Long time no see! If you follow my Yu Yu Hakusho fic you might know some of the things that have happened, or if you've checked my tumblr you might know the whole story, but there's a reason I've been out of commission since August. I don't know how many of you keep up with international news, but if you do, just know that I live in Catalonia. It's been a wild ride since the terrorist attack this summer, and I've had trouble concentrating on writing. I was reeling for a while after that happened (no one I knew was injured, thankfully), and when I managed to update the other fic and hopped back to this one, our political situation went down the drain. And since last Friday we've become a republic with no international support so far. Wooo!
Um, yeah. Everything's been kind of surreal. We'll see how the situation evolves. At any rate, I'm starting my vacation next week, so I hope to up my productivity in November. Just so you know, I had meant to update this for the fic's anniversary on September. Inked on Skin is two years old now! Oh dear… there's still so much ahead…
Thanks a lot for your support and your comments. I'll be replying to reviews later, but for now I'd rather update, since I've made you wait a lot for this chapter already. I'd love to hear what you think if you can spare a moment after reading! Your comments give me life.
And thank you, thank you for your infinite patience.
Guest-22: Welcome back! I hope you're doing well! Glad to read that the reveal didn't feel forced. And Mack was bound to join from the start. He really is a beautiful, ever-salty man.
20. Special snowflake
(I'll keep a place for you somewhere deep inside)
There was a marked difference between what had transpired with splintery-man's crew during the Heart Pirates last stop in North Blue and the ass-handing they had so generously given that crew in Lurte: that commander had been, well, just a commander, not a fancy title for a captain. Which meant there was a captain, somewhere in the archipelago, who hadn't received his ass as scheduled, was very angry about that fact, and was looking for the Heart Pirates from island to island since their trip back to Niva.
It took him a few days, because he had a lot of tiny islands to check, but he was a persistent man. It was also fair to assume that after half a week of searching, stopping would have looked terrible and would have lost him too many brownie points with his men, so the man found himself in a conundrum from which he couldn't gracefully bow away. The Heart Pirates had also, presumably, left with the lousy treasure map his commander was carrying and that had been surreptitiously taken from Lurte's town hall (it had involved threats, a heavy duty bolt cutter and no subtlety at all, which hadn't made them popular among the locals). Lurte's townspeople had also been quite tight-lipped about the location of the Heart Pirates, so he had been forced to do this the slow way.
But once he managed to locate them, another problem stood in his way.
The problem was that when he saw their Jolly Roger, he realized that the rival captain was a nasty piece of work that dismembered his enemies, and after changing his soiled underwear he decided he wasn't too eager to join that exclusive club.
Revenge would require finesse, some field work, and hopefully not any more bolt cutters.
—
Saki had made the bookshop her second home after the emergency trip to Lurte, and though she had managed to coax some of the guys into helping her out in her search for the Devil Fruit guide, they hadn't returned after a first try. She didn't blame them. Hilda's attitude towards the guys had only become more hostile since finding out Saki's connection to Dubia, and there were only so many scathing comments a man could endure before swearing not to set foot in that place again.
(The most remarkable exchange had happened when Hilda made an offhanded remark about them being together all the time, wink wink nod nod, and Penguin had replied with perfect composure and ever increasing annoyance under the surface that they weren't gay, to which Mack had retorted, 'Speak for yourself', and Hilda had made a sound of approval because she respected men who could cook and said things straight no matter if they weren't. The next day, she had handed Saki a metal tin with homemade cookies to give them to the chef and ask what he thought about them, after repeating three times not to let any of the other ruffians have them, especially not the captain.)
At this point, it had become her self-appointed mission to find the book, one that looked less and less promising as days went by. Even Hilda had admitted in a moment of weakness that she was starting to worry that she had remembered wrong.
The upside to her many trips to the bookshop was that she had shown the stolen map to Hilda and she had told her that it looked like a drawing of Niva made by a seasick toddler, and that that round shape in the middle was a dip between the mountains where there was a lake. It was frozen nine months a year and inaccessible during winter due to all the snow on the way.
Of course, in the minds of Saki's crewmates that had sounded like a challenge and a prime opportunity to prove Hilda wrong that they couldn't let slip away.
Saki doubted they would find anything at all, but it was good that they had something to keep them busy while the Log Pose set. She, on the other hand, was getting tired of wasting so many days among dusty shelves for something she wasn't sure would be any help, all while the rest spent their time investigating a forest in this fantastic weather.
She wasn't the only one behind, though. According to the reports she heard every night at the inn, Law had been keeping to himself for a few days, locked up in the sickbay, torturing swirly blue mangoes.
Saki understood needing space to think. She also understood how bad it was to overthink when left alone too much, and she worried that Law had fallen right into that pitfall since they had found the cargo in the docks. He sounded particularly snappy the few times she had heard him speak lately, and she found herself wishing that the Log Pose was already set so they could leave Niva behind and go somewhere he could entertain himself with something else.
She'd give up nice weather in a heartbeat if it meant Law would stop moping around already. It was bound to get to everybody if he didn't snap out of it.
After another evening of literal fruitless searching, Saki was about to leave when Hilda surprised her by calling her from behind the counter. The woman reached into a drawer, and her age-spotted hands took out a brown envelope and thrust it towards Saki.
"You should have this," was her explanation.
Saki wanted to ask what it was, but it was clear by the face Hilda was making that she wasn't in the mood to talk, and any questions she perceived as useless would only annoy her, so she took it and just said thanks. Judging by the weight, it was filled with papers.
Dusk was setting in and the town's lamplighter had already passed that area, leaving the streets well-lit and rendering the fact that she tripped on her way up the slope under the arch completely unjustifiable.
With most people at home having dinner, the square was empty again. Saki couldn't linger too much if she wanted to get to the inn in time to eat, but she sat on the trough's wide stone edge anyway to check out what Hilda had given her. Taking off her gloves with her mouth and stuffing them in a pocket to free her fingers, she opened the envelope and looked inside.
It was full of letters.
Dear Hilda,
I'm writing this letter as soon as I have been able to. Ramon's friends were waiting for us at Asteria's harbor, and they didn't let us go for hours. Truth be told, despite what I told you, I was afraid of what I might find or what they would think of me, but they've welcome me as if I'd always been part of the family. Arthur and his father have been playing with the baby since they've seen her, and Fern, Arthur's girlfriend, has promised to give me a tour around the island tomorrow. She can be a little overwhelming, but I feel like I've already made a friend. She told me she moved here recently, too.
Saki was born on the 7th of August, while we were still sailing. Ruddy was right! She's a girl, and Ramon says he looks like me, but he's either trying to be nice or he's making fun of me, because all newborns look like angry wrinkled monkeys. Mind you, she's my gorgeous, splendiferous girl, but I'm afraid that won't shine through until she is a little older.
I trust you haven't had any strange visits in Niva? I hope we haven't brought you trouble.
I'll never forget your kindness taking me in when I decided to leave the expedition. Have you had any news from them? I wonder how they're doing. I'll be writing to my father today, too, and asking how the investigation is going on their side.
I hope that after we've settled in we can take a vacation and visit you so you can meet Saki.
Love,
Du
The realization of what she was reading didn't fully hit Saki until the last syllable of the letter, hope growing bigger as she read on, but also worry, because she didn't want to get to the end and somehow have it turn into something different.
She reread it, now fully aware of what she had in her hands, and was pleasantly surprised that she was reading it in her mother's voice; that she still hadn't forgotten.
Saki had seen her write lots of letters when she was little. To friends, she always told Saki when asked who she was writing to.
She stared absently at the papers in her hand for a good minute, remembering the little details she hadn't thought about in ages, like the calluses on her mother's left hand from gripping the pen in an odd way, the way many nights she disappeared for hours behind piles of apparently unrelated books, underlining and taking notes and marking pages, before Saki decided to switch to the next letter.
There were a lot of them to read. Seven years' worth, to be exact. In light of that, dinner at the inn didn't seem so urgent that she couldn't stay there a few extra minutes and check out a few of them.
—
Marina split from the rest of her men when they reached the stairs that went down to the cells, where four soldiers struggled to bring with them a captured pirate that had been regaling their ears with insults the whole way from the ship.
Marina turned right on the hallway and left them behind, nursing a headache. The prisoner's 'let me go fucking fucksticks' screams faded as she put distance between them until she couldn't hear them anymore and she was alone in the corridor, her shoulders sagged and she let out a sigh of relief.
Those had been a few entertaining weeks in the ship. Entertaining, as in having to restrain her own men from throttling the pirate before he could be sent to Enies Lobby. The only thing that had kept Marina from ending the prisoner herself was a firm sense of justice and a pair of earplugs.
The base they had just docked in had been abandoned a few years before, left in favor of a new one after the bad weather had blown away an entire section.
According to Headquarters, they were going to send construction workers to make repairs as soon as possible, but until then, Marina and her sailors had to make do with what they had. She doubted those repairs would happen anytime soon, anyway. Her appointment there had been a punishment, so throwing money at an old base in the middle of nowhere wasn't a priority for any of her superiors. She did hold some hope that Commodore Curtiss could make somebody upstairs take pity on them, but she didn't count on it.
She didn't want anybody's pity, anyway.
The part of the base that hadn't been torn down wasn't in such a poor state, all things considered, but the years without maintenance showed as dirt on the inside, and the outside was in sore need of a new coat of paint and new frames for doors and windows. The weather of the Grand Line wasn't kind, and that stretch in particular was worse than most for sailing, with strong winds and currents that could sink unprepared ships in the blink of an eye. Just like her North Blue area, so really, it wasn't much of a problem. Her navigator just needed to remember that hurricane weather could carry hail and giant sharks, now.
She approached a window and rubbed a finger against the sill. It left a mark on the surface and came out black, and she had to fight the urge to pick up a rag and start cleaning right away.
Not that it mattered much. She had been assigned to that base to stay, and she'd have all the time in the world to make the place squeaky clean anytime she wasn't sailing.
Now to find an office she could inhabit, and a place to put her Meccano replica of Mariejois.
—
Law was late to the inn that night, enough that he almost missed dinner, and it was the only reason he had showed up to begin with. He had considered eating in the Polar Tang, but a healthy dose of respect for his new cook's aim had made him rethink it, in case he accidentally decorated the ceiling with a new burn mark.
Besides, everybody needed to have their work space. He wouldn't like another to mess around in his sickbay or his operating theater.
Predictably, the rest of the crew was already done with dinner by the time he got there, but when he went over to the main room, some of them were missing.
"Yo, Captain," Shachi greeted him from behind his cards. "Wanna join in?"
He had been locked up alone all day. A little socializing wouldn't do harm. "Sure."
He was pulling out one of the free chairs when Penguin asked, "Where's Saki? Did she go to her room already?"
Shachi glanced at the wall clock. "Too early."
His hand rested on the chair's back. "She isn't here?"
"We thought she was with you."
Law looked over his shoulder at the window. Night had completely fallen, but it was a rare day in which the weather wasn't threatening with another storm.
"She must be with Hilda-ya," he said.
"Still? She's been gone all day," Penguin remarked.
Shachi didn't appear too concerned. "I bet she hasn't noticed the hour."
"…Yeah, that would be like her."
Scratching the back of his head, Law let go of the chair and let out a contained sigh. "I'm going to take a look."
"Do you want us to go?" Bepo offered.
"It's all right. I'll be right back if I need assistance."
He glared at the clock before leaving the room. It was past eleven.
He was absolutely missing dinner.
This woman.
It wasn't like he thought anything had happened to her, seeing as the townspeople had gotten used to their presence already and they seemed to be grateful for the help days ago, but he took his nodachi either way and set off into the night. One could never be too sure.
As expected of a town where the word nightlife became an oxymoron, the streets were deserted, and he took the shortest path he had found, so far, to the bookshop.
He had expected to find it closed, not devoid of people. But he could see from outside that the lights were turned off and the door barred.
Well, that eliminated the likeliest place from his mental list.
Internally grumbling because of course she couldn't make things easy and just be there nose-deep in a book, and most definitely not the slightest bit anxious with the events of Qaryn still fresh in his mind, he walked away from the shop.
Getting oneself kidnapped twice was probably grounds to kick someone out of a pirate crew, come to think of it. Law didn't need recurring damsels in distress on board. This fleeting thought vanished as soon as he reminded himself that there weren't damsels in his crew, but anyway, no one better make a habit out of disappearing unannounced.
The next place on the list was Hilda's, though he didn't get that far. Walking up a slope that had started to freeze, below the arc, ice cracking under the soles of his shoes, he arrived at the square and found Saki sitting on the edge of the fountain, hair burning red and orange under the light of the streetlamps.
His idea had been calling out to her and chewing her out for making him not worry and go out to find her. Instead, not entirely sure of what hit him, he stopped before stepping into the square to stare.
She hadn't noticed him yet, too absorbed by the papers she had in her hands to pay much attention to her surroundings, which was another mistake he should be berating her about if—
She lifted her head immediately and looked in his direction, tense, fully back to reality and with a frown that shifted to a look of confusion right away.
"Law?"
He was outside of the streetlamps' range, so he must not have been easy to make out in the dark, but she had been able to tell anyway.
Well, maybe he couldn't scold her for being careless.
"What are you doing here at this hour?" He said, walking towards her.
She blinked once as his words sank in, opened her mouth to reply, shut it, and instead groaned. "Shit, I missed dinner." She looked up tentatively, "Are you angry? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be out so late!" She let out a defeated sigh and said to herself. "Of course you're angry."
He had been, but the feeling mostly went away when he saw the genuine 'oh-I-fucked-up' face she sported. He huffed. "I am not."
She looked up at him as if she didn't believe him, but she didn't care, because soon a small smile appeared on her face and she said excitedly, waving at him to get closer, "Look what I have here! There really is something in the island!"
Annoyance put aside momentarily, Law sat next to her and peered at the papers she was holding. They looked like letters. He couldn't tell from whom, but he didn't have time to ask before she supplied the information.
"Hilda gave me these," she said, searching for one inside an envelope. "Turns out my mother sent letters to her after she moved to Asteria. And," she pulled out one of the letters and leaned towards him to show him, "in this one she confirms she and the rest of scientists found something hidden somewhere in the island."
'—it was a shame we had to leave everything behind, but there was no way we could have moved it. Even though we documented it, I'm worried that someone unscrupulous might find it, though it may be better if it happens and that makes people lose interest into investigating further... Please, be very careful if you notice any probing from strangers near the lake. No treasure is worth putting your lives or the whole of Niva in danger.'
"Not bad, huh?" She asked Law with a bright smile. "Actually, I hope it isn't bad because it's the only thing of interest I have to show you after riffling through most of this stack."
There was something in that blunt honesty that made her likable and utterly annoying at once, he thought. Saki was the kind of person that walked the fine line between having too much cheek for her own good or just enough to get away with saying just about anything.
Or maybe he was getting soft. That was a concerning thought.
Whatever the case, he could tolerate that sort of thing as long as she had enough sense to know when to stop, which she did. Quite surprising, given her personality, but it was one of the things that betrayed that she was more tactful and, well, intelligent than she tried to appear.
He'd been aware of that since she had told him about her plan to storm the smuggler's den in Asteria, though.
"No mentions of what it is?" He said, extending a hand, and she passed him the letter.
"Other than whatever it was they couldn't move it? No."
"What makes you think that this is an actual treasure and that we'll be any luckier in taking it with us?"
"Nothing, but aren't you curious?"
Law peered at her suspiciously. Her smile didn't budge. He returned his attention to the paper in his hand.
"I'm not sure of this."
"Live a little, Mr—"
He shoved a hand against her face and pushed her away. "Finish that sentence and I'll push you into the fountain."
"Ow, so violent," she said, rubbing her cheek with a hand and hiding a smile behind it. "Is manhandling me going to become a trend?"
Law snorted and replied without thinking. "No man could handle you." After a pause, he looked at Saki and quickly added, "That wasn't supposed to sound like a compliment."
"Really? Could've fooled me."
Lazily, he pushed her backwards and into the trough, but the frozen surface broke her fall.
"Dick move," she said, sitting back up and touching the back of her head where she had hit the ice.
"Had it coming."
"That too."
He felt her eyes on him for a few seconds before she returned her attention to the stack of letters, picking another one to read over. The corners of her mouth went up as she did, then she folded the letter, put them all away, and looked at him.
"Are you done?"
He handed her the letter, and when she reached for it, he saw the marks on her fingers and caught them with his other hand before she could take the paper. If he had grabbed an icicle, the sensation would have been the same. "Are you trying to lose a finger or two?"
The marks from the day of the snow fight had turned purple, but new red ones were appearing after what, he guessed, had been hours of exposure to cold wind.
"I couldn't sort through the papers with gloves on," she said. "A few more won't make a difference, anyway."
He pressed one of the bruises, and he watched all the skin around turn white except for a dot in the middle. She held back a wince.
"Just cover them already," he said, letting his grip just loose enough for her to remove the hand. "And put them in warm water when we're back."
He had expected her to take back the hand and the paper as soon as she could, but she made no attempt to move, instead looking at him with an expression that didn't give away what she was thinking. It was the way she looked at something when she wanted to commit it to memory to draw it later, taking in every detail, like she was trying to see something that one couldn't catch at first glance.
He may not have been too far off the mark about that.
He also noted that no snide remarks about his fingers were made, either.
Unsure what he had done to prompt that kind of non-reaction, he asked. "What is it?"
It was an awkward position, holding someone's hand but-not-really. But it was more awkward getting stared at like that by someone whose moods he could usually read with either a cursory glance, or gauging how much strength she applied to screw the coffee pot together.
Her reply was simple and not very explanatory. "I don't get you."
Her face didn't change.
"What have I done to prompt that now?"
Her stare wavered at the question, and it took her a few seconds to ask with an earnest voice, "Why are you always so good to me?"
The question gave him pause, because of the way she said it, like she really didn't understand, because it wasn't unlike his own thoughts when he had been on the receiving end of a stranger's concern.
A stranger who had ended up becoming a father, and placing so much trust and hopes in him that he was sure he had never deserved.
Law was sure that seeing oneself reflected on another person was one of the most uncomfortable feelings a one could experience.
"I'm not doing anything out of the ordinary," he said, as if he wasn't aware of what she was getting at, and felt the slightest hint of remorse for paying her honesty back with that.
Her shoulders slumped a little, and her gaze became softer around the edges. "You really think you aren't," she said, still staring at him like she was considering if she was seeing all that there was too see.
Law still didn't understand what had prompted this kind of response.
But she didn't drop the subject. "Not only you have never tried to screw me over, you also look after me. I don't get you."
"Is that so rare?"
She opened her mouth to reply right away, but held back on whatever she was about to say and substituted it with a, "Yes."
The fingers that were brushing his already felt warmer when she took back the hand to cross her arms.
"I'm way past the point where I would start to expect anyone to ask for something in exchange."
He thought of coffee mugs that appeared out of nowhere, and breakfast pastries he'd otherwise have skipped, and a Den Den Mushi, and an Eternal Pose that pointed him a little closer to an objective he hadn't disclosed, and thought she had no right to accuse him of doing things without expecting something in return.
And he did expect something in return, even if that wasn't why he did those things. Loyalty. Friendship, maybe. The satisfaction of knowing that he could be something more than a thorn on someone's side, when fancy struck. Try as he might, a doctor couldn't be completely devoid of empathy. Not with a person he spent so much time around, at any rate.
That made for the least messy answer he could conjure.
"Why are you still hung up on that?" He replied, eyes narrowing in frustration at his own thoughts. "I've told you before. Making sure you are alright is literally my job."
After a few more seconds of contemplation, she fished the letter back from his hand. "Can you believe I just found out from a twenty-something year old letter that I wasn't born in Asteria? My whole life is a lie," she said, intentionally dramatic.
The non-sequitur, however, momentarily threw Law for a loop. "Where, then?"
"A ship, somewhere in the Grand Line. A Marine ship, at that. My parents were on their way to North Blue, and my dad had just quit his job. Loving the irony here."
"I'll need to update that." He added when she looked at him with unspoken curiosity, "On your file."
She hummed approvingly. "If family history matters, add that my mother had brass ovaries for boarding that ship."
If Law needed confirmation that she had put aside whatever she'd had in her head moments prior, cracking a joke at the expense of dead relatives was probably a good one.
"The trait seems to run in the family."
She cracked a half-smile. "You couldn't pay me enough to board a Marine ship willingly."
"But you don't seem to have the same reserves about pirate ships."
The expression on her face froze, and she blinked for a thoughtful moment. "Didn't have much of a choice. Besides, I'd rather take my chances with the pirates." She hid the envelope inside her coat, pulled on her new gloves and stood up. "Let's go? Not that I'm not enjoying the conversation, but now that you've so kindly brought my attention to the cold, I'd rather have it somewhere else."
He had missed something during this exchange. He wasn't sure what, but he knew he had, and he didn't know if it was worth it insisting to find out. If what he had been expecting, about her eventually getting fed up of his secrecy, was already happening.
"Don't let Shachi hear that," Law said, getting up as well, and both began to make their way to the inn.
"Oh, screw you," she grumbled, pulling her coat's zipper closer to her mouth.
Law hid the hand that wasn't busy with Kikoku in a pocket. It was cold where it had held hers.
He didn't know why he was so acutely aware of these details.
"Do you think the innkeeper will take pity on me if I beg?" She asked.
"I wouldn't count on it," he said dispassionately. "And I missed dinner too."
"Oh, then I can cook something quick in the sub—"
A sound from one of the streets that led to the square caught their attention, and though that wouldn't have been damning by itself, the noise of hurried steps stomping on the snow as soon as they turned to look was.
Saki began to walk towards the alley where the sounds had come from, and while Law wondered if self-preservation was a word that got erased from her dictionary from time to time, he held her up with a hand on her shoulder and pulled her back.
"Let's get moving. If they want something, let them show up first."
She glanced up at him and nodded, stuffing her hands in her pockets. Law didn't remove his hand as they both headed to a street that was much better illuminated than the suspicious one.
"Did you notice anybody following you?" She said very quietly. Only the proximity allowed him to hear it.
"No. Anybody around the square earlier?"
She shook her head. "I was alone all the time I was there. And I would have heard if someone approached." She looked pointedly at him.
"It may be a coincidence, but keep an eye out just in case." He took one last look back. "The inn should be safer."
There went the perspective of dinner. He should have tried his luck with the frying pan.
She was silent for a bit before saying, "You know, I'm feeling a little skittish since I found out the government may go after my head if they find out I'm breathing."
"It already is."
"Yeah, but doesn't this sound more serious than piracy? I mean, we're a dime a dozen in this sea."
"No one's sending secret agents to track you down to Bumfuck, Nowhere."
"You have a gift for making me look unreasonable."
"You don't make it too difficult."
She elbowed him lightly. "I was being serious."
"If it happens," he said, thinking that there was an infinitesimal possibility that it did, "we'll deal with it."
She let out a long breath. "This is exactly what I meant earlier."
"Hm?"
"This is not your job. Your job is to keep your crew in check and healthy."
"Maybe you are right."
She looked surprised at his admission. "Am I, now?"
"Maybe I do like you."
She tripped over her own feet, or so it seemed, and the only thing that kept her from going down was Law's arm around her shoulder.
She looked at him in astonishment, clearly unsure of what she had just heard, but when he didn't take it back she burst out laughing so hard that even she had the decency to cover her mouth to stifle it and not wake up the neighbors.
"If I could pick a moment and frame it—" She began to say with a lot of effort.
Law sighed deeply, ruefully, tiredly.
"—I would take this one and hang it on my wall—"
"Forget I said anything." Curse him for trying to be friendly. This is why he wasn't most of the time.
"—to remember forever that you said it out loud."
"And you made me regret it immediately," he said dryly.
"I promise to keep it a secret."
"You better."
"It's not like it shows that you care," she continued jokingly. "Like, the guys would never suspect that you decided to deal with a coffee you didn't like for the better part of a month when you could've stopped Mack from brewing it, or that you often take the night shifts at the deck so we can sleep at night, or that you turn the boiler room's AC on before the guys get to work when you know they're going to be stuck there for hours."
He remained silent at all these outrageous and true accusations that he was used to have Bepo sling against him, but not someone else.
Saki snickered. "Are you embarrassed?"
"No."
"Then why aren't you replying?"
"I have nothing to say."
"Are you turning red?"
"Fuck off."
Her shoulders shook with contained laughter. "Don't be shy, Captain, we all love you, just try asking around."
"Do you want to die tonight?"
The sight of the inn greeted them with bright yellow lights and frosted windowpanes that insinuated a fireplace burning warmly somewhere behind them.
"It's not a bad night to die, all in all," she said, gently brushing his hand aside and skipping ahead of him, "but I'd rather spend it alive, given the choice. Wouldn't you?" She pushed the inn's door and held it half open as she waited for him.
He pushed it completely open and she slipped into the reception.
"Definitely," he said, smiling when he knew she couldn't see.
—
Insecurity was a bitch.
Being not so gently reminded through a dead mother's letters that the world was out to get you had the unfortunate side-effect of rekindling that feeling. Because of course she had to begin questioning things again just when she thought she had found a place to call home.
Those dusty four walls, or whatever was actually hidden behind the bookcases, weren't doing her any good.
It was stupid, from her waiting for government agents to show up out of nowhere to get her to asking Law point blank why he treated her well, but one could only live so many years trusting no one except three select people until that left some sort of imprint in you, she guessed. No one could blame her for having brief relapses, right? Right. Especially when no matter how many times she asked, her captain refused to disclose what he was after.
She hadn't pressed him much with the questions, to be fair, but prying didn't feel right and she would think that at this stage he could reveal whatever he was planning to do. What was he hiding?
She battled with a tome that had no name on its spine and was persistently stuck between another two that were decidedly not what she was looking for. That smug bastard she had for a captain better be happy when she found the guide.
Because she was going to find it. She had already been over a week stuck in that place, sifting through books, only to leave when Hilda closed shop and get to listen the tales of the others' adventures around the island, escapades to nearby islands included, while she swallowed dust and smelled like mold.
It wasn't even worth the effort anymore. Even Law had suggested she drop the search. But as she had told Penguin a few days before, when you pick a battle you can't win, you go ahead and win it anyway.
She'd come out of this with something to show for it, even if it was a decrepit book on supernatural produce.
Such book had become loose after much insistence on her part, and since she wasn't a Devil Fruit user and thus the laws of physics did apply to her, the strength with which she had pulled made her take a step backwards, which made her trip over a pile of books on the floor, which made her hit the back of her head with a bookcase, and several books fell on top of her from where they were piled above the highest shelf. It would have been more comical if she had knocked down the bookcase and began a majestic domino effect inside the shop, but she didn't weigh nearly enough to topple over one of those.
The noise was still enough to alert Ruddy and Hilda.
"Great. You did it." Saki took a book off her face to see Hilda looking disapprovingly at her through her thick glasses, hands on her hips. "That stack of books was twenty-four years old."
"No offense, Hilda, but I don't think I care," Saki replied, taking a glance at the book that was still in her right hand. Lo and behold, it was 'A Complete Guide to Devil Fruits.'
It also looked older than the owner of the shop, which made her wonder if she had wasted her time royally, but sunk cost fallacies made life easier to bear and she refused to give more thought to that possibility.
"Is she all right?"
Ruddy's voice came accompanied by the sounds of more books dropping and him getting stuck. Saki couldn't see from where she had landed, but Hilda did.
"Ruddy! Out with those antlers!"
"Easier said than done!"
"You too!" She said to Saki, hustling her from the corridor where disaster had hit. "Out with both of you, you give me nothing but trouble!"
At this point in time, Saki had a clear idea of why nobody in their right mind came to shop at this bookstore.
She went out behind Ruddy, who had to exit through the door sideways because he didn't fit through it otherwise.
"Still can't put them away?" Saki asked conversationally.
"No, but look!" He said, looking chipper, and felt around the base of the antlers, pulled a little and unscrewed them before her eyes. "What do you think? Good party trick, isn't it?"
"I don't think it's supposed to work like this," Saki said, trying to understand what she had just seen.
"It is how it is." He shrugged and placed them on again. "So!" He eyed the book under her arm. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
"Yeah!" She put it up to show him. "Hopefully we'll get some info on what you ate."
"Has your captain found out anything about the ones he took?"
"Not that he's told me. I could ask him for you."
He fished for a cigarette inside a jacket pocket. "I'd like that, yes. I want to know if I'm going to grow hooves too."
"I'd assume you can grow them now if you want to."
"Huh, really?" He dropped it. "How?"
"I'm not the one who's supposed to know," she replied blandly.
"Well, I sure don't know either! How am I supposed to?"
"I don't know, the expert said you just should."
"Hm." He stroked his beard. "He has eaten one too, hasn't he?"
Saki wasn't sure if she was supposed to answer that one truthfully. "Why do you ask?"
"I've been paying attention to the wanted posters since you lot turned up in Niva." He glanced at her up and down, and then grinned. "Du's daughter has a bounty. Ha! That's a really good one. And his captain's about to go Supernova, too."
Saki cocked her head to the side. "What do you mean by that?"
"Supernova? You don't know what it is?"
"Never heard it before."
He raised his eyebrows skeptically. "You Blues people are weird. A Supernova is a newbie pirate who racks up a hundred million bounty in less than a year. There are a few each year."
"So many?"
"And it looks like there's going to be more than usual this year, too. You have tough competition!"
She grinned. "They don't hold a candle to us."
Ruddy laugh loudly. "That's the spirit! You don't get that many decent pirates nowadays anywhere…" He bent down with some effort to pick up his cigarette. "It was different in the old days, when the Pirate King was alive… It's just scum everywhere now, coming to this sea like it's theirs. No consideration."
His words reminded Saki of a humid cave in the depths of a mountain, a lake, stone hands facing up and her neck burning.
She unconsciously reached to rub the spot where she had been injected with the tranquilizer. "I've been told something similar before."
"I'd expect so. You're sailing under a Jolly Roger. That's not gonna make you any friends."
"That's okay. I didn't come here to make friends."
Ruddy took a long look at Saki with a mildly shocked expression. She just waited for his reaction, and it wasn't what she had expected.
"Du said something similar to us, too, when she stayed with us. She wasn't too far along yet. Her friends had already left and she was alone waiting for the Marine boy." He dug a matchbox from another pocket and lit the cigarette. "I didn't believe Hilda when she told me you were Du's kid, but she looked so sure of herself I..." He puffed out a cloud of smoke.
"Can't blame you. I had a hard time believing it too," Saki said. "I don't know if it's completely sunk in, to be honest."
"Nah, I see it now. Same freckles, same stubbornness. How many days have you spent in my wife's shop?"
"Too many."
He let out another hearty bark of laughter. "Same honesty with none of the tact."
She shifted on her feet, feeling a little sheepish. She wasn't used to talking to people about her mother. She had become a sort of taboo topic at home after her disappearance, and she had never asked many things about her. She wondered if she should have. Saki had the impression as she read her letters that she had never gotten the chance to know her. "And you haven't heard the worst of it."
"I'm sure I haven't," he said cheekily. "The way you speak at your captain, I can imagine how you speak to the rest of the crew."
"Eh, we're all friends. What's a little ribbing between us?"
Ruddy chuckled. "Those are the best kind of friends," he said, taking another drag of his smoke, and something caught his attention somewhere behind Saki.
She turned around to see a piratey looking man going down the street and keeping his eyes glued to them.
"What are you looking at, you scurvy son of a barnacle?"
The other man bristled, and gritting his teeth together, he stomped toward them. "What did ya call me?!"
Unperturbed, Ruddy reached for his hipflask at the same time that the pirate went for something inside his coat, and sensing the danger in the air, Saki stepped in front of Ruddy and looked at the newcomer with a smile. Better if she could stop an incident from happening in front of the shop, especially if it was going to involve bullets and fire-breathing. The hands of the men froze in their respective inner pockets.
"Do you need something?" She asked.
The man looked at her distrustfully from head to toe, as if he was mentally comparing what he was seeing to something. "You're the wench that was with the Trafalgar bastard in the bar fight?"
In a split second, Saki's smile dropped and she slammed the Devil Fruit guide in his temple, and for good measure, when he was on the ground, she stepped on his side several times.
"Say that again if you dare," she spat, stepping several more times on him.
"Such violence."
The comment hadn't come from Ruddy.
Saki looked up from the man to see Penguin and Shachi approach the scene of the crime.
"What did he do?" Shachi said. "Ask if the curtains match the carpet?"
"He insulted our captain!"
Immediately, the man found himself under two more boots.
"Don't you think that's enough?" Ruddy asked.
The three stopped to look at him, and the man, who had curled up and gone into turtle mode, took this small lapse to scramble away on his fours.
"Deserved."
"Absolutely."
"Can't let nobodies insult us."
"What are you doing here, anyway?"
"This!" Shachi lifted a bag by its handles.
Saki blinked. "That."
"It's take out! We were going to eat out with the other guys. Are you coming, or you still have work to do?"
"Nope!" She knocked lightly on the book. "Found what I was looking for!"
"You did it," said Penguin, not quite believing it.
"I did it," she repeated proudly.
"Then let's not waste any more time! I wanna eat at a decent hour today," Shachi complained, grabbing Saki by the hood of her coat and tugging.
Saki turned to Ruddy and waved as she was dragged away. "Thanks for the help! See you!"
"Youth," he said, shaking his head with a wry smile and puffing out some smoke.
"I thought you'd be out of town all day," Saki asked the guys.
"Nah, today we've decided to relax," Penguin said.
"But we found something yesterday!"
"Bepo did, actually."
"Yeah! He thinks he's found a path to the hidden lake, but we're leaving that for tomorrow."
That sounded interesting. Hell, everything sounded interesting as long as it didn't involve searching shelves near Hilda. "I'd like to go. I think if I spend any more time inside four walls I'll die."
Shachi snorted. "Sure. The more the better."
Saki followed her crewmates' lead to the square where they seemed to end up all the time, and where everybody save Law was.
"Couldn't get a hold of Captain?"
"He's holed up in the sickbay. Better not disturb him."
"…Yeah."
The months they'd spent traveling together had been enough for all of them to stumble into Law doing something or another unspeakably creepy, but the newer members hadn't had the pleasure yet, so they didn't get what the dark looks they exchanged were about.
There was no need to make them lose their appetite. Time would take care of those details, she was sure of it.
"Hey, it's meat pie!" Asuka said with a smile when he opened one of the bags.
Blessed innocence.
—
"Are we ready?"
"Yeah!"
"Okay, at the count of three. One—"
Shachi kicked the door open anyway.
"—motherfu—"
"Take positions!"
Saki and Bepo held up the book from the bottom and the top at once, putting, a knee on the floor, at the same time that Penguin and Shachi stood at their sides, balancing on just one leg, pointing with their hands towards the book like TV hostesses, all while grinning with the satisfaction of a job well done and yelling, "TA-DAAAAAA!"
Law looked at them like he was recounting all the mistakes he had committed in his life that had led him to associate with these people. He then turned back to his specimens like he didn't have four dumbasses making poses on the door of his sickbay trying to catch his attention.
They stayed there, grins frozen on their faces, for a few good seconds, but when they realized that Law was refusing to react at all they groaned and got upright.
"Captain, you're no fun."
"Loosen up."
"Could've at least twitched."
"So. Rude."
"What did you want?"
"Here!"
He was faced with a book occupying his entire field of vision.
"Oh. You found it." He took it from Saki's hands and passed a few pages idly.
"You're welcome," she said bitterly.
He kept eyeing the pages, then went to the back and looked at something in small print. "It's outdated."
"I'm starting to be seriously offended."
"I told you that you could drop the search. Not my problem that you insisted on finding the book."
"Okay, I am offended now."
Law released a long breath through his nose while still looking at the book without much conviction. "I suppose it could be useful. It's not like someone discovers a new Devil Fruit every day."
"Do you need to say it like it pains you to admit it?"
"Leave. I'm busy."
Saki opened her mouth in indignation, stunned to speechlessness that he was being that rude after all her efforts, but just in case that she decided to let what she was thinking flow out, a paw covered the gaping orifice while human hands and voices patted her on shoulders and head and told her, 'there, there,' and dragged her out of the sickbay against her will. Not that she opposed any resistance. The gall of that man. The guide had been his idea in the first place, and she had honestly thought that it would help. She could be stubborn when she wanted, which admittedly was most of the time, but even she wouldn't have spent over a week locked up with Hilda and all those mountains of dust if it wasn't going to amount to anything.
When they got outside, she kicked at the snow on the deck dejectedly, sent some flying overboard, and hit a dock worker with it. Getting insulted by a random guy didn't put her in a better mood, but whatever. As a pirate, so she could afford to be unapologetically evil if she felt like it.
Tousling her hair with barely contained annoyance and readjusting a couple of pins she had taken to wear lately so it didn't get in her face, she looked elsewhere on the port, to the boats and small ships that lined the coast. Among them, she saw a middle-sized one, not as big as the Polar Tang, but definitely bigger than fishing ships. That one was meant for long-distance travel, and if her sight didn't fail her, it boasted several gun ports on the side of the hull.
There was no flag to be seen, and that was extremely suspicious.
"Guys," Saki called, "do you know if that ship's been there for long?"
They directed their attention to it, and it was Bepo who answered. "I don't think it was there yesterday."
"Hm…"
"Is that were the guy from before had come?" Shachi said.
"Who knows," Penguin replied. "But it looks fishy."
"Let's keep an eye on it," Saki suggested. "We shouldn't lower our guard if they have any beef with us."
"You really think they would start any shit after what happened?" Shachi asked incredulously.
"Better safe than sorry," Bepo said, and they all agreed with his assessment because maybe messing with Bepo was a must, but he also had good judgement when it mattered.
He and Saki prowled the area of the mysterious ship afterwards, but they didn't get see anybody on deck or around. Deciding that the best they could do was tell Law about it and wait, they left and headed up the main street, where the same kids the Heart Pirates had scared during the snowball fight saw Bepo, said hi, tossed a snowball at him and ran away faking they were afraid. Bepo smirked, put up his arms and chased after them growling.
As she watched Bepo play with the kids, Saki thought she really had missed a lot while she was in Hilda's bookshop, and she plopped down on the snow against a house to wait until they were done, thinking how lucky she was to have friends like that.
—
The winter wind was bitingly cold in the morning that the Heart Pirates chose to go explore the lake. The suspicious ship was still docked at the port, and the entire crew had been alerted of it by then, but there still was no movement to be seen around it.
Law stayed behind, saying he was wary about leaving the sub unattended, though they were pretty sure he simply didn't want to be dragged out of his makeshift science lab.
Bepo led the way once they got to the outskirts of the town, making his way through a path that they could barely see and possibly nobody else treated in the colder months, and luckily for all he was going in front of them and making the way easier for those behind, because winter vegetation was persistently in the way, and when it could, persistently in their faces.
Saki trailed behind the others, taking in the sights because, unlike them, she hadn't seen anything outside the town yet. The fir forest was painted white, and as the group ploughed through the snow some fell from the branches above them.
A few minutes after leaving the visible path, Bepo signaled with a paw towards something between the trees. "That's what I saw the other day."
Another short struggle and they were before a tall stone, half-buried by the snow and very out of place. Some part of Saki, probably the one that went from her knees and below, felt a certain kinship with it.
"It's a stone marker," Bepo said while Uni circled it, inspecting the surface.
"There's nothing on it."
"Whoever's come up this high knows where they're going," Penguin replied.
Bepo spent some time sniffing and looking around before leading them higher up, his instincts the only guarantee that they'd find solid ground under their feet as they walked. But, Saki thought, it was a chance that she could take without any worries. If he was able to keep them out of trouble in the chaos that were the waters of the Grand Line, a dingy mountain wasn't going to be above his capabilities.
Whether it was above the capabilities of the bunch following him, herself included, was something else to be determined.
"Have you been climbing like this every day?"
"Hell no," Uni rasped out.
Penguin's face was red, though no one could tell if from the cold or the effort. "This is the highest we've gotten."
"How long to the top, Bepo?"
He didn't reply.
"Are you sure it's a good idea to keep going?" Saki wondered out loud.
Shachi whipped his head around with a grin. "Can't keep up?" He said.
Saki picked up a handful of the snow around her knees and smacked it in his face. Shachi returned the favor by shoving her head down into the snow, but she wasn't the only one who got her face wet.
Snow began to come down from the trees as the world under their feet trembled, and when Shachi lost his balance, he grabbed at Penguin to stay up and ended up dragging him down, too.
It was the longest earthquake they'd experienced since their arrival, and its effects were felt right away.
When the earth stopped shaking, there was an eerie moment of quiet, just long enough to allow them to feel relieved, before a rumbling started to sound in the distance, first dull, then growing in intensity.
Only three people connected the dots fast enough to realize what the sound meant before it was too late, and it made sense, because Asteria was completely flat and the newer crewmembers simply were not used to the mechanics of solid water.
Bepo, bless his animal instincts, lunged at Uni, Tuttu and Asuka and tackled them into the thick of the forest so the trees sheltered them, but Penguin and Shachi were a split second too late, and with the snow slowing them down, the most they managed was to motion Saki towards the nearest fir and hold onto it for dear life.
Watching the snow implacably moving towards them felt surreal, and the only thing Saki had time to think before it was on them was that for all the adrenaline she had felt every time she'd been about to die, she was like a deer in the headlights as the inevitability of human mortality came to say hi again, haha, how's this for an undignified end?
The avalanche hit them and Saki saw through narrowed eyes that they had managed to not lose their grip on the trunk, but when she thought the worst of it had passed and they hadn't been buried alive after all, the tree came loose and the snow dragged them with it, pushing them a long stretch down the mountainside and a cliff that, before the sliding snow had taken its toll on them, had been hidden by the trees and bushes growing on its edge.
Saki's stomach floated up at the same rate she dropped thirty feet down, and she let go of the blasted tree when she realized that there was a good chance she'd end up squashed under it when it hit the land below.
Contrary to the popular belief, usually held by people who didn't know what a real winter was, landing on snow was not soft. It was pretty fucking painful, in fact, and it felt even worse when more snow fell on top of you.
Everything hurt like she had landed on concrete and her whole body save her left hand was buried, but at least she knew in which direction to dig before she suffocated, and she set to it in a panic.
It was only when she managed to break the surface of the snow and take a breath of fresh air that she noticed that she'd been under just a couple of feet of snow. A bit more and she would have been a goner.
Lucky Clover, indeed.
But she didn't have any time for dallying. She looked around and saw the trunk and roots of tree they had been hugging poking out the snow, and just a few paces away, a mop of red hair that was emerging from it cursing up a storm.
She started panicking again when she couldn't see Penguin anywhere, until she noticed the two boots sticking out next to the trunk.
"Shachi!" She yelled, or she tried, because it sounded like she was coughing, and she pointed at Penguin as she ran to him as fast as her achy limbs allowed.
Shachi was on the move before she was able to finish saying his name, and they dug at the snow frantically with their hands as fast as they could, and when a reasonable portion of Penguin's legs was in the open, they pulled him until they got him unstuck, and they were all sent backwards.
Penguin looked slightly blue, but somehow his cap was still on. If Saki hadn't seen him without it on a few times, she'd have thought he glued it.
"Peng?" Shachi asked unsurely. "Are you still with us?"
"Gimme a minute," he wheezed.
Saki spent that minute inspecting the mass of snow that stood between them and the path. She made an attempt to climb, but the snow was too loose and she couldn't hold onto anything more solid than broken tree branches.
Looking around and judging by the side of the cliff that wasn't covered by snow and revealed smooth rock, she guessed they were inside a gorge.
That could be good, in the sense that following along the gorge should lead them to the sea. It was also pretty terrible, in the sense that they could go the wrong way, or worse, get to the ocean and have no option but to swim in freezing water until they reached a shore.
Shachi yelled behind her. "Anybody up there?!"
But no reply came.
"I hope they're okay," Peguin said.
"Bepo's there. I'm sure they'll be fine," Shachi replied, and then said to Saki. "Do you think we can climb back up?"
"No dice."
"Shit."
"Yeah."
"So… what do we do?" Penguin asked. "Do we stay put until they come for us, or do we try to find an exit?"
"Even if they're okay, we don't know if they can go ask for help," Saki said, though she wasn't sure if she wanted to move from the spot. In the worst case scenario, the others couldn't get back to the village, but surely Law would hear about the avalanche and put two and two together when they didn't come back. "Though Captain…"
…Oh, who was she kidding, he could stay locked up for days in that sickbay as long as nobody forced him out to take care of his basic human needs.
Or maybe he'd pry himself away from his work when he ran out of coffee. That was a possibility, as long as he didn't try to concoct some in a Bunsen burner. Again.
Saki became acutely aware that they had to get out of there, not only for their own sakes, but to prevent their captain's untimely, negligent death.
We she turned to look at her crewmates, something in their faces told her that their thoughts hadn't strayed too far from hers.
"There's Mack, though," Penguin whispered, as if he was afraid of being heard.
"Remembered what happened last time he and Captain argued?" Saki replied.
There was a moment of silence.
"We move?" Shachi said, more an affirmation than a suggestion.
"We move," Penguin repeated.
Saki scratched her hair and threw one last glance at the top of the gorge. "We move."
—
The hours passed for Law like for a college kid before finals: way too fast and with no grip on reality, lost in unquantifiable amounts of concentration and caffeine.
…Which was beginning to abandon his system, if the repeated attempts of his eyes to close against his will were any indicator.
He should still have in the cabinet below the sink some of his old coffee stash. He eyed the Bunsen burner carefully.
No, not worth having Mack catch him in the act like last time and getting an hour-long earful and a cup of good coffee.
With a sigh, he put down the Devil Fruit guide, got up from his chair like an ailing octogenarian, and dragged his feet to the door just to have it open before he could grab the handle.
Mack was on the other side, looking at him from one feet below. He should have learned earlier that small people compensated their lack of height by being full of rage.
"What?" He croaked, because he hadn't spoken to anybody since that morning and it was never a bad time to lose a few more dignity points.
"People in town are saying the earthquake from earlier triggered an avalanche in the outskirts."
"What earthquake?"
Mack lifted a pair of judgmental eyebrows, skeptical and slightly impressed. He stared at Law for two seconds that felt like half a minute and ignored his question. "Aren't the others out of town?"
He looked away and lazily rubbed the back of his neck. "It would be too much of a coincidence that they got caught in—"
"CAPTAAAAAAIN!"
His hand stopped mid-motion and after a beat, smacked his face while he let out the lovechild of a sigh and a curse.
Three panicked humans and a polar bear appeared behind Mack and started to talk at the same time, and he didn't need to pay any attention to their jumbled explanations to understand what they were saying.
He should've put the burner to use when he could, he thought as he sent Bepo for Kikoku and reached for his coat.