I did it! These last two weeks I've been able to finish this chapter and reread the entirety of Dressrosa to plan the coming ones, so if nothing weird happens, I should be able to keep up the monthly chapter schedule. We're almost there.

This chapter is the second longest of all that I've written so far, but would have been even longer if I included all that I had planned. Then I would have had to split it in two and prolong our collective suffering longer, so I passed. But that means I have more material for side stories, so yay?

I want to thank you for your support from the bottom of my heart. I got so many screaming comments last chapter that they fueled me to finish this chapter as fast as I could, and I cackled all the way through that effort. I love you. I made Paint pic with some of the greatest hits and posted it on Tumblr to cheer me up when the writing gets tough.

Also, yesterday mercurialvoid drew a beautiful picture of Bepo and Saki hugging, so hop on tumblr if you want to see it!

Also also, I'm tossing out this chapter before I get flooded by work in a few minutes, so I'll be replying to reviews later!

38. Missing hearts
(Can I see you?)

When Law went back inside the submarine, he didn't pay any mind to Shachi in the hallway, and though he looked like he wanted to say something, maybe he was giving off such bad vibes that he decided it was for the best to stay silent. Law passed him and headed towards the galley to get a cup of coffee and drown himself in it before he had to see anybody else, but there must have been someone handing out candy at the mess hall or something, because when he got there, Mack and Marina were already talking in front of the galley, and Law would have turned around and fled the scene had they not turned towards him as soon as he stepped into the room.

It ran in the family, that judgmental stare.

But Mack's words were nonchalant, contrasting with the way he was looking at him. "I just brewed coffee. Hold on, I'll get you a cup."

"Thanks." If Law hadn't known Mack as well as he did, he would have assumed that he was going to poison the drink, but he didn't have a lot of time to contemplate that possibility when Marina was staring at him like she wanted to drill a hole in his head, first, and after a moment, like she'd seen something surprising.

"What's with your face?"

"What's with it?" he replied, really not wanting to have this conversation.

"There's a bright red print on your cheek."

That caught him off guard. Sure it stung, but was it that bad? No wonder Shachi hadn't said anything earlier.

Mack came to his rescue with very convenient timing, or so Law thought. He gave him a cup of coffee, and he didn't let go of it for an instant longer than necessary as he stared at Law's face and Law made an effort not to take a step away from him and keep his face still.

Finally, after an excruciatingly long second, Mack said, "I don't know what you did, but I'm sure you deserved it."

There was no arguing the point. He turned around, made a beeline for the sickbay, and locked himself in it, though he couldn't escape Marina's comment as he made his retreat.

"I hope she used haki."

Law sat on a stool, took a deep breath and took a sip from the mug.

The coffee was so good he wanted to throw up.

—

After weeks of endless see and sky as far as the eye could see, an island appeared in the horizon.

Winds blew strong as the Revolutionary Army ship approached land. It was a small island that reflected the sun's rays like a mountain during a winter noon, and the prospect of going somewhere with snow – like the snow Asteria had been covered by each year during the cold months – was a small silver lining that Saki was ready to hang onto.

She was sorely disappointed when the island was in clear view.

Baltigo was white rock and ruined and reconstructed buildings, a place that had probably seen a lot of history and then made to forget it altogether by force. Now, its rebuilt remnants had become the base of the Revolutionary Army. If Saki had been another kind of person and thinking a little clearer, she would've asked what the deal with that place was and how come it was so secure that the World Government had been incapable to find it so far, but she wasn't, and at that point, those were superficial questions and their answers wouldn't make any difference to her. She wasn't going to stay in Baltigo because she wanted to, it was because she had nowhere better to be, and you didn't ask questions when there weren't other options to take.

"What do you think?" Tsubaki asked her, oblivious to what her sister was thinking. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"Yeah," Saki said, smiling absentmindedly. "It's cool."

To the side of the wide plain that extended in front of them, there was a group of kids standing in formation in front of a fishman teaching them martial arts moves. Was that the famous Fishman Karate that Koala knew? And why were they teaching literal children how to fight? Were they trying to turn them into little soldiers?

Saki tried to locate Take among the group, but it didn't look like he was there. Did that mean that he wasn't receiving instruction, or that there were even more kids and he was in another group? She saw another man approach the fishman, and they spoke for a bit while the children waited, still in formation, but chatting happily among themselves. It looked like they were having fun, and Saki wasn't sure what to make of it.

"Looking for Take?" Tsubaki asked. "He should be with the older kids. They're probably in one of the classrooms."

So there were more. "You're very well organized."

"We have to be!" Said Koala, trotting up to them from behind. "It's the only way to cover as much ground as we do. Tsubaki, do you mind giving her a tour of the premises? I need to find Dragon and—is that Sabo?!"

The screech alerted the two adult males in the distance, and one of them, who seemed to be wearing a top hat, jumped on the spot when he looked in their direction and bolted towards the main building.

"Oh, he's gonna hear me," Koala said, gritting her teeth and cracking her knuckles. "I've been calling all day—" She started running after him, leaving Tsubaki and Saki behind. "Hi, Hack!" She greeted the fishman with a short wave and immediately returned her attention to the fleeing man. "STOP RIGHT THERE YOU SCOUNDREL!"

Saki looked at her sister, lost as to how to proceed.

"That's… that was Sabo," said Tsubaki. "The Chief of Staff."

"Dragon's famous right hand man," Saki said, recognizing the name immediately. "Why is he running from Koala?"

"'Cause we were supposed to coordinate our arrival and he hasn't answered Koala's calls all day. He's kinda goofy. Reminds me of you sometimes."

"How am I supposed to take that?"

"It's all good! Sabo's cool. I'll introduce you later – I'm sure he wants to talk to you, he's a big fan of what your crew did at Marineford."

"Oh. Uh. Sure. I didn't do anything, though."

"Doesn't matter!" She said, excited. She was eager to have Saki meet her friends. "He's a friendly guy, he likes meeting the newcomers."

The newcomers. Saki supposed she had something different to be part of, now.

A revolution didn't suit her at all.

"Okay!" She said, hoping that Tsubaki's enthusiasm would rub off on her if she played along. "So what, are you going to show me around? I want to see Take, and I want to know where you sleep and if they're feeding you properly."

Tsubaki laughed. "Yeah, yeah! Let's go, there's a lot to see. Good thing you're good with names and faces, because there's a lot of people you need to meet."

—

The Heart Pirates didn't take very kindly to Law's plan.

To say they were unhappy with his decision was an understatement, and it had taken Law hours of arguing his point with several of his crewmates until they accepted that this was a temporary arrangement and this was his job to do alone.

The orders were to drop off Law at Punk Hazard and wait for him at Zou. He couldn't think of a better place to hide his crew than an island that the Log Pose couldn't register. Hopefully, this would buy them time until Law found out exactly what was happening at Punk Hazard and managed to disrupt the weapon production chain, and hopefully, this would get Kaidou so pissed off at Doflamingo that he'd take care of the bastard himself.

That was a whole lot of hope for a man who didn't have any. And, in all honesty, he almost wished for the plan to fall, because there was nothing he wanted more than to put an end to Doflamingo's life with his own hands.

—

After guiding Saki through a lot of hallways and rooms where she said hi to a lot of different people she wasn't so sure she was going to remember in a matter of hours, Tsubaki kicked a door open, and exclaimed, "Yo, Take, I got you a souvenir!"

Said door hid a bedroom with three bunk beds, one of them occupied by Take, who was reading a book and still looked a lot like a kid, though not the same way he used to, but it was him and he looked well with all his limbs in place and his black hair sticking out—

"Hm? You never get me—Saki?!"

She grinned, feeling undiluted happiness for the first time in weeks, and she spread her arms wide. "You remember my name!"

Take jumped down from the bed and started moving towards her, but suddenly stopped and stared at her with fascination. "What did you do to your hair?!"

"What's wrong with you all? That's how my hair is!"

Tsubaki burst out laughing. "I don't think he remembers you with longer hair."

Take, who had always been a quiet kid and not particularly prone to outbursts, contrary to the rest of the family, stared at Saki like he was waiting for her to vanish if he blinked.

He was thirteen now and dangerously close to getting taller than Saki, but not yet, so she still had that over him for a while.

Trying to keep a straight face and nearly failing – Saki could tell because his mouth was twitching – he walked up to her and patted her hair, relishing on the bounce.

"It's so fluffy."

"Missed you too, kid."

He mirrored her grin. "Welcome home!"

She smiled back to conceal the guilt that his words made surface. Home seemed so far away, even though the two of them were with her.

She also grabbed him with a bear hug and lifted him over her shoulder to assert dominance and remind him not to get too cocky. "I can still lift you! I think I can lift you better than before, actually."

"Duh! You're in the crew of a Shichibukai, you have to be stupid strong! Everybody here's the same!"

It was a matter of time, she supposed. She had just gotten to a completely new place full of people she still didn't know, so the weird thing would have been feeling like she belonged. But so far, the revolutionaries she had met seemed nice and had welcomed her with open arms, and her siblings didn't seem to be discontent with their living arrangements. There was nothing to complain about, was there?

"I'd like to see that!" She said. "Who's the strongest person here?"

"Dragon," the siblings replied in unison, and then Tsubaki alone. "But he moves around a lot. You'll have more luck looking for Sabo."

"The famous Sabo," she said sarcastically. "Can't say he looked very impressive earlier today."

"Appearances can be deceiving," Take said, still hanging from her shoulder.

"Right! Look at her!" Tsubaki added.

"What does that mean?"

She had hope, as she set Take down, and he and Tsubaki guided her somewhere else to introduce her to more of their friends, that she'd settle down in a while. She just needed to give herself time, and most important of all, not dwell on what she had left behind. Something, granted, very difficult to do when she couldn't stop thinking about her own friends and wonder what they were up to, and especially when she couldn't help the feeling that sending her away was only the beginning of whatever Law had planned.

—

The Revolutionary Army got several copies of the World Economic Journal every day. It made sense, of course, that they'd want to stay informed. It also didn't make any, because if the News Coo were able to find them every day, why hadn't they been tracked yet? It was a small bit of cognitive dissonance Saki had been able to wave away when they received the newspaper in the Polar Tang – after all, that was a ship, and since it moved it wouldn't be in the same place every day – but Baltigo was an unmovable chunk of rock in the middle of the ocean and she didn't want to think too deeply about what that may have said about its security measures.

This doubt was solved when one morning she saw, from the window of the room she now shared with Tsubaki, a flock of crows descending with the newspapers of the day. Unfortunately, this bit of info raised more questions than it answered.

Saki had always been in the habit of skim reading the newspaper's headlines before checking out the new posters, but that changed the moment she arrived there. There wasn't a day she didn't pick up one of the papers from the dining hall and read it from start to finish in hopes to find a reference to her friends, be it that the Heart Pirates got involved in some sort of new incident, or something about the Shichibukai, but it was for naught. They were quiet, distressingly so, since she was fairly sure that they'd never gone so long without making the news, and the only thing she had to go on was that if nobody was talking about the sudden disappearance or fall of one of the Shichibukai, it meant that Law was okay, and by extension, so was the crew.

It bothered her how much he kept popping up in her thoughts. All her friends did, that was a given, but there was some part of her brain intent on torturing her with thoughts of him, mostly replaying their argument, and what she should have said to convince him that he was wrong, and the same time, she was furious at herself for feeling that there was something she could have done, because she was, intellectually speaking, fairly sure that nothing she said could change Law's mind once it was made up.

And she just… didn't want to think about their last conversation. How could such a short interaction go so wrong? It wasn't fair. He had already kicked her out, he had no right to make her try to unpack three years' worth of feelings once he had already decided that she wasn't going to be in his life anymore.

And yet, she couldn't help but think if things would have panned out any differently if she had told him how she felt. If she had, to begin with, known how he felt about her. About them.

The most childish part of her just wanted to be back on the Polar Tang's deck and cling to him instead of giving him the slap he'd worked so much for, but this was reality, and what-ifs never made things better. She'd have to live with his and her fuck ups, and pray from a distance that he wouldn't be stupid enough to push everybody else away from him, too, for everybody's sake, and keep a nice punch in reserve in the unlikely instance they crossed paths again.

She didn't have much faith in that, though. They'd talked about sacrifices, and Law had made his stance on that clear.

She had realized, even back then, that he'd thanked her for her offer to help, but never said he'd accept it. But she had tried. That was more than could be said about him, she thought.

She would have been immeasurably depressed if she wasn't so fucking angry at him. Had even that been too much to ask for? She had never wanted anything from him, she was content as long as she could be of service and spend time with him, and this was how he repaid her friendship, by keeping her in the dark and kicking her out?

She missed him so goddamn much that it was like someone squeezed her chest every time she thought of him, and that was irritatingly often. She hoped that that wasn't how the victims whose hearts he literally stole felt. Couldn't even be bothered the effort to use his Devil Fruit on her, the bastard.

It was then that someone was kind enough to pat her on the shoulder and bring her out of her thoughts.

"Wow, that's one deep frown."

She didn't recognize the voice, and when she turned on her seat, she saw that the man talking to her was no one but Sabo. Top hat and goggles, cravat, blonde hair, scar on his face, winning smile and towering over her not just because she was way shorter, but because she was sitting down and he was standing. She had seen him running around Baltigo a few times, but from what little she had been told, there was something going on related to the Levely that would be celebrated later in the year, and all the high ranking officers of the Revolutionary Army were busy with preparations.

Saki was past the point of feeling surprised at running into big shots since Sabaody and the Marineford war, but she always felt some sort of vindictive satisfaction that, after all, her hobby of memorizing bounties had become useful in the strangest of ways. Ever since she had arrived to Baltigo, she'd known a lot of people she had never seen or spoken to before thanks to her habit, and not feeling disoriented by so many new people was something she could take comfort in.

"Oh—hey, nice to meet you! I was just thinking."

"I'm not going to pry, but it looked like you could use a distraction." He extended a hand towards her. "I'm Sabo, Chief of Staff, and I'm glad I finally get to talk to you!"

"You are?" She replied without realizing she hadn't introduced herself. "Oh, I'm Saki—" And she cut herself short. "You already know that."

He laughed, and Saki thought he was kind of cute. Like a golden retriever. "Of course! I've wanted to thank your crew for a long time, so—thanks for saving my little brother!"

"Are you sure you got the right person?"

Sabo wasn't deterred. "Positive! You see—"

But no, she didn't see, because Koala stomped into the dining hall, followed at a safe distance by Tsubaki and Take, who weren't even paying attention to her.

"Sabo!" She said, attracting the attention of everybody in the room. "Do you know how long has Dragon been waiting?"

"Sorry, I just wanted to grab a coffee before—"

"It can wait!" She said, pulling him by the ear. "Later!" She told the siblings before disappearing with a yelping Sabo in tow, but he managed to reach for Tsubaki's hair with an acrobatic maneuver and ruffle it before he was pulled away.

"See you at the bar sometime?!" He shot at Saki.

"Uh, sure?"

"Great!"

"Sabo!"

And they disappeared.

"He always does that," Tsubaki grumbled, walking towards Saki as Take followed and sat down next to Saki, snickering.

"Making people wait?"

"Messing up my hair! I thought he'd stop if I cut it short."

Saki did not have the impression that he was the kind of man that could be stopped by such a small hurdle, but then again, she didn't know him. "Oh, so he treats you like a kid."

Tsubaki huffed. "All the time! He needs to stop, I'm a full-fledged member of the Revolutionary Army right now."

Saki put her hands on her hips and said with a very serious face, "Do you want me to have a heartfelt talk with him, adult to adult? Put him in his place?"

"You're such a tit," Tsubaki snapped, "Don't you dare! I'm gonna get something to eat. Take—"

"Sunny side-up."

"'Kay!"

"What I wouldn't give to have her problems," Saki said wistfully.

Take stared at Saki for a moment, and she wondered if she had talked too much when he suddenly dropped, "She's just annoyed because she likes Koala, but Koala likes Sabo and Sabo likes her back." And he sat next to Saki to wait for his breakfast.

"That's the kind of news I want to hear!" Saki said, skipping after him, sitting by his side and dropping the newspaper that refused to give her the news she wanted. "So she doesn't like Sabo because he's in the way?"

"No, she likes him despite it. I think that's why she gets frustrated."

"Ah, young love," she said, taking a sip of her coffee. It was acceptable, and she felt weird about it. "Koala's too old for her anyway."

"That's what I tell her, but she says she doesn't like Koala that way."

"Never thought my sister would be a tsundere," she muttered.

"A what?"

"Nevermind. So! Do you have any special friends? You haven't mentioned any."

Not for the first time in her life, Saki felt like a complete dumbass under Take's deep, judgmental stare. "No," he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Sorry I asked," she said sarcastically. Kids these days. "But seriously, you have good friends here?"

"Yeah!" His tone brightened immediately. "We're a small class and we all get along. I think we're supposed to work together after we graduate? I hope we do."

Saki couldn't relate, since she had always been homeschooled, but that made her all the more curious. "There's a graduation?"

"Yeah. We get tested, like at school, and when we're old enough they let us join the missions. Tsubaki only started last year."

At least they didn't send kids into battle. Small mercies. "And are you fine with that? Working for the Revolutionary Army, I mean?"

"Yeah, but…" Suddenly he didn't look so happy.

"What's wrong?"

His reply was a mumble. "I don't like all the fighting."

Saki exhaled. Take had always preferred to keep to himself and his books, and it looked like some things hadn't changed. "Figured you didn't."

"But if someone else can do the fighting for me, I wouldn't mind working for them," he hurried to say. "Behind the scenes, you know? Like gathering info, planning, that sort of thing. Or maybe teaching the new kids?"

That last suggestion made her smile. "A school teacher like your mom, huh?"

"I don't remember much, but it sounds like fun."

Saki's smile grew wider at her memories of aunt Fern complaining about unruly kids yet preparing her classes into the night when Tsubaki arrived with the food.

"Here you are!" She said, putting a plate with eggs and toast in front of Take, and sitting on the other side of Saki with a bowl of chocolate cereal. The milk to solid ratio was completely skewed in favor of the latter. "I wanted to talk to you about something serious." That got Saki's full attention, although it was hard to take her completely seriously when she spoke through a mouthful of cereal. "You promised me a tattoo. I want it."

She grimaced and turned back to her coffee. "You're too young."

"I'm eighteen."

"That leaves you at least sixty years to regret it."

"Fine, then I'll tell Jamal to do it."

She whipped her hair towards her sister again. "All right. Tell me who's that Jamal and why I shouldn't murder him when we meet."

Tsubaki grinned, and Saki realized that she had swallowed the bait.

—

Jamal happened to be a very pleasant guy in his mid-thirties. He was Baltigo's resident tattoo artist, and he had a pair of turntables that played music in his studio and that Saki really wanted to steal.

Saki went through his portfolio and liked his work. Most of it was simple and colorful, and while he had a few realistic pieces, it was clear that he favored more stylized designs. She quite liked him, too, mainly because Tsubaki had been bugging him for a tattoo ever since they'd met and he'd been giving her excuses to put it off. When an artist spent a few years in the business, they learned to distinguish with a certain ease who would come back regretting their life choices in a handful of months and who wouldn't, and tattooing a literal kid was a prime recipe for the first outcome.

Tsubaki wasn't a kid anymore, though, and although it was contractually required as an older sister to give some shit to her younger siblings, Saki accepted the job. For all that she whined, Tsubaki was right – Saki had gotten her first tattoo younger than she was, and she hadn't regretted it for a moment. She could draw whatever she asked and live with the knowledge that, if Tsubaki decided to get more after that, she'd be in the hands of someone who knew what he was doing. And it was a good thing, too, because if Jamal's skill hadn't been up to Saki's standards, she would have had to get rid of him to make sure he didn't come near her sister, and she assumed the revolutionaries wouldn't take kindly to the murder of one of their own.

But putting her concerns aside, in all honesty, Saki had been feeling the itch to work on something for a while. Maybe it would even help her feel better. That was what she used to sink her time into before become a pirate, after all.

And, leafing through pages of Jamal's work, it occurred to her that it would be a good opportunity to get something to mark the occasion, too. She didn't come across someone with such a steady hand every day.

—

There wasn't much that Law needed to pack to go on his solo mission. What little he had found out about Punk Hazard was that, after Sakazuki and former Admiral Aokiji duked it out there, the place had not only remained uninhabitable by poison gas, but also that half of it was burning and half was frozen. It stood to reason whoever was working there (and he had an idea of who that could be, considering there weren't many people in the word with the knowledge to replicate Devil Fruits) would be hiding in the freezing half, and even if it wasn't the case, it was where he was going to be dropped off. The fewer risks the crew took on his behalf, the better.

It went without saying that he didn't tell them that he did not expect to come back to them. Bepo handed him a piece of his vivre card with the resignation of someone who knew they had done all they could and it wasn't enough, and if Law still had a beating heart, it would have broken at the sight of his friend, but he couldn't dwell on that.

Law had done all he could to keep everybody safe, too. He couldn't cave in to peer pressure at the last minute, now that everything was laid out and he knew where his objective was. He'd already given up on more than he would have liked to.

He opened a drawer to pick up some warm clothes, and under two sweaters he found the books that Saki had lent him a while ago. He had put them away there to stop his guilty conscience from flaring up every time he laid eyes on them on the shelf or the bookcase, and it hadn't worked so well. First, because he didn't need a physical reminder to feel shitty about what he had done and to miss her like crazy, and second, because he, well. He found the second part of The Kraken and the Princess.

He wasn't looking for it. He just came across it at a flea market and it felt wrong to leave it there. Especially when he thought that it may very well have been his last chance to find out what happened after that goddamned cliffhanger before he died.

So he bought it, and he read it, and it was as gloriously trashy as the first book, and he felt lower than a worm when he thought he really wanted Saki to read it too. He hid it with the others so he didn't think about it again, but it turned out that it was very hard not to think about the storybooks one read when there was no one to comment them with. That didn't happen with medical papers.

He took the books out of the drawer and left them on his desk, inconspicuously sandwiched between others that wouldn't decimate the last remains of his dignity if one of his crewmates glanced at them, in case Saki did come back after he was gone. He wasn't counting on it after what had gone down between them, and that was probably for the best, but if she did, she'd look closer than the others, and she'd see the second book and maybe he'd be able to send her an apology from across the grave.

As chance would have it, the last thing he had to pack was also a ruthless reminder of her.

He sat in front of his desk and leaned back, staring pointedly at the sleeping Den Den Mushi in front of him. A direct connection to Joker. Saki's thank you for helping her out back when they met.

They'd only known each other for what, less than three years? Time had gone by like centuries.

He felt disconnected from his own body as his hand moved towards the Den Den Mushi's receiver.

It picked it up, and it dialed automatically.

A direct line.

He'd thought about trying it, sometimes, but he'd always found an excuse or another not to touch that receiver. He wondered if it still even worked.

The ringtone seemed to go on for forever with no response.

The line was operative, but maybe it no longer belonged to Joker. Maybe there wasn't anyone to pick up. Maybe Saki was mistaken and it had never been connected to Joker, because what were the actual chances?

Maybe Law had just been an enormous asshole about everything and he was still in time to fix some things and hang onto this fake life he had constructed for himself, forget about revenge and Cora's aspirations—

"Who is it?"

His doubts vanished in one fell swoop as an unmistakable voice spoke through the receiver and the blood in Law's veins turned to ice.

Mind blank, breath caught, he stared at the object in his hands for a few seconds until he snapped out of it and cut the call.

The moment the receiver was back in its place, he slouched forward, muscles uncoiling as determination rushed back in.

He was too far gone. There was no turning back from this mission, and not because he had dug himself too deep into it. He just wouldn't be able to face Cora if he let go.

He owed him his life, so it was only fitting that he'd repay him with it.

—

There's that floaty feeling that gets to you when something unexpected and ground-shaking gets dropped on you. You go through the motions of life, numb and a little disoriented, until reality sinks in and becomes your new normal.

Saki knew it well, because she'd had to float through life a few times to her since her mother went missing when she was a kid. To an extent, she had gotten used to it, as much as one could possibly get used to shock. At the very least she knew how to deal with it. Grit your teeth, move on and keep doing your best until everything feels sort of fine again. Nobody said it was a health way to cope, but hey, it always worked.

Except this time, it didn't.

She thought she needed time, because that was all she had ever needed before. Time, and patience, and oftentimes spite pushing her to do well when the world seemed intent on making her miserable.

But weeks went by, and with them months, and even if she could try to lie to herself when she was awake, dreaming silly dreams of her friends in the Polar Tang several times a week only to wake up in a bed that didn't want to feel familiar – or was it her who didn't want it to be? It had been her bed for a while, now – undeniably remarked the fact that she wasn't in the place where she was supposed to.

It wasn't like there was anything bad about her current position. She got to spend time with her siblings, the Revolutionary Army had taken her in gladly, and it was plain to see that it was an extension of the affection they had for her siblings, something she had doubted when she first ran into them and saw Tsubaki working with them. And as relieved as she was for her family, everything still felt wrong to her.

In a twisted sense, she came to realize that it felt easier to end a chapter in life when the people in it were dead. People who passed away didn't keep her up at night wondering if they were safe and if they'd ever see each other again, but certainty wasn't a luxury she could afford nowadays.

She often thought of the vivre card Bepo had given her, that her friends were waiting for her to go back, but Law had made his wishes clear. She couldn't go back to the crew as long as he was there, and if there came a time when he wasn't… it would never be the same without him.

For once, she couldn't move on, and she didn't know how to. She had run headfirst into a wall she couldn't jump over or walk around.

—

There was a bar in Baltigo. She had stepped inside it a few times during low hours, mainly because she didn't want to be very social, but a promise was a promise, and sooner or later she'd need to grab a drink with Sabo and hear whatever he wanted to say to her.

For better or worse, the evening he happened to be there, he also happened to be a little tipsy, and he broke off from the group she was hanging out with to drag Saki to a free table and catch up. What about, she had no idea, but she dediced to take a page out of his book too and not have to do this sober.

It didn't take him long to break the news out to her.

"You're shitting me."

"I'm not!"

"Straw Hat's your brother?"She repeated incredulously.

"Yeah, him and Ace! We promised when we were kids."

"Oh. Whoa. I had no—Oh, shit, I'm sorry."

"Thanks," he said with a sad smile. "But don't be. You risked a lot pulling Luffy out of that battlefield."

"You should thank my captain instead," she said, and though words came out automatically, there was a bitter aftertaste in her mouth as she thought that he wasn't her captain anymore. "He decided to go there, and he did all the work."

"Yeah, I heard from Iva he's a pretty good doctor!" He said, summoning back his previous energy. "I'll be sure to thank him if I run into him, but just in case, could you give him the message for me?"

"Sure," she lied. "Speaking of Ivankov, he isn't around, is he?"

"No, he went back to Kamabakka after Marineford. He said he fled on a Marine ship, didn't he?"

"Yeah, Boa Hancock hijacked a Marine warship and sailed to Amazon Lily with the prisoners. They left, she pointed us to her island, and we vacationed on her beach until Luffy woke up."

"So that's where he went!" He exclaimed, and the happiness was replaced with confusion as fast as it had appeared. "Wait, how did you all get to stay in the Island of Women?"

"I think the empress has a slight has a slight fixation with your brother."

"Really? Hancock?" His eyes were unfocused as the information sank in. "Wow."

"Yeah."

"How?"

"Hell if I know."

"Huh. Was Jinbei there too? I heard from Iva that you rescued him too."

"Yeah, he was the one who stopped Luffy when he woke up and…" She tried to find a roundabout way to say it. "Kinda went on a rampage."

"I know well how he felt," Sabo said, but he recovered fast. "Guess you left after that, didn't you?"

"Yeah, that same day. Oh, but before we did someone else showed up – I wonder if there's ever been so many guys on that island at once?"

"Uh? Who?"

"Silvers Rayleigh."

Sabo spit her drink and it sprayed the table and Saki's face.

"Sorry!"

"Don't worry," she said, drying her face with a napkin. "I've had worse thrown at me."

"But man, Luffy has sure been busy out there."

"He's been really quiet for nearly two years, though."

"Not for long. Have you met Robin yet?"

"Not here," Saki said. "Why?"

"The Straw Hats will be meeting up soon to travel together again," he replied. "I'm looking forward to it."

The memory of that crew breaking into the auction made her smile. "I think I am, too."

Sabo snickered. "Go see Robin. I think she'll like to talk to someone else in her situation."

"Yeah," Saki said, thinking she had postponed it for far too long. "You have a point."

—

When Law saw the walls of fire enveloping the coast of Punk Hazard, he feared that he wouldn't be able to disembark, that all he had done had been for nothing and that Doflamingo's trail was going to slip between his fingers again, but he persisted in the face of adversity and ordered Jean Bart to sail around the island until they found a suitable spot to stop.

There was a glacier blocking the way and a blizzard was building up, but he could deal with that. Part of the glacier sunk into the bottom of the ocean when he cut it down to let the Polar Tang pass, and he teleported to the shore after a round of very awkward goodbyes and see-you-soons.

Take care, be careful, we'll be waiting, you can do it, Captain.

They'd be safe in Zou.

He watched the Polar Tang retreat until it disappeared out of view behind a block of ice, all the while feeling eyes on him.

In the middle of the snowy expanse that contrasted so harshly with the other half of the Punk Hazard – the thought of what kind of monsters were able to do that to a regular island crossed his mind, as well as the reminder that Doflamingo wasn't far from them in terms of power – stood a tall building, made of metal with reinforced doors.

Despite sensing that he was being observed, there was nobody around. Security cameras, then. He walked up to the door of the building.

"Caesar Clown, I know you're in there! I want to talk!"

He had gone missing after causing an accident in that same island. He had been working with the famous Vegapunk. If someone was working for Joker there, it had to be him.

He assumed that, if there was someone observing, there had to be someone listening too, but there was no reply. Law decided to give it a few minutes before he cut down the door and walked in, because even if the outcome of his mission was still up in the air, he had not gone all the way there to become a human popsicle.

The hand holding Kikoku was already twitching when the hinges of the door creaked and made cracking noises as the ice built around the edges broke, and when the door opened there was a welcome party of about then men dressed in hazmat suits pointing their guns at him.

They were also riding on some sort of floats suspended by balloons, and while a tiny bit of his brain, the part that still had something in common with a normal person's, went, 'what the fuck,' the rest of it, way too used to the Grand Line at this point, reacted more appropriately as he summoned his Room and took on a battle stance.

Seconds later, the scattered pieces of their bodies and weapons lay on the floor, and an unscathed Law ignored them, sheathed Kikoku, and walked over them to go inspect the building further.

If he had to do this the hard way, so be it.

—

Tsubaki wanted a windrose on her right shoulder, and no amount of warnings on Saki's part to pick a less bony place could convince her to change her mind, so windrose on shoulder it was.

With the north direction painted red instead of blue, to remember.

It didn't take long, and Tsubaki complained more about the uncomfortable position she had to maintain than the pain. Saki thought that her dad would have been proud, and wondered if his pride would extend to Saki's work, as well.

She hated geometric patterns so much. Even though she did not make mistakes, the small room for error made her tense, and Jamal's professional stare, even more so, but Saki couldn't kick him out of his own studio that she was borrowing.

Besides, she wanted to stay on his good side, because she had decided there was a tattoo she wanted to get.

She had had a lot of time to think. So much time. It felt like the only thing she had done in the last few months was thinking, and barring a couple of short detours she had made to accompany the revolutionaries to neighboring islands for information or supplies, there really hadn't been much else to entertain herself with.

Saki had never been aware of having a masochistic streak, but she supposed that the design she decided on settled it. And, given her choice of clothing lately, it was beyond ironic.

She wore long sleeves most of the time, or at least one layer of clothes that didn't let her see the tattoo on her right forearm every time she glanced that way. It was one thing to know it was there, and another to have it shoved in her face unexpectedly and accidentally whenever she reached out for something. But she couldn't run away from it forever. Looking the other way was not the best method to come to terms with the fact that she couldn't be with the Heart Pirates anymore.

And that was not the only thing she had to face and had postponed for a long time. One day, when she was thinking of her future tattoo and the frustration of not doing anything finally became stronger than the urge to wallow in her misery, she grabbed the folder she packed when she left the Polar Tang and, before she could rethink her decision, left her room in search for Nico Robin's. Sabo was right. It might do her some good.

The folder contained the handful of papers where she had transcribed the Poneglyph they'd found way back in Niva. The last great discovery of her mom and a legacy she couldn't carry on. But, fortunately, there was someone who still could.

Saki had caught glances of her during her stay at Baltigo and had always found an excuse or another not to approach her, but Saki knew that she was there temporarily and that he wouldn't forgive herself if she let this chance pass. Nico Robin hadn't tried to talk to her, either, so she supposed she had forgotten about their brief encounter, and with everything that had gone down immediately after it, how could she not?

If it took a while for Saki to seek her out, it was partly because the only archaeologist Saki had ever dealt with was her mother, and she had been, to put it delicately, a little eccentric, and though Robin appeared to be the most normal of the Straw Hats, no one could hang out with those people and not be somewhat touched in the head.

It was also partly because her mom and everything related to her was always a heavy subject to talk about, and she'd thought she needed some time to settle down after moving. But as she realized that, against her will, making herself at home was not a possibility at the moment, she decided the time to take the plunge had come. At any rate, having an awkward conversation would be better than not doing anything at all.

Feeling jittery, Saki knocked on the door of the room Nico Robin had for herself, took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. The sounds of something creaking and a few steps followed, then door opened silently to reveal the room's occupant.

Her hair had grown much longer since the last times they'd run into each other, now combed back and flowing freely past her shoulders, but her face was unmistakable, despite the much gentler expression it wore now when she laid eyes on Saki.

"Long time no see," she greeted Saki, like she was an old friend. "Curious place to stumble upon each other again, don't you think?"

Saki got over her surprise at the friendly reception quickly to laugh a little. "You can say that again. I have family here and I'm visiting."

"So I've heard," she replied, stepping aside to let Saki in. "Come in. Take a seat. I have some tea, if you'd like."

"That's okay, I don't want to take much of your time."

Her room was simple, painted white with light brown furniture, and devoid of decoration aside from a vase holding an array of wildflowers, but there were books on every flat surface. Neatly arranged, she noted, which at least was a step up from what Saki's mother did, but the underlying trend was there. She could see it.

Robin crossed her arms and peered at her with curiosity. "So, is the same thing that brings you here what you wanted to tell me at Sabaody?"

"You remember!" Saki replied, once again surprised. "Been a long time coming, hasn't it? I don't even know if it's been worth the wait but—" She took the papers out of the folder and handed them to her. "Here. I'm pretty sure we found a Poneglyph when we were travelling through Paradise."

Robin's eyes widened as she took the papers and leafed through them. Saki supposed she was skim reading them. "Is this…" She said after a while, "Is this a transcript?"

All of a sudden, Saki realized in full force that she was a nobody while Nico Robin was an expert in her field, and felt very unconfident in what she had written. She had messed up, hadn't she? "Yeah. I think it's pretty accurate, but I had to write it down from memory, so if anything's wonky, that's on me."

"You can write in that script?" Robin asked, alarmed.

"Oh, no, no!" Saki replied immediately, shaking her hands in front of her. "I memorized it and wrote it down. Or drew it, more like. Can't write it, can't read it, so I thought you were my best chance to find out what it said."

Robin shuffled through the pages, eyes like plates, stopping every now and then to examine the characters closely. "You really wrote this?"

"Yeah? Is something wrong with it?"

"No. There's precisely nothing wrong with it."

"Oh, that's good… Can you read it?"

"Indeed. From what I've seen at a quick glance, it seems to be a historical record of a city called Niva."

"Is there anything important in it? Like some huge secret? We found it inside a secret cave under a frozen lake that could only be accessed at certain points of the year. It was paranoid levels of security." And yet they stumbled their dumb asses into it, she thought with a certain fondness.

"It doesn't look like it, but I can tell you for certain once I read these more thoroughly. Poneglyphs often…" She paused, thinking her next words. "Some contain information about forgotten weapons. Others are simply records of what happened to a certain island. But they have something in common. Something big happened to the world happened eight hundred years ago, and these are the only remaining records. The people who wrote them wanted to preserve them at all costs. That's why they etched them into stones that can't be destroyed."

"They can't?"

Robin shook her head. "At most, you could move them around to hide them." She stared at Saki with open curiosity. "Might I ask why do you want to know? Are you trying to study the Void Century?"

"No, not really. I just thought—I wanted to find out—" What her mom had died for, she thought, but she wasn't able to complete the sentence. She took a big breath, thinking that it was the time to come clean. "My mom was from Ohara. She went on an expedition of scientists to the Grand Line, but left before it was completed. Sorry if I'm wrong, but…" She took out the last remaining thing in the folder, the picture of the team, and offered it to her. "Could this lady be related to you?"

Robin didn't react much, save for her eyes and mouth widening a fraction, and when she reached for the picture, if Saki hadn't been paying close attention, she would have missed the instant her hand shook when she took it between her long fingers.

She contemplated the picture for a long time, but Saki wasn't in any hurry. "She was my mother."

"I thought so. I'm sorry," she said, "I know that they, at least, found this Poneglyph. I just… I guess I wanted to know if it was worth it."

Robin smiled, at first sadly, but it became warm and genuine as lifted her eyes from the picture to look at Saki. "This is your mother, isn't she? The one near the center."

"How do you know?"

"How could I not? You two look a lot alike."

"Really?" Saki said, unconsciously reaching up to her face. "I always thought I took after my dad."

"I don't know about him, but the face and freckles are the same." He offered the picture back to Saki. "Thank you for showing me this."

But Saki didn't take it back. "Um, you can keep it," she said. "I've had this forever, and I don't suppose you have many mementos of your family, so…"

Robin didn't answer right away. Instead, she stared at Saki in surprise and looked at the picture again, seemingly lost in a memories Saki couldn't grasp, but she thought she understood. When one had so little to remember a person by, even the smallest trinkets seemed to take on immeasurable value.

"I managed to get a hold of one of her bounties, many years ago," Robin said, quietly, like not even Saki herself was supposed to hear, even though the words were clearly meant for her. "I had started to forget her face. Her features had begun to blur together, so it was comforting getting to see her again. And I just realized, this is the first time in twenty years I've seen her smile." She smiled as well. "I had forgotten how that looked."

Saki didn't say anything, because it didn't seem like Robin was expecting an answer. Even if she had, she wasn't sure she'd been able to say something other than that she got it. Time was chipping away at the faces in her memories, too, and without any reminders, she assumed that, eventually, only vaguely-shaped blurs would remain.

"Do you have any other pictures of your mother?" Robin asked.

"Eh? No. I've made portraits of her, but that's the only actual photo. I have a book she wrote back in our—back in the ship, and—"

Robin smiled widely at her and handed her back the picture. Before Saki could protest, she said, "Keep it. It's yours. You deserve to remember her happy."

It may have been because she had been bottling up her emotions for far too long and Robin's kind gesture was the straw that broke the camel's back, but the dam broke then, and suddenly Saki could hold back the big fat tears streaming down her face.

—

The days in Punk Hazard were long, once Law was settled in, and though there was a lot to keep him busy, every day was the same. His mind kept wandering to his crew, wondering if Bepo had finally managed to track down Zou and if Saki was safe and happy with her family. He had to believe as much. Otherwise, the guilt would eat him up, and there was too much to think about in the present to waste it regretting the past.

Caesar Clown let Law stay on the condition that he treated his men, who, according to him, had had their limbs paralyzed due to an accident with poisonous gas.

The damage was lasting, and Devil Fruit or no, there wasn't much he could do without body parts to transplant, which they obviously didn't have. One of the men, desperate, suggested the animals living in the island, and though Law initially scoffed at an idea that went beyond malpractice, the rest seemed to be on board with it, so he went along with it. That was a bit of Grand Line logic too, he supposed. Thinking outside the box was necessary sometimes, and he really wasn't in a position to refuse and get kicked out of the island.

There was a woman, too. Monet was Caesar's secretary, and she had suffered a similar fate to the rest of the workers, so he operated her too, and as she made her recovery, Law started to wonder if he had made a mistake. While the men were genuine in their gratefulness towards Law and Caesar, it was plain to anybody with more than two working brain cells that she was hiding something. In just a handful of interactions Law determined that she was sneaky, smarter than Caesar, and an unknown factor that he didn't know what to do with.

She also kept insinuating that they should go on a date, and the suggestion got old as soon as she said it for the first time.

He assumed the curiosity went both ways, and while he went about his days keeping Caesar content while trying to dig up as much dirt as he could, half of his job was trying to glean Monet's intentions, and he suspected she was doing as much, so constant vigilance was necessary, and he realized he was getting downright paranoid when he could feel eyes on him everywhere he went, even when he was out there and there was no way that anybody was observing him. It was just him, the abandoned labs, and the snow. Stress was getting to him.

Caesar, on the other hand, was pretty straightforward. He was developing a substance called SAD with which artificial Devil Fruits were being made, and he made no efforts to hide it because there was something else he was working on that he actually tried to keep secret. Law assumed it was another weapon, probably a gas due to Caesar's own nature, and left it at that. He didn't care, and now that Law knew where the origin of the Devil Fruit production was, the next step was to find the best way to sabotage it.

Destroying the factory wouldn't be enough as long as there was someone who knew how to rebuild it. That could only be his objective once he had a way to restrain and capture Caesar. And since the man was made of gas and surrounded by chemical weapons, Law started to miss more than on a purely sentimental level having a bunch of helping hands willing to risk everything for him.

No, he had done well pushing them all away. He had to repeat that to himself until he believed it. He'd find a way to do this alone.

Damn Logias.

—

Saki could have fallen asleep on Jamal's chair as he worked, something surprising given that she had trouble falling asleep in unfamiliar places. But she had grown up in a tattoo studio, and the rumble and vibration of the tattooing machine had a soothing effect to her mind, like a cat purring. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine that she was still a kid taking a nap in the shop while uncle Arthur worked.

It was a medium-sized piece, right between the shoulder blades. Easy to conceal if necessary, given that it wasn't very discreet, but she owned enough spaghetti tanks to show it off whenever she wanted, too.

The design was simple, but circular. Symmetric. Not something she would have let just anybody do – she would have probably gotten it much earlier if that had been the case – but after seeing his portfolio and more than a few of his pieces in person, she felt confident in this man's ability.

When he was done, he pointed her to a mirror and she almost fell while getting up because her legs had gone numb, but the embarrassing waddling was worth it when she looked over her shoulder and saw the Jolly Roger smiling at her.

She smiled back without having to will it, a first in months.

"What do you think?" He asked.

You could take the girl out of the Heart Pirates, but not the Heart Pirate out of the girl, she supposed.

"It's perfect! Thanks!"

She could think of nothing better to have watching her back.

—

It cost him months to admit it, but there was no human way to do this alone. Caesar's power was too dangerous to approach him without a solid plan, Monet was still an unknown factor, and if he fucked up, Punk Hazard's proximity to Dressrosa guaranteed that he would find Doflamingo waiting for him outside of the lab as soon as the SAD production stopped. He needed a distraction, and those were in very short supply in an island like that.

He was at his wits' end when the G-5 docked on the island, but he didn't even have enough time to think if there was a way he could use them to accomplish his goal when the Straw Hats showed up at the worst possible moment of the negotiations with the Marines.

Change of plans. If a bunch of morons with a penchant for governmental destruction had decided to make an appearance, it was time to take advantage of it.

—

"Are you really sure you don't want to—"

"If you ask me again if I don't want that picture, I'm going to get every angry."

"Okay, okay, point taken!"

Smiling with satisfaction, Robin zipped up her suitcase and looked at her now empty room. "It's been fun," she told Saki, "but Luffy has waited long enough, and he's not the patient sort."

Not in any sense of the word, from what Saki could remember. "It's going to be lonelier without you."

Robin chuckled. "And what are your plans? You aren't going to stay here that long, are you?"

"Plans?" She repeated, suddenly feeling uncomfortable as she tried to laugh it off. "I've never been the type to make those."

"But you want to go back to your crew, don't you?"

In the time since Saki went to see Robin to give her the Poneglyph transcription, they had been spending time together. Maybe it was the fact that both of them were guests and they didn't belong to the army, so they got each other better, but Robin's company was what had made Saki's stay at Baltigo finally bearable. They had spent long hours talking about their mothers, their crews, the state of the world and how they had ended up where they were.

It was sad to see a true ally go.

"Yeah," Saki admitted.

"We'll see each other around, then."

Saki would have given a lot to have that kind of certainty that came so easy to Robin.

But her optimism gave her hope. "Looking forward to it!"

A knock on the door caught their attention, and when the door opened a little, they saw Sabo looking into the room.

"Oh, hey, sorry to interrupt! I've been looking for you, Saki – you have a minute? There's a mission I think you'll be interested in."

A mission? That was new. She had never been sent on anything more than errands, so far, and with good reason. "Is Tsubaki going?"

"You bet! Come with me, Koala's waiting."

Saki took one last look at Robin, who smiled at her and wished her luck.

Sabo wasn't giving any explanations as they walked side by side, so she said, "The intrigue is killing me."

Her comment was met with laughter. "It'll be good, I promise! And we've also got news just for you," he said as he walked into a meeting room.

Saki followed suit. "Wait, what do you mean by that?"

Already there and sitting around a plain wood table were Koala and Hack, the fishman she had seen instructing the kids the day she had arrived to Baltigo, and who, she knew now, had trained Koala and Sabo.

He nodded at Saki as Koala greeted her and looked for something between the stack of papers in front of her. Saki and Sabo sat in front of them as Koala pulled a picture from a folder with an 'Aha!'

"So?" Saki said, looking at the three, and taking note of Tsubaki's conspicuous absence. This couldn't be solely about the mission they were meant to go in if she wasn't in the meeting. "What am I here for?"

"First of all – Koala?" Sabo said.

"Here you go," she said, sliding the picture on the table towards Saki.

It was… the Polar Tang, and behind it, some sort of glacier. What was the meaning of this? The photo had to be relatively recent, since she didn't remember being anywhere like it. A sign that they were alright, if nothing else.

"Any idea what this is about?"

Saki looked at the revolutionaries, confused. "I was about to ask you what I was looking at."

"This was a picture taken by one of our teams near Punk Hazard," Hack explained.

The name was sort of familiar. "The island where the two admirals fought?"

"Precisely. We've been monitoring it for a while because shipments of something have been leaving it for months towards an island called Dressrosa."

"Something?"

"We assume weapons," Sabo clarified, "and we have reason to believe the one pulling the strings is Donquixote Doflamingo."

Joker again, she thought with a sinking feeling. "He's Dressrosa's ruler." She wasn't going to like what she'd find out, was she?

"Correct. And the ships seem to disappear when they reach Dressrosa's coast."

"But back to Punk Hazard," Koala redirected the conversation, "the Heart Pirates' submarine was reported to go into one of these glaciers and then out. It took less than an hour."

Saki tensed up at that. If they had been there to investigate, it would have taken them much longer. Which meant that the access was either barred, or that the ship had just gotten to the shore to drop off someone there, and Saki didn't even have to think to know who that someone was.

"So?" Koala said.

"So?" She repeated, hoping that the slowly building internal panic could pass as confusion outwardly. "What are you getting at?"

"Do you know what your friends were doing there? Any ideas?"

"No?" She lied. Sort of. She couldn't be sure that Law was there of what he was doing, but she could assume. As much of an asshole as he had been, she wasn't going to sell him out. "I've been with you guys for how long, four months?"

"This picture was taken three months ago."

And suddenly, Law's urgency to make her leave with the Revolutionary Army made sense. He'd been planning to go to Punk Hazard from the start. Alone. Law had been looking for something in those pirates' ship the same day they argued, when he asked her to distract Tsubaki. Had he been looking for clues to do this? Had she contributed to this kamikaze attempt?

"This is the first I hear from them since then," Saki said, trying not to let her face show what she was thinking. "I have no idea why they went to that island."

"Damn," Koala said, heaving a sigh and leaning back on her chair. "We thought we had something."

"Sorry," Saki replied, offering the photo back to her.

"Keep it if you want, we don't need it."

Saki stared at the picture in her hand, wondering what she was supposed to do with it.

"It doesn't matter," Sabo replied, unaware that it did indeed matter a lot to Saki. "Let's get to the point: Doflamingo is organizing a grand tournament in Dressrosa, and fighters from all around the Grand Line are going to gather there to have a shot at the price. We'll take advantage of that to sneak into the island and investigate the weapons trade."

"We know that Doflamingo – under his Joker alias – is Kaidou's supplier," Koala said, "and Kaidou's currently building an army in Wano. He also sends weaponry to the governments of many warring countries. If we could dismantle his distribution chain, we'd save many lives."

"And given that all that went down in your hometown was because of Joker, we thought you'd be interested in some sabotage," concluded Sabo.

"There's something I don't understand," Saki said, a doubt she'd had for a long time now. "How does a pirate become the legitimate king of a country?"

"By having something to hold over the Celestial Dragons."

"How? He's just a pirate."

"He is now," Sabo replied. "Have you ever heard about the Donquixote bloodline?"

Before Saki could reply, Koala said, "Before the World Government was formed, the ancestral kings of Dressrosa were the Donquixotes, but they left for Mary Geoise to become Celestial Dragons. Then the Riku family took over."

"King Riku reportedly went mad ten years ago and started killing his subjects, but Doflamingo and his crew were there to stop him, and he was given the crown."

"Wow, stop right there – are you saying that Doflamingo's a Celestial Dragon?"

"Not anymore," Sabo replied. "But he was, as a kid, and Mary Geoise holds many secrets. If he knew something that couldn't be made public…"

Saki completed Sabo's thought. "The World Government would have let him be as long in exchange for his silence."

"That's right."

Was Law aware of this? She had never heard any indication from him that he knew Joker was a former Celestial Dragon. And if he really was in Punk Hazard, did that mean that his next stop was also Dressrosa? Would the Revolutionary Army get there before him and do his job before he even could? Although Saki doubted Law would be satisfied with simple sabotage. If she knew him as well as she thought she did, and honestly, even that was up for debate, he wouldn't stop until he had his head.

And he was alone. She didn't think she would have felt the urge to sail to Punk Hazard and smack some sense into him (not that it had worked the first time) if he wasn't. He couldn't be alone. He was going to get himself killed. What about Bepo and the others? How were they feeling now? Did most of them even know what he was doing?

Would she be too late if she made it to Dressrosa and waited for him to show his stupid mug there? Would it serve any purpose other than making it the most awkward encounter of their lives?

"We thought you'd want to come on the mission, since he's the one that screwed over your hometown in the first place," Koala said. "Tsubaki already said she's joining us."

Saki felt a headache coming. "Count me in."

—

Law was not ready for the Straw Hats.

Law was reliving every single warning his friends had given him before he went away. He could perfectly see Saki in the eye of his mind cackling at his misfortune and he wished she was actually there doing that, because then he'd have someone to silently commiserate with, even if she was also relishing in his suffering.

He would have also been spared Nico Robin's glances, those I know something you don't kind of looks she seemed to be very adept at, and that he didn't know why she was sending towards him until he realized that she had been staying with the Revolutionary Army until recently, and that of course she would have talked to Saki, and at that moment he wanted to run straight to the other half of the island and jump into the flames. Dying like that would have been less mortifying than enduring her constant scrutiny. At least she could have said something.

But she didn't. He wondered, as he had a reindeer tied to his hat, if this was karma.

He couldn't stress this enough. Law was not ready for the Straw Hats.

—

"Stop that!"

Take, currently sat on Tsubaki's bed with a pocket cube, flung a pair of pants at her sister's face as he snapped after being hit with a clothing item for the fourth time.

"If you weren't in the way—"

"If you tossed your things in the bag instead of everywhere—"

Saki wasn't paying a lot of attention to their bickering. She was busy overthinking and preparing her own bag, which was easy, since she didn't own many things to begin with, and she had made a point of not acquiring anything that wasn't absolutely necessary or couldn't leave behind at a moment's notice. Had that contributed to Baltigo never feeling the slightest bit like home? Possibly, but she could and would toss that bag at the face of anybody that dared fault her for it.

What were the chances, realistically speaking, that she could run into Law while she was busy with the Revolutionary Army in Dressrosa? The activity in Punk Hazard was suspicious. It wasn't a stretch to think he'd end up there sooner than later, if he had already spent months in Punk Hazard, but the timing required to run into each other would be so ridiculous that she refused to consider it. If he got to Dressrosa, it would most likely be after her.

She also had Bepo's vivre card to consider, because if the excuse to not use it all this time had been Law's presence, now that she knew he wasn't with them, there wasn't any good reason not to return with the crew.

She picked up a shirt and slammed it inside the bag. The bastard, the unrepentant shitlord had had the gall to go against Doflamingo and his underground organization on a solo mission, and as much as Saki told herself that those were only her assumptions, the more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that he had done exactly that. He had pushed them away to keep them away from danger, and she swore to all the gods that may live in the sea that if he had made her leave because of that, she was going to find him even if she had to swim all the way from Dressrosa to Punk Hazard to throttle him. Wow, that certainty she had wished for so much lately was working spectacularly for her.

"Saki? Are you okay?"

Or maybe not. Priorities. She had a mission, she had friends that weren't asswipes, and she shouldn't have been thinking about him at all. "Sure!"

"Are you trying to punch a hole in your clothes?"

Saki looked at her siblings, confused, and then at the crumpled pieces of clothing she had been stuffing in the bag. "Oh, that. I wasn't paying attention."

Tsubaki looked a little concerned, but ready to let it slide and go back to her stuff. Take didn't look like anything, per se, but his stare alone was telling. He had a habit to stare while he thought, and while that gave the receiver of his scrutiny time to brace for the impact, it was also a bit unsettling.

"Something's wrong with you."

"Nothing's wrong with me," she replied on autopilot. "I'm thinking about Joker. I have the right to be a little tense about it, don't I?"

"Yeah," Take said, complying too easily. Saki turned away to take out her clothes again and refold them before they wrinkled. "I wonder—they're kinda similar. Doflamingo's Jolly Roger and your crew's, I mean."

Saki felt the sudden need to cover her exposed back with the closest jacket, but that would have made her look even more suspicious.

"Lots of North Blue flags are like that," Tsubaki replied.

"Lots of North Blue crews work under him," Take retorted, sounding pedantic.

"Are you saying—"

"The Heart Pirates have nothing to do with Joker, or Doflamingo, or however you want to call him."

"Really?" He asked honestly, like that had been a given. "Then why did Law and Bepo help you with his goons in Asteria?"

It was Saki's turn to be caught off guard.

She had never told them. There hadn't been a lot of time for explanations, and telling them before leaving that the nice pirates had seen fit to help her because she was just that charming had seemed as bad an excuse as any other. The happiness and relief to find her siblings alive had made her forget completely that she didn't have any convincing explanations to give without going into details that should have never been their business, because the smugglers should have never settled in Asteria to begin with and destroy every little thing those kids knew.

She didn't know what to say. She knew she didn't want to lie, but she wasn't sure she had the strength to tell them the truth if it meant revisiting every instance she and Law had spent tracking down Doflamingo.

"Saki?"

Her left hand moved to her right forearm without her noticing, grasping at the tattoo hidden by the fabric of her shirt, and she let go when she realized what she was doing.

"They knew each other," she said, so quiet it was almost a whisper. "Law has been trying to reach him."

"Why? Does he want revenge?" Tsubaki asked.

"It doesn't matter. He's doing his thing now, I have nothing to do with that anymore." So much for not lying.

"But he's your friend. Maybe what we're going to do in Dressrosa will help him too. Do you have any way to contact him?"

"I don't think he's with Bepo right now, so no."

Did she even want to see him again?

Silence smothered the room, thick, asphyxiating. She wasn't the only one feeling it. Take and Tsubaki were uncharacteristically quiet while she resumed folding her clothes.

"Hey," Take spoke. "You want to go back with them?"

"Take, don't ask stupid—"

"Stop treating me like a little kid!" He snapped at Tsubaki. "I'm not so dumb I don't realize what's going on! Saki's sad, she's been sad all this time and keeping quiet won't change it!"

Saki was too shocked by his outburst to intervene and stop what happened after that.

"Shut up! She's here with us! Why the hell are you complaining?!"

"Tsu—" Saki tried to speak to no avail.

"I'm not! Don't you think her friends miss her, or that she misses them? How would you feel if you went to live with the Heart Pirates all of a sudden and you couldn't see or talk to anybody here?"

"That's not the point!"

"It is! She's always been looking after us and you don't want to—"

"Take," Saki interrupted him, devoid of energy. "It's okay. Let it go."

"I—no, that's what I…" Tsubaki turned to Saki. "I know you'll have to go back. But I don't want you to."

Saki made an effort to smile. "I know."

"If your captain's after Doflamingo, do you think he'll go to Dressrosa too?" She asked, sniffing.

"I'm sure he will."

Tsubaki looked at Take, and whatever they said to each other with that look would forever remain between them, but it was Take who spoke. "I think you should go back with them. You could wait for him there."

"But you—"

"Take's right. We aren't little kids anymore," Tsubaki muttered. Her eyes were watery and Saki felt vile that she was responsible for that. "I'm sorry I acted like one."

Saki walked straight to her to hug her and rub her back. "No, you didn't, don't worry—"

"Do you miss them?" Tsubaki asked, sniffling against her shoulder.

"More than anything," she muttered barely holding her tears back.

Tsubaki hugged her tighter. "You don't need to worry about us. We'll be alright. You can go back home."

With a sharp inhale, Saki looked at Take, still sitting on the bed, and he tried to smile when he felt her eyes on him. Letting go of Tsubaki with one hand, she motioned for him to come closer, and that was the only sign he needed to jump from the bed and join her sisters in a bear hug.

—

The Straw Hats were weird, their ship was weird, and Law had never missed being locked up in his submarine underwater so much until stood on the Sunny's deck and realized that he had stepped on grass.

But they were helping. Straw Hat Luffy had agreed to ally with him for the time being, and whatever outlandish ideas he had about what that sort of business relationship entailed, Law was going to take advantage of them as much as he needed to reach Doflamingo.

He hadn't carried many personal items with him to Punk Hazard, but the Den Den Mushi Saki found in the smugglers hideout was one of them.

The irony that he had pushed her away only for her contribution to be necessary for one of the last steps of his plan didn't go unnoticed, and neither was the ever present remorse for having hurt her feelings. He sometimes wondered about how he could have possibly done anything worse, and he was hard pressed to find any ways that were remotely in character for him, but he had done it for a greater good. He had also kissed her because he was a selfish bastard and didn't want to miss his last chance, and realized that it had been a mistake even before her hand made contact with his face.

He'd be lying to himself if he denied that he would take as many slaps as needed to see her again, but that wasn't on the cards anymore. If essentially kicking her out of the crew hadn't made sure of that, the spectacularly ill-timed kiss and the very real fact that he was probably not going to survive past tomorrow sealed the deal.

He had told him, years ago, that grudges weren't worth the price you paid for them, hadn't she? And he had listened, but Law was nothing if not stubborn, and he had decided his course long before they met. But even if she didn't realize, she had helped in her own way, not just with the Den Den Mushi, but to keep him sane until the moment to put his revenge in motion came. He wondered if all the little doubts that she had planted in his mind and kept him second guessing his decisions were, in the end, another way to steel his resolve.

His one true regret, when it came down to it, was not being able to say thank you and sorry anymore.

After a tense call with Doflamingo in which the terms of the exchange were laid out, dinner, and going once more over the plan with the Straw Hats, everybody separated to do their own thing and rest in preparation for the coming day. Law was offered a hammock inside, but he decided to stay on the deck and keep watch in case Doflamingo sent someone after the ship or worse, flew to them. He paced along the deck for a while, looking out at the sea and the setting sun, and he'd almost managed to clear his mind from thoughts of Cora and his crew when a familiar citrus scent startled him, he turned around, and his breath caught when he saw a woman with hair tinted a flaming red by the warm hues of the sky.

Nami, he realized right away with disappointment.

"The tangerines are ripe!" She said, seemingly without a care in the world, and blissfully unaware of the thoughts hounding Law's head. She was carrying an armful of fruits, and she grabbed three of them and gave them to Law. "Here, try them!"

Law started to reject them on reflex. "I don't—"

"No excuses! I won't have any guests catching scurvy on our ship."

"I'm a doctor," he said with a huff. "I know how to avoid it, thanks."

"Hmm, whatever you say. But eat them anyway. They're good, and maybe they'll help you frown less."

And she left, leaving Law alone, somewhat dumbstruck that his mind was intent on conjuring Saki no matter how absurd her presence would be, and feeling like a duck out of water surrounded by so many easygoing strangers.

But come tomorrow, none of that would matter anymore.