Chapter 2: Secrets

disclaimer:dont own any of the stuff in this, especially one piece.

AN:this is part one of a two part story. part one revoles around this guy, while part 2 revolves around luffy. if you have any questions, please review.

This hill again... This barren, ice cold hill of snow... The wind was bone-chilling, numbing my entire body... but... something was different this time. It was snowing a crimson snow, instead of that bleak white snow that covered the land in its frozen grasps. This red snow stained the pure white until... until... my little white hill became all that was left of the pure white snow. It was still so utterly cold...

"Hey! Mr. Sai! Please wake up! It's time to eat!"

This was the voice Lisain heard when he woke up in his hospital bed that morning. With the morning sun rising from his window, one could see slight changes in the redheaded patient as he tiredly rose from his sleep. For one, his crimson red hair was shorter, as it had been cut a few days ago. He also looked slightly better than he had two weeks ago from the physical therapy he had been receiving.

"Hello? You there Mr. Sai? You really need to eat if you want to get your strength back up! Please eat the food! It's really good for you!"

The person in question who Lisain was apparently trying to ignore was Elizabeth Law, who was one of the patients at the hospital and an admirer of the recently reawakened Lisain, who could not guess as to why she followed him around like a little lost puppy in the first place.

"Hello again, Elie. Would you mind telling me why you are here and not in your room? Or with your brother?"

He originally thought it was cute and a little funny the way she followed him around, but then it got a little annoying when she followed him around nonstop. The final straw for him though, was when she gave him a nickname. It was OK in the beginning, as with the following around, but then it got on his nerves. His name was Lisain dammit! He liked it that way, thank you very much. In a kind of petty revenge, he started calling her what her brother nicknamed her, Elie. But, alas, it had the opposite effect of her bothering him more than normal. She was helpful though, and offered her support through giving him things, such as snacks snuck out from the doctor's mini-fridge which he kept in his room. But then there were times like these when her help was definitely not needed.

"I don't need Al for everything, so stop bugging me about it! I came here 'cause the doctor said that eating brings up strength, and you need to build up some muscle, so I brought you some of the apple sauce from the kitchen! I knew that you can't chew properly yet, so I got the apple sauce! I know, I know, I am really smart! No need to praise me, because I already know I'm the best!" Elie exclaimed to Lisain's dismay.

'Yes... Oh so very annoying for a paraplegic seven year old blonde girl. I can't wait for her brother to get here...'

"Now, Mr. Sai, eat before I do something you might regret!"

'Oh no. Last time she did that, she took away all my drawing supplies!'

Recently, as a hobby, he took up drawing the scenery inside and outside the hospital because he was extremely bored of simply sitting around with nothing to do. He found he was surprisingly good at drawing, and wondered if he was a painter. But then that led to why he was here, recovering from a near death experience. He decided that it was no good to dwell on the past, and instead work toward a better future, one where he would be able to walk around without someone to help him. For now, he was confined to a wheelchair, cowering at the demands of a little girl. At least for now.

"Eat! Your! Food! Now!"

'Leave me alone! Please! I'll do anything, just make her leave!'

"Elie! You in here? Ah ha! Knew it! There you are! I thought I told you to stay in your room! Are you trying to force feed Lisain again? I know you are!" yelled a voice that Lisain recognized as Elie's brother, Trafalgar Law, or as Elie so bluntly put it, 'Al'. He had come in in a miniature version of what Dr. Subirashi usually wore, except cleaner. He also had a small gray cart with pills and trays of food on it.

'Yes! Safety at last! Thank you whatever higher power there is in the universe! Karma, I'll repay you later!'

While Al was trying to berate his younger sister for being there, the old man in the next bed awoke due to all the noise.

"Be quiet you scrawny kids! Can't you see a poor old man is trying to catch some shut-eye over here! What is an old man to do when he can't even get some decent sleep without putting earplugs in his ears? Why, back in my day, we-"

"Yes, Mr. Cayden, we understand that you need your rest, so why don't you take those pain relief pills and we will be quieter for you," replied Al as quickly as he could.

Cayden's full name is Kiyoshi Cayden. From what Lisain had gathered from his time here, Cayden has background from both east and north blue, judging from his name and what people had told him around here. He was here because he hurt his back pretty badly when he was chopping some wood for his fireplace. People around here seemed to respect Cayden for his age and for things he did before he came to this island, but they seemed pretty hushed up when Lisain asked them what he did before settling down here.

"Hrmph. Kids these days don't know how to behave..."As he was saying this, he took some pills from Al, signaling that this was a common occurrence, and swallowed them with the help of some water on the table next to him. He then proceeded to take out a pair of earplugs, and jam them into his ears as he fell back into his peaceful slumber.

'Those earplugs must be magic or something,' Lisain thought, 'because no matter how loud it gets in here, he always seems to stay asleep. I know he doesn't have bad hearing, as he always wakes up when we are talking, even when we're whispering! He won't even let me borrow them when I want to ignore Elie damn it! I want a pair...'

During this altercation, Elie was silently trying to get Lisain to eat apple sauce, which he was avoiding with the maneuverability of a bird doing circles in the sky.

"Come on! Please eat this! I got it especially for you! Eat it now!"she cried while pouting.

'Damn it, why does she have to pout! Just looking at her is making me feel guilty! Al! Please notice what's going on over here! I need to be saved from your little sister!'

Suddenly, the door burst open, and Dr. Subirashi barreled into the room. He was as unkempt as usual, wearing his usual coat and carrying that clip board around. During his stay here, he had learned the man ran on three different settings. The first one was his professional demeanor. This was the mask he wore when he was dealing with patients that were high priority, or something important needed to be done. The second personality of his would be his casual one. He acted like a regular person with a few eccentricities. He wore this mask when he was dealing with patients he knew, or people he regularly talked with. The final one, the one he was in currently, and possibly the most eccentric of the three, was his coffee high persona. To stay awake at night and to deal with the stress of surgeries, he drank coffee, as smoking was not allowed in the hospital due to sanitary reasons.

"Hellooooo! How is everyone todaaaaay! Now then, lets get to business shall weeeee?"

While like this, he talked very fast, and stressed the last word of every word he spoke, allowing hardly anyone to understand what he was trying to convey. Luckily, this only lasts around half an hour to an hour, before he became exhausted from the caffeine rushing to his head.

"First off, here's your schedule for todaaaaay. Second, do not be late for any of these or I'll get very impatient and move on to my next meeting and completely forget about youuuuu. Finally, hope your rehabilitation is coming along perfectly well, and I hope to see you laterrrrrr. Oh, and Mr. Cayden, please make sure to take you're pain pills. Byeeeee." He sped off down the white halls, running into several wheelchairs along the way.

"I'm okay!" he said as he crashed into a wheelchair. "I'm still okayyyyy!"

After Al had checked that Dr. Subirashi was gone, he turned back to Elie.

"He really needs to stop drinking that coffee of his in the morning. It's going to destroy this hospital one day. Anyway, as I was saying, stop bothering Lisain! He is a patient in recovery! He needs rest! Not you bothering him! Or following him!" He lifted his hand to his head, "Really! can't you just stay in your room for once and not have me worry about you? Don't you know, as you're brother, I have to take responsibility for you! Can you just listen to what I have to say this time? Please?"

Elie seemed to be in deep thought for a moment before responding slowly, "Fine Al. I'll go back to my room now..."

'Dang. Now I feel sorry for not accepting the food she brought me... I guess I'll just have to make it up to her next time I see her.'

"Oh yes, Lisain, here is your breakfast for today," he said, trying to do the job he was supposed to do before he got sidetracked.

He held out a small tray with some scrambled eggs on it, and a small cup of orange juice, with a side of, you guessed it, apple sauce.

"Al, you know I don't like apple sauce. Why did you get me some if you know I don't like it?" Lisain asked with a questioning look on his face.

"You really are strange, you know? You like apple pie, yet not apple sauce. You like soba and udon, yet not ramen. How would I know that you don't like this stuff?" he honestly replied.

"I thought you would know, because as of a few seconds ago, your sister was trying to force feed me this... 'food'... How could you not notice that?" Lisain replied humorously.

"Well, the same way we did not notice that you were a devil fruit user," he said, with a a slight laugh in his voice.

"True, true. But I didn't know that either. At least until Elie decided to try pushing me into the pool in here. I was a devil fruit user and still needing rehabilitation! At least she called for help... Why do you have a pool in the hospital again?" Lisain managed to get out while eating his eggs.

"I told you already, it helps build up muscle strength, and Dr. Subirashi likes to swim... Although I haven't seen him use it in a long time..." he admitted, albeit quietly. "Also, did you figure out what your devil fruit power is yet?"

"No, but, when I do figure it out, I'll tell you first, okay?" He then took a a large gulp of the remaining orange juice. "By the way, shouldn't you be getting on with your job of handing out medication and food instead of conversing with me?" he asked with a bemused smile on his face.

"Oh damn! You're right! Got to go! Bye!" He hurriedly dusted of his mini doctor's coat and left in a hurry, straight out of the hospital room.

'Now then, what's on this schedule?'

10:00-12:00 physical therapy/check-up
12:00-12:10 break
12:10-12:30 lunch
12:30-7:00 free time
7:00-7:30 dinner
7:30-10:00 free time
10:00~ sleep
This is your schedule for the rest of the month. Don't loose it.

'Huh. So this is it? Well, not to different from the last few days, except for perhaps the extra hour of physical therapy. Well, I have an hour or so before I have to go, so...'

He took out a plain black watch which he had received from Elie, and set the alarm for 9:50, before taking out a sketch pad and a few pencils from under his bed and laying them out on his bed.

'Time to sketch,' he thought as he picked up one of the pencils from the bed and flipped a few pages of his sketchbook. He looked at each picture carefully, and reminisced about when he drew them. The first one was simply a picture of the doctor, Al, and Elie together. The second depicted Mr. Cayden as he slept in his bed. The final one was simply a picture of the scenery outside. It showed snow falling in the moonlight. He really didn't know why, but there was simply something about snow that just clicked with him. It reminded him of something, but he just couldn't put his finger on it. He decided to continue his musings another day and started sketching the scenery outside his window, which currently showed a magnificent view of the morning sun.

A near hour later, he had nearly completely finished his drawing when his alarm went off. He scooted over to his wheelchair and pulled it over to him with his foot and got into it. He shuffled a bit, to get more comfortable and put his supplies under his bed. He then grabbed a hair tie and tied his still somewhat long hair in a ponytail in the back. The rest of his hair simply branched off into a mess of hair that shot out all over the place, except for where the bandages crossed his left eye, as the bandages kept that part down. He really needed to ask Dr. Subirashi why he still needed them. He had been asleep for a year, so they should be healed by now. He would ask later.

He slowly moved his wheelchair over towards the door, and exited quietly. He made his way down to the correct room and entered. The room looked like a small gym, with training equipment, and a few treadmills. In the center was a woman he recognized as Riza Demence. She occasionally brought in pills and food for Mr. Cayden and him. Currently, she was wearing a short sleeve shirt and shorts, with her blonde hair tied down into a ponytail. She was staring at a recent copy of the newspaper that was on a table next to her, which appeared to have been dropped off this morning, judging from the date on the newspaper, it was March the twenty-third. He wheeled his wheelchair over to her, and tried to read the headlines. Her arm was covering what he wanted to read, but he was able to make out a portion of the headline of the main page.

~~~~ ~~~~~ from east blue! Revival of the ~~~~~~ ~~~~~~? ~~~~~~ from all nations are ~~~~~~~~!

Then she turned her head around, and he found himself staring into light brown eyes that twinkled with amusement and joy.

"Oh. That's where you were. I was wondering when you were going to show up," she said as she rolled up the newspaper. "Well now that I know that you're here, we need to get started, correct?"

"That's what my schedule says, so I would say yes," he responded.

"So, Lisain was it? Not that common of a name, but I won't bother you about it." She picked up her clipboard before continuing, "Says here you have been in here the past two weeks with the head doctor. Not that surprising, really, as he usually works with new patients for a week or two before handing them out to people like me."

He thought for a moment before responding, "He must be a really good doctor to actually work with his patients like that. I thought I was just a special case."

"No, you really aren't that special, aside from the fact that you were probably one of the only people in this hospital that the doctor didn't really expect to survive. People like you get dropped by all the time, as Dr. Subirashi accepts everyone that needs help, from pirates to world nobles." Her smile showed her admiration for the doctor. "If you must know, he is actually rated as one of the best doctors in the entire world! So occasionally we see a world noble or two come by, or maybe even... Nah, this isn't even their scope of authority."

Lisain got a questioning look on his face. "Who are you talking about?"

She quickly decided to change the topic of the conversation. "Hey! We were supposed to start five minutes ago! Get over to that treadmill and start walking!"

After two hours of therapy and a small lunch with Mrs. Demence, it was now time to leave and go back to his room.

"Well then, I guess I'll see you for the rest of this month," said Mrs. Demence as she drank some water from a water bottle.

"Yeah. See you too, Mrs. Demence," he replied.

"You can call me Riza. Everyone else here calls me that, so you should too."

"Okay then, Mrs. Riza, I'll see you later then," he quickly corrected.

"Bye then"

"Bye."

Lisain then slowly moved his way out of the room, and rolled over to his room. He opened the door to his room to find it devoid of Mr. Cayden.

'Probably went to go visit the doctor or something,'he thought.

He went over to his bed and decided to finish his sketch of the scenery outside when suddenly the door opened and Dr. Subirashi came in.

"Hello Lisain, how are you doing today? Awesome? Not awesome?"

Lisain replied with a thumbs up.

"Okay then, I just wanted to tell you that Mr. Cayden will no longer be staying here as he is fully healed. Of course, knowing him, he'll be back in this building within the month so. Now that that's over with, is there anything you would like to ask me?"

Lisain remembered something he had wanted to ask earlier but had forgotten, so he asked it now. "Yes, there is something I'd like to ask. When can I take off these bandages? Shouldn't I be healed already, as I have been here for more than a year?"

The doctor put on a thoughtful expression, almost as if he was weighing his answer. "You may take the bandages off your left eye in August. By that time it should heal completely."

"But what about my arm?" Lisain retorted.

"You really don't have to worry about that, so I think I'll be taking my leave now..."

Lisain could tell he was avoiding the question. "Please doctor, tell me when my arm will be healed!"

"Do you really want an answer for that?"

Lisain thought the news couldn't really be that bad, even if his arm would never work properly again at least he could still move it and have a small bit of movement in his fingers. "Yes doctor, I really would like an answer for this, even if you tell me it will never heal, it's okay, as I was left handed anyway."

They stared at each other for a bit, before the doctor slumped over in defeat. He trudged over to a chair, and sat down. his expression became dark, and he became extremely serious in tone."Now, I should remind you you came here in very bad shape, so don't be surprised at the news I am about to give you. Also, I want you to never leak any of the news I'm about to give you out of this room. Never. You understand me?"

Lisain thought about that bit of news for a second and then nodded his head.

"Your right arm... will probably never heal. Those bandages should never, under any circumstances, be taken off. Those bandages are special, and are made by me personally, as they never need to be replaced, and rapidly regenerate the appendage they are wrapped in. The black color of those bandages are proof that they are mine, as I am the only doctor in the world that uses them. Remember when I said someone brought you here half dead? What actually happened was that you were rapidly decomposing. Your eye was almost completely gone, your torso was gone except for a few vital organs, and your arm was going berserk because whatever was decomposing you, resides in that arm. Your organs, I was able to stabilize, but I was so concentrated on your vital organs, I missed your eye and your arm. I covered them in my special black bandages, hoping that they would cancel each other out and make it so that you would survive. Your eye was able to heal, but your arm... Right now, your arm is rapidly deconstructing and reconstructing its cells at a rapid rate. Don't worry about losing any of your current lifespan, as the bandages take the decomposed material and reconstruct them into cells. Should you ever take off those bandages, you will lose not just your arm, but your life. This is a warning to you, to never take them off under any kind of circumstance, understand?"

Lisain sat, stunned at the information that had just been given to him. He then realized why the doctor was so surprised at why he had woken up. He would have been dead for sure unless he had been brought here. He really had almost died...

"That isn't all though, but I'll tell you that another day. Promise me you won't take off those bandages, at least until I tell you it's okay, alright?"

Lisain nodded his head dumbly, still in shock at the news he had just received...

The doctor's demeanor did a 180 and he seemed to go back to his normal self. "I'll see you later. Goodbye for now!"

Lisain simply sat there, wondering why he was still alive after all that. What had he done to have to arrive here like that? He decided to think on it tomorrow when he had time to actually think, instead of sitting there like a moron. That night, he wondered why he was brought here in the first place, if he was truly meant to be dead...