Chapter Text
"I told you I was gonna die", Law managed with a weak chuckle.
"No! Don’t say that, you aren’t-"
"It's ok, I'm not mad…Cora-san?"
"Hm? What is it?"
"Thank you for trying…it made me happy. I love you, Cora-san"
The words left him stupefied, Cora-san froze for a second before regaining his senses "I love you too Law!"
He pulled away slightly from the boy he’d been holding close to his chest and looked down at Law’s face to see the grandest, most earnest smile he'd ever seen on anyone's face, let alone the kid with a signature scowl.
Law’s stillness only registered after the smile.
"Law? Hey, Law! I love you too kiddo, Law... sweetheart, open your eyes... no…this can’t be happening! Law please, just a little more, hang in there for just a little longer, please Law…no, no, no!”
He had hoped for months to see an expression even half as content as this on the kid’s face; he'd even expected it to take years - his next mission after getting him cured- and here it was plastered on Law's corpse.
"Law, you can frown if you want to. It's ok, I- I won't call you a little shit." He was crying now, how sad a smile could look when it erased the familiarity of the boy he knew.
"Someone, anyone! Somebody help him, please! He's my kid, my only kid..." The words screamed up at the sky rang hollow in the emptiness around him, and as he held the tiny, limp body in his arms, something deep inside Rosinante shattered. Breathing became too tall an order, and he collapsed onto the ground, gasping through sobs until his vision gave way to ink-black and he lost consciousness, still clutching Law’s body.
Admiral Sengoku considered himself a man who greatly valued his work and regarded it with the utmost professionalism. It was therefore frustrating that he’d begun to struggle with bouts of unfocus shortly after his adopted son had called him 13 months ago, letting him know he would be taking a break from his undercover mission.
At first, Sengoku was somewhat pleased- he’d never truly wanted Rosinante to take on that specific role, and yet he’d reluctantly had to admit that infiltrating The Family would provide invaluable information and that his son was in a uniquely advantageous position to do so.
Considering that his son had been continuously feeding Family intel back to the Marines for years at that point, Sengoku thought a break was well-deserved and could only do Rosinante good; it was something he was more than willing to approve of as his case handler.
Doubts only began to form as the break stretched out and with no contact to reassure the admiral. Real fear set in 6 months ago when a strained and seemingly desperate Rosinante had called and, without preamble, began a bizarre line of questioning about certain devil fruits, namely the Op-Op No Mi. Sengoku told him the complete truth at the time- he hadn’t seen any information emerge about the fruit, its location a disappointing mystery.
That call had been the last he’d heard from Rosi, and the concern was once again working its way to the forefront of his thoughts, disrupting his work. Sighing, he removed his glasses and pinched his radix. Suddenly, three customary knocks on his office door snapped him back to the present.
An extra few seconds to replace his glasses and straighten up before responding, “You may come in.”
A young, clean-shaven recruit stepped into the room; he shut the door behind him and stood to perfect attention.
“Is there something you’d like to inform me of?”
“Yes, sir! Commander Rosinante has returned to Marineford-”
“What!? Where is he? Why hasn’t he been brought to me!?”
“I apologize, sir. It’s just that protocol dictates undercover assets receive prior clearance before returning to headquarters. There was no such clearance when we checked his marine code.”
“Right. I’m clearing him- have him brought here immediately.”
The recruit swiftly disappeared back in the direction he’d come from, and Sengoku was left fighting the urge to race down there and collect Rosinante himself. That wouldn’t do any good- it was already somewhat clear he hadn’t expected the commander’s return by simple reasoning of his lack of clearance- making a scene in front of a cohort of officers was bound to start gossip, and that wasn’t something Sengoku would do to his son when several higher-ranking officials were already scrutinising his supposed break.
Rosinante was somewhat relieved to hear he’d been given the go-ahead to enter; it’d been an inconvenience when the guards had stopped him, though it was hard to distinguish the feeling from the potent numbness he was growing accustomed to day after day.
Marineford's paths and offices were as familiar as the back of his hand but he humoured the Seaman Recruit who’d come to collect him by following him all the way to Sengoku’s office. He did shoot him an expectant look once they’d arrived at the door; the Marine took the hint and excused himself.
At one point, he would’ve run in unannounced and squeezed himself next to his dad’s legs under the maple-wood desk, hiding from Garp or whoever else had frightened him while his dad gave them hell. He knocked three times and waited to be granted entry.
“Come in…Rosinante!"
His son walked in far too unfamiliar for Sengoku’s liking. It was expected that he’d look a little older after being away on his mission but he looked a lot older, far more than 5 years of distance could explain. His hair was outgrown, his jaw uncharacteristically dotted with stubble, and eyebags that looked more like a toddler’s excessive application of eyeshadow than anything that could naturally come about.
“Admiral Sengoku- I’ve come to give my report.”
“That can wait son, you…seas you look exhausted.” Sengoku went around his desk and closed the distance between him and Rosi, guiding him over to sit down. The admiral sat in the seat next to him rather than the one behind the desk. “Where have you been all this time? Tsuru reported that she hadn’t seen you with the Family since around the time you told me you were taking a break.”
“I wasn’t really in just one place.”
“Why did you want a break in the first place? One of the Donquixote kids seemingly went missing around the time you did- was it to do with him? I just don’t see what could have possibly led you to abandon your mission…son…I think I at least deserve to know the truth.” With a hand on Rosi’s knee, he pressed on, “what exactly happened?”
Rosinante grit his teeth and shook off Sengoku’s hand, he knew that Law was from Flevance, that he had come to his brother seeking revenge with the last of his final dying months, Rosinante had personally told Sengoku as much. That in itself seemed like a good enough reason to abandon any damned mission, the implication that doing so was somehow out of the question irked rosinante, but he decided to award his adoptive dad with a little more patience. After all, he himself had insisted that he would remain focused on his mission even after Law's joining of the Family. He briefly considered that confessing the truth could cause disciplinary action to be taken against him, but didn’t find it in him to care.
"I tried to find him a cure, but no one was even willing to try."
“A cure? If he’s the one you told me had Amber Lead Disease, then I can’t say im surprised-”
"Of course you're not! Of course this doesn't shock you, no- I wouldn't be surprised if you'd personally known about Flevance!"
"I- no! I hadn't the faintest about what the government was setting up in Flevance!"
"I don't care! You protect them, you know they do this shit; they've done it in Ohara and probably a hundred other places, and you protect them and you brought me here as an 8-year-old and indoctrinated me to work for them too!” Rosinante wasn’t sure he’d ever raised his voice at his father, but he couldn’t stop the rant now that it had started. “It’s still my fault for doing it- I wanted to deal with my brother; I saw him as my responsibility, but I’ve spent the last 5 years as his right-hand man, and I know what he’s planning. I’m here to give you the last of my intel in the case that it can prevent more suffering at his hands, but I doubt it’ll matter- he’s confident, confident he can play you all like fools because the celestial dragons will crumble to whatever he’s holding above them, so you know what? He’s the government’s responsibility too and I realised that too late but even before I did…I just felt that Law…a hurting child...nurturing him would be a better goal than anything that could ever be ordered to me in one of those blue and white envelopes.” He spoke the last words looking Sengoku straight in the eyes.
"Rosinante, you know why I do this job, it's precisely because of the malicious individuals who sit at the top, someone with a fair sense of justice has to stand amongst them or they are truly unaccounted for."
Rosinante could've thrown an argument right back at him and he wanted to, but his voice broke instead, "I loved him."
And that took the wind right out of Sengoku’s sails, he'd been ready to debate and rationalise to get to the bottom of his son's inexplicable actions but love... well there was no point in trying to find a reason for somebody's love.
"Rosi... oh son, I'm sorry, you…you tried your best... you gave that boy a better few months than he would've had"
“You don't even know what you're talking about, his last months were awful, I dragged him from hospital to hospital on hardly more than a plank of wood. He was in pain... all the time and I kept telling him it would be fine... I wasn't even lying at the time but he saw right through it and every doctor, nurse, hell every person that saw him and realised he had Amber Lead Disease would run off screaming and calling for his death- the only people that ran towards him were those brandishing weapons and wearing entire suits to protect against his contagion, so contagious I’m still perfectly fine." The sarcasm wasn't typical for him, but it seems Law had been right about yet another thing because it certainly made talking to someone insufferable just a little easier.
"But even with all of that... the boy knew love that he wouldn't have felt since the deaths of his family, was he scared near the end?"
Rosinante’s breath hitched; there was no way sengoku should be able to imply that Law seemed peaceful right before his death but the older man was always impossibly perceptive.
"No... he wasn’t..." Tears began to fall and he suddenly felt all too young again, breaking down before his dad. Law's final smile was still etched clear as day in his mind, and the idea that Law could be so grateful as to thank him and even…
Sengoku placed a hand on his son's shoulder this time as the younger man slumped forward over himself. “Rosinante…I understand what you did but others will see it as a betrayal.” Sengoku was reaching out with his observation haki, ensuring they wouldn’t be overheard. Realistically, it would’ve been simpler if Rosinante had activated his devil fruit, but his kid was displaying a concerning lack of self-preservation. “It shouldn’t be too difficult to avoid punishment- claim that you feared for your life, that you had an inkling your cover had been blown, and so you decided to leave, taking the kid was just a last-ditch effort to do whatever good you still could. We can get through this.”
The former Corazon wiped his tears and fought for composure. “You can lie however you wish, but I have no interest in what the institution thinks of me, because I’m leaving; I’m no longer a marine."