Hello. It's me. I've been wondering if after all these months I'd finally update like somewhat frequently so here I am updating the same week.
...Chapter 21
...Cancel
"What do you mean, silence cancels silence?" asks Nami, hands on her hips. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Law found himself yet again, in front of the Straw Hat crew, relaying information to them all. Although half of them would not, most likely, completely comprehend what he was talking about. Only a select few, Nami being one, were easy for Law to talk to. Sometimes.
He glances at the faces of all the pirates before him tiredly, scratching his head, thinking of how to word his theory without much difficulty. "Robin is currently silent," he begins, breathing in the salty air of the sea. "If someone else near her is also silent, then the two would 'cancel' each other out, resulting and her being able to speak."
Franky, rubbing his chins thoughtfully, eyes the shorter doctor. "Does someone have to be there, or can it just be silent?"
"If such were the case, isn't it silent when everyone is asleep? She would've been healed ages ago," Law responded, gazing at the woman in question. "There has to be someone specifically, and that person must be in close proximity. And it's only Zoro fits the requirements."
"Hmm," Boa says under her breath. "So in order to heal them, just cancel out their emotion, huh?" A horrible, looming feeling erupted in the pit of Law's stomach, a bad one, and it had the female Shichibukai's name plastered all over it.
Against his will, Law clears his throat and answers, rubbing his neck. "That I have still to confirm, but that's what I believe. Zoro being the only one to heal Robin resulted from something way back on that rainbow island. In all, it isn't a coincidence."
The crew slips into momentary silence, the only sound being the rough waves to the far right of them, slowly incoming, but slowly. No one paid attention to the rough weather soon to befall them, but rather, to the incident happening now, soon to be solved.
The musician of the ship clears his throat politely. "Robin-san, Zoro, and I were a group on the island, no? I believe that Robin-san had read something before her ability to speak was taken away from her."
"True," Zoro seconds suddenly, nodding as if the notion had just dawned upon him now. The skeleton looks at him skeptically. "You had been sleeping."
"I woke up in time to catch her, didn't I?"
"Well, yes, but that not what—"
"For fuck's sake, shut up!" Law curses, standing, glaring daggers at the two imbeciles. Shifting his weight to one leg and placing a hand on his hips, Law looks up at the towering crew member, addressing him. "What do you mean, read something?"
Robin, who stood off from the bulk on the group, suddenly had a light come within her eyes. She rushed off to the women's quarters, in search of an object. Brook nods thoughtfully after her. "She's probably getting her notebook from the island."
Zoro leans against the edge of the ship, comfortable on the ground, and glances up at the doctor through a narrowed eye. "There was this giant dark, black cube, right? In the middle of all these rainbow-ass plants. There was some sort of strange writing on it."
"Robin was writing the translation down," Brook takes over, as the green haired had fallen asleep, "and suddenly just fell..."
Law blinks widely, head a hazy mess. There was a clue to this all along, and it hadn't been shown to him all this time? "Why is this just now being shown to me? I could've worked off of her findings instead of blindly grasping at straws."
Chopper bubbled up, walking shyly towards him. "It was kind of hectic back then, though. Maybe it just wasn't the first thing on their minds, since everyone else was ill..."
Law purses his lips. The reindeer had a valid point.
"I- I'm sorry!" Chopper squealed, running for comfort in Robin's arms, who welcomed the small animal warmly.
Closing his eyes and folding his hands over his mouth, Law sits down again, thinking deeply about the whole situation, but was crudely interrupted by a small jab on his shoulder.
"Wha— oh."
A journal, small, compact, with a brown leather cover, is presented to him, with pristine, elaborate notes filling the pages. A dark marker circled the text upon the page already opened for him. Looking back at the woman in front of him, Law nods subtly before taking it, pouring himself over the pages. It seemed to be a poem of some sort. Though the remains of the Straw Hats looked at him expectantly, all aside form Luffy, of course, and Boa, Law didn't read it out loud.
Brook had just said Robin collapsed from reading it aloud, right?
To himself, in his mind, he reads the text from the cube Zoro and Brook spoke of, written by Robin's hand:
Eat, it's fine, take a bite
It won't satisfy your appetite
If anything else, it will grow
Too much, so much, it will show
Beware the length of time you do
Find that person to help you
Cancel out and compensate
Or else it'll be all too late.
"This...this is it," Law says, standing quickly enough to give him a headache. The cook of the crew runs a work worn hand through his golden side swept locks. "Are you finally going to heal my beautiful princess?"
His idea of canceling was correct, according to the poem from the island, soothing the bubbling doubts he was starting to grow. Law, though slightly relieved, was also perplexed, too. What did it mean, it would 'grow', since it wouldn't satisfy one's appetite?
Beware time? Become too late?
Law knew the feeling of running out of time from the previous day was not his imagination.
"Zoro," Law calls sharply, "Wake up." The swordsman jerks awake with a huff of air, groaning exhaustedly before standing, rubbing the dank sleep out of his eyes.
"What do you want, you fucking—"
Speed walking towards him, Law roughly grabs his wrist, nods towards Robin for her to follow them, and with a brisk pace, pulls Zoro effortlessly towards his office, to conduct the last and final test.
"Let's just leave you in for a day or two, see how it goes," Law says with a smirk on his face, eyes filled with amusement to see Zoro's face pink.
"Why is it that it's only Zoro though? Wasn't Brook there, too?" Nami asks, stepping forward yet again. "I mean, Zoro isn't all that special–"
Zoro's angered countenance snaps towards her, only to be rewarded with a sly smile. "Damn woman—"
"—and Brook was there, too," she finishes, sticking out her tongue at the first mate. The green haired's eye twitched.
"I don't know all the answers, damn it," Law murmurs, shaking his head at Nami, hoping she would let the inquiry drop. He really didn't hold all the solutions, and if he did, then the whole situation would've been over long ago.
But he did hold most of the information, he could feel it. The information Robin provided only further supported his theory.
Within his office, he shoves the green haired man in, who only cursed at Law's self-satisfying smirk. Robin follows shortly after smiling softly, quietly. "Remember, it's your silence that gets her out of that state, not mine," Law gently reminds the hot-blooded swordsman, who had immediately jumped up with more than a few distinct words to say. The comment shuts him up momentarily, and his defeated eye spirals down to the floor.
Law is quiet for a few beats, debating on wether or not to leave yet when a sudden thought comes to his mind. "Robin." The woman blinks, alert, her knowing eyes casting its crystal, azure gaze towards the man. "I'm sure you have information you would also like to tell me once you regain your speech, no?"
She nods, tucking a strand of black behind her ear. "Good," Law murmurs, shutting the door. "Have fun."
...
The fact that Robin collapsed after reading something could not ave been a pure coincidence.
Law sat in the kitchen, mindlessly watching Sanji and Usopp argue over some petty, irrational problem. The older man, however, busied himself by tapping his fingers against the table, and paying the plate of untouched food before him no attention. There was a connection, and he was so close he could feel it, but he was stilling missing information.
Was it the value of the information? That such information of such a plant existing couldn't afford to be spread throughout the world, therefore shutting up the one person who knew it?
If such were the case, Brook heard Robin say it. But, he himself didn't say it. Robin did. And she was affected by the curse.
Law takes a deep breath, gray eyes planted on nothing in particular, simply contemplating, and mediating. "What if the reason Zoro could help because he was simply there?" Law says softly as his mind began to dawn on a new revelation.
What if Zoro could help because he was the most silent then? Brook had been talking, and Zoro had been sleeping.
Using such logic, then of course the only solution could've been Zoro.
Law sits up in his chair, alerting the troubled gazes of the sniper and the cook, pausing their argument. He ignored their inquisitive gazes, pulled out a notepad, and began to scribble notes.
Robin, Chopper, and Luffy all fell sick, but their diseases cannot possibly be the same, for the ways of curing and obtaining them are different. Chopper and Luffy got their disease by eating a plant, and Robin got hers from reading ancient text.
When Chopper was healed, it was by various crew members, some of which were not even there, with him. Same with Luffy, seeing as his once crazed love has been tamed by certain...people other than him.
Fucking Boa.
But, at long last, something significant has come up.
Several hours have passed, but the sun seemed to fall slowly, carefully in the sky. Glancing outwards towards the green grass on the lawn of the boat, Law sighs. He gathers his notes, excuses himself from his barely eaten plate, and walks towards his normal spot against the Sunny's high mast.
Law would fix this.
He can. He would. He must.
The man was too close to give up now.
When this chapter is shorter than the last xD BUT I UPDATED IN THE SAME WEEK HIGH FIVEs...no? okay. BIG THANK YOU to all of you that have followed this story, we have reached 100+! HUGE HUGE THANK YOU I love you guys so much! Btw, believe it or not, this chapter marks the halfway point! Cx