Chapter twenty-one: Riding along on my pushbike, Honey (you look so pretty) - Mountain Time
The mountain streams were filled with smooth basalt like the one Law carried in his pocket. Clear green water ran over them, any depths easily sighted and avoided – or approached. The few paths in the area around Sengoku's hut were wide enough for two people abreast or one man walking, and one on a bicycle. Bleat trotted ahead, or charged up the rear, depending on what caught her attention.
"If you fall in the water Trafalgar, I can't fish you out."
Law didn't bother replying. The same stood for Aokiji of course and he was far more likely to tumble considering the uneven weave of his pushbike. Though the guy had some affinity for water. Maybe freezing it cancelled its debilitating properties. Come to think of it, the ex-admiral probably could pull him out if he had the inclination.
Sengoku had shooed them out. Secret marine business, or he didn't want to share his crackers, or it just became too much to see Bleat cosy up to Roci's son all the time. Roci's . . . Aokiji suspected he wanted to old-man-nap in peace. They'd shaved off his eyebrows the last time he'd done that in marine company.
Law kept an eye out for any mountain vegetables for that night's dinner, any herbs to add to the coriander. Why hadn't he used the tomato leaves to ground him through the nightmares last night? The smell had worn off? He'd put them well out of Bleat's reach? He really wasn't sure. The use of the basalt was new though, and he turned the two stones between his fingers in his pocket.
"Why haven't you and Nico Robin hooked up, Law?"
Aokiji was barely keeping his front wheel steady.
"We're friends."
"The best kind of lovers."
Law knew that to be true.
"What makes you think we'd be good together?"
Aokiji ran a hooked finger across his brow, steering the bike with one hand.
"You both hate marines."
Law didn't respond to that either. There was a childhood reaction to men in uniform mowing down the defenceless that he didn't think he'd ever get past. Then again, that village Eustass wiped out, if there had been a single survivor, surely they'd hate pirates with an equal fervour. Or maybe not. Marines, the World Government, was the mother of them all.
"Yet you wouldn't be where you are today without the marines."
"Alive?"
Aokiji nodded.
"Marines like Vergo?"
"Had us all fooled."
You win some, you lose some, right?
oOOo
Law sat on the back of the bicycle, Bleat in the basket. Aokiji had frozen the stream. Law's nodachi was length-ways like a lance between them. How did the Pheasant stop the wheels from skidding? How did Law get himself talked into this? But then again he hadn't been this close to the water for a while, and who was he kidding? He'd jumped at the chance. Just hoped Aokiji's powers didn't cut out as quickly as his own once they'd reached their limit. Did admirals have an endless supply of haki?
A few waterfalls were a solid veil of tears, and though it looked as if they'd freewheel right over the one they currently breached, Law ready to access his teleporting skills, Aokiji somehow kept them upright and intact.
"Mor-eh-eh-eh!" Bleat call out. Law shook his head. Going soft in his old age.
"Atta girl!" Aokiji yelled, his hair flapping behind him, his excited face about as animated as his resting one. "Emotion, Law. Goddamn show some, eh? Pretty fucking awesome, right?"
"Right."
Shooting ninety-degrees down icicles not melting in the afternoon sun was exhilarating. Despite the Alpine climate, any snow topped the far ranges and the terrain nearest them was clear. Law gripped a small bar behind him – just for safety's sake. The chill-air buzzed through him and his throat constricted with the sharp freshness.
"God-damn fucking right, right, Law?"
Aokiji turned his head to look at Law. Law wondered where the bicycle was heading. The ex-admiral noted that the pirate had been a whole lot more agitated and fearful last night and that morning. Now he was almost the most relaxed he'd ever seen him, a throwaway grin crossing his hatched face.
"You're a mad fucker, aren't you, Law?"
Law leant in towards Aokiji's back, hands still grasping the bar behind him.
"Can it go faster? Do loop-de-loops?"
Plummeting, they rocketed past the face of the falls. Sengoku would kill them both if anything happened to the goat.
"I can make those things happen if I hear some noise from you."
Law bit down, sat back, and weighed up Aokiji's words. No-one was ordering him to call their name, or telling him what to do. Well, they were – but a loop-de-loop on a bicycle? He might just prostrate himself.
"Whoo?"
"Whoo?!" Aokiji's eyes were difficult to read behind his glasses. "You're rushing to your death and all you come up with is Whoo?"
"Is this a form of torture?"
"You're enjoying it, aren't you?"
"Yeah, but maybe I'm kinky like that."
Aokiji recalled Phoenix telling them not to chain Law under any circumstances, and he knew that not to be true.
"No. It's not torture. Noises!"
"Arggh?"
"Arararara-ragh!"
Law laughed behind him. Oh, that was a different sound and Aokiji found himself smiling.
"Turn!" The pepper in Law's voice morphed into a blunt demand.
"Well, that's about the level of enthusiasm I'd hoped for, but maybe a less pedestrian word?" The iron-press of air around them steamed every surface flat. Brisk. Made you feel alive.
"Turn, turn - you fuckwit. Freeze the fucking water below or loop us outta here."
Aokiji shifted his head to the front and pulled the bicycle up just as it was about to sink, wheel first, into an unfrozen stretch of river. The wind was up, small white-capped waves patterning the water. Bleat tumbled in. That was a problem, because Aokiji couldn't freeze the river while the goat swam about, and the current was pulling her away.
He iced enough to land the bike. Law swapped out the Pheasant's sleeping mask with Bleat. As he saw it swirl down the river, he realised he might end up paying for that bit of altruism. The goat shook herself out in the basket, water droplets darkening the admiral's jacket. Didn't seem to faze him. Aokiji altered the river as far as he could, and cycled along, keeping an eye out for his mask. Good ones were hard to come by.
About two-hundred metres down the water-way, right near the icy surface, ugly as a squat amoeba, they found it.
"Yours to get, Trafalgar."
"You were the one using Bleat as a sacrificial goat."
"Hurry up and do it before I make you the scapegoat."
"I play that role well," Law said, stepping off the bike. He had a hint of a room humming over the tips of his fingers just in case Aokiji decided to leave him – for shits and giggles – in a deep, flowing body of water.
"Use something of your own, nothing of mine, to get it back."
.
Law brushed the wet malting goat and a clump of fur coated his hand. She pushed her sodden head into Law's flannel shirt, but he wasn't having any of it and moved away.
It was a little difficult, but not impossible, to manipulate the elements between water, ice and earth to extract the mask. But, sopping wet, it was now in his hand, the clump of hair dashing away on the current under the frozen surface. Aokiji hadn't solidified the water in depth and that made him nervous.
"Give."
Law put it in his pocket. It was uncomfortable, but was also collateral. He climbed on the bike.
"Get the both of us out of here, then you get it."
"Tch. I'm not going to leave you here, Law." Aokiji's nails scratched at his neck. His three o'clock shadow pimpling his skin.
Law's hand remained in his pocket, the other gripping the bar. Kikoku held tightly against his body, under his arm. Inelegant.
Aokiji understood that the level of trust Law gave him and the Buddha was something extraordinary. Not now though. He didn't really blame him.
"Say the magic word."
All these games. Was there ever a time that two men were together that they didn't try and compete?
"Please?"
"No, the other magic word."
"Whoo?"
"Yes. Goddamn-whoo-fucking-whoo."
"Whoo."
Aokiji kicked up the stand, iced the river more deeply and set on his way.
"Say it as if avenging every motherfucker who ever crossed you."
"You've got quite the mouth on you."
"I am a marine."
"Noted."
"Whoo me, Law."
Law laughed, surprising Aokiji again. Was this why his strange crew liked him?
It didn't take long for the three-metre plus marine to increase friction and speed, and they were soon streaking along, gaining on another waterfall.
"Loop-de-loop, Dr Death. C'mon – I want recognition for my death-defying feat rather than Death defying me."
"Well, you are defying death . . ." They screamed through the air, Aokiji's feet a blur, Law maintaining a room to keep his hat in his orbit. Aokiji's was buckled under his chin.
"And you're defying me."
"Whoo!"
"Like you mean it, Trafalgar. Hold onto your hat, the grip, and teleport that sword somewhere – here goes."
Law extended the room to protect Bleat and leant back into the grip. Kikoku stuck to him rather than the other way around.
"Fucking awesome, man. Amazing."
"Whoo-oooo-oooo-oooo-ooo!" Aokiji's hair flew back, Law turning his head to keep it from his eyes. "That's how you whoo, Law."
"I'll keep it in mind for Marco."
"And fucking awesome. What are you, sixteen years old?"
"Mor-eh-eh-eh!"
"That's right, baby," Aokiji murmured to Bleat. Her head, body, whole being was upside down as she casually floated in Law's dome, her hooves cycling like Aokiji's feet.
Law looked up at the sky, his hat below him, he figured they were upside down. He willed it not to land on either the ground nor Bleat's head, or it would suffer the same fate as Sengoku's cap. River, sky, earth – which was which?
A News Coo gull flapped by and looked on with curiosity.
"Bird, come here." Aokiji righted the bicycle for the climb to the apex of his party trick. Pedalling, one hand on the handlebars, he dug through his pocket for some change.
"Coo," the bird cried out, dropped a paper in the basket and flew away.
"Not Coo, Whoo!" He waved a hand madly as the gull flapped away. He twisted in the seat to view Law. "How you going with those synonyms, Doc?"
"Whootastic, Whoonderful, Whoo lotta whooing going on." You said fucking awesome first, Law thought.
"That's the spirit," Aokiji – well – whooped as he faced the front. "And the Buddha said he wouldn't take you to parties. You're really quite nice once one gets to know you, aren't you Law?"
"Quite."
The Pheasant prepared the bike for a landing, Law neatly fitting Bleat back into the basket and his hat onto his head. The admiral froze the river below them and brought the bike . . . nah, no way he'd let the sub surface that fast, but bicycles were diff.. . brought it to a skidding, shuddering, sprawling halt.
"Baa-aaa!"
"Mahhhh!"
"Kusou."
Law landed well with his power, that is, on his feet, and made sure Bleat trip-trapped prettily over the ice, and Aokiji? He could manage. He teleported himself and Bleat to the riverbank.
In the center of the frozen surface, Aokiji stood, dusted himself off and straightened his bike. He eyed Law on the side of the river. He inspected his forearm. A nasty graze from sliding across the ice and colliding with the bike reddened the skin. His trusty steed had flown away from him completely.
"C'mon, don't be such a spoilsport. I took Luffy for a joyride and he got too impatient. When I ran out of aerial acrobatics, he elongated himself to the nearest structure and catapulted us all there. Luckily that strange mechanic could fix my dented mudguard and the wonky spokes. It was a quick way to head home if efficiency trumps broken bones."
Law crossed his arms. That sounded right. He loved riding the waterways, but Aokiji was hard to read.
The admiral walked the bike across the water, feeling Messiah-like, and threw it up to the bank where Law stood. Both the Heart and Bleat scrambled in opposite directions to avoid getting hit. In a couple of strides he stood between them. The grass lush, green, soft. A snooze sounded good.
"Give."
Law had no reason not to, so he passed the mask over. Aokiji wrung it out. "Pull the moisture out of this, will you?"
Law obliged. The two had taken care of him, in their own way, through his nightmares last evening. Aokiji placed one cold palm on the mask to ice it, to soothe his brow. "Run along, Trafalgar. The fairground attraction's officially shut down for the day. See you at the Buddha's."
oOOo
He never napped long, but he napped often. When he lifted the eye mask a skerrick, twenty minutes later, he noted the herbs sticking out of Law's backpack. It looked like he'd pulled up half the forest. Bleat's bell tinkled behind them, the goat grazing somewhere. Guess he hadn't been dismissive enough if the Surgeon of Death was still hanging around. Maybe he was waiting for his chance.
Aokiji lifted an eye to observe the goateed pirate. He was looking all pensive and shit, staring off into the distance. But then, he looked that way most of the time. Maybe he was upset they'd called him ugly that morning, but you needed a rhino hide in the New World. Law knew that. And if the cap fit - -
The Heart pirate pulled at some grass and waited for Aokiji to yawn, stretch and sit up. Once he'd rolled his shoulders a few thousand times, laid on his back and wriggled his arms and legs in tandem, and had taken a sip of water from his canteen, Law turned his attention the admiral's way.
"Did Sengoku order the bombing of Ohara?"
Aokiji wondered if the clouds were the intended recipients of the question. He clicked his tongue. Ah, these kinds of topics when he hadn't even completed one REM cycle?
"You asking for your wife? You know she's wedded to the Strawhats?"
Law nodded. Aokiji wasn't sure which query the gesture answered.
He flopped back down. The grass welcoming, the sky blue, even Law looked like an ordinary human being if you dismissed the hand and finger tattoos, the huge nodachi, and squinted with one eye.
"Yeah. The Gorosei ordered him to do it, and I killed Saul, the man who saved her. He was my friend."
"Another one of your party tricks?" No wonder Law felt ambivalent toward him.
"I believed in absolute justice then. I froze Saul a few seconds after Sakazuki sank a boatload of civilians."
Law had heard versions of this story before.
"You still killed Saul?" Can never have too much bloodshed in the marine world.
"He was a threat. We thought he was a threat. We were told he was a threat."
Sounded like some doctors of Law's very brief acquaintance. He knew Aokiji had let Robin go, but that he'd also almost killed her later – as an adult – making her feel less important than flotsam and jetsam, a curse to her friends.
"Blackbeard level?"
"Bleat level." Aokiji acted in keeping with his orders, but he questioned the hell out of them after that.
"Lazy Justice means not caring?"
"I should have cared more. Rocinante was there."
Law turned his head. "You should have cared more because he was there, or just in general?"
"In general." Aokji tried to think back to the ship hugging the coast, as all vessels did for a Buster Call, full of new recruits. "I don't think he hurt anyone, but he was on a ship that fired missiles into the island. They all did."
At least he'd been Doffy's righthand man when the marines exterminated Flevance. Perhaps Vergo was among that contingent. A young Smoker?
"We're pawns, Law. As much as anyone else. The admirals have more power, the fleet admiral even more, but you can't hold up justice by entertaining fields of grey."
Law exhaled. He disagreed.
"At least that's what I used to think."
Law turned to him. Slate eyes clear, direct. "What changed your mind?"
"To be honest, Ohara. Saul. I was the government's mercenary, but I wanted to be the people's protector. But the crux was Marineford, and the battle with Sakazuki on Punk Hazard." He stretched out his peg leg. Why didn't the heat from propelling the bike melt that? "Was it worth losing this over?"
Law looked down at the leg. He didn't know. He was glad someone had challenged Akainu, even if not successful.
"Took some time coming."
"Laziness. Inertia. Complacency. They have a close relationship."
"How about Sengoku?"
Bleat nosed at the tassle on the nodachi, and Law removed it from her sphere.
"When every family flies the military flag, has a son or daughter serving, one needs to be proud. Needs to justify actions. He believed he was working for the greater good."
"Of whom? For whom?"
Aokiji shrugged. "That's the ten-zillion-beri question. Business, ruling classes, royalty. At every stratum there is good and bad."
"But the power resides at the top." And was less populous.
"Termites can collapse a building."
Law watched a bird bob about on the currents in front of them. It wheeled past a clump of trees in a few seconds.
"Did he kill my parents? My family? My town?"
Aokiji cupped his hands behind his head, and leant back.
"Not personally, no. I don't even know if he signed off on that one."
"You weren't there?"
"You should look at the head of the propaganda department to blame for that one, really." Aokiji had heard about Flevance second-hand. He didn't know who pulled the levers on the invasion.
"For the lack of concern, outcry?"
"Even at the top level, very few knew the real story."
Law studied his nails. He'd see if Shachi would do them for him when he got back. He flicked his gaze the admiral's direction.
"Copywriters have designed alternative universes for most of my life. Doflamingo knew, though. He knew Amber Lead syndrome wasn't contagious, when all anyone else saw was the plague."
"Probably bought products right up to the end, or was the gun-runner for the forces sent in."
"He had a thing for the underdog."
"So he could use them?"
"Ultimately, yeah. But he had no stars in his eyes about the World Government."
Doffy favoured those he favoured with security and a sense of belonging, as long as they toed the line. He favoured those in disfavour in quite another way.
"Sengoku knew Cora, he saved Cora. You saved Robin, and Smoker."
"That idiot's a friend. I had too." Aokiji unfolded and stood. He picked up his bicycle, put it on its stand and inspected it for damage. "Is it enough?"
Law looked at Aokiji, confused. Is what enough? He hadn't expected answers. The admiral caught the expression.
"What you get from Sengoku. To make up for any perceived wrongs. Is it enough?"
Law winced. Perceived wrongs.
"He took out Akainu, you fought him. He set the events in motion that killed Ace, but he agreed to stopping that bloodbath, and to letting Shanks take the bodies. He knew Cora." Law said the last quietly. "It's never enough, Aokiji."
The doctor stood and Bleat walked to his side.
"The time I spent with my parents, Lamie - my sister, my friends, Cora – - how can I describe it? Remembrance of it? It's like a whisper passed on the linked fingers of storms, gales and zephyrs, hand-balled to the rotation of a ceiling fan, before fading to the occasional puff of air farted from a leaky air cooler. Stagnant, stale, musty. That's what I'm left with, but it was something stronger once. Purer."
He bent down to scratch Bleat's head and Aokiji straightened, crossing his long arms in front of him to stretch his pectorals, wondering why Law held onto a fart.
"But that remnant is better than nothing, and that remnant is all I have. You, Sengoku and other marines are part of the alignment to making sure the portal is crack-of-light ajar. That there is some access. So no, not enough, but better than the alternative."
A/N: One of my favourite chapters. Thank you for reading.
A light few chapters recently, though the nightmare chapter was not kind to Law. We return to Law's captivity next chapter, I think. Not a light chapter, but probably the last of the dark ones (can't guarantee it).