Disclaimer—One Piece and all associated characters ect belongs to Eiichiro Oda not me I just enjoy reading/watching it. Spoken dialogue belongs to him if it seems very familiar. His Dark Materials and daemons belong to Philip Pullman.

Like most of my fanwork this started as a thought exercise that expanded into something kinda awful and also kinda darkly wonderful. I am posting this while waiting for more information to come in about Law's past so I can flipping edit my other works (if possible) and continue with my longer narrative continuation of "Gnat". Though I may have to knock it completely AU if things keep spiraling as they are because...yeah.

WRATH

They, the magical they that was the gossipy voice of the public conscious, always spoke about the costs and benefits. It was called a fairy tale, a pipe dream, or a castle on a cloud.

Being able to swim? Was a small loss that most pirates and even marines scoffed at—there were ways around that weakness, if you had a couple of brain cells to dedicate to the simple problem that was avoiding water, then you would likely be fine. It would never be safe to be on the ocean, ability to swim or not, but what was the point of sailing if there wasn't an element of danger spicing up things? You didn't become a pirate or join the marines if you didn't have some urge to put yourself in the path of danger or were just incredibly stupid.

Sea stone? Also not worth mentioning, you just had to be aware that the marines loved the damn stuff and thus you had to make sure you had contingency plans to get out of it. It was just foolish to believe that you would be able to avoid the stuff in perpetuity.

Power? Yes, and so many to choose from! There was the ability to become and animal, an element, or any power that could be imagined and fair beyond. Power that was so incredibly addicting that it tempted even the sternest and most steadfast of souls to reach out and take it when it was offered. Especially when that offer came in the most innocent of packages.

Wealth? You could sell them for a high price if you didn't consume it yourself. And who didn't love money? Especially a lot of money? But then it came back to the last question of power, which could also get you a lot of money and not just for one sale.

Loosing your soul.

That fact? That one little fact, which was spoken about in whispers and shifty eyes? One of the world's greatest of taboos? Made even the most power-hungry pause and think about taking that. One. Life. Changing. Bite.

After all, one was raised with their soul at their side from the moment of birth. Adulthood was marked by your soul settling into its final form that was the truest reflection of yourself. Your daemon was your companion, your friend, your sibling, your confident, your conscious, your other half, and your truest voice.

Your daemon was you.

The breadfruit was cupped in his hand. It was green and spiny, digging into his fingers like miniature daggers. The pain was both grounding and threatening. It appeared to be a normal and completely harmless fruit, until you realized the dark spirals on each ridge meant something fair more sinister in nature.

The question was…was it worth it?

Souls, only parted in death…

Bepo was there, watching him examine his cursed prize. The bear-man who was alone in the world in the most horrible of ways—he hadn't been granted the choice that Law now had. Bepo had paid a horrible price that could never be put in balance. Lists of sins perpetuated against his friend and Law himself flickered through his thoughts like red-hot brands, burning away his resolve in their wake.

Kalpana watched also. Her eyes glowed sulfurous yellow in the dim room, catching the light from the singular lamp even from where she lay hidden in the darkest shadows. They were hollow and dead but for the lust for blood that flickered in their depths.

Rage simmered in Law's veins clawing at his heart. Every time he looked at Bepo, the flames of rage in the pit of his soul burned hotter and wilder, at what he saw…and what he didn't see. And of course, they started that damn spiral of hate made just as a chain, where the links were forged from each sin made against his person. Which lead back to the beginning of the wretched bonds, it was but a single name etched deeply into an iron weight anchoring the chain at the bottom of his soul.

Corazon…

Kalpana's patchy fur bristled, her scarred lips and flea-bitten ears drawn back, broken teeth and bloody gums flashing in the darkness as she snarled in visible fury. She was the picture of abuse and sickness, but her bones were made of steel, her teeth the most deadly of scalpels. She was sculpted of whipcord and razor wire, deadly and vicious, but so terribly brittle from being carelessly bent one too many times.

"Yes." She answered his unasked question lowly, her rusty, seldom used voice like the first warning rumble of thunder before the approaching storm.

There was no hesitation. No second-guessing. No question as to what the choice should be. The certainty was carved into the primordial essence of the universe.

Law cut the fruit in half.

Unless you took a bite…

All he could taste was the rotted bloody bile that was agony as he shattered into a billion pieces. The world spun around him in fragments of pain and the screaming ghosts of the dead and dying. The apparitions clawed at him with broken fingers covered in blood and gore leaving burning cold trails across his skin as they attempted to drag him down into hell. He couldn't tell if the sounds deafening him were their screams or his own.

…at which moment your daemon would Dissolve away.

The fragments of him settled into a new form, made from the original but not the same as it had been before.

That could never be the same again. No matter how many times he reconstructed the shamble of pieces.

His body hummed with power, like a nest of angry wasps had settled just under his skin making their hive within his heart.

Gold dust spiraled around in the stale air before it faded away as if it had never been there at all. Yet, all he could see was the final moments of a skeletal white wolf with dead eyes commanding him to massacre the man who had brought them to this.

But then, they wouldn't be called Devil Fruits if there weren't a cost.

Wow, this was morbid. I may even continue this particular Daemon AU because it is delightfully creepy.

Law- Dissolved, Canis lupus arctos (Arctic Wolf)

Kalpana= idea imagination fancy. (Indian)

www . meaning – of - names Indian - names / kalpana . asp

Though likely a pun usage of this meaning, Kapana is chosen for the "fancy" part. Edward Low, ie the most likely guy that Law is based after, captained "The Fancy" as one of his many ships—at least according to Wikipedia.

The daemons being affected by powers thing is not totally my idea, I have seen it in the Avengers fandom in relation to the Hulk at least once (Though in that case, it wasn't complete loss it was only in Hulk form). However, I am, as far as I know, the first to take this idea to the Devil Fruits and apply it. And I think I am the second to write a daemon AU for One Piece period—the other is on AO3. Go me. In a way this is almost as bad as incision…whereas incision you still have your daemon and are really…messed up, eating a DF essentially destroys the physical form of your soul. Luckily, you don't become a zombie…you get messed up in a different way.