Thank you's to these magnificent carbon-based life forms who possess the same molecular blueprints as the stars, the suns, the cosmos: M. Mellow, Mai Kasukabe, Guest, 10th Squad 3rd Seat, Alkitty, Yami Krismiya, Tavris, Velonica14, CameronEmma, bleck, Girl-luvs-manga, Aquila Audax, sweetlilsunshine, a fan, Aloe Wera, K, and Shiningheart of Thunderclan.
—
methyl nitrate pineapples
hypothesis #8
six feet under in an old pine box
—
Her throat was raw from screaming.
Loud, wheezing gasps filled the darkness. Sophie tried holding her breath. Calm down, the still-cognitive parts of her brain blubbered frantically. She was trying, but—
How long had she even been there, laying in the coffin? Suffocation was a slow death. Sophie couldn't even think straight, the smell was so terrible; the areas in her mind where she once drew strength out of knowledge were now blank holes of terror. Even the snarky voice in the back of her mind was silent.
"Help! Anyone! LET ME OUT! SOMEBODY!" She kept pounding as dirt sprinkled over her forehead. "HEY, YOU STUPID PIRATES!" They couldn't hear, they weren't coming, and she was going to die embraced by a cadaver. "Princess-san… Nellie-san… someone…"
Anko's words came back: Holding your breath just increases the need to breathe and builds up carbon dioxide in your body. Keep your cool.
They would rescue her, surely. She could imagine it: Law's smug smirk as he yanked open the coffin, or Lisbeth's sweet-voiced concern. Maybe even Hippo, because he'd be out sailing, looking for her by now. He might even be on Cat's Eye, standing on the dirt above her, digging frantically.
As time ticked on and the darkness grew more deafening, Sophie floated in a curious, detached plane of time. Death, a new thought trickled in, could be a gift. No more pain to go through. She'd tried her best. Wasn't that enough?
It would be so easy letting go. Like an exhale. She wouldn't even have to think about it.
Aside from Hippo, no one at G-13 would miss her. Other geniuses, smarter and younger than her, will appear on the playing field. They'll remember her as a warning to little girls who strayed too far from home. At least she'd have a friend to rot together for eternity with. In her final moments she'd name him something like Larry, or Butterscotch. Or, going by the appendage nearest her face, just Butt.
She never said goodbye to Hippo.
She'd been planning to tell him all the stories—plants curling serpentine around great swamp trees, the crunch of snow under her boots, Nellie and Sid and Lisbeth, storm warnings, witch doctors. All because Khanwari put her there—
…All because Khanwari put her there.
A strange clarity came over her. Like a spark in the gloom.
He buried her alive, like what the holy shipovas, who does that? And you know, it didn't matter that she had no friends, or family members who knew she was still alive, or people in general who cared about her well-being—it didn't matter at all. There were still oceans to see, new elements to explode—
She was unsettlingly aware of her own heartbeat.
Thump, thump, thump.
I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive.
She touched the lid. It had already caved in a lot. It was probably an old coffin, judging by the rancid stench coming from the mostly decayed body under her. The wet dirt would be packed tight, thanks to the storm, so no immediate droppage of weight and crushage of lungs if she broke through the coffin. Think, Sophie, think. She painstakingly wiggled her shirt up and tied the sleeves together, effectively creating a sort of cloth bag over her head. It would have to suffice.
She took a deep breath and focused on the clarity, the clear, shining light.
Khanwari put me here.
The spark turned into a sun. And then a miniature imploding supernova.
Khanwari put me here.
Her hands hunched, fingers tightening into curled teeth. This was real.
Gritting her teeth, Sophie smashed her fists into the wooden planks.
—
Law crashed through the belfry and slammed against the clanging bell.
Unsteady, he dropped to his feet, mentally taking note of the blood loss and his two broken ribs. Kikoku had fallen out of his grip some three blocks back, and Odin was pressuring him so hard he was in emergency defensive mode. He couldn't even see the bastard, much less Room him.
Law leapt away, movement in his left peripheral vision, twisted sharply in the air, no one there—
A swift punch hurled him straight into the side of a terrace. He managed to get a grip on the slippery surface and jumped over a wall of flowerpots, barely avoiding a rankyaku. It was amazing how much that body was capable of—he could see the scars of experimentation set into his skin, knew enough about giantification to understand—
Odin silently appeared on the edge of the rooftop.
Rain drummed on Law's skin, between his lips when he grinned viciously.
At the flick of his finger, roof tiles shot upwards in a wave of red. Odin leaped in the air and skidded along another building.
"Doesn't seem like you know the other four forms!" Law taunted, fingers flexing behind his back. "Cipher Pol kick you out before or after they experimented on you?"
His blank exterior changed in a split-second. Law could read the tension rolling off him like typhoon. Odin vanished again and all of Law's senses sharpened, feeling every drop of rain, every gust of wind whipping his shirt back, straining to discern the smallest movement. Tiles clacked on the terrace, he jerked back—a window on the opposite building rattled—
The sphere grew—one second from impact—not fast enough, more, more!
For a tenth of a second, Law saw him, kicking against the roof, so close he could see into the black slits of his mask—
"FIRE!"
"ROOM!"
The massive copper bell appeared where Law stood just as a rocket-launched projectile exploded in Odin's face.
Back inside the belfry, clutching the wound in his stomach, Law glanced down at the street. The Crawfishers Penguin alerted him about ducked behind a furniture barricade and stared back.
"Th-they said they'd help us, but can we really trust them!?"
A woman carrying a bazooka shoved them all aside. "Don't crap your pants now! We have more important things t' worry about!"
Fluffy Oxen raced down the street, soldiers on them aiming their guns—and suddenly the back row was missing their riders. The ones to the side were dispatched in a blur of white, and there was Penguin, roundhousing the leader straight into a nearby cart of pitchforks. Manta grabbed the last two flailing soldiers, tossed one to Shachi, who grinned and smashed their heads together.
As rain cleared away the smoke, Odin wasn't moving. Law squinted. He was holding up a—necklace. Dog tags, partly burnt brown. He took a moment to wrap it around his fingers before disappearing in a blur. The tiles ripped apart from the speed he was moving at.
Law dodged and dove onto a skywalk as the bell tower crumbled into pieces. Odin cut the skywalk in half with a rankyaku, and sent another spinning at him as he jumped back.
"Captain!"
He turned to see Bepo throwing Kikoku.
Law unsheathed it in mid-air and slashed wildly with a ferocious yell—through the rankyaku, through Odin. His right arm, dog tags and all, spun into the air. A corner of his mask crumbled apart.
"You're so damn muscular I can see all your pressure points." Law righted his hat, smirk gone. "Let's end this."
—
The World Government helped him, protected him, without a single thought to people like her. Sophie brought her left fist swinging and broke through. The porous, maggot-bitten wood fell against her covered face. She'd seen her comrades die for a king who would never know their names, and for what?
The dirt came in a flood. Loyalty was her only belief system and that, in itself, could not be wrong. Sophie pushed against the solid mass of soil and insect particles and bacteria. But at what point did loyalty mean making excuses? When had it gotten out of control? When had she started viewing her life, Lisbeth's, the pirates', and this stupid war as a means to an end? At what point did it become a desperate attempt to reassure herself what she stood for actually meant something?
It had always lingered like a seed in the back of her mind, why she hid all her fury and disobedience and tears as a child, kept her anger quiet like a smothering blanket. Because she was ordered to. No logic or want behind it.
Just once—just once—she tried to something heroic, semi-altruistic. Put her life and ideals on the line, and this—this coffin was a testament to how far she got. This was how the world repaid blind faith.
Her whole body felt like it was going to break apart. She was a fireball imploding in a collision of fission atoms and fever-rage. Sophie was no superhuman being like Law or Odin, she had no ways of manipulating the laws of physics to her favor; she wholly human—and her faith was dying in the hardest, fiercest way possible, the cruel gods of her universe were exploding, and she was burning alive, boundless and infinite and broken.
Charisma and fanciful speeches couldn't save Jacques Straw. Power—the ability to fight—only the strong survive. Everything else was a performance. A theater of manipulations and illusion.
Give up or keep crawling. Give up or keep choking down dirt. Give up or keep fighting for every inch, every centimeter.
I gave you everything, she howled at the inferno, I gave you my hands, my platoon, my childhood, my entire identity! She stretched, screaming against the blistering torment, the violent dying of the fire, and pushed her knuckles through the mud.
The earth cracked—splintered—
(the fire blew out)
—broke.
Her fingers dug into the ground, and then came her head, her neck, her shoulders. Sophie fell over and wrenched the shirt off her head, simultaneously inhaling in a frenzy and hacking out dirt. Had air always tasted so sweet?
The acid taste of bile rose up in her throat. She pressed her wrist pressed against her mouth.
Raindrops splattered over her. She was covered in grime and mud slid down her hair in thin ropes.
And yet.
And yet she was alive.
A discarded shovel lay on the grave. Someone had been in a rush to get it done; the grave was filled up less than halfway with dirt. That probably saved her life.
She looked up at the Cat's Eye Tower. Khanwari would not win.
—
She found herself back in the collapsed parlor, hefting a heavy rock.
Locating the tunnel was easy; it was hidden in a small alcove leading down to a wooden door, which she kicked in. It was a little harder knocking out the soldier guarding it, but at least his gun was dry (her gun now). Lisbeth said the tunnel was a straight path.
It was a peculiar feeling. There was no fear in her as she moved through the dark, not even when she broke through another door and found three soldiers waiting on the other side.
The first bullet was instantaneous: one fell and toppled into another, who went down swearing.
"Don't move!" Sophie yelled to the third lunging for his musket—her musket.
The rosy-cheeked lady.
"I know you. Anko-san talked to you yesterday." Her eyes narrowed. "The king's informant. You sold out the Tournesol."
"This is what I believe in," she retorted, and spread her arms out. "I regret nothing. Shoot me."
"I hate traitors," Sophie said softly.
A flash of movement from the floor—
Bang!
Blood splattered the stone wall. Sophie stepped over the crumpled soldier; the pistol he'd raised at her went rolling across the floor.
"If only everyone was as loyal as you," she finished. "The king has a hidden boat somewhere, yeah? You know where it is?"
Ashen and shaking, the woman nodded.
"You have ten minutes to prepare it." Sophie nodded at the door. "Go."
She stumbled over the mess on the floor and hesitated at the threshold, looking back.
Sophie pointed the musket. "Go!"
She went.
Sophie stuck the abandoned pistol in the back of her shorts, checked the ammunition in the musket, and quietly slid open the next door. It led to the bottom of a tall, spiraling staircase in a windowless tower. Three orange flames moved up and down the darkness. Covered by the roar of the storm, Sophie took them out one by one. She didn't even have to move from the spot, just follow the glow, aim carefully, and watch them fall.
It had always been about loyalty. Only loyalty. Sometime after she'd been promoted to director, she expected that loyalty to be returned. She expected heroics. She thought her trust—in G-13, in Law—was worth something.
She heaved the latch off the last door, and it banged open. Wind and rain pummeled her face.
The top of the Cat's Eye Tower was small and circular, four pillars holding up the spindly tower roof. The scarred soldier was holding Lisbeth's hand over a large stone tablet in the middle. Khanwari whirled around and stared at her in all of her mud-covered, dirt-stained fury.
Lisbeth looked wildly at the door. "Sophie! Help!"
"Please don't hurt me, I'm so sick of working for this freak." The soldier instantly let go, and Lisbeth ran into her arms.
Khanwari's eyes bugged. "Stop! I order you to—"
"Do something yourself for once," he snapped, and shoved him aside.
"No time to talk. There's a boat waiting to take you away—"
"I am not escaping by myself!" Lisbeth said instantly, straightening up.
"It's a necessary precaution. Can you find it?" she asked the soldier, who nodded quickly. "You have to go. I'll see you when this is over."
Lisbeth grabbed her wrist. Her touch was warm. "Be careful, but—please, do not hurt him more than you have to. Every person deserves a fair trial."
Sophie made herself smile. "Don't worry, I'm unarmed."
She nodded and disappeared around the door with the soldier.
"NO!" Khanwari bellowed, leaping forward.
Sophie pulled the pistol from the back of her shorts and fired point-blank. The recoil sliced through her bleeding knuckles, but she hardly felt it. Khanwari clutched his hand as blood spurted out between his fingers. Now that she thought about it, there was nothing special about the molecules in that withered old body. Science and logic decreed him mortal. There was nothing special at allabout World Nobles.
"You… little cheat… you said you were unarmed!"
She walked forward. "Yeah? When did fighting suddenly gain rules? That was for stepping on me. You want to know what I fight for?"
A bullet ripped through his other hand.
"That was for attempting to bury me alive."
Another in his left foot.
"That was for Manette Nellie!" Lightning cracked past the tower, illuminating her face full of terrifying rage. "ON—YOUR—KNEES!"
He slumped to the ground, laughing through the pain. "What a change. Where's your loyalty?"
Pure adrenaline pumped through her. The fury was so intense and fevered it swallowed up all doubts.
Sophie took two steadying breaths. "Tell me your name. Your real n-name."
"I abandoned it when I left Mariej—"
"Cut the melodramatic shtick or I s-start a-aiming somewhere a l-little closer to home." Her arm lowered. The gun pointed between his legs.
Jaw clenched, he finally spat, "Kasimir."
"Alright. Saint Kasimir…" She glanced at the tablet. There was a circle in the middle, surrounded by strange blocky shapes that looked like the ones on the floor. Was this some weird human sacrifice he was trying to pull? And she used to think World Nobles were enlightened. "…Why did you come to this kingdom? And w-why did you burn down Crawfish Island? What w-were you trying to accomplish?"
"It doesn't matter anymore." He swayed and staggered like an overgrown bat. "You pirates have ruined it… Lisbeth was…"
A chill ran up her spine. "What did you do to her?"
"I tried… to make her… queen."
Her gun faltered and dropped an inch. "…Huh?"
"If she could ever be the ruler of Apolleon… then she must have the love of the people…" His chest rattled with coughs. "You must know the myth… my wife was the last descendant… and as her daughter, Lisbeth is the rightful heir. It was her dying wish to have her claim the throne."
Sophie felt as though a cinderblock just punched her in the stomach.
An invasion, hundreds murdered by the king's guillotine, Crawfish Island burning twice, and now this rebellion.
All done for Lisbeth?
"Every time my wife begged an audience from the old kings, they laughed at her! Because she was a woman! A female heir to the throne!? They called it madness!" He clutched at the wall, panting. "I vowed to end that fake royal family with as much blood as possible. And I did."
"Then why d-didn't you capture Cat's Eye as a World Noble?" Sophie demanded. "With the Government's help? It w-would've been easier."
"I wouldn't ask those military dogs to lick the bottom of my shoes!"
"You asked Doflamingo, didn't you!?" And she shot at his kneecap just because he really deserved it.
"ARGHH! That was obviously meant—to be a secret and an exception, you stupid girl! If I had done that twenty years ago, none would dare rise against me, and I needed resistance—anger." His lips were white and sweat gleamed on his brow. "Everything was already set in place. The hatred of the people, the Crawfish islanders setting up another siege, two islands reuniting under one valiant cause… and then—Lisbeth, kind, strong, beautiful, rising up… a new, prosperous reign would begin… my daughter, the queen… the true queen… they should've been glad to die for her!"
Sophie covered her mouth, feeling physically ill. This guy was legitimately insane.
"The sham was supposed to end today! I've spent twenty years… and now… now if you kill me… it really will all be for nothing."
Stunned, Sophie met his eyes.
"Saint Kasimir," she snarled through gritted teeth, "you are—and I mean this in the politest way—SO BRAINLESS YOU LITERALLY SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO EXIST!"
A flash of blinding light immediately followed her words. A great spark of energy burst beneath her feet as lightning struck the tower and for an instant, she and the king were suspended in midair. Gears on the ceiling whirred erratically, shuddering off centuries of dust. The floor chugged and clanged—and it wasn't a floor at all, but a maze of hissing labyrinthine pipes. A loud mechanical vibration vrooom'd from the stone tablet.
The next second, they dropped like bricks. The tower went silent.
Disorientated, Sophie staggered to her feet. Her fingertips tingled. "W-w-w-what just happened!?"
He looked ecstatic. "Khana wasn't wrong! All it needed was a boost of energy!"
She grabbed the end of his cloak. "W-what's the d-deal with this tower?"
"The legend, do you remember the legend!? H-h-her name was Apollo, the m-mechanic's was Leon. The people named the moving automaton cat Apolleon, a promise to the future return of their king and que—"
"There is a reason why they don't call it Apolleon anymore!" Sophie bellowed disbelievingly. "Times! Change! You crazy! Old! Man!"
Four bullets, four divisible by two divisible by one—
"Screw it, I'm not a decent enough person to care about how many people you killed. What I care about is that you r-refused to be a halfway-d-decent ruler!" Sophie slammed him into the pillar, blinking agitatedly. "Is war f-fun for you?" They were bloody nose-to-bloody nose. "Is it a little game you play where you distribute execution sentences as post-dinner entertainment and line your soldiers up as target practice!? Do you think the entire world is your plaything!?"
He gasped for breath. Sophie sneered, blue eyes frigid.
"You know, for a guy who hates his family, you really need to stop acting like them."
Four bullets, four divisible by two divisible by one—
She released his throat. His knees bottomed out and he sank to the floor. "You threw me in a c-coffin to hide my b-body from Princess-san."
"She's too sentimental… too easily attached… better if you were just… forgotten…"
"You don't love her," she snarled. "You don't even know w-what l-love is anymore."
This was all wrong. This was madness, this made no sense at all. He was a fake. Him and this whole terrible, fake kingdom and their terrible, fake wars. One person causing a genocide. One person manipulating the lives of thousands of others. One person forcing an entire group of people to be an accessory for his daughter. World Nobles and the World Government and G-13 were all the same.
They just used people irresponsibly, illogically, without giving anything in return.
"…I did this for the good of the kingdom…"
I can end the war, I'm with the World Government. G-13 chemist, combat medic. Let me help.
She was an interloper. She never cared about helping Cat's Eye. Truthfully, Sophie didn't even know or remember what she wanted to do. The only thing she knew for certain was...
"No. You did this for yourself."
In a sad and pathetic sort of way, they were the same.
"The moment you pull the trigger, you'll be dead to them… you'll live on the fringes of society… always running, always looking over your shoulder…" His smile dripped red. His eyes laughed at her. "My death will be… the start of your lifetime of misery…"
Her hands stopped shaking.
She stared at him, then slowly lowered her gun to his throat.
"Your beard is uneven. I can fix that."
Five bullets divisible by five divisible by one.
—
Odin reached the edge of the roof. Right on his heels, Law gripped Kikoku with both hands. He wasn't getting away.
A rankyaku blasted through the air. Without even seeing it, he ducked and cut into empty nothingness, wickedly fast. No, not nothingness—Odin reappeared, his legs thudding on the rooftop, and he fell from the building.
Law leaped down and landed heavily on the scaffold. Water splashed up from the puddles, dancing around him. Wincing slightly, he fisted the collar of Odin's shirt as he passed by and dragged his limbless torso to the guillotine.
"Pardon the intrusion," he muttered.
One slice and his mask clattered to the ground. Scars twisted over a rotted eye. Bone and muscle protruded from the side of his jaw, up his cheek. His face was a terrible mess, as though the World Government patched him up with spare parts.
Law's face warped into a terrifyingly twisted look of delight. "You're actually a monstrosity!"
"Tsubaki!"
Two shadows emerged from beneath the scaffold. A soldier and, in front of him—the princess, horrified. The remnants of Odin's features were suffused in anguish. Perhaps this was the first time she was seeing his face?
"Apologies," Law murmured into his ragged ear. "I wanted to spare you as much pain as I could. Thank you in advance for the information your body will be providing me."
He released the blade.
His lips moved soundlessly.
Her mouth opened in a silent scream.
—
Sophie walked through the destroyed city. Blue Crawfish flags flew on every remaining building. A few rebels hastily stamped out a small fire breaking out on a Fluffy Ox's cart. Windows cracked open, voices calling to one another in the cold, still twilight.
Shouts of victory broke out behind her.
At the beach, Lisbeth and two soldiers drifted in a dinghy. A raucous crowd barred them from returning ashore. Tramping across wet sand and broken seashells, Sophie shoved through them until she reached the front.
"Sophie!" Lisbeth cried thickly, her eyes bloodshot. "There has been a ceasefire announcement, it is safe for me to stay now, tell them… what happened?"
Blood stained the side of her cheek. Mud caked her boots.
"Sophie," the people muttered behind her, "did she say Sophie? Strangways Sophie?"
Sophie tossed the king's crown to Lisbeth, who barely managed to catch it as she was staring at the flintlock resting by her side. "He wanted you to have it. It'll sell for a lot of beli." Spinning around, she yelled, "The king escaped! He surrendered Cat's Eye!"
The roars that erupted drowned out Lisbeth's dumbfounded voice, "You said… you were unarmed…"
"Get out of here!" one man yelled.
"If she stays we'll have another dictator on our hands!" someone else hollered as others voiced their agreement.
Sophie took a deep breath, forcing herself into detachment.
Lisbeth shook her head. "This is ridiculous, I am returning home." She hiked her skirt up and stepped up on the side of the dinghy. "My kingdom needs me!"
"This country doesn't want you," Sophie retorted.
Lisbeth jerked back, speechless.
"And it's not your home anymore."
"Odin died!" she suddenly screamed, her body tensing as if she was barely holding back from lunging at her. "That pirate killed him! I trusted you and he killed my best friend!"
Sophie wasn't any good at these things. She only knew how to handle problems of which dynamite and the like were the solution. None of this diplomatic talking nonsense. She bit the inside of her cheek and said finally, "No one wants you here. No one needs you." She could never know the truth. "No one owes you or Odin anything." It would destroy her. "If you love this island s-so much, y-y…you have to leave it."
A shadow of a cloud passed over her, and Lisbeth became unsettlingly, unrecognizably calm. "Traitor."
Sophie closed her eyes, as if to ward off a physical blow.
"I trusted you." She nocked her last arrow. "I trusted all of you and I especially trusted you, you reprehensible, disreputable, ignominious—pirate!"
The crowd scrambled back, leaving Sophie to stand alone. without thinking, she raised the flintlock. One bullet left.
"Lisbeth-san, don't—"
"What am I going to do now!? You banish me from my own island, deposit me in this little boat, and what! What am I supposed to do!?"
"Escape. Live. Buy a house." She shrugged helplessly. They both knew it wasn't going to be so easy.
A tear tracked down her cheek. "And then?"
"I don't know, plant some sunflowers?"
Her face hardened, as though a door had slammed. Sophie wanted to shoot herself in the foot. Oh, wait. She just did.
"I'm sorry! I didn't—look, I'm sorry!"
"Go to hell," Lisbeth spat, and released the arrow.
A speeding blur shot through the air, and Sophie squeezed her eyes tight, unable to pull the trigger.
Pain burst on the side of her leg and people were screaming, and she felt a sharp tug on her waist. The world went black for a few moments. When she came to the first thing she heard was her own hysterical voice, "Oh my god, oh my god, she shot me, oh, god, what happened—"
Fingers pressed into her knees and back. "…barely a graze… fainted a little…"
"She shot me, Hippo-sensei!" Sophie cried deliriously. "I actually took an arrow to the knee, oh my god! Oh my god…"
Next thing she knew, she was lying on something soft. Movement blurred in the corner amid the sound of pained breathing. Her vision spun.
"Lisbeth-san, where is she, where did she go—"
"She fled after screaming something about avenging Odin and raining hellfire on both of us."
A sickening feeling lurched in her gut. She gazed at Law's blood-stained back with a sensation of being lost in a world that didn't make sense anymore.
"It was a good speech. Pity you missed it."
He continued rummaging through the drawers and dug out some thread and a needle and bandages.
She shakily got up on her elbows. "You... you were right about the World Government."
"I know. Now sit," a firm grip was on her shoulder, "down."
Sophie pushed him aside. "I bet you loved watching me make a fool out of myself. You were right the whole time. Every terrible thing you said about them is completely justified, completely—are you h-happy now? She shot me—god, she shot me—"
Tears, hot and sudden, welled up in her eyes.
She had to sit back down and wipe her face with shaking hands. Except her knuckles were bleeding too much, so she pressed her head into her forearms.
"What are you going on about? I told you it was just a graze."
Sophie hated him.
"You did what you came here to do. The war ended."
She loathed how cold Law sounded. How he watched her like he was waiting for a gale to pass.
"It's why you asked me for help, wasn't it?"
It was about Vira. It'd always been about Vira. Her platoon believed so much in the World Government, and they died, they just died, and she was still alive, and somewhere along the way she became convinced Cat's Eye was some apology. As if she could make upfor losing one civil war by winning another. She'd always been so selfish. She used a whole island as a means to an end, just like Khanwari.
He thought this was just about Lisbeth. He had no idea.
"I don't care about this stupid war!" Sophie shouted, and a mountain lifted from her shoulders as she said it. "I won nothing! The war won, you won! G-13 left me behind to die! I'm an expendable resource. I've always been." She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling tears tracking down her cheeks. "I obeyed, I followed orders, I would've sacrificed anything, and now this—now after Vira—how could they do that to me? It's not fair!" The grief was so mindnumbingly painful it was splitting her chest apart. She was one of their brightest, she was going to become famous, they called her special, full of potential, that Strangways Sophie. "I hate G-13! I hate them so much! They're disgusting, and two-faced, and they hurt me, and—and I—"
Memories of home flashed through her mind. The hope of returning had always been there, like a guiding lighthouse.
"I loved them," she sobbed into her arms, with a distant feeling of being lost in an ocean with no light, not even from the stars. I loved them, and I can't even say goodbye.
—
The only light came from the window. Sundown melted on the sick bay floor and cast everything in a fading glow.
Sophie stared at the ceiling for a long time.
She slowly raised her right hand, clean bandages wrapped stiff. A drumbeat soreness thumped steadily in her knuckles.
She took her time sitting up, testing out all her sore muscles. She was tired in the way only crying for hours could make you. Someone left a glass of water, which she drained it in one gulp. Wiping her mouth, Sophie reflected that it seemed the only time she ever got a good night's sleep was when she was knocked out. Huh.
It was then she realized Law was hunched over the desk.
He slept with his head in his arms and, if the bloodied doctor's coat and the smell of damp meat were any indication, just got back from an operation. No one except for Hippo had seen her in such a wrecked state, but she didn't even have the energy to feel mortified.
There was a bandage on her thigh. Sophie looked at dully.
Her rustling movements woke Law. Without making any move to turn around, he asked hoarsely, "How are you feeling?"
"Like a big, fat bruise. But probably better than you."
His back cracked as he moved, followed by a barely muffled grunt of pain. Something glinted on the corner of his desk. His elbow pushed the necklace chain under a book as he turned stiffly. A purplish-green atoll swelled in the corner of his mouth. Even the bags under his eyes seemed sadder and baggier than usual.
"Get it out of the way," she mumbled. "Whatever you want to say, say it."
"You really fucked up your knuckles."
Sophie stared.
"If I didn't possess this particular Devil Fruit, even I wouldn't have been able to completely salvage your right hand. You'd have physical therapy for months, at least. No writing. Shooting would be out of the question."
She flexed her fingers.
"What happened?"
Broke out of a coffin. "Smashed faces in and stomped over them with my stylish yet affordable boots." Which was also true.
"I think you'll want this back."
He reached behind him and tossed her deerskin satchel on her stomach. She gasped. Sophie tore it open and feverishly groped around for the cold metal of her lighter.
"The Crawfishers are helping excavate parts of the castle for survivors. One of them recognized it—a Manette Nellie."
Sophie stared. Nellie? Alive? "No way."
"She commanded the army. Led three battleships from Crawfish Island to here."
"No way!"
Law rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I know that's merely an expression used for surprise, but does it have to be so irritating?"
She scowled at the opposite wall and took deep breaths. Beating the Surgeon of Death over the head with a stethoscope would only result in catastrophic destruction. "Please explain how this happened."
"The huge mess the Crawfishers made chiefly ended the war. It was faster than I expected. Though it took a while for Manta to convince them we didn't burn their island. We're being hailed as heroes, you and I. Mostly you, actually," he grinned sardonically, "they're still listening to common sense and staying clear of me."
"…Hold up. Back at Drum Island, when you asked me to make you that big explosive—it wasn't so your rough-n'-boiler suitin' crew could bust in to save the day?"
"They don't need your help to scale the wall."
She ignored the snide comment. "So you theorized the people of Crawfish were coming all along."
"It was a highly plausible scenario."
"That's… kind of amazing," she admitted reluctantly.
Law stared at her. "…Thank you."
Sophie scratched her cheek and Law remained perfectly motionless. They opened their mouths at the same time.
"Go ahead," he offered.
"A-after you."
"I insist."
Where was this courtesy when she was bawling her eyes out? Apparently Law didn't like dealing with petty issues, such as the spectrum of human emotion. Sophie cleared her throat. "You, um, heard anything about the king?"
"Rumor has it he's hiding somewhere on this island. No one's seen a boat aside from the princess' leave shore."
RARRGHH!
"Ah," Sophie said calmly.
"Nobody is aware of his true identity apart from for me, you, and my crewmates who were there. I took care of the soldiers present." Law scratched a band-aid on his cheek. "It seems you were with him last."
It sounded more of a suggestion than a comment.
"That jerk overpowered me and fled," she replied loftily. "Jerk."
"His gun would've been unusable in the rain."
"So was my musket," Sophie snapped, and caught herself. She crossed her arms. "Soldiers knocked me out. He must've escaped right after."
"And left his crown behind."
"I don't know how the mind of a crazy man works. What is this, an interrogation?"
"If he did happen to die, and if his body is found and if word reaches the World Government, the likely suspect isn't you. It's me." He leaned forward and she leaned back. "And I'm sure I didn't kill him."
An invisible shudder ran down her spine. He was right. Just like with Doflamingo in Crawfish Island, newspapers would blame Law for the death of Saint Kasimir. But better him than her, after everything the pirate put her through. Sophie had no qualms about it. Not that anyone could call him innocent in the first place. Even if he did occasionally save her life—roughly about as much as he threatened to kill her.
She met his gaze evenly. "Then pray he wasn't swept overboard after running away."
Law frowned. Don't freak out, one half of her brain reminded as the other half screamed, nicotine!
"You can take off your bandages in a week, so don't do anything strenuous with your hands." He wheeled back to his desk and began jotting down notes. Sophie exhaled silently. "And only one smoke a day," he added tersely, as she dug out a cigarette pack. "Doctor's orders."
"Pfffine." She rolled a stick around her fingers. "Hey, how's Hai Xing-san?"
"Alive."
"Oh." A thought just occurred to her. "Um… you're only experimenting on Odin, right?"
Law narrowed his eyes.
Sophie sweated nervously. "I mean, what? Who said that?"
"Hai Xing's sleeping off the pain meds over there." He jerked his head at a bed with the curtains drawn on the other end of the room. "The way you wrapped his gunshot wound lacked proper workmanship. Not bad," he amended. "A line above that."
"I was trained to get the job done," she snapped. "He came back alive, didn't he?"
"He did. Thanks."
Sophie opened her mouth in retaliation before registering his words. He didn't stop writing, focused on the paper, the perfect image of indifference, and yet the way he said it was entirely different from his earlier 'thank you'. There was something about it that made Sophie… angry. She didn't know who or what it was directed towards. The anger was just—there.
"Sure. Don't mention it. Ever again." She curled her fingers into her bangs and examined the black tangles. "I was saving my own hide. You'd kill me if you knew Hai Xing died when I could've saved him."
"Am I that terrifying a creature, Sophie?"
"Creature, no. Monster, yes."
Law was unfazed. "Says the chemist who made bombs for this monster."
"Fair point." She swung her legs over the bed and stuffed on her boots, padding to the doorway. "'Either way, it helped the Crawfishers end the war. I have nothing more to contribute to history, thank you very much."
"I could have used them on you," Law commented idly, dabbing his quill into the inkwell.
Sophie felt she'd come a long way when she was only mildly terrified of him. "But you didn't."
"I don't know if that attitude is bravery or foolishness."
She looked past him, looked out the window, into the dying light of the sun. "A leap of faith. Or something."
He cracked a sarcastic grin. "In me?"
"In myself."
His quill paused.
She lit a cigarette. "I guess this is goodbye."
"Where are you heading?"
"Do I spy concern?" She smiled bitingly, and shifted her satchel over her shoulder.
He made a noise of irritation. "Forget it."
If Sophie was being honest with herself, she'd say it was easier this way. Things about Law, about the Heart Pirates, were far more intricate than she thought them to be. Complicated men with complicated pasts. She remembered how he looked at her when she cried, and made up her mind.
"The Log Pose sets in five days," he said, tapping the quill against the desk. "We'll still be around."
When Law finally did look up, she was already gone.
—
"You saved Hai Xing. We're even."
Like the rest of the pirates, Anko had bandages plastered all over his face. He set the oars down and the boat stopped a few feet from shore. Waves lapped at the side of the boat.
"Did I ever owe you anything?"
"...Nah." He shook his head. "Never mind."
Sophie got to her feet. The boat swayed. "That pretty woman you talked to at the Tournesol—"
"Oh, she was a real babe." He paused. "Kicked me out on my ass."
She rolled her eyes. "No kidding?"
"It's alright. I take what I can get."
Sophie giggled. Anko chuckled quietly, rubbing the gunshot wound on his side. "Well, if any consolation," she said, "she was a soldier in disguise and basically the reason why you got shot."
"What? Shit, I hope you beat her up."
"Not really. She sailed off with the princess." Sophie hopped into the ocean, the water rising just below her knees.
"Same difference." He shrugged. "They sure as hell been eaten by a Sea King by now." He grabbed the oars and grinned at her. "Take care, Sophie-chan."
Mango. Things were getting rough if her heart ached when Anko of all people said goodbye.
—
Dusk drifted over Anatole in a nebulous haze, punctured by streets of flickering lanterns and prowling cats. The road was sparsely scattered with those still searching for survivors. Three wrong directions later and Sophie arrived at a little house that miraculously remained intact after the carnage dealt to the buildings around it. She raised her arm, tried counting to five, and gave up on thirty.
Sucking in a breath, Sophie knocked quickly.
"Be right there!" a familiar muffled voice called, followed by running footsteps. "Need help? You Cat's Eye—" the door opened, dim lamplight washing over Sophie, "—or Craw…fish?"
The welcoming smile promptly disappeared from Nellie's bandaged face.
"Erm… hi, Nellie-san." She waved a little and glanced around, fidgeting. "I'm… um, not dead. As you can see. I wanted to ask if you have room in your—I mean, if you don't, I can leave. Just wanted to say hi. And the whole being alive status update. Thought that was a bit important. I mean. From my per-per-perspective. Okay. Well. You're probably busy. You stay, I'll go."
Without saying anything, Nellie wrapped her up in a fierce hug.
"Why do you always look so uncomfortable," she mumbled into Sophie's hair.
Sophie pressed her nose against Nellie's shoulder and choked out, "It's my natural state of being."
—
Romarin had been badly injured after the battle and rested in a bedroom upstairs. When Sophie excitedly asked Nellie how meeting her mother again was like, she just responded with an ambiguous, "It's been… interestin'" as they crept quietly into an area that had the least amount of structural damage. Judging by the crate and four chairs, it was a makeshift kitchen.
A big man with a bigger grin greeted them. Even with two of his teeth knocked out, Sid's smile was something else. "Seems y' owe me a bike, Strangways Sophie."
"Think my bomb can make up for it?"
He considered. "Yeah, alright."
Sophie awkwardly patted him on the elbow. Having none of that, he pulled her into a bone-crushing hug.
Nellie made them all sunflower tea and Sophie laid stomach-down across the two cleanest chairs, warming her hands over the kerosene lamp in the middle. It was much smaller than a big crackling fireplace in an inn, but somehow, as Nellie passed her a cup of tea and she and Sid sat down on either side of her, it was also much warmer.
"How did they manage to convince you? Being pirates and all." Sophie took a sip of tea without waiting for it to cool. She'd burned her tongue so many times on hot coffee she stopped caring somewhere along the road.
"They mentioned your name, actually," Sid answered. "An' even though I hate pirates, there was one among 'em who had decent common sense—Pescado Manta!"
"Eh? Manta-san?" Not Penguin? Not Shachi? …But then again, she didn't know any of them particularly well, so why not?
Nellie sighed. "What does he look like, Canary-chan?"
"Big. Muscley. Has a mustache that deserves its own hat. I still don't—"
"Who's also big and muscley in this room?"
Sophie blinked at Sid.
He flexed his arms, biceps bulging. "Men bond over their muscles!"
"Don't do that at the kitchen crate," Nellie tutted.
They spent the rest of the night talking about the fire at Crawfish Island ('Still burnin', but we managed to contain it, thank goodness'), how Sophie met the Heart Pirates ('It's a boring story'), and how she ended up traveling with them, what the hell, girl, do you have a death wish? Some of the questions she answered with poorly-timed jokes at the Heart pirate's expense, but most she shuffled around and excused herself to the bathroom. Eventually they just stopped asking. The topic shifted to the war, and Sophie was reminded that she… actually didn't know all that much about Nellie or Sid. She faded quietly into the background and just listened.
The loyalists and soldiers had escaped without a struggle; no one wanted to fight anymore. All but one of the Crawfish ships were transporting the seriously wounded back to their island, where more doctors where waiting. People were already backing their belongings. It sounded like the entire population would leave once more ships came. Not a single soul was rebuilding. The past would not be restored. There was no past.
It was around when Nellie and Sid, their voices soft as nightfall, discussed unknown names and places that Sophie drifted off. Her dreams were filled with old memories of gunmetal and hot chocolate in cold laboratories. They blurred in an out, like a Den Den Mushi with a jammed signal. Her consciousness flickered into Hippo's library, her old bedroom, peered out the tiny square window into the sea.
Hippo used to take her sailing around the base. G-13 was a huge white castle in the middle of the ocean, shining in the sun.
'Land, ho!' he'd shout as she leaned as far out of the bow as she dared, the salty breeze blowing through her hair. 'We're homeward bound, Sophie!'
She shifted in her sleep, her cheeks wet, lighter clutched in her fist.
to be continued
trivia
khanwari/saint kasimir: 'khan' is a central asian title for a ruler; 'wari' is for himawari, or sunflower. his true name, kasimir, can mean 'the destroyer of peace'. Unlike his other family members, he only had one wife and loved her desperately.
"odin"/tsubaki: after a failed giantification experiment, he was nicknamed odin for his brutish power. his true name, tsubaki is japanese for camellia, representing eternal devotion. lisbeth is the only friend he's ever had and vice versa.
cat's eye tower: in tarot, the lightning-struck tower is meant to represent a complete upheaval; crisis, destruction, and liberation.