Here we are again. I apologize in advance if there are more mistakes than usual in this one, because I haven't done as much editing as usual. Right now I'm caught in a combination of bad health and con crunch, so writing time has been scarce. The convention's at the end of this month, and while I have some of chapter 31 written, I wouldn't expect to have it finished before November. Anyway, I'll go back and make edits to this one sometime later, but I didn't want to postpone the update further. I'll be replying to signed reviews later too, because I don't think I can put together a coherent message as I am at the moment, and it's the least you deserve.
On another news, Tumblr user fahdza drew Saki, you can check it out on my blog (you can find the link on my profile)! I really need to put in order all the gorgeous fanart you guys send me so everybody can enjoy it.
Oh, and Three Houses was great. Golden Deer for life.
Jag: You're going to see soon!
Hyphen: I have to admit I'm grateful that none of the main characters had an attachment to the war's casualties, because yeah, that part is emotionally wrecking in canon. Also, Bepo knows.
30. Somewhere over the rainbow…
(And if you avoid the puddles in your way you haven't been there either)
The weeks following the Heart Pirates' departure from Amazon Lily were tense on a global scale. The Marines' presence in the Grand Line had increased tenfold, and though it begged the question of how many people the war had left out of commission and who was left to help rebuild Marineford, they were forced to travel most of the way to the next island underwater, surfacing only during brief periods of time and diving at the slightest indication that other ships could be nearby. Being so close to the Calm Belt also meant that there was an abundance of sea kings and they couldn't rush to get out of the area, or risk attracting too much attention from the underwater dwellers.
On the rare occasions they sailed normally, everybody was ready for an emergency to break out at any given moment, so nobody batted an eyelash when Bepo announced that an unidentified object was fast approaching.
Law was already on the deck by the time Saki reached the stairs, accompanied by Bepo and Mack, and to nobody's surprise, they realized the imminent threat was a sea king.
It was in little instances like this, where the presence of a monster that haunted every sailor's nightmares was a relief compared to what they could have stumbled onto, that Saki wondered how exactly her life had taken such a weird turn.
"Do you know how to cook that?" Law asked Mack, glancing at him over his shoulder.
Mack huffed, but he sounded amused. "Who do you take me for?"
Law ran to the prow and summoned his Room – bigger than the one he had used in Sabaody, Saki noticed – which just barely enveloped the sea king, lifted it in the air and cut it in half. He let one of the halves fall on the deck, and since his cut hadn't done any damage and the beast was thrashing, kicked it with Electro and fried it.
The sea king stopped moving, and then Law cut it again and someone came flailing out of it.
It was a young guy's middle half, and the bottom part of his body was missing somewhere inside the sea king. He wasn't feeling too well.
"Oh my God," he blurted out, covered in bodily fluids. "Oh my God, I'm dead. I died."
"You did not," Law deadpanned.
For a person who looked so green, he was quick to snap. "I got swallowed and electrocuted and—" He didn't finish the sentence because he started coughing up a lung.
"Buddy, you're still breathing," Saki replied, unsure if he could hear her.
"Sorry about the electricity, by the way," Bepo chimed in.
Mack, always a man of action, simply sighed and reached into the sea king. Saki winced as he pulled out effortlessly the missing half of the guy by the belt of his pants.
When he stopped coughing, Bepo reassembled the legs and the torso, though the guy was too dazed to realize what was going on, and asked, "What were you doing there?"
"My… my ship was attacked when…" He went silent, staring blankly at Bepo, and all of a sudden he freaked out again, "YOU'RE A BEAR!?"
"Y-yes?" Bepo said, taking a step back.
"Do you need water, or something?" Saki asked. He had trouble focusing his eyes and seemed to be having trouble breathing, but she guessed that was only natural, given where he had come out.
He stared at everybody, bug-eyed. "Is that a trick question?"
"I'll go get some water."
Saki made the trip last longer than it had to by wasting time admiring the tile in the kitchen, but since she didn't want anybody to think she had gotten lost in her way to retrieve a glass of water, the guy that had fallen out of the sea king hadn't finished gathering his bearings when she got outside again, but he appeared to be calmer. Law was already checking out his eyes and giving him a curious look. It was that face he made when he was interested in something, and everybody in the crew knew better than not to get the hell out of dodge when that stare was directed at them. Sadly, his soon to be victim was none the wiser.
She gave him the glass and kept her distance afterwards, since there were already a lot of people doing the talking, and in truth, she did not appreciate the sudden irruption of a newcomer on board. Did that make her a hypocrite when she had been wishing to go somewhere and have something interesting happen since Amazon Lily? Probably, but she didn't care.
"You-you don't know w-where you're going?" The guy spluttered before taking a gulp.
The others looked at Bepo, who shrugged. "We're just following the Log Pose."
"Following…" He struggled to repeat. "Where are you coming from…?"
There was a beat of silence before Bepo said, "The Calm Belt."
"Oh no. Oh no oh no oh—"
Mack, considerably fed up with the circular conversation, picked up a piece of sea king and started carrying it inside, and Saki almost followed him, but decided agains it at the last moment and instead sat down next to the door, legs crossed, waiting for someone to figure out what the guy's deal was.
He had started to hyperventilate. "You can't go to Pavis," he wheezed.
"Calm down—" Bepo tried, but he wasn't listening.
"I'm not going back," he managed to say, even more strained than before. "I'm not—"
And then, he passed out, leaving everybody on the deck to wonder what the in the blazes had just happened before Law asked them to help carry him to the sickbay.
—
They made land in the middle of a starless night, the dim moonlight barely filtering through an overcast sky. Bepo had warned them that they could get caught in a storm as they reached the island, but thankfully that hadn't come to pass, and they were able to dock safely at a port town. If they had to trust their unconscious' guest judgement, the name of the island was Pavis and something terrible was going on, but it was difficult to see any signs of the latter.
Bepo and Saki disembarked briefly to secure the Polar Tang to a bollard, and with no one else in sight, the port town had a slightly eerie feeling, no doubt amplified by what they had been told before.
"Do you see anybody? Or hear anybody?" Saki asked Bepo after scanning their surroundings to no avail.
"No one nearby." He was also looking around for movement. "It's late. They're probably sleeping."
Saki didn't say that that didn't explain why there was absolutely nobody working at the docks when there were a fair amount of ships around them. They hadn't arrived to a tiny village, she could tell from the deck of the submarine, seeing how far the flames of the streetlamps extended. It was odd, though not remarkable enough to sound any alarms.
But Bepo knew that, and there wasn't much point to dwell in it while they had no means of finding out if something strange was going on, so they boarded the sub again, ready to go to bed and get some sleep before they had to figure out if the world was going to come crashing down around them this time as well.
On the other hand, Law had been locked inside the sickbay for most of the day with the guy that had passed out, only to come out for a moment around dinner and tell everybody not to barge into the sickbay unannounced. It had been hours since then, and Saki was worried that he'd fallen asleep on the counter again, so when Bepo headed downstairs, she tiptoed to the sickbay and knocked on the door, expecting to be ignored.
There was some shuffling inside, and Saki recognized the sound of latex gloves snapping right before Law cracked the door open.
"We've docked safely, there's a big town outside," she said, and noticed Law wasn't looking too well. "How's it going?"
"Badly," he said point blank. He sounded frustrated. "We shouldn't have picked him up."
Saki frowned. "Is it serious?"
"Could be," he said, opening the door the rest of the way to let her in, "Is anybody else up?"
"No, Bepo just went to sleep. I was on my way too." She looked at the cots and saw that there was a ball of rolled sheets on top of one, but no other trace of the guy. "Where is he?"
"In the operating room. It's easier to clean, and whatever he has will be easier to contain."
That sounded pretty bad. "So it wasn't dehydration," she stated.
"Not just dehydration. He has a high fever and swollen lymph nodes, among other things. It looks like plague, but it'll take a couple days to…" He trailed off when he saw Saki's alarmed face. "I know for sure it isn't pneumonic. He'd be dead already if that was the case."
She could tell that he had tried to be reassuring and failed. "I hope you know that I have no clue what you mean by that."
"Right." He closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath, as if to reorganize his thoughts. He looked exhausted. "It shouldn't be contagious unless you come in direct contact with infected tissue," he translated. "…Which is why I need those sheets dunked in bleach, just in case. Is there any around?"
"Oh! Okay, that sounds better." Not great, but she trusted Law to manage the situation. "I'll get it right away, there should be some in the laundry room."
"Weren't you going to bed?"
"You look like you're going to trip over your own feet if you try to haul anything in here." She regarded him with suspicion. "You aren't getting sick too, are you?"
He snorted. "Get the bleach and get out."
"You're welcome," she said, before skipping out and leaving him to his own devices.
—
"This town is so fishy." She declared a few hours later. "I don't like it. Last time we were in a fishy place it went up in flames."
It was almost noon. From the main deck, Saki and Jean Bart looked stared at the surprisingly quiet docks. Or, well, he had been staring ahead until she said that.
"We had nothing to do with it, for the record," she added quickly.
He didn't reply, instead choosing to cast a glance at the grey sky. Storm clouds hung strangely low above them, casting a shadow over the entire town and hiding something curious from view. In the far distance, opposite to the port, there was a mountain peppered with fortifications and a handful of buildings, but the top was completely obscured by the clouds.
"Murky weather," Jean Bart commented.
"Murky everything," Saki added. The town wasn't very clean, from what they could see, and even the waterside was a dark blue turned to brown. She assumed there was a river around that had pushed all kinds of trash to the sea after a storm, because the other option was that the water was simply this filthy and Saki tried to be a positive person. "I hope the people are nice, at least."
"We'll see soon."
She leaned her back against the railing and rested her elbows on top of it just in time to see the door open and Mack come out. He glanced at them with a small nod and ignored their presence in favor of the view.
"How quaint," he said insincerely, and then, "I just spoke to Captain and he says we can go out anytime we want. He looks like he's about ready to jump into the harbor."
"He'll pass once he sees the color of the water," Saki replied.
"Is this about the man we rescued?" Jean Bart asked.
"Mm-hm. He's not getting any better. Not worse, either, but…"
"Last night he thought it was plague."
Mack shrugged. "Maybe he's too far gone?"
On cue, the door opened with a harsh swing and out came Law, making an unintentional dramatic entrance, or rather, exit. Saki thought that Mack's description hadn't been an exaggeration, and when he also leaned on a railing she had to fight the impulse of pulling him back to the middle of the deck, just in case. "He's not," he explained, "but not for long."
"Treatment isn't working?" Saki asked.
"He should've shown some improvement by now, but antibiotics don't seem to be helping. I'm trying different ones. One has to work," he said, though Saki had the feeling he was trying to convince himself more than them. The rest became a ranty mumble. "It's not septicemic, and it's not pneumonic, so I've got extra time to try, and as soon as the blood culture is done I'll know what exactly I'm dealing with. I'm also running susceptibility tests so I don't have to cycle antibiotics until something random works, but those take a full day and in the meantime—"
Saki, Jean Bart and Mack looked at each other for a brief moment while Law went on in the background.
"Captain, you're thinking out loud," Mack said. And he sounded concerned, which wasn't something that happened every day.
Law looked at him, startled, like he had forgotten they were there. "Right."
"You need to sleep."
"I don't, and I can't—"
Saki moved from her spot with a sigh, grabbed him by the hood with a hand and started to drag him towards the door. "You need a coffee. We can argue the rest later."
It was a testament to how tired Law was that he didn't even attempt to oppose any resistance, and followed her dutifully.
Behind them, Jean Bart and Mack just exchanged another silent, concerned look.
—
Out of all the things she could have been doing at the moment, Saki would have liked nothing better than to set foot on land, stretch her legs, get some fresh air and maybe find out if there was something going on out there or people were just hiding from the clouds. On the other hand, she knew Law well enough to fear for his physical integrity if he was left alone any longer, because it wouldn't be the first time he overdid it and fell asleep in a random place of the submarine, and after a lot of convincing from her and Bepo – whom she had called as reinforcements, with full intention to weaponize his puppy eyes against the captain – the stubborn, stubborn man consented to take a nap as long as he didn't have to leave the sickbay and somebody kept an eye on the patient to warn him should anything happen. Saki accepted those terms if only to make him shut up and lie down, but the real subject under surveillance was Law, not the other guy. Even Bepo had, before leaving, given Saki explicit permission to use violence if he tried anything funny, and Saki was eternally grateful for that open display of trust. Would she have trusted herself not to maim him? Who knew? But she couldn't disappoint Bepo now, so she would not entertain the thought.
And that was how she ended up huddled on a chair in the sickbay, knees to her chest because she couldn't sit like a normal person for any prolonged periods of time. She had one of Hilda's battered books in her hands and a blanket over her shoulders while she kept an ear trained on the machines beeping next door and the other in Law's general direction.
It was a bit cold, the kind of humid chill that you didn't pay much attention to at first, but seeped into the bones after a while. A couple hours had passed since the others had left, and she couldn't even resent the workaholic dumbass for having to stay behind. She didn't question why she couldn't, of course, she just didn't have it in her and wasn't much of a soul-searcher, anyway, and giving it any further thought might have taken her down a path best left untrodden. Besides, faulting him for wanting to help someone would reek of hypocrisy coming from her, even if he was doing it mainly to prove to himself that he could. Just mainly, though. There was a tiny bit of room for human empathy there, as much as he disliked it.
As if prompted to defend himself from such preposterous mental accusations leveled against his person, Law stirred, but then Saki noticed the footsteps coming down from the deck and so didn't worry for long that his Devil Fruit had somehow got more overpowered and given him mindreading powers.
He rubbed his eyes lazily, glancing at first towards the half open door of the surgery room before looking at Saki. "How's the book?"
She hadn't expected the question. She also just then noticed that she had spent an embarrassing amount of time staring at a sleeping Law while she was lost in thoughts and completely forgotten about the novel. Maybe she needed a nap, too.
"It's okay to kill time," she said, giving the cover a quick glance. It was a cheap paperback with dog-eared corners that she had tried to flatten between the history encyclopedia tomes without much success. "I don't think you'd like it, though."
"What's it about?"
"It's a swashbuckling romance. Hilariously written in a bad way."
"…That's a genre that exists?"
She smiled at his confusion. "You'd be surprised."
Law was going to say something else, maybe a detailed critique on the inanity of such themes, when Shachi and Penguin irrupted in the room.
"Oh, good thing you're awake," Shachi said as soon as he set his eye son Law. "We didn't want to fight her to get to you."
"I'm right here, jerk," said Saki, only to be promptly ignored.
"We've got good news and bad news. Which ones to do want first?"
"The good," Law said without thinking. He sounded like he didn't want to hear the rest and was just trying to hold onto any tiny ray of light that would make it worth it to not turn around and keep sleeping.
"Okay—"
"Wait, no," Shachi interrupted him. "The good doesn't make sense without knowing the bad."
"Crap. Oh well," Penguin replied, quickly changing his tune. "There's an epidemic going on in the island and the symptoms match our guy's."
Law rolled his eyes, looked at the ceiling and took a deep breath all at once.
"But!" Shachi added quickly, before he could create a room and yeet himself out of the submarine. "Most people aren't dropping dead. Here. Yet."
When Law's expression didn't get much better, Penguin explained, "It hasn't hit this town yet. The worst is happening away from here."
Law exhaled, weary, but much less tense. "Is it plague?"
"They don't know."
"How the fuck—" Law started, cutting the outburst short to compose himself. "Isn't there a single competent doctor in this island?"
"Don't shot the messengers, Captain," Shachi complained.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sorry."
"You should go out and find out yourself," Penguin suggested. "You'll know what to ask for, for starters."
"But the pa—"
"Screw him," Saki intervened. "You're doing all that you can, but you won't be able to help if you run yourself ragged, and you need more info. If he dies while you're out, tough luck. We all have shit days." Law himself, for example.
"What she said," Shachi agreed. "And if you know what's good for you, you'll go out before we call for Bepo."
Law scowled, but they were so used to it that everybody was unfazed. "You wouldn't—"
"We have before and we will," Penguin threatened. "And you know he can carry you even if you're resisting."
"Fine," he said petulantly, getting up from the bed and adding when three pairs of eyes followed his every step. "I'll take a shower and go out." And he mumbled something that sounded like 'mutinous bastards' as he slammed the door.
Three other three smiled proudly at each other.
"Who's boss now?" Penguin said in the door's direction.
Shachi was nodding to himself with satisfaction. "We've gotten pretty good at this."
"Bepo will be so proud of us," Saki commented, thumbing idly through the book's pages. "The sub is practically ours."
—
After weeks of wrangling paperwork and chasing stragglers near the Sabaody Archipelago, thing were starting to go back to a tentative normal for Marina. While headquarters was in ruins and would need to be rebuilt from the bottom up, along with the town to rehouse the families that had lost their homes to the war, that was up to other people.
War of the Best, they were calling it. Marina didn't think any side had done much to be proud of, but the name looked like it was going to stick like a coat of paint to hide the grime beneath.
In any case, Marines and civilians alike had hurried to start the reconstruction work, and if rumors were to be believed, it seemed like the new headquarters and G-1 were to switch locations on each side of the Grand Line. It would be a message from the World Government to the pirates that Whitebeard wasn't there to keep the balance of power any longer and that they were keeping a closer eye on them than ever.
More than once in the last few days, her mind had wandered back to the North Blue town that had fallen to the flames, and she understood the difference of magnitude between Asteria and the Marineford, obviously, but it made her think that Marines were much quicker to help themselves than the populace they were sworn to serve, and that didn't sit well with her. Marina had never been one for politics. She saw what had to be done and got to it if she had the power to do so. Any other considerations sounded like weak excuses from her point of view.
The memories of Asteria's remains also brought her back to the fight with that woman of the Heart Pirates, and she realized that she could just as easily have died in her hometown had she not become a pirate in time, and that streak of luck had somehow turned her into someone her Marina's own brother was willing to risk his life for. She didn't want to dwell on it, it served no purpose, but she knew her Mack, angry as she was at him, and he was never a person to throw his lot in with someone he didn't think deserved it, and the latest information the government's intelligence networks had dug up on Lucky Clover Saki, which accounted for her most recent bounty raise, had made Marina fear for her brother's safety.
Marina would have gladly never spent another minute of her life dwelling on that pirate crew, but her own missing heart and the whispers about her after they appeared with their submarine in the middle of the war to steal away Straw Hat Luffy didn't grant her that luxury. Some had even gone as far as to suggest she had somehow collaborated with the pirates to allow their side access to the Tarai current, as absurd as that was, and Flagel had been all too happy to spread that theory. Curtiss' vehement defense of her had cleared the air for the time being, at least within their earshot, but Marina wasn't naïve enough to relax yet, in some part because she wasn't a lucky person overall, and she had been assigned as Flagel's backup during a brief stop he had to make at the island of Pavis.
The government had gotten word of an epidemic while the preparations for the war were underway, having received a request for help from the royal family before it spread too far, but weeks had gone by and nobody was sure what the current situation was. Their job was to listen and look around to get an accurate idea of how grave the situation was, then send for help. Worst case scenario, they'd have to quarantine the island and let them deal with the outbreak alone, but she was really hoping it didn't come to that.
It was a nice change of pace after the battle of Marineford and its fallout, and her only complaint was that she'd have to put up with that unrestrained dickwad for the duration of the mission, who had not shut up since his promotion, but then it was back to her base with her soldiers.
"Captain?" Someone asked tentatively. Phillip was at her door, smiling. "We'll reach land in half an hour. We're trying to get there before the storm breaks, but the wind is blowing strong, so we may have some rough sailing.
"Thank you. Tell the helmsman not to rush it, it's not worth the risk. Get ready to disembark as soon as we're safely docked."
"Yes, ma'am!"
She waited until he was gone to follow after him and walk to the front deck. The wind was indeed buffeting the sails and the flags of the Navy and the World Government at the top of the mast.
Although there were several port towns along the coast, they had been instructed to go towards a steep cliff that met the sea. There was a restricted port down there, and at the top of the mountain, the castle with its surrounding town, but those were hidden by low-hanging, dense rainclouds that completely obscured the vision from below.
—
Saki pretended to be entranced by the curtain on rain on the other side of the window while she listened to the ongoing conversation at her side. After finally getting Law out in the sun, not that there was much of that going on, and a cursory search through the town, they had found a doctor, a small wrinkly man that was terrified when he saw Law at his door, but changed his tune to positively elated when he learned that he was a fellow doctor.
"I'm a general practitioner, for goodness' sake," he told them over tea. He had immediately herded them to his office, sat them down near an unlit fireplace and proceeded to bend Law's ear while Saki played third wheel. "I don't have any lab equipment. The people who can use that are up in the castle town."
"There aren't any other doctors in town?"
"Oh, there are a few of us all right, but the ones who could help got summoned by the king to coordinate the research. You won't be able to talk to them, though. The gates are closed to stop the spread of the disease."
"I see," he said, considering something. "Is that castle town very far?"
The doctor craned his neck to look through the window. "Ah, right, it's hidden now. It's at the top of the mountain at the far end of the town. You'll see it when the sky clears. Can't miss it, can't enter."
"How long has it been closed off?"
"About three weeks. We haven't had any news from the team, so we have to assume that they are still as lost as the rest of us."
At the ensuing silence, Saki turned to look at the pair. Law had sunk in his seat, and she could almost hear his mind calculating if it'd be worth to sneak into the castle town and how to do it, but he changed the subject when he next spoke.
"I'm running tests at the ship. I should have something by tomorrow."
A smile spread on the doctor's face. "That is wonderful news, my friend." Saki had to swallow an amused snort at that last part. She knew the situation was serious, but the way the doctor had warmed up to Law so quickly was endearing. "You wouldn't have happened to find any antibiotic that works?"
"Nothing so far. I've tried streptomycin and gentamicin."
"Those were our first bet too. Aminoglycosides don't work," the doctor replied, "And you can add chloramphenicol and ciprofloxacin to the list. Are you taking anything?"
Ah, yes, this was the point of the conversation where Saki got completely lost.
"Tetracyclines," Law replied.
"Drop them. We had a doctor and two nurses contract the disease while they were on them."
"Then what are you using?"
"At this point, we're just trying to keep the fever down and wait it out. Around half the patients make it through."
Saki's thoughts idly wandered to the medical appointments she'd been dragged to through her childhood, with her sitting to the side while her parents and whatever doctor was taking a look at her this time discussed things with a lot of big words she didn't understand and nobody bothered to explain to her afterwards, which wouldn't have been all that remarkable if her mom didn't have an uncontrollable drive to fill Saki's head with all the knowledge she could stuff in there. She never missed an opportunity to teach her things, but she supposed she made an exception with this topic to not worry her. So all in all, Saki was very used to people talking to each other like she wasn't in the room, though at least in this case she was old enough to catch the gist of the conversation, and they weren't talking about her.
"Our best bet is that we've found a resistant strain," she heard the man say when they stopped throwing around words that escaped her. "Ships come and go all the time, so they probably brought it from somewhere else, and we haven't been able to pinpoint the origin so far. You'd do well to leave as soon as you can," he recommended Law.
"It's still a few days until the Log Pose sets and I have a patient on board," Law said, and though he sounded detached on the surface, Saki thought she could detect a hint of worry in there. Or maybe it was her imagination projecting, because she knew him well enough to know that he wasn't impervious to the situation. "Might as well see what I can dig up while we're here."
"Of course," the man said, shrugging. "You wouldn't be a very good doctor if you could just ignore sick people, would you?"
Saki snuck a glance at the odd doctor with a smile tugging at her lips, and the lull in the conversation that his comment had prompted – she knew Law was holding back from saying he did not care about that – gave her an opportunity to toss out a question that had been in her mind for a few minutes. "I'm sure that you've considered it already, but what if it isn't a bacterial infection?"
Both men looked at her, and Law had his mouth open to reply when the other doctor said, startled, "I haven't."
Which returned Law's attention to him. "You haven't?" He said incredulously, which meant he had, which also made Saki feel better for not asking something completely stupid.
"The symptoms are so by the book," the doctor replied. "The only thing that doesn't match is that the usual treatments are ineffective. But if your tests say otherwise, please let me know. I'd love to have an idea of what to do before the disease gets here."
The reunion didn't last long after that, since a patient arrived at a point in time where the rain was heavier than ever, and the doctor, taking pity on them, gave them a flimsy umbrella somebody had forgotten in the waiting room. The cornice right above the door was the only thing saving them from an untimely watery demise when they stepped out.
"To answer your earlier question," Law said as he glared at the rainclouds, "it'd be worse if we were dealing with a virus."
"You can't take the spaghetti approach with those, right?" She continued when Law stared at her in silent confusion. "Toss medicines at the virus' proverbial wall until one sticks."
"Yeah. Too many different spaghetti to fling at it."
"Mack would be very annoyed by the waste."
"I don't even know if I have the correct spaghetti or want to try with all of them," he replied.
Saki was fascinated that he was still going along with the pasta. "I suppose you'd want to save some, just in case."
"Not just that. The human body can only take so much in such a short time. I can't toss every spaghetti at it."
Saki hummed. "Death by spaghetti doesn't sound like something you'd want on your resume."
Law took a deep breath. He looked more relaxed than he had been the rest of the day. That was something. "How did you make it sound this ridiculous?"
"Don't give me all the credit. I put the metaphor out there and you ran with it." She looked at him, trying to keep a straight face and a concerned tone. "You can't be serious all the time."
"With you— I can't be serious with any of you half the time."
Saki had the feeling he had been about to say something else but course-corrected mid-sentence. "You don't want to be serious all the time, either."
The rain wasn't relenting, and the chill was getting to her. Her eyes scanned the street until they found an awning and a pub sign not too far away, on the other side of the street, and she thought that was their best bet until they could take the longer walk to the sub. The last thing they needed was to get sick, too.
"Hey," she interjected all of a sudden, "I have a question."
"Why do I have a feeling I won't like it?"
"You're awfully cranky today, Mr. Chuckles."
"What did you just—"
"If you get soaked in rain or snow, do you drop like a brick, too?
He stared at her blankly, caught off guard, then at the rain. "I can force myself to move as long as I'm not submerged."
"Think you can run there, then?" She said, pointing at the pub.
"I have a better idea."
Without any warning, he summoned his room grabbed Saki by the shoulders with an arm, and switched them with an abandoned bottle in front of the bar's entrance.
"I never remember you can do this," she said as he let go and held the door open for her, not to be courteous, but smug. The smirk on his face betrayed his intentions.
"You're welcome."
She stepped inside, and as soon as she did, she saw a familiar face. "Oh, look, that's—" A glass came flying in her direction, "—Jean Bart."
If somebody had told Saki that the entirety of the town's population was stuffed inside that pub, she would've believed it. There were many people inside and all of them very loud, and it made her a little nostalgic of North Blue, a feeling she stomped on as soon as it surfaced because things could get depressing quick if she let herself go down memory lane.
As swiftly as they were able to, which wasn't much at all, they carved a path through the patrons and between the tables to reach Jean Bart, who was sitting with some of the other guys that she hadn't seen before because there was a crowd blocking her vision and the world's physics clearly had something against short people.
"Captaaain!" Uni slurred with open arms when they entered his field of vision. His mask was tilted. "You're alive!"
Law rolled his eyes in response, but nonetheless pulled an empty chair from another table and sat down with him. Saki found some free space on the bench Jean Bart was occupying and sat next to him. She couldn't have asked for a better spot, because it let her have her back facing the wall instead the rest of the room, and having someone so big nearby guaranteed that attention never lingered much on her. Her gaze flitted from patron to patron without meaning to. It was ingrained in her.
Jean Bart's gruff voice distracted her from her reconnaissance mission. "Hiding from the rain?"
"Yeah. We were talking to a local doctor just a moment ago. Well, he was doing all the talking," she said, motioning towards Law, "I was just sitting pretty."
"That's okay," Jean Bart grunted. "He shouldn't be out and about alone."
She considered what he meant for a moment. "I guess he's a pretty big fish for regular standards now, isn't he?"
It was weird to think of Law as someone famous. She didn't feel like he, or anybody else in the crew, for that matter, had really changed since she had met them, and she didn't think they had done anything all that impressive. Sure the Marineford incursion had been flashy, but their survival had come down to dumb luck. She'd have to thank Red Hair Shanks for that one if she ever met him.
"Our association with him makes us all notorious," Jean Bart replied. "We'd better watch our backs from now on. What we pulled off during the war was no laughing matter."
"We must've pissed off a lot of important people," Saki said in agreement, thinking back on the incident, and she grinned at the memory. "That catch you made was awesome. Way to broadcast your return to piracy to the whole world."
He grinned back at her, and if he was going to say something, she would never know, because then the voices around a nearby table started to rise and somebody shouted drunkenly, 'Crespo's right!'
They looked at the guy only for a second, and before an argument broke out, Saki decided to fill in Jean Bart with what they knew. "The sick guy at the sub was in this island, definitely," she said quietly, not that anybody seemed to be paying them any mind with the ruckus in the background. "There's a disease making the rounds in the island, and it looks like plague, but nobody knows what to do about it."
"We've overheard something like that," he replied as the conversation at the nearest table got heated again. "Are we in any real danger?"
"It hasn't reached this town yet, but who knows." She took a glance at the room. "Maybe we should avoid places this busy to be safe."
"We storm the fucking castle like he said!" The drunk from before yelled.
That did get Saki's full attention, and Jean Bart's, and half the pub's too. The conversation on that table and the surroundings ones instantly died and was replaced by glasses and tankards slamming against wood. Someone smacked the loudmouth over the head and several others yelled at him to shut the fuck up, like a bunch of guilty people were wont to do when they had almost been caught red handed. When the moment passed, conversation resumed like nothing had happened, but Saki caught a man staring in her crewmate's general direction for longer than necessary.
"That was interesting and not our problem," Saki said, and then she stole a spicy potato from a plate near Sturgeon. "Anyway," she said to Jean Bart while she chewed on it, "Captain will want to head back as soon as the rain lets up a little. Keep an eye out if you hang out any longer, every clue helps."
"Got it."
Saki hoped the storm would keep up for a while, though, when she saw cracking a smile at something Sturgeon had just told him. The break would do him some good before he absolutely had to get back to work, and if the patient did die in the meantime, well… as far as she was concerned, the tradeoff was totally worth it.
—
The white tiled floor of the palace's terrace gleamed gold with inlay under the obnoxiously shiny sun, considering the overcast sky the rest of the island was having, but that didn't extend to the castle town that towered above the clouds. Marina assumed she would have a privileged panoramic of the entire island if the weather had been more agreeable, but she couldn't deny that the current one, a sea of dark clouds, was impressive too. A shame that she had to put up with a rambling idiot behind her, marring what would have been a perfectly peaceful moment.
"I understand that we lost much needed manpower at the moment and our superiors have better things to do, but so do I. I cannot fathom why they'd send me here to waste my time instead of making me deal with something relevant – then again, if we're meeting royalty, I suppose it could be taken as an insult to send a mere captain, wouldn't you agree?"
"Absolutely," she replied tiredly, and she could tell he was surprised that she hadn't taken the bait to antagonize him. Or so he thought. "I would agree to mostly anything as long as it got you to shut up, though, so don't put much stock in my opinion."
His shoulders went stiff as a board and his eyes widened at the offense, and she was disappointed that he was the kind of man who thought himself above physical violence over petty squabbles, because she would have been overjoyed for an excuse to deck him in self-defense. Instead, though, he looked ready to go on another tirade.
Stars aligned and threw some mercy her way, though, as two people mercifully made their entrance onto the terrace, grabbing Flagel's full attention. The man had an amazing nose to detect who to suck up to, and the crown sitting on the man walking at the front left no doubt as to whom he was.
The king must have been in his sixties. He had shoulder length hair, not yet completely lost to white, and a moustache to match, and he wore a dark tunic with a purple cape. In Marina's experience, it seemed like a duty of royalty to flaunt wealth in detriment of practicality, considering that shirts and pants existed in their timeline. Then again, she supposed those were only really useful for working people, so it followed that nobility wouldn't be too familiar with the concept.
"Your Majesty," Flagel said with a bow, and Marina replicated the gesture before approaching them in silence. He was very willing to do all the talking. "It's a pleasure to be in your presence. I am—"
"I am well aware," the king replied gravely, making Marina realize that she wasn't the only one not in the mood to hear Flagel's platitudes. "I had my doubts that you would actually come, but I am ever so glad that the government saw fit to hear us out."
"But of course. We could not leave a fellow ally to his luck."
Marina eyed the other newcomer. He was a man in his twenties, maybe early thirties, dressed also in a tunic. He looked almost delicate, with black hair tied in a low ponytail, and his eyes were downcast behind a pair of glasses. He lifted them in time to meet hers, and smiled faintly at Marina.
"This is my son Ignatius," the king said, gesturing towards him. "In truth, it was his idea to request help."
"Pleased to make your acquaintance," the prince said, and Flagel tried to bow down again, but he stopped him. "Ah, no, please, let's not waste any more time with formalities. You are here as allies and equals, not servants."
"He is right," his father said. "We should get to the heart of the matter."
"What's the situation down there?" Marina asked, motioning at the sea of clouds with her head.
"The disease has spread to most towns, with only the westernmost side of the island and the castle town unaffected, but it's only a matter of time until it reaches the town at the base of this mountain, too. The town you can see up here is only a fraction of the one that lies at our feet." He sounded regretful. "We have the best doctors in the kingdom here, working together on the case, but they haven't found a cure yet. My son is supervising their work."
"We are talking about mortality rates of nearly fifty percent, and we aren't sure if there are any lasting consequences for survivors," Ignatius explained. "Our doctors are working with the handful of samples we were able to procure before we closed off the town, but we don't have the means of retrieving more without exposing healthy citizens to the infection."
"Does that mean the town gates are closed?" Flagel inquired.
"Indeed. The castle town is on lockdown until we can figure out how to combat this disease."
Flagel made a pleased sound. "That's a fantastic idea, to keep your people safe by any means."
"You mentioned in your letter that it was some sort of plague, did you not?" Marina intervened to avoid derailing the conversation.
"We believe so."
Ignatius didn't look so sure. "Plague or not, the bacteria causing the disease is resistant to every drug we've been able to test. And again, we can't risk bringing an infected patient to our facilities. The manner of transmission isn't clear, and though it doesn't appear to be airborne, we dare not bring the disease into the town. This is the last safe harbor in the kingdom."
Marina nodded. It was a hard situation to be stuck in. "Do you know of any doctors working on it in the town below?"
"A few, but they won't be able to do much, unless it is by chance. The specialists are under our care."
It was more than nothing. Marina thought it was worth a shot seeking out the remaining doctors, and she had been sent to ascertain the situation, anyway. "Would it be possible for us to investigate in the lower town?"
Both king and prince seemed taken aback by the question, and even Flagel grimaced for a second. She had known from the first moment that he was not volunteering for that one.
"Certainly," the king replied. "If you're willing to risk exposure, we could greatly benefit from any new discovery you made."
"Though I'm afraid we won't be able to let you back into the castle town if any soldier shows signs of infection," Ignatius warned her. "Of course, you are free to sail your ship to the lower town and retrieve them there."
"Only you could come up with something like that, Marina," Flagel said, in a tone that sounded friendly but actually was saying 'how dare you come up with something like this and put me at risk, you fool,' and Marina wasn't proud of how well she had come to know him to pick that up immediately. "You should organize your men and comb the town, see what you can find out."
She gave him a skeptical glare, but nodded in agreement. "I'll do just that."
"Thank you," the king said. "Now, about the aid we'll receive…"
"Of course!" Flagel exclaimed immediately. "Care to discuss this somewhere else, Your Majesty? I wouldn't want to hold up Captain Marina with unnecessary concerns. She has more pressing matters to attend to."
"Indeed. If you'll follow me," he replied, and before turning around, he said to Marina, "Be careful out there, and thank you again."
"No need, Your Majesty. It's my job."
The prince lingered for a moment after the other two men started to make their way into the palace.
"Please, don't go farther than the lower town during your investigation." He seemed concerned. "It isn't safe out there."
"I won't risk my men's health unnecessarily."
Ignatius smiled again, this time a little wider. "It is good to know that there are still people dedicated to their work to this extent. Please come to me with any questions or findings. I work closely with the doctors, so I may be of more use than my father during your investigation. He is better suited to negotiations."
Marina had that feeling too about the man. He had a soft, shy air, better suited for investigation than politics, but at the same time, she thought government could benefit from compassion every now and then.
"I will do that," she replied with a reassuring smile. "Thank you for your cooperation."
"My pleasure, Captain. I am glad it's you on charge of the investigation." Marina had a feeling that she wasn't the only person in the palace repelled by Flagel's unending charm. "I look forward to working together."
The prince left with light steps, leaving Marina alone on the terrace. Perhaps this mission wasn't going to be too terrible. After Marineford and its aftermath had left such a bad taste in her mouth, helping an island in need was a welcome change of pace.
Taking one last look at the sea of black clouds, she said to herself, "Well then. To work it is."
And it was about time.
—
Saki stuck her head out from under the awning tentatively, and the moment she felt the first raindrop on her face, she opened the umbrella.
"It's not that bad," Law told her, stepping onto the street and out of safety.
She poked at a bent rod. "My hair curls in the rain."
"Wear a hat."
"I don't want to hide it, I want to keep it presentable."
"I don't get why, the rest of you isn't either."
She closed the umbrella swiftly to smack him on the back and opened it again before he could protest, lifting it higher than before and expecting something that evidently didn't happen. She frowned. "Why are you standing in the rain? Do you want to get your hat wet?"
She had a point, so he took the umbrella from her hand.
"Hey—"
"You're going to stick a rod in my eye. Let me hold it."
"I'm not that short."
He eyed her skeptically as he began to walk. "Not with those heels, no."
"Now that you brought them up," she said, falling into step next to him, "I hate these cobblestones. I keep getting my shoes stuck in between."
"Maybe you should consider flat shoes."
"Are trying to give me a makeover today or something?" She shot back. "Of course you wouldn't understand, you're offensively tall."
"Who's snarky now?" He said just in time for her to stick her heel between two cobblestones and take a wobbly step forward as she broke free. "…How do you not die?"
"Practice."
"Have you ever twisted an ankle?"
"Only wearing flat shoes." And at the odd look she got, she explained, "Everyone's got a natural talent or two." She commented offhandedly, directing a more pensive look at him. "Did you get anything useful from this incursion, by the way?"
He thought over what the doctor had told them. "At the very least I know what not to waste time on. That's a lot."
"If you say so. You look like stretching your legs did you some good, too."
"I've cleared my head a little, I guess." He would even admit, if prompted, that he had forgotten about the work waiting for him for a minute while he talked to his crew at the pub, but no one asked. "Thanks for that."
She seemed surprised at that last part, but it wasn't so odd to hear him say it, was it?
"Does that mean—"
"No."
"—that we have permission to—"
"Definitely not."
"—force you out when you're being stubborn?"
"Over my dead body."
"What's the difference if working like that's going to kill you anyway?"
They shared a look not entirely hostile but not completely amused, either, and Saki sighed with a small smirk tugging at her lips. "I suppose it's never stopped us, so whatever."
He should have been more irritated by that, but somehow it registered as charming. And it wasn't so bad to remind him to take a breather every now and then. He was aware that he could go overboard sometimes. That was something he was not willing to admit, however, because he wanted to keep at least his right to protest.
"What you asked earlier—" He started, thinking of the conversation at the doctor's, but he was interrupted by a door closing not too far away and a shout.
"Wait!"
Turning around, he saw that the street was empty save for the man that had stopped them. Curls hidden from the rain under a cloak that had seen better days framed an angular face.
Law remembered from one of the tables at the pub that had gone quiet after the drunk's outburst. Saki seemed to recognize him, too.
"What do you want?" Law asked.
"Not one for pleasantries, are you?" The man sounded amused. "I'll get to the point. We know who you are, and we have a collaboration you may be interested in."
"I doubt it."
"You're looking into the disease," he said. It wasn't a question, so he must have overheard his crew talking. "We believe they already have the cure in the upper town."
Alright, that got his attention, but not enough to bite. Instead, Saki asked in a cutting tone. "You keep saying 'we.' Who so you mean?"
The man looked around, presumably to make sure they were alone, before replying. "Some… no, many people in this island are done waiting. We're preparing to assault the castle town. It's clear the king has abandoned us, but we aren't going to sit idle and let death come to us."
"And why would that interest us?"
"We could use your help to break through the security perimeter. We already have the numbers, but with your help—"
"Forget about it. This isn't our problem."
"Don't you have somebody sick on board?"
He shrugged. "Someone who heard told somebody who knew me, and that somebody told me. We have ears everywhere."
"I don't think it's very smart to annoy us if you're looking for help," Saki said.
The man lifted his hands in a peace gesture. "What if I told you you get to keep anything you find there? There's gold, equipment, weapons – the nobility lives there, so you get your pick of treasure."
"I won't repeat myself again: we aren't interested." Law was getting in a really bad mood. "And if you try to drag my crew into this," he added, because they'd been burned before and he knew how these things went, "I'll make sure you don't have enough men to knock on the castle's gates, much less storm it."
But the man didn't look intimidated at all. "Wouldn't think of it. Just wanted to throw the possibility out there. Give it some thought." He smiled pleasantly at them. "My name's Crespo. Ask for me at the pub if you change your mind."
"Don't wait for us," Saki mumbled, following him with her gaze until he disappeared behind the pub's door, and then glancing at Law. "A beli for your thoughts."
"We aren't getting sucked into another mess that isn't our own."
"I knew there was a reason I liked you—Oh! Look!"
Law was ever so glad that something else caught her attention, because he had no idea what to reply to the first part of what she had said, and his eyes followed Saki's arm in the direction she was pointing at.
The clouds were at long last breaking, and the sun wasn't high up anymore, but they gave way to a rainbow, contrasting against the blue sky and framing something that towered over them from beyond.
"The castle town," Law muttered.
Saki glanced at him. "You are interested, aren't you?"
He didn't reply right away, taking a few seconds to collect his thoughts. "It doesn't matter." He closed the umbrella. "Come, there's something I want to try." And he tossed the closed umbrella back at her.
"You don't need them, anyway," she said, catching it. "If you can't figure out what's killing them, they have no chance either."
And Law didn't need the ego boost, not really, but that kind of trust was always appreciated when he was, at best, throwing the entire pot of spaghetti at the wall.