vergo: furor - "fury" or "madness"
Three days before he met Doffy in the North Blue, Vergo took another detour to Punk Hazard.
Through the tunneling halls, he strode past Block A, B and C, before entering the newly constructed Block D.
There, stepping into the purplish fogs, he sat down at Caesar's rusted work table and opened Marine Code 01746.
A mutated Den Den Mushi watched him from the tiles. Vergo reached over and dialed a number on its shell. When the line clicked on, the Den Den's mouth spread into an oily smile.
"Well done, Vergo," Trebol said, and his laugh was a scrabbling rat-like sound.
xxx
(Coincidentally, the entire family was on deck when their Young Master smashed down the ladder door.
Literally. Slammed it back so hard two of its hinges popped off like rubber bands and part of the frame split in half as well.
A collective start shot through the Family. Lao, Jora and Machvise dropped their cards and rocketed to their feet. Gladius almost lost his guns to the ocean.
"Young Master?!" They converged.
He didn't answer them. Wood chips spun in wild circles at his feet. A few fell off his shoulders. He was wearing a suit.
Vergo surfaced through the ruined doorway at a brisk pace. Diamante and Pica plodded at his heels, staring at the Young Master with some strand of bewildered horror. Trebol followed more slowly, expression a great deal milder.
"Doffy," Vergo said, "I need to go back to my boat."
No answer. Vergo didn't seem to be expecting one, since he spun around at random, and grabbed Senor Pink by his front.
"Do not let him off," he said, and departed in such a rush that a threat wasn't even tacked on at the end. Senor Pink stared after him.
Across deck, Machvise and Gladius passed darting glances at each other. Lao G asked Diamante what the hell was going on.
Jora was the first to screw up the courage to move, hands held out carefully.
"Young Master," she said, "What's wrong?"
He looked over all their heads, breathing rapidly. His wan face was almost shiny with sweat, gaze fixed upon a stack of crates at the bow.
"Everything," he murmured and pushed past her, walking towards the bow.
"Stop running from me," he said to absolutely nothing, "I'm sick of it."
And his course was dogged and without pause, a crazed but irreverent line, as if he intended to follow whatever he was seeing straight into the sea.
They dove at him, grappling for his arms and torso. In hindsight, he'd been gentle with them.
But they would keep hold anyway for approximately twenty-seven minutes, almost twenty-eight when the Barrels pirates came running down from the hills.
Something to be proud of at least.)
xxx
The first thing Vergo pulled out was a piece of notebook paper, jammed full with Rosinante's neat and slanted script. Doctors, institutions, medications, shrinks—that same gruesome little list to be held eventually before the face of their pale and distraught king.
But that was later of course.
At the moment, it had a cover sheet.
Vergo flipped to it, scanning the contents. From an objective point of view, he was almost impressed.
The Government's rehabilitation system was a universally shoddy thing, and yet every crook, scandal and dubious concoction seemed to be listed on here. The entire thing must've taken Rosinante years to compile.
He'd left a note at the bottom, saying that he wanted these people far away from Doffy. That he wouldn't let anyone try to exploit him for a tell-all book or a drop of fame.
Never, Rosinante had written simply.
"Behe, that first page is unnecessary," Trebol said, and Vergo peeled the cover sheet out of the file and incinerated it in a ball of fire.
xxx
(They were on Minion Island.
Law sat up against the cabin wall, vision sleep-muddled as Cora-san held the Ope Ope out to him.
"Go ahead, Law," he said and nudged the thing fully into his hands. His face was curtained in the shadows, his voice hoarse and exhausted, but eager.
The fruit was brilliantly red, with ridges like the spines of old books. It had the heady scent of power sizzling beneath its skin and it sure carried the forbearance of a cure then. All magical and rare and being fought over by powerful people.
Law's stomach squeezed in sudden disgust. The fruit repelled him at that moment. Its appearance, its existence. The notion of needing something that had ruined his home and ruined his family. Almost before he could process it himself, he had shoved the fruit back into Cora-san's hand.
"I don't want it," he said, "The marines can have it."
They weren't supposed to be on this island.
For a few seconds, everything was still, Cora-san's gaze half-stunned. Law crossed his arms and stared hard into a cobwebbed corner of the room. Then Cora-san sighed a slow, bone-tired sigh.
"Kid. Please just eat the damn thing."
"No, I don't want to be a Devil Fruit user yet."
"We can't always have what we want."
He shook his head again and Cora-san groaned, a note of frustration heading into anger.
"I will cram it down your throat, brat—"
"That's why you started fighting."
Cora-san stilled.
"...What are you talking about?"
Law pointed at the Ope Ope.
"That's why we left. Because of that thing, right?" He looked up. "Because I'm sick and part of the clan of D. Everything's this way now because of me."
His voice may have wobbled a little at the end. A hot sharpness slid across the back of his eyes, rimming the bottom of his vision. Cora-san set the Ope Ope on the ground.
"Law," he said, "come here."
He wasn't going to, but then Cora-san held out his hand and he did just a little.
"Why do we keep running?" he asked as the hand settled on his shoulder, "Aren't we going back?"
"I told you, once I get you somewhere safer, I'll go check on him."
"That's not what I mean and you know it."
Cora-san didn't reply. There was such a long pause that it dragged over them like an airtight quilt, scratchy and stifling and uncomfortable. Eventually though, his crimson gaze slid away.
"No, we're not going back."
Law's gaze lowered to the ground. His heart fell, but deep down he was unsurprised.
"I think he planted Rubeck for you."
"...Kid—"
"He did," Law said, insistent, "Didn't you like it?"
"It was beautiful," Cora-san agreed softly, "But it's not that simple."
"Why not?"
No response.
Law glared at the wood grain. In his mind's eye, Doflamingo ghosted insistently, loose feathers and a smile as he took him down a local bazaar and lifted him onto the stool at a book stand. Ship's gotta restock, boy, help me pick out some good ones…
His mouth crumpled.
"Why isn't it simple?" he said, "Are you just gonna stay mad forever?"
"I'm not mad anymore, Law."
He looked up. A snowy gust swung at the hut, tearing groans from the roof and paneling. Cora-san rested heavily against the wall.
"I'll tell you a secret about us," he said, there in the dark.
Law blinked. Cora-san swayed oddly. His free hand splayed out, palm flat against the floor for balance.
"A long time ago," he said, "back when we were very young, our mother told us that we were born as a matching set. She said that we belonged together and had no higher priority in life beyond each other. Our family wasn't...popular in these parts. A debtors bloodline in a way. She was only worried, I suppose, about what would become of us."
Cora-san sighed. "But thinking on it now, with how we grew up and the way things had been, what she said then probably massively screwed us up."
He stopped a second, shifting once more. There was a faint plipping sound, like a droplet against wood.
"Anyway, for several years, we were so inseparable that it'd defy imagination." His shadow shrugged limply. "I won't paint him in shining light for you, because that wouldn't be true. His problems were still there even then, right from the beginning. But he was what I had, you know? And he offered me everything he could. He tried so hard, and he took our mother's words to heart and I...I suppose in the end, I'm the one who didn't."
A slurred laugh.
"He was the best fucking thing in the whole wide world and now he's gone and it's my own fault. So I'm not mad anymore, kid. At anyone. That he slaughters innocent people in droves. That I'm just the job he thinks about whenever it suits him now."
His chest moved, something so full of grief it rattled.
"I traded away my brother and I'll never get to have him back and the thought of that is…it hurts so much sometimes I can't breathe. So I can't go back, Law. I'm sorry."
"That's okay, Cora-san," Law said, voice small. His palm laid over Cora-san's hand, covering calloused knuckles. He bent down and picked the Ope Ope back up. "'s okay. Don't be sorry anymore."
Cora-san was silent.
"I don't want you to ever think again that it was because of you," he said, "This was always going to happen. We never did run smooth."
Law bit his lip.
He nodded, even though he remembered those days when the two of them would sit on the bench and watch the moon. When they leaned over his head in the lounge and harassed him to go outside, or took turns listening to Baby ramble about the pictures she'd drawn.
He remembered how they could move like a unit, trade clothes for days and hide it from everyone. They pissed each other off and made each other happy and had always been simply two halves of one whole. If that'd been a job, it'd been one in name alone.
But you did run smooth, Law thought. Quietly, and only to himself.
Then patting the hand again beneath his palm, he bit into the devil fruit.)
xxx
Rosinante had had plans. For Doffy. For even the Family as the years went by.
He'd been preparing a case for Pink to be expunged after release for the sake of his wife and child. Another one for Jora to be allowed some information on Dellinger's whereabouts. He wanted to make sure Buffalo was connected with his remaining relatives and that Baby Five would find the best and kindest of homes.
There was deep honesty threaded through every word, flooding every phrase. He meant it so much that Vergo's flesh crawled.
Insufferable, weak-hearted Rosinante.
"Unnecessary," Trebol said and seven more pages went up in flames.
The stench hung foul and acrid in the room. Caesar floated over to complain. He scuttled off again quickly with the look Vergo sent him.
xxx
(At half past ten, Tsuru stepped onto the quarterdeck, setting two handheld Den Den Mushis on the railing. Their shell lights were off and the eyes still shut, so she stood back to wait.
In the starry horizon, the shapes of Rubeck and Swallow were just discernible. One lovely shadow. One slumbering bird. The crouched profile of the final sibling, Minion, peered back at the ship with a cool gaze.
Strange to say, but the prolonged stay at Vale had been fortunate in a sense. Dispatch from the Archipelago required so much hoop-jumping that an entire day could be wasted in delays.
Tsuru's current guess was that Sengoku wouldn't even be close for at least another few hours, given the sheer marvel he'd been permitted to leave at all. She winced at what repercussions could await him when the Gorosei learned the news. A lost negotiation of five-billion beris with a deserter, diverting mass-scale naval resources to a far away sea—they were certainly not some of the best calls Sengoku had ever made.
Though she supposed, at the heart of it, none of this was really about the Ope Ope anymore anyway.
One of the Den Den Mushis started to ring. Its bulbous sockets opened and Lieutenant Mio's eyes appeared in them.
"Vice Admiral."
Tsuru glanced at the other snail, which connected to the accompanying Captain Hoshi. It remained still and so she nodded at her lieutenant, returning her gaze to Minion. "How does it look?"
"You were right, ma'am, Barrels is already here. His crew's grown by about twenty men. Maybe a total of eighty members now. They've established base at a compound on one of the bigger hills. We're seeing smoke too. Something must have happened up there."
"Smoke?" Tsuru didn't bother attempting to investigate through the binoculars. Despite the dense starlight, the distance was too far. "Were you spotted?"
"No, ma'am."
"Good, standby for now."
Mio nodded. A moment passed, before hesitation rose over the snail's face. "...Do you really think Doflamingo will try and ambush the deal?"
Tsuru pursed her lips. "It's possible." The suspicion had even been sitting in her mind for quite some time now. "Presumably, his web has grown rather wide."
"Wouldn't make sense with our numbers though. And with the Fleet Admiral himself."
Tsuru leaned against the rail, arms folded. "Sensibility may not be playing as big of a role as you'd believe."
Even half a year later, her memory of Doflamingo in Vale was razor clear, there on the foggy waters beyond the quay. Had there been a time the boy had sounded more infuriated? Like he was going to claw open the world in search of his brother.
It had startled her speechless for the first time in decades. Someone like Doflamingo in a state that desperate did not bode well for any of them.
"If he does appear, Mio," she said, "you and your team are to retreat."
The girl attempted to protest, but Tsuru shook her head.
"You are young and untrained. Doflamingo is young and untrained. Spare yourselves the risk of facing raw Conqueror's Haki."
"It's just a bit of pain, ma'am. A bad headache for a few days. We can handle it."
"No," Tsuru said, sharpening, "You've seen the studies, girl. The long term effects can be far worse. Know the difference between being brave and being daft."
The Den Den Mushi drooped. "My apologies, Vice Admiral."
"If he decides to appear, you will retreat. Am I understood?"
"Yes, ma'am," said the lieutenant, "Understood.")
xxx
(The Ope Ope had been glossy and smooth and beautiful and tasted like the shit-caked bottom of a wagon wheel.
"You could've warned me!" Law said, half-gagging again as he wiped his mouth. He made a point of trying to kick Cora-san's knee as the man stifled his snort.
"I didn't know you were just gonna bite into it," Cora-san defended, and Law rolled his eyes.
The man probably deserved a prize for how fast he'd flipped from saddest puppy alive to annoying, snickering idiot, but Law supposed he could live with it.
"Well, I ate the stupid thing," he mumbled, gaze sliding up at the silhouette, "...Are you still sad?"
The tilt of a smile gleamed at him. Cora-san's hand wrapped around his back, tracing a fond line with his thumb.
"You've become such a good kid."
Law's cheeks warmed. "Shut up, Cora-san."
"I'm really proud of you."
"Shut up."
"Feels like just yesterday you were trying to stab me to death with a toothbrush."
"It was a shiv," Law corrected, instant, before groaning at his own nonsense.
He thumped his forehead on Cora-san's thigh and a soft laugh rang above him. It sounded different than before. There was another pull of breath, rough with discomfort.
Law sat up again. Cora-san had been breathing like that for a while now. He opened his mouth to comment, before Cora-san spoke first.
"How about I take you around the world?"
He blinked. "Huh?"
"You want to see it, don't you?" Cora-san said, teetering, the shadow of him struggling to adjust against the wall, "It's much more than North Blue and that skinny strip of the Grand Line. There's East and South Blue, Paradise, the Yarukiman Grove."
"Zunesha," Law added blankly, "The sky islands."
Cora-san hummed, a small sad sound. His speech dragged slightly. "Anything's possible. What do you say?"
Excitement and fear co-mingled. The two of them to the greater, wider world. Law was too ready. He wasn't ready at all. His hands curled against Cora-san's knee.
"We're gonna use a map this time."
"Ha, speak for yourself, kid."
"And we are going together," he said, part to confirm, part to demand, "You're coming with me."
A pause.
"I'm always with you, Law."
Law's mouth curved, the feathery beginnings of a grin. He reached to touch Cora-san's hand which was still on his back, before it suddenly went slack and slid off. Cora-san lifted from the wall, swaying like he was about to heave himself upright. His breaths were shuddery and painful.
"Although…" he croaked, "being honest here, you might have to...just gimme a minute first."
And then crumpled into a heap on his side. Law rocketed to his feet.
"Cora-san?!"
He rushed to turn the man over, which was about as feasible as turning over the base of a brick wall. Yet somehow, under the rapid clamor of adrenaline (because Cora-san was too still so still notmovingsilent), Law managed it.
His body landed on its back with a heavy 'thwump.' Cora-san's face pulled out of the shadows.
And there was blood.
Dried and fresh, crusted burgundy and gleaming copper. They'd made roads out of Cora-san's features. His cheekbones, his temples, horizontal trickles that reached his ears, vertical ones past his mouth and chin. His shirt collar was stained, the tips of his hair rust-eaten gold.
Where's it coming from? Law thought vaguely. Or maybe he said it out loud. He wasn't sure which and then it didn't matter, because he wasn't thinking about anything anymore except that the bleeding needed to stop.
Cora-san groaned to life again as Law tore the afghan into strips. His eyes fluttered open, glassy as water.
"What happened?" Law half-shouted, "Why didn't you say you were hurt?"
"'M not." Cora-san blinked slowly. He stared at Law, before raising a hand to the hemorrhaging mess of his face.
"Oh." His voice was almost airy. "Dry weather, you know."
And then his eyes rolled up and he went limp.)
xxx
For the first five years, Rosinante had written letters to Doffy.
The messages were short and disjointed—the private, pocket-sized ramblings of a child. It was a limited bundle, stopping altogether after the year Rosinante enlisted. Sengoku must've confiscated the letters eventually and gave him a talk.
Vergo read through them all, mood steadily darkening.
Sengoku-san keeps telling me, one in particular said, that I should forget about you now. Because you're a bad person, whose done terrible things. And that there'd been a very big difference between what I'd meant to you and what you had meant to me.
But I don't believe him, Doffy. I don't.
I hope you're okay. I miss you. I tried to wait, I wanted to come back, I didn't mean to…
Words had been scribbled out. Re-written and scribbled out.
I think I saw that bird again today.
"What bird?" Trebol said, snorting, and Vergo didn't look at him. Rank fury had made a haze of the room and blotched it out.
He threw the entire stack of letters into the fire without waiting for Trebol's judgment.
xxx
(According to Vergo, the master had been seeing things.
Trebol mulled the thought over, as the Family members struggled to keep Doflamingo on board. Lao G and Jora each had an arm, Gladius dragging on the back of his coat. Machvise and Pink were trying to persuade him to stay put, one in babbling alarm, the other in a calmer, though no more successful tone.
"What the fuck," Diamante said again, like he'd lost all grasp on other language.
Pica's gaze was unnerved. "I remember him being a little strange years ago too, just before Corazón came back," he said, and turned at Trebol, "Shouldn't have stirred the pot, you and Vergo."
Trebol huffed. He took some affront to being included in Vergo's one-track, envy-fuelled campaign to obliterate Corazón in the most horrific way possible.
"Ehh? If you recall, I planned to take this slow."
"Who cares what you planned?" Diamante said, voice forced into a hiss, "You know we were perfectly fine with staying in North Blue. We've basically been ruling the place for years anyway. But you just kept obsessing for more, how he had to be a warlord and he had to be a king and you got Vergo all hyped up on your destiny bullshit too, and now look where we are."
"Where?" Trebol said, "I'm about to win."
They stared.
"Are you looking at him?" Diamante said, "He needed Corazón."
Pica's eyes slid across deck again. His giant knuckles cracked in agreement.
"Behehe, like he needed cancer," Trebol spat, "You think Corazón was gonna let us play North Blue forever anyway? If it weren't for their fight, we'd probably all be heading for Impel Down by now."
"Not Doffy," Pica said, beneath the Family's rambling chaos, ("Nothing's there, Young Master. Look, there's nothing there.") "Looks like he's dying."
"He's emerging," Trebol corrected, "Don't you see our king is finally here?"
"What are you talking about?" Diamante said.
Trebol ignored them.
It was the Family's fault as much as it was Corazón's, when he thought about it. They let Doffy go astray, let his brother lure him off the path. None of them understood what he was meant to be, so attached were they to what he was now. The Young Master. The Captain. All their undying, worthless devotion to these handful of shards when something so much greater loomed in the abyss.
Blind idiots, this entire crew. Idiots.
It would all be back in line once Doffy finally buried Corazón. That was a hunt Trebol couldn't wait for.
Shouting erupted over the white-capped hills.
The whole deck stilled. It was impressive they managed to catch it over all the ruckus they'd been making themselves. Heads swiveled towards the empty shore.
Inky runnels of smoke burrowed through the stars. Unseen voices were discernible in the distance. Faint, but panicked.
Trebol inched forward. There was an anxious whisper by Machvise about marines.
But it wouldn't be marines, as they'd come to realize when the noise grew closer, enough for words to grow decipherable.
And then if Trebol had ever been skeptical of Fate before, he certainly wouldn't be anymore.)
xxx
"After him!"
Gladius and Jora turned their heads up at him, bewildered and automatic for instruction. "Young Master?"
More shouting, words jumbling over each other. The Barrels homebase had been attacked. It was on fire. An intruder was after the Ope Ope. No, had taken the Ope Ope by force.
Someone was on Minion Island.
"After him!" The Barrels Pirates were yelling. Their disembodied chorus tore through the wintry dark, squeezing his skull like a vice.
"The Ope Ope's gone?" Gladius said, "Who the hell—"
There was a quiet shuffling at the bow. Rosi vanished from the crates.
Now he stood on the northern coastline, a tiny ragged dot in the white sand. He looked up at Doflamingo, inscrutable.
After him after him
run run run
Someone was on Minion Island.
He turned and floated down the trail.
Doflamingo's pupils were specks of fractal blue.
"Get off me," he whispered.
The Family started to protest. Haki streaked through the deck, ripping open floorboards. Nails twisted into corkscrews.
"Now!"
They dropped him like a piece of hot coal.
Doflamingo leapt into the sky.
"He's here, Doffy!" Trebol shouted, voice cutting after him like a talon, "Stolen the fruit, just like he stole the brats! Passed them along to the marines right from under you! Time to stop pretending! Stop lying to yourself! He came back to end you and you've always known that to be true! Admit it, Doffy, you knew!"
The stars grinned in the reflection of his shades. They laughed at him.
Fool, they sang, fool, fool, fool...
xxx
Rosinante was drifting. He was back in that milky-white sea—shapeless and sifting and oppressively sweet.
His brother was in front of him. Another black cut was on his left cheek, just beneath the bone, the skin folded oddly around the wound's edges. It was jagged and messy, matching the one on his forehead.
"So you've really decided. You're not coming back."
The clouds rippled around their legs. "We were finished a long time ago," Rosinante said quietly.
"You're taking the boy." It was without malice. Rosinante's muscles coiled up anyway.
"I'm taking the boy."
"So protective." Doffy cocked his head, a blue disc over the curve of his frames. "You're happy when you're with him."
Rosinante blinked. "Of course."
"...Do you believe I don't want you to be happy, Rosi?"
The sea rumbled, creasing up like the rain-drenched sheets their mother would hang on a bent of wire. Somewhere beneath the pooling layers, a voice was calling. Cora-san? Cora-san!
Rosinante started, head turning left and right. "Law?"
Doffy chuckled. "Poor kid is so attached." His hands slipped behind his back. "I know you're tired, Rosi. But I think it'll be over soon. And then you can rest."
Rosinante twisted around. "What?"
"For now though, best to keep going."
"I'm not—"
"Still making children fret over you." Doffy shook his head, a resigned 'tsk' between his teeth like they were eight and six again and Rosinante had forgotten the water pail.
"Hopeless."
There was a flash and the sea glowed so white it blinded him.
Then the musty, hardwood floor of the cabin was beneath his spine. Then he was in Minion's quarry town with little Law Trafalgar hovering over him, face more ashen than a crescent moon.
Rosinante squinted. A stuttering crackle was in his head and he already couldn't remember what had happened. Pain was shooting out from his chest in wayward bursts. He forced it aside, looking up at the child's bleach-spotted face. Had the fruit not worked? He lifted a trembling hand to touch Law's forehead, before managing a raspy breath of awe.
"Your fever's gone."
Law took his hand and placed it gently back on the ground. He shifted his hold on something and Rosinante realized belatedly that his face had been cleaned up and his nose had stopped bleeding. A damp cloth was pressed over the bridge, soothing and numb, as if it'd been soaked in melted snow.
"When did the nosebleed start?" Law asked, "It shouldn't be this intense just because of some dry weather."
Rosinante tried to reach up and at least hold the cloth himself. Law pushed him down again with more pronounced insistence.
"You need to answer me, Cora-san," he said, expression firm, eyes dancing-full with fear.
It was upsetting and so Rosinante tried to pull himself together, tried to shuffle through the past twenty-four hours even as they scattered before him in increasingly burnt snapshots.
Rubeck. He'd killed someone. Barrels' mansion. Falling from a hill. The Nagi Nagi's blue sphere bursting into a bundle of blue strings. He'd blacked out.
"Around...when we got to Minion, I think."
"How long ago was that?" Worry slipped through Law's voice. Rosinante shifted his head gingerly. His vision was clearing a little more, though it remained black and sparkly at the perimeters.
"'bout an hour."
Law's eyes widened. "Has this ever happened before?"
Had it? Rosinante couldn't remember. He honestly didn't have the energy to wade any further into the past. Though it was kinda adorable how serious Law sounded when he asked these questions. Like a real little doctor. Rosinante hoped he would open that clinic one day.
He felt so heavy. The pain in his chest had dispersed into discomfort and had radiated north towards his neck. It didn't seem like a migraine. Doffy had described to him once that those had more of a stabbing pressure, instead of a stiff one.
They were...probably never going to see each other again. Truly this time.
And while he really did want to return and check on his brother, Rosinante doubted it'd be feasible by then, with the whole Family after his head. He'd been considering a letter, like the unsent ones he'd written as a child. Maybe bribe a news coos into delivering it.
If he owed Doffy anything, it was a real goodbye. Rosinante wanted to tell him that he had seen Rubeck. That he would always hope for his brother to find peace one day. And if there'd been a way for him to go back to that moment all those years ago, he would have never...
A weight landed on top of him. Rosinante's gaze slid down and the side of Law's fur hat crowded into his vision. Oh, he'd never answered the kid's question had he? Though Law seemed too preoccupied now, ear pressed close to Rosinante's chest.
"Your heart sounds off," he said, a whisper.
Rosinante contemplated that for a weary moment.
"Huh," he slurred, "'M okay."
"No, you're not!" Law's voice was slightly higher than usual. "I told you to stop smoking so much. Why didn't you listen?" He scrambled to his feet. "You need a hospital. I'm going to get help."
Rosinante's dragging lids snapped open again. "What?" He struggled into a sitting position this time with a grunt of effort, despite the child's protests for him to stay down. "No, the Barrels crew's searching for me by now."
"I can get around them."
A wince. "You're still pretty fragile, Law—"
"I don't care! There's something wrong with your heart!"
Rosinante shushed him quickly. "Calm down. Someone could hear us. Listen—no, kid, listen to me. I'm fine. Just probably...tired is all. I haven't used my devil fruit in a long time, I think I pushed myself too hard."
Simple exhaustion, that had to be it. It made even more sense when Rosinante said it out loud. The Donquixote lineage was marked for robust health and good genes. He was tough on his body sometimes, fine, but for anything to actually be wrong was crazy to imagine.
Not that the kid seemed to agree.
"You haven't been eating, you aren't breathing well and you were just gushing blood like a fountain." He was rushing towards the door. "Doesn't matter if it's nothing. You're still going to a hospital."
"Law, wait," Rosinante began, before stopping with a sigh. He recognized a lost battle for what it was. "Where are you even thinking of going then? The triangle's abandoned."
"Inland," the kid replied, prompt, "where the marines are."
It was said so matter-of-factly that the words almost didn't compute to Rosinante.
"What marines?"
"I saw them earlier when I was getting ice. They were on the trail towards the mansion." Law paused a moment. "It was that girl from a year ago. The one that'd been with the older lady you both called 'Tsuru-san.'"
Lieutenant Mio.
Rosinante let that sink in, faintly annoyed with himself. He'd gotten to the triangle ahead of the arranged deal date, specifically because he'd wanted the element of surprise. Why hadn't it occurred to him that someone like the Vice Admiral would've long thought the same thing? He wasn't exactly the most eager to see her.
What if she made him call Sengoku-san? Rosinante only had the barest skeleton of a farewell composed. Some patchwork of gratitude and apology. You were right about my brother and it kills me that you were and I can't face you because of it, and so I had to go.
Something like that.
"You need help, Cora-san," Law said again, adamantly, as if reading his thoughts. His hands were small fists at his sides. "She'll help us, won't she?"
A peculiar light was in the child's expression. Rosinante didn't have time to stammer out a lie about how he had no idea, because Law turned away without waiting for one. "I know she will."
And then the knob turned and the door creaked open. A crooning breeze slid over the entryway, reaching in to caress his hair. Rosinante's legs wouldn't keep steady long enough to rise and so he finally relented with a measure of distress.
"Be careful, Law," he said, "Okay?"
The child was already out the door. "You're not allowed to die," he said, a whisper that was almost to himself, "I swear, I swear I'll hate you forever."
And he raced into the shroud of stars.
xxx
(Purupurupuru...purupurupuru...
Lieutenant Mio halted in her trek up the snowy incline, gesturing for her team below to wait. The light of her Den Den Mushi had started flashing. A moment of stark relief coursed through Mio when the name appeared on the shell and she flipped the switch for an open third line.
"Hoshi's calling in, ma'am."
The snail nodded, eyes narrowed. The Vice Admiral had sent Captain Hoshi to the southern coastline, an open beach that was a straight route from Minion to Rubeck.
He had missed his report time by a considerable length and in a place so infested with pirates and the looming possibility of a Family appearance, Mio did admit the situation felt a little perched on its toes. Something in the air waiting. She was glad he'd finally called in.
The Vice Admiral must've thought so too, because she didn't sound half as stern as she usually would've been when the call connected.
"It's about time, Captain."
"Apologies, ma'am," Hoshi's voice came through, frazzled, a hint perplexed, "We were, uh...well, we were surveying the area as ordered and...came across a deserter."
Mio blinked, unsure she heard right. The Vice Admiral's brow quirked. "Deserter? Of Barrels' crew?"
"Seems so. Said his name was Sid. Bastard's a complete wreck. Practically begged us to arrest him. Rowed all the way here from Rubeck."
"What?" the Vice Admiral sounded surprised and Mio swiveled automatically towards the sloshing black sea, squinting into the distance at Rubeck.
Hoshi sighed, scratching his head. "Yeah, he's not making much sense. Says there's a demon or something on that island. Killed two of his crewmates, I—"
Swears and clatter cut him off. Mio's brow arched at the sound of Hoshi's squad yelling and glass smashing ("Shit," someone said, "the throttle.) She was about to ask if he required backup, when a stranger's voice fizzled across the line, the speaker piece rattling as if it'd been swiped away.
"Get me off of this rock," it said, fear rippling through the line like an icy current, summoning the gooseflesh to her skin, "Get me out of this place!"
"Hey!" Hoshi roared, scrabbling in the background, "Scum-sucker, give that back!"
"He's coming here. I saw him take a boat. Diez got the wrong man pissed at him and now he'll butcher 'em all."
"You came from Rubeck?" the Vice Admiral asked simply. Only years of service clued Mio in on the subtle alarm in her tone.
Confused, she groped for the smattering of details she recalled of the island.
It was older than Swallow and Minion. Had been nothing but parched ruins for several decades, before a recent and baffling revitalization. Still uninhabited. Still quiet.
There was something else though too, picking at the back of her mind. Some final tidbit that she'd forgotten. Mio's thoughts did another confounded loop, before it finally struck her.
Eleven years ago, Rubeck had also become a base for the Donquixote Family.
"I saw him," Sid the deserter said, "beneath a willow. The Heavenly Demon! He's on his way!"
Mio's pulse thudded. Despite all previous bravado, her body went cold.
"Do you even know what you saw, boy?" the Vice Admiral asked, deathly calm, "I don't tolerate mistakes of this kind."
There was instant retorting from over the line. Descriptions were given of the figure on Rubeck—golden hair, a towering height and strings that wound off his fingertips like the heads of a thousand snakes.
The Vice Admiral may have asked more questions. Mio hardly processed them. She didn't need any more clarification.
Doflamingo was coming to Minion Island. Maybe he was here already.
Vice Admiral Tsuru gave a hard sigh. It was troubled down to its core. She ordered Hoshi to bring the deserter back to the ship at once.
"And you, Lieutenant," she said, "as we discussed."
The Den Den's eyes shifted to her and Mio gave a hasty nod. She waved at her team, who began hurrying back to the boats.
The oars sliced into the waters and they pushed off of Minion's shore.)
xxx
The Den Den inched closer while Vergo flipped through the apartment clippings. Unconnected with the navy. Large enough for two people. Somewhere far away.
"Behehe, how sweet and delusional."
Vergo stared at the photographs. All the buildings had open balconies and skylights. A clean, fierce horizon carrying the moon. Doffy would've enjoyed it, he knew.
Yet the more he took in, the angrier he became. Everything he'd seen so far had made him angry. Vergo did not understand why.
"Well, it's selfish, isn't it?" Trebol answered, "If he really did love Doffy, if he truly cared as much as he claimed, then he wouldn't have ran that first time. No matter what you'd said to him."
Vergo looked at the Den Den Mushi. "What I said? You told me to say those things."
"Behe, it's what you felt anyway, don't deny. And we were right, weren't we? He ran. This is only fair."
Vergo considered that, recalling that moment he'd stepped in front of that thin, shivering form. Rosinante had been eight years old and alone and traumatized. Had that been fair? Maybe if he'd really put his eyes to the question, the answer would have been obvious.
As it was though, Vergo hadn't been especially looking.
"Why'd he come back then?"
Trebol laughed. "'Cos he regretted it obviously. But it's too late. You give something up, you don't get to have it back. Bothersome fool should've just accepted it." The Den Den leered. "What are you waiting for?"
Vergo turned toward the fire and dumped in the clippings.
xxx
(The marines were gone.
Law hurried up the incline, climbing all the way to the start of the woods leading to the mansion. Smoke and shouting echoed from there and he hesitated from going further. It was too dangerous from that point on and the marines didn't sound like they were up ahead anyway.
He didn't know where they were.
Law bent forward slightly, trying to catch his breath. His legs were starting to shake, but there wasn't time to stop.
He had to find those marines.
Maybe they'd returned to the beach. He'd see a whole team of people. They had to have their boats tied up somewhere.
Panting, the boy turned and retraced his steps.)
xxx
Crunch crunch
Vergo's boots trudged through the frozen sand. The wine crate clinked beneath his arm. He traveled across the southern beachside of Minion in brisk strides, inches out of the reach of the waves.
He needed to hurry. There was no way the Family would be able to keep Doffy on the ship for much longer and who knew what he was seeing by this point.
The possibilities of what could happen if he got on the island were unmanageable. Doffy could drown. He could fall off a cliff. Get ambushed by Barrels and mowed down in gunfire.
Vergo's mouth thinned as his steps lengthened. He still couldn't believe he'd left the wine behind in favor of Rosinante's files. When had he become so partial to mistakes?
It was almost surreal in hindsight. When he first met the younger Donquixote, Vergo hadn't thought much of anything.
Just that Doffy dragged him around everywhere like he was a second shadow. And that their resemblance was uncanny, even for siblings.
There was no slumbering fury in Rosinante. No constant, burning hunger. The eyes, like desert sand or the bricks of a house, were admittedly just as striking, but that was all Vergo had found notable about him at the beginning.
Trebol's loathing had been practically bizarre. Vergo used to assume it was rooted in bruised ego, since the man's reverence for Conqueror's Haki was so fanatical. Doffy's rejection of their offer must have smarted to no end.
If only Vergo had recognized then what he did now...this would all be a very different story.
"Hello?"
The quiet voice materialized eleven paced in front of him. Armament haki drew across his limbs, darkened them by a quarter, before Vergo registered what he was seeing. A small, cloaked figure was collapsed against a pile of driftwood.
Amber eyes blinked up at him beneath a white spotted hat, large as coins. The skin was pasty and the hair pressed against it was charcoal black.
A child.
"Are you a marine?" the boy said, nervous gaze on Vergo's issued trench coat, "I couldn't find…"
Vergo surveyed the trail behind him. There was a ribbon of little footprints that had traveled their unsteady way down the beach. They extended back to the hills inland, where the trail led up presumably to Barrels homebase. Quite a hike. An escaped prisoner maybe.
Vergo gave the child another cursory look. No time for this. Doffy needed his wine.
"Get off this island," he said, readjusting the crate, "Pirates here."
The child leaned forward, alarmed. His face was sweaty and red-tinged from exertion.
"Wait," he said, "Wait, my...dad, he's sick. Really sick. He needs help. Are your boats still here?"
Boats?
Vergo stared. The first thought to spring forth was that the Family had been spotted, before he swiftly dismissed the notion. The ship was on the opposite beach, a fair distance from shallow waters, and partially hidden behind an outcropping. Impossible to see from shore. Vergo recollected himself.
"Ah, I'd gotten separated," he said, softening his voice, "You've seen my comrades then?"
The child nodded hurriedly.
"Where?"
"I don't know. They were up the trail earlier, but now they're gone."
Hm. The deal had been arranged for tomorrow. What were the marines doing here already? It would not do for Vergo to be found. His dispatch report still said he was part of a circuit in Loguetown.
"Can you help?" the child said, "Please, he needs a hospital. Please help him."
Vergo regarded the child again carefully, assessing the situation. Getting caught now, on top of every other blunder he'd committed so far, would be unacceptable. His king did not deserve such a sub-par performance from him. The mere thought was intolerable. Drove him to a fury.
He made up his mind in a single, flickering beat.
And then the child was no longer a child to him, but a witness.
Vergo smiled and set down the crate.
"Of course I'll help him," he said, and though it really wouldn't matter in short time, added, "What do they call you, son?"
Relief bloomed over the small face, so intense his entire body seemed to wilt.
"Law," the child said.
Vergo's brow rose.
"An interesting name." He waved a hand down the shoreline, "Well, Law, let's hurry then, shall we?"
xxx
(Diez still didn't know the Ope Ope was missing.
Issac's cousin considered small mercies as he ran down the hill from the estate. The captain was too busy interrogating every breathing person left in the ravaged dining hall, and kicking at the corpses that'd been uncovered. The warehouse still burned madly, dry winds keeping it alive.
They would have time to hunt down whoever stole the fruit.
"Stop shouting," he snapped at Brass and Foder, who'd been puffing away behind him, hollering and making a scene. "Want to let the whole damn triangle know what's going on?"
"So what?" Foder grunted, "Who's gonna hear us, ya paranoid ass? No one'll be here till tomorrow night."
Isaac's cousin wasn't so sure. He'd been trying to rearrange his glimpses of the intruder into a proper image. Something about him had seemed frightfully familiar. He didn't like the feeling and it was creating a new eeriness in the night for him. He swore the wind had grown heavier. Carried a metallic tinge.
"What're we gonna do when we catch 'im, huh?" Brass said, jumped up, "Pull out his tongue, chop off his legs?" He was jittery from his latest shot of speed and spewed out several more horrific ideas while Foder egged him on.
Isaac's cousin ignored them, focusing harder on the wind.
Then Doflamingo Donquixote sprung out of the dark.
All Isaac's cousin processed at first was a flood of red. Red and feathers and snow and red. The ground thundered and they crashed off their feet, all three of them.
"Hey! What the fu—"
A sound sliced the air, so clean it was a whistle. Isaac's cousin didn't even recognize who had spoken, Foder or Brass, because both their heads went tumbling by him in the next second, pitter-patter down the incline like they were running away.
He started screaming.
"Silence."
He stopped screaming.
Doflamingo Donquixote loomed over him, his breath misting out in a white, steady stream.
The suit he was wearing was splashed over with blood. Isaac's cousin stared at it, swallowing slowly. He noticed then that several of the men who'd scouted ahead had made no further noise.
"Better." A massive hand reached down and pulled him up by the collar, setting him on his rear like a toy by a child. "Isn't this a coincidence? I was in the neighborhood and couldn't help overhearing your troubles. Such irony. Someone stole from you the Ope Ope, which you had stolen from me. Funny how that works, don't you think?"
He leaned in and there was not an inch of his smooth, still face that indicated it was remotely funny. Isaac's cousin didn't dare scoot away.
"I-I—"
"So who was it?"
A hand was around his throat abruptly. "The intruder. The lover of irony. Who was it?"
"I-I don't—"
Isaac's cousin choked. The fingers did not squeeze too hard though. Just enough to bring a broken neck to mind and make it abundantly clear how easy the prospect would be.
"No, none of that now," Doflamingo said, "I am having, hm, an absolutely shitty day. So let's save all the sniveling for another time."
"But I don't remember!" he said, pitch high, "I wasn't close enough, really, really—"
The hand was gone. And in its place was the lightest of touches, lighter even than a butterfly's wing. The edge of string caressed the quivering bob of Isaac's cousin's throat. More of them fell around his wrists, his ankles, his thighs, his scalp.
"Tell me," Doflamingo said, "who it was."
The strings tightened, the curved edges of guillotines. A minute twitch began on Doflamingo's cheek and a nearby rock cracked in two. His voice frayed in the center.
"Tell me who it was."
Madness was in the air, bright and glittery.
Heart racing, Isaac's cousin shoveled through his recollection of the hour prior, every detail he could haul up. The features were a carousel of panic in his head at first, before he could meld them into a shadow. A figure.
The shape of a face.
Isaac's cousin blinked. He stared at Doflamingo and realized then what that needling familiarity had been.
"He...looked like you."
Every part except the glasses. And the silence. Isaac's cousin offered a frantic description of that vast and shivering silence as well. It had sunken into his marrow and left it clammy inside. He would never forget it.
Doflamingo did not move.
Isaac's cousin tugged on the strings. "That's all I know," he said, "It's the truth, I swear."
The strings did not budge. Isaac's cousin pulled harder.
"Please," he whispered, "Please."
Something loosened just slightly. Doflamingo was as motionless as a cadaver. The jet of his breath had slowed. Isaac's cousin focused his strength in his right arm. "Let me go…" His scrawny hand pawed into his coat, past flannel and caught the grip of his gun.
"Let me go, you fucking monster!"
He fired twice without aiming, but close enough that there was the moist tear of bullets into flesh. The strings had already gone slack and fell a beat before, but Isaac's cousin didn't notice. He scrambled to his feet, snow in his boots.
The Heavenly Demon stared at him. Through him.
He had just shot the Heavenly Demon.
Oh god.
Isaac's cousin turned tail and fled.)
xxx
("It's a left here," Law said, "through the town and around that bend."
The marine, 'Vergo-san' he'd said to call him, nodded and turned. His footsteps were very heavy in the snow, like cinder blocks thudding down on bones. And he was so rigidly straight that Law had to cling to the back of his coat lest he fall.
He hadn't even wanted to be carried. Had been trying to stand up again on the beach, when Vergo-san had bent down and lifted him onto his back. He wasn't as tall as Cora-san and he wasn't as warm and he smelled like disinfectant and had features that moved so minimally that he barely seemed alive.
A thimble of unease spilled in Law's belly. Doflamingo had always harped on about not talking to strangers...
He shook his head, pushing the thoughts aside.
Even if Vergo-san wasn't part of the marines Law had been looking for, he was still a marine.
And Law knew that a marine would definitely help Cora-san.
They rounded the bend.
Cora-san had dragged himself out of the cabin and to the stoop. He was wheezing slightly, back resting against the door frame and Law scowled, exasperated.
He was about to call out when Cora-san suddenly looked up.
And Vergo-san stopped so dead that the jolt made Law finally lose his grip and fall. The snow was soft on his back. It was cold. Law sat up and Vergo-san was walking towards the stoop already.
Cora-san was frozen and pale.
"Ro-si-nante," Vergo-san said, "It has been a while."
Nothing else made sense after that.)
xxx
There was a hole in his left shoulder. Another in his left arm.
Doflamingo was pretty sure anyway. The fluttery tassels of pain seemed to be centralizing around those areas. He had not actually looked.
"Do you still remember," he said quietly, "that night with the candle?"
The ghost stood to his left, a dozen or so steps away. His hands were behind his back. He did not reply.
"I remember it," Doflamingo said, "I used to think about it sometimes when I was still looking for you."
Silence.
"You were so angry. First time I ever saw you that angry. Over a candle of all things."
Doflamingo's lips tilted a little before they fell again.
"And you said you would've traded me for anyone else in the world."
He rasped out a laugh, heaving to his feet, a hand over his injured arm. Blood sluiced down his fingertips and drizzled in the snow.
"So I suppose you really did mean those words then after all, huh, Rosi?"
The ghost looked up at him, unmoving.
"You left me here...for fourteen years. Without a goodbye or a look. Without anything. Like I wasn't even worth it. And then you come back out of nowhere, and make me think we're going to be together again, just so you could…"
He breathed, the jet of mist shuddering. He never finished the sentence.
"How," Doflamingo said, "could you do all of this to me? You of all people?"
Something sad drifted through those large, opaque eyes. His little brother. His Rosi. Always looking at him like...like...
Doflamingo's hands closed.
"I need you to say something."
The ghost did not move. Time went on, seconds, minutes, long enough that Doflamingo figured they were both simply never going to move from that spot again.
And then Rosi opened his mouth.
I'm sorry, it told him, that ghost on the beach.
That crumpled note in his pocket.
That smile on an old man's face, whose skull he'd buried beneath the Red Line.
I'm sorry.
xxx
The last document he burned was a transcript. A meeting between Rosinante and the Gorosei. It was fragmented and black-lined, but the sections remaining said this:
-Your brother is unrepentant. He possesses no remorse in his soul. He cannot change.
-You're wrong.
"It's almost pitiful." The Den Den shook its head as Vergo tossed the papers into the fire. "Poor, ill-fated thing. Just watch. Doffy's gonna be so much better without him. A whole new person."
Vergo's frame stiffened.
"What are you talking about?" he said, "I don't want him to be a whole new person."
"Behehe, easy, boy. I just meant that he'll finally be free." The Den Den looked at him. "He'll live up to his destiny. It's what we want."
Vergo did not answer. He watched the fire, the scraps of paper browning and curling inside. The words were still in his head though, and he could not seem to scrape them out.
-I remember who he is. I know my brother. It doesn't matter what you think.
-I'm going back for what's mine.
-This whole fucking world can't stop me.
After the flames lowered and died out, Vergo gathered the ashy remnants into a neat and proper handful. He climbed the ladder along D Block's bubbling vat and tossed them into the swill of SAD.
From down below, Trebol giggled.
"Long live the king, eh, Vergo?"
Long live the king.
xxx
He was kicked in the ribs. Rosinante doubled over, hot pain exploding through his chest.
Colors swirled over his vision and his world melted. Rosinante scrambled away from the darkness.
Stay awake, he thought blankly, stay awake Thekidthe kid no no stay awake
His eyes wouldn't clear. The boot kicked him again.
Again again again. A steel toe.
Rosinante gasped, coughing wetly, something warm and bloody trickled down his mouth. Was that screaming? Where was he? Where was his brother? The mob was—
A black glove grabbed his shirt and yanked him upright.
Five of Vergo's faces spun in front of him, knifed shapes like the surface of a splintered mirror.
"Doffy," they said, "has been looking for you."
xxx
"You're sorry?"
Doflamingo blinked, eyes almost owlishly wide.
"You're…" He laughed. "...sorry?"
His hand dropped off his arm, the bullet holes free to bleed again.
"That's all you have to say?" he said, "Sorry?"
The ghost stared at him.
And the dull hum that'd been stuck in Doflamingo's head for months became a groan then, a screech—something jammed finally giving with a metallic whine. It snapped in two and spun wildly off into the dark and the entire world turned red, Red RED, and consumed him without ceremony.
Doflamingo moved forward on numb legs.
"You…marine-dispatched bastard. You traitorous, traitorous snake." Veins suffocated the surface of his face. "YOU'RE SORRY?"
Strings hissed out of his hand.
"NOT FUCKING YET."
A cage dropped out of the sky.