"Does it hurt people, when you use your powers on them?"
"No. There's no pain."
"Can you do it to yourself? I mean, you know. Use your powers."
"Yes."
"Really? What - what does it feel like, then?"
"I'm used to it."
"It's not scary?"
"No."
"But what if somebody took a piece of you? Like bad guys, and you had to give them your heart? They could do anything to you!"
"Relax. With them, it's just a matter of diplomacy."
He still has dreams, though, at night when the others are asleep and he forgets for a moment that his heart is in between his ribs and not in between a stranger's hands, dreams of white walls and scalpels and faces covered in masks. They begin in any number of ways, from amputation to defibrillation, and end in only one: an incision, eight inches long, to crack him open like a toy chest.
The artificial light is blinding up above. Shadows pass overhead, their faces covered in cloth. The room is closed - there is no way out. He can feel the bite of cold restraints pressing him to the table, he can feel gloved hands preparing the meat for slaughter, and he can feel everything that comes after. They use a saw to split the breastbone, and a metal crank to force his ribs apart. With clamps they pin the edges of his skin to the sides, and then they reach into his chest with a butcher knife. He's screaming, probably, somewhere, if his lungs are still working. The blood is clogging his trachea.
The dreams all end with foreign hands plucking out his still-beating heart and then holding it in front of his face, where he can't look away. It bleeds and convulses like a dying animal.
And then he wakes up.
"Well we won't take your heart. We don't need any stupid diplomacy, I promise!"
"If you say so."
"Don't laugh! I'm serious!"
"Of course you are. But forming an alliance is basically the same as exchanging hearts, Tony-ya."
"No, it's not! Luffy said - Luffy said an alliance is like being friends, and friends don't need to do scary things like that! Right?"
"If you say so."
"I mean, if - if I had to give Luffy my heart, it wouldn't be scary, because Luffy would take care of it. But I wouldn't want to take his heart unless I had to. I mean I take care of it all the time because he's always doing crazy things to his body, but I would never take it. And if he gave it to me I'd give it back as soon as I could."
"Hmm."
"And if - if Luffy had to give you his heart, you'd do the same, right?"
"Yes, I would."
"Would you be scared if you had to give Luffy your heart?"
"No."
"Because of diplomacy?"
"Well, no."
"See, so we are friends."
"..."
"Tora, are we friends?"
"If your captain says so."
"But do you think we're friends?"
"...I don't know."
"Oh."
"..."
"Tora, do you trust us?"
"Yes."
"Well, okay. That's okay, then."
Words of the Sheep: So I went from happy-go-lucky Zoro & Tashigi to...
...?
Somebody brought up the possibility of Law being an insomniac, and then I just had to do this. I dunno. In my opinion he and Hawkins have the creepiest powers in the One Piece world, and Law's past is hinted at being pretty depressing. His interactions with the Strawhats are just great, though. I'm so looking forward to Oda going into his character more~