A million thanks to everyone who left a comment for the last chapter, especially those unlogged that I can't thank privately. Reviews have been dwindling as of late, and know that I appreciate you all! ;u;
First of all, I'd like to announce that the new decorations for the Polar Tang that appear in this chapter come from a very inspired comment by Piersic and I take no credit for them. You'll see what I mean when you get there.
Second, if you watched the anime, I changed things around during the Pacifista encounter. I just don't think it makes a lot of sense in retrospect, now that we know more about the Heart Pirates. If you read the manga, nothing's different, proceed as usual. If you also read my Tumblr, you've seen me complain about this in detail and you're a trooper.
Third: It's happening. It only took 28 chapters.
(Also, if you're interested in reading a handful of drabbles and one-shots related to this story, I uploaded them under the title Inky Fragments on Archive Of Our Own (pen name is also Archaeological). Some are AU, some are canon to this fic. These are the same that have been on my Tumblr blog for ages, so you can read them there too.)
28. Dreams come true
(Try to catch the deluge in a paper cup)
"The Marines are already here, Straw Hat-ya."
At Law's prompting, Luffy turned towards the Heart Pirates for the first time. Saki was surprised to see that he was pretty much a kid, and the straw hat on his head added to the child-like effect. She didn't know what she had been expecting, but a scrawny, wide-eyed boy had not been it. Still, appearances didn't mean a thing; he and his crew had come this far, he had wrecked the government's judicial island and he had just punched a Celestial Asswipe in the face, so Luffy was one of her favorite persons in the world at the moment.
He was a ball of chaotic energy, and his focus was immediately stolen by Bepo. She assumed that Law just kept telling him about the Marines nearby because he'd had enough practice reining in his own crew to get sidetracked that easily.
"I don't know who it is they're after, but I doubt they expected anybody to start attacking the Celestial Dragons."
Saki had thought there had to be vigilance around the auction house for security reasons, but she hadn't thought about the possibility that they might be specifically after someone. If anything, what made most sense was that they were on the lookout for pirates, but the Marines would have to be extraordinarily dumb to attack a venue full of civilians when there were five Supernovas inside, not to mention the rest of crew members. So what was going on?
Luffy, who didn't seem to care a lot about Marine presence and less about Law, even when Nico Robin explained to him who he was, kept asking about Bepo, and Saki took the chance to scuttle her butt closer to the stairs to talk to her.
"Are you Nico Robin?" She asked cautiously to catch her attention, though she had it as soon as she had started approaching. That woman was picking up on every movement near her. Saki sadly knew how it felt living in that state of alert. "I wanted to talk to you."
"You're a Heart Pirate too," she said. She didn't sound hostile, but it was obvious that she didn't trust her. "What business do you have with me?"
Saki guessed she didn't have the time to beat around the bush. "It's about Ohara," She said, and Robin's face changed as soon as she uttered that word. "I wanted to show you something, so could we—?"
Saki didn't have time to request a meeting later, because one of the Celestial Dragons, the woman, had gone up to the fish tank where the mermaid was being kept and started screaming like a maniac, threatening to kill her. But before she could, titanic hands ripped the back of the stage, revealing a giant and an elderly man that stepped forward at the same time the Celestial Dragon dropped to the floor, unharmed but unconscious.
Saki's eyes were fixed on the man's figure, nonchalantly walking onto the stage as he drank from a hip flask. She couldn't look away. She didn't know why, but she felt like – no, she knew that that man was the most dangerous person in the auction house at the moment.
According to the guards inside the action house, whose presence she had mostly forgotten as the current spectacle had begun, he was an escaped slave, and if his enthusiasm when he saw the wounded fishman was any indication, they were friends. Rayleigh, the octopus called him, and the name sounded familiar, but she couldn't quite place it at first. He talked like he didn't care about being surrounded by armed guards at all, and Saki couldn't fathom how he had ended up in that situation if he had been the one to drop the crazy lady without touching her.
Rayleigh. Rayleigh… Where had she heard that name before…?
And then it happened.
Like a sudden, silent gust of wind, a rush of something indescribable washed over Saki; a blow to the head that made her vision blurry and her body weak for a second before it was over and everything was back to normal. The guards went down immediately, and the only people left conscious in the auction house were the pirates, the mermaid, and the giant behind the man that had been the source of the blast.
Shachi, next to her, was holding his head and looking fairly pale, but he was okay enough to grumble about it. Other than the surprise, nobody else in their group had been noticeably affected. Penguin had stood up and had his arms crossed in a defensive stance. Law's stare was about to bore a hole in the man's skull, and he had a look on his face that she didn't see very often.
Rayleigh. The name wasn't terribly uncommon, she supposed, but if she tried to remember remarkable people called like that… Oh.
Oh.
Saki's attention was fully captured by Rayleigh again, who was about to remove the collar around the mermaid's neck and making the Straw Hats panic.
She had seen his picture before, when the Roger Pirates had been everywhere in the news, but that had been over twenty years ago, when it hadn't mattered at all to her, and she had always assumed that the important names of Gold Roger's crew had been captured. Why would the World Government allow his right-hand man to run free?
On the other hand, she couldn't figure out why they wouldn't have announced his execution very loudly, if they had gotten his hands on him. It wasn't like he could do more damage than Roger already had.
If she needed any extra confirmation about his identity, he tore the collar away from the mermaid with his bare hands and threw it away before it could explode.
It was weird enough to randomly cross paths with a living legend to also have him address her and her friends with a backhanded compliment. "So you're pirates hanging around to watch, eh…?" His eyes roamed the hall, taking note of their group and the Kid Pirates. "And if you just took that blast without any trouble, I guess you're not just amateurs, either."
"To think we'd run into a man like him in a place like this…" Law murmured.
Kid was way louder about asking what a man like him was doing there, which, granted, Saki wanted to know too, but you don't talk out loud about someone like he's not right in front of you. Courtesy was lost on that man. She wondered how Killer coped.
After replying that he went by Ray now and he was just a coating engineer, which was about the last answer Saki expected, Rayleigh returned to his business with the Straw Hats, and now that the moment had passed, it was time to think about getting out of the auction house.
"So that just happened," Penguin declared. "What now?"
"We shouldn't have any trouble if we go out now," Law told them. "And I don't think anybody wants to sit back and wait for an Admiral."
Meanwhile, the Marines were blaring through speakers on the outside that they better release the Celestial Dragons, like they actually had any intentions of keeping them around for whatever purpose. It was frankly insulting. They government could handle their garbage on their own.
"Looks like we're involved in this whether we like it or not…" Law commented. "They're acting as though we're his accomplices."
Shachi chuckled at that. "What's new?"
"And who can blame them, really?" Saki said, looking at the entrance and seeing the Kid Pirates making their way towards it.
Penguin, ever the optimist, asked, "Do you think it'll add to our bounties?"
"Let's get—" Law started, but the most obnoxious person in the vicinity had to raise his voice to be heard by everybody.
"We'll be heading on ahead, if you don't mind," said Kid, grinning and then turning his back on everybody. "Oh, and while we're at it, we'll do you guys a favor! We'll take out the guys hanging around out front, so don't you worry about your little selves."
Law and Luffy didn't take that well.
Without uttering a single word, Law stood up, gestured at Bepo to pass him Kikoku and began to walk towards the stairs, strategic retreat forgotten.
"Are you really taking the bait?" Saki asked, as he passed next to her.
"That asshole's not telling me what to do."
And it seemed like Straw Hat was thinking along the same lines, because they both left the auction house side by side.
"Do we need to have a pissing contest right now?" Saki asked to nobody in particular. She knew it wasn't going to stop anything, so why try? "With an Admiral on the way?"
"It's a guy thing," Shachi replied.
Penguin agreed. "You wouldn't understand. Right, Bepo?"
"Yeah."
Outnumbered and feeling like the only sensible person in the group, which didn't happen often, she decided to drop the subject and got up. "Okay then, I'm going to see what they do. Offer moral support or something."
"We're coming too," Shachi said, filing out of the seats right behind her. The Straw Hats had begun to move as well, but everybody seemed committed to stand back and let the captains wreck shit. Kid Pirates included, as she saw when she was by the door.
"Should've brought pom-poms," Penguin whispered at his friends.
The Auction House had been completely surrounded by Marines, and Law, Luffy and Kid were just standing in front of them bickering like children to see who went first. There wasn't much reason for concern at the moment, but Saki didn't think it was so wise to waste time bickering when they were at Marineford's doorstep.
She eyed Robin coming out of the building as well and left the guys for a moment to speak to her. In the background, the Marines had started screaming, and she glanced at the pirate captains to see Straw Hat stretching his fingers to make a net and Kid levitating cannonballs and weapons around. Law was doing his thing too, it just wasn't news for her.
"What do you know about Ohara?" Robin asked before she could speak.
"Does the name Clover Dubia ring a bell?" Saki tried.
The suspicion in her eyes vanished as they widened. "Clover? Professor Clover's daughter?"
At Robin's question, the other Straw Hat girl turned to look at them. What was her name? 'Cat Burglar' Nami. Right. The rest were too busy staring at the captains.
Saki hesitated. It felt weird to speak of her family to a complete stranger. "That was my mom."
"That can't be," Robin replied. "She was on the expedition, and the only person who survived was…" She trailed off.
"She left the expedition before the World Government found them. Moved to North Blue, married, and vanished sixteen years ago."
Robin was speechless for a moment. "I see. So she's also…?"
"Probably," Saki said. She didn't want to talk about it, but she supposed she had to be honest with Robin if she was going to ask something of her. "We never knew for sure, since there wasn't any trace, and we assumed it had been the criminals in my hometown, but…"
"That sounds a lot like what almost happened to you," said Nami to Robin. Her voice was friendly, and she didn't seem to regard Saki as a threat.
"What do you mean?" Saki asked, curious.
"Cipher Pol caught up to me a while ago," Robin explained. "I was headed for Impel Down, but my friends helped me." She smiled. Nami, behind her, grinned with a slight blush.
"That's what the Enies Lobby business was about?!" Saki exclaimed. "So you can really read them? Those giant blocks of stone my mom was studying?"
"You mean the Poneglyphs? I can."
Saki felt like she had won the lottery. "I've got something for you! Can I see you later?"
The captains had already taken out the Marines circling the auction house and the remaining soldiers were threatening them with reinforcements. It would be a good idea to scatter and lay low until the impending threat of an admiral wasn't hovering over them.
"There's a bar on Grove 13. Do you think you can meet me there in three days?"
"I'll definitely try," Saki said. She supposed it would be enough time for the situation to calm down. "Thank you!"
Robin chuckled at her enthusiastic reply, and Saki was making her way to her friends humming a butchered tune when someone interrupted her as she passed near Kid's group.
Killer was rubbing the chin of his mask as he spoke to her. "May I ask you a question?"
Saki's face brightened with the prospect of a sale. "Sure! Is it about what we talked about?"
"The tattoos on your captain's hands, did you…?"
Saki's cheer disappeared instantly and she felt a swirl of negative emotions build up inside her. "Hell no," she said, stressing both syllables. "Screw the One Piece, I'm going to kill him after today," she said to herself as she ran her hands over her face, and since she had no more fucks to give, she said to Killer, pointing violently at Law. "Do you know how long I've been trying to get him to let me fix them? A year. One. Whole. Year. And he doesn't give a damn that it makes me look bad!"
"Oh." He made a thoughtful pause. "So he's like that too."
It was one of those rare and valuable moments were a deep connection between two strangers, based solely on unspoken understanding and shared experiences, took place.
"I have a feeling that you and I could get along," she commented. "Shame we're enemies. Anyway, think about the tattoo?"
He nodded at her as he crossed his arms, and when he looked back at his captain, Kid was about to be attacked by a Marine and too busy metaphorically drilling a hole into Luffy's head to care, so Killer jumped into the fray and Saki rejoined her crew.
"You're doing a lot of fraternizing with the enemy," Shachi said accusingly.
"I'm a busy woman, Shachi," she said, and they were about to start a sarcastic back and forth when the rest of Kid Pirates joined the fight and Law called for Bepo, who immediately ran to take care of a Marine attacking him.
"Time to go," Penguin said, stretching his arms, but then saw Law walking to towards the bottom of the stairs, where a large man sat, watching the chaos unfold with an unreadable expression.
There was something familiar about his face, but judging by the collar around his neck, if she had seen a bounty with his face, it must have been a while ago.
Using his Room and Shambles, Law removed the collar and let it explode away from them.
"Will you come with me, pirate captain Jean Bart?"
Ooh. She remembered now. Saki didn't know what to think about the flame tattoos on his forehead, but they weren't the worst in the vicinity by far.
"It's been a while since I've been called that," he replied with a gruff voice, and then got up and effortlessly swatted away two Marines about to attack them. "If you'll free me from the Celestial Dragons, I'll gladly serve under you."
Saki didn't think anybody in their crew had ever thought about their status as serving under Law after ten minutes of knowing him.
She started descending the stairs with Shachi and Penguin to join the brawl, and as she passed Law, she heard him chuckle and comment, "Well, half the credit should go to Straw Hat-ya."
They cleared the remaining Marines on their way quickly and ran away from the Auction House before reinforcements could come, and while the Straw Hats and Rayleigh split away from the main group, the Heart Pirates had the dubious luck of heading in the same general direction as Kid's.
The new addition to the crew was at the back of the group, and as they stepped on the next grove, he smashed the bridge connecting them with a single punch to keep the Marines from giving them chase, with Bepo close by, trying to stablish from the beginning who was boss.
Poor darling got too much crap from the others on a daily basis, Saki thought, but Jean Bart seemed to be fine with Bepo's demands. She wasn't sure what to think, given that the guy had been a pirate captain and was used to be the one giving orders, but she supposed everything beat being a Celestial Dragon's slave.
Shachi, who was ahead of everybody else, suddenly shouted, "Captain! That's…"
The incomplete sentence sounded more ominous than a full one would have. Saki stopped on her tracks to look where Shachi was pointing at, and she was able to make out two silhouettes in the middle of a cloud of dust.
It seemed that Kid was fighting someone much bigger than him, and as the air cleared, Saki's blood turned ice cold and she looked around to see in her friends' faces the expression universally known as 'oh, shit.'
"What's a Shichibukai doing here?" Law said, putting in words what everybody was thinking.
Because the big man in front of them either was Bartholomew Kuma or his identical, equally unfashionable twin brother. Law wore the spotted look better.
The man saw them and spoke. "Trafalgar Law…"
Law's smirk was all edges. He was getting nervous. "So you know my name, do you…?"
Saki didn't have time to reflect on how frightening it was to have such tangible proof that they were on the government's radar, because Law had barely finished his sentence when Kuma shot a beam from his mouth that turned the root where Law had been standing to splinters. Saki had no idea what that was, since light wasn't supposed to make things go boom.
"Captain!" Bepo shouted, panicky, but Law had landed safely next to Kid.
Jean Bart, on the other hand was rather calm, considering the situation. "We're right by Marine Headquarters and Mary Geoise, so it shouldn't be surprising no matter who we run into…"
So much for not having a lot of surveillance on the island, despite the concentration of notorious pirates.
"The Marines are closing in from behind!" Penguin warned.
Saki glanced at the destroyed bridge and the soldiers climbing through the remains, then at Law. "Captain, we really need to hurry!" It was nice that the two figurative monsters in front of Kuma were impervious to bullets and cannon fire, but the rest of them were significantly squishier and she'd rather not get shot at by so many people at once, because someone was bound to hit by random luck.
And Law was busy arguing with Kid, apparently. Penguin and Shachi were getting fidgety, and Saki was about to start nagging Law when he decided that he was done trying to look cool in front of a rival crew and it was time to go in search of greener pastures.
"We've come across a lot of unexpected big shots today, and I sure as hell don't want to meet an admiral after this, so we'll be taking our leave," he said as the first signs of a Room swirled around his left hand, "Bartholomew Kuma!"
Saki guessed that not acknowledging Kid's presence during the farewell was his way to say fuck you too, and then the Room stretched out enough to swallow all their crewmates and a few Kid Pirates.
The Kuma in front of them took off a glove and shot another beam from the palm of his hand at the same time that Saki got a sinking feeling in her stomach and stumbled forward onto Jean Bart.
"Sorry," she said, thinking that it was a fantastic way to introduce herself to a new crew member. At least she consoled herself when she saw that he and Law had been the only two to land gracefully when they were swapped by a handful of rocks that had been behind Kuma.
"Let's go!" Law said, and on cue, they started to run after him.
The path was clear for a while, since the fight had done a great job of driving everybody away. Even after they left that grove they didn't see many people, likely because the kind of folks to be found in the lawless areas were the most interested in not running into an Admiral, and while they encountered some sort of resistance in the form of a group of Marines, they made quick work of them.
The hotel area was already in sight when they were faced a slightly bigger problem.
"It can't be," Penguin said, staring, once again at Kuma's towering figure right in front of them.
"No way." Shachi looked behind them for a second. "There's no way he got ahead of us."
Saki noticed that he looked different than before. "He has both gloves and no scratches."
"It has to be another," Law replied, slightly out of breath from all the running and unsheathing Kikoku.
Kuma was blocking the way, so there was no way to go but through him.
"You mean there's more than one?!" Bepo exclaimed.
Nobody replied, because they were too busy getting out of the way as soon as they saw Kuma open his mouth, and after a very brief warning of light building up, another beam of made a smoking hole in the ground where they had stood.
Bepo, who was closest to Kuma, jumped at him with a battle cry and a flying kick, then a punch charged with electricity.
It was the first time Saki had seen it, even though she'd heard Bepo comment sometime that all people of his race could do that, but she didn't think he had used it any of the times they'd fought together, at least not while she was looking. She wondered if Law had learned that from him.
In any case, the sparks surrounding his paw passed onto Kuma as he tried to swat Bepo away, and the limb that received the impact seemed to be stuck of a moment.
Law took the chance to swap Bepo out of the way and place Jean Bart in the front line, who was the same size as Kuma and was able to stop him with both hands.
"You okay, Bepo?" Shachi shouted.
"He's tough!" He was flexing his paw. The hit he had landed must have hurt.
"He's a Shichibukai, he's supposed to be!"
"I mean his body!"
"Really," Saki muttered, unsheathing her own sword and running at Kuma while he was distracted with Jean Bart.
Penguin had had the same idea, and as she tried to slice at one of Kuma's legs, only to cringe inside when her shiny new sword clashed against him with a metallic sound rebounded, he attacked Kuma from the other side, with Shachi assisting him.
She fell back as she saw them kicking him to no avail. "That's not flesh!" She yelled at them. "I think he's a robot!"
"Let's find out," Law said, and with a sweeping motion with Kikoku, he sliced both of Kuma's arms, which Jean Bart then tossed away. The clean cuts on his arms revealed tissue, metal and wires.
Bepo took the chance to leap at him once more, kicking and punching the open wound directly with electricity. Kuma's movement seemed to falter, and as he opened his mouth, Law cut his neck and flung the head away. The beam came out, but it impacted on a building, and the neck opening showed more of the same that was in the arms.
"Interesting," Law said, picking up one of the cut forearms. "It looks like a cyborg," he said. But he wasn't expecting the beam that came out of the palm of the hand, ripping the glove and nearly hitting him in the process, because this time he did land on his butt when he swapped himself with the other arm.
That stray beam passed by Kuma's body and made a scratch on it, so Bepo gave it another kick there for good measure, and then Law, with one last attack, jumped and drove Kikoku through its center.
The cyborg Kuma stopped, smoking and sparking, and Law's right arm looked kind of stiff when he removed the sword from the body.
"You're telling us there are more of these running around the island?" Shachi said incredulously.
"I've heard the Celestial Dragons talk about experiments," Jean Bart commented. "Half human and half machine. They're called Pacifistas."
"Since when does the government have these?" Law asked.
"I have no idea."
"But why Kuma?" Saki said. "It's weird to make copies of a Shichibukai when you've got the original."
"Dude's big and imposing," Penguin suggested. "It does the job of scaring people."
"I guess," she said, not entirely convinced, but thinking his reasoning made a lot of sense.
Meanwhile, Bepo was sniffing the air, and when Law saw it, he asked, "Any news?"
"A group's approaching. We should go."
"He's right," Jean Bart said. "We're too close to the Marine base."
Law nodded, and they resumed their escape towards the Polar Tang, keeping an eye out for any crewmates that could be on the street. Until the dust settled, Sabaody wasn't safe anymore for them.
Saki ran downstairs to round up everybody, splitting from Shachi and Penguin as they went further down to the boiler room, and she saw Mack coming out of the men's quarters with the World Economic Journal in hand.
"Mack, we need to leave. Is everybody on board?"
"Hm? Yeah, Uni's in the bathroom and the others are in bed. Why?"
"What… It's six! They're still hungover?!"
"Don't shoot the messenger," he replied with a shrug.
Saki took a deep breath and summarized the situation as best as she could. "Straw Hat Luffy punched a Celestial Dragon, an Admiral's on the way, and there are a handful of cyborgs in the shape of a Shichibukai running around the archipelago."
Mack stared at her silently for a beat. "Got it." And throwing the newspaper at her, he turned around, saying, "You should read that," and then kicked the door of the men's quarter's open and yelled, "Everybody up or I'm bringing the pans and pots!"
Saki heard the weak groans and protests, but stopped paying attention the moment she saw the headline of the newspaper's extra issue, and her jaw went slack as the news sunk in.
"Captain!" She yelled immediately, turning around the way she had come and skipping stairs, "Captain!" There's something you should—"
She bumped into Law at the top of the stairs, and since apparently everybody around her had a body built with the consistency of rocks, she just shoved the paper at him as she took a moment to recover from the impact.
"What's going…?" He had begun to say as she handed him the newspaper, and then his eyes set on the headline.
Saki was starting to get used to the square-mouth look.
—
"HQ wants all available units stationed at Marineford in a week. You shouldn't miss it, Marina. For several reasons."
"I know. We're close enough, there shouldn't be a problem to get there in time. I just…" She let the sentence die in her lips, but Curtiss wanted to hear it anyway.
"What is it?"
Her free hand absentmindedly fidgeted with her shirt over the spot where her heart should have been. A nervous habit that she was picking up and should get under control before it was too late. "How are the Enies Lobby survivors dealing with… everything?"
The man grumbled. "Badly. Buster Calls aren't designed for people to 'deal' with."
"We just lost our judicial island to a pirate attack, and with all those men on leave, they're deciding to start a war now? I don't get it."
"We don't need to get it." His reply didn't leave any room for debate. "Orders are orders, and we—"
"—need to trust them to be for the greater good." Curtiss had told her this many times, in and outside of the naval academy. She understood the message, even if she didn't like it. "I know."
"See you in a few days. Take care, Mari."
Marina's guilty thoughts returned to the empty space on her chest. "You too, Rear Admiral."
—
Saki would never be entirely sure of how Jean Bart managed to pass through the door of the Polar Tang. Any of the doors, in fact. The anticipation of him getting stuck in one or bonking his head against the doorframe would never completely go away, even after years of knowing him.
And, seeing as they had only met a few hours ago, the feeling was at full throttle at the moment.
While they made their getaway from Sabaody for the time being, Law took Jean Bart to the sickbay, Mack shut himself in the galley as soon as he was told of the situation, and Saki took his clothes to wash while they tried to find him something else to wear, which didn't look like it was going to happen, since the man was way bigger than Bepo and they didn't have anything that would fit.
While they tumbled in the dryer, she also went on a hunt for the largest clean towels they had so he could at least take a good deserved shower when Law was done with the check up.
When she was done, she took everything upstairs and knocked on the sickbay's door as well as she could with full hands and a pile of fabric obstructing her line of sight. "It's me!" She said.
It was Law who replied. "Come in."
He was checking Jean Bart's blood pressure, who was sitting on a cot, wearing a makeshift hospital gown made with bedsheets.
"I'm sorry, I couldn't find any other clothes that would fit, but here's the ones you were wearing and some fresh towels. I would have left them in the bathroom, but Penguin and Shachi are still hogging the showers."
"You can go now," Law told Jean Bart, and Saki offered the man the clothes and towels when he got up. "The bathroom is downstairs, you can't miss it."
"Not with the two idiots bickering inside," Saki added.
"Thank you," Jean Bart said, and he left the sickbay walking with a little bit of difficulty. Saki assumed he must have been exhausted after all he'd been through.
"No problem!" She replied, her attention fixed on a mark on his back that peeked out from the top of the gown. "Does he have a burn?" She asked Law when Jean Bart was out of sight.
"It's the so-called 'Hoof of the Soaring Dragon,'" he said as he reached into a cabinet and took out a medicine box, checking what was inside. "Can you get the vitamin and iron supplements?"
"Sure," Saki, who had helped tidy up the sickbay more times than she could count, didn't need to be told where to look to find them right away. She went to give them to Law, but he didn't take them, and instead gestured with his head towards the door. "What's that thing?" She asked, waiting near the door for him.
"Celestial Dragons mark their slaves like cattle," he said as he walked out.
Saki followed him on his way to the galley. "What the fuck," she muttered, and then much louder. "What's wrong with them? Who do they think they are?"
"Gods."
"Snot-nosed bastards who run crying to mommy Admiral when someone's mean to them."
"That's what everybody else thinks they are," Law said with a wry smile.
She huffed, but she couldn't deny that the aroma seeping into the mess hall from the galley improved her mood. "How's your arm, by the way?"
He glanced at her. "Hm?"
"You got shocked when you stabbed that fake Kuma, didn't you?"
He paused for a moment mid-step to look at her, but whatever he thought in that fleeting moment, she couldn't tell. "I'm fine. It was only numb for a while."
"Well, you only have one right arm, so take better care of it," she joked.
Saki was then struck by a sudden palm on her back, and so was Law. "Real good advice," Shachi said behind them. "Nights at sea are cold and lonely."
Saki snorted as she held in a bout of laughter and Law drove an elbow back to hit Shachi, though he was smiling anyway, "Shut up."
"Done frolicking in the water?" Saki asked, looking at Shachi and seeing Penguin was there too, grinning.
"We smelled the food," Penguin replied. "Ran into the big guy on the way up. We don't have a bed that size, do we?"
"What do I pay you for?" Law said. "Cobble something together."
Penguin laughed. "At your orders, Captain."
They stopped right at the edge between the galley and the mess hall, because Mack didn't like so many people inside his kitchen and they valued their lives, so Law then took the bottles from Saki and approached Mack to show him something.
"So… what's the plan?" Shachi asked. "We can't go to Fishman Island."
"We'll have to hang near the archipelago until the dust settles," Law replied. "Besides, the newspaper said the execution next week will be broadcasted there. I want to see how it goes."
"…Underwater?" Penguin asked, clearly asking the important questions and hoping for a negative answer.
"We'll be sitting ducks if we stay on the—"
Law's reply was received by a chorus of groans. Even Mack let out a tired breath.
Law opened his mouth to say something, had second thoughts, and just replied, "Yeah, I know, but it will only be a few days, and with the execution coming up, I don't think Marines are going to have a lot of time for us."
"They're really doing it, huh," Mack commented.
"If they're looking for a war, they're gonna have one," Shachi said.
A contemplative silence descended on them, no one quite sure what to say, until Penguin suddenly said, "So. The Auction House."
Saki's and Shachi's eyes glinted, Law couldn't hold back a smirk, and Mack, who hadn't been at the scene but had absolute confidence in everybody's abilities to cook up a disaster, said, "What did you do this time?"
—
Saki had been worried at first that she wouldn't be able to make it to the meeting place to see Nico Robin, but then the newspaper came announcing that the Straw Hats had been given a good beating by Batholomew Kuma and were nowhere to be found, and she traded worry for sulkiness. It didn't say they had been captured, though, so she held onto that. After seeing them in action, she found it hard to believe that they could be removed out of the picture so easily. They would show up again. They had to, because if not, she was going to be very pissed off. What was she supposed to do with the inscription on that rock, should they not? She wasn't a scholar and had no intentions of becoming one.
Aside from the Nico Robin situation, she read that Admiral Kizaru had captured five hundred pirates during his incursion in Sabaody and counted herself lucky to not have run into him, the civilians living in Marineford were getting evacuated to Sabaody, and Shichibukai Jinbei had apparently refused to fight in the coming war and had been sent to Impel Down, though strangely enough, his title hadn't been revoked. Perhaps they were hoping for him to change his mind.
At least Law's prediction about the Marines not paying them attention had become true, and they truly must have had a lot of work, between preparations, all the recently captured pirates and the sunken ships that had been tailing Whitebeard. She had to wonder if any of the other Supernovas had tried to go to Fishman Island right after fleeing the archipelago or if, knowing that a fleet was going through in a matter of days, they had decided to hang back and wait. As for them, they remained at sea for a handful of days, but decided to set course to Sabaody once again a couple days before the execution.
By then, Jean Bart had had some time to get settled in, and while he still was in dire need of new clothes, he looked more relaxed and energetic than when he had joined. He'd been talking to Bepo and Law, since he had navigation skills, and now Bepo could split the shifts at the helm between both of them and Sturgeon. Their furry navigator looked happier and better rested.
Saki was sitting on the lower deck, unwilling to miss the chance of breathing fresh air for the first time in days, and finishing a Sabaody landscape on her sketchbook when Jean Bart showed up. They hadn't seen much in the way of sun in the last few days, and most of the crew was outside, on the main deck.
He sat not too far away from her, silently staring at the sea and the sky for a few minutes, until his gaze fell on Saki.
"Are you drawing?" He asked, and she looked up from her work with a smile and showed him the sketchbook. "Shachi told me you're a tattoo artist."
"Yup. And since I don't have many customers nowadays, I need to practice however I can."
"He said you're from North Blue, too," he continued. "You've come a long way with this crew."
"It'll soon be a year," she commented, and asked, "You want to ask me about the captain of the ship?"
Jean Bart's brow furrowed. "How did you know?"
"Because if I was in your place, I'd like to know more." She spoke from experience.
A few quiet seconds went by as Jean Bart thought his next words. "I thought it'd be best to ask you. You can learn a lot from a captain from how he treats the women on board."
It was Saki's turn to be surprised at his insight. "I hadn't thought about that," she admitted. "Well, it's not like I've been on any other ships, but…" She ran a hand through her hair, trying to remember how it was when she had joined the crew. It felt like a lifetime ago. "Yeah, I wasn't too sold on the idea of being the only woman in the submarine at first. Law's always been fine, though. Everybody, really. I've never had any problems with them. They're good people."
He nodded slowly. "I can tell. I didn't know what to think at first, but…"
Saki hummed. "I don't think Law freed you to make you join the crew. It was probably the other way around," she said, and kept on explaining as she saw Jean Bart's confused expression. "You know, like, asking you to join was the excuse he used to help you out. Don't tell him, but he's kind of a bleeding heart. I think he just didn't want to leave you there." She shrugged, smiling. "And I don't think he'll be against it if you don't want to stay with us. He's not like that."
"It's good to know."
"Are you thinking about leaving?"
He shook his head. "I have nowhere to go. I lost my crew, my ship, and I'm a wanted man. I'd like to repay my debt with the captain."
She smiled. "You're giving me flashbacks from a year ago."
"What do you mean?"
She smiled a little, deciding to keep that to herself. "Things will work out, you'll see. We're an idiot family."
—
Days went by slowly until they were able to head back to Sabaody.
As soon as they docked, this time in the tourist area, some of the guys accompanied Jean Bart to get new clothes, but Penguin and Shachi, specifically, went off on their own, not before telling Saki that they were going to get something and she was going to love it. She was invaded by a mild feeling of dread as they rode away on those rented bubble bike thingies.
"Scary," she whispered. She was holding a cardboard file filled with papers and wondering if it was the right thing to bring them out at all.
Law, who was still hanging around, asked, "What are they up to?"
"No idea," she said, glanced around to make sure nobody was listening, and said, "I need to go to Grove 13. Nico Robin told me to meet her there a few days ago, and I don't think she made it either, but, you know… I'd like to check."
Law noticed the file in her hands. "Is that what you got from the cave?"
She nodded. Bepo and Mack were chatting as they came closer, and she directed a fleeting, uncomfortable glance at them. She didn't mind if they found out what she wanted to do, but she did not want to talk about her parents at the moment. It had been a good day so far, and she wasn't in the mood to recount sad stories.
Law picked up on her discomfort, because he looked at them and said, "Bepo, you go without me today. We need to go somewhere."
"Oh, okay!" He replied, surprised but otherwise looking perfectly fine with it. "Is it alright if I go ask for coating engineers' prices?"
"You'd be doing us a favor."
Bepo beamed at him and told Mack to follow him. Mack just waved at them before going.
"Grove 13, you said?" Law asked.
"Hm-hm. That should be…" She tried to recall the groves' layout. "We're on the opposite side of the archipelago now, right?"
"Yeah. I think it's that way," Law said, pointing deeper into the mangrove forest.
"Not like we can get lost with those numbers painted on the trees," Saki commented happily, and they started to walk to the meeting place.
After a few minutes in companionable silence, simply watching the island as it had gone back to normal, she said. "Thanks for coming with me. I know you have things to do."
He dismissed it. "I don't want anybody going out alone here."
"Well then, thank you for making room in your busy schedule for me."
"That's not what I—I had nothing else going on." He sighed, and she knew that wasn't entirely true, since he still needed to find a coating engineer, so that was probably what made him shift the subject. "You haven't told anybody else yet, have you?"
Her sigh was deeper and way more tired. "It's not the sort of topic you can bring up over coffee, you know? Besides, what am I supposed to say? My dead mom's related to other dead people that were doing things the government didn't like and I found an inscription I can't read?"
Law deadpanned. "Point taken," he conceded, and then saw something unfamiliar from the corner of his eye. "What's that?"
Saki looked in that direction too and saw a few men hammering wooden posts into the ground. "New signposts?"
"I don't think so, they're in the way. Maybe they're for—?"
Saki located the closest vendor, a young woman with pink hair in a ponytail, and went to the stall. It was full of overpriced New World merchandise and, in the deepest recesses of her heart, wanted one of each.
"Excuse me," she asked in a cheery tone. "Do you know what they're building up there?"
"Screens," said the vendor. "They're for the execution's broadcast tomorrow."
Saki's smile froze, and the girl likely thought she didn't know what she meant, because she insisted. "You know Portgas D. Ace was captured, right? It was announced a few days ago."
Law approached them at that moment, and Saki was waiting for him to complain about her skipping off while they were talking, but something on the stall had caught his attention.
"Oh, yes," Saki said, laughing it off with a humorless laughter. "I just thought it may have been something else."
"I guess the Marines are making an example of him," she commented. "Kind of a shame, if you ask me. He's cute, don't you think?"
Saki didn't know what to say, because she had only seen pictures of the man and she wasn't exactly looking for marriage prospects when she went through the bounties of the day. Law's eyes flicked to her briefly, and she was about to agree with the vendor out of politeness when she was interrupted.
"Oh, what am I thinking!" The girl said, hiding a laugh behind a dainty hand. "Don't worry, you don't have to answer. I didn't mean to make things awkward." She said that last line to Law, and while Saki had been a millisecond away from telling her that she had it all wrong, she refrained from doing so when Law was caught completely off guard by the assumption. It had been a while. "Are you interested in anything?" The vendor asked him. "I see you staring at our Red Line coins."
Saki observed the exchange curiously. She saw a range of subtle emotion pass through Law's face, from the initial confusion, to surprise, to… mild embarrassment?
He cleared his throat. "Um, yes. How much are they?"
Saki would swear he was feeling physical pain asking for the price. Which she didn't get.
"Just two thousand belis! They're from a limited series printed earlier this year to commemorate the construction of the Marine base in the archipelago." She smiled brightly at Law. "Do you want one?"
He thought about it for far too long for something he obviously wanted. "…Yes, please."
Saki watched the rest of the transaction quietly, and when they left the stall she had to say something, firstly because she really wanted to, and secondly because Law was expecting a comment and he looked like he was going to explode with pent up tension if she didn't do something soon.
"I don't know what happened there, but it was fascinating," she said, smiling at him.
"Shut up."
"I didn't know you liked coins."
"I don't l…" He sighed. "Don't tell anybody."
Her smile grew. "Do you have a collection? Can I see it?"
"No."
"I'll keep your secret!"
Law, getting redder with every comment, started walking faster because he knew Saki would have to run to keep the pace, and she didn't mind because it had been worth it.
The banter lasted until they reached Grove 13 and they found nothing save a run-down building with a sign that said Shakky's Ripoff Bar.
"That doesn't inspire a lot of confidence," Saki said.
He was looking around, in case they had missed something, to no avail. "Are you sure this is the place?"
"It has to be. There's nowhere else."
The door creaked like the hinges hadn't been oiled in a decade and they entered the bar. It was as empty as the area outside, save for a tall, dark-haired woman behind the counter, who was cleaning a glass while she smoked.
She put the glass down as soon as she saw them and picked up the cigarette between two long, delicate fingers. "Well, look what the cat dragged in." There was a knowing smile on her face. "Robin told me you might show up," she said to Saki.
"Was she here? I couldn't make it after what happened at the Auction House, but—"
The woman raised a hand to make her stop, and Saki's renewed hope fizzled out. "She didn't make it, either. Do you follow the news?"
"Yeah," Saki said, letting the disappointment show. "I figured as much."
"I'm sure she'll be back," the bartender comforted her. "Do you want to leave her a message?"
"Sure." Saki hadn't thought of that, so it took her a bit to come up with something. "Tell her Professor Clover's granddaughter has something for her, no matter when we run into each other."
The last part of the message was the important one. She didn't want Robin to think that she wasn't going to show her what she had because they hadn't been able to meet this once.
"I'll pass it on," she replied with a kind smile. "And by the way," she nodded at Law. "Good job at the Auction House."
"That was mostly Straw Hat-ya."
"Don't be so modest. I'm rooting for the new generation." She chuckled. "Though Luffy comes first, of course."
Saki couldn't blame her, after the show he had put up the other day. "Well, thank you, miss…?"
"Shakky. And I guess it's missus, too."
"I'll remember that," Saki said, nodding. "We'll be going now."
She waved at them. "Safe travels."
They left the bar, and Saki waited for the door to close behind them to let out a long sigh.
"Disappointed?" Law asked.
"But not surprised," she replied.
"There'll be other chances."
"Yeah," she agreed, trying to convince herself. "Sorry to make you come here for nothing."
He knocked on her head and she winced in reflex. "Don't be silly. I wouldn't have if I minded."
She eyed him suspiciously. "Now that's not true."
"Prove it," he said with a smirk.
"I don't need to. You know, I know, that's enough for me."
They didn't pass through Grove 1 on the way back, but the remains of the Auction House were visible from one of the bridges they crossed, and Saki stopped for a moment to look at it.
Same as with the topic of her mother and the others, she hadn't found the moment in the last few days to bring up the subject of Joker. Everybody was in such a good mood with all that was happening and the new addition to the crew that she didn't want to be a downer. But she had to say something, sooner or later, and she figured there was no point on waiting any longer.
"How long have you known?" She asked, eyeing the half-destroyed walls.
"About Joker?"
"Yeah."
"Always," he admitted, and she had expected that answer. She didn't expect what came after, though. "I used to work for him before he was a Shichibukai."
"You…" She saw Law's gaze lost somewhere between the trees. It was clear that he was more inside his thoughts than in the real world, at present. "That was like ten years ago. You had to be a kid."
While she was surprised by it, it was also reassuring that it had been so long ago. She would have felt more conflicted about it if he had been working for the man until recently, and it was a possibility that she had considered with anxiety before. She knew it was selfish, but she didn't want the way she saw him to change. Something in the foundations of the world she had been constructing since she left her home island would crack.
"I joined the Donquixote Family after I escaped Flevance. He was building his empire in North Blue by then. Then something happened and I split from them."
She took it that he meant that someone he had spoken of before. "Was it that person?"
"Hm?"
"The one you want to repay."
"Yeah." The confirmation weighed like a ton of bricks.
"By going against a crime lord endorsed by the World Government," she said.
"And a king," he added.
"A what?" She asked, perplexed.
"Doflamingo's king of a country called Dressrosa."
She hid her face behind both hands. "Where's that even? New World?"
"New World," he confirmed.
She exhaled loudly through her nose. "What a mess."
"It doesn't concern you, anyway," he said, trying to take importance off it. "It's my personal problem, so don't—"
She smacked him on the right arm he should have been more careful with. "How can you be so dense? Of course it concerns me, what happens to you concerns me! Are you aware of how many people care about you, Law?"
He blanked out for a few seconds. "I—I don't know." He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. "In any case, I don't know if I should've told you sooner, but you were already dealing with…" He trailed off when he saw her glaring at him with puffed out her cheeks.
"I don't want your excuses," she retorted. "Liar."
"I didn't lie."
"Lies by omission are still lies," she said, poking his chest with an accusing finger, fully aware that she was a hypocrite and not caring about it. Part of it was childish annoyance that he knew everything about her while he still kept things hidden from her, but also worry that he was going to get in over his head and no one would be able to help if he kept being so secretive. "I know I told you that you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to, but… don't you think this was relevant?"
"I didn't want to worry you unnecessarily."
"It's for me to decide if it's necessary or not."
"It's always necessary for you."
"You!" She exclaimed, indignant. "You're getting on my case for being a worrier?"
They stared at each other for a few seconds, both thinking of a way to keep bickering and realizing at the same time this was a very stupid argument not worth having.
"Gah." Saki shook her head slowly, and then she dove in for a quick, unsolicited hug because she wanted one and felt that the selfishness was justified, given the circumstances. "Why do you have to be so complicated?" She said against his chest.
She felt him freeze up under the touch and was already releasing him, feeling just slightly guilty for making him uncomfortable, when one of his arms wrapped around her back.
"I don't think you have any right to complain on that front," he said, rubbing his thumb on her back in a soothing motion. She wasn't sure who it was meant for.
"We'll find a way. We killed a Shichibukai cyborg the other day, how hard can it be to take down the real deal?" She laughed insincerely.
His chest rumbled with a chuckle, and Saki was torn between melting into the hug and punching him in the solar plexus.
"I'm sure it will go down smoothly." And as he let her go, he said. "By the way, I was thinking…"
She raised a pair of questioning eyebrows at him.
"…Maybe it's about time to fix these," he said, lifting a hand casually.
And even though she should have wanted to punch him even harder, she couldn't help the rush of euphoria that coursed through her body at that simple comment.
—
Saki was back in front of the Polar Tang with Law when she was suddenly ambushed from behind.
"Sorry, Captain!" Shachi said, hooking an arm through hers as Penguin did the same on the other side. "We're stealing her!"
"It won't take long!" Penguin added, and the two dragged her up the gangplank and into the submarine, leaving a very confused Law behind.
"Why am I getting kidnapped?" She asked, agitated and looking back and forth from both guys.
"There's something you've got to see," Penguin said.
They took her to her room, made her sit on the bed as they did the same on each side, and only then they let her go to reach into their boiler suits for something and show it to Saki.
They were two 'Home, sweet home' style ceramic tiles, only they said something else.
The one Shachi was holding had a cute yellow submarine drawn on and said, 'Not a lawless zone.' The other one had a drawing of a frying pan and read, 'Lawless zone.'
Saki was in stitches. "This," she said with wonder, "is art."
"Right?" Penguin said with a grin that went from ear to ear. "This one's for the galley. Do you think Mack will like it?"
"I'm sure he'll love it," she said, wiping tears from her eyes.
"I'm going to install them," Shachi said, picking up Penguin's. "You two, keep him busy, or take him out for a walk or something."
"Leave that to me," Saki replied. "I think I can buy you an hour."
"That's more than enough."
They gave each other a thumbs up and the guys vacated the room, leaving her to wonder as she picked up her supplies how she was going to move every letter one finger without it looking as disastrous as what he already had on them, but Saki loved a good challenge.
—
She was mid-sentence, telling Law in the sickbay her ideas to reshape the letters on his fingers so they could properly spell the word 'DEATH' when he activated his Devil Fruit power and the offending ink… just… floated away with a hand motion, leaving five perfectly clean, if still scarred fingers, to draw on.
The last ten months flashed before eyes in a silent outrage as the ink levitated, taunting, tempting her to stab him in the throat with the needle and leave him there for dead. The first and last images were those of Killer asking if that crime had been perpetrated by her. Somehow, she managed to keep a straight face through the rush of emotion.
Saki didn't have to stare at his face, and didn't want to, to know that he had been looking forward to her reaction for months. Talk about delayed gratification.
"I hope karma gets you one day," she said, deciding that keeping her eyes on his fingers was the best course of action, because if she even saw the slightest ghost of a smirk on his face, she might accidentally drive the needle to the bone.
Her mood got better, though, when a rumble louder than that of her machine and coming from outside made Law ask, "What's that?"
"Oh. Shachi mentioned he wanted to make a couple small repairs while we were here," she said, freehanding the first letter on a thumb and glad that cosmic justice was indeed doing its job. "Don't move, I don't want to botch this."
—
Law noticed the tile at the entrance of the sub as soon as he had to go out. It was on the wall right next to the door, so that had been expected.
He didn't ask who was responsible for it. He had a pretty clear idea who was to blame. Shachi, Penguin and Saki passed the next few hours expecting some kind of retaliation and not getting it, so they stopped coming up with perfectly valid reasons to keep the tile there ('it's true' being one, 'it improves morale', being another) and let their guards down.
Law hadn't seen the one in the galley, though, because as it very accurately said, it was a lawless zone and he didn't have many reasons to go in there. Mack's eyes, however, glinted with deep-seated amusement every time the thing was in his field of vision. He didn't laugh, but the fact he had let Shachi stick the tile on his wall spoke miles about his thoughts on the subject.
Little did they know that Law was waiting to catch the three of them together to act, and that happened some time before they were heading out to watch Ace's execution.
There was no warning as a blue dome swallowed them and Bepo, and after the word 'Shambles,' Saki knew something was terribly wrong for three reasons.
One, she was in a different spot without having moved.
Two, she felt much, much taller.
And three, she was looking at herself with a very confused expression right in front of herself.
Penguin screeched to her side.
"Sorry, Bepo, collateral damage," Law said. "It's temporary."
"Why?!" Penguin yelled in anguish, only he didn't sound like Penguin at all.
Saki looked at her hands and to be faced with two white paws, and her jaw dropped as she turned to Law. "What have you done?"
She immediately covered her mouth, because the sound she made was not her voice. It reverberated like it came from the deepest pits of hell.
"Payback," he said with a smug smirk.
Penguin was the most calm of the four, because he had just taken off Shachi's sunglasses and was looking around him, awed. "Wow, Shachi, you really can't see shit."
Meanwhile, Shachi, who was currently occupying Saki's body, was having a lot of trouble keeping his balance. "Holy shit, how do you walk in these? No wonder you're always tripping!"
"Do I sound like that?" Saki gasped, horrified. "That's not my voice. I can't sound like that."
"Captain, it's just a well-meaning joke, honest!" Shachi said.
"Oh, don't take this the wrong way," Law said, oozing satisfaction from every pore. "I needed someone to try this technique on, and you looked like volunteers."
"You could've asked!"
"Why bother? I was going to do it anyway."
Bepo was paralyzed, looking at Penguin's body in horror.
"It wasn't even my idea," Saki said, mumbling to herself, and the sound was so foreign that it did nothing to help. "I didn't know what they wanted to do." And she dropped on the floor, curled into a ball and hid her face with her paws.
"That'll teach you to watch your mouth." He shrugged. "You'll have to bear with it for a while. I'll be back."
Four glares were directed at Law as he made his way back inside.
"Did you just—?!"
He didn't reply, but nevertheless, four very clumsy pirates rushed after him, but when they managed to squeezed through the door he had vanished and only a book remained in the middle of the hallway.
The tile hung on the wall to their side, overlooking the scene it had inadvertently caused.
"Wait until he finds out about the one in the galley," Penguin said.
"I can't believe he'd do this to me," Bepo said with a cracking voice, and headed down with decisiveness and also very wobbly steps. "This is all your fault!" He cried out at them before disappearing downstairs.
The other three looked at each other in a panic and ran after him, crying out for forgiveness, and Saki picked up Shachi and carried him under her arm, just in case he twisted an ankle while he was in her body.
The ruckus drew the attention of the rest of the crew, and not a minute had passed by the time the four of them were knocking on Law's door and pleading while the rest of the crew laughed at them. Saki knew her dignity was dead, buried and irretrievable when she caught Mack wiping a tear off the corner of his eye.