Here is Law's side of things at around the same time as the previous chapter. There isn't much plot development in this chapter, but I wanted to show what Law has been doing.
Baby Steps: Law
Law would like to say that he hadn't had any intention of keeping his promise when he had agreed to contact Sengoku again, but he didn't like to lie to himself. He had known he would stay in touch with him, for Cora-san, because even hearing only two conversations between them it had been so obvious that they had cared for one another, because he had seen Sengoku's face when they had talked about Cora-san.
That didn't mean, of course, that Law called regularly or anything, he simply answered when Sengoku did. Sengoku usually asked about his whereabouts and what he was doing, and Law kept to mostly truths. He simply omitted certain facts. He said at which island he was at the moment, and in which empty house he was squatting (it was ridiculously easy to learn when a family would be away in vacation, and they always left something inside the house that hinted at or outright stated the return date), he commented on how his self-taught medical studies were going, but omitted mentions of the subjects he sometimes tried a technique on —he was careful, and left the trials for right before moving on to the next island, in case something drew attention to them— and he also asked Sengoku about fighting techniques and training. Sengoku was strong, it would be stupid not to take advantage of that fact.
He also asked about how Sengoku was doing, mostly because he thought he could glean some useful information about the marines. He knew Sengoku wasn't fooled, but answered nonetheless —never with anything confidential, of course. So far, Law knew a few things: Monkey D. Garp, the revered hero of the marines, was a pain in the ass (Sengoku's words), had a total disregard for material property and most rules, and if ever, for any unfortunate circumstance, Law ran into him, he should try to appear as weak and uninteresting as possible and, if that didn't work, run; Tsuru, the marine who pursued the Donquixote Pirates, was Marineford's second in command despite being only a vice admiral; there was something, Law still didn't know what it was, that had Sengoku extremely stressed out. Judging by a few comments, and one fight that had started when Garp had burst into Sengoku's office while he was talking to Law, Garp was somehow related to this problem. There had been a threat of executing Garp that had made Law chuckle despite his best efforts, and when Garp had asked who was on the line Sengoku had kicked him out of the office. Through the window, judging by the sound of glass breaking.
Law had also learned that Sengoku wasn't as serious as he seemed at first glance.
Law could see some resemblance between Cora-san and Sengoku through these conversations, and that made all of this a little easier.
In case anyone is curious, Sengoku is so pissed at Garp because it was at around this time that the Revolutionary Army started to act, at least according to what we know so far in canon. Remember this is between six months and a year before the Gray Terminal incident.
