novilunium - "new moon"
Four years ago, on Rubeck's moon-lit bluff, Rosinante Donquixote swore and clutched at his nose.
"Fuck, it's broken this time. Definitely broken. You broke it, Doffy. Are you looking?"
"You're fine," Doflamingo said for the third time, fiddling with a small hand-held radio, silver knobs turning between his fingers. "It's not even bleeding. Stop jumping around and come here. Sit down."
Rosinante dropped his hands, glaring daggers at the back of his brother's head. He obeyed eventually though, plunking down with more force than necessary. Doflamingo ignored him.
"You've a decent grasp on producing that field now," he said, "How about we make things more interesting?"
Rosinante eyed his brother's grin, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. "Pretty sure your idea of interesting won't match up to mine."
"Heh, yes, and it's suitably tragic." He chuckled, disregarding the annoyed look sent at him. "But I'm talking about further refining your Devil Fruit. You know you're stuck on certain assumptions about how the power should work. It's limiting you."
"I'm perfectly fine without it—"
Doflamingo leaned his chin against his knuckles. "Of course, little brother," he said, "You're not the same anymore. I'm aware."
The bemusement of it made Rosinante blink. His brother was already holding up the radio when he looked at him though, rows of white teeth on display.
"This is only...for fun. Because I never was able to…" His hand gestured in the air, a little meaninglessly, conveying no message Rosinante could understand. "Just listen, alright? You'll thank me someday."
Rosinante stared at his brother, a tad bewildered. But the excitement in Doflamingo's face was almost painfully real—a thing so hopeful and dumb that it squeezed Rosinante's heart into bloodless pulp.
"What confidence."
"I am nothing but."
He grinned as his brother laughed, thumping him on the back. The moment that flashed between them was beyond any messy realm of words. Small and not yet dusted.
"Alright," said Rosinante softly, "tell me what you're talking about."
xxx
On the first day...
xxx
The little man trembled, his lab coat rumpled and stained, dragging against the ground. He clutched the tubes of his stethoscope.
"I…I-I'm sorry, sir. I don't think I can help you."
"Liar," Diamante jeered, and Pica nodded. "Liar."
"Shut up," Doflamingo snapped and they almost jumped, before their heads quickly lowered. Doflamingo leaned forward in his seat, elbows on knees, observing the man as he cowered on the lounge floor.
"Tell me what's wrong with the girl," he said simply.
But there was only another series of blubbering apologies, entreaties for mercy and all that other trite. This was the fifth doctor they'd taken from the fifth port they'd come across already and each result had been the same so far.
Baby Five was mute.
Even though there was no damage to the vocal cords, no indicative injuries of any kind, internal or external. Trauma had been their best guess—something she'd seen, perhaps, on that boat.
And they didn't know, not a single fucking one of them, if she'd ever be speaking again.
Doflamingo's hands curled, nails digging into flesh. He was regretful of killing those marines now. Should've made them suffer a lot longer. Made them pay. They had broken what was his.
He should have returned it tenfold.
"Get out," he snarled and Diamante and Pica obeyed hastily, the latter lifting the man like a toy. Doflamingo's hands flattened on the armrests as the door clicked shut after them. Sparks were flying over the settled bed of his anger.
"You too, Baby," he muttered and the lounge's sole other occupant stared up at him with large, gleaming eyes. Confused. Nervous.
Baby raised her hand for his sleeve, wanting to be held and comforted for the seventh time that day, and Doflamingo's patience was trickling out like water from a cracked jug. His hands twitched.
Then from the corner of his eye, he saw Rosi shift, the cool, clamminess of his gaze drifting over him.
You, it said, would never.
Doflamingo exhaled through his nose. His hands relaxed and he leaned down for the child.
"Insubordinate brat," he muttered, dusting the static out of Baby's skirt, "You're getting as bad as Law."
The girl beamed up at him, little hands steadying herself against his knee. Her hair was still a tangled mess, knotted and half-fallen over her eyes.
The ghost of something, he realized.
Doflamingo's face softened, almost unbidden. "Where'd your ribbon go?" he murmured, smoothing a few of the strands away.
Baby shrugged. She picked at the hem of his shirt, expression clouded. Doflamingo had come to recognize it over the years—that look of a child who was afraid she'd displeased.
"You're not in trouble," he said shortly, with a slight scoff. He wasn't of Trebol's opinion that the girl was being deliberately difficult. His Baby Five wouldn't act against his wishes. That wasn't how he'd made her.
And he knew what was true when he saw it.
Had always always always known the tru-
"Let's stop at the next market, hmm?"
Baby Five reached for his hand, touching it gently. She didn't smile.
xxx
He found the radio at sunrise. Stuffed into a corner of the black chest in the main room, pinned beneath three different bottles of alcohol. He winced at the rust as he extracted it, fiddling with the power button as Law stood on tiptoe beside him and peered over the rim.
His amber gaze took in the assortment of junk the Family had accumulated over the years—outdated sea charts and faded poker chips, large ivory chess pieces and bundled decks of water-warped cards.
"Cora-san, look."
Rosinante grunted, trying to smack the radio back to life. "Don't hurt yourself, kid."
"But look."
With a sigh, Rosinante sent a distracted glance at the child, blinking though once he saw the weather-worn comic book hanging in Law's hand.
"Sora the Sea Warrior," the boy said, a rare thread of excitement in his tone. He held the magazine up with automatic expectation—one of the more amusing habits Doffy had accidentally conditioned into him—and a laugh huffed from Rosinante.
"It's an old one," he'd note beneath the white willow later, Law perched on his leg and the colored pages spread between them. The narrative was a lot richer than the recent issues he knew were circulating—more story on its bones than simple propaganda in pastels. It followed Sora's fight to free a sea town from the control of the Germa. The townspeople spoke of seeing a cageless horizon and reaching out to touch their dreams.
It was the kind of fare Doffy could've puked at reading and Rosinante half-thought Law would be the same.
But the child didn't look disgusted as his eyes slid down the dulling watercolors. More curious. A pinch befuddled. Rosinante rested his chin on the small fur hat.
"Do you have dreams too, Law?"
"Dreams are pointless," was the instant reply. It wasn't with any particular adamance though. Rosinante's gaze drifted across the glade.
"Really?"
Law was quiet. He stared down at the comic book, features scrunched up, a flicker of hesitation in his eye. "...I used to want to open my own clinic one day. Like my parents. Somewhere away from here, where people would need it." Law shrugged. "It's stupid…"
Rosinante's fingers twitched. He turned the child around suddenly, hands enveloping the tiny shoulders.
"No, it's not."
His voice slipped out harder than he intended. The boy almost looked a little startled. Rosinante softened his grip.
"It's not stupid," he said, "I told you, you're going to live."
Law frowned. "I know," he mumbled, "I just meant that..."
He trailed off however in time, glaring heatlessly at the strings twining the surrounding branches, glittering against the dawn. Law crossed his arms, white-spotted cheeks faintly dusted with pink.
"I dunno. I want to stay. You'll probably need a lung transplant in a few years anyway, may as well be around to crack up over that…"
The kid broke off with a yelp as Rosinante ground a hard noogie into his head. He smiled as Law tried to wriggle away, all young snickering laughter.
"Careful, brat," he warned, relenting after a few more seconds, "Remember who you're sitting on."
"You wouldn't drop me," Law said, with the deepest of certainty. He had Doffy's grin too. When the hell had that happened? Rosinante tried to get worried, and made a wrong turn into helpless fondness instead.
"What confidence," he whispered and righted the child's hat.
xxx
On the second...
xxx
(The Young Master bought her a new ribbon. It was bright yellow, even shinier than the one she had lost. Gold as the dawn of that day.
"You'll take good care of this one, right?" he said, looping it into her hair.
Baby Five bobbed her head up and down. She had never meant anything more in her life.
Her giggle was a raspy breath as the Young Master finished the knots, flopping the tails into her face.)
xxx
(They walked along the beach at sunset. Law sat on Cora-san's shoulders, fingers anchored in his hair. It was getting kind of hard to stand for long, not more than thirty minutes now before he got dizzy. And this morning, Law had woken up to realize his left ring and pinky finger had gone tingly and numb—a late-stage symptom of the amber lead.
He kept it all to himself though. Cora-san would've never agreed to a walk if he knew. He'd have parked Law in bed and spent the rest of the night making tortured faces at him, because Cora-san blamed himself for nearly everything under the sun.
And it was nice to be out here at dusk, the ocean winds cool over his overheated skin, the permeating quiet of Rubeck softer than silk. Cora-san didn't talk very much when alone. He smoked and gazed out upon the horizon, foaming tide swirling around his legs. Law wondered sometimes what he was looking at.
"Swallow's over that way," he pointed out one day, "and Minion's to the south."
Law studied the near-invisible shapes in the distance, one a bird and the other something squatting low. Something waiting. The yellowed white of a hungry eye.
Law thought it took them in, appraised them eagerly.
Cora-san breathed out a cloud of white.
"What's wrong, kid?" he murmured, as Law hunched down, hiding his face, strangely frightened.)
xxx
On the third…
xxx
Rumors picked up at ports that Barrels had reached the island triangle. In the drunken mist of ramblings and bar fights, Diez had revealed the crew was planning to hunker down on Minion, setting up base there in case negotiations soured.
"He knows you're comin'" their informant muttered, cradling the sack of beris like a newborn, "Says he ain't afraid. That he'll take the North Blue back from you, just like he did the Ope Ope."
The Family riled like angry dogs, curses and threats hissing through the air. Doflamingo rested an elbow on his chair, temple leaning against his hand. He had no thoughts whatsoever for the opinions of a dead man.
Much more fun that Barrels wasn't afraid anyway. Every port, town and crew around here was paying the Family tribute by now. Doflamingo didn't get to prove people wrong as much as he used to and he rather missed the experience of it. How visceral it was.
If he didn't know better, he'd have thought Barrels was even being a tad clever, trying to goad him with these breadcrumb rumors, hoping to redirect the better portion of the marines' attentions.
None of that meant anything to Doflamingo either.
He would have the Ope Ope. That was all.
"Fucking old man." Gladius gripped the holster of his sidearm, gnashing his teeth so hard that Baby Five peered at him. "He wants everything you've built here, Young Master!"
Doflamingo waved his hand. The sea lapped from beyond the porthole.
"Doesn't matter what we want, Gladius," he muttered, Rosi's reflection catching in the glass, "Only matters what we do."
xxx
The Barrels crew arrived on Minion. Abruptly and matter-of-factly, coming to shore in the dead of night.
The stacks of their campfires billowing thinly up towards a waxing moon, the outline of their Jolly Roger just visible through the binoculars. His hunch had been right—they were establishing base on Minion after all.
A straight diagonal path from Rubeck, less than eight-hundred meters away...
Law coughed, doubling over in his lap. The sound had started to ring in Rosinante's head, making his skin prickle all over.
"You okay, kid?" he asked quietly.
The child nodded, collapsing for a moment against Rosinante's chest to catch his breath. His face was pale and vaguely tinged green.
"Do you need a bucket?"
"No."
"I'd rather you didn't puke on me, Law."
"Not gonna puke, shut up."
Rosinante nudged a nearby pail closer anyway with his foot. The struggling rhythm of Law's breaths dragged the air. An incessant, needling impatience was crystallizing in Rosinante's veins.
The boy was deteriorating fast. Each passing second seemed more and more like a wasted moment, a grain of sand dissolving.
Logically, it'd be safer to wait for the actual hand-off on Rubeck. Better footing and a more familiar layout, readily available distractions as well.
Yet none of that did anything to stop the way Minion seemed to watch him, even through the back of his skull.
One quick boat ride. Fifteen minutes at most. The Ope Ope was right there. Why was he sitting here twiddling his thumbs when his kid was fucking dying…
The edge of Rosinante's sleeve was grabbed, bunching in a small hand.
Law sat up.
"I'm okay now," he rasped, amber gaze flitting just once towards the window and back again. In his free hand, he fanned his cards out once more. "It's your turn, Cora-san."
xxx
On the fourth…
xxx
(Cora-san spent most of the morning and afternoon working on the old radio he'd found. He sat next to the bed where Law drifted in and out of sleep, weak and nauseous from an unshakeable fever.
Ancient static lapped the room, filling the stone walls.
There was an odd fixation in Cora-san's expression. He fiddled again and again with the knobs, tweaking them, despite all the channels producing the same eerie sound.
Law watched him for some time without comment.
Then he asked, "Cora-san, what are you doing?"
There was no immediate answer. Cora-san lifted his splayed hand, hovering it over the speaker. Law's vision was blurry from fatigue, eyelids weighted and growing heavier.
So it must have been his imagination—the strange shimmery blue that trailed out of the speaker, tangling around Cora-san's fingertips like pieces of silk. How the static seemed to narrow then, as if stripped off even the dust motes of the room.
Cora-san looked satisfied. His voice swam through a newfound stillness, a ghost's in the radio.
"Go back to sleep, Law.")
xxx
(The moon was a sliver when they entered North Blue, leaving most of the night in a steely, black cold. Ice floes bobbed in the sloshing waves. From the crow's nest, they were like spots of snow in tar. Baby Five hid her nose in the Young Master's coat when the wind picked up, pressing against the furnace heat of his body.
He was working with his strings again, forming them into strange shapes Baby had never seen before. His hands shook intermittently, assaulted by tremors. Baby reached out to try and rub them a bit, worrying perhaps that they were cold.
"Did you know, Baby," the Young Master said suddenly though, before she could, breaking the stillness, "that Rosi has a Devil Fruit? The Nagi Nagi no Mi."
She whipped around, eyes wide. The Young Master's lips quirked at the corners.
"Well, it wasn't exactly common knowledge. He didn't talk about it. Or use it really. We were both of the opinion that it didn't have much use." The Young Master shook his head, laughing thinly. "Everything's about perspective in the end I suppose."
He sounded tired. Baby waited for him to explain. He didn't.
There was another silence. The Young Master swung a leg loose, letting it hand over the edge of the platform.
"Did you know he left me once before too?" He plucked idly on a taut string. "Way before. We were brats then. I had to go away for a while and couldn't take him. I had no choice. I asked him to wait for me. I said I was coming back."
The Young Master sighed, long and hard, borderline violent. His fingers twitched. It was vividly fresh in its frustration—a piping wound that'd been left to fester.
"And he didn't, Baby. He didn't wait. He left me. My own brother. Everything I ever did for him all our fucking wretched lives and he couldn't—couldn't even—"
He broke off, teeth clenched, veins beginning to thump on his temples. The strings sharpened, sliding through the air the way a blade did from its sheath. They extended towards the sky and he looked then so incredibly and desperately in pain, like he couldn't stand any part of the feeling anymore.
Baby Five felt almost sick inside. She didn't know what to do.
Again, she tried in vain to force her voice back into being. The words were there, swimming around and around in her belly, but still refusing to materialize. As if a whole wall had come slamming down.
Cora-san
is
a traitor
a liar
a bad person
You're going to kill him, Young Master
And then he won't hurt you anymore
The edges of her vision blurred. Baby blinked as a confusing warmth slid down her cheek, plipping off her chin.
She touched her cheek and was surprised when her hand came away wet. Baby Five wiped her eyes quickly though, before the Young Master could see.)
xxx
On the fifth…
xxx
There were stars out already at late noon, so many they stained the sky, their reflections seeping into the sea. Doflamingo stared at the oddity of it as he massaged his temples. His head hurt a great deal today, mimicking the pounding staccato of a jackhammer.
It was very unhelpful that Trebol had decided at this juncture to finally surface from wherever he'd been, slithering on deck to menace the girl.
"Still not talking, are we?" His manacles clanked. "Not much use you've served since getting back."
Baby Five flinched, skin paling to powdery white. The display seemed only to incense Trebol further and his teeth sawed back and forth like a millstone. "Little wench," he hissed, and began to advance, steps clunky and moist.
He only froze when Doflamingo clicked his tongue.
"Interesting." He turned around. "I believe I already told you to drop this issue, didn't I?"
Trebol hesitated. "Doffy—"
"I hate repeating myself. You know I hate repeating myself, and yet that's all I ever seem to do with you these days." He tilted his head, expression smooth as new pavement, voice so blisteringly hot it rivaled a pit of magma.
"Think it's fun to push me, Trebol?"
Baby Five's eyes widened, her hand whitening as it clutched his coat. Trebol held his own hands up, retreating several meters back. A peal of laughter dribbled from him.
"Never, Doffy. It's not my intention to upset you. I was only...a little frustrated is all. On your behalf. We were so close to learning the truth."
His mouth pursed. Baby Five tugged on his sleeve. "I'll know the truth when I find him."
Trebol nodded, a put-out sigh. "I suppose we do have to wait for that now. Unfortunately."
Doflamingo's eyes narrowed. There was a subtle and sudden amiability in Trebol about the subject that he disliked.
"Where have you been?" he demanded.
Trebol looked confused. "Around, Doffy."
"Doing what?"
There was a pause. "...Speaking with Vergo. He's almost reached Rubeck too actually."
If only a mite, Doflamingo's gaze wavered. "What?"
"He's got something for you," Trebol said, and his fingers flattened against the jamb of the door. "Something to show you."
Doflamingo was silent.
Trebol inched back into the shade of the threshold.
"You know...this is already the second time, isn't it?" he said suddenly, "That Corazon's gone. I know it doesn't matter to you, Doffy, where he went that first time around. Or why. Of course it doesn't matter, of course of course. He's your brother, why should it matter?" His cane leaned forward, drawing out a low moan from the floorboards.
"But you must have a few ideas about it anyway, don't you?"
Then Trebol vanished back into the bowels of the ship. So swiftly he could've evaporated. Doflamingo stared at where he'd been, unmoving even as Baby Five pressed against his leg, whimpering like a worried pet.
In his ears, that dull, thudding echo started up again.
xxx
Law's forehead was broiling.
Rosinante spent half the day wringing towels and holding the child up for sips of white willow tea. The other half he paced the floor, stuffing ashtrays full of cigarette butts, and weaving in and out of the idea of charging down to the beach and taking the boat straight to Minion, because fuck the plan fuck all of it including this waiting he needed the Ope Ope now.
"No," Law muttered, with strange urgency, "there's still two more days. I'm okay. Don't go. Wait until they land on Rubeck like you've been planning for, you idiot."
He refused to so much as rest his eyes until Rosinante agreed and gave his word.
Maybe the kid still didn't believe him though, since he kept stubbornly awake throughout the night, rambling about everything and nothing—the little observations he'd made over the years, questions he had about the Family.
"Did Jora have a baby?"
"What?"
"How she acts sometimes. We were always wondering."
A beat.
"She use to. It got taken away."
"Oh. Why?"
"Because she couldn't take care of it."
"She didn't love her own baby?"
"I didn't say that."
Silence.
"Why does Trebol hate you so much?"
"Feeling's mutual."
"Why though?"
More silence. Rosinante stared at the wall and didn't answer, smoke webbing and flowing out the window. There were endless reasons, a dozen reasons, ten reasons, one reason only. Law didn't push for any of them.
"You always look sad."
Rosinante blinked.
"No, I don't."
Law just stared at him, like he was trying to puzzle him out.
"You look sorry."
Rosinante pressed his mouth tight. He took up the radio again and fiddled around aimlessly with it. The past flooded out around him, filling into the corners of the room.
Go back to the hut, Rosi, his brother had said, about to stagger north for Mariejois, standing at a distance because Rosinante couldn't bear the sight of him. You have to take care of yourself for a while.
Try to eat what we have, but if you run out then remember the south alley is alright to cross at late noon, but never morning or night. There's a weak spot in the chain link around the rice shed, along the bottom right corner. Untwist it slowly so you don't cut yourself. The guard dog makes a lap every eight minutes. Sixty seconds in one minute right? Keep count in your head while you move.
We're gonna be okay. Don't cry anymore.
I'll come back for you, Rosi. I will, I promise.
Wait for me
Wait for me
"You're a good person, Cora-san," Law murmured, too exhausted for embarrassment, "What do you have to be so sorry about?"
Don't leave me here, Rosi, don't go...
"What are you talking about, Law?" Rosinante whispered, tears beading in the dark.
xxx
On the sixth…
xxx
The sun was pale.
xxx
The crane turn on groaning wheels.
It hauled a pile of steel beams onto the skeletal platform of a new building. Vale's charred town square was a buzzing swarm of reconstruction and activity. In the following month, the kingdom seemed finally on the mend, the smoldered wreckage left from the fires mostly cleared out and morale restored.
Odds were good they'd be leaving for Rubeck at noon.
Tsuru was glad. She'd been getting a bad feeling as of late that she couldn't describe.
A gasp came from behind her. "Oh god."
Her young lieutenant, Mio, had bent down a few feet away, crouching in the ruins of a merchant's cart. Twisted among the wheels lay the melted corpse of a paradise bird, cage half-collapsed around its wings.
"No one stopped to save it."
Tsuru's eyes dimmed. "You don't know that. Maybe someone tried."
"But they still didn't." The girl's shoulders slumped, her expression crumpled. "It's such a shame, ma'am."
Tsuru looked down at the bird again. It had perished on its back, eyes towards the sky, consumed by the infernos.
"Yes," she said softly, "it is a shame."
xxx
"Sir, we're about a day away from the triangle."
Sengoku grunted, nodding his dismissal of the cadet.
He'd spent the last few days perched on nails, checking his Den Den Mushi constantly for calls or missed messages. He was starting to wonder if Rosinante had even received the recording or worse, if it'd been a mistake to send it to him in the first place.
Tsuru had said that the sick child was still with him, and the Ope Ope was coveted foremost for its miraculous healing abilities. Rosinante couldn't be so reckless as to…
Sengoku sighed, attempting to rid himself of the anxious meanderings. No, the boy wouldn't. Impossibly low self-preservation or not, Rosinante had his head on straight when it came to unnecessary risks.
Sengoku would go find him after this whole Barrels fiasco. Extract him from this region as he should have done years ago. Get those children he'd saved taken care of.
And then...then they would see about trying to help his brother. Together.
Time on the sea with only his own thoughts had snapped a few things into perspective for Sengoku.
Doflamingo was murderous, obsessive and stunted as all hell. Sengoku still believed there were basic parts of him that'd never worked from the start.
But he was also quite young still. Even if his best shot had been in childhood, perhaps he would be receptive to rehabilitation if given the chance. The Navy had been developing a more sophisticated treatment program as of late, on account of all the civil unrest and massive influxes of young pirates.
He could pull a few strings, Sengoku decided.
Because regardless of his opinions on the matter, Doflamingo had been calming down ever since Rosinante had returned to him. Less brutality in his methods. Less casualties of his happenstance. It'd been an incremental change, a nigh invisible and almost nonexistent sort of change, but change nonetheless. Sengoku had never thought Doflamingo capable of it until the evidence was staring him in the face.
Maybe he should've pointed this out to Rosinante after all, that his efforts weren't in vain. Been more encouraging in general perhaps. The boy had never managed to forgive himself for leaving his brother in North Blue all those years ago, no matter what anyone said.
Sparing him some sympathy now and again wouldn't have cost anything. Wouldn't have hurt anyone.
Sengoku slid off his glasses with another sigh. He rubbed his eyes.
After Barrels, he vowed. Things were going to change.
xxx
("You're not through the Grand Line yet?"
"That's an unnecessary repetition, Trebol. I just said I was not." Vergo eased the throttle, coaxing the vessel around a choppier patch of waves. "I had to pick up a few things first."
"Things? What things?" The transponder snail narrowed its eyes, mouth in a sneer. "You're running errands while all our heads are on the line? Get to the triangle."
"I will," Vergo said again and ended the call, before Trebol could response. Speaking to him grew more unpleasant by the day. He shut off his Den Den's signal too, before letting the snail fall asleep.
A school of flying fish shot past starboard as he eased the boat back into calmer waters. Once the turbulence had ended, Vergo switched on autopilot, before walking to the stool behind him. Draped across the top was a fully pressed suit, long and crisp beneath the clear vinyl covering. Vergo checked it over, ensuring it had not gotten wet or wrinkled, before sliding his bag over. Tucked and clipped neatly in a black folder, he placed inside the newly rendered Marine Code 01746 addendum.
During the shuffling, a second white-colored folder also slid into view. Vergo's brow lifted. Ah, yes, the papers he'd collected from the Vale ensign's office. He regretted not going through them earlier while still on Punk Hazard. They would need to be destroyed immediately. Doffy could not find them at all costs.
He'd find an opportunity once on the Donquixote ship. For now, he zipped the bag shut.)
xxx
"You're a natural." Doflamingo said, practically beaming, teeth flashing beneath Rubeck's moon
Rosinante marveled at his own hand. "God, was that actually...did you put me on something?"
A snort. Doflamingo rolled his shoulders, popping his neck. "Wouldn't you like that. No, you little shit, it's all from the fruit. I told you it was a matter of creativity."
He picked the radio off his brother's lap, setting it aside. "Enough practicing." His knuckles cracked as he stood. "Time for a field test."
Rosinante's head snapped up. "What?"
"We're going to fight. On your feet, hurry up."
Rosinante's mouth opened. Shut again. He sighed and stood as well.
"Isn't this just an excuse for you to whale on me?"
"Fufu, you sell yourself short, little brother," Doflamingo chided, adding more softly after a moment, "Shouldn't do that."
Rosinante looked at him and then away.
"Here we go then," he mumbled, tossing his cigarette. Doflamingo grinned.
"Here," he agreed, "we go."
xxx
(A man met them at the channel into Rubeck that late noon. Black hair, black beard and black gloves. One long pale trench coat. The Young Master met him on deck. He'd been standing there practically the whole day.
"You didn't call," he mumbled, as the figure climbed aboard.
"Thought this would be best," came the reply. It was a deep, flat voice.
Baby's eyes widened as the stranger stepped up to the Young Master and took his arms, hands resting over his elbows. She was even more surprised when the Young Master let him, saying nothing. His face was whiter than the steam of their breaths.
"How are you, Doffy?" the stranger asked softly, a pulse of genuine concern, "You still look like shit."
"Don't start."
The Young Master's voice was stiff. Baby Five inched out a little, curious, and the man glanced down without warning, catching her in his gaze with such abrupt speed that she jolted and clung to the Young Master's leg again.
A thoughtful noise was made. A brow arched. "Ah, wasn't aware you had a little shadow on you."
The stranger leaned forward, wearing the blackest shades she'd ever seen, so thick and opaque they glinted. She could not imagine actual eyes swimming in the darkness of those shades.
"This," he said, "must be Baby Five." A gloved hand patted his chest. "You can call me 'Vergo-san.'"
Baby pressed her cheek against the seam of the Young Master's trousers, only one eye visible beneath her hair. Vergo-san didn't seem to mind.
He inspected her, head inclining up and down, and Baby grew reflexively still, learned in the ways of being inspected. He gave a very light smile. "A useful girl. I can tell."
Baby Five blinked. Her eyes brightened in spite of herself. She had not been called useful in a long while, but it still brought a giddy sense to her heart. She looked at the stranger again, offering a timid smile back. Maybe he wasn't as scary as she thought.
"How about you let go of our young master for a while? I've come a long way. I've got something important to show him."
The leg she was hugging tightened, a sudden, ragged tension. Startled, Baby Five peered at her Young Master, but he had no expression to be seen. The leg relaxed again within a split second. Baby almost didn't know if it'd been the simple rocking of the ship instead.
But she hesitated, small hands gripping the fabric, holding on until the Young Master touched her crown.
"Get out of here, Baby," he said, a little blankly, letting her ribbon slide out of his hand, "It's getting cold."
He eased her off him and in the end, she let him go.
She let him go.)
xxx
(At dusk, Law found footprints in the trail. Wider than Cora-san's. Bigger than his own. The footprints of strangers. Three sets of them. Their boat had been dragged onto shore on the rockier end of Rubeck-a wizened, decayed vessel reeking of spilled rum. Diez Barrels' Jolly Roger fluttered on the end of its battered post.
But Law didn't ever actually learn of any of this. All he really saw that eve, felt that eve, was the silence of the woods. The magnified rustle of their leaves. There were more stars out then than every night before it combined.
And those three hunkering forms, dressed heavy and red-nosed. Laughing. Carving up the white willow.
Any normal child would have run then. Fled back to the tower and gotten Cora-san, who he'd left asleep, because Cora-san had been exhausted and Law had been buzzing, sweltering over with fever, needing to be outside even if it'd been unwise. Any normal child would've known they stood no chance.
Law wasn't normal by any standard.
The closest one died without a sound, a scalpel lodged into his throat. He fell face-forward onto the tender grass, leaking out, and Law never would have any idea of what he had looked like.
Not that he'd spare a thought over that for years to come.
Get away from it you GET away from it I'll FUCKING kill you get away from it NOW
In retrospect, he wasn't even sure if he'd been thinking those words or shouting them. He pounced on the next closest man, pulling a second knife from his shoe, heard twin yells of shock and had nearly plunged the blade into the flesh beneath, when a fist smashed into his face.
Law's vision exploded with light. He didn't feel it when he tumbled off and hit the ground breathless and he almost didn't feel the slab of a hand grab his throat either.
"Fuck! Where'd this brat come from?!"
"Don't know. Captain said Rubeck got abandoned centuries ago."
"He killed Isaac! What kind of kid-"
"Forget that, Sid," the hand yanked Law forward, squeezing on his windpipe until every breath was dragging through a tunnel of shards. Law's gaze flitted. His head spun. He was going to lose consciousness and the cold edges of panic tickled him.
A scarred and whiskered face swam in his vision, yellowed teeth bared. A less burly man with a sunburnt neck hung back.
"It's this he was tryin' to protect," his captive said, nodding at the willow. "Just a tree of all things. Stupid little fucker." He gave an ugly, barking laugh. Something shined in his free hand and the broad blade of a machete whipped through the air. "Looks like it could do with some ornaments. How about I—"
It was hard to say which came first. The fall of that last word or the crack of the man's nose.
Law gasped when the hand vanished from his throat, wheezing and hacking and clawing for oxygen. His head hit the ground limply and he saw only through a haze as Cora-san sent a three-hundred pound man across the glade like a rag doll.
And then pulverized him. Punched him so hard that things squelched and moved beneath skin. Punched him again and again and again until the scarred man was a bloody mewling lump.
"I'll kill you," Cora-san said, like it was a fact so obvious it was almost not worth mentioning.
He had the man by his throat, mimicking the pose Law had been held in earlier, lifting him up like he weighed about as much as Law too.
Then he raised his hand.
Then a thread spiraled out of his index finger. Strange shimmery blue.
Cora-san crooked his finger and Law saw that it was attached to the man's chest, that it was vibrating and pulsing like it was being plucked by a frantic, invisible hand, and it clicked out of nowhere what he was seeing.
A heartbeat. It was the man's heartbeat.
Law wouldn't remember when the last pirate had run. He wouldn't remember anything in that moment except for how Cora-san looked, towering over the man, like some immovable force of nature. Feathers shivering, strings spread, head tall enough to scrape the roof of the world.
"Fuck," the man gurgled, through busted lip and nose, squinting at him, "Doflamingo?"
Cora-san snapped the thread.
The body spasmed once. It dropped hard. Dead.
Cora-san had picked him up. Law blinked. Some time had been missing there. His vision was foggy and gray save for a single narrowing strip. Cora-san was yelling his name. The sound warbled. There was blood on his hands. His eyes were as red as the sea, when the dusk light dove into its folds. He was his brother. He was Cora-san.
Law's lips parted. He wanted to tell Cora-san that he was okay. That he just needed to rest a while. He wanted to tell him that he wasn't supposed to look so cool and since when was he a Devil Fruit user at all?
But he couldn't manage, his eyes were too heavy, everything was disappearing. He was sorry.
The last coherent thing Law took in was Cora-san swearing up a storm, racing somewhere with his arms around him.
There was the damp smell of a boat's hull. There was the sloshing of the waves.)
xxx
"Are you coming, Doffy?" Vergo said, the other three executives lurking behind him.
Doflamingo stood at the threshold, staring into the darkness at them. The wind flushed through his hair as he peered over his shoulder that last time. Rubeck lingered in the quiet, bare distance, a gentle shadow reflected in his frames.
The sky was black. Stars like a million pinhole eyes.
xxx
No moon tonight, Rosinante thought in a jumble, parting from that dream-like shore, a straight course for Minion Island.
No moon tonight.