Learning How It Was Done
Voices were conversing as Law regained consciousness. He didn't let them know he was up and just decided to listen to them. "He is in stable condition. The dose of the sedative was a little much on his body. It won't be long now for him to wake up, though," Vegapunk said.
"So, he wasn't damaged?" Luffy asked with worry.
"No. He is perfectly fine. He just wasn't ready for so much stress on his mind. He just came back." There was the sound of machines around him. Like in a hospital room. "It didn't hurt him in any way, but I can't say the same thing for his mind. You will have to ask him about that."
Law slowly opened his eyes. He knew that he was still in the same facility. Probably a different room, though. Law languidly sat up and looked around the room. Luffy and Vegapunk were looking at something on the other side of the room.
Feeling something in his arm, Law looked down to find an IV drip in it. He wondered what had happened for them to have had to use that. Gradually, he started to remember what he saw before he passed out. It was a horrible sight but he understood why it had happened.
"Trafalgar, I wasn't expecting up to be up this soon," Vegapunk said to him as he came over to stand next to the bed. "Are you feeling alright?"
"Y-Yes," Law answered. His tongue was slightly heavy in his mouth. Law had seen worse things in his life that what he saw. It had hurt him more to have seen Corazon dead than to see his own dead body. That isn't normal, is it? Should he be more disturbed to see it? Or should he be feeling the same as he did at that moment? Which was just being disturbed.
"Torao, are you going to be okay?" Luffy asked. He was looking at him with sorrowful and worried eyes. The worry was something that Law had gotten used to when he was with the Straw Hats. They worried about each other a lot. Even him when he was there.
"Yes."
"Your reaction was perfectly normal, but I didn't count on it being as bad as it was." Vegapunk bowed his head in apology. "I am sorry. I should've been more pressing on the matter and got you to wait until you were ready. I take full responsibility for this."
"No. I insisted that I wanted to know the truth about what happened." Law sat against the headboard of the bed. The room was almost just like a hospital room. "To be honest, I wasn't as upset nor disturbed as I thought I should've been."
"Why is that?" Vegapunk asked as he checked his IV bag. Luffy hopped up onto the bed next to him. He proceeded to lay down beside Law and took his left hand in both of his.
"I don't know. To me, seeing Cora-san dead in the snow that day was more hurtful and scarring than seeing my own dead body before me." Law didn't even understand why he thought that way. Must be all the things I've had to endure during my life.
"So, are you saying that you have come to terms with you being recreated?" Luffy started to draw patterns on the palm of his hand.
"I guess so. It isn't bothering me anymore. Especially now that I know why I was recreated." Luffy hugged his arm to his chest. It was sweet and made Luffy look like a giddy child.
"Does that mean you agree with me?" Luffy asked. He sounded nervous to ask the question. It was strange for him but was used to it. Bepo was always nervous about most things.
"Straw Hat-ya..." Law looked down at Luffy. The kid was giving him those puppy-dog eyes as he pleaded at him. It was almost heartbreaking at how desperate the kid was acting about him saying yes to his request. Sighing, Law made his decision. "I will accept it. I will get the surgery."
Luffy shot up and brought him in for a huge and tight hug. Law hugged him back. He knew that Luffy didn't like being alone. He was told that by his crew and Luffy's older brother, Sabo. It was not a nice thing. Being alone. It was the worst thing in Law's opinion. But he had been alone for so long.
"Trafalgar, I would like to inform you about what we are going to do after you get the surgery and the person is no longer among us," Vegapunk spoke to get his attention. Law looked over to him.
"What is that?"
"We are going to get the Ope-Ope fruit back for you to eat once again." Law let the information settle in. They are going to let me have my devil fruit back. Is that really a good choice for him to make? Why is he so willing to do this for me?
"Why are you so willing to help me get back to normal? Why are you so willing to help Straw Hat-ya if you work for the Government?" Those were questions that he wanted to know the answers to. It was not completely okay with him.
"There are...personal reasons I am doing this." Law gave him a look that told him to explain. Vegapunk nodded. "I knew Luffy's mother. She had done a lot for me when she was around. So did Garp and Dragon." Law was shocked to hear this. "I did this to repay Luffy's family for what they have done for me. It was something I have been meaning to do for a very long time."
Luffy laid his head in Law's lap. He wasn't bothered by it in the least. It was probably form being on the Thousand Sunny for as long as he had been. "So, how long will I have to stay here?"
"About a week or so. Don't worry about being found out. This part of the facility is hidden from the Government. They do not have the floor plans to this part." Law nodded. "I had this all set up a while back to try what I have and succeeded at."
"You were planning on recreating a human before I died?" It was an interesting thing to know about the man he knew absolutely nothing about.
"Yes. About a decade or so before your...untimely death occurred. I never got around to it because the Government was keeping me buys and I didn't have a person that I wanted nor needed to bring back." That made sense to Law. You have to have a person to recreated them. "There were some...obstacles that I had to overcome with recreating you."
"What were those? What happened before now?" Law was curious as to what the man had to fix to get him the way he was now.
"Well, I did recreate your body from scratch. That was an obstacle in and of itself. Making you look the same with the same scars and markings was very difficult." Law nodded as he ran his hand through Luffy's hair. It was comforting as he heard the other start snoring. He was more interested in what he and Vegapunk were discussing.
"So, how did you overcome that?" Vegapunk rolled up a chair to sit next to the bed. He was in a more relaxed manner but still had his face covered by the glasses and mask. It was as if he never took them or off. Or was afraid of people seeing his face. It could be one or the other. Maybe something else altogether.
"I had to recreate the markings myself." Law paled at that.
"You cut my arm back off and shot me?" He couldn't believe what he had just been told.
"Yes. It was the only way to get the scar on your arm and the ones on your stomach back. It stitched your arm back together and let it heal. The scars turned out to look just like the ones on your original body. The other scars that you obtained I did the same with." Vegapunk had an apologetic air around him. "I am sorry for doing that but Luffy wanted you just like you were before you died. Scars, markings, and all."
"I understand. He wouldn't settle for anything less." Vegapunk shook his head.
"It took me eight and a half years to recreate your body to look identical to your original body." Law nodded. "The other year and a half was me testing to see if your body reacted the correct way to stimuli." Law nodded as he thought for a second.
"You told me that you created this body from scratch, right?" Vegapunk agreed to his question. "That means you recreated my brain as well. Why did you put my old brain in my head and not leave the one that was created in?"
"That was also an obstacle that I had to find a way around." He scratched the back of his head. It didn't even move the mask. "When I made your body, it did recreate a brain to go with it. But...when I went to see if you remembered anything at all..." Law didn't like where this was going. "You didn't remember anything. Not even how to speak. It was like you were a newborn baby." He was shocked to hear that. "So, I had a theory that if I took your old brain and put it inside the new body, maybe your memories would come back. It was a stretch but, in the end, it worked out quite perfectly."
"Tony-ya told me that you would only talk to Straw Hat-ya about all of this. Why is that?"
"Because, I didn't want word getting out about what I was doing down here." Vegapunk's aura turned to slight anger. "There are people in this facility that like to gossip with the Navy soldiers and such. Not good for Luffy and his crew."
Law nodded and looked down to Luffy. "So, does the world know that I died?" That was the big question that he had for the man. He couldn't make Luffy tell him because he was asleep.
"No. The world just thinks that you disappeared. I kept that under wraps as well as my project. The only ones that knew you had died was your crew and Luffy's crew." Law just remembered his crew.
"My crew. How are they? What have they been doing for the past ten years? Are they doing okay?" It made him worry for them. They didn't have their captain for a whole decade. That was not a good thing for him to do. He cared a lot about his crew.
"They are doing just fine. I have taken them in as well." Law's eyes widened. They're here?! Why wasn't I told about this?! "They do look a little different from when you last saw them. It has been ten years, after all."
"Did they know about what you were doing?" Vegapunk nodded. "I thought only you and Straw Hat-ya knew about it?"
"On the outside of here, only Luffy knew about it. Your crew has been living in this part of the facility for ten years. I took them in as another request form Luffy. He thought it was better than to let them out in the world without you. I agreed with him." Law nodded. "They are very good at doing surgeries and taking care of sick patients as well as doing repairs."
"You let them work here?" Vegapunk nodded.
"To keep them from looking suspicious when they wanted to get some fresh air, I allowed them to do what they knew how to. It wasn't difficult to know what each one was good at. Jean Bart is very good with fixing machines and such. Most of your crew is good at tending to the sick, fixing broken machine parts, and performing surgeries on others."
Law smiled at the praise. "I taught them how to do the medical things. The repairing part they learned from each other. Mostly Penguin and Shachi. They were the ones that could fix things better than me. They taught me what I know about fixing things." He though about his best friend, Bepo. "What about Bepo? He's a bear that doesn't really fit in with humans."
"We snuck him out to get fresh air when he wanted it. It wasn't that hard because most of the Marines were either injured or just didn't question what I was doing." Law nodded at that. That was a good reason. Vegapunk was the best scientist that the world could ever ask for.
"You can meet your crew whenever you feel free to. They are in the common room with the others." Vegapunk rolled his chair back over to the desk before going through some papers. "Just be careful on your feet. I don't know how the sedative messed with your motor skills like walking, etc. Talking seems to be easy. That's a good start."
"I think I'm going to stay here for a while. I'm tired." Vegapunk nodded without looking at him. "What has Straw Hat-ya been up to since my death?" Law was interested in what the hyperactive kid had done while he was waiting for him to come back.
"Do you really want to know? You might be jealous." Law raised an eyebrow at his comment after the question.
"Why would I be jealous? What did he do?" Vegapunk spun around before getting up. He walked over to the sleeping man next to him. Law watched as he placed a gloved hand into Luffy's shirt.
It was as if he was looking for something in his shirt. "I knew he has it on him. I never saw him without it," Vegapunk mumbled as he continued to search for something. It made Law feel weird to see him do that to Luffy.
"What are you looking for?" He was curious as to why he would have to search Luffy for something to show him.
Without answering Law, Vegapunk stopped moving his hand after a minute or so. Carefully, he pulled something out of Luffy's shirt. Law saw that it was something golden. Like a piece of jewelry or something.
"This. He was able to obtain this while you were gone." Vegapunk held it up in the light. It twinkled in the light. The object was attached to a string around Luffy's neck. Taking a closer look, Law was in awe at what it was. He couldn't believe what he was seeing.
"Is...Is that..." He didn't even have the courage to ask the important question. The question that was eating at him at that very moment. Law was astonished that Luffy had accomplished what people died trying to do. And in only ten years.
"Yes. It is the One Piece. He found it about seven years after he brought you to me." Vegapunk handed it to him. Law made sure that he wasn't bothering Luffy as he cautiously took the golden object in his hand.
Looking it over, it was, indeed, the legendary One Piece. Thousands of Pirates died trying to get that one piece of gold. He didn't understand why it was so importing. It was just a golden coin with a skull on both sides. "I don't understand. Why would people kill each other over just this?" Law wanted to know the reason.
"It's not just a gold coin like others. It is a key to Gol D. Roger's treasure that he had stored away. That is what people fought and killed each other over." Vegapunk went back over to the desk. "it is not a just a measly piece of gold. It opens a door to wonders that many can't even imagine."
"So, the One Piece was just a key to the treasure?" The man nodded as he went to looking through papers again.
"Yes. But Luffy has found both the key and the treasury. He is the wealthiest man in the entire world." Law's jaw dropped. He was amazed that the kid was able to do all of this in just seven years.
"That is amazing."
"Yes. Especially because of who he is." Law understood what he meant. He had the D in his name. "He locked the treasury back up after finding it."
"Why?"
"Because he didn't want just anyone getting inside it. He did let Miss Nami take as much treasure as she wanted from it." Law understood Luffy's choice. He smiled. Nami was always a sucker for money. It was nice to know that she hadn't changed in that aspect. "Miss Robin got what she wanted as well. It was also locked away in the vault."
"That's good for her." Law laid back down. Luffy released his arm in favor to wrap around his body. He moved his head to rest it on Law's shoulder as he snuggled closer to him. "I'm going to go back to sleep," he told the other.
"That's fine. More rest should help the sedatives wear off so that you can maybe stand properly when you get back up." There was silence for a few minutes. Only Luffy's snoring could be heard. "Luffy hasn't slept in a week. It is very good to see him actually sleeping."
"Why didn't he sleep?" Law didn't like that the other was neglecting himself.
"He was too excited to sleep when I told him I was nearing completion of bring you back." Law, now, understood why Luffy was sleeping so deeply on his shoulder. It was all because of him. It made him feel guilty. "Please, don't blame yourself for his situation. It was his choice to stay awake, not yours. He was just so happy to get you back after so long."
"Thanks for the reassurance." Closing his eyes, Law listened to the snoring of Luffy. It was loud but not annoying. Just enough to lull him to sleep. It was nice to know more about how he was made. It made him happy that Luffy fulfilled his lifetime goal. Now, they had an eternity to live together. "I want to do the surgery tomorrow," Law announced just before he followed Luffy into the land of dreams.
It was nice to know that you all are liking the story. It was based off the theory that Law will give his life for Luffy when the fight Kaido. It just came to mind. Hope you all don't mind it. Here is another chapter. Have a funtasical day. I love you all. Tatty-bye!
