Chapter Text
Law headed back into the Sabaody Archipelago on a whim.
He already had the important parts taken care of. He got his crew back safely to the Polar Tang. He had Bepo’s vivre card, and had given them clear instructions to lay low as everything with the attack on the celestial dragon and this upcoming war with Whitebeard blew over. He would meet up with them again as soon as it was clear.
The smart decision would have been to leave with his crew now.
Maybe that maniac in the strawhat had inspired him to toss away smart decisions for today, in favor of what was more interesting. Seeing how the other infamous rookie captains fought was interesting. Going to the auction was interesting.
Right now, what seemed the most interesting was the shouts and blasts of a fight in the distance. Law did wonder how many of the other rookies that had been gathered would meet their end here. He had no intention of fighting an admiral himself, or any more of those Warlord Kuma robots. He just wanted to see who was still left.
Something changed, and what was clearly a fight before seemed to be cut off by an absolutely anguished cry. Law picked up the pace, and it had been so unfamiliar that he was shocked when he saw who’d screamed. It hadn’t been more than a handful of hours since he last heard it the voice at the auction house, but the pain made it unrecognizable.
Strawhat Luffy was on the ground in front of one of the Kumas, and he looked... broken. He was screaming and crying as he scrambled and banged his head and clawed his fists into the ground. None of his crew was around, instead the warlord (there was something different about this one) just stood over him, staring.
He said something that Law couldn’t hear, finally catching Strawhat’s attention. Law saw the hand reaching out, and as seemed to be the habit for today, he acted without thinking.
“Shambles.”
He appeared next to Strawhat, and both the other pirate and the Warlord looked thrown by his sudden appearance. Law didn’t wait, grabbing the other captain’s wrist and already forming the room to pull them both away.
Law wasn’t sure if he saw the Warlord flinch, like he was already trying to pull his hand back, or if he just imagined it. Either way, it was too late, neither of them were fast enough to stop what was already happening.
Whatever Kuma had done reached them, and then the world was a blur.
The world stayed a blur for longer than Law expected. He was being flung somewhere, shooting through the air, and at some point he had snapped his eyes shut as he braced for impact.
Which was... taking a while.
“I can’t- move.”
Law’s eyes startled open at the strained voice, and there was something about the force holding them in place that dampened the whipping wind around enough that it was possible to hear anyone speaking at all. Also trapped and being thrown across the sky in the same strange force field was the captain of the Strawhat pirates.
“Pushed my luck,” Law cursed. Mugiwara-ya seemed even more shocked to hear another voice than Law was. His eyes, which had been scrunched shut as he attempted to fight against the air pressure around them flung open, and he was pretty sure the young pirate gasped.
“You helped me!” he declared, suddenly looking rather calm, as if the circumstances weren’t interesting enough to bother with anymore. The longer it went on, Law could feel himself becoming almost numb to the sensation as well.
“Can’t say I agree with you there, Mugiwara-ya,” Law grit out. There was something quite infuriating about this whole situation. “I jumped in on a whim and was blindsided by the Warlord’s ability.” He still wasn’t entirely sure what that ability was, but it was sending them somewhere.
“So? I thought I was alone!” Mugiwara-ya shouted, and his eyes were still red and face damp from the breakdown Law had witnessed. He said it like the idea itself was a curse. “I’m not- I'm not alone,” he continued, much quieter, Law almost didn’t hear him over the wind. “I’m alive. My friends should be too. They must also be flying somewhere,” he was practically insisting by the end of it, his disposition almost entirely changed now.
Law decided to ignore anything but his final conclusion.
“It’s possible, it’s also possible that we will hit the red line and have our bodies turn to mist,” he said. Mugiwara-ya stared at him for a moment, before suddenly breaking out laughing.
“You sound like Robin!”
“Nico Robin-ya?” Law asked, and it was only as he saw an island shoot by in the distance did he remember how bizarre this should be. Still, a few hours ago he saw this odd pirate punch a celestial dragon in the face. If someone only knew one thing about the Strawhats before that, it was the attack they made on Ennis Lobby.
An attack to rescue their crewmate, one Nico Robin, the demon of Ohara.
He wasn’t expecting to be compared to the infamous woman, by her captain no less, and he was a bit curious to know how accurate a comparison it was.
“Yeah! She says gloomy stuff like that all the time!” Mugiwara-ya explained, sounding delighted. It really did seem like he had forgotten all about their predicament. Or at least, it did until the time stretched on, and Law didn’t have anything else to say, and the wind howling around them only seemed to make the lull even more pronounced.
“How far do you think we’ll go?” Mugiwara-ya asked after some time, and Law could see his eyes moving all around, since he could not fight the pressure enough to turn his head.
“I don’t know. From what I’ve been able to see we are moving faster than a ship can travel,” Law mused. It really would be death if they hit something at these speeds, or well, it would be for him. The rubber man could very well laugh it off.
“What if we land in the ocean?”
“Devil fruits. We’ll drown,” Law answered bluntly. It didn’t seem to upset the other captain, who nodded and was only frowning as if it was some puzzle to solve. Even that was only for a moment though, the Strawhat captain sighing.
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about that. We’ll just have to get lucky!” he said, grinning brightly.
Law blinked.
So that’s what carefree looked like.
-
It had been hours.
“I’m hungry,” Mugiwara complained. Law couldn’t even begrudge him for it. He’d already been tapped after all the fighting they’d done on Sabaody
“It could be that this technique is supposed to starve out an enemy,” Law suggested, getting a horrified look from the younger pirate.
“No! I refuse to die by starving!”
“You think you get to pick how you die?” Law asked, but Mugiwara-ya was just glaring stubbornly.
“Not by starving!” He looked frustrated for a moment, and Law was pretty sure he was trying to cross his arms. “It would make Sanji upset if I starved to death!”
Law quickly ran through the Strawhat bounty posters as he remembered them until he was able to place the name.
“Black Leg-ya? The one with the drawn wanted poster, right?” he asked, and Mugiwara-ya was grinning again, nodding as much as was possible.
“Yeah, he’s my cook!” he declared, before he started looking at Law with a more curious expression. “Have you heard of us or something?”
Anyone with his kind of reputation asking that question, and Law would never doubt that it was meant in an arrogant, belittling way.
Except he seemed to be genuinely asking.
“I read about Ennis Lobby,” Law decided to genuinely answer. Mugiwara-ya seemed almost sheepish as he snickered.
“A lot of what they said about it was lies, but the bounties are real!” he laughed. His smile quickly dropped as Law managed to hear his stomach groaning over the wind. “Hungry,” he complained.
-
“Torao.”
“What?” Law asked, startled.
“I’m bored,” Mugiwara-ya whined, but that wasn’t what he meant.
“No, what did you call me?” he asked, which only seemed to confuse the other pirate.
“What? Torao?”
“Yes, that,” Law said, which only seemed to bewilder Mugiwara-ya more. “My name is Trafalgar Law, Trafalgar,” he tried to emphasize. It did not appear that the Strawhat captain could care less.
“I’m gonna say Torao,” he said.
“That’s not something you get to just decide, Mugiwara-ya,” Law argued, and the other boy raised an eyebrow at that.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s my name!”
“Okay, but I’m the one saying it,” Mugiwara-ya countered, as if that had any baring whatsoever.
Law wished he could rub his face in frustration.
“How much longer is this going to take?”
-
Mugiwara-ya’s yawning was beginning to get downright obnoxious.
“Go to sleep already,” Law commanded, although Mugiwara-ya kept his eyes squinting stubbornly open.
“No, what if- aaah,” he had to pause to fight back another yawn, “what if we land while I’m sleeping?”
“If it looks like we’re heading towards something I’ll wake you up,” Law offered, if only so he would sleep and stop tempting him to yawn as well.
“You promise?” Mugiwara-ya asked, sounding more like a child than a pirate.
“Sure, it’s my own damn fault I’m in this situation with you in the first place,” Law relented. His crew was sure to be getting worried by now. They would follow his instructions, but they would fret, especially Bepo.
“Okay, thanks Torao,” Mugiwara-ya said. Law opened his mouth to begin insisting this was another thing he did not require thanks for, but then he blinked.
He was already asleep.
That was actually impressive.
-
“How long do you think it’s been?” Mugiwara-ya asked. Law did not end up having to wake him, because they still weren’t falling.
“A little over a day, best estimate is somewhere between 26 and 30 hours,” Law answered, which seemed to take the Strawhat captain by surprise.
“How can you tell?” he asked.
“The sky,” Law said, a little befuddled that a captain wouldn’t have at least a small base understanding of navigation. “If I could figure out how fast we’re moving I could narrow it down more,” he added.
“You’re really smart!” Mugiwara-ya declared with a grin.
“Don’t you know anything about navigating?” Law asked, which didn’t seem to offend the other captain in the slightest.
“No, that’s what I have Nami for,” he said bluntly, like there was no problem with that whatsoever. It did continue a trend Law had started to notice, which was just how often Mugiwara-ya mentioned his crew. It was rather obvious under the smiles and cheer that he was beside himself with worry for them. “I hope she’s not too freaked out,” he added, voice quieter than usual.
“Your crew did not seem particularly fazed when you punched the celestial dragon,” Law started, catching Mugiwara-ya’s attention. “If that didn’t rock them I’m sure they’ve already succumbed to boredom like us.”
Mugiwara-ya stared at him for a moment, before smiling brightly once again.
“You’re right, they’ll be fine.”
-
“Mugiwara-ya. Mugiwara-ya!” Law shouted, because the other captain had fallen asleep again. He hadn’t actually thought about how to wake him up if shouting didn’t work, he couldn’t exactly reach out and shake him. “Mugiwara-ya!”
“Huh?”
Oh thank fuck.
“Wake up, we’re coming down,” Law explained, and immediately the other boy's eyes were flung open as he struggled to look around.
“We are? How can you tell?” he asked, and Law supposed it wasn’t too noticeable yet.
“Our angle changed, the ocean is already closer than it was before,” he explained. He could see Mugiwara-ya attempt to glance down at the water, but he didn’t seem too bothered.
“I hope we land somewhere with food,” he sighed.
“I hope we land somewhere with land,” Law insisted. It got a laugh out of the younger captain, which had not been Law’s intention.
“Yes, land and then food,” he declared, like that was a plan and not a rather hopeless wish list.
Despite the odds, as they got closer to the ocean Law could start to make out an island in their path. It wasn’t large, and he couldn’t make out much besides the stark whiteness of it.
Law ignored the way the color sent a shiver up his spine. If Mugiwara-ya noticed he didn’t say anything.
Law closed his eyes as the ground came rushing at them, but before they actually hit there was a strange sort of pop, and there was only the briefest sense of falling before he hit the ground with no more force than tumbling out of a hammock.
“Wow, that wasn’t bad at all!” Mugiwara-ya declared, situating himself so that he was sitting cross-legged. “Hmm? Torao?” he asked, looking around.
“Speak for yourself,” Law said dryly, and now the idiot managed to notice where he was. “Get off of me,” he demanded, glaring up at the younger boy sitting on his chest. He didn’t seem to notice Law’s annoyance in the slightest, his grin only widening as he leaned forward. Law did not react beyond increasing his glare as the other pirate got far too into his personal space.
“Thanks again,” Mugiwara-ya said, snickering to himself as he pulled back out of his face enough that Law didn’t feel like he had to share the air he was breathing.
“Stop thanking me, I didn't do anything,” he insisted. Lifting a hand, he tried to summon a room to Shamble the younger pirate off of him, but the field barely managed to flicker around his hand before dying out, and Law dropped his head back into the dirt in frustration.
“Are you okay?”
“No, I can’t use my devil fruit until I get some food and rest,” he explained bluntly. They’d been sent flying for well over a day and a half, and he’d already been starting worn down from making sure his crew got out. He wouldn’t normally be so upfront to a rival pirate, but Mugiwara-ya had to be in roughly the same condition, and it wouldn’t do either of them good to turn on each other right now.
“Right, where are we?” Mugiwara-ya asked, somehow managing to spring off of him with much less force than Law expected. He was already halfway to his feet when a hand suddenly grabbed his wrist and yanked him the rest of the way up. Law jerked himself free of the grasp the second he was no longer stumbling. “Oh, it’s a paw.”
“What?” Law asked, baffled. The other captain just pointed though, and following his hand down, he noticed the shape of the crater they had just climbed out of. “Oh. It is.”
Mugiwara-ya started walking then, seeming to pick a direction at random. Law tried to take a mental note of their current location at the edge of a strange white beach before following after him.
“Where are you even going?” Law asked. He had no particular argument against this direction, but he was curious if the other pirate had put any thought into the choice at all.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, and he seemed to jolt suddenly as if a thought had literally struck him. “Oh wait! I have-” he started patting his pockets, before pulling out a small square of paper. As he held it in a flat hand, it started to slowly twinge across it.
“Who’s vivre card is that?” Law asked, looking in the direction the paper lead.
“That old man Rayleigh,” Mugiwara-ya answered casually, now following the direction of the paper. Law had been expecting the answer to be someone on his crew, or someone on a home or base island, if the Strawhats even had such a thing. He wasn’t expecting it to be the living legend they had crossed paths with. “He was gonna coat our ship so we could get to fishman island, but with the celestial dragon and Hachi getting hurt and then the admiral showing up, he gave us all vivre cards so we could find him when he was done,” he explained, which at least meant that Law didn’t have to ask.
“You live a fascinating life, Mugiwara-ya.”
The Strawhat captain laughed.
-
They hadn’t been walking for long, and Law was already fairly certain he was right in thinking this was quite a small island. That wasn’t good, and when he spotted someone walking in the distance it only became much worse.
“Huh, Tor-”
Law grabbed the other captain and pulled him behind one of the white rocky outcroppings, slapping a hand over his mouth when he went to complain loudly. Mugiwara-ya gave him a downright indignant glare, and Law suddenly pulled his hand back, sputtering.
“Don’t lick people. Are you a child?” Law hissed, keeping his voice as low as he could in his fury.
“Why are we hiding?” Mugiwara-ya asked back, ignoring his complaint but thankfully keeping his voice at least at the same volume.
“I saw someone,” Law explained, and to his horror that same excited smile flashed over the other pirate’s face. At this point though, the horror wasn’t a surprise, and Law quickly grabbed him again before he could rush out. “We didn’t land here coincidentally, Kuma sent us here. Anyone we find should be assumed to be his allies,” he continued, trying his best to explain the seriousness of their situation. Somehow though, it seemed to elude Mugiwara-ya, who was giving him an unimpressed look.
“So? We can’t get off this island without people,” he said bluntly.
“Yes we could?” Law asked, so baffled he nearly forgot to whisper. “We steal? Like pirates?”
“Yeah, but I wanna know how far we went,” Mugiwara-ya said, pulling out of his grasp and walking out, already shouting and waving an arm in the air. “Hey! Yo!” Law banged his head back against the rocks, only to suddenly be yanked out as well. He was still too exhausted to do anything but stumble along as the rubberman’s arm retracted.
There was a fishman running towards them, concern and wariness both obvious on his face.
“Hey! Karate guy! Where are we?” Mugiwara-ya shouted, and maybe he was just fried at this point, but there was a part of Law that wondered if this could possibly work. If acting like a couple of clueless idiots washed up on the beach would be a plausible enough excuse.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask who you are before telling you that,” the fishman says, somehow sounding earnest in his apology.
“I’m Monke-”
Law slapped his hand over this idiot’s mouth, and this time when the now expected glare was followed by a wet tongue on his palm, he didn’t flinch. “I’m a doctor, you think I have a problem with saliva?”
Mugiwara-ya tried to shout something in reply, but Law wouldn’t let go enough to make heads or tails of it.
“Listen, we have no business here. We won’t ask any questions, we’ll go back to shore, we just need a way to leave the island,” Law tried to negotiate with the fishman. “Ow! What the fuck, Mugiwara-ya?” he snapped, snatching his hand back and having to check for a moment that the idiot hadn’t broken skin biting him like that
“I was trying to talk!” he shouted, like Law hadn’t stopped him from identifying himself like an absolute idiot.
“I see, you’re pirates,” the fishman said suddenly, and Law flinched at that. “Strawhat Luffy, I’ve seen you in the papers, the attack on Ennis Lobby?” he asked, and it was only then that Law realized he had called the other captain by his epitaph. The fiishman seemed to have to take a moment longer looking him over before the recognition clicked. “You’re a captain as well, of the Heart Pirates, I believe?”
Shit.
“Are you a pirate too, karate guy?” Mugiwara-ya asked, sounding excited, as if the fact that this guy was able to both identify them and be so casual about doing so wasn’t a really bad sign considering neither of them were in any shape to fight right now. Law was a hair away from drawing his sword, but the fishman simply shook his head at the question.
“No, but I do have to ask what brings two of the new generation of pirate’s rising stars all the way out here?” he asked, like they were just having a casual conversation. As far as Mugiwara-ya seemed to be concerned, that’s exactly what they were doing.
“And where would that be?” Law cut in before the idiot could actually answer his question.
“I can’t tell you until you tell me how you made it here,” he said, and now Mugiwara-ya was crossing his arms, an annoyed frown on his face.
“You said you’d tell us when we told you who we are,” he argued.
“I said I needed to know who you are, not that it was the only thing I needed to know,” the fishman replied calmly. Somehow, the logic seemed to be accepted by the younger pirate without a second thought.
“Oh, well in that case, we flew-”
“Don’t tell him anything, Mugiwara-ya,” Law cut him off, the other captain turning to him in clear frustration.
“Why not?”
“I already told you why not,” Law hissed, rubbing his eyes in frustration. “Will you please-”
Fuck.
He shouldn’t have closed his eyes.
Law barely managed to register the sharp jolt to the back of his head before his consciousness dropped into black nothing.