the dangers lurking at every corner, was straightforward. A triple-cross, betraying the Donquixote Family, the Marines, and the Barrels Pirates. A Devil Fruit, intended for Cora-san who could not eat it, would instead be given to Law who would use it to save his own life. And then…

An empty chill slithered past the burn of Law’s fever. Suddenly, he could not bear to look at Cora-san. He turned away, body shaking, and stared out to the water. “I can’t,” he said numbly. 

Cora-san continued, voice pitched to a reassuring tone. “It’ll be okay, Law. They won’t find us. Not Doffy, not the marines, not anyone.” 

Law saw it all too clearly, though. The all constant wavering black spots in his vision faded away. 

He would find them. He would find Law. Fate had woven an invisible string that Doffy would follow across the land, across the waters, across distance and time. He would find Law because Law was his.

“He’s my soulmate,” he confessed to the quiet evening air, to the breeze that felt like pinpricks on his skin, to the ocean waves pulsing against the cliff, to the fiery gold and red colors of the horizon. 

The gentle noises of dusk carried on despite the deathly silence behind him. Law stared at the brilliant, darkening sky, not daring to turn his head. 

His words burned on his neck. 

There were rocks at the bottom of the cliff, sharpened by constant restless waves. Law watched the white sea foam bloom in the air and fade to nothing, a dizzying pattern. He felt Cora-san move in behind him, felt his eyes boring into him, at the dark marks on his skin that spelled the truth of his soul. 

It would be a mercy to die here, thought Law, vision still clear for the first time in weeks. 

Cora-san’s hand settled on his shoulder and a featherlight thumb brushed over his words. Law stared down as the waves crashed violently against the earthen wall, oddly relaxed, and waited. 

Briefly, Cora’s grip tightened and then his hand slid down past Law’s neck and over his chest to grip at his waist. For one bewildered moment, Law thought Cora-san was going to leap off the cliffside with him, just to make certain he would die. But he can’t swim, flew through Law’s mind, before he was drawn back, away from the cliff and away from the waves into Cora-san’s strong arms, as black feathers fell around him, blocking out the cold air, and he sunk deep into a protective embrace. 

Cora-san’s forehead came to rest atop Law’s head and he could feel a growing dampness in his hair. Law clenched his eyes shut, wanting to refuse his own threatening tears, but they bubbled over anyway.

He couldn’t say how long they were there in silence on that cliffside. The sun died in the sky and his tears dried on his cheeks and his fever burned hot. They had fallen to the ground, Cora-san cradling him in his arms like a young child and some small, obnoxious part of Law wanted to protest and a much larger, painfully honest part screamed at him to never move. 

Eventually, as Law lingered on the edge of dropping off to sleep, Cora-san broke the quiet stillness of night. 

“He won’t find you,” Cora-san said and Law heard him and almost believed him and began to slip off to sleep. As the comforting darkness began to take over he thought he might’ve heard (though it was something he would forget by morning), “You’re not his,” and it sounded like an oath. 

On Minion Island, the cracks of Law’s life split open like gouges in the earth. 

As the sky began to lighten, the world seemed so terribly loud.

Too much noise, though the shouts and the cannon fire had long faded. Remaining still were the sounds of the boat bobbing in the waves, the water lapping at the wood, the wind rustling over the ocean, deep and ragged breathing, blood rushing through ears, all so devastatingly loud. 

Law drifted, watching the colors seep into the sky. Snowflakes tumbled down like little falling stars. He reached up and caught one and it vanished to nothing in his palm. 

The most restful sleep you’ll ever have, Cora-san promised and snapped his fingers. Law hated it immediately, missing the inherent white noise that accompanied life. Cora-san laughed when Law scowled and tried to yell, but Law couldn’t hear him, couldn’t hear anything at all, couldn’t hear the ocean or the insects or the beat of his heart and just as the panic began setting in, it all came flooding back, a wave of noise, nearly overwhelming despite the mundanity. “Maybe not,” Cora-san spoke gently and Law went to bed accompanied by an orchestra of crickets and waves and Cora-san’s deep steady breathing. 

Unbidden, Law’s eyes flicked to the end of the boat where Cora-san always sat. 

“You can use your fruit, if you want,” Law said. His voice was scratchy, his throat raw, but it cut through the chilly air. 

If Cora-san had been there, he might have tripped over himself and nearly fallen off the boat in excitement of being asked such a thing by Law. 

But he wasn’t there, of course. 

He was dead. 

A wet, gasping choke forced itself out of Law’s aching throat and the sobs returned full-force. They wracked his body, a gutting pain zinging through him with each guttural cry. It hurt and he couldn’t stop, could barely breathe from the force, from the tightness in his chest, from the rapid-fire beating of his heart. 

“Why?” Law cried and then screamed it aloud, as loud as he could, through the exhaustion and the pain and the unstoppable onslaught of agonizing emotions, “WHY?”

He won’t find you. 

Why why why why why? 

I’m his brother. I’ll be okay. He won’t hurt me. 

He had lied, he had said everything would be okay, but he had known it wouldn’t and then went anyway and why—why would he—just why would he do something like that, something for someone like—

Doffy’s a monster! Law, you have to get out of here! 

—for someone like Law, someone tarnished and wrong, born with the reflection of the devil in his eyes and the essence of death painted on his soul, someone who tasted revenge and sought blood and suffering, someone with wrath and venom and loathing dogging their every step, someone not worth— 

D is the sworn enemy of the gods. 

—not worth anything at all, someone dying, living with a ticking clock counting down the days, dying still, even now, lead singing in his veins, leeching his energy and infecting his body, a corrosive disease whittling away all that Law was, and it was a good thing, wasn’t it, it was good—

He’s free, Doffy. Law’s free. 

—because Law wasn’t free, would never be free, Cora-san knew that, knew the truth of the marks on his neck and the totality of his soul, knew the truth of Law and—

Law, I love you! 

—and chose to die for him anyway.

“Why?” asked Law once more and the exhaustion overtook him. His tears dried and his throat ached and he drifted in the water. 

Doffy would look for him. Maybe he was even looking right now. 

Doffy promised, “I’ll raise you to be my right-hand man. You’ll be there beside me for it all,” and then said to Cora-san, “I’ll raise him so he knows to die for me.”

Over the body of Law’s first kill, Doffy’s hand had been strong against his neck and he had sounded so pleased, and he told Law, “You’re mine.”

Law closed his eyes, blocking out the brightening sky. Cora-san should not have done it. Shouldn’t have died, shouldn’t have left, shouldn’t have blown his cover for Law. Law had told him it wasn’t worth it. 

But he had. And now Law was lost, unmoored on an endless sea, as helpless to control his fate as he could direct the ocean’s waves. 

“What do I do now, Cora-san?” Law asked desperately. “What do you want from me?”

The gentle fall of snow continued on, landing delicately on his skin. The Devil Fruit had bought some time; his fever had lowered but he was dying still. The lead laced his blood and his skin was mottled with violent bruises. 

“It’s not working!” Law cried, willing his useless hands to do something, anything, as blood seeped out of Cora-san’s body. 

“It’s not magic, Law, it’s science,” Cora-san had said when he first told Law of the fruit. “You have to understand what you’re doing. It takes skill.”

Law’s father was a great doctor and his mother too. Lami insisted that Law would become the best doctor in the world. Cora-san had died believing Law could cure himself from an incurable disease. 

“A doctor, Law?” Doffy’s glasses reflected a searing ray of sun. There was obvious interest amongst the amusement. “With your talent… you will grow up to do great things.”

Law released a shaky breath. The world had quieted. “Okay.” He breathed. And again. And again. “Okay.” 

I’ll cure myself, he promised Cora-san, and then promised Lami and his parents too. I’ll cure myself, he promised Doffy, and you’ll know because your words will be black and you’ll be looking for me. 

Leave him alone, Cora-san told Doffy. He’s free. Law’s free. 

But Cora-san had died alone in the snow, blood seeping into the ground. He had died, he’d lied, and he had let Law go though he must have known, always known that Doffy would never forgive that. He had done it anyway, for Law, leaving his mission and his goal and his life behind. 

Doffy’s a monster. I have to stop him.

Law wasn’t free, would never be free, but he was alive and he would live. Determination settled in his bones. 

I want to destroy everything, Law had declared to Doffy and it was written on his soulmate’s skin. Law repeated it now, but in a new timbre, a new intonation, a new meaning. 

We’ll see if your conviction holds, Doffy laughed and his grin widened even further when Law promised, “It will hold.”

Chapter Text

The metal of the blade sliced through blotchy skin. Blood should follow. Blades were dangerous weapons. Every swordsman was taught that each strike must be made with intent else the outcome be catastrophic. 

Instead, the skin parted genially but released nothing, as though opening a bag to access the contents inside. 

It was Law’s third session and still he took a moment to stare with morbid curiosity at the blood flowing unaffected within his veins. It was an out-of-body experience, peering into the layers of skin, seeing the muscles stretched taut and the structure of the bones. It was some strange cross between a live dissection and an anatomy book. Everything was pumping along as normal but Law could poke around inside. 

The small blue orb, barely larger than his head, flickered. 

Law gasped, a throb banging against the walls of his head. He shook it, violently, clearing away his wavering vision. 

Stupid, he scolded himself. He didn’t have time for medical wonder. His stamina drained something fierce when he used his Devil Fruit and picking out the toxic lead lacing his veins was hardly an easy task.

It was a cold, harsh night. The winds howled outside the cave Law had tucked himself away in with only a single dim lamp lighting his work. 

One by one, every trace of lead was pulled from his bloodstream and added to a growing pile of bio-horror at his side. He tried not to look at it, this little lump of innocuous poison that had stolen his family away. 

It was difficult work made worse by the long hours now passed. Only twenty minutes in and the orb spluttered and gave out. Law squeezed his eyes shut against the splitting headache. During the first session yesterday, after he’d built up to making the first cut at all, the orb had given way almost immediately. Law had spent the next several seconds convinced he’d just killed himself, betraying all of Cora-san’s sacrifices in a moment of sheer incompetence. 

But everything had remained in place. The blood, the poison, the skin parted wide. Law, in amazement, had naturally taken it to the next level and cut deeper, then deeper still until the whole arm had come off. 

How odd it had been to stand there, holding his own limb in one hand with no pain, no blood, no bad reactions at all. He’d reattached it without even needing his Devil Fruit. 

Oh, he realized. This is what power feels like.

But power did not come easy. Law was weak; from the Devil Fruit draining him, from the illness now slowly being erased, from the lack of food and shelter, from the past several days or weeks or months or years. 

With gritted teeth, the orb wavered back into existence. Law was nearing the end. He cut and he searched and he plucked out the last remnants of that which had destroyed his home and then he searched harder, making sure it was all gone and finding nothing.

The orb collapsed and so did Law. 

It was hard to tell that he was getting better, exhaustion an endless companion. But it was the little things that had already begun. The tremor in his hand that had vanished. The fever, now broken. His patchy skin, ever so slightly clearer. 

Law had been on Swallow Island for twenty-four hours and he had cured himself of the incurable Amber Lead Disease. 

Swallow Island was not large. In the distance, Minion Island was in easy view when the fog rolled out. 

Law was a sitting duck here. If Doffy came looking, there was nowhere for him to run. 

And he would come looking, eventually, and he would succeed. It was inevitable, as certain as anything could be. The stars hung in the sky, the moon rose at night, the ocean waves ate away at the earth, and Doflamingo would find his soulmate. 

Sometimes, Law wondered if there was a string tying them together that only Doffy could see. Doffy was able to peer into Law’s head and find things Law barely understood, could draw out of Law parts of himself he never imagined were even there. He kept Law so far away and yet seemed to know more of Law than Law himself. 

Doffy was furious. Right now, somewhere on the nearby seas, a rage coursed through him, born of the double betrayal by his brother and his soulmate both. Law knew this to be true, an inherent certainty.

What would Doffy do, if he found Law now? 

His brother, he had killed. All the punishments Law had pictured Doffy might inflict on Corazon—as familiar with the Family attitude to traitors as Law was—and still, he had not expected…

There had been no hesitation when the trigger was drawn. 

I’m his brother. I’ll be okay. He won’t hurt me. And it had been a knowing lie. 

Law could not be sure what Doffy would do. A new sort of chill spread through his bones. Doffy was never more terrifying than when he was set free in the unknown. He would not kill Law though. Not if he could help it.

I’ll raise him so he knows to die for me. 

But the truth was, Law had time. Of this, he was fairly sure, though not entirely confident. The Family would need to regroup after they ditched the Marines currently chasing them. By the time they did, they would most likely assume Law had long left the surrounding areas of Minion Island. So Law, for now, would be safe to plan his next steps. Unless, of course, Doffy really did have a string tied to Law’s neck.

And when Law wasn’t immediately found… Doffy would wait. He would wait and he would watch and one day, Law would reveal himself. Then Doffy would wait again, to see what Law would do. And if Law didn’t go back, that is when Doffy would come. 

Law turned away from Minion Island, leaving it at his back, and stared out at the waters that stretched beyond the horizon. He pressed a hand to his chest, imagining a long, endless string, stretching across the seas. Like a vivre card, eternally pointing him to the other half of his soul.

(And he hated the small part of himself that still wished he could follow it home.)

As thin, pale, and short as he was, Law hardly cut an intimidating figure. It didn’t bother him. The boys he faced exchanged overconfident smirks, clearly not concerned with his presence. An easily exploitable weakness, no matter what sort of punch they packed. 

He glanced at the lump on the ground which, when passing by, he had first thought was a pile of rags until he heard a whimper amongst the blows raining down. An animal, he realized, and had stopped before he even thought.

“Beat it, shrimp,” said the red-head, cracking his knuckles. 

His friend, whose hat practically covered his eyes, nodded and rolled his shoulders. “You don’t want to mess with us.”

“Isn’t it more fun to beat on someone your own size?” asked Law in a bored voice. 

The red-head guffawed. “You mean you, shorty? Saying you fit that description is stretching it.”

Law shrugged. “I can fight back.” 

The other boy jeered. “We won’t pass up the invitation. We’ll send you crying home to your mama.”

The boys pulled themselves up to their full height. Law, an ex-member of the Donquixote Family, could not possibly have been more unimpressed. 

It was quick work. He didn’t necessarily need to use his new Devil Fruit but he could use the practice. Not that the fight, for lack of a better word, constituted as practice. 

The boys fled, eyes wide and terrified. That was a familiar sight. 

Law thought it might feel good, watching them run in fear. Instead, he just felt numb. 

Remaining behind was the shivering creature, curled up in a protective ball in the snow. Law observed it, waiting to see if it would flee on its own. It remained where it was. Perhaps it was stuck. It seemed to be wrapped in cloth. Or perhaps it was more grievously injured than he’d originally assumed. 

The creature made snuffling noises as Law approached. He bent down. When his fingers brushed against the white fur, the creature quaked and whimpered, “Please don’t hurt me.” 

Law let out an undignified sound as he jerked back.

A head lifted up, showing big bleary eyes.

“Sorry,” said the little polar bear. 

Law stared and managed to say, “I won’t hurt you.”

The bear sniffled. It pulled itself up and Law saw it was dressed for the winter. 

“You’re a Zoan?” he asked. 

“I’m a Mink,” said the bear. 

“Oh.” A Mink. Law had read about them once. An isolated race, hailing from the New World. 

“I got lost. I was looking for my big brother.”

“Where is he?” asked Law.

“I don’t know. He sailed far away, without me.” 

“You should go on adventures, too, Law,” Lami said, who dreamed of the sea and the stars and everything life had to hold. “But you can’t leave me behind. Promise me!” 

Law said, “You’re a long way from home.” 

The bear drooped. “I know.” He rubbed his nose and winced.

“Are you hurt?” Law stepped closer, then hesitated. 

“No, I’ll be okay. They only beat me a little.”

One of them had held a bat. “Let me check. I’m a…” I’m a doctor, he wanted to say, though that wasn’t really true. He wasn’t sure he could claim such a thing, outside the Family. “I can help,” he finished lamely. 

The Mink watched him approach, almost no wariness in his eyes, mostly curiosity. 

Law briefly debated checking him the normal way but his newfound process was so expedited, he couldn’t help himself. Law held up his hand and a blue orb formed, about half his size. “Scan.” 

The Mink watched the proceedings with a fascinated expression. “You’re a Devil Fruit user!” he exclaimed once Law let his Room drop. “No wonder they ran away.” The Mink’s eyes shined. 

Law cleared his throat. “Yes, well… you’re okay.” Law gave the Mink one more cursory look-over; he seemed a little worse for wear but his tears had dried up. “Lots of bruises, but nothing’s broken. Just take it easy for a few days.” 

“You can tell all that just from an orb? So cool!” 

“You already know all of this, Law?” Lami flipped through the book, eyes popping out of her head. When Law muttered it was just introductory medicine, she poked him, hard. “It’s cool!” she insisted, and even though she wouldn’t understand, “Tell me more!” 

Law’s ears felt warm. “It’s nothing. You should probably get home. It’s getting dark.” And colder, but he wasn’t sure if that mattered to a polar bear Mink. Maybe it did. Or maybe he dressed in winter clothes to fit in.

“Oh, okay. Sorry.” The Mink deflated, just like that. 

“What are you apologizing for?” Law furrowed his brow and gave another visual scan. He was fine, though now visibly downcast.

“I don’t know. Sorry.” 

“Okay,” said Law, taking a step back. The Mink stayed where he was, snow catching on his fur. Law looked towards the town, where the footprints from the boys earlier led. Abruptly, he realized the obvious. The Mink had nowhere to go. 

But what was Law supposed to do about that? He was staying with a grumpy old inventor temporarily. But after that, who knew? What was he supposed to do for this lost little polar bear in a hostile North Blue island? The Mink would have to figure it out on his own. He’d made it this far. 

He glanced back at the Mink who had stood himself up and was watching Law, visibly trying hard to be brave. 

Law sighed. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Bepo.” The bear rubbed his nose again.

“My name is Trafalgar Law. Come with me, Bepo.”

What Law had intended was a handful of days to help the little polar bear out, but Bepo stayed and kept staying and by the end of two weeks, Law hadn’t once thought of kicking him out. 

He followed Law everywhere. Law presumed it would get irritating fast, that surely in the next minute, the next hour, the next day, he would tell Bepo to go away. 

But he never did. Bepo was a strangely soothing presence, with his soft-spoken voice and his wide-eyed wonder. He thought everything Law did was utterly fascinating and had taken to staring open-mouthed at Wolf’s work too. Wolf didn’t mention anything about getting rid of Bepo either. Law almost thought he’d been won over too.

A few days in, Bepo told Law he was the nicest person he’d ever met.

“What sort of people are you coming across?” Law asked, disbelieving. Bepo must have a very skewed view of the world. 

“Some people are okay, but so many are mean.” Bepo looked sad and Law’s fingers twitched. 

“Like those boys?” asked Law. “That happen a lot?”

“I stand out,” said Bepo, a walking talking polar bear, far from the Grand Line. “And I don’t have a soulmate. Sorry.”

Law frowned. “Why are you apologizing?”

Bepo bowed his head. “When they realized I could talk, they made fun of me. Said I was a freak. They asked if I had a soulmate but I don’t.” Bepo’s eyes filled with tears. “Am I going to die?”

“Why would you die?” asked Law, plotting death on his behalf. 

“They said I’m cursed. I don’t wanna die!” 

Law studied him. “Does everyone on Zou have a soulmate?”

Bepo shook his head, visibly distressed. “No one does.” 

“Then why would you die?”

“I don’t know… sorry…”

Law sighed. “It’s fine. You’re not cursed. You’re a Mink. Fishmen don’t have soulmates either. It’s a human affliction.”

“Oh…” Bepo still looked confused. 

“We’re born with them,” Law clarified. “Soulmates. We’re born with words on our neck, signifying the first thing our soulmate will say to us. So you know when you meet. So you know this other person completes your soul.”

“Oh!” Bepo looked curious. “I’d heard of soulmates, but I didn’t really get it. Minks choose who they want to be with.”

Hah. Law sat back, trying to imagine a world with no words. Where everyone could mean anything to you, exactly the same as anyone else. It was impossible to picture. 

“Why do humans have soulmates and not Minks? Not fishmen?”

“I don’t know.” Law had never really thought about it before. “But you’re fine, Bepo. You don’t need to worry at all about soulmates. Some people…” he hesitated. “Some people don’t like things that are different.” 

Law used to cry, in the early days with Cora-san, after every hospital. Cora-san tried to comfort him, even when Law screamed at him to go away, even when he himself was clearly upset. They’re scared, Law. It doesn’t make it right, but they don’t understand. “They’re scared,” he told Bepo now. “That’s why some people don’t like fishmen. They don’t have soulmates so they’re less than us. But that’s wrong. And if anyone says that to you, they’re wrong too. If anyone gives you a hard time, tell me and I’ll beat them up. Or I can show you how to beat them up.”

Bepo nodded, still pondering. “So all humans have soulmates?” 

Baby 5 slipped unbidden into Law’s mind. The blank skin of her neck, usually carefully covered, flashed bare only once. “No.”

“Oh… are they cursed?”

Baby, let’s go, he had tried, almost begging, hands hanging helpless at his sides, but she hadn’t been afraid, just desperate to please, willing to give anyone anything they might need. 

“Yes,” he replied. “I guess they are.” 

Bepo looked afraid. 

“It’s rare, though,” Law explained. “Incredibly rare. And it’s nothing that matters to you.”

“Okay.” Bepo adopted a thoughtful expression. “So you have a soulmate?”

Law barely suppressed his flinch. His mouth twitched and his hands spasmed. It was the natural next question, but still it came at him out of nowhere. 

“I do,” he said tightly. 

Bepo leaned forward eagerly. “How cool! Have you met them? What are your words? What did you say?”

Law’s neck itched. Perhaps, he thought, not for the first time, he should look into hiding them. In these parts, it was unusual to come across permanent coverings. It was tradition in most of the North Blue to keep soul words uncovered. Northerners who preferred to keep their words private used certain clothing styles or haircuts. But what use was tradition to one without a home? 

“I haven’t met them,” was all he said. And as far as Bepo was concerned, he never would. 

Barely a month had passed since Law met Bepo when they came across the two boys again. They were drawn in by an explosion and found the bullies in dire straits, set upon by a wild boar. Both boys were severely injured. One had been gored and the other had an arm ripped clean up.

They called me a freak, Bepo had said, and for just a moment, Law considered leaving them to their fate. Superimposed on the bullies were the faces of all the doctors and nurses and townspeople spewing bitter poison at something they didn’t bother to understand. The Family too, at the beginning, before Doffy stayed their hand. 

“I’ll give you your revenge,” Doffy said and taught Law how to cut, how to hurt, how to make it last, on those who deserved it and those who, perhaps, did not. 

“Help me,” Law ordered Bepo and carried them home. 

It was a difficult day. Law’s skills were put to the test, as a doctor and a Devil Fruit user both. Partway through the experimental procedure of reattaching an arm, Law’s head throbbed and a nosebleed threatened to form. His Room wavered, stamina drained almost empty. 

Doubt crept in again. The fading energy was eating away at Law the more he pushed. Did these boys deserve what he was doing for them?

“I want to destroy everything,” Law declared to Doffy, and he meant it, not just towns and buildings but people most of all, because people were a blight, people were the reason that Flevance had burned, people were always why everything went wrong.

“Are you okay?” asked Bepo, carefully staying out of his way. Law had almost forgotten he was there even though Bepo hadn’t moved since setting the red-head down, hours before. 

The Room dissipated. Law’s vision wavered and he was covered in blood. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, once and then twice.

(Did Law deserve what Cora-san did for him?)

“Yes,” he replied and his Room hummed and he got back to work.

It took hours upon hours, but Law successfully reattached the arm and both boys would survive. He collapsed then and slept through the night. 

It was bright outside, probably afternoon, when he awoke against a ball of fur. Bepo must’ve moved him from where he had fallen asleep on the hard floor. Every inch of Law’s body was laden with exhaustion but he sat up anyway. Bepo remained fast asleep, puffing out little sighs with each exhale. 

Law went to the red-head first. The boar had stabbed him in the stomach and he had needed a lot of blood. His color had returned during the night. Carefully, he pulled the boy up to change the bandages wrapped around his middle. The boy’s head lolled away from Law and his black words flashed. 

Hi, I’m Penguin!

Law finished the task and moved to the other boy. He checked the arm first, which in a miracle courtesy of Law’s new Devil Fruit, was healing just fine. Law marveled over it for a moment, his inner scientist beyond thrilled. With an old, nostalgic ache, he thought about how his parents would react, picturing his father lighting up and trying to brainstorm implementations of the Ope-Ope with modern medicine. 

The arm would leave a scar but after conducting a Scan, Law thought there may be very few lingering side-effects from the dismemberment. 

He took a moment to stare down at the boy, remembering how he taunted Law when he came across them beating up Bepo. The boy looked different without his hat, laid up on the bed in a dreamless state. Less mean, more vulnerable. His shaggy black hair was unkempt, falling into his eyes, but not quite covering the small word just visible on the boy’s neck. It looked like it said Hi. 

Law glanced over at the red-head then took a quick peek around the room. Bepo was still huffing away and both patients were deep in unconsciousness. Unable to help himself, he gently turned the black-haired boy’s head to the side.

Hi, I’m Shachi! 

Law stared. Then snorted. Unbelievable. 

He finished his tasks, stewing just a bit in the unwanted envy that sprung up. He didn’t really know anything about these boys, about what their stories were or their situation was. But they seemed about his age and they had matching soul words that were as straightforward as they came. Whatever else, they had each other. 

The two boys would heal. When they woke up, Law couldn’t guess what they’d say, though Bepo better have a giant apology coming his way. 

Law settled in to keep watch and only felt a little resentful.

Penguin and Shachi had no one in the world but each other. Their parents were dead and they were treated like slaves and underneath all their anger and cruelty was a spark of something unexpected.

“I’m sorry,” Penguin told Bepo, head bowing low. “Thank you,” Shachi said to Law, eyes watery. 

Oh, thought Law, on the edge of uncomfortable, watching how they gently teased Bepo when he served them food, never pushing too far, gratefulness coloring their voices. They aren’t who I thought they were.

Like Bepo, they stuck around. At first, when they could barely leave the bed, Law got used to them without even trying. But then, as they got better they just didn’t leave. They were loud and excitable, even when the pain lingered. They caused trouble for Wolf and let Bepo join in their games and kept at Law’s heels if he let them.

Law tried to pinpoint what kept them around. They had nowhere better to be perhaps but they had adventurous spirits. Was it simply for the shelter and food? But Wolf’s home wasn’t much and the food didn’t come any easier than if they were on their own. Could it just be they wanted to repay a debt? Or was it simple curiosity in the three already living there? Maybe Bepo’s kind nature? Surely it wasn’t Wolf, who glowered at them every chance he got and whose ridiculous inventions made noises all day long. Law really couldn’t be sure what it was. 

“We’ll help you!” they told Law, once it was clear they were sticking around long-term. “We’ll follow you.”

“There’s nowhere for you to follow me to,” Law replied. 

Law never intended to stay on Swallow Island long—Minion Island always a grim reminder not far out of sight—but as such things happen, time passed quickly. 

Pleasure Town became something resembling a home. The people were kind to all of them. Penguin and Shachi could get into mischief and Bepo could wander around free. It was a place they could thrive. A fisherman took Bepo sailing on his boat so he could learn the ropes. Shachi took up sparring with a former sailor. Penguin followed Law around and wanted to learn about medicine. 

“I’m not a doctor,” Law complained when Penguin kept insisting and was rewarded with a disdainful look.

“My arm begs to differ,” Penguin said. 

One day, a townsperson suffered from a roofing accident and Law was the first on the scene. By the time the local doctor showed up, the roofer was already good to go home, under strict orders of taking it easy. 

“Incredible.” The doctor’s eyes practically popped out of his head. “You’re a natural talent. You must help out at my clinic. A surgeon, you say? One day, without a doubt!” 

You could be a great surgeon one day, Law.

Penguin hovered nearby, a smug look on his face.

Law didn’t admit the years of practice he had behind him, the blood that he had spilled. “My parents were doctors.” 

“Runs in the family,” smiled the man. “Then you know it’s serious business. Medicine is a service we give to others.  Our goal is to help people. But, in our field, an important lesson to learn is that sometimes, you’re not able to, which is a difficult pill to swallow when lives are at stake.”

Law looked down at his hands. The skin was clear now, the sickness long faded. Law had wondered if some remnants would remain but none did. No one who looked would ever know he once had Amber Lead flowing through his veins. 

Nor could anyone tell what these hands were capable of. 

As Law dove deeper into medicine, Doffy began bringing Law to deal with a certain division of Family business. “Let’s experiment. Where does it hurt most?” Doffy laughed as the traitors shook. “Be honest. Law?”

“Here,” Law had said, tracing a finger over his own skin. “Or here.” 

The endless strings flashed, razor-sharp, and the screams were deafening. They were long, brutal days and Law never felt such a strong kinship with Doffy beyond them. Cora-san must have known. Yet still, when Law asked, he had said, “I want you to be happy. I want you to be free.”

And Law had let him die. 

“Death is a part of being a doctor. It is a part of life. I understand that.” Law clenched his fists, the phantom feel of blood seeping in beneath his nails. “I can never save everyone.”

“What are those?” asked Bepo, amazed, the next day. 

Law spread his fingers, palms facing the earthy ground. The skin was still a bit sensitive and red but he had nudged the healing along. 

“Tattoos,” he explained, eyes tracing the black letters spelling DEATH. 

“And then the blonde girl said, po-tay-toe.”

Penguin cracked up. “It never gets old,” he huffed between gasps, hand pounding on the table. “Tell it again, Shachi, tell it again.”

“Please don’t,” groaned Law. He glanced over towards the window. The sky was already nearly dark and the restaurant was getting more crowded as the townsfolk started coming in for the bar.

“I don’t get it.” Bepo was looking between Penguin and Shachi. “Sorry…”

Law drained his glass as the two doofuses howled with laughter. “Ignore them.”

“Was she a potato?” asked Bepo. 

If possible, Penguin laughed even harder. Shachi leaned forward, eyes gleaming. 

“This reminds me of another joke. A Zoan, a Logia, and a Paramecia walk into a bar—”

“I’m getting the check,” Law announced and escaped before he could hear another word out of Shachi’s mouth. 

“Hi, Law,” greeted the bartender, a friendly middle-aged woman named Ayu. “Bill?”

“Please,” he said, sliding into a seat.

She smiled. “Seems like you boys are having a good time. You’re all so grown up now! I still remember when each of you was barely waist high. Especially you. You were a tiny one.” She leaned against the counter, looking down at him fondly. “But look at you now. So tall already! I betcha you’ll just keep growing.”

“The check,” Law reminded her gruffly, valiantly pretending his cheeks hadn’t turned red. Curse his genes.

 She grabbed the bill hanging on the wall and slid it over. “Hard to believe Penguin just turned eighteen. Time sure flies.”

Law desperately fumbled for his money. Apparently he was between a rock and a hard place in this restaurant. Sometimes it felt like the universe was out to get him.

“Hey, honey,” Ayu called and Law jerked his head up and found to his relief she wasn’t addressing him.

“Heya, Ayu,” said a young man who worked at the post office. “Just here to drop off the new bounty posters that came in today.”

“Sit down and have a drink! First one’s on the house. You work too hard.”

“Tell that to my boss.” The man collapsed next to Law, slamming the papers down on the counter. “Old grump won’t stop nagging me. Apparently I don’t sort to his exact specifications.” He rolled his eyes, took a shot, and tapped hard on the posters. “Big news today. Seen the paper?”

“Not yet.” 

Law slid his money over to Ayu who distractedly pocketed it. An uproarious laughter sounded from the table he had vacated. He glanced over, seeing Shachi practically in tears and holding his sides, Penguin beet-red, and Bepo giggling away. Bepo noticed him looking and waved wildly at him.

Law sighed and made to leave, noting he should find a newspaper later. 

“Government just appointed a new Warlord.” 

Law paused. 

“Oh, finally? That spot’s been vacant for a bit.”

“Yeah, pirate who was homegrown in the North Blue. Bounty’s frozen now, of course. Hang on, sir, can I borrow your paper a moment? Thanks. There you go. Hard to forget that face.”

And so it was. 

DONQUIXOTE DOFLAMINGO APPOINTED TO THE SEVEN WARLORDS OF THE SEA

The chatter in the restaurant faded. Law’s ears rang. He had seen Doffy’s poster over the past three years, seen it change, seen the bounty grow. He had read about Doffy’s calculated moves in the Grand Line and the New World. 

A Warlord? Doffy, who loathed the Government, Doffy, who was always ten moves ahead, Doffy, whose plans always promised destruction and suffering…

“There’s a kingdom,” Cora-san said, “in the New World. This message will save them, Law. It will save Dressrosa. I know what it means to ask this but can you take it to the Marines?”

His mind whirled. Doffy stared back at him with an achingly familiar vicious grin. 

I see you, he seemed to say. I’ll find you, Law. You’re mine. How far did you think you could run?

I don’t want you! cried Law but a deeply buried part of him desperately did. 

A hand touched his shoulder and Law flinched, looking wildly about. Both the bartender and the post office worker were looking at him, concerned. “Honey, you okay?” Ayu asked. “You don’t look too good.”

“Fine,” he managed to croak. Law couldn’t look at the newspaper anymore. He shoved his seat back, feeling Doffy’s eyes on him, tracking him. An itch swept over his skin and his knuckles whitened as he prevented himself from swiping over his arms, trying to brush off invisible strings. But they slithered over him anyway, tightening as they drew around him, over his arms, his chest, down his legs, up to his throat, choking him. “Gotta go,” he gritted out and stumbled to the door.

The chilly night air hit him like a bullet. He gasped, staggering to a nearby alleyway, almost lunging towards the wall to grab on. The stone was cool against his forehead. His whole body felt too hot, like he was on fire, flames licking from within. 

Cora-san never talked about it, after finding out the truth. There was never any time. Law was too sick and then Minion Island was one disaster after the next. “He won’t find you,” he had promised, even though Law back then almost wanted Doffy to. How could Law ever possibly explain that Doffy was everything to him but Law worried he meant nothing at all?

The loud sounds of the restaurant suddenly filled the air. Law swallowed his next gasp of air. “Law?” called Bepo as the restaurant door swung shut behind him. “Where did you go?” The night turned quiet again.

“Over here?” Shachi began moving towards the alley. “Law?”

With a singular clarity, Law realized he could not let them find him like this. It had been three years since any trace of Amber Lead remained in his veins, but never in his life had he felt as poisonous as in that moment. 

“Room! Shambles!”

Once he landed, he walked blindly and found himself on the east side of the island. He sat down on the shore and looked out over the vast and menacing sea. 

Minion Island loomed in the distance. 

“Doffy’s planning something, Cora-san,” Law said uselessly. Doffy was always planning something. 

A lurking guilt bubbled up. Three years. It had been three years and Law was still here, on Swallow Island, no closer to taking up Cora-san’s goal as his own. 

He’s my older brother. I need to stop him. Doffy’s a monster.

Instead, Law was listening to bad jokes and playing games. Cora-san’s sacrifice, for nothing.

A Room formed in his hand. At least Law had been practicing. His stamina had strengthened, his control now immense. 

Law was cut by a sword, sliced right through his side. He cried out and struggled to recover, to ignore the growing pain in his side, tried to swing his sword through the advancing man, but before he could a rumbling pressure crackled through the room. The man collapsed out of nowhere, then the others followed too. 

And it was only after they were down, that the strings came out. The air tasted electric until it turned to iron. 

Doffy had blood splatters on his feet but as always his hands were clean when he came to check on Law. A thumb brushed over the wound and he watched closely as Law stitched himself up. 

What was that? Law didn’t ask and only later heard Trebol gloat about the Will of a King.

The Room vanished. Not enough. Law was not strong enough. Would he ever be? 

He looked up at where the stars glowed in the ocean above, the moon just a sliver in the sky. Cora-san found comfort in the night sky. Law would roll on his side and if Cora-san was awake, he’d be staring up counting the stars. And if he noticed Law, he would start naming all the constellations, pointing them out one by one. 

“You know them all, Law!” Cora-san had sounded so proud, and Law hadn’t told him of Doffy tracing the constellations in a book, making sure Law could recite each one. “The stars watch over us,” Cora-san said. “When you’re lost, look up. The stars can lead you home.”

Law would never be enough. He had always known that. But maybe… he could be enough if he gave everything. Just maybe, in the end, if he used up every last breath Cora-san had gifted him, he could make sure to bring Doffy down with him too.

I’ll raise him so he knows to die for me.

Together, Doffy, Law thought. 

He reached back, brushing over the words on his neck, having never gotten around to covering them. He considered it again, then discarded the idea. The words were his. They shaped him. His soul words would lead him to his end. 

We’ll see if your conviction holds. 

The shimmer of the stars reflected on the water. Law could almost see the birdcage stretched over Minion Island. He took a deep breath. In and out.

It will hold.

It was time to say goodbye. 

“You’re leaving,” said Bepo. He stood by the doorway watching Law, arms curled around himself, holding tight. 

Law finished shoving his clothes into a bag. The newspaper lay mockingly on his dresser. 

DONQUIXOTE DOFLAMINGO, KING OF DRESSROSA

Only days since becoming a Warlord and Doffy had already won. 

When Law didn’t respond, Bepo asked, “Where are we going?” 

“You’re not going anywhere, Bepo. It’s just me.”

Bepo’s lip quivered. “No! You’re not… you can’t go alone. I’m going with you.”

“No, you’re not.” Law cast a critical look around the room. He didn’t need much. He didn’t have much. Most of his memories on Swallow Island were made up of its residents. 

“You’ll come back?” tried Bepo. “It’s just a short trip?”

There were some Sora comic books laying on the dresser. Law wanted to take them but he always shared them with Bepo and Penguin and Shachi. Best to leave them behind. “Here.” He handed them to Bepo. “For you.” 

Bepo stared down at them like Law had handed him a live grenade.

“Make sure the idiots read them too.” Law glanced around. Ah, the old commemorative coin Wolf had given him after Law had taken a shine to it. The old geezer… Law slipped it into his pocket. 

“You can’t!” Bepo yelled. 

Law looked back at him, startled. He was not sure he had ever heard Bepo yell like that. 

Bepo’s fur bristled and his teeth flashed. “Sorry, but you can’t, Law! Take me with you!” 

“No,” said Law bluntly.

“You need a navigator!” Bepo cried out.

“You don’t really know how to navigate,” Law reminded him. “I’d have to teach you what I know.”

“Then I’ll learn and then learn more. I’ll become the best navigator you could hope for! I want to help you. And… I want to find Zou, one day. And maybe… maybe one day I’ll even find my brother. We can do that, together!” There were tears in Bepo’s eyes. He sniffled and wiped them away. “Please, Law. Take me with you!” 

You can’t leave me behind. Promise me!

Law turned away. He couldn’t bear to examine the ache in his chest. “You don’t understand, Bepo.” A weariness settled in his bones. “You don’t know what you’re asking for. You don’t really know…” me, he didn’t want to say, “…what’s out there.”

“You mean Doflamingo?”

Ice spread through Law’s veins. He whirled around. “What?”

Bepo was looking at the newspaper. “I’m not asking. You don’t need to say who he is or what he did. But he must’ve hurt you. Really bad. I’ve seen you look at his bounty posters. Sorry… but you always get really sad.”

Law was speechless. 

Bepo rubbed his nose. “You’re leaving because of him, right? Because of what the newspapers said. That day at the restaurant when you disappeared, it was when he became a Warlord, and then after you—”

“Stop.” 

Bepo did. 

Law’s heart was in his throat, hammering away. He couldn’t believe Bepo had noticed. He thought he’d been subtle, careful. Apparently not. 

“So you know why you can’t go,” he managed to say. 

But a steely resolve had already swept over Bepo, as blatant as day. 

Law tried anyway. “You don’t know what it’s like out there. What dangers lie on the sea.” The words at his nape were awfully bare and he could feel the invisible strings. “You don’t know what sort of monsters we’ll find.”

“Then you shouldn’t go alone,” Bepo said. “Bring me with you. Please, let me come.” And, softly, “Captain.”

Law told Penguin and Shachi later that night.

“When do we leave?” Penguin asked. 

“It’s just us,” Law corrected. “Just Bepo and I.”

Penguin was already shaking his head. “We’re coming too. Just you two, out there? Please. You need us. Bepo’s all soft and cuddly but who else is going to pull your hair?”

Law glared.

“He’s right,” said Shachi. “We’re all in. We’ve been following this long, you think we’re gonna change our minds now?”

And Law tried the same, tried to explain life out on the sea, the sort of beasts that roamed the waters and haunted dreams, made manifest in ways most couldn’t believe. 

“What if I’m not telling you everything?” he snapped, frustration piling up.

“Who cares?” Shachi shrugged. “We trust you.” 

With desperation eating away, Law said, almost pleading, “You don’t know where I’ll lead you!” 

But Penguin was resolute. “We don’t care. We’ll follow you wherever you lead us, Captain, even to the ends of the seas.”

The Polar Tang was a beautiful submarine that sailed silently beneath the waves. “Bright yellow?” Law asked, when he saw the paint job. 

“Don’t pretend,” chortled Penguin. “It’s your favorite, Captain.”

It was a last gift from Wolf who watched them leave. Swallow Island and Minion Island both disappeared, not to the horizon but the fog. 

Law was quite certain he would never see them again.

“So who are we?” Shachi asked, a few days in. 

“I’m Bepo,” said Bepo, confused. 

“We’re pirates!” proclaimed Penguin. “The Polar Bear Pirates?”

Shachi gestured at Law’s hands. “The Death Pirates?” 

“The Penguin Pirates,” decided Penguin. 

“The Sora Pirates,” suggested Bepo. 

They squabbled for awhile, ideas thrown in and out the ring. Law listened to them but he had already known who he wanted to be, the decision made long before they set sail. What would Doffy think? he wondered.

“The Wa-chaw! Pirates,” Penguin made a chopping motion, “since Shachi always yells that before he attacks.”

“I do not!” 

“But what’s wrong with the Trafalgar Pirates? Sorry…” Bepo looked depressed at all his ideas being shot down.

“Too boring,” said Penguin. “Everyone names their crew after themselves.”

“You wanted to name it after yourself!” Shachi exclaimed. 

“What do you think, Captain?” asked Penguin. “Any good ones tickle your fancy?”

Law looked around the control room, in this submarine that had room to grow. Already, it felt like a home. “The Hearts,” he said. “The Heart Pirates.”

They didn’t laugh. About as far from a fearsome pirate name as it could be, but all three immediately sensed there was a deeper meaning to the name. “The Hearts,” repeated Penguin. “I like it.”

“Me too!” said Bepo enthusiastically. 

“We’re coming for your hearts, bwahahaha!” Penguin surged over to Bepo, making a particularly scary face and clenching his hands like claws. Bepo yelped and Penguin chuckled, patting him on the back.

Shachi rubbed his chin. “And the Jolly Roger? A heart too?”

No, Law had something different in mind. Drawing was hardly a skill of his but he could easily sketch the symbol burned in his mind. An alteration here, a little change there. 

“Huh,” said Shachi and Law knew he recognized the similarity. Perhaps Bepo had told them, perhaps they had seen it themselves; Law always trying desperately to keep his past hidden and still managing to bare himself whole.

Bepo was quiet, staring hard at the black and white grin.

“For someone I knew,” Law said, allowing them this much. “Someone who—” and he choked on the words, suddenly missing Cora-san so much he could hardly breathe. 

“I want you to be happy. I want you to be free.” But Cora-san didn’t know, hadn’t known him at all, and even after, when he’d chosen to die anyway, Law wondered why, why Law, with half a black soul and a monster on the other side. “You’re in danger,” Cora-san had said, “Doffy can never find out the truth of your name.” And Law wondered if he was still so certain after Cora-san found out the truth of his soul.

“Someone who saved me,” he said at last, the words ripped from his guts, almost too painful to admit. “Someone I owe everything to.”

The Polar Tang hummed in the water, her engines the only sound for some time. 

Bepo placed a paw on the drawing, a watery look in his eyes. “I’m so proud to be a Heart Pirate.” 

They met a girl with thick curly hair standing by the coast. 

“I heard you needed maintenance on your ship,” was her greeting and when her eyes landed on the Polar Tang they lit up. “I can do it. I’m the best in the town, no matter what anyone says.” 

Just give me a chance, she didn’t say out loud and Law acquiesced. 

A shipwright warned, when he found he had lost out on business, “Cold as stone, that one. Wouldn’t rely on her for nothing.” The mutters were all over town. A troublesome girl. Can’t be trusted. What a shame. She’s a snake.

The bartender revealed, “Broke her soulmate’s heart. Whole island knows. Who does such a thing? Poor fellow.”

The Polar Tang hummed when Law returned. Shachi, who had stayed behind to keep tabs, was practically drooling. 

“She knows how to handle a sub,” he told Law. “Took to the Tang like she built her.”

“You got room for one more?” she asked, after Law finished his inspection, impressed. 

He looked her up and down. A slim girl with calloused hands and grease smeared across her cheeks. There was a weariness in her frame, an exhaustion born from a deep-seated struggle, but trying to shine through was a firm determination, just aching to break free. “We’re pirates.”

She shrugged. 

“I’ve got nothing left here. I know you heard things. Maybe asked around. It’s a lot to ask to take someone on who can’t even be loyal to their soulmate. But…” she hesitated. Then, haltingly, looking almost afraid, “Do you ever feel like maybe the stars got it wrong?”

Law was silent a moment, a million different responses rushing through his head and not a single one feeling quite right. 

“We’re not coming back,” he said at last.

“Good. I’m Ikkaku. And I’ve got the whole world to see.” 

The five of them sailed in their yellow submarine, and then five became six and then seven, then eight. 

Clione was a baker with trouble at his heels. Law, in the neighborhood, stumbled across a rude gangster who didn’t like the way he looked. It took about two seconds flat and the headache was dealing with appreciative townspeople in the aftermath. 

“I don’t suppose you have use for a baker,” hedged Clione, once he managed to get Law on his own. The bakery had burnt down a few days prior to Law’s arrival when the gangsters had come to collect. “The owner wants to rebuild but I’m not sure I want to stay. There has to be more out there, you know?” He touched a hand to his neck. “More to see, more to do, more people to meet.”

“I don’t eat bread,” Law said blandly. 

“That’s okay,” Clione proclaimed. “I like food, I like to make things, to create. Anything is fine. If you give me a chance, I’ll learn to cook!”

After Clione came Uni, a diver by trade. “I can fish something fierce,” he said and showed them his net when Law and Clione came looking for supplies. He watched as they poked around his haul. “You’re pirates,” he ventured, eying Law’s tattoos. 

Law nodded and paid for the fish and that should have been that, but there were rumors in town about old coins in the waters and really, Law couldn’t resist. 

After dealing with vicious fish, rival pirates, a strange old legend, and an erupting underwater volcano, Uni, their guide, asked Law if he could come along. 

“There are a whole lot of seas out there,” he said and turned his neck so Law could see, A pirate like you must have seen some interesting sights!

It was the seven of them for a time, then they came across Hakugan on an ice-cold island that greeted them with a frigid reception. 

“Maybe we’re sleeping on the Tang?” asked Penguin, when the fifth door slammed in their face. “I don’t mind but these hot springs in the inns look amazing.” He looked mournfully down at the pamphlet he’d picked up. 

A figure gestured them out of the fog. 

Hakugan led them to a ramshackle inn. His older sister ran the place. She explained, “There’s conflict in town. A coup’s going on. Politics. You know how it is.”

Law nodded, uninterested. Penguin drooped at the sight of the baths. 

“The others better not be having good luck,” he complained while he and Law shivered their way through getting clean. 

Hakugan hovered as they ate and stared silently when Penguin asked his name. 

“He’s a mute,” his sister said, giving them far more food than they paid for. “Never spoke a day in his life.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Penguin, in the tone of voice that conveyed all his pitying thoughts. He must have heard it because he winced. 

“People don’t like him ‘cause of that. An unlucky one, that’s what he is. Gets that from the family, but he pulled the worst of the lot. Imagine…” she shook her head. “I think most people would lose just about anything other than being born without their voice.”

That’s when the door was kicked down. Apparently the rebels had heard some strangers were in town. 

After everything was done and Law had quite reluctantly solved the coup since the rebellion leader wouldn’t stop going for his head, Hakugan tapped on Law’s shoulder. 

I can fight, was written on a flimsy napkin. Take me with you. 

“I saw,” said Law. Hakugan had sharp eyes. He moved with deliberation in a fight, navigating his way through the sea of bodies. “Why?”

Hakugan scratched away on the napkin. Law blinked and tried to clear away images of the past. 

Feel trapped. Want to be free. Hakugan stared down at his own writing after showing it to Law. And then scribbled once more. They won’t find me. They don’t have words. But I have theirs. And he gently touched the back of his neck.

Hakugan’s sister hugged him tight and bid them farewell. 

And for a long time it was just the eight of them sailing beneath the waves of the North Blue sea.

The pirates had really brought it upon themselves. 

Law wiped his hands disrespectfully against the torn Jolly Roger. Honestly, besides Trebol, that captain had one of the most disgusting Devil Fruits Law had ever seen. He dearly hoped there wasn’t an even worse one out there.

“Why do they have all this gold?” asked Ikkaku mournfully, staring down at the contaminated pile. 

“Probably because no one wants to clean it themselves,” said Uni, gingerly stepping over a limb the fleeing pirates had left behind. Clione was already back on the Tang, claiming he had dinner to start even though it was mid-afternoon.

“Why us?” complained Ikkaku. “What the hell did we do to them?”

“Well, Shachi was saying that thing about the gold statue—” began Uni.

“It was about the Sora statue I just bought!” Shachi immediately protested. “I was just saying it should be gold, not that we had a gold one!”

Ikkaku put her hands on her hips. “Well, you had your bragging voice on. Now I have to take a shower hot enough to burn through every single layer of skin and the blame is on you.”

“It is not!”

Hakugan appeared in one of the doors leading further into the pirates’ ship. He gestured to Law who was grateful to leave the bickering (and the stench) behind.

Through a trap door was a room that was clearly the real treasure room, miraculously not covered in a horrifying bio-waste material. Penguin was already inside, beri shining in his eyes. “Look at this, Captain.” He held up a real gold statue of a mermaid. “And this!” Around his neck was a thick gold chain inlaid with rubies.

“We have expenses,” Law reminded him. “We’re selling most of this.”

“Not all of it!” said Penguin, ever an optimist. He looked lovingly down at the mermaid in his hands. “Her name is Allura. No, Selene. No, maybe…” He continued muttering to himself but Law tuned him out, looking around. 

“Get the others to help sort this,” he told Hakugan. “I’ll teleport the big items.” Hakugan saluted and left to do just that. 

As Law began to pick through the treasure trove, something tingled at his senses. He turned, tense. Penguin was on the other side of the room, still mooning over his statue, completely unbothered by the eerie presence that was now growing. 

Law frowned and tried to follow where it was emanating from. He spotted a door, poorly hidden by a haphazardly placed bookcase. He entered the room on high alert. Inside, the presence thickened to an intense onslaught of fury and hurt. It at once unsettled Law and spoke to him. This depressive buzzing restlessness, channeled through a wave of wrath, was all-too familiar. 

 Inside was another treasure room, one clearly for discarded goods, deemed to be worthless one way or another. 

It was very quiet in the room. His crew was too far away to hear; even Penguin, just a room over. The only sounds were the creaks of the ship, the gentle lapping of the ocean waves against the walls, and Law’s quiet breaths in the silence.

He glanced around, the presence still singing. Broken armor, blunt weaponry, chipped silver and gold, tarnished metal, all once-valuable items that had long lost their shine. 

And then he saw it, propped up in the corner, far from the sun and shrouded in shadows: a long, heavy sword crying out in pain. 

Law stopped before it. It was a beautiful blade, a nodachi with blood on its hilt. Somewhat fresh blood, as well. Clearly, the pirates had had a difficult time getting it on board. 

The presence shimmered and curled around Law, tinged with a bloodthirsty haze, mellowed by a desperate plea. 

“Hello,” Law said quietly, feeling partly foolish and partly overwhelmed. 

The sword seemed to hum. 

Acutely aware of how easily such an action could go wrong but compelled by something beyond logic, Law reached a hand forward, brushing his fingers against the sword’s hilt. 

The presence churned, at first a loud alarm, then it quieted and seemed to poke at Law, like a wild animal curious but wary of a potential threat. 

Memories long stored deep in the abyss of Law’s mind burst forth, flashing through his head in an array of brutal colors. A blotch growing on skin, flames licking the sky, a closet door closing, bodies discarded in a mass grave, a kingdom of junk, I want to destroy everything, a sword spilling blood, strings flashing in the light, whiteness filling his vision, a gunshot in the night, walls closing in, a cold and distant laugh. Law shut his eyes and gritted his teeth, bearing the onslaught. 

The presence consumed it all, twisting and turning the memories around, examining every inch until Law was flayed open. 

Are you happy? Law yelled in the dark of his mind. Do you see? 

I see, whispered something. I see you as you are and I see me.

And it all stopped, like a monsoon giving way in a moment, the torrential rain suddenly replaced by clear skies.

In that desolate room on a strange pirate ship, with bitter memories slowly fading back away to the recesses of where Law tried not to go but which was always in reach, a distant murmur of a name echoed in Law’s ear. 

Kikoku. 

Law picked her up. The nodachi fit seamlessly in his hands. There was a peculiar feeling of rightness settling in his bones. The thrumming power coursed through the blade, a jittery eagerness painting its edges. 

This sword had learned all of Law and somehow, he felt he knew her in turn. 

Never forget what you wield, Law. 

“Together,” he whispered to her and she purred. 

After three years at sea, when Law was nineteen, he thought they might be ready for the Grand Line. But as they neared Reverse Mountain, they stopped on an island with a false veneer and Shachi almost died. 

It was pure luck he lived, just an inch and Law’s Devil Fruit all that lay between him and death.

I’m not strong enough, Law realized yet again, once he washed his friend’s blood off his hands. The Grand Line was a terrible beast and Law could not bear to lose another person.

Nor could he live without his crew. He could not leave them behind if he tried. Not now. So instead, he had to be an impenetrable shield, making sure nothing could ever reach them.

Penguin slept at Shachi’s side, night after night. He stirred whenever Law came in for a check-up. 

“How is he?” he asked, voice hoarse. 

“Recovering,” said Law, on day three. “He’ll be okay.” And a promise. “This won’t happen again.”

Penguin peered at him. His eyes were red. He had placed his hat by Shachi’s head. 

“We’re not going to the Grand Line yet. We’ll be ready, when we do.”

Penguin nodded. “Whatever you say, Captain.” He held one of Shachi’s hands in his own. “It wasn’t your fault though.”

It was. 

“Get some rest,” said Law. “I’ll keep you updated. Let me know when he wakes.”

Penguin slumped over the bed, half sitting in his seat, half lying in the sliver of free space. Law made to leave the room, utterly exhausted. 

“We’re not like that, you know.” 

Law paused, hand on the door. 

“What soulmates are supposed to be.” Law glanced back at Penguin’s shadowed figure, hunched over Shachi’s still form. “We don’t… we’re not…” A frustrated sigh. “He’s my best friend. I don’t remember my life before I met him, we were so young. And we always knew we had each other, even through the shittiest of times. For better or worse. But we’re not… you know. You must have noticed.”

Law usually tried to ignore most of his crew’s extracurricular activities as long as it wasn’t interfering with the ship as a whole. Unfortunately, they were a talkative bunch crammed in a crowded space and gossip flowed quickly in a submarine. 

“And it’s weird, sometimes. Like, oh hey, here’s my soulmate, but he’s not enough for me. But he is. I couldn’t imagine my life without him. I’m not sure I could live without him. He’s my soulmate. And I’ve wondered, ever since I realized we were different than most soulmates, what that means to me.”

Law thought back to that day many years ago, when Penguin and Shachi lay in Wolf’s living room. Staring at their marks, and the envy Law had felt. Two halves of a whole, as simple as could be.

“I think I’ve figured it out,” Penguin confessed. “I think a soulmate is what you need most. A lot of people need romance and sex, someone to be intimate with, someone to fulfill all these different aspects in their life. And I like having that and I like girls, really beautiful girls, but I don’t need that. It’s nice. But I need a best friend to crack jokes with, who has my back, who is always there on bad days, who makes fun of me, and who helps me, and who I can give all that to as well. That’s what I need. And that’s Shachi.”

Penguin raised his head, staring at the body of his soulmate lying prone. “It took me awhile, but that’s what a soulmate is to me. Someone who is what you need.”

The room was quiet. Shachi’s breaths were steady for the first time in days. 

Law left them without responding to Penguin’s revelation. He didn’t need to. It hadn’t really been for him.

Yet, that night, as he tried to plan for the next couple years, in preparation for eventually entering the Grand Line, he could not stop turning the words over and over in his mind. 

A soulmate is what you need most.

Was Penguin right? 

What did that mean for Law? What was missing within him that Doffy fulfilled? Revenge? Violence? The means to enact them? Something else?

I want to destroy everything.

Then he wondered if it only worked one way. Perhaps only one soulmate needed something and the other was there to fill the gaps. Did Doffy need something that Law was supposed to give? When Law had betrayed him, when Law had run, had he ruined the very course the stars had set him on?

You’ll be my right-hand man. You’ll be beside me for it all. 

But you wanted me to die for you, Law thought, in the silence of his room, far under the surface of the sea. You wanted me to be you and then you wanted me to die. And then, just for good measure, Destiny is bullshit, even as his heart ached.

Law could not bear to examine this thread too closely but he did not sleep that night. 

“Is that guy looking at us funny?” asked Penguin, glaring over at a scruffy looking man. 

“Well, your face is funny-looking,” said Uni, sipping on an island specialty drink.

“Oi,” said Penguin flatly. 

Clione turned, craning his neck to see. “No, he is.” 

“Gee, make it obvious, why don’t you.” Uni pulled Clione back, making him sit forward. 

“He’s the obvious one!” Clione protested.

“I can’t believe the bird did that,” Shachi muttered, still shellshocked, rubbing at his arm. 

“Oh god, get over it already,” said Uni. “That’s last year’s story.”

“It happened this morning! That News Coo was extremely vicious! I don’t think I can ever look at a seagull again.”

“Guys, the guy." Penguin gestured blatantly over. “What should we do, Captain?”

“Leave me alone,” replied Law, nursing a drink. 

“He’s extremely sketchy though!” 

“We’re all sketchy,” said Uni. “Look at our illustrious leader. Can’t get more sketchy than him.”

Law threw him a middle finger.

“Wait, that table is looking at us too.” Clione nodded over at the corner where a group of burly men were clearly discussing something while ogling them. 

Uni pointed a finger dramatically. “Penguin, who did you sleep with?”

Penguin spluttered. “What the hell? We just landed here!” 

“Was she hot?” asked Shachi. 

The door burst open. Penguin and Clione both flinched but it was just their wayward crewmates entering the bar extremely unsubtly. 

“Captain!” shouted Ikkaku, Hakugan and Bepo right behind her. She waved one hand ecstatically, clutching a piece of paper as she walked up and then slammed it down on the table.

Law stared down at himself. 

Damn. Looks like the the incident at the last island was even more of a blow-up than he’d thought at the time. 

“Holy shit, Captain!” Shachi exclaimed. 

Uni whooped. “We’re in the big leagues now, boys.”

It was a gloomy poster. Completely unaware his picture was being taken, Law was looking away from the camera. One hand was stretched before him, fingers twisted to form a Room, the letters DEATH tattooed stark black against his skin.

“Oh, Captain!” Ikkaku had been reading a newspaper over Hakugan’s shoulder as the crew all clamored over the bounty poster. She looked up with a big grin and forced Hakugan to turn it towards him, pointing at a line on the page. “Look at that! Your moniker! They’re calling you the Surgeon of Death.” She affected a haughty voice. “‘After the incident, Trafalgar Law, The Surgeon of Death, departed with his crew, leaving a trail of destruction behind…’ They make it sound like we trashed the place! It was only a few flying body parts! Next time, we’ll show them what a trail of destruction really means.”

Law took the newspaper from Hakugan, ignoring Ikkaku who was beaming like a proud mother, and traced over the lines of his face. He tuned out his crewmates’ excited chatter as he scanned the article. 

Had Doffy seen this yet? 

Of course he had. Doffy liked to keep an eye on things, always up to date with the latest news, the juiciest gossip, the darkest secrets. Knowledge was power. He had probably seen it before Law woke up this morning. 

What had he done? What had he thought? What was he thinking now? Had he kept the poster or thrown it away? No, he would have kept it. Then did he give it to Giolla to store in a file? Or did he put it in his desk and keep it close, right by the posters of all the pirates Doffy held a special interest in? What did he think of the bounty? Had he read the article? What of Law, now grown up and healthy, when all Doffy had known was a sickly child? 

The picture could have been better. Law looked almost depressed in it. It had been a bad day and he’d had a terrible headache and the fight hadn’t even been fun. 

Doffy knew where he was now, definitively. He knew what Law looked like, the name of his crew. 

The Heart Pirates. Did he laugh?

The Surgeon of Death. Was he proud?

Was he looking for Law? Was he coming for him? Or would he simply watch Law’s progress with interest and wait until Law walked willingly right into his web?

“Captain!” 

Law jerked back, startled by Ikkaku’s aggressive call. She was staring at him, slightly baffled. 

“Law?” asked Bepo uncertainly. He had at some point taken a seat beside Law. 

Clione leaned forward. “Are you okay?” 

“Yes,” he replied automatically. He noted his hands were crinkling the newspaper tightly, knuckles white. He awkwardly released his grip and saw the page had torn. “Sorry.” He knew the others would have wanted to keep the paper as a memento. 

“It’s okay.” Ikkaku eyed him, but decided not to push it. His crew rarely did but they always watched him closely after moments like these, consternation all too visible. She gently waved the bounty poster at him, handling it even more carefully now that the newspaper was in poor condition. “It’s a cool moniker. You look so scary!” 

“So cool!” said Bepo.

Hakugan gave a big thumbs up.

“This is why everyone is staring at us,” said Clione, suddenly worried. Uni punched him in the arm. 

“We’re wanted now!” exclaimed Shachi. “We’re the crew of a notorious pirate captain!”

“Very handsome, Captain,” Penguin praised. “If I saw you I would run away but I’d be wishing I could buy you a drink.”

“Hardly,” said Law, who considered himself very self-aware. He knew he could be intimidating if he tried. The bounty poster served him no favors. 

Ikkaku looked it over critically. “Well, it is more of your, ‘I haven’t had my morning coffee yet’ vibe, but as someone well-acquainted with that Law, I can assure you it is terrifying.”

Law scowled and raised his arm, fingers held in a threatening twist—unintentionally adopting almost an identical pose to the bounty poster—and Ikkaku darted off, howling that perhaps he was right and that was the face the newspaper should have printed. 

They didn’t surface as much after that. They sailed beneath turbulent waters, sea life right outside their doors. The sky was very far away, an ocean of stars above a sky of waves. They would surface on days bright and clear. When clouds marred the sky, the Hearts dived.

The Grand Line was a cruel and unusual place. But Law was prepared for the twists and the turns, the horrors and adventures, the unexpected made normal now that normal was gone. Crewmates joined here and there, from eight to nine, then ten and beyond.

Moving forward, always, but also looking behind, wary of a feathered figure snapping at his heels. 

As they sailed from one island to the next, as their Log Pose set and set again, Law’s notoriety grew. 

Surely, in Dressrosa, Doflamingo watched with interest as Law began moving ever closer. 

Four days out from their last island, the skies were perhaps the clearest they had been in weeks. The Polar Tang had surfaced in the morning. Bepo kept a close eye on the weather but it held fast, not a single wisp of cloud in sight. 

A rare News Coo landed. Often, since they stayed underwater so much, they had to go for days before catching up on worldly happenings. Law disliked not being up to date but it was a necessary sacrifice. 

The bird glared at Shachi who had been attempting to sunbathe. Shachi glared right back and then flinched when the bird took a threatening step towards him. Ikkaku laughed boisterously as she got up to pay the bird, glancing at the front page curiously before handing the paper to Law. 

STRAW HAT PIRATES DECLARE WAR ON THE WORLD GOVERNMENT

“What the hell?” Law muttered. 

Penguin slid next to him, reading over his shoulder. “A rookie group, yeah? Entered the Grand Line a few months after we did?”

“Yes,” said Ikkaku. “Who could forget that bounty poster?” She pointed at the picture of the Straw Hat captain printed in the newspaper with his newly released bounty. A wide, ear-splitting grin, all teeth, took up nearly the whole page. 

WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE, MONKEY D. LUFFY, 300,000,000 BERI 

Shachi, having scooted over once the News Coo flew off, whistled. “Well, he’s certainly pissed off some big-shots.”

Law scanned the article. Straw Hat Luffy had apparently sailed straight into Enies Lobby after a crewmate and shot down the World Government’s flag in a blatant declaration of war. 

“What an idiot,” said Clione. 

Hakugan gestured in agreement and signed another insult for emphasis.

“How the hell did they get out alive?” wondered Uni. “That’s crazy.”

“Won’t be for long if they’re at war with the Government,” shrugged Ikkaku. “Oi, Clione, where’s my pudding?”

“You already ate your pudding!” 

“There’s no proof of that! I never received any and I except recompense.” 

“You absolutely did get it! I’m not giving you more!” 

“There was pudding?” Bepo asked.

Blocking out the squabbling around him, Law finished reading the article. It was pretty astounding. He wondered how much was true and how much was Government propaganda. Reading between the lines, it sounded like Straw Hat Luffy had sailed into the heart of the World Government and declared war on the most powerful entity in the seas, all to save a single crewmate—the infamous Demon Child Nico Robin no less…  not exactly something many would do. Only a particular brand of crazy… or stupid. Either way. 

Law lingered on that name. Monkey D. Luffy. 

There are some who call the Family of D, ‘the sworn enemies of the gods.’

He’d noticed the initial as he always did whenever it popped up, taking note the first time he’d seen Straw Hat’s bounty poster but then dismissing him. Law had taken to tracking those with the initial when he had a chance. I don’t know what you are, Cora-san had said. Over and over again, Law had wondered what Doffy would say about D. About Law himself, and his name. Wondered what exactly it meant, why it mattered so much, why it had led Cora-san to do what he did. 

D, figures of public notoriety, causing uproar and chaos wherever they went. Law stared down at the newspaper headline. 

D will bring another storm.

And below the headline, Straw Hat Luffy’s bounty poster. An idiotic face, surely the most unthreatening wanted picture that existed on the Grand Line and indeed, in all the seas. That smile on his face, grinning so wide Law was practically getting a headache just looking at him. 

300,000,000 beri…

Who even smiled like that? So unambiguous and free?

Law, I love you!

Law frowned and pushed the paper towards Clione who snatched it up, pen at the ready for the crossword puzzle. 

No matter. It was beyond Law’s concern. Though, if at the next island, he snatched a bounty poster of Monkey D. Luffy to add to the pile in his desk of people to keep an eye on, no one need be the wiser. 

The Log Pose led them to an island in shambles. 

Law was stronger now, with a bounty of 200,000,000 beri. He stepped off the Polar Tang with little worry despite his increasingly recognizable face. They were starting to look for a way to reach Sabaody Archipelago, the island with no magnetic force. The New World loomed in the distance, not yet seen but creeping closer. 

The town they landed at was in ruins. There had been a raid some weeks before and they had not recovered. 

“My daughter was taken,” a woman wept to Law, once she realized he was not attacking. “She was a beautiful girl, the most beautiful in the land.”

“She was,” agreed a bartender, when the crew stopped by. “One of the prettiest girls in the seas.”

“Slavers,” Ikkaku conjectured bluntly. 

The bartender nodded. “Not anything we can do. She’s lost now. Little bird, the pirates called her. She’ll live the rest of her life in a cage.”

They traveled to the next town and found it much the same. As they picked their way through the rubble, Law spotted—through the smashed windows of an inn—a familiar symbol.

He froze. The crew was split up and for now, he was alone. He moved forward cautiously, as though the Donquixote Jolly Roger might sense him and come to life, swallowing him whole.

None of the Family had been on this island, of that Law was sure. Instead, it had been recruits, low-level members, desperate for Doffy’s approval and reckless with the symbol on their side.

Yet Law knew, with a bone-deep certainty, that this symbol was for him. A chill swept over his body. With a horrifying clarity, he realized that this island had been raided because of him. Doffy, far away in the New World or perhaps much closer at the Marine Headquarters, had been tracking him and must have known how close he was to Sabaody. The Grand Line was difficult to navigate but Doffy had his ways, his secrets, his spies, his eyes. Doffy knew Law would land here. And he sent Law a message as clear as day. 

I see you. You’re not running are you, Law?

The Log Pose only took two days to set but before they left, Law returned to the first town and asked for a picture of the girl that was taken. He remembered hearing from the Family, all those years ago, that there was an auction house on Sabaody Archipelago with the Donquixote symbol on the walls.

The woman wept though Law promised nothing and her daughter was doubtlessly lost. Still, a man overheard them and handed Law a vivre card. 

“My brother lives on Sabaody,” he explained. “This will get you there.”

With the Donquixote Jolly Roger burning at his back, Law sailed to the end of Paradise.

Sabaody Archipelago was hot and humid and—as the intersection of the Grand Line—attracted the best and the worst. Beneath the bright sun, it was a dark, bitter place, where people were sold as cattle and the status quo hung nervously as elites stalked the grounds. Doflamingo’s scratched out grin tracked Law as he watched. 

Then, out of nowhere, with a punch that sent shockwaves through an era nearing its end, Straw Hat Luffy crashed his way into Law’s life. 

In the midst of the chaos, Law spotted a hulking figure sitting alone. A chain hung heavy on his neck. Captain Jean Bart, Law recognized. Once a fearsome and renowned pirate in the Grand Line. Long fallen. 

The auction house loomed in the distance, a Celestial Dragon in shambles, the attendees scattered, an admiral on his way. There had been no sign of the girl from the island.

The heavy metal collar fell down with a heavy clink. Beneath it, circling the whole of Jean Bart’s neck, was a stark black tattoo. All slaves were subjected to a signature black bar blotting out their words, though not all were as unlucky as he. Law knew that paired with the permanent collar—burned somewhere on his body—was the Hoof of the Soaring Dragon. 

Jean Bart looked up, startled by his sudden freedom. He looked lost, his whole frame beaten down from the torment inflicted upon him, but in his eyes was a distant flicker of fire. 

Law extended an invitation. Jean Bart was free now but had nowhere to go. Sometimes overwhelming possibilities were a prison in themselves. 

A crack of fists against bodies and Marines were sent flying. Jean Bart looked Law over warily, hands still clenched, but the power of a name, seeing an individual as themself, was strong. 

“I’ll go with you,” he said and Law may not yet have his loyalty but he had gained his respect. 

History can be made in little and unexpected ways but sometimes it announced itself. The execution of Portgas D. Ace would change the entire world. 

“Let’s go,” said Law and set sail for Marineford.

D will bring another storm.

The war raged on in the distance. Law surveyed it from afar but close enough to taste the blood that tinged the air and the ozone sizzling in the atmosphere. Somewhere nearby was Doffy, closer to Law than he had been since Law was thirteen. 

Law’s skin itched as he stood. His crew hovered with trepidation on deck, prepared to dive at the smallest indication from him.

Later, he could not say entirely what compelled him. Law liked to deal with situations subtly, keep the eyes off his back. Admirals and Warlords and Emperors raged nearby, Doffy only a stones throw away, and something indescribable swam in Law’s chest as he watched a brother fall and another mourn. 

“I’m a doctor,” he shouted, his crew aghast as all nearby attention was directed to them.

Why did you do it? he would be asked, over and over again for years to come, for the rest of his life. Why did he do it, that reckless, uncharacteristic decision that turned the tide of the incoming New Era. 

Wrapped within were a million reasons that Law could hardly unravel, from the name to the grin to the older brother who made the choice Law always wished that he could; maybe some sense that it was right, that it was the only choice he had, some indescribable force beyond Law’s control pushing him forward. Perhaps the memory of the chaotic punch from only days before, a single breathless moment of inherent untamed freedom, a harbinger of what Straw Hat Luffy was and would become.

A whim, he would say each time and it would not be wrong but it could never encapsulate why.

As he let his Room flicker out, Law slumped down on the hard plastic chair. Even just a simple Scan took effort, the aftershocks of the exhaustive surgery and lack of sleep still reverberating through his body. When it was determined the surgery had been successful, Law had collapsed face first in his bed, but it had hardly been enough. Only a handful of hours later, he’d emerged to grab a cup of coffee and go examine his patient but found his crew fluttering around him squawking like worried mother hens. Just barely, he managed to fend them off long enough to flee to the infirmary. Law would be damned before he let Straw Hat die on his watch now, after the twelve hour surgery, the admirals and the war, and all the other shit that led them to this moment. 

Straw Hat Luffy’s chest moved up and down and his heart beat to a timely rhythm. He couldn’t breathe on his own. Still he might die but for now, nearly impossibly, despite the hole carved out in his chest, he was alive. 

Law could leave. There was already a round-the-clock watch to raise an alarm should something go obviously wrong. If he was worried, he could grab Penguin, the most experienced medical crew member after Law himself and have him keep an eye out as he’d done while Law crashed. One of the newer crew members, who had joined up just a few weeks before reaching Sabaody, had expressed an interest in learning medicine and already gained skills with rapid success; he would be thrilled to take a shift. 

But for some reason, Law lingered, watching the bandaged chest move up and then down, up and down, a soothing rhythm despite the rattling breath and the remaining uncertainty that the next would come.

On Sabaody, Straw Hat Luffy had been larger than life. He’d crashed in from the sky like a shooting star and when he punched the Celestial Dragon the air crackled, like the moments before lightning pierced the sky. 

Monkey D. Luffy, he’d repeated to himself as he’d watched the scene, Cora-san’s voice echoing in his mind. D will bring another storm. In the aftermath, in the brief moments when Law had fought beside him, Straw Hat radiated a peculiar presence, contrary to the goofy look on his face and his ridiculous Devil Fruit. There was a magnetic pull that made him seem like he was twenty feet tall though Law had a whole head over him.

In this dreary infirmary, far away from the chaos of Sabaody, he had shrunken to just a boy. Law was now intimately aware of how all too-human he was, having spent twelve hours in his chest. Humans, in the end, from the smallest to the largest, were inherently fragile.

Too exhausted to move and certainly to think, Law dozed off to the white noise of the whirring machines and Straw Hat’s heavy breathing. He couldn’t have been out for long before Penguin shook him awake, with a pointed reminder to grab a bite to eat. But Law waved him off, going through a cursory check-up again. 

“I’ll change the bandages, Captain,” Penguin protested, watching him make a note in the medical file. “You should really eat. Don’t make me drag Bepo in here. I’ll tell him to use really, really big eyes.”

Law glared at him but it bounced off ineffectively. There were plenty of circumstances where he could still intimidate his crew, but unfortunately, his oldest friends and inner circle had built up a specific immunity during times when Law was being, as they described, exceptionally difficult in regards to his own well-being. 

Whatever that meant. 

Penguin smiled placidly at him and Law acquiesced to go grab a bite while Penguin changed Straw Hat’s bandages. He meant it literally, only intending to pick up a stray onigiri or fruit but Clione caught him and shoved him into a seat, hollering at Jean Bart to make sure he stayed there while he went to grab Law’s meal. This was really a low blow since everyone had been doing their best to get Jean Bart as situated as possible with the crew which meant balancing treating him as normally as possible while trying to help him adjust. So Law was forced to sit in place across from his new hulking crew member rather than warp to the other end of the ship. 

Jean Bart was turning out to be good company at least, as he slowly started feeling more comfortable on the sub, no longer jumping at as many loud noises nor hunching over quite as far. He seemed to be a man who appreciated quiet but also enjoyed the boisterous chatter of his new eager crewmates. Time would tell if it would work out, as a couple weeks filled with mayhem wasn’t exactly a true test for a crew that spent a significant amount of time trapped in cramped quarters under the ocean. But Law had a good feeling. 

Still, he was glad to get away after having to eat under both Clione and Jean Bart’s intense, judgmental stares. He made his way back to the infirmary, a restless hum under his skin. It was still so soon after the procedure and so many things could go wrong. And now Law was emotionally attached to the idea of Straw Hat not dying, even beyond his professional pride as a doctor. 

Penguin was all finished with the bandages when Law walked back in and was tidying up the supply cabinet. Straw Hat Luffy was wrapped in white nearly head to toe. 

“All good?” asked Law, returning to his seat. 

“Yeah,” said Penguin, fumbling with something in the cabinet. 

There was an odd pitch to his voice and Law frowned over at him. “What’s wrong?” 

“Nothing! No changes, he’s all good. Well, you know… as good as he can be.” But his back was tense.

“Penguin…” Law warned.

Penguin righted some pills he knocked over before sighing. He turned around, leaning against the cabinet, and glanced over at Straw Hat. There was a strange look in his eyes. 

“I just… I didn’t notice before.” 

“What,” Law gritted out, fingers twitching as he prepared to throw up a Room and do a Scan. 

“It’s just…” and there was true bafflement in Penguin’s voice, as he finally said, “he doesn’t have any soul words.” 

Law’s hand hovered as he processed that. His eyes flicked to Straw Hat’s neck but it was, of course, completely covered in bandages like most of his body was. 

He let out an involuntary, “What?” and then almost wanted to do a Scan anyway though it wouldn’t tell him anything. 

Penguin’s face was shadowed by his cap. “His neck is blank. Not covered or grayed out, just… blank. Completely blank. Straw Hat doesn’t have soul words.” 

It was hard to pinpoint the exact emotion lining Penguin’s voice, as difficult as trying to figure out the strange feeling roiling around in Law’s stomach.

Are they cursed? Bepo asked, many years before.  

A broken soul, one of the Flevish nuns taught. A heart so unworthy Fate deemed it impossible to find a match. Something to be pitied, Law’s father had said, while his mother called it a tragedy. 

He needs me, Baby 5 pleaded, so alone in the universe, an anguished void within her she could never make whole.

Islands upon islands, countries upon countries, and every one agreed the horrifying reality regarding wordless souls. Cursed. A broken half, doomed to eternity alone. 

Could there be a greater punishment?

Law brushed his hands against his own words. At Marineford, amongst the confusion of battle, he could almost taste Doffy’s presence in the air, overwhelming and overpowering, searching and always hungry. And elsewhere, on those same grounds, ran Straw Hat, diving into a war with enemies on all sides to face monsters he could not possibly hope to defeat, to save a brother who he lost in the end.

Straw Hat’s grin, so wild and pure and forever free. Unafraid, it its boldness. 

This was a soul cursed by the stars?

The straw hat was coarse and clearly well-loved. Law ran his fingers over the stitches in the top, brushed against the red band, let the string slip over his palm. Carefully maintained, with precision and affection. Law doubted Straw Hat had done it himself. A group project, then. Someone who knew what this hat meant to its owner. 

Its owner whose pain could be heard across the island. Agonizing cries, expressing a deep, wretched grief which swelled like a tsunami, inescapable, unapproachable, diabolical. 

ACE! Straw Hat had screamed, eyes wild, chest heaving, moments away from destroying his own body as he tore through the submarine. A deep, guttural roar, primal in its need. 

But of course, there would be no reply.

Loss could be numbed. But it could never be out run. Straw Hat would carry a hole in his chest for the rest of his life. 

It was regrettable. But inevitable. Law flexed his hand holding the straw hat, DEATH as black as the day the ink sank into his skin.

He sighed and stared out over the waters surrounding Amazon Lily. The sea was still, of course, sitting on the Calm Belt as they were. Law was alone on the coastal rocks. 

What now? 

Law had landed on Sabaody as a natural progression of his journey through the Grand Line. The next step was the New World. 

But there was a certainty, deep within him, just as there had been back when Shachi almost died on the edge of North Blue, that if he sailed into the New World now, he would lose everything. 

Law, as always, was not strong enough.

Regroup, then. Train harder than he ever had before. Never forgetting that across the seas lay a kingdom that Cora-san had wanted to save, with a king on the throne lying in wait. A place that Law would one day reach. Law had pushed off leaving Swallow Island for three years, then pushed back the Grand Line for several more, and now he would delay the New World too. 

Law’s plans, always done in the isolation of his room, led each time to the same inexorable conclusion. 

As soon as he crossed that boundary, as soon as he surfaced in the waters past Paradise, his timer would begin ticking down. 

But Law was prepared. He was used to living on borrowed time, hearing the shifting of sand as his hourglass drained. All he needed was enough time to set the pieces in place. 

You’ve been watching me, Doffy, he thought. You’ve been waiting for me. You don’t need to come for me though.

The cries on Amazon Lily fell quiet. Law could now hear the rustle of the wind in the trees, the birds chirping as they flew, the distant voices of his crew. 

It was a beautiful day. 

Law began plotting, the sort of despicable plan shared to children as a warning tale. There was once a boy from Flevance with a soul as black as the deepest seas. He betrayed his soulmate and ran away, then he plotted revenge and dragged them both down into decay. 

An insistent little part of Law, kept so earnestly hidden away, railed against the plan. His crew’s laughter floated past the trees, moving closer. The sun shone high in the skies, its rays sparkling on the still waters; the salty ocean breeze was a balm against the lush heat. Just get back on the Tang with your crew and sail away, said an inconsolable little voice. Don’t ever let Doffy find them. Don’t ever let them go.

But if Law didn’t go, then Doffy would come looking. This mutual agreement that stretched out beyond years and oceans was unspoken, unseen, but ever present. A string was still tied around Law’s neck, pulling him towards the preordained.

Law was not free, would never be free, but his crew was and would continue to be. 

Doffy’s a monster, Cora-san said, over and over again, never knowing what he had at his side. He’s my older brother. I have to stop him. 

He’s free, Doffy. Law’s free. 

“Captain!” Shachi called from the thicket of trees. 

Law rubbed his fingers against the straw hat still held in his hand. “Over here.” The forest remained quiet. Perhaps Straw Hat had collapsed, wounds reopened. Or perhaps Jinbei had been able to calm him. 

A boy without words who smiled such a genuine grin. He wondered if Straw Hat would smile like that again one day. If he could, anymore. 

His crew piled onto the rocks, talking a mile a minute. Law toyed with the hat as conviction settled in place like a second skin. He knew what he had to do. And he knew he could do it because he must. 

Sorry I’ve taken so long, Cora-san. But I’m starting now. Your goal, your will, everything you gave up for me, I’ll finish it. I’ll make sure you can rest in peace. 

“Please…don’t—!”

“Mes!”

The heart beat in a frantic rhythm. It pulsed in Law’s hand, a frenetic pounding as its owner fell to the ground, gasping. 

It was a heady power, holding someone’s life in the palm of his hand. 

“Lucky number ninety-two,” said Penguin, scratching the number down. “What was your name?”

The pirate’s eyes were wide and blank, horror on his face. 

Penguin shrugged. “Your loss.” 

Law exited the badly lit building, squinting against the too-bright sun, leaving the pirate in his stupor. Ikkaku was waiting right outside the door and handed him a bag. 

“Hakugan and Uni are rounding up the last ones around the way,” she said, watching him slip the heart inside the bag. “When you’re ready, Captain.”

Law nodded, taking the other filled bags she was holding and walking towards the dock.

Clione was guarding the yet unloaded box, holding a notepad. He watched Law approach and add the bags to the pile. “That makes ninety-two,” he said, checking off his list. “Hakugan and Uni—”

“I know.”

The hearts were muffled but still beat in a confused, cacophonous, off-tempo symphony. The bags hid the gruesome sight of bare naked human hearts, alive and pulsating. 

The sounds of fighting were beginning to die away. Smoke floated in the air and debris scattered the ground. On the other end of the island, a fearsome darkness hovered. Marines had been spotted elsewhere on the island but a full ship had yet to arrive. 

Clione scribbled on his checklist as Law took it in. 

“This one ready?” called Jean Bart as he disembarked from the Tang.

“Almost,” Clione replied. “Just a few more.”

Law nodded at them both and turned, heading towards Hakugan and Uni. Ikkaku and Penguin had both made their way over as well and waved him over.

“All we need is inside,” confirmed Penguin. 

“Good.”

Law made to open the door when an obtrusive thought again crossed his mind. Doffy would be delighted. Law paused. Inside, he could hear the panicked movements of the pirates, waiting their turn. 

Law held no care for them. They were the worst sort of pirates, living in the lawless land of Hachinosu. There was a deep satisfaction of a job well done as he collected a hundred hearts, one by one. 

What should we do with them, Law? Be creative. 

Law opened the door. Hakugan and Uni had the pirates lined up, like pigs waiting for slaughter. 

Oh, the things Law could do. 

Two of them quaked, but the others glared. One spat at him as he walked in and got kicked by Uni in response. 

“Every cut matters, Law,” Doffy said, staring at the body laid before him like a human canvas. “Is it better to start at the bottom and prolong the pain or start from the top where it hurts all the more?”

His hand landed on Law’s neck. “Begin,” he ordered and watched closely at what Law chose to do.

“Every cut matters,” his father had said. “Never forget what you wield, Law.”

It was quick. Eight men and eight hearts, beating asynchronously.  

The men twitched, none the worse for wear, minus a few ounces. It was more psychological, a special sort of horror, knowing your life was no longer in your hands. 

“…and a hundred,” said Penguin, finishing his list with a flourish. Ikkaku held four hearts and Hakugan collected the remainder. Uni remained inside, releasing the shellshocked pirates. 

“Take them back,” Law told them. “Prepare the sub.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” said Ikkaku with a lazy salute, made awkward by the throbbing bag in her hand. 

“And where should I tell Bepo to chart us to?” asked Penguin, as the other two left. 

Law looked out over Hachinosu. The darkness across the island had receded. Relief would doubtless be arriving soon. 

If this worked—and it must—Law would be stepping into an entire new league. An equal? he wondered, then dismissed it. In name perhaps, but not strength. 

Penguin knew where they were headed but waited patiently for the confirmation. 

“Marine Headquarters,” Law said. “Tell Bepo to take us to the front door.”

Snow crunched beneath Law’s feet. There was a rumble in the distance as a volcano erupted and ash drifted amongst the falling snow. The cold stung his cheeks. It was almost nostalgic. 

“I guess this is it,” Penguin said unhappily. 

Law turned. The majority of the crew remained on the Tang, having already said their goodbyes. It was just the four of them, standing together in this barren wasteland of polarizing extremes. 

Bepo, always at home in the snow, looked miserable. A deep, furrowed brow marred his face. 

“You’ll be okay here, Captain?” asked Shachi, eying the foreboding and unwelcoming structure materializing through the howling winds. Please let us stay, he didn’t say, not again. That fight had long been exhausted. 

Law nodded. “You know the plan.”

“Take the crew to Zou,” recited Penguin, acting Captain now that Law was staying behind. “Lay low. Don’t start any fights, don’t let people see where we are. When you’re finished here, you’ll meet us there. But Captain… Law…” he hesitated. A series of complicated emotions rushed over his face. Law recognized each one from tired conversations, yelled arguments, bitter fights, aimed blows. He stared at Law, each of those moments floating between them, one by one. Please, Penguin silently pleaded but Law didn’t budge. “Does this mean I get your room until you’re back?” he asked weakly, letting it go. 

Law rolled his eyes. “Don’t break anything.” It’s all yours, anything and everything, take it.

Shachi turned away, mouth downturned. “See ya, Captain,” he said shortly and walked back to the Tang. 

Penguin lingered, still searching for the right words, the right plea, and coming up empty. “I’ll keep ‘em safe,” he said at last, “until you come home. Then don’t you ever ask me to do this again.” And with a two-fingered salute, he turned and left, parting with a, “Good luck, Captain.” 

The weather took a turn for the worse. It was a bitter and biting freeze, chilling down to the bone. 

Bepo moved first. He stepped right up in front of Law and grabbed Law’s hand, peeling his fingers back. “You didn’t ask for this,” he said.

When Law pulled his hand back, he saw Bepo had handed him an innocuous slip of paper. A vivre card, pointing firmly at the figure in front of him. 

“How were you going to get to Zou without it?” asked Bepo.

Law didn’t respond. Truthfully, he hadn’t thought of that once because it never occurred to him he would need to. Perhaps if he’d asked for this card or showed clear plans for a reunion, some concerns would have been alleviated. But then, he would have given his crew even more false hope than this facade he was already putting on.

Bepo trembled. “Don’t you dare lose it. You need it, Captain. So you can find us again.”

Law’s hand curled around the card. It twitched in his palm, perhaps matching Bepo’s breaths which heaved with emotion. 

“I won’t,” he promised. 

Bepo looked him over searchingly. He had been the most quiet, over the past few months as Law’s plans became clear. But he had also been the most ardently disapproving. A disappointed, distraught figure, hovering in the background as Law prepared to leave everything behind. Only a few times he had broached the subject. Each time, rather than breaking Law down, it only strengthened his resolve. Perhaps Bepo saw that. Saw that this time, Bepo couldn’t convince Law to take him. 

Bepo had no place where Law going. None of his crew did. 

“I wish you would tell me,” confessed Bepo, words almost hidden in the whistling winds. “Whatever you think it is you can’t say, I wish you would.”

Law could hardly bear to look at him. Yet he couldn’t look away. 

“You’re going home, Bepo,” Law said. “Isn’t this what you always wanted?”

Bepo gave him a hard look. “Not without you.”

The booms in the distance died down. The wind remained turbulent, carrying the taste of scorched earth. 

“I hope you find it, Captain. Whatever has been following you, whatever you’re looking for, whether it’s Doflamingo or something else, I hope you put it to rest. That it’s behind you, forever. I want you to be happy.”

I want you to be happy. I want you to be free. 

Law closed his eyes. “It’s time to go, Bepo.”

“Okay, Captain.” Bepo stepped back and Law opened his eyes to watch him go. “I’m leaving.” Then he lifted a paw and pointed at Law with a fierce determination. “I will see you on Zou, Law. I’ll be waiting for you to come home.”

And Bepo turned and walked back to the submarine. 

Law stood there for a very long time, in the wind and the snow and the cold, as the dark got darker and the night grew worse. The Polar Tang had left quietly, slipping away in just a moment, disappearing into the fierce storm raging over Punk Hazard. 

Come back, Law didn’t say, would never say, as he finally left the shores. Instead, trusting they would be safe, his mind turned to where it needed to be. 

To Doffy, to his soulmate, to the other half of himself. I’m coming, Doffy, Law thought, the invisible string between them growing more taut. He knocked on the thick iron doors of the ominous building that would be his temporary home for some time. Cora-san said you were a monster. And you are. So everything you built, everything that is yours, I’m coming for it. To destroy it. I want to destroy everything. 

The door creaked open and a green-haired woman looked out. 

Far away, on Dressrosa, Doflamingo sat and waited and challenged Law, as he always did. We’ll see if your conviction holds. 

As ever, it would. 

Chapter Text

He’s still smiling, was Law’s first thought. Then, Why is he here? Followed by, What did he just call me?

Straw Hat Luffy’s grin could melt the snow on the ground. “I’m so lucky! I just saw Jinbei and now you!” Sparkles were practically dancing around him. 

How bothersome. Yet another unexpected snag in Law’s plans. Riding up were more members of Straw Hat’s crew, all watching him with varying levels of suspicion. 

“You don’t need to thank me,” Law said bluntly. “It was a whim, nothing more. We’re enemy pirates. Don’t forget that.”

“I know,” replied Straw Hat affably. “We’re all enemies when it comes to One Piece. But I owe so much to so many people from back then. So thank you, again.”

He said it so genuinely. If Law hadn’t witnessed him storm a battlefield with steeled intent, he’d take him for a fool.

Straw Hat peered around him. “Oh? Where’s your bear, Torao?”

There, he said it again. “Is that supposed to be my name?”

Straw Hat stared at him like he was stupid. “Huh? Don’t you know your own name?”

“It’s Trafalgar.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said,” Straw Hat countered breezily. 

Law’s headache was making a reappearance. With considerable regret, he thought back to earlier that morning when he had put off his second cup of coffee “until later.”

“Luffy,” the green-haired swordsman called. Roronoa Zoro, the First Mate of the Straw Hat Pirates, glaring at Law as though he expected Law to attempt to run his captain through. 

Straw Hat waved enthusiastically back at him. “I’m asking Torao about his bear!” 

“Luffy, that’s a Warlord,” said one of his crewmates with a very long nose, hesitantly peeking over a saddle. 

“Oh really?” Straw Hat turned back to Law with a laugh. “I guess you did some interesting things since we last met!” 

An understatement. Law frowned. 

“So where’s your bear?” asked Straw Hat again, relentless. 

“His name is Bepo. He’s not here.” 

Straw Hat pouted. Actually full-on pouted. “Why? Where is he?”

What part of enemy pirates did this moron not understand? Law made sure to enunciate this time. “Not. Here.”

Straw Hat peered up at Law. Unexpectedly, the blank-faced shine had been replaced with an intense sort of look that almost made Law want to lean back but he held fast, incredibly annoyed with this entire chain of events. 

“Eeeek, a Marine!” shouted the long-nose. 

“Shit,” said Roronoa, looking spooked as Captain Tashigi lunged at Law. 

The scene devolved within seconds. A handful of Marines started popping up from the snow like daffodils, a considerable number of them missing body parts but still finding the wherewithal to start shooting at the nearest looking pirate shaped figure. 

Law’s headache throbbed. What a disaster this day was turning out to be. Caesar seemed to agree as once Law managed to escape inside—with a convenient mind switch and a promise to an insistent Straw Hat they’d meet again soon—he discovered the clown having a conniption. 

But Law was nothing if not a master strategist. Every single Supernova and Vice-Admiral could show up on Punk Hazard today and Law would still figure out a way to salvage his plan. Plans gone awry could sometimes lead to unexpected boons. Perhaps there was an advantageous angle to these unexpected intrusions.

A long time ago, Bepo told Law that he shouldn’t go alone to face the monsters of the sea. Take me with you, he’d first pleaded, then insisted. 

Perhaps there was wisdom in that, Law determined, as he observed Straw Hat over the screens. Law would never have made it to where he was now without his crew. So close to avenging Cora-san he could almost taste it, days away from Dressrosa and Doffy and the confrontation they had known was coming. Law still feared the remainder of his plan would go caput. Maybe backup could be useful. Some guarantee that when he fell, Doffy would fall too. 

Straw Hat had clearly grown stronger in the past two years. Unsurprising, considering Law had handed over the tattered straw hat to Silvers Rayleigh of all people, back on Amazon Lily. Straw Hat seemed to attract interesting people, like moths to a flame.  

Would his new strength be enough? Worth a risky investment in the middle of Law’s culminating scheme? 

Law thought back to Sabaody, to Straw Hat zeroing in on the Celestial Dragon like a meteor plummeting to Earth, no hesitation, just one singular hurtling path heedless of anything in his way. That look, on his face…

And Straw Hat, just as reckless, crashing onto a battlefield filled with virtually invincible enemies on all sides, ready to take on the world just to save someone he loved, impossible odds unimportant in the face of what he might lose. 

Law shook himself, growing distracted. Useful, he concluded. Straw Hat Luffy could be very useful. All he needed to do was reel him in.

Law framed the offer to Straw Hat through the lens of what he thought he might like most. A fight, a thrill, a promise of adventure. 

Straw Hat listened intently, eyes boring into Law, and then grinned, wide and bold and promising excitement as a humming eagerness rippled in the air between them. Despite the betrayal Law would soon inflict upon him, a heady rush coursed through Law when Straw Hat accepted his alliance to bring down an Emperor of the Sea. 

Only once had Law met Vergo, on the second night of Law’s life where he had lost everything. Just one meeting with this man who still haunted Law’s dreams. 

Vergo stalked towards Law, flecks of Cora-san’s blood splattered on his skin. He towered above, staring down with peculiar disdain, like Law was a little bug who wouldn’t stop pestering him. “You.” 

“Don’t,” choked Law, as if it would stop him, would save Cora-san.

Uttered as a curse, “Trafalgar Law.” It was pronounced like Vergo had said the name aloud before, tested the weight of it on his tongue. “He spoke of you often.”

Even in the fog of danger and pain and despair, the words lit up something within Law. “He did?” he asked dumbly. 

“A scheming little rat,” said Vergo, like it was a confirmation of his beliefs, and struck Law across the face with a haki-coated fist. 

“What does he see in you?” The words were laced with a deep bitterness, as though pulled from Vergo involuntarily. 

Law’s heart ached, beating a tempestuous rhythm. Vergo had squeezed earlier with malicious, deadly intent. 

“After all these years, Doffy still thought of you,” Vergo scorned. “A sick, traitorous brat. He saved a seat for you by his side. His new Corazon.” His voice deepened, low and curdled. “But look at you. You’re nothing.”

Blood trickled down Law’s chin. For a moment, he was back on Minion Island, as helpless as a lost cub facing a ravenous beast. He wiped away the blood, steeling himself with an intentional refusal to be trapped back there. 

“He had better things to do than waste time on you, little rat,” spat Vergo, offended on Doffy’s behalf.

There was something in the tone of his voice that made it click. Realization was sudden, the source of Vergo’s inherent all-encompassing hatred for Law: Vergo was obsessed with Doffy. A jealous, possessive obsession. Law laughed out loud, a wet, gasping sound.

“Are you in love with him?” he asked derisively. Law couldn’t tell if it was that or just a deep-running loyalty to Doffy, like a dog panting after its master with wholehearted devotion. 

Behind him came a sharp intake of breath. Smoker was still conscious, listening.

Vergo’s eyes narrowed. An expression of cold, righteous fury formed as haki began coating his body, covering every weak spot until it was protected with near-impenetrable power. “I look forward to crushing your heart beneath my heel. I’ll be sure to make it last. You will never be strong enough to defeat me, brat.”

Law took a deep breath and drew Kikoku. She thrashed with hunger as Vergo dashed forward with violent, bursting rage. 

Together, she whispered and Law cut Punk Hazard in half. 

The only way for Vergo to move now would be to crawl. A man like him would rather die. Law approached his upper half slowly, not quite decided in how this confrontation would end. 

He stopped beside Vergo’s head. Reserved for the former Corazon was a unique mutual enmity. In one of the darkest days of Law’s life, it had been Vergo who spun it out of control. Vergo, who had hit and kicked and made Law realize that Cora-san may really die. 

I know what it means to ask this, but can you take it to the Marines?

“For Cora-san,” he said, to Vergo, another dig of indignity amidst his clanging defeat; to Cora-san, still waiting in the beyond for his retribution; and to himself, a small fulfilled part of his promise to let Cora-san rest in peace. 

Vergo glared up at him, now half a man. There was a deep-seated loathing in his eyes and staunch denial, a conscious refusal to accept what had just occurred. And with that a growing resolve that he would come back from this and make Law pay. 

A wild recklessness seized Law. “Do you want to know?” he asked curiously. 

The haki had faded from Vergo. He lay helpless but watched Law as if he were still the predator and Law was but a mouse, stumbling into his jaws. 

Law rested Kikoku’s tip above Vergo’s heart and met his icy stare. Slowly, with careful deliberation, not looking away from Vergo’s eyes, he raised one hand and rested it ever-so-briefly on his neck. 

For a split second, there was only confusion. Then Vergo’s eyes widened. Shock, followed by disbelieving horror, then visceral revulsion. 

“Now you know.” Law grasped Kikoku with both hands. For just a moment, he considered walking away. The facility would explode soon. Vergo would meet his end in flames. 

“You don’t even know who he is.” Vergo’s voice was low, disgust explicit with each word. “You don’t deserve him.”

“The stars think I do,” said Law, not without irony, and plunged Kikoku down.

“Law?” called Baby 5. “Is that really you?” Her gaze swept over him, taking in all the details that had changed since last they met. Through the shock, he did the same. For some reason, despite the mess with Vergo earlier and thinking he was prepared to see the Family again, Baby 5 and Buffalo’s appearance was more disorienting than expected. “It is! You look—!” She stepped forward eagerly and then faltered. “…is it true? Are you working against Joker?” 

Rule number one: there is nothing more important than Family. 

“Are they friends of yours?” asked Straw Hat curiously, in the tone of voice that suggested if Law replied affirmatively he would accept it immediately. He would let all the havoc the two had been wreaking on the island go, even disregarding the fight against his own crew member they had engaged in. 

Law met Baby 5’s eyes. Between them flowed a silent acknowledgement; of their past and who they once were, and now of their present circumstances and what they must do. 

“No,” Law said. “They’re enemies.”

They were made short work of, taken down rather ingloriously by the Straw Hat sniper and navigator. Law told the Straw Hats the duo would be useful and approached the two on his own.

“It really is you,” said Baby 5. She and Buffalo were chained together. “You look different. You look good.”

“Can’t say the same,” drawled Law, looking her over. She was a mess from the fights that day, most significantly the navigator’s lightning strike and subsequent fall in the ocean. 

She pouted and blew some hair out of her face. “Rude.”

“Guh,” said Buffalo, groaning in his seastone cuffs. “Doffy’s going to be so angry at you, dasuyan~!”

“That’s the plan,” Law said. 

Baby 5 peered up at him. “Why are you doing this, Law? You could come back. Doffy’s been waiting for you.”

Law’s hands spasmed. On his neck was a phantom itch. “I know.” He glanced out at the horizon in the direction of Dressrosa. Doffy had been waiting a long time. 

“So then why? He wants you back in the Family. Wants you by his side. It’s not really fair. Any of us would be dead by now. The Young Master would have hunted us across the seas. But you…” she frowned, with no little envy, “you were always his favorite. ”

I’ll raise you to be my right-hand man. You’ll be beside me for it all. 

“Maybe,” Law acknowledged. “But it’s not like he would forgive what I did. I betrayed the Family.” He could picture Baby 5 now, hand on her hip, Get out before you’re in. There really hadn’t been any escaping for Law. Just delays until the inevitable. “Besides, Doffy has things he cares about more.” 

“Does that matter? When Doffy wants you, does it matter that there’s something more?”

Of course, Baby 5 didn’t know the extent at which Law used to wish Doffy would care. His favorite. Law was aware he had been. But forgiving Law? Keeping him by his side as his second? It would all be a ploy, in the end. Not a soulmate, but a tool. An especially useful one. 

I’ll raise him so he knows to die for me.

But Law thought about it. If he hadn’t heard what Doffy said that day, if he hadn’t seen Cora-san die, if Cora-san had never heard Law’s true name, would it matter that Doffy did not love him if he wanted Law all the same? If Law could have been by his side, would it matter being another piece on Doffy’s chessboard?

Lami used to run out into the rain chasing storms for a soulmate she never had a chance to meet. Law could still remember all his old classmates on the day before they died, talking about what soulmates meant to them. One of them had said that when you met your other half, it meant everything would be okay. He pictured Penguin, holding vigil at Shachi’s side. A soulmate is what you need most. His parents, dancing in the living room just to embarrass Law, hands on the other’s neck and so completely in love. 

He thought of walking into the Donquixote base on Spider Miles with grenades strapped to his chest, ready to burn the world down and finding the reflection of his soul willing to show him how. And show him he did, Law edging ever closer to a point of no return as Doffy dangled his dreams in his strings but kept an uncrossable gulf between them. How Law had always worried—while Cora-san was becoming the number one arsonist in North Blue—if Doffy was looking for a cure, if he cared, and how much Law had doubted. 

If Cora-san had never happened, if Cora-san had never shown him another way, would it have mattered? Probably not. Law would have died for Doffy if he had asked and gone to hell wondering if maybe he meant just a little to his soulmate. 

“It does,” he told Baby 5 and opened a Room. 

Smoker found Law in the aftermath as the Straw Hats partied with the Marines. Law sat apart, restlessness in his limbs, ready to depart. 

“Trafalgar,” said Smoker, taking a seat beside Law and saving him the trip of seeking him out later.

“Smoker-ya.” 

Smoker puffed away at his cigars. “You know I don’t plan to keep any promises I make to a pirate.”

Law took a sip of the steaming soup the Straw Hat cook had conjured out of nowhere for the enormous crowd of hungry fighters. Damn. It was annoyingly good. 

“But you never took any of the opportunities you had to kill me. What are you planning? Why are you taking advantage of Straw Hat?”

The Vice-Admiral of the Marines sounded almost suspiciously concerned. Law glanced towards said Straw Hat. The idiot was flailing around in the lightly falling snow, arms in the air and cheering, having dragged half the Marine squad into a dance circle with him. Which one? he had asked, completely unfazed, I plan to beat all four. 

“Whose taking advantage of who?” Law asked sardonically. 

Smoker grunted. Smoke wafted towards Law who made a cursory attempt to bat it away. 

“Vergo was a trusted and admired Marine,” ventured Smoker. “Many of my men respected and looked up to him.”

“If it makes you feel any better, he was never a Marine. It was hardly a betrayal when he was loyal to Doffy from the beginning.” 

“Right. Donquixote Doflamingo.” Law could feel Smoker’s eyes on him. Roaming over his tattooed hands, surveying his long sword, and up to his neck, thankfully covered by his high collar. His gaze lingered there.

Law sipped his soup deliberately, thankful his heart was back in his chest rather than out in the open for all to see. 

“Quite a man to devote yourself to,” said Smoker. 

“Doflamingo attracts many people,” replied Law. 

Smoker grunted. “Too many. The worst sort of pirate.” His tone didn’t quite imply anything about Law beyond the usual annoyed disapproval, but there was suspicion. He had been there during Law’s confrontation with Vergo. 

Law wondered how an experimental procedure regarding amnesia might proceed. 

“There was history there, between you and Vergo.”

“Congratulations, the Marines do indeed have some detective skills.” Law rifled through Smoker’s file again in his mind. Small benefits of being a Warlord: snooping through irritating pests’ records for blackmail material. The man was straight as an arrow, unfortunately. A solid, worthy Marine, whatever that meant, steadily rising through the ranks. Law tried to remember the other details, any personal info that could be useful. It was Marine protocol to have soul words stamped in an official personal file before each rookie Marine was handed a patch that was forbidden to be removed when in uniform.

Unfortunately, there had been other fish to fry at the time and Law hadn’t paid close attention. Now it was biting him in the ass. Something about where there’s smoke, there’s fire? Sir, there's no smoking in here? It was something regarding smoke since that was the man's entire personality but nothing approaching useful. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you and Doflamingo at a Warlord meeting together,” Smoker continued while Law plotted.

The last thing that Law needed was the Marines getting information about the identity of his soulmate in their official records. He weighed the option of taking Smoker out here versus keeping Straw Hat on as an ally. They seemed to like each other, for some godforsaken reason. Too messy, though. Punk Hazard had become incredibly crowded in the past few hours. 

“I don’t believe any Warlord makes a habit of attending all the meetings,” Law said. “Unlike you Marines, we have better things to do with our time.”

Smoker’s eyes narrowed. “You—”

“Doflamingo and I are not friends,” Law clarified. “Nor were Vergo and I. Whatever it is you’re fishing for, Smoker-ya, you’re welcome to say out loud.”

Smoker puffed away at his cigars. “Listen, Trafalgar, I don’t—” 

“Oiiiiiiii!”

That was the only warning before a body whizzed past and landed in the ground, sending a wave of snow over them both. 

“Watch it!” Law snapped, belatedly raising his soup out of the way. 

Straw Hat popped up, grinning toothily. “You’re so serious, Torao! You need to come party! You can too, Smokey,” he added graciously. 

Law inspected his soup, partially gone and now half made of snow. “We need to leave, Straw Hat-ya. We don’t have time for this.” He set it down. 

“After! Parties are an important part of being a pirate.”

Law stared at him. Straw Hat stared at Law’s soup. 

“Stop messing around with my Marines,” ordered Smoker, the most half-hearted attempt at being a responsible Vice-Admiral that Law had ever heard. 

“Are you going to eat that?” Straw Hat asked, completely ignoring him.

Law looked down at the goop and handed it over. Straw Hat ate it in one gulp and belched in satisfaction. “Ahhhh, Sanji’s cooking is the best. C’mon, Torao! Come dance with me!” 

“I refuse. We need to leave, Straw Hat-ya.” Law stood up, shaking the snow off of him.

“We will. Everything’ll work out!” Straw Hat beamed with unearned confidence. Law’s headache from earlier was returning. 

“Seconds coming up!” shouted the Straw Hat cook and Straw Hat began drooling immediately. 

“Food!” he yelled and slingshotted himself into a pile of Marines who got knocked every which way like debris in an explosion.

Law watched him go. Smoker watched him watch Straw Hat and Law turned back to him with a benign expression.

Smoker stared at him long and hard. The entire day hovered between them: the fights, the confrontations, the revelations, and their status as a pirate and a Marine. Vergo’s corpse still lay smoldering in the facility. Law wondered if the Marines would take it home or if it would be left in the dirt. Smoker had seen the man in all his true colors. Smoker had, in fact, seen everything. 

Smoker huffed, breaking the stare down. He chewed on his cigars as he stood up. “Whose taking advantage of whom?” he recited, sounding almost amused and equally exasperated. 

Just like that, a tension released within Law. “There was no particular reason for letting you live,” he said. “We’ll be leaving soon. We’re planning on heading to Green Bit.” And he turned away without waiting for a response, ready to wade his way into the center of the revelry to force Straw Hat into seeing it was past time to leave. 

The Thousand Sunny cast off to sea. Law finally stole away to make a call on the den den mushi he’d stolen from Vergo. He found a small storage room deep in the ship, far away from the loudness the Straw Hats naturally emitted and set the den den mushi on a crate. 

It was asleep, snoozing away without a care in the world. Law, practically vibrating out of his body, was irrationally envious. If he thought it would help, he would peel off his skin strip by strip, just to gain a millisecond of relief from the agitation bursting inside him.

A deep pit stagnated in his stomach. The last time he had heard Doffy speak echoed over and over again in his mind. It was like the years faded away and the walls began closing in, suffocating Law. Make the call, he ordered himself and forced his way through the claustrophobic gloom to do just that.

It rang once and then clicked. In the space between one heartbeat and the next was a moment of pure silence. Law’s breath was frozen. 

“Hello, Law.” 

Doffy’s voice curled around his name, low and sharp as it had always been. There was a peculiar concoction of undefined emotions lurking beneath the prevailing irritation. 

In response, Law felt almost out-of-body, disconnected from the tangible world around him. He was a young boy again, knocking on Doffy’s door, following at his heels, jumping at his orders, all too eager for an approving touch. 

“Hello, Doffy,” he replied. 

The miles shrank between them. They were close. The Thousand Sunny sailed to Dressrosa and Doffy was behind them, having flown across the seas in record time to find Baby 5 and Buffalo before being informed of Vergo’s demise. But they were close to one another. Doffy could be upon him in a matter of minutes. He moved faster than ships. 

The line was quiet. Law had returned to that great chasm he always stood at as a child: him on one side, Doffy on the other; Law desperately trying to cross and Doffy only observing, ever smiling. 

“You’ve grown up,” Doffy said at last. Amongst the annoyance, he sounded pleased. 

Law’s skin was too tight. All those hateful little thoughts that had bubbled up over the years cascaded over him all at once: What would Doffy think, was he watching, did he see? Was he proud, was he angry, did he care?

Law, always running while looking behind. 

“I have Caesar,” he blurted out, hardly the epitome of cool confidence he had wanted to portray. Not that it mattered. Doffy always saw through him anyway. 

“Yes. You do.” 

It was on the edge of condescending. Law stiffened. “You should be careful, Joker. You know what happens if you piss off Kaido.”

The den den mushi blinked at Law, blank-faced. The oppressive silence stretched. Law shifted, uneasy, the plan tumbling around in his mind as he poked it apart for holes.

Doffy sighed. It was put-upon, like all these years and all of Law’s plans had been a minor rebellion, as un-noteworthy as eating ice cream before dinner. “You’re coming to Dressrosa, Law.” 

“For an exchange.”

“Oh? Fufufu, you’ve become a little negotiator. What sort of exchange?” 

“Withdraw from the Warlords.” Law’s voice was strong and steady. “I want to see the announcement in the newspaper tomorrow morning. I’ll hand over Caesar then. If not…” Kaido will use you like a toothpick, went unsaid. 

The den den mushi frowned up at Law. Even miles apart, Law could feel the cold of Doffy’s anger. 

“Quite the negotiator. Are you certain this is the road you want to take, Law?”

No, part of Law wanted to scream. This was never what I wanted. “It’s what needs to be.”

Doffy laughed. It was harsh, but despite the anger, Law could still hear an underlining amusement. “You really have grown up well. I look forward to seeing you on Dressrosa.”

Ice laced Law’s veins. “I except your answer in the morning.” And he hung up. 

His hands were shaking. Doffy’s presence lingered like a ghastly poison slithering into every nook and cranny in the room. 

He wants you back in the Family. Wants you by his side.

“We’re past that,” Law whispered to the empty room. The ship creaked. Waves lapped against the sides. Law wished desperately he was back on his submarine, sinking down down down into the depths of the ocean, far away from the cloudy skies. 

The shadows shifted, creeping ever closer. 

Straw Hat found him. He had already begun forming an annoying habit of doing that. 

“You skipped dinner.” With a big frown and hands on his hips, Straw Hat resembled a disappointed mother. 

Law didn’t move. “I ate at the party.” The tangerine trees he had sought refuge under rustled in the salty breeze. Desperately needing fresh air and open space, even under a cloudy sky, he had fled the storage room and hidden amongst the leaves, hoping—apparently unreasonably—that no one would find him. 

“Sanji’s super mad. He doesn’t like people skipping meals.”

“I’m sure he’ll live.”

Straw Hat didn’t reply right away and Law glanced back up at him. His face was all screwed up as he scrutinized Law. 

“What?” Law snapped, feeling strangely dissected. 

Straw Hat shook his head. “SANJI!” he hollered, out of nowhere. “TORAO NEEDS FOOD!” 

A bang sounded across deck, like a door had been kicked open. “Where is he? Asshole needs to learn some manners. Bring him here, Luffy!”

Straw Hat grinned down at Law and reached out to grab his arm, pulling at him. “Now he’ll be really mad if you don’t eat.”

“Why should I care?” muttered Law, shaking Straw Hat off and standing up anyway. So much for hiding. Straw Hat bounced around him, making sure he headed over to the kitchen.

It was brightly lit and warm inside. Food sizzled on the stove and a delicious scent wafted through the room. The cook glared over at Law, one hand jostling the pan as he raised the other to point at the table imperiously. “There you are, shitty Warlord. Sit. Any allergies?”

Law sat, vaguely confused. “I’m not part of your crew.”

The cook rolled his eyes. “Everyone who gets on this ship is getting fed properly. Allergies?”

“Gluten,” Law said, despite himself. 

Straw Hat threw himself into the seat beside Law. “Glue?”  

“What?” asked Law. 

“You can’t eat glue? Makino always said eating glue was bad.”

Law had no idea who that was. “Gluten.”

Straw Hat looked puzzled. 

“Wheat,” called the cook. “Essentially. So no bread or soy sauce, amongst other things.”

Straw Hat brightened. “Oh! I’ll eat all your bread then, Torao.”

Law stared at him, baffled. The cook snorted in the background. Law felt compelled to ask, “Did you eat glue as a child?” 

“It tasted kinda weird,” replied Straw Hat, picking his nose. 

Law held a vague suspicion there was very little substance, edible or otherwise, Straw Hat had not tried at least once. 

It was a surprisingly relaxing atmosphere inside the kitchen. Being aboard a strange ship—especially one of a rival pirate crew—would leave anyone on edge. Law’s day had been a fiasco. Waking up on Punk Hazard that morning and sipping his coffee felt like it could be another lifetime. But in this cozy, almost domestic room, he found the tension seeping out of his shoulders. The call in the storage room from only a couple hours ago suddenly seemed far away. 

Maybe it was something about the magic of food. Clione had said that once, that there was nothing that brought people together more than a shared meal. Law glanced at Straw Hat who was still jittering in his seat and drooling over at the stove. Then he looked at the cook, back turned to them, chopping away at some greens. He wore a flat collared shirt and something peeked out over the edge. Law squinted and realized that where the cook’s words were supposed to be was a brutal old burn scar.

Law leaned back, wondering only briefly about what sort of circumstances led to a scar like that. Everyone had their own set of demons, he supposed. But Law had more pressing matters to worry about. “I called Doflamingo and told him the deal. We’ll see how he responds in the morning when we get the paper.”

Straw Hat nodded, bobbing his head up and down, and then kept at it, seemingly unable to sit still. 

“I expect a positive result though,” continued Law. “He’d face the Marines before Kaido.” But if he didn’t… or if he found some other way… Law’s fingers drummed restlessly on the table. The sizzling on the stove suddenly sounded very loud. “Who is with Caesar now?”

“Franky’s watching him,” replied Straw Hat. “You don’t need to worry so much.”

Law’s glare would have killed a lesser man. “Maybe you need to worry more, Straw Hat-ya! This isn’t a game! We’re in an alliance to take down an Emperor, in case you forgot. And don’t think for a second that Doflamingo is not an incredibly dangerous enemy.”

Straw Hat’s expression was mild. The cook’s back was still towards them but Law knew he was paying close attention. 

“Mingo’s a bad guy, right?” asked Straw Hat.

The food sizzled away. 

“We need Doflamingo and Kaido to turn against each other,” Law emphasized. “You understand that?”

Straw Hat’s eyes bored into him. Then he nodded shortly and said, “I understand,” though it sounded like he was referring to something else. 

“Good,” replied Law, feeling off-kilter and was relieved when the cook set down a plate of delicious looking stir fry, distracting them both.

The Straw Hat ship was bright and sunny and had an appropriate name. Sailing to Dressrosa from Punk Hazard took a couple days and Law spent most of his time fretting and trying to avoid the crew. The majority of the Straw Hats regarded Law with their own unique brand of suspicion, some more than others. Roronoa somehow always seemed to keep an eye on him—truly a herculean task for a man with only one. The archeologist, Demon Child Nico Robin, was incredibly polite and had such a serene blank face that Law felt all his secrets had somehow spilled out of his pockets for her to peruse. The little doctor, on the other hand—after their mutual medicinal foray on Punk Hazard—had deemed Law a-okay and Law tried desperately not to show how adorable he found the little reindeer when he discussed the finer points of surgery. 

Despite the vague distrustfulness, every single one of the crew seemed to fully accept the dangerous mission that had been plopped on their laps. Law watched closely, waiting for the cracks to show, their rightful suspicion of an enemy pirate aboard their ship to manifest in some unfortunate way, but just a day out from Dressrosa and they still seemed to be all in.

What a strange crew. 

With an equally strange captain, who hadn’t quit bothering Law the entire duration he’d been on board. Every time Law was settling into a long moment of solitude, it would inevitably be disrupted by Straw Hat butting in and disturbing any real chance Law had of stewing over the upcoming confrontation. 

Like now. Law had been leaning against the mast of the Sunny on a mostly empty deck. The New World weather had taken a turn that day as a monsoon poured down on them. It had cleared up now but the weather was muggy and the deck still a bit wet. Law was taking advantage of the quiet outdoors, brooding over the horizon and the landmass that would be appearing sometime next morning, when he felt eyes burning into the side of his head. He glanced over to find Straw Hat standing like he’d stopped mid-stride. “What?”

“You’ve been hiding,” Straw Hat complained. 

Law raised an eyebrow. He was sitting in the middle of the deck. 

Straw Hat’s mouth was childishly downturned. “You’re usually in the storage room or the library or in Nami’s tangerines.”

Ah. Apparently Law’s hiding places had become his haunts. 

“Well you found me. Congratulations.”

Straw Hat plopped down in front of Law, crosslegged and staring intently. “What does that mean?” Straw Hat pointed at Law. 

Law looked down at himself but he was wearing just a plain, navy blue shirt. Almost immediately, he thought maybe Straw Hat was trying to play some foolish juvenile prank on him and jerked his head back up with a glare. 

But Straw Hat’s expression was open and curious. “On your neck. I meant to ask before. What does it mean?”

Law tensed. “It’s common courtesy to not ask people about their soul words,” he snapped. 

Straw Hat tilted his head, completely unbothered by Law’s sour attitude and totally at ease with his own habit of skirting social conventions. “I’ll ask Robin then.”

There was very little Law wanted less than to get Straw Hat’s sharp-eyed archeologist involved in a conversation like this. “What does what mean?”

Straw Hat scootched forward so he was sitting nearly right on top of Law, knees bumping into his. He grabbed at Law, attempting to manhandle him so he could look at his neck. 

“Get off!” Law ended up in a most undignified brawl as he tried to shove Straw Hat away. The rubbery skin made it difficult for Law to get the upper hand. The two tussled, rolling around right there on deck for anyone to watch. 

“Lemme see!” whined Straw Hat, as some of Law’s fingers ended up in his mouth while he tried to shove the idiot’s head away. Straw Hat responded by licking them. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Law squawked, withdrawing immediately. He stood up and retreated to the railing while considering the benefits of drowning Straw Hat in the ocean. Or maybe jumping in himself. It would be a sorry end but Law couldn’t say he wasn’t tempted. He stared down at his fingers, disgusted. 

Straw Hat laughed, apparently finding this all hilarious. He bounded over to stand in front of Law who, before even thinking about it, reached out and wiped his fingers on Straw Hat’s red shirt in petty revenge. 

Unfortunately, Straw Hat didn’t care at all. In fact, he looked delighted as he stared down at Law’s retreating fingers and Law was left feeling incredibly embarrassed by his own childish display. He glanced surreptitiously around the deck which was still practically empty except for the swordsman, asleep by the stern. Hopefully fast asleep. Please, if the universe had any pity at all on Law, let him be asleep. 

“You’re funny,” said Straw Hat. “This word.” He pointed at Law’s throat rather than bothering with a fight again, apparently assuming Law could either see his own words or read Straw Hat’s mind. 

Regrettably, Law did know exactly which one he was talking about. “Conviction.”

Straw Hat nodded. “Con-vic-tion,” he repeated. 

Law reached back and ran a hand over his words. He was wearing a high collar which meant Straw Hat must’ve been sitting on the question. 

Unbidden, Lami popped into his head, all of four years old and tracing Law’s words with her pudgy little hand.

“Co-vi-tion,” she said, and Law’s mom had laughed and enunciated the word slowly, her own finger moving against Law’s skin, guiding Lami’s as she sounded out each syllable. “Con-vic-tion,” Lami managed to say at last, the longest word she had learned so far. Whenever she spoke of Law to others, pride and innocent love ringing in her voice, she said brother, she said doctor, and she said conviction. 

It had been one of the first words Law learned also, but he couldn’t remember his parents explaining the meaning to him. Instead, it felt like he always knew. “It means to hold strong. To believe something without letting anyone change your mind. You don’t let anyone stand in your way to achieve what you want.”

Straw Hat looked thoughtful for a second. Law could see the gears in his head turning. Then he brightened and slammed a fist down on his palm. “I like it!” he declared. “It’s just like you, Torao.”

Law blinked. Something strange twisted in his chest. “You don’t even know me, Straw Hat-ya.” For some reason, he had thought Straw Hat couldn’t read and he voiced as much, figuring Straw Hat wouldn’t be offended. 

He wasn’t. He just waved his hand at Law, like he was warding away an evil spirit. “Reading sucks,” he complained, not clarifying. “Robin told me your words but I wanted to ask you what it meant.”

Apparently the archeologist was involved after all. When had she had a chance to see them? Hadn’t he kept them essentially covered so far? Either way, Law was not sure how he felt about the Straw Hat crew gossiping behind his back about his words but he supposed it couldn’t be helped. He was a stranger on their ship, leading them on a dangerous mission that they were—for some reason—going along with. They were bound to speculate about him and try and dig up any useful information to be wielded against him. That they were coming all too close to hitting on the heart of the matter sat uncomfortably with Law.

 “It’s incredibly rude to talk about someone’s soul words.” 

“Ace always hit me when I asked about his soul words,” Straw Hat said matter-of-factly. “Nami hit me too! But she met her soulmate later on and was so happy, even though they had to leave each other for awhile.”

“Maybe you should stop asking people.”

Straw Hat laughed boisterously, like Law had just told a really good joke. Law supposed he had. He could already tell it was unlikely Straw Hat would ever follow that sort of advice.

“Why do you even care?” asked Law.

Straw Hat rocked on his heels. “Because they’re important to my friends.”

Law found he couldn’t really say anything to that. There was an odd sensation in his chest again, though tempered by a familiar self-loathing. Straw Hat was still looking at him keenly so Law was careful not to let anything show. He almost didn’t say anything further, ready to change the subject before Straw Hat began asking even more difficult questions, but the opportunity was right there and he couldn’t resist. Maybe it would distract Straw Hat from further inquiry anyway. “You don’t have any.” 

Straw Hat tilted his head, eyes sharp on Law like he saw through Law turning the conversation around on him, but then abruptly shook his head. “Nope.” 

Just like that. So incredibly at ease, like it was nothing. And you’re okay with that? Law wanted to ask. You’re alone in the world, and you’re just, what… at peace with that?

“You don’t care?”

Straw Hat shrugged. “I don’t need words.”

“Luuuuuffffyy!” screeched the sniper from the other end of the ship. “Where are you? Sanji said we need to fish and replenish the aquarium before dinner!” 

“STOP YELLING!” bellowed the navigator, still in her cabin. “I’m trying to concentrate!” 

“I’ve made a smoothie of love to help, Nami-swan~!”

“Sanji! Snacks!” Straw Hat slingshotted himself across the ship which had suddenly come alive. 

Law watched it unfold, strangely adrift. Conversations with Straw Hat were like that sometimes. Either Law was left with a headache after Straw Hat said the most ludicrous thing or he became untethered, as if Straw Hat had reached inside and rummaged around in his head, disrupting the careful order Law had cultivated. 

With a sigh, Law turned back to the mast, considering retaking his seat, but happened to glance back towards the stern where the swordsman had briefly opened his eye to take in the commotion. He met Law’s gaze and raised an eyebrow, a smirk evident before he closed his eye again. 

Shit. He had seen everything. 

Law skedaddled to the berth of the ship, hiding away in that damned storage room again, as far as he could be from every single member of this headache of a crew.

Law watched the sun rise on the day they were expected to land on Dressrosa. The inky midnight blue of the sky lightened gradually, before an array of fiery colors burst on the horizon. Vibrant oranges, deep hues of red, even pastel pinks awash across the skyline. Law breathed deep, hearing the calls of seagulls and tasting the familiar salty fresh air of the sea. His heart beat in his chest and the blood rushed in his veins. He tapped his fingers against the wood of the ship, feeling the coarse texture against his nerves, leaned into the wind brushing against his cool skin. His inner doctor marveled at all the complicated workings that lent itself to the human body to give him these experiences, that made one feel alive. 

Sorry, Bepo, Law thought, and then apologized to each of his crew in turn.

Eventually, Straw Hat came to lean against the railing as well. He stood beside Law, watching the sunrise. “It’ll be okay, Torao.”

“Just follow the plan,” Law said. The explosive colors had begun to fade to ordinary blue. 

Straw Hat’s hand landed on Law’s shoulder. Law turned. Straw Hat looked serious. For someone so goofy most of the time, it should be unusual, should sit wrong on his youthful, almost innocent face. But it didn’t. It fit him, just as the rest did. Beyond the peculiar, almost introspective looks he got sometimes, this one held a quiet conviction. Law had seen it before. On Sabaody, that fervent fury, and on Marineford, the audacious determination.

“We’ll beat up Mingo,” said Luffy. “Don’t worry, Torao. Everything is going to be okay.”

He spoke so sincerely, as though it was a singular truth in the world. The sky was blue, the ocean was salty, and Doflamingo would fall because Straw Hat said it was so. 

Law’s heart skipped a beat. What was that? he asked himself, turning away from Straw Hat’s too-open face, unable to look anymore. This was a bad time to start having heart problems. 

I’m going to betray you, Law thought. When I die, I’m going to leave you to make sure Doflamingo is finished and if I fail, I’m going to leave you to clean up the mess. Not just you, but your crew. I would never forgive that. And neither will you.

Dressrosa appeared in the horizon, an island on clear waters under sunny skies. A kingdom that Law had failed, long ago. No matter his actions today, it could never fix the scars that now marred the people’s lives. 

At this kingdom’s heart, its false king awaited Law’s arrival. 

The Thousand Sunny docked at an ordinary port of a bright, colorful town. Law stepped off, foot to cobblestone, and finally said to his soulmate, I’m here. 

Doflamingo appeared through the trees like a bird of prey. Law’s ears rang, his plan collapsing around him like a tower of cards flicked over by a single touch.

It didn’t make any sense. How?

Doffy landed in front of him, so tall Law had to crane his neck back even with the height he had gained since the last time they were together. There were more lines on Doffy’s face, a new hollowness in his jawline, but despite the years he was the same. Unfathomable shades glinted in the sun and Law was still captured within them, his shocked, wretched face reflected twice back. 

“Surprised, Law?” Doffy chuckled as the Marines flooded around them. 

“It’s impossible,” despite the contrary staring Law in the face. “You’re a pirate, a king, but practically no one has that sort of power to bend the World Government to do their bidding, let alone to, what… fool ten people?”

Doflamingo’s lips stretched upwards, baring his teeth. 

“The only people who have that sort of power are the Celestial Dragons,” continued Law and then he faltered. Something pinged in his mind. 

You don’t even know who he is, Vergo had said right before he died and Law had taken it as a jealous utterance but perhaps it had a been a warning or a threat. 

“You—” he trailed off, horrified, as Doflamingo began to laugh. 

A Celestial Dragon. An overwhelming shock swept over him first but as the initial bombshell fizzled out, missing puzzle pieces began slotting into place. So many things suddenly made so much sense.

Donquixote, a family of World Nobles. 

Donquixote Rosinante, Law’s brain supplied and he balked, more questions abruptly raised, more holes in the picture, scrambling to make sense of that revelation. 

The more he thought about it, the more confusion scattered the files of order in Law’s mind. You, he thought, staring at Doffy, and me. 

There are some who call the Family of D, ‘the sworn enemies of the gods.’

The string fate had tied between them was pulled taut. I don’t understand, Law despaired, far from the first time, but somehow more than ever before. 

Two halves of a whole. A Celestial Dragon and the Family of D. The universe was pulling strings and Law was caught in its web, unable to escape, unable to understand, unable to do much of anything at all. 

“Things are complicated,” Doffy allowed, reveling in his win. His voice was gloating, victory sweet, and his gaze swept over Law, delighting in his reaction. “I’ve been waiting for you, Law. You’ve made me wait a very long time. And here you are.” 

“Waiting to kill me?” Law’s mind swirled as he grasped for his next steps. 

“Fufufu. To catch you, Law.”

Doflamingo spared no mercy. It was one disaster after the next, a singular secret a death knell to everything that came next. The plan was in shambles. Doffy attacked with deadly precision, ready to dismantle Law’s plan with one debilitating blow. It was chaos. Law was a mouse in a deadly game, and by the time he was back with the Straw Hats, Doflamingo hurtling towards the ship, Law could not see whether any part of his plan would pull through. 

The alliance was dissolved and half the Straw Hats sailed into the distance towards Zou with Caesar on deck. The other half were scattered in unknown locations, distracted most likely, but hopefully still intent on completing their tasks.

Don’t worry, Torao. Everything will be okay.

All Law could do was believe in them now. They would blow up the SMILE factory. That was all that mattered in the end.

“You said you were just using the Straw Hats,” observed Doffy, stalking towards Law as he lay gasping for breath on the bridge. “But you’ve placed your faith in them. You’ve taken hits for them. How can you trust them so much?”

He sounded annoyed, like he was disappointed in Law. 

Law struggled to sit up, his entire body one big bruise, aches in each joint. The world around him blurred. A shadow fell over him as Doffy stopped before him. Law forced his head up, trying to meet Doffy’s gaze but he was silhouetted by the sun, a shadow wreathed in flames. 

How many things he could say in response but he knew in his bones what he wanted to say. This was it. Doffy had won. Had caught him. Law wasn’t strong enough to defeat Doffy on his own. He had never expected to. Doffy may still believe he had a place for Law by his side since he, after all, didn’t know the truth anymore than Law had known up until today. But it was far too late for that. Law was prepared to die today but not for him. Never for him.

You don’t understand the danger you’re in, Cora-san had said. Thirteen years later and finally, Law saw very clearly. 

“Because,” he bit out, a wild exhilaration racing through him like a tidal wave, “I know that D will bring another storm.”

The air turned static. Doffy’s face was stone, veins throbbing, a frigid fury erupting from him, the sort Law had seen before but never directed at him. Doffy’s hand was suddenly at his throat, pressing him down, a power that Law could still never hope to match clawing at him, not quite tearing apart but scratching away, a deadly threat. 

The world whirled around him as he was flung, the clouds and the trees tumbling about. He was caught and then thrown again, sent crashing into the ground where he slid across cobblestones, the rounded edges burning against his back before the motion stopped. Still alive, he thought dazedly and knew it would not be for long. He tried to breathe and his ribs screamed. A deep throbbing banged in his head, like a cannon firing over and over again, exploding against his skull. 

A vicious, raging presence approached him. “You stupid brat.”

In the distance, Law could have almost sworn he heard a familiar voice call Torao! 

There was a click. Law struggled to open his eyes, vision swimming as the dust cleared. “You’ve finally pushed too far.”

Law deliriously remembered when he’d first thought Doffy would kill him, right before he was instead welcomed into the Family. Took long enough, he thought and wondered if Doffy would be relieved his soul words turned gray. A sense of calm spread through him. He’d done what he could. Straw Hat could take it from here. 

The first shot split through the air, a deafening BANG! Law was thrown back into the stone by the force. And then another—BANG!—and his body was jolted, tossed around like a rag doll, and one more—BANG!—close to his heart, sending him crashing back to the cold ground. 

Cora-san, was his last thought as he slipped into eternal sleep accompanied by a piercing scream. 

The world faded in slowly. The pain came first, radiating through his entire body. His eyes fluttered open, melting colors floating in front of him before slowly shaping into tangible objects. The confusion filtered through next. 

Against all odds, Law was alive. 

The memory of the loud BANGS flooded back abruptly and suddenly Law was very awake. He jerked up instinctively, danger screaming at his every senses, but was pulled back by rough chains biting into his skin.

Not good, he thought, looking down. Seastone cuffs were locked on his wrists, sapping away what little strength he had. He examined his chest and recognized immediately that someone had tended to him and taken the bullets out. 

Law leaned back, trying to orient himself. He looked around belatedly, still somewhat groggy from the ordeal. Across from him was a long wall of paned windows, the sun still shining brightly outside which made it difficult to tell how much time had passed. Perhaps he had only been out for a short time. Or an entire day. He glanced to his side and saw a chair beside him. A Club chair. 

Cold, nauseous trepidation washed over him. He craned his head around, already knowing what he would find. 

Law had been chained to the Heart seat. 

“It didn’t have to be like this, Law.”

Shoes tapped on the marble floor. With each step, Law’s heart rate sped up.

“You left me alive,” said Law, wincing as the words scraped against his throat and shifted his ribs. He shouldn’t be that surprised, he supposed. He thought he had pushed Doffy so far that even the Ope-Ope wasn’t worth keeping him alive. Apparently not.

Doffy stopped before him, frowning down. “Do you think so little of me?”

The bullet wounds throbbed. Law snorted. 

Eyes narrowed, Doffy leaned over him, boxing him in against the blood red seat. “This is not the reunion I had hoped for. You’ve always been precocious but my patience only stretches so far.”

Law was plastered against the velvet seat, as far back as he could go. He stared up, silent. 

“It’s time for you to come home, Law. To where you belong.”

Years had been spent imagining this inevitable reunion. Law had pictured how this confrontation would end. Doffy, always waiting for him, Law, constantly running, until they collided in an explosion that would hopefully destroy them both. 

“I betrayed you. I know what happens to traitors of this Family. Of you.”

“Yes.” A giant hand moved in to curl possessively around the back of Law’s neck. “But you were taken by my traitorous little brother, which I allowed. I forgive you, Law.”

His hand was so big that even gripping from the nape, his fingers still circled around Law’s throat. Doffy hovered right in front of him, so close his breaths hit Law’s face. “This seat was saved for you as I promised. Stop now and this is all behind us. The Straw Hats are scattered, your plan ruined. Stand beside me as my right-hand man, as it was always meant to be. You’ll be beside me as I remake the world.”

“I’m here to destroy you,” said Law shakily. “I’m here to destroy everything.”

The grip on his neck tightened to a painful squeeze before Doffy reared back, releasing him. He turned and walked to the tall, stretching windows and looked out at his kingdom, back to Law. 

The large, nearly empty hall was quiet. Law could hear his heartbeat in his ears. 

Doffy reached a hand across his chest, grasping his pink feathered coat at the shoulder and pulled it off. 

The black words were stark against his tanned skin. Everything else faded away: the distant, raging battles amongst numerous factions of people, the bright, beating sun over this vibrant country, thoughts of the plan and his crew and anything else.

Law had always wanted to see, until later he wished he could look and find nothing.

I want to destroy everything.

As clear as anything could be. Tangible proof tying Doflamingo and Law together.

A finger ran across the words in a tender gesture. “My weak-hearted father worried over these words. He threw away the power granted to him for useless people he thought were good and in his false beliefs he took my destiny away from me.” The words wallowed in an old, biting bitterness. “He deserved worse than his end. These words spoke a truth he could not see.” Doffy turned back towards Law. Even without his coat, he was an imposing figure, innate power emanating from him. “Where’s the boy who said this, Law?”

Law’s chest was heavy. He felt as though a hand was once again gripping his heart and squeezing tight. 

“Cora-san showed me another way.”

The ice-cold fury exploded through the room like a torrential avalanche. Veins throbbed in Doffy’s forehead. “My little brother, Rosinante. Always so jealous of my soulmate when his words were gray.”

“That’s not why.” There are some who call the Family of D, ‘the sworn enemies of the gods.’

“He infected you.” Doffy stalked closer, again standing in front of Law and looking him over, lingering on Law’s bare chest and the black heart inked for all to see. He reached his hand out and stroked over the curves, sending a shiver through Law’s body at the touch. “He took you away from me.”

Cora-san will send you away. Cora-san will make you leave.

A small gasp escaped Law as fingers dipped to the lowest point of the heart. “I left.” 

Doffy shook his head. “We can get past this, Law.” He withdrew his hand and stepped back once, drinking in the view of Law chained to the Heart seat. “This is where you belong.”

“I’m never going to do what you want.” Law’s heart pounded a tempestuous rhythm. “It’s too late. Whatever happens to me, it doesn’t matter. The plan’s in place. Straw Hat will destroy the factory and Kaido will turn against you.”

The cold tendrils of fury hit him again. “Straw Hat. That boy with the blood of a demon. You saved him back on Marineford. That’s unlike you. Why?”

“A whim,” replied Law without hesitation.

“You brat,” Doffy seethed. “Straw Hat will disappoint you, in the end. Law… you will see. Your fight will fade once you accept what is meant to be.”

A hesitant knock at the door. “Young Master, I know you said to not interrupt, but there’s really something you should know.”

For one more moment, Doffy stared down at Law, captured in his clutches. “Enter,” he called and finally turned away. 

The Birdcage glinted in the sun. Law watched the strings catch in the rays, little sparkles high above. A jolt from the bull nearly sent him flying but a rubbery hand shot back, clamping down on his shoulder with a gentle strength, keeping him in place. 

“You don’t need to worry about Zoro,” Straw Hat finished, reassuring the others. “He made a vow that he would never be defeated again.” His hand lingered before releasing Law.

Such simple faith. This crew, this captain, they were… something indescribable. 

What was Straw Hat doing? Carrying Law across Dressrosa when it would be better to leave him behind? Disallowing Law of his right to break the alliance like it was something that mattered to him.

Don’t worry, Torao. Everything will be okay.

What were the other Straw Hats doing? Their crew was splintered, the plan now a fiasco, dragged into a fight that wasn’t theirs, betrayed by a so-called ally, faced with enemies feared across the seas… and yet they fought. Unwavering. 

The compulsion to explain was maybe partially guilt—something to give because at this point it was owed—but staring at the back of Straw Hat’s bright, cheery sunflower shirt, it was hardly the overriding factor that led Law to open his mouth. 

“Our plan was to go against Doflamingo indirectly. Obviously impossible now. But the truth is I want to hurt him directly.” 

Straw Hat glanced back, listening.

Law looked away, back up to the glistening strings. A day so distant from Minion Island and yet, for a moment, he felt so small.

I’m his brother. I’ll be okay. He won’t hurt me. 

“Thirteen years ago, there was a person who I loved… and Doflamingo killed him.” Straw Hat started. “His name was Corazon. He was a top executive of the Donquixote Family.”

“One of them?” asked Straw Hat, surprised. 

One of them… “Yes. He saved my life. And he was Doflamingo’s biological younger brother.”

Straw Hat stiffened. 

“I’m going to avenge him,” Law declared to someone else, for the first time. “Doflamingo defeated me before but I won’t lose again. He’ll fall today.”

There was one brief, heavy moment that hung in the air, broken by an exuberant shishishi that blossomed into a full-blown laugh. “He will, Torao! Let’s go beat up Mingo together!” 

Together. Law tore his eyes away from the Birdcage overhead and looked again at Straw Hat’s back, his form shaking with the force of his laughter and excitement. 

For a brief bout of insanity, Law wanted to keep talking. To say the rest out loud. I’m his. He’s mine. I need to end this. 

But logic overran his clearly concussed brain and then the moment was gone as Straw Hat stood up to clear the path. 

Alone together on the roof, Law had to know. “What do you think of him? Monkey D. Luffy?” He dodged a string. “I didn’t know you were a Celestial Dragon until today. So what is it? What do you think of the Family of D?”

Doffy glowered, fingers twisting as vicious strings darted Law’s way. “It’s none of your concern. Are you trying to say that Straw Hat Luffy has been led here by destiny to kill me? Me? Who has godly blood in his veins? What a joke.”

The fight flowed to a natural pause as they both evaluated the other, taking a moment of rest. 

Really, now that he considered it, Law felt he should have known. It explained so much of Doffy, who had always been shrouded in mystery. An answer always out of reach for the questions Law always asked. And now, more than ever… how long had Law wondered, ever since that day in the alleyway—when the world was silent around him besides one singular voice—what Doffy might think. What Doffy might say. 

“You said earlier that Cora-san took me away because I was your soulmate. That he was jealous because his words were gray.”

Law could still see Cora-san sitting in the dancing fire light, hand on his neck and face tilted up to the stars. 

“But that’s not why. He was a Celestial Dragon too so he must’ve…” Cora-san had said he used to be afraid. Afraid of D and what it meant. I don’t know what you are, he told Law when he asked, afraid far from the last time that Cora-san would answer with monster. “He found out my name. My secret name, when us kids were playing that day. So he took me away. Away from you.” And what you might do. Law took a deep breath and declared, “I’m a D too. My name is Trafalgar D. Water Law. It always has been.”

Doffy was eerily still. “Trafalgar D. Water Law? Your secret name?” He tracked Law, sunglasses catching the sun, making his eyes shine red. “You’re saying you are a D, Law?” His voice curdled. “Is this your destiny? Are you destined to be here to defeat me, is that what you’re saying, Law?”

Hah. Destiny. What few favors destiny had ever granted Law. He took some comfort in the knowledge that right now Doffy was grappling with the universe’s sick sense of humor just as Law had.

There was movement across the field: Trebol returning to the battle. 

A vein bulged in Doffy’s forehead. “A D,” he repeated, almost disbelieving, and Law could tell that just as Law had never imagined that Doffy was a Celestial Dragon, Doffy had never suspected the truth of Law’s name. He wondered if it answered any of Doffy’s questions about Law. 

Doffy shook his head, waving away his momentary falter with irritation. “You think you can stop me, Law? Just because you’re a D? A sworn enemy of the gods? It’s just superstition. My weak little brother used to cry himself to sleep at night over fairy tales.”

Trebol called out in alarm as Law attacked. “Injection Shot!” Law dodged away after landing the shot, avoiding the blood spurting from Doffy’s mouth as he coughed. “Cora-san told me you believed in destiny,” he taunted. “We’re both here, aren’t we? But I know it’s not that easy. If I could just defeat you with my name things would be a lot simpler. It was just a catalyst. You want to know why I came back, Doffy?”

Doffy straightened, wiping the blood away from his mouth, lips deeply downturned.

“It wasn’t for you. It wasn’t to join you again, to be your right-hand man… I am here because Cora-san couldn’t pull the trigger that day. I’m only here to pull it on his behalf!” Law swung in, Kikoku hungry for flesh but Doffy leapt into the air, hopping from one string to the next until he was high above, a menacing figure hovering in the sky. 

The veins in his forehead throbbed. “Pulling the trigger? Law, I hardly think—”

“Room! Countershock!”

Trebol began taunting in the background, as Law was pushed back. “Ne, ne, how close was that, Law? Behehehe, Laaaaw. Ne, ne, Law, are you trying to ignore me? Ne, Law! Laaaaw!”

It was like being back on Spider Miles all over again, being beaten down against a foe he could hardly hope to match, Trebol vocally reveling in his humiliation. 

“I’m really disappointed in you, Law.” Doffy spun around as Trebol cried out behind him, strings shooting across the sky with lightning fast speed, forming a massive spiderweb to stop the tower rampart Law had flung at him. Then he leapt, avoiding the enormous stones sent flying his way, sending strings slithering towards Law like snakes. Law dove past them, Kikoku humming in his palm, hand outstretched, ready to touch skin as he began saying, “Mes—”

A rough hand gripped his wrist, stopping him dead. Law tugged back but his momentum was gone. He dangled in the air like a bug that had wandered unwittingly into a web. 

“Cut out these pointless attacks. Look at you, Law.” Doffy dragged him closer, leaning in, lips brushing against Law’s ears. “You’ve become quite a passionate little shit. But you have not pulled the trigger yet. You haven’t even put your finger on the trigger.” His breath was hot on Law’s skin. Law tried to struggle out but there was nowhere to go. He was trapped. “Disappointing. You always looked at the world with such hatred. Such loathing. It was a beautiful thing to see.” His fingers tightened around Law’s wrist, threatening to snap the fragile bones. “But now… the weaker a person is, the more he gets hung up on other people’s pain. Then he self-destructs. If you really wanted to kill me, you should’ve stuck with your original plan. But instead, you became emotional and now you are at my mercy.”

Doffy’s free hand drifted up, landing on the back of Law’s neck. Law shivered under the touch. He used to be so proud, so elated, when Doffy made this gesture so many years before. Now, Law’s skin crawled. 

“Corazon died trying to save this country. A pity. If only you hadn’t blown it that day… I know you remember. You are, after all—” and his voice curled around Law as his fingers began rubbing the words on Law’s skin, “sort of responsible for Corazon’s death. And everything that happened in this country, the numerous tragedies fallen upon it, it all could have been prevented. If only you had done what Corazon asked and taken that letter to the Marines.”

“You think so?” asked Law, sounding far more calm than he felt. His heart fluttered in his chest, a frenetic, frantic beat, like the wings of a trapped bird.

“Hah!” Doffy’s grip on his neck tightened, holding Law close. “You’re right. Whatever happened to that letter, I would have ended up sitting on the throne of this country either way. Everything that Corazon did risking his life was all in vain in the end.”

“So it’s up to me now.” Law tried to kick forward. In response, Doffy raised his own leg, prepping for a kick, a long string glinting in the corner of Law’s eyes. “Whatever I do before I die is owed to Cora-san’s legacy.”

“Oh-ho? What a tear-jerking sentiment!” Doffy chuckled, cruel and mocking. “You spoke of destiny, Law? Quite a funny thing. I was destined to be a Celestial Dragon and my fool of a father took it away from me. Or was that my destiny? What of you, Law? Were you always destined to eat the Ope-Ope no Mi, a fruit of incredible power? Were you destined to be here or did it happen because of Corazon’s meddling? What do you think?” 

“Weren’t we always going to end up here?” Law gasped, still struggling in his grasp. 

“Were we?” Doffy’s leg swung and Law was sent hurtling towards the roof, crashing into the stone at full-force. The shock faded fast and Law screamed, clutching at where his arm had been sawn off, the pain nearly unbearable. 

Cheers rang from the side, Trebol’s obnoxious voice filtering through the haze. “I like how you scream, Law! So much I’m dripping snot!” 

Doffy’s laugh rang out. “I don’t know if you were influenced by the other D or not but you coming to challenge me yourself, well… Destiny must have led us here. I told you I forgave you, Law, and offered a place again by my side. I don’t forgive just anyone.” Law grit his teeth against the waves of unimaginable agony, forcing himself to shakily sit up. Doffy landed across from him and slowly pulled out his gun. “I forgave my biological father and brother through their deaths. Their atonement for the wrongs they wrought upon me. If this is truly the path you choose, Law, if you truly turn against me, don’t worry. I forgive you too.” He loomed over Law, raising the gun and aiming it at him. “What’s the matter?” he taunted. “I thought you wanted to pull the trigger.”

Kikoku lay only feet away. Law tried to dart towards her but Doffy was upon him just as he grasped her in his remaining hand, knocking him over with one solid blow and stomping on his wrist, leaning all his weight into it. “How long will you keep up with this pathetic little revenge game, Law?”

“So pathetic! So pathetic! Behehehe!” 

“You never learn! Do you wanna lose another arm?” Doffy ground away at Law’s bones. 

I’ve been willing to give you one or both of my arms from the beginning!” Law snarled. 

“It’s time to rest now, Law.” Doffy stepped back, drawing his gun, head cocked. “You must have learned by now that no matter what sort of cheap trick you might play, the difference in our strength is not something you can make up.”

Law struggled back upright. He must be going into shock. The wrist Doffy had stomped on now hurt worse than his severed limb. 

“Straw Hat hasn’t even come yet. He won’t make it up here that easily. You placed your faith in him and he failed you, choosing another over you. His “friend” he’s still fighting down there while here you are, alone.”

Trebol laughed. “He’s such a naive idiot, it’s no use laying your hopes with him.”

The sun began setting over Dressrosa, casting an array of cool pinks and purples, giving way to a flaming mix of orange and yellow. 

“You really are something to be pitied,” Doffy continued, mockingly. “You were born in the doomed White Town. Your future must have seemed to be only plain darkness back then. I saw that look in your eye, when you came to me. The hellish hunger that’s only born from complete despair. To have nothing to live for but your own rage. And then—” Doffy’s tone turned to that of a storyteller reaching an exciting part in the tale, “you met my younger brother Corazon and he gave you a great favor indeed. An extended life expectancy but at a cost… betrayal.” His voice dropped low, anger curbing his intonation as he continued. “Betrayal of me, of the Family, of all we had graciously given you, and then you nurtured an unworthy grudge against me as if you’re the ghost of him, living only for him and his revenge.”

“What a fool!” chanted Trebol.

“For a man living on borrowed time, you’ve accomplished a great deal. You honed your skills, allied with Straw Hat, and even came all the way to Dressrosa, causing quite a headache for me. What an astounding obsession. But…” Doffy pressed the gun to Law’s forehead where he knelt, “it’s over now. What a worthless thirteen years you’ve spent. It could have been much different, Law, if you had allowed it. If you had allowed me. I feel sorry for you. Your death is inevitable. You’ve stolen time but it ends here, Law.”

Trebol bounced with glee. 

“However…” and now Doffy’s voice turned soothing, a salesman reeling in the catch, “if you’re going to die anyway,” and his gun moved down to the center of Law’s chest, pressing into his heart, “wouldn’t you rather make something of it? Something meaningful, for both of us. To share between us. Listen closely, Trafalgar D. Water Law, to your destiny.” Doffy leaned in close, a monstrous demon breathing in Law’s ear. Under the multicolored sky, his glasses gleamed a burning red. “Perform the Perennial Youth Operation, the Ope Ope’s ultimate technique, and die. In exchange, I’ll grant your wish, whatever it is.”

Law looked up at him. Acrid smoke filled the air and distant cries sounded continuously from below but all the way up here, atop the broken castle at the peak of this crumbling kingdom, it was relatively quiet and eerily calm. Flames crackled, searching and hungry for a new path to leap to and eat. Sweat dripped down his face. 

An especially useful tool, Cora-san had said so very long ago, when Law asked about Doffy’s soulmate. Maybe this was destiny. Maybe this was who they were, no matter what was written on their skin. They had always stood on opposite sides of a great divide. They both attempted to reason with destiny and then fought against it, having kicked and scratched, trying to bend Fate to their will, and then negotiated again, trying to understand, until the cycle repeated over and over again. But the words on their skin had led them to each other, had wound up bringing them here. Maybe it was always supposed to end this way. 

“Whatever it is?” he asked quietly. 

The responding smirk was vicious, a premature triumph in the tilt of Doffy’s lips. “That’s right.”

Law huffed, his own mouth pulling up instinctively. “If you really mean it, it is a good idea. It’s meaningful for both of us. Maybe it is destiny.” He stared Doffy down. “All right. I’m in!” 

Trebol exclaimed in the background, celebrating. 

Doffy’s smirk widened as he stood up, tension relaxing from him as he settled into a posture befitting a king. Victory oozed from his very pores. 

“Then bring Cora-san back to life for me, right now. When you finish with that, go lick the asses of every single one of this country’s people!”

Trebol gasped, aghast. Doffy’s smile was frozen, teeth still bared white. 

“No match for you? No use laying my hopes? No shit! It’s you not seeing the picture, Doflamingo. Straw Hat-ya has worked so many miracles before today. You think you can take him down? You think you can get everything back?” 

Veins protruded in Doffy’s forehead as his lips slowly turned down. 

“You asked me if I trust Straw Hat-ya? I do!”

“Law?” shouted Trebol. “How could you say such things to Doffy?”

Doffy’s hand tightened on the gun, the sound of skin scraping against metal heard in the almost dead silence of the roof. As he began to raise his arm, Law continued heedlessly, recklessness flowing like an adrenaline shot, “It’s your future that’s hanging by a hair. You, Doffy, you’re the one who will fall today. Any destiny you thought you might have will be—” and a shot was fired, a loud BANG deafening even through the white noise in Law’s ears and he was thrown back by the force, blood gushing out of his wound. Iron filled his mouth and he gasped, splattering blood across the floor. 

“You fucking brat. You never stop rebelling against me!”

Law struggled to sit up again but his energy was drained and he collapsed on his stomach. 

“Those letters on your back… Corazon? Who are you aiming that satire at? You call yourself the Heart Pirates. Just who are you aiming this little joke at?” Doffy roared, voice thunderous across the roof. Another shot hit Law’s back, piercing through his skin and bones and shooting out the other side to land in the stone beneath him. “You turned it away! Everything I offered you, everything I saved for you, everything that was yours, you turned it away! You refused my promises. You refused the Family. You refused the Heart Seat! So then why are you bearing the mark of the Heart?! LAW!!” Doffy’s fury rose in a crescendo.

“I-it…w-was… for Cora-san,” Law gasped, blood bubbling in his lungs. 

“You chose this,” Doffy hissed as he pulled the trigger again, a third shot landing in Law’s back. “We could have done so much together, you and I. The world could have been ours. You could have stood beside me while we watched it burn. You chose this, Law. You are the one who turned away. We could have destroyed everything if only…” And he stopped, the burning roof falling silent again aside from the swish of flames and Law’s wet wheezes. 

“Is this as far as your conviction goes, Law?” 

Doffy’s voice was quiet and there was a peculiar, unidentifiable current in it, some strange emotion Law could not hope to pinpoint. 

Law turned as much as he could, looking over his shoulder to where Doffy stood, silhouetted against the hazy sky, smoke now so thick the bright colors of the sunset were blotted out. A long time ago, the sight of those pink feathers had brought Law comfort and excitement. He had never forgotten the safety he felt as a child when Doffy swooped in and knocked those who would dare go against Law away. For so long, he had dreamed of his soulmate, dreams he held close as a child, both before meeting Doffy and after, sacred little secrets containing a future he had wished for only in the security of lonely nights. 

Some little part of Law had always wanted things to be okay. Had wanted Doffy to do something that would mean Law could forgive him, could be with him, could be proud to be his. That what everyone else had, maybe Law could have to; that after everything had been taken away from Law, this one solitary thing could be his. But Doffy was unforgivable. 

Who could say where their destiny had been decided? It could be Fate had always meant for them to end up where they were today. But maybe Doffy had set Fate awry when he had pushed Law away, kept him at an arms length while he calculated how best to utilize him. Or it had been when he killed Cora-san, triggering a butterfly effect that stretched out until this very moment. Perhaps it was Law, choosing to flee from Doffy when he could have stayed behind, a betrayal to the Family even as Cora-san was taking his last breaths. Or maybe it was the moment where he didn’t turn Cora-san in, when he’d walked up to the Numancia and lied for the first time to Doffy and was subsequently taken away, the beginning of the end. 

Regardless, Law had chosen his own path long ago when Cora-san could not pull the trigger and Law swore that he would.

“My conviction holds,” Law said through the blood and the last thread tying them together snapped. The bullet hit him almost before he finished speaking. Another shot, then another, and another, over and over until bullets stopped releasing and Law faded away into darkness to a symphony of empty clicks.

The world erupted into flames from Trebol’s explosion. After everything—the numerous shots his body had taken, the nasty cuts from Doflamingo’s strings, his dismembered arm, the straining Rooms, his drained stamina, dual attacks alongside Straw Hat, Gamma Knife, the emotional toll of it all—Law could not even hope to move to escape the blast. He lost consciousness only briefly, coming to in the air, floating weightless for a breathless moment before gravity began asserting its control. Straw Hat had a tight grip on him, shooting out a long rubbery arm, propelling them forward. 

“Take him away from here!” Straw Hat shouted and Law saw Nico Robin nearby, arms sprouting their way, prepared to take ahold of him. 

“Wait—” Law tried, fighting the creeping darkness pulling him under, only to be cut off as they landed, Straw Hat taking the brunt of the force. 

Straw Hat didn’t hesitate. That same crackling, overpowering energy that had burst forth on the roof like a titanic tsunami buzzed around him but as he held Law in his arms, one hand supporting his back and the other under his knees, he was gentle. “Stay here, Torao,” Straw Hat said, his grip firm. Their eyes met and the hands on Law’s body tightened in reassurance. His dark brown eyes filled with endless determination, swearing the impossible. “I’ll take it from here,” Luffy promised, and it was an oath that held the weight of a king. 

If he wins, I have to see it. If he loses, I need to be here and die alongside him.

The battle was tremendous. It stretched out, both fighters taking brutal hits. Meanwhile, there was chaos on the ground, the Birdcage steadily moving inwards promising a gruesome end. Through it all, Law had eyes for nothing except the two distant dueling figures. 

At last, with one final clanging blow that swept over the Kingdom of Dressrosa and beyond, Monkey D. Luffy defeated Donquixote Doflamingo.

Using up the last of his energy, Law teleported Luffy as he fell from the sky. Luffy landed beside him with a thump, barely conscious. “Torao,” he croaked, eyes already fluttering shut, “we did it.”

Law gently maneuvered Luffy to lay against him. The adrenaline began to wear off, the exhaustion and trauma from the day sliding in to take its place. Luffy slumped into Law, consciousness lost.

Above, the skies were clearing from the smoke, dusk settling over the kingdom, the stars just beginning to show themselves. Birds flew through the sky unheeded. The Birdcage had fallen. 

“Yes, you did,” whispered Law and with weight suddenly free from his chest, joined Luffy in a dreamless sleep.

There was a field of flowers outside Kyros’ cabin. The air was filled with pollen and Law’s eyes stung a bit which he pretended was wholly the fault of the breeze. He meant to get away from the Straw Hats, from their insanity and their too knowing eyes, but he could scarcely stand up and he ended up collapsed against a tree far too close to the cabin, near a large cluster of sunflowers. 

Luffy had been dead to the world when Law slipped out. He’d overheard Robin telling the samurai that Luffy slept for ages after big battles and as soon he woke up they’d need lots of food. The rest of the Straw Hats were beginning to stir. Robin had been awake, sipping tea quietly at the table and Usopp started groaning from the bed and then Franky woke up, all too refreshed, and Law suddenly couldn’t breathe and he had fled. He needed to be alone, away from them all, from Robin who saw too much and Zoro who watched too close, from this loud, impossible crew who he’d dragged into a fight that was never their’s and who went along to the end without complaint, following their infuriating, obstinate captain who couldn’t leave well enough alone. 

The tree may still be in view of the cabin but he couldn’t hear anything and the trunk was large enough to hide him from prying eyes. He tried to breathe here, tried to will away the stinging pollen in his eyes and the aches in his limbs and the thoughts spiraling around in his head.

Scarcely any time passed at all before he heard Luffy leave the cabin. He must have just woken up and left to get fresh air while the other Straw Hats scrambled to forage enough food to feed him, but he didn’t seem to pause, just beelined straight towards the tree Law sat against. He seemed to have a knack for finding Law, popping up out of nowhere when all Law wanted was to disappear into his own bleak darkness, sending a burst of light and scattering all the creeping shadows back. 

“Toraoooooo! There you are!” 

Luffy plunked down cross-legged right beside Law, throwing himself to the ground like he hadn’t just awoken from hours of healing sleep after a battle that nearly cost him his life. He was chewing something, having clearly taken some food to go on his way out the door.

Law winced for him. “Careful, you’re not fully recovered.” 

Luffy swallowed and then laughed, a loud shishishi that drifted across the field. It was youthful and fresh and strangely comforting.

“It’s okay!” Luffy leaned forward, ducking his head so he could peer up at Law. “You worry too much.”

“I’m your doctor right now,” Law snapped. “I’m responsible for you while Chopper’s not here.” He flicked a finger at Luffy’s forehead despite himself. 

Luffy shrugged, still grinning, and pulled away. The tree wasn’t big enough for the both of them to sit against side by side but Luffy just leaned back on his hands, looking up at the mellow sky, then down at the smoldering kingdom, then all around, head bobbing this way and that. 

“It’s nice here,” Luffy announced. “Ooh, sunflowers.” He stretched an arm out and plucked a flower from the field then snapped his arm back. He shoved it into Law’s face. 

“Knock it off!” Law pushed him away but Luffy just laughed again, twirling the sunflower in his hands. 

He presented it to Law properly this time. “Isn’t it pretty?”

Law examined it, the dark seeds that made up the heart, the large yellow petals that drew the eye, the skeleton of the flower that stretched up, grasping for the sun. 

Law looked away. “It’ll die since you plucked it.” 

The sunflower followed him though, refusing to leave him alone even when Law tried to bury his face in his knees. The petals kept tickling at his hair and a finger kept poking at his leg until he finally raised his head to give Luffy a glare. 

Luffy wiggled the flower at him. “Nami says it’ll live for awhile if you take care of it. And when it dies, it’s okay because flowers make people happy and that’s what they’re for.”

“That seems silly to die for.” 

“Is it?” asked Luffy curiously. 

Law watched the petals move with the wind. 

“I can throw it away,” Luffy offered. 

“No,” said Law and took the flower this time. 

They sat together as the sun began to blaze with afternoon heat. Luffy, despite his injuries, was still a ball of motion in the quiet. His feet kicked back and forth, his head swung this way and that, he drummed his fingers and clacked his teeth. 

Law stared down at the plucked flower in his hands and felt almost relaxed. 

“Are you okay now?” 

Law tensed and glanced over. Luffy looked steadily back. 

“I don’t know,” Law said, meaning No.

Luffy hummed. A thoughtful expression appeared on his face. It took a minute but he seemed to reach a conclusion. “That’s okay. You’ll figure it out.” He kicked his feet again. “It took Robin a little while too.”

Law still didn’t know the whole story there. He could easily picture that clear day, sitting on the Polar Tang’s deck, reading a ludicrous headline. It was the first time he’d taken real note of Luffy. But now, he could conjecture easily enough. He knew of Robin from the newspapers and now a bit of her from experience and he could picture all too well the Straw Hats declaring war on the World Government for no other reason than just for her. 

The two of them had an unusual life circumstance in common, Law supposed. Last survivors of a wiped out civilization. And somehow, Luffy found them both. Luffy, who had refused to break their farce of an alliance, even after Law betrayed him; Luffy, who carried him throughout Dressrosa when it would’ve been easier to just leave him behind; Luffy, who held him close until Law could stand on his own; Luffy, who got him to safety when he faltered at the edge of his goal with the promise that he would take care of it all. 

Law was alive. It was a bit of a revelation. Again. Law kept forgetting, in the adrenaline and the comedown and focusing on tending to wounds. But he would remember. Luffy had refused to let him die and he was alive. 

He should be dead right now, at least three times over. 

Law stared down at the bright flower in his hands and felt despair rising in his throat. He closed his eyes, focusing on the stem in his palms, the bark against his back, the dirt beneath his feet, and the sun’s rays beating down. 

“You’re getting sad again.” 

Law took solace in the darkness behind his eyes. “You shouldn’t have done all this. You should’ve left. You should’ve taken your crew and gone as soon as you realized I was using you.” 

“Not this again,” Luffy muttered. 

Now Law fixed him with a glare fit to kill. “I’m serious, Straw Hat-ya! I brought you to Dressrosa for your strength but that was it! I had no intention of seeing things through! I endangered you and your crew and you had no business helping me once you knew!” 

Luffy glared right back. “I don’t care what you say! I said I’d help you beat Mingo and I did!”

“Our alliance was over! How do you not understand? I dragged you into a mess where we were all in above our heads. I knew from the beginning that the odds of us succeeding were minimal. I was going to—” die, he couldn’t say, though Luffy must know, “betray you, I did betray you, even though I told you I wouldn’t. This... Dressrosa… Doffy… this wasn’t your fight. You almost died. Your crew could’ve died. They were hurt and now they’re split up. This wasn’t worth that. None of this was worth it. I wasn’t—”

Luffy said, exasperated, “Shut up, Torao, you’re so dumb.”

Law’s mouth clicked shut. Thrown into the whirlpool of emotions churning in his gut was a vague offense that Luffy of all people would say that to him. 

“I’m not dumb,” he said dumbly. “You don’t understand.” 

“No, you don’t,” said Luffy and he poked Law in the chest. “Torao.” And he had a serious look on his face, the one Law had only caught glimpses of, the one Luffy donned when something saw fit to stand in his way and Luffy refused to be barred, instead forcing the world to bend to his will. “You’re my friend. Mingo hurt you. I told you I’d beat him up.” He spoke each sentence deliberately, like he was explaining something to a particularly obtuse child. “So I did. I don’t care about the rest.”

“But—“

“You’re Torao,” Luffy finished, like that explained everything. 

But you don’t understand, Law wanted to scream. He glanced down at Luffy’s neck, at the bare skin uncovered by the collar of his shirt or the ends of his black hair. Smooth, unblemished, unmarked skin. 

All his life, Law had considered it a curse. In Flevance, it was a bad omen. In Baby 5, it had been a clear example of that truth. Most places of the world saw wordless souls as less than but never in his life had Law felt so envious as now. 

“I—” Law tried, but choked on whatever words were trying to form. “You...” But still nothing would come. 

“It’s okay,” said Luffy, and his voice had softened to a soothing tone, “take your time. I know you’re sad, Torao, but Mingo’s gone and you’re free. We’re going to find your crew and then we’ll beat up Kaido together.”

“He’s not,” Law croaked out at last. He looked out towards the blue water that stretched to an endless horizon, towards the afternoon sun shining all too brightly in the sky, towards this country he’d failed to save not once but twice and yet stood proudly still, now free, because of the impossible presence beside him. “I’m not. He—” and the words tried to die in his throat as that familiar, aching fear gnawed away at his stomach. Last time, he’d been so sure that he would die, that despite Cora-san trying to save his life even after Law stabbed him and hurled abuse his way in those early days, that even after all the swears and the hits and the kicks, this would be the final straw. Cora-san would see him for who he was and end it before he became like his brother.

You need to get away from Doffy, Cora-san had said to Law, his first words. Law’s free, he’d said to Doffy, his last ones. Doffy’s a monster, he’d said more than once and Law always wondered but never asked, What does that make me?

“He’s my soulmate.” 

Like last time, Law’s confession drifted in the wind. Time didn’t stand still. Leaves rustled on the trees and the distant ocean surface sparkled with rays of light and birds flew in the air, soaring free. Law looked down once again at the sunflower tightly gripped in his hand, all too aware of the silence beside him. He wondered if he should drop it or give it back but he couldn’t bear to let it go now.

“So what? I don’t care.”

Law’s heart stopped, a full missed beat. He couldn’t bring himself to turn his head, to see what Luffy looked like right now, as he spoke those impossible words. 

You can’t say that! came the instinctive rejection in his mind. He raised his newly attached arm and swiped trembling fingers over the words on the back of his neck. His touch was cold. He dug his fingers into the tendons and closed his eyes, gritted his teeth against the pain that permeated through him. 

“Look at you,” Doffy said, as his hands slid over Law’s words to grip his neck. There was an odd tone in his voice as he looked over Law’s work, at the lacerated body and the blood on the ground. When Law peered up to him, Doffy smiled an unusual grin and his hand squeezed tight. Law realized he was proud and a warmth spread through his body and when Doffy’s hand dropped away Law felt cold. 

So he chased it. Every chance he had, with Doffy ever watching, craving that seal of approval, that rush of achievement, that meant Law was Doffy’s.

Law admitted to Luffy, to himself, to everyone he failed, “I’m his,” trying to will Luffy to understand and he wondered again why he was still alive. 

Gently, a hand slid over his, pausing as Law flinched. Then, one by one, a soft touch peeled back Law’s fingers where they were breaking into his skin, ever so slowly until they all released and his hand was pulled down, away from the blood and the marks, to be held in a strong embrace.

Luffy’s hands were so warm. 

“Torao.” 

Luffy’s voice was gentle too. His skin was weirdly soft. Despite being such a physical fighter, his fingers didn’t have callouses. A strange devil fruit, Law thought not for the first time and appreciated the irony that he of all people would think that. 

All of Luffy was strange. This small, wiry boy with a towering presence that filled a room, a resounding laugh that rang through the air, a blazing smile that outshone the sun, an immovable will that conquered a king. 

Law could still see so clearly, Doflamingo looming above him, foot poised, ready to come crashing down. Not for the first time that day, he had accepted it as his end, his life snuffed out at his soulmate’s discretion. But the next instant was filled with an intensely overpowering clash of Conquerer’s Haki. A crackling, protective force versus a thundering, deadly will, a war waged over Law’s head and he’d felt so small and insignificant and he could scarcely comprehend anything past the fact that he still breathed. 

For as long as he lived, he would never forget the sensation of those conquering wills dueling above him. 

Law’s cold hand was pressed between both of Luffy’s. The blood flow was not quite right yet but with a bit more work and time to rest, it would heal back nicely. If Law took care, it wouldn’t even scar. 

Luffy’s thumb brushed gently over the tattoo on the back of Law’s hand, circling around before dipping down to trace the letters printed on each of his fingers. D and then E and then A, then T and H and back again. His thumb stretched a bit to make it all the way across. It looked very odd.

Impulsively, Law squeezed down. His arm protested but the immediate reaction from the hands around his, the firm returned squeeze, almost instinctive, strangely protective, was worth the pain. 

Luffy allowed Law to sit in silence and he watched Luffy’s fingers follow the veins and the bones under Law’s skin that made up his body, the tattoos etched on the surface that made up his heart, the almost wholly indiscernible pale patches of an illness long gone that made up his past. 

Finally, as the weather tilted from the heat of afternoon to the loose chill of early evening, Law looked up and met Luffy’s dark brown eyes. 

There was a softness in Luffy’s expression that Law had never seen before. It pinged at something in Law’s heart that he couldn’t bear to examine but also couldn’t bring himself to let go. 

“Torao,” said Luffy again, oh so gently, an affectionate caress of his ridiculous nickname, so terribly careful with the tone and the syllables and the weight of what came next. “You’re not his.”

And though it was spoken like a mother bird to a newborn chick, like a strong warrior to a fragile thing they were afraid of hurting, the weight of a will that stopped a king in his tracks could be felt behind it; a promise, an oath.

It couldn’t be true. It wasn’t true. But, for this quiet moment, in this field of sunflowers in a country that once held Law’s end, he really wanted to believe. 

They left Dressrosa somewhat gloriously. Meteors rained down from the heavens and the whole country rallied behind them and somewhere along the way, Straw Hat Luffy picked up an entire Grand Fleet.

Law didn’t ask. He suspected the story was more of a headache than it was worth. Instead, as a party raged on, he retreated, the confrontation with the former Fleet Admiral still rolling around in his brain. 

Don’t try and find a reason for somebody’s love, Law. 

He had wondered sometimes, if Cora-san regretted the path he had taken once Law told him the truth. Perhaps they were just in too deep at that point. Cora-san cared about him, Law always knew that. But Cora-san should be alive now. He wasn’t though and never would be again. Would never smile and laugh and trip and make a fool of himself. Would never try to impress Law, would never snap his fingers and send the noise away. Somewhere out there in the wide-open world grew the Nagi Nagi no Mi, waiting for a new user. 

Would he be disappointed in the life Law had chosen? The pirate crew he had built and the revenge he had sought? The Heart Pirates, named for him, a name that wasn’t even his.

Rosinante, Law tested, but it felt like a stranger. 

He sighed. The raucous sounds clamored across the ship. Law would never know, for sure. Just as he would never know what his parents thought of Law now. They were gone and life moved on, never-ending. But those moments in time where they had had each other, where they had loved one another, that could never be taken away. 

“Do you mind if I join you?”

Law glanced behind him. Nico Robin smiled benignly up, waving a bottle of sake at him, two glasses in her other hand. 

“I suppose.”

Robin settled beside him gracefully, handing over one of the glasses which Law immediately sipped. Some alcohol might do him good tonight. 

Luckily, Robin was one of the few Straw Hats who appreciated quiet. They hadn’t interacted much so far. Partially because there wasn’t time and partially because Law avoided her at all costs. 

If he loses, I need to be here and die alongside him.

Law coughed, suddenly choking on his drink. 

“Oh dear.” Robin pounded him on the back. Law wheezed. For such an elegant woman, she was incredibly strong.

“I’m f-fine,” he managed, face now flaming red for more reasons than one. Shit. He had nearly forgotten.

He carefully did not look over but he could practically feel her smugness, like she knew exactly what had just caused his undignified attack. There was no way she hadn’t carefully filed away the event she witnessed. What she had made of it, Law could only imagine with great dread. 

“Drink carefully or you may end up choking and dying prematurely,” said Robin. 

“It’s usually only about 0.000001% of a population that dies from choking on food,” countered Law. 

“How interesting. It’s not zero, though.”

“No. Eating alone can be dangerous.” Law finally glanced over. Robin was smiling, looking entertained. 

She had her hair tied back today and was wearing a breezy, low-cut top. Her words were bare, despite the common West Blue tradition of wearing chokers to cover them. So you’re the Demon Child Nico Robin, huh?

He only looked for half a second but she must have noticed because she reached a hand back and brushed over them, a tender touch for words that must surely have brought her pain in her life. 

“An old, longstanding tradition of the scholars of Ohara,” she explained. “In keeping with their belief that all knowledge should be shared and available. I covered them for many years. But never again.”

Keeping the tradition of a long lost country alive. Law could understand that though there were no Flevish traditions he had hoarded. Instead they were all faded, resting in the dust of Flevance’s remains. He had let everything go in his quest to destroy the world. His people were dead and Law was living on borrowed time. Let it all rest in peace together.

For a time, they were both quiet, thinking of people and places long gone.

Eventually, Robin shifted. “Luffy is very happy you’re alive.”

“Yeah,” said Law, just starting to get it.

“He would have been very upset if you died. He would have done everything in his power to not allow that to happen.”

“He did.”

Robin’s expression was soft and warm as she turned in the direction of the party where her captain was surely in the middle. “Yes, he did.”

“He shouldn’t have though.”

Robin leaned against an arm, listening. 

“You’re the one who warned him about pirates alliances. You know more than most,” Law added, raising an eyebrow. 

“Indeed.” Robin didn’t appear offended, just thoughtful. 

“I did betray you, in the end. I dissolved the alliance and was prepared to leave you to deal with Kaido yourselves. It was always the plan.” 

“And yet, you stayed behind and here you are.”

“Here I am,” said Law and downed a shot. 

Robin took a more moderate sip of her own. “Luffy has an amazing gift. He sees people as they really are. It’s quite extraordinary. I trust my captain’s judgment implicitly.”

“People can still hurt you even if you know who they are.”

“Yes,” agreed Robin. “But Luffy is not alone.”

Law side-eyed her. It wasn’t quite a threat, at least not one expressly directed at him, but the meaning behind it was more than clear. 

“I never thanked you,” she continued, “for saving his life on Marineford. I’m not sure anyone has among the crew. You were there for him when we were not. I cannot imagine a world where we had lost him there.”

Neither could Law, now. What a cold world it would be, one without Monkey D. Luffy. 

“Why did you do it?” she asked.

“It was a whim,” he dismissed. 

“Hmmm.” Robin didn’t push. 

The conversation faded, thankfully, and turned to more harmless subjects. Apparently they shared an interest in the same genre of books. They drank beside each other, the party in swing behind them, before Luffy discovered them both and pulled them into the fray.

On Bartolomeo’s ship that night, Law lay awake thinking of many things: of Doffy, now gone, of Sengoku, and closure, of Dressrosa, finally healing, of his crew, still waiting, and of Luffy, always befuddling. 

He sees people as they really are. 

What exactly did Luffy see what he looked at Law? Law couldn’t be sure but when he finally fell asleep, it was to the repeated echo of Torao. You’re not his.

Straw Hat Luffy beamed down at Law from above like some sort of god, sun rays glinting behind him, eyes sparkling like jewels, flowers fluttering in his orbit. One arm was outstretched and his mouth was slightly parted. He appeared almost as some gallant prince, beckoning Law to clasp on and be pulled into the sunset. 

What an abomination, Law thought but slumped down on the bed anyway. Dealing with the sight of some dimwit’s larger than life hand-drawn poster of Luffy taped to the walls was preferable to sleeping in the only other available room on the ship: the broom closet. Law had spent the prior night there and decided this was the better option because not only had the closet had an uncomfortable closeup of Franky painted on the walls, it was also right next to the communal area of Bartolomeo’s crew who spent last night drunkenly waxing poetry about each individual Straw Hat for hours. Apparently soundproofing the broom closet had not been a priority. 

The Barto Club was sleeping on just about every surface of the ship available so that each of the Straw Hats could be comfortably sequestered in a private room. Law had been escorted that morning (if being rudely pointed in a direction could be considered as such) to the largest of their normal communal sleeping areas after he’d requested a real bed. It was quite unpleasant—the majority of the Barto Club now crammed in—but at least there was a mattress.

Luffy stared down at Law, soft hair flowing in the presumable wind, looking mature in all the wrong ways. The artist had chosen red roses and a pastel color palette. It was rather disturbing. Law reconsidered the broom closet but the memory of the Ballad to Zoro’s Biceps drifted unwanted into his mind and he chose the lesser evil. 

Despite everything, sleep came quickly though it was hardly restful. He drifted in a whirling array of blurred colors amongst a blackened endless sea. A laugh, foreboding and eternal, sounded out from beyond. Fire crackled at the edges of nothing, eating away. Law was pulled along this current of senses, all visceral and indiscernible. Familiar voices echoed, calling out recognizable cries but the more Law strained, the less he could understand. He tried walking but he was stuck, he tried laying down and he was pushed. Let me rest! he cried out. Let me go! Let me choose! The laugh deepened, growing ever louder, encompassing the everything around Law and with a start, he awoke. 

Law blinked up at Poster Luffy's princely grin, disoriented, and it took him a moment to realize he was not alone. 

The real Luffy sat at the edge of the bed by Law’s feet, taking up the little room available despite having been given the Captain’s room. He was staring at Law with a pondering look. 

“Why are you in my bed?” Law asked. 

“You’re awake!” Luffy crawled forward and began scrabbling over Law, limbs managing to hit nearly every uncomfortable funny bone in Law’s body. 

“Watch it!” Law snapped when a knee landed uncomfortably close to a sensitive area. “What are you doing?! Get off!”

“Nuh-uh.” Luffy flopped beside Law at last, wriggling around like a seal until he deemed himself in the appropriate position and relaxed all at once, like a marionette released from its strings. Octopus limbs were wrapped around Law in what should feel like a stranglehold but instead Luffy just felt warm, like a thick protective blanket on a frigid, unwelcoming night. 

Law stared up at Poster Luffy whose regal smile seemed to turn more sinister, like he was mocking Law. Never in his life had Law managed to find himself in situations like these until a certain Straw Hat had shown up. How had he ended up here, on a ship of an obsessed fan, in a bed with someone’s inner fantasies on the walls, and a rival pirate captain cuddling up on his chest?

“Are you quite comfortable?” Law groused into Luffy’s hair.

“Yuh-huh.”

“And why are you here? I saw your room. It’s fit for a World Noble. I don’t think Bartolomeo even sleeps there. I’m pretty sure the crew saved it for you on the off-chance they’d meet you one day and have you on their ship.” Unbelievable that it actually did happen for them. Some people had all the luck.

“Shishishi, yeah, Rooster’s a funny guy!”

Law waited for an answer. Snores drifted through the room, meaning they were hardly alone. Should one of the Barto crew wake up and catch them together like this, Law would never live it down. Not only would he be banned from the Going Luffy-Senpai (perhaps a blessing in disguise) but he would never be able to regain his dignity as a pirate captain.

“More comfy here,” proclaimed Luffy.

“How could you possibly know that?”

Luffy raised his head, eyes glittering at Law in the dark. “You think too much.”

“You don’t think enough. Thinking is good. Thinking about things matters.”

“So is not thinking. Why think about something that makes you unhappy?”

“You—!” Law’s protest died. The hazy edges of his dream drifted before him. Honestly, he could use a little less thinking these days. Curse Straw Hat and his uncanny wisdom. “Just shut up,” he muttered and defiantly ignored the responding chuckle.

The room was not quiet. Aside from the snores and the rustling, the sea outside was unruly. Waves crashed against the ship’s walls, the wind whistled through cracks, and the wood creaked. 

Luffy breathed into his neck. Law could admit, in the privacy of his head, that he was a weirdly comforting presence. Law didn’t like to share a bed, didn’t like others touching him without express permission and consideration, but Luffy was turning out to be an exception to all of Law’s carefully crafted rules. Pushing Law just enough, never beyond what he needed. 

Distantly, Law wondered if Luffy crawled into bed with all his friends. Probably. Just as he most likely cuddled up against them just like this. Hadn’t he seen him snoozing with Zoro like this on deck before? Par the course for Luffy. Just another day. 

Law shifted and Luffy’s grip tightened, preemptively preventing him from leaving. 

“Why are you actually here, Straw Hat-ya?”

Luffy pulled back just slightly, not loosening his grip. “Because I wanna. And you seem like you need it.”

Law stiffened. “I don’t need anything. Get off me. This is ridiculous. And unseemly. We’re in an alliance but we’re not...” Not what? Floating by came the memory of Luffy’s hands on his, tracing over his skin, his bones, his tattoos. Torao. You’re not his.

“We’re friends,” said Luffy simply. But he stared at Law, a somber look on his face. 

“Are we?” asked Law helplessly. 

“Yes.” Luffy’s hand slithered over Law’s chest, grabbing one of his own, the cold one, still recovering from being lopped off. Rubbery fingers wriggled between Law’s, lacing their hands together in a strong, tight grip. “You can say whatever you want, but it’s the truth.”

Law deflected with, “You’re a headache,” and it still made Luffy grin. 

Luffy’s hand was as warm as the rest of him. Law could feel the mixing pulses of their hearts through their pressed palms. 

“Do you believe in destiny?” asked Law. 

“Huh?” Luffy gave him a quizzical look, chin propped up on Law’s chest. 

“Probably not. You don’t…” Law’s sort of free hand, almost functional from where it was trapped beneath Luffy’s body, unconsciously drifted up towards Luffy’s neck but Law caught himself in time. A slight flush was surely visible on his cheeks. What the hell was wrong with him, trying to initiate such an intimate gesture out of nowhere? “Has it ever bothered you? Not having a soulmate?”

“I don’t care about that,” Luffy said bluntly. “Ace told me that some people would think I was cursed but who cares? All my important people are always going to be mine, no matter what. I’m going to be the Pirate King and all my important people will be there with me!” There was that raw, indefinable strength shining through. “The Pirate King is the freest person in the world. I’m not going to let some dumb star tell me what to do.”

Law stared at him, tracing over the set in his brow, the jut of his lip, the look in his eye. It was in this moment, laying beneath a comical poster, in this crowded, uncomfortable room on a ludicrous ship sailing a stormy sea towards an island that moved without reason, where Law realized with a quiet certainty that Luffy would indeed one day become Pirate King. 

A soulmate is what you need most, Penguin had said. Law’s hand touched Luffy’s bare neck briefly, letting out a quiet huff as it fell away. 

“I wonder if I was supposed to change him,” he admitted into the quiet of the night. “Or if he was supposed to change me. Knowing what I know now… I’ve tried to make sense of it. Maybe I ruined some grand plan the universe had in store for me and Doffy. Or maybe he ruined it. Maybe we both did. Some pair we are.” His voice turned bitter. “There was a connection between us, obviously. It’s hard to explain. He saw me in ways no one else ever has. But he never…” never wanted me enough, never let me in, never let me close. Always wanted something more. “I wasn’t enough for him. And he wasn’t enough for me. And then I think about if I had been enough. About who I would have been. And what I’ve already done, just for his sake. I don’t know, maybe we both screwed up. Maybe we both just—”

“Who cares?” Luffy interrupted. “They’re just words, Torao. Mingo isn’t here anymore.”

“It matters,” said Law. “You said it yourself. My words suited me. And his suited him. I used to wonder if the stars made a mistake and then I wondered if they didn’t. I want to understand. But I’m not sure I ever will. What it says about me. That someone like Doffy is the other half of my soul.” And, lowly, a confession. “I’ve spent most of my life wondering what sort of monster I am, since I’m his.”

Luffy’s grip on Law’s hand tightened painfully as Luffy reared up. He loomed over Law, eyes narrowed and furious. A sparking energy thrummed about him as he said, like an order, “You’re not his. I said it before, Torao, and I mean it. Listen!” And he yanked his hand out of Law’s, grabbing instead onto the back of Law’s neck and leaning in close, so close their noses brushed against each other. “Ace told me soulmates came from the stars. That they picked out a perfect person for everyone. But Ace believed dumb stuff. He thought the world didn’t like him, just because of who his dad was. He said the stars got it wrong for him. That whatever the stars said, no one had to listen to them. They were just suggestions.” Luffy leaned deliberately in, resting his forehead against Law’s. 

“Ace was wrong about a lot of things, including himself. But he wasn’t wrong about that. The stars can say whatever they like. It doesn’t mean anything about you. You can be whoever you want.” And just like last time, but much closer, so close that their breaths intermingled, Luffy whispered it like a universal truth, like it was all that mattered, “You’re not his, Law. You’re Torao.”

The words glided over Law and then slowly sank in. Luffy was so very close that Law could hardly tell where one started and the other began. You’re Torao, Luffy said, so terribly simply, like it encapsulated all that Law was. Who do you see? Law wanted to yell, searching Luffy’s deep brown eyes to try to uncover exactly that, and saw himself reflected in the dark irises. 

We’re friends, Luffy said over and over, surrounded by a million people clamoring for his attention and still looking at Law through a crowd. 

“Okay,” Law whispered, almost directly into Luffy’s mouth. For one impetuous moment, he thought of closing the distance, before logic came hurtling back in. He closed his eyes and drew back. “Okay,” he said again, centering himself. 

“You’ll see one day, Torao. Even if it takes awhile.”

“See what?” asked Law, breathing deep. The air in front of him displaced, like Luffy had moved in again and he opened his eyes.

Luffy was so close as he smiled and said, “The you that I see,” before leaning the rest of the way in and capturing Law’s mouth with his own. 

Many times over the years, Law had laid awake wondering what his parents might think of Doffy. Later, what they would think of Cora-san. Now, he wondered what they might have thought of Luffy. 

What a loon, he could almost hear his mother say. He makes you laugh, Law. 

Rather reckless, but strong, said his phantom father. He pushes you.

A pirate? Lami’s eyes would have shined. What an adventure he’s bringing you, Law!

They would have liked him, Law decided. Who could not?

“Eat.” An onigiri was shoved in Law’s face. 

“I don’t need anymore,” he complained half-heartedly as he took a bite. It was delicious. Sanji may be a better cook but there was nothing like eating food from home. 

Clione hovered, watching each bite until the entire thing was gone and then produced another. 

“Eat.”

“I’m going to call Straw Hat-ya over,” Law warned, accepting the next one. “You don’t know what sort of catastrophe that will be to your food stores.”

“He threatened us,” said Ikkaku, looking like she was about to burst into joyful tears again. Elsewhere, another crew member did. Hakugan handed them a handkerchief. 

Law threw Ikkaku a middle finger, affection warm under his skin. She did tear up then and returned the finger. Jean Bart patted her gently on the back.

“You can switch my arms and legs for the night if you want, Captain,” called Uni.

“No, me!” shouted another. 

Bepo leaned against Law as the crew broke out into squabbles. “I’m so happy.” He was still blubbering. 

“Oi, quit it,” said Shachi, rubbing at his eyes underneath his sunglasses. Beside him Penguin laughed, though it sounded a little wet. 

“Eat!” ordered Clione again. “Last one.” 

Law rolled his eyes but acquiesced, finishing off the onigiri before settling back and surveying his chattering crew. The Hearts clung to Law like barnacles after their reunion and Law’s heart was filled so full he worried it might burst. 

On so many dark nights, the image of the Polar Tang slipping away into Punk Hazard's fierce storm played over and over. Carrying the only people left who he would die without, his crew gone beneath the waves. 

And here they were, impossibly together again. 

There was a party on Zou that night but before it really got rolling, Law gestured to Bepo, Penguin, and Shachi and led them away. 

You shouldn’t go alone, Bepo had said when Law warned him of monsters. We trust you, Shachi had promised, after the same. We’ll follow you wherever you lead us, Captain, even to the ends of the seas, Penguin had sworn, speaking for them all. And they had, despite every one of Law’s failings and his secrets and his refusal to let them see. 

His normally rambunctious friends were quiet as he closed the door to a private room. Again, Law felt an overwhelming sense of relief that even amongst all the remaining uncertainty, he was here with them, alive. That he hadn’t disappointed them and nothing permanent had happened while he was gone.

The decision had been made before he landed on Zou. It had come to him like a light flicked on. Just like that, he had known. Now, Law examined himself, searching for that familiar self-loathing, that gnawing fear that had haunted him for most of his life. But he couldn’t find it despite what he was about to recklessly do.

The stars can say whatever they like. You’re not his, Law. You’re Torao.

Law’s words were stark black on his neck, uncovered and as blatant as his tattoos. They had shaped Law, had forged a path in his life. Endlessly chasing approval from the other end.

It will hold, he had cried, over and over again, year after year, the connotation changing but the intent always the same. I want to destroy everything. My conviction will hold. 

But now, at last, Doffy was far out of reach of Law. The abyss between them had widened so far that Law could no longer see him on the other side. Doffy could not cross. Law would not try. 

What did Law’s future hold? A fight soon enough, with the King of Beasts, one of the Emperors of the Sea. Right beside Straw Hat Luffy, a boy with a blank neck who never lost his smile and bent the world to his will and looked at Law like he mattered. Beyond that, who knew? Part of Law was unmoored, already desperately seeking answers, a new goal. Another part reveled in the calm, the foggy future, the stark realization that he could go anywhere and do anything. 

I want you to be happy. I want you to be free. 

“I want to tell you about someone,” he said aloud. Bepo, Penguin, and Shachi were all crowded around, like it was only the four of them back on the Polar Tang, first setting out. 

The Heart Pirates, he had said, and they had just known, never questioned, wore the symbol on their back and tattooed on their skin and proudly declared themselves so. 

“His name was Cora-san and I owe him a hell of a lot. More than I could ever repay.” Don’t try and find a reason for somebody’s love, Law. "But he’s who I did all this for. I want you to know all about him. And…” He paused, looking over his friends.

Bepo was holding himself so stiff he seemed one stiff breeze away from keeling over, too intent on Law. Penguin’s hat was clenched in his hands, knuckles white, fingers kneading at the material. Shachi’s sunglasses were in his hair and he was biting on his lip, looking like he was scarcely even breathing. All three were silent, eyes wide and watching him closely with bated breath, trying desperately to not miss a single word while attempting not to spook him.

With a surge of affection, Law took a deep breath. In and then out. And another: in, out. And when he spoke, he looked at them, one by one, and said the words directly to each of his most important people. 

“I want to tell you about Donquixote Doflamingo. My soulmate.”

“I’m proud of you, Captain” Bepo told him that night as the crew slept scattered around them, at last altogether in the country of his birth. Law lay against his soft fur and finally felt at home. 

“Sorry it took so long,” Law murmured. 

“Not just that. I mean, I’m so happy you told us. But everything. I’m so proud of you, Law. You’ve done so much now! You’ve really changed the whole world!”

Law opened his eyes and looked up at the stars, twinkling in the endless sea above. A distant memory tingled at the edges of his mind.

“There’s still more to do. We might die against Kaido. Chances are we probably will.”

“But you sound excited, Captain. And not about the dying part.”

Law rolled his eyes, though Bepo couldn’t see from the angle. “Hardly. Luffy-ya’s involvement guarantees it’s going to be a disaster.”

“You like it,” accused Bepo affectionately, having seen too much at the party earlier. “Sorry… Straw Hat’s good for you, I think.”

Suddenly thankful for the covered darkness, Law valiantly pretended he hadn’t turned red. 

“Shut up,” he muttered. “Straw Hat-ya’s a pain and he’s going to needlessly piss off an Emperor even more than we need to. It’s going to be a disaster. I have to make an impossible plan and then he’s not even going to follow it. I think he does it on purpose.”

Law could hear Bepo’s grin. “I’m so happy,” Bepo sniffled again. “I’m so happy you’re home, Law.” He reached a paw out and grasped Law’s shoulder in a tight squeeze. Law set a hand over his, squeezing back, and closed his eyes.

Bepo’s heart beat against Law's back. Safe beneath the blanket of shimmering stars, he listened to the calming sounds of his crew surrounding him, felt the vibrant presence of Luffy nearby, saw the stretch of tomorrow laid out before him, a new day and then another and the next, further on beyond what he could see. 

And finally Law could say, to wherever he may be, I’m free, Cora-san. I’m free.