Methyl Nitrate Pineapples

by razbliuto

All Sophie wanted to do was make bombs and go to war for the World Government. Naturally, she ends up strapped to an operating table with a pirate injecting poison into her foot. Sometimes you gotta take a few detours before you find your way home. — LawOC.

29. Yet So Much More Will Be Waiting

Thank you's to: Leynadoodles, Xielle Sky, WastinTimeWatchinGrass, LiLy Resh, Guest, shethoughts, studentloans, Kiindrex, ma gawrsh, TaintedLetter, Lucy Jacob, sgabrik, DreamsOfTheDamn, Nogly, wise whale, polyglotis123, ansegiel, UneAmieImaginaire, ClosetCase, and Alkitty!

okay i promised myself i'd find time to reply to every comment, but time fucking escaped me. i put some replies to reviews that tickled me and sort of made me cry? i hope this chapter continues to add to the delight.

sgabrik: I have no choice as a reader but to feel invigorated again. (HELLO THIS WHOLE THING WAS VERY WHOLESOME TO READ, but that bit made me giggle! i loved it so much.)
UneAmieImaginaire: I always wanted to be a Straw Hat growing up, but now I want to be a Heart Pirate, goddammit. (AAAAHHHH. THAT'S THE SHIT I LOVE TO HEAR. and i'm so happy for you! 'my own blond scientist was getting pretty damn lonely' file under things that shouldn't make me cry but somehow is? you're gonna kick ass at writing again!)
ClosetCase: 'scuse me. I need to recover… and I thought Ace's nipples were going to be the end of me… (FSDFJDSFKS THIS WAS SO FUNNY?)
Alkitty: Sophie going through the jungle to collect ingredients for her chemistry kinda reminds me of all the crafting recipes in video games (yeah! if this were an rpg, sophie would be a master at crafting items! and i love that you love uni? HE'S HAD IT ROUGH, HE DESERVES IT.)

warnings: from this point on in mnp, the m rating that was for language and violence will now include rampant horniness. hurray! (to those of you who are less interested in romance: we'll still be focusing on developing sophie's relationships with the one piece world and many more canon characters!)

—

methyl nitrate pineapples
hypothesis #29

yet so much more will be waiting

—

The kiss started out chaste, a light, chapped pressure against her mouth, until her surprise snapped away and Sophie clumsily kissed back with a fervor because she was afraid of it ending and wanted to snatch up all that she could—

(his nose dug into her cheek, her chin bumped into his, her body all nervous and fluttering and unable to be still; it was imperfect and incorrect and she wanted to try again and again and again and again and again)

—and then Law was chuckling against her mouth, low and humored, and his hands were around her face as he calmed her down through a small, deliberate kiss, and it turned very slow, and she was discovering new things every moment. The blunt press of his teeth behind his lips. The scratch of his goatee against her chin. The way his finger trailed behind her ear—oh, I guess I'm sensitive there. Okay.

They broke apart too quickly, though it wasn't like she was counting the seconds (she was, and it was just over eight). Her eyes were dazed, cheeks flushed red.

Law breathed out a quiet fuck that made all the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, took a deep breath, and said, "This—"

She rudely kissed him again, almost knocking him over as she attempted to get closer, and the only way forward was onto his lap. The most reasonable voice in her head told her to cease and desist, but the other voices wrestled it into a closet and locked the door. A madness took over her, a yearning to learn more and more.

"Sophie," he almost gasped against her mouth, or maybe it was a laugh, or maybe it was a growl, oh, she didn't know, but she liked it.

"What, what? N-no?" she mumbled between stealing kisses along his cheek and running her hands through his hair. Ew, his hair was filthy with dirt and sand. She wanted to count every single strand. Patience was a virtue, but he was doing the quiet, trying-to-restrain-itself groan thing again, and it was the most fascinating noise, and she was already calculating the ways to draw out that reaction again in the future. Soon. Preferably very soon. She was mentally taking notes in the meantime.

"Sophie." Law held her by the shoulders and pulled her arms-length from him, breathing unevenly.

She blinked with performative innocence. "Yes?"

"This isn't a good idea," said the Surgeon of Death, who had a scowl so vicious it could freeze an entire Marine armada, and when she responded by melting against him and resuming their kissing adventure, that smart mouth of his stopped talking.

"Counterpoint," she argued shamelessly. "We should keep touching each other. Why? Because we're both enjoying it. This is a win-win scenario. Back up your argument with logical reasoning, Trafalgar."

The least he could do was look at her in dazed wonder, starstruck by her alluring beauty. At least he could reward her with a little blush. But Law was Law, and he was glaring at her even as his hands were sneakily tracing circles on the small of her back, up her shirt. "You are making this very difficult."

"It's okay to admit the depth of emotion you feel for me." Sophie caressed her brow in a fainting gesture. "You've shielded yourself emotionally since you were a tender little boy-o, but a wee fruit loop like me has breached the gates and—"

She screeched as he gripped her hips and jerked her closer. Their foreheads knocked together.

"I," Law growled against her mouth, "have spent my whole life exercising self-control. I got along fine before I met you. I should've never tried to kill you. If I let you be, if I hadn't wanted to see you waking up on my operating table, this whole thing could've been avoided. I would've been fucking fine."

And then he kissed her terribly, wondrously hard.

She thought dimly of the exclusion principle; how the molecules of their bodies weren't slipping through each other because of atomic orbitals and electrons and quantum states. But this also allowed her to run her hands down the black heart on his chest and feel his deep exhale against her own body. Quantum mechanics was so magnificent and so sad. She wanted to disappear into him, be obliterated.

Her passionate thought process paused. Law was muttering something under his breath as his kisses along her chin slowed down, and Sophie watched his hand lightly prod along the back of her upper arm.

"Are you m-measuring my triceps?"

"…No," Law said after a beat.

Sophie burst out laughing, helplessly charmed. "Ehehehe, do I t-tickle your pickle?" she said between giggles. "Do I m-make you laugh?"

If her eyes had been open and not squeezed shut, she would've been mesmerized by how his expression softened. Then Law pinched her on her love handles.

"You pinched me on my love handles!" Sophie shrieked, wiggling like a delighted little worm. Her cheeks were flushed and her blue eyes were shimmering as bright as the seastars on the beach. She bit her lip.

He studied her for a deliberate moment, then said, "We aren't having sex tonight."

Her brain short-circuited. "Wha-at," her voice went high-pitched and cracked, "w-who said anything about—"

"After witnessing your eager behavior, it's necessary to make clear how far I'm willing to go with you."

This conversation was not happening. She clutched her face with a frantic, strangled, "Shut up right now."

"After all," he added with a sarcastically gentle sort of air, "…you're a virgin."

Sophie wheezed so hard she nearly strained her vocal chords. "Y-you dare—the audacity—none of your business—and what do you m-mean 'tonight'? Who says I want to p-partake in i-in-in-intercourse with you? Ever?" That indulgent crook of his mouth grew bigger, and she was blushing so hard she couldn't even look at him. "I am a woman of the world. I have experience. I've kissed harlots."

The look in his eye changed. "At the Spring Queen?"

"It was excellent and sensual," Sophie gloated, and then added in dignified solemnity, "I had girls touching my butt."

"Why, how immoral of you."

She narrowed her eyes in suspicion. He wasn't taking her seriously at all. "And Benn Beckman. Red Hair Pirates. Silver fox. On Lunetuktu."

Law gauged her for a lie. "He's, what, seventy?"

"Late forties, I think."

"Practically decrepit."

"He's from North Blue like you."

"I've heard the stories," Law muttered into her neck, which made Sophie pause. She'd forgotten Beckman was probably a local legend in some parts of North Blue. She hoped that didn't make it weird for Law. His hand came up to brush aside her hair on her shoulders, and his gaze found Arsenic lying nearby with Kikoku. "And the Chaser? What'd you really do to steal his gun?"

"I called Yasopp a deadbeat and made him cry," Sophie continued babbling, because she was a big fan of digging herself into holes. "I think strong men like it when I humiliate them."

He looked at her.

"Oh, can't relate? Correlation, not causation? Is my theory so bad it's not even falsifiable?" She giggled in an evident attempt to be cute, and then gave a piglike snort, and that made her laugh harder, the sound fizzing out like cherry cola. Her hands were charred like old roast chicken, with shiny burns and burnt-black fingernails. Her hair was a cloud of frizzy curls, and scars crisscrossed her undelicate skin. Lit up by seastars, Sophie was pink and blue in places, bruised in others; twitchy and pompous and profound everywhere else.

"You are so damn beautiful," he said without a trace of remorse, and kissed the hollow notch between her clavicles.

She did not have an answer to that, and couldn't have come up with one if she spent all her brainpower trying. Her legs were hooked around his waist as she sat in his lap, stunned and trembling. There was so much of Law: his arms locked around her back and slowly lowering her down into the sand, his shoulders, his mouth on her mouth, his hot breath, and it was so overwhelming she heard fireworks.

Sophie broke apart with a gasp for air. She urgently tapped his shoulders with her palm and Law straightened up, bringing her along with him. Scooting off of him—not too far, his hands were still braced around her back—she took a moment to catch her breath and process her scattered, swirling thoughts. She was terrified. He was watching her and waiting and she wanted him so much that her own desire was like the worst horror imaginable.

"I think," she said breathlessly, "we should… have a plan. About this." A pause. "Us. Let's a-agree to… be lovers and do this more. In the future. With regular occurrence. I, I can make a schedule for good time management. And… we can take it from there."

As she was rambling, the look on Law's face transformed—and when she stopped, he had his eyes closed. She waited for him to say yes, yes, yes, there is nothing I'd like more, and then kiss her with an indecent amount of tongue.

After a long, unbearable pause, he said quietly, "Sophie."

That wasn't a good-sounding Sophie. Or a 'you do unspeakable things to my nether regions' Sophie. The giddiness foaming in her chest began to lessen. She knew that look. She knew where this was heading.

"You're a pirate," she said. "We're pirates. I don't—I don't care if you think you're going to die. We're all going to die, sooner or later. However you think you'll hurt me doesn't matter."

"It matters," Law said in the same quiet softness, as though he didn't want anything else in the world to hear him, "to me."

Sophie exhaled. Our first fight as lovers, she would've thought to herself, if she was feeling a tad obsessive. Which she was. Oh, god, she was. She smacked herself twice, cleared her head, and glared back at him. Fine. She was weird and peculiar, but so was he, and that made them interesting together, didn't it? But everything in the world was interesting, so maybe she wasn't enough—but that sounded silly when she filled out her body to the tips of her fingers and toes just fine.

Without beating around the bush, Sophie asked, "You don't want me?"

He gave a tired sort of laugh, his mouth pressed to the skin between her neck and shoulder. "It's not that easy."

"I can make it easy." She grasped the sides of his face and raised it, their noses brushing. Her voice was low and confident, a little shaky with exhilaration. "Stop worrying so much."

Sophie tried to kiss him again, and Law turned his head to the side.

"I can't—" he began, and it might've also started to sound like can't give you a futur—, but her ears were ringing as she processed the taste of humiliation. Sometimes it felt like she could never stop embarrassing herself.

Her hands dropped away from him. She fidgeted with them, and then stopped that too, and let them fall onto on the sand.

"Why did you kiss me?" Sophie whispered.

"Because I wanted to." His tone did not dip into apology. There was no regret in Law's expression. "I'm not sorry," he pressed his mouth against the finespun red heart inked on the inside of her right wrist, "but I can lie and say I am."

She felt herself trembling all over again and had to force herself to stop. Why wasn't rejection taught in any of her textbooks? She didn't know what to do. What did he want from her? (Nothing, apparently.) Why did he touch her? (Because he got carried away, because she touched him first.) If she were to break it down scientifically, her emotions were all chemical. Oxytocin, norepinephrine, dopamine created with every kiss. She could feel herself already getting addicted to the rush. If she kept this up, she'd be craving his touch as much as her cigarettes. Instead of nicotine or oxygen, she'd want to breathe him in to know she was still alive. (He had called her beautiful.)

But there was a bigger picture.

If they were anything like normal people, this would be the part where they'd go out to a bar and confide in each other about—all of it. They would talk, get pizza, sit on the docks of some anonymous island. But instead they were here, in the Florian Triangle, with a pirate crew and Law's ghosts. One day, he was going to kill a Warlord or get killed by him.

Maybe this was his… stupid way of trying to protect her. Because there are so many he couldn't, Sophie thought, and abruptly cut that thought off because she wasn't going to cry on the same night Trafalgar Law kissed her (with tongue; that deserved celebration, and the lack of confetti was criminal).

Sophie didn't know what else she wanted to do other than process what felt like several boulders slamming into her one after another. She pulled away from him and flopped over on the sand.

"I'm tired." She rolled over on her side. "Goodnight."

He leaned over her. "Are you… pouting."

"I said goodnight." She shut her eyes, determined to ignore him.

She felt a pressure on her butt, his hand reaching in her back pocket to scoop out her lighter. Sophie rolled back around with an indignant gasp. (Her determination broke so easily.) Law was using it to light a pile of wooden branches he Roomed over from the forest. The fact that he could've Roomed her lighter without needing to touch her didn't escape her.

Soon, a small fire was crackling in front of them. The night was warm and humid, and the shoreline was splendid with glowing blue stars. Sophie huddled closer to the fire anyway, and watched Law slide down until he was lying on his back next to her, their shoulders touching. She laid there stiff as a wooden board, terrified again, and he gave an irritated sigh and shoved his arm underneath her head like a pillow.

"What are you doing."

"You said you're tired," he retorted. Sophie felt immeasurable pity for all the men and women Law had ever slept with.

She huffed, then threw one leg over his abdomen as she stuffed her face into his neck. His arm that was underneath her head curled up to hug her shoulders. I don't understand this, she thought to herself, and felt a confused sadness aching in her chest. They fit so well together, didn't they? It wasn't insane to want more? But if she mentioned the future again, it'd break the spell holding the night together. Maybe that was all Law was allowing himself. One night.

He patted her shorts, over her rear. "These are absurdly small."

And she was going along with it because she was an idiot without a shred of dignity left. "Thank you for finally noticing."

They were quiet after that, the little heat from the fire warming her lower legs. He traced along the stretch marks on the outside of her thigh. The repetition was hypnotic. She watched the motion through heavy-lidded eyes, his brown tattooed hand touching her leg over and over in the firelight. Then something else caught her attention.

"You have holes in your underwear." She pulled at the grey fabric sticking up past his jeans.

"Fashion statement," was his lazy reply.

"Is the statement 'I have none'? Of course it is. I already knew that." She sat up a bit to roam her eyes down his body. Just because Law had said no to being her mistress, didn't mean she couldn't study… him. For academic knowledge, of course.

Lean muscle, deceptively hidden under baggy shirts and hoodies. Whirling black ink with that little smiley face in the middle. Scars everywhere, almost unnoticeable, slightly paler than the rest of his dark skin. Straddling his hips, she walked her fingers down the line of black hair from his bellybutton, past the sharp v of his abdomen, and eased them under his jeans, wondering what sort of reaction—

"Sophie," he breathed, tensing sharply.

"Oh!" she squeaked, her arms snapping back to her side, blushing at the sound she made him make. "Oh, um, s-sorry."

Law covered his face with his arm. He exhaled, seemed to come to terms with something within himself, and then flicked open the button of her shorts. It was actually sort of impressive. It happened so fast Sophie didn't even notice until she looked down at herself and screamed a tiny bit, grabbing his wrists before they could reach into her panties.

"What are you d—you d-don't even have protection!"

Little did she know, the Polar Tang did have a collection of condoms because they were a crew of mostly rambunctious men, but that wasn't what Law was getting at. Unbothered, he motioned for her to shimmy back up, wet his lips, and said lowly, "Don't need any for this."

Sophie experienced a combination of multiple ulcers and aneurysms in the span of three seconds. "Hold on, buster!" Her eyes were bugging out of her head. Good god, did sex always happen this fast!? Was there no fanfare? No time for mental preparation for such obscenities!? "Y-you said you didn't want to."

Law looked up; there was an invitation in his eyes. I could.

She felt her resolve breaki—no, Sophie, be strong! If he did do this, this thing, then he'd know her in ways she didn't yet know herself, and that felt too much. It was hard enough trying to understand him. "I don't want to. I don't need your pity groping. And, and I—I don't want to make you do something you… m-might not even enjoy…"

His eyebrows rose.

"What?"

They rose further.

"Trafalgar Law, pervert of death."

"It's not wrong to enjoy this without… expectations," Law said, an arresting intensity that had been hidden below the surface of him now clearly visible in his gaze. He was four years and some months older than her; he had let her touch him and figure out what she liked, but he was also a pirate captain, and he was unafraid.

But it was wrong, a little bit, if being intimate was also going to cause him some kind of pain. If he thought he was eventually going to hurt her in some way. Moreover, Sophie was quite sure she wasn't ready. And even if this was the only time he would ever forget he was supposed to be good at repressing his emotions and kiss her, it didn't matter. He didn't want to be lovers, and she didn't want his scraps. So what? She didn't feel guilty. She wanted to stop apologizing, as though she wasn't on equal ground with him. She wanted to be understood, too.

"You're already enough, Law." Sophie buttoned up her shorts and flopped down over him again.

His hand came up hesitatingly to rest in her hair. Her finger tapped gently against his chest, counting the slow pace of his heart.

—

They talked on and off through the night, and she asked him about his ghosts. His mom was a brain surgeon. His dad was a cardiologist. And his little sister. Lami. She'd been eight. She liked fireworks. And when Law said wish she could've seen yours, his eyes were heavy and his nose bumped against hers. His voice took a rougher quality when he talked about Rocinante. Law was usually a steady speaker, but he fumbled words and took long pauses. As if he was unused to talking about him. As if it had been a long, long time—if ever—that anybody had asked.

"Maybe I would've gotten better at this… vulnerability garbage if I talked about him more." He was tracing circles behind her ear when she pointed it out. "But fuck that. It's weird enough around you."

"He'd like me," Sophie confided, lifting her head up slightly so he could see her grin. "What? He's a marine who infiltrated a pirate crew. I'm a World Government scientist who sneaked her way into the Polar Tang's heart. Do you not see the similarities? The parallels? The foreshadowing of it all?"

As she giggled to herself, Law's arm tightened around her shoulders. "I have no doubt he's laughing at me."

Sophie rambled a little about her childhood, the parts that she was okay with saying out loud—and then grew quiet as she considered the absence of her birth parents. It felt strange and pointless to miss people she'd never met before, she admitted. It was a mystery that would haunt her forever, and no amount of reading or researching would ever make it knowable. Possibly the most frustrating thing for a scientist.

The sky was brightening when Sophie caught herself yawning. His chin nudged her forehead, and he murmured, "Found your parents."

Dawn was rising. Their small campfire had died down, and the noctiluca seastars had been washed back out to sea. The sun was golden, the sky was a dark peach, and the ocean was blue; those colors melted across the girl in his arms, as though she had been born in them.

"You have her eyes."

Sophie lifted her head, a sharp movement that pushed Law's arm off her shoulders. They stared at each other, her angrily and him like he was drinking in every harsh movement of her body, and she was tempted to dig her elbow in his stomach in a futile effort to hide her emotionally-constipated ardor. He shouldn't be allowed to say things like that.

She blew a strand of hair away from her face and looked out at the seascape, misty with morning light, the sands pearly-yellow and white waves washing up the shore.

"Rotten apples. We've been gone from the crew for so long. What are we going to say? What am I going to say? Well, I suppose I must be honest and tell them you spent the whole time attempting to seduce me… but I, a virtuous maiden, would never fall for your devilry…"

"They've all spent nights away from the sub before. It's no different."

A silence passed between the two of them. But it was different, because it was them.

Sophie moved closer, testing his new boundaries; before her lips could touch his, Law said quietly, "Daylight, virtuous maiden."

She almost dissolved. I could be so good to you, Sophie wanted to say. You don't have to say anything. You don't even have to look at me. Just hold my ugly hand again and I can love you forever. I can give you everything.

Instead, she held up her pinky and said, "Friends?"

He looked at her hand. Ah, right. Fearsome pirates did not swear on pinky promises.

She wiggled her pinky threateningly. "Come on, Captain."

"What was my name?"

"…You pineapple."

"Incorrect."

Oh, he was horrible.

"Law," she said, and he hooked his pinky around hers, eternally cementing their friendship with this soul-binding contract. But something had irrevocably changed. She felt transmuted once again. A little more knowing. A little bit wicked. Sophie found her socks and boots, and hugged Arsenic to her chest as she sat on the beach. She looked out at the waves lapping onto shore and said calmly, "You're not dying."

She heard a sigh.

"There's a tired cliché," Law said, also sitting up, "of women devoting all their energy to saving men who don't want to be saved."

…He was so annoying sometimes.

"Shut up," she told him flatly. "I'm not letting you die. Is that clear enough? I told you this when I joined." Sophie looked out at the sea for another moment. She was going to see the furthest reaches of the ocean. She wasn't remotely satisfied with her adventures yet. Her life was going to be something grand. "But geez, you'd have to have an ego the size of the moon to think I'm living my life for you."

She nodded to herself and got up, brushing sand off her knees.

"We both," Sophie held out her hand, "have much work to do." Her ocean eyes didn't falter. She was looking at him, but she was also looking forward.

Law reached up. Their hands clasped.

—

There wasn't a set time to eat these days; food was served whenever Hai Xing finished cooking. The silver lining was that he had his kitchen back; the mechanics had finished repairing the downed power generators and water lines, and the galley was operational again.

It was still relatively early in the morning, and only Penguin and Shachi were sitting at a table with Law, coffees in hand. Their conversation about the engines stopped as Sophie entered. She felt apprehensive, but the mechanics greeted her like normal. Law merely raised his eyebrows at her over his coffee, also freshly showered. The top of his shirt was damp and his hair was still wet. She wasn't thinking of him in the shower. She wasn't.

Sophie doled out seafood on rice, and poured herself a cup of coffee. Before she could move away from the stove, Hai Xing pulled something out of her damp, freshly-showered hair.

"You missed some sand," he said quietly, and flicked it into the sink.

…Cool, she was never making eye contact with Hai Xing again.

"We jerry-rigged something workable with the engines." Penguin rubbed his tired eyes as Sophie sat next to him. "At the very least, it'll hold until we get out of the Florian Triangle and into the next port."

The poor mechanics; she was sure they still heard Vice Admiral Garp's booming laughter in their dreams.

"I was telling Captain diving still ain't ready," Shachi informed. "I don't trust the readings on the oxygen levels. I think the calibration's fucked up."

"Better to be safe. We're not diving." Law glanced at her casually, like he hadn't spent the prior evening with his hands up her shirt.

Sophie responded by shoving a spoonful of rice in her mouth.

"Our Log Pose hasn't locked onto another island." Penguin pointed at the Log Pose sitting on the table. The arrow was jittering around. "Which would normally mean we're fucked."

The table was also strewn with pencils, a yellowed map, and simple cartography tools. The map covered the islands connected by the Sea Train, but the Florian Triangle was a shaded cloud with a drawing of a sea serpent below it. Hic Sunt Dracones, the lettering said. If there were any dragons here, Sophie wanted to find one and eat it.

She tapped the section of the Florian Triangle on the map. "Nothing?"

"The Florian Triangle's never been charted," Penguin said. "It's impossible; the mist is too heavy."

"But," Shachi said slyly. "We have a secret weapon."

"I've stocked the kitchen up with fruits and salted fish," Hai Xing spoke up. "It'd be enough if we were a four or five-man crew, but it won't last long feeding ten stomachs plus Bepo. If we're leaving, we should do it now. Find another island as fast as possible."

Law downed the rest of his coffee and stood up. "I'll check in on the rest. We set sail in three hours. Get your shit together."

A chorus of aye's followed him as he left the galley. He was so normal. It was like last night never even happened. How very… captainly of Law.

As soon as Law was gone, a silence fell over them. Unaffected, Sophie lit a cigarette.

Shachi looked over his sunglasses and said, "So."

"So," Penguin agreed.

"The stars are aligned for famine," Hai Xing muttered to his pot on the stove.

Shachi cupped his chin in his palms, grinning. "Late night, Sophie-chan?"

She coughed and wiped her mouth. "Um—hm?"

Penguin leaned across the table. "You and Cap, are you two… ya know?"

"…We're friends, if that's what you mean." Sophie theatrically rolled her eyes at the suspicious, disbelieving silence. "We talked about science all night. Like oxytocin and norepinephrine and dopamine. Nothing else hap—" The words twisted in her throat. It was difficult to speak all of a sudden. "Happened," she forced out, and stuck her cigarette back in her mouth.

The silence now was much more awkward.

"Some things don't need to be said," Hai Xing remarked. "They can just be."

Sophie shot him a quick, grateful look that she covered up with a blasé shrug.

Penguin bumped his fist against her arm. "You… know we're your friends too, right?"

She forced herself not to pull away. This was a small kindness. Just because it made her uncomfortable (did she look like she needed pity?) didn't mean it wasn't well-meaning.

"Of course." She primly gathered herself back together. Sophie wanted to be clear how very above-it-all she was towards this foolishness called romance. "More importantly, we can finally set sail!"

Later, Sophie would appreciate how 'some things don't need to be said' was an unspoken agreement among the Hearts. She had always suspected the men of the Hearts shared an understanding, which was that sometimes bonds among sailors went from yelling to kissing to punching each other in the face for forgetting chore duty, and the only thing that mattered was if you were still alive at the end of the day.

There was no shame in wanting. After all, pirates were a selfish breed.

—

She did, however, run up to Bepo later (who was their big, furry secret weapon of fluff).

"That's west." He stood out on the deck, pointing. "West is where Zou is. West is that way."

West was also where the Red Line was and ostensibly a way out of the Florian Triangle.

"Alright, big boy, we're counting on you," Anko said from the control room, steering the ship in the mink's pointed direction.

After they lifted anchor and finally set off back into the ocean, Sophie plopped her face in Bepo's big, squishy stomach. "You've been through so much with him."

"Sophie? You okay?"

"So much."

"…Is this why Captain smelled like you this morning?" Bepo's eyes went round. "And you smelled like—"

"But I get why you said—I get it, Bepo. I didn't need to know and he told me anyway. He's always been like that, hasn't he."

"Oh." His little sigh made him sound very young (how old was Bepo, anyway?), and patted her on the head. "Yep." Then he turned smug. "You said Bepo."

Sophie blushed, horrified. "D-don't look so cute! Or I'll—"

It was too late; blood gushed out of her nose. Bepo screamed. Sophie screamed back. They were screaming at each other as they ran around the deck, until Law came out and smacked both of them upside the head.

She had naively assumed that making out with her captain would make him go easier on her. It did not.

—

Pages flipped open, the motion scattering particles of dust in the air. A quill dipped in a jar of ink and hovered over a blank page in her journal.

Sitting at her desk in her broom closet-turned-cabin, Sophie studied the potential of that emptiness.

She'd been filling the pages with discoveries on the atoll. Now she felt a fevered urge to use these pages to make sense of herself. So many thoughts were roiling through her. Not just about Law, but about everything. Living was so confusing, and her life was a series of constant mistakes and flops, where secrets and answers might be hidden if she looked closely enough at it. Where to begin to start untangling it all?

If she were to choose a moment where it all started, then…

It began with poison, she wrote. Parathion. Yes, that was the first. A tablet of atropine (natural sources include mandrake or atropa belladonna, which itself is derived from the name of a goddess of death, or so the stories go, so maybe this has always been about the ways we can say 'not today'). Then, Crawfish Island's will-o-wisps. Ghostly methane dancing through swamps. Flammable enough to turn an island into an inferno.

She started writing, and everything started spilling out. Sophie wrote and wrote and wrote, and hardly paused except to tie her hair up with black-stained fingers.

Running from CP5 on Kunlun. Chocolate Dials and the ceiba tree on Machinastein. The strange beast on Lunetuktu, an island of always winter.

Manette Nellie, she wrote. The owner of an inn on Crawfish Island. She may have vanished into the sky, but she lived.

Ink flowed across blank paper.

Don't forget, Sophie, she scrawled to herself, her neat writing turning messy and hurried. Don't forget. Names will disappear into history. Forces stronger than you will call them ants and say no one would ever weep for them. Weep for them and remember, and here she underlined those words, they lived.

As for science, she had left behind her notes on mass destruction when she set fire to it on Teresa's battleship. That left space for everything else. Bouncing foam, made out of yeast and liquid soap and hydrogen peroxide. Carbon snakes. Self-igniting burning flowers. Fireworks; copper-blue and strontium-red, calcium-orange, sodium-yellow, exploding light over the ocean. Catching lightning in a bottle.

She kept writing as the sky outside darkened, wisps of dark mist floating by as the Polar Tang continued its journey onward. The bauble-shaped glass jar of her Crawfish mushrooms, hanging from the ceiling on a line of rope, emitted a soft teal-green glow.

Armament Haki, she wrote. Preliminary assessment would suggest it relies on person's own willpower to survive. Ursa said Haki exists in everyone, which is excellent news if you're commonly grouped in the 'and etcetera' faction of the population. Haki, the great equalizer. Can even stop Devil Fruits. How? Why? Does personal knowledge/ experience with the D.F. affect my Haki's ability? Still unclear. Will try eating glass to see how it affects my internal organs.

Thoughts:

1. Upon reflection, if I coat my hand in Armament, it takes conscious effort to keep it focused on one area of body. I believe lifelong marine training has given me decent grasp of motor control.

2. Exhausts me when used too much. My limit seems to be around 20-30 minutes of continuous usage. Hypothesis: higher stamina, longer Armament limit/strength.

3. Normally, force is equal to mass times acceleration. But supposing I'd need to stop a rolling boulder, the force I'd need to use would also include Haki. Perhaps a new equation would be F = (ma) x Armament (but how to measure Armament in the first place)? I am filled with questions.

4. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In layman's terms, when I punch an object, it punches back. With the laws of physics in mind, I need to find a way to manipulate Armament to lessen the recoil my body takes. Perhaps that will also raise my Haki's efficiency?

5. I HAVE EATEN GLASS. (Haki used inside mouth, esophagus, stomach. Felt like eating fish bones. Law did not appreciate this. He says the next time I swallow glass, he's not going to Room it out of me.)

Additionally: at first, I considered pain being key to unlocking Armament. Now I wonder if it's due to mental resistance in the face of pain. Feels wrong to equate suffering to wisdom. Anyone can suffer. Few are crazy enough to chase after it and get hurt over and over again.

Sophie tapped her quill against her chin. "Guess that makes me kind of a freak, huh."

Well, that was a given.

Cleaning Arsenic was, of course, a daily habit. She loved the smooth, cold metal and the warm burnish of the wood. Sophie found some nice wood polish in St. Poplar and brushed it across the rifle stock, until Yasopp's star glowed like golden fire.

"I don't care I found you in his trash. You're special, even if you are a cranky old lady," she told Arsenic. Sophie paused, imagining the rifle talking back to her. "Hm? Not that old? Yeah, okay, your model isn't ancient. I bet you'd be as old as Beckman then, if you were real. Glamorous and snobby. Where do you get it from?"

She twisted Arsenic around in her hands, admiring every line and curve, the neat slope from the grip to the aptly-named butt.

"What do we think of Kikoku, Sen?" Sophie whispered, then nodded. "I think so too. My bombs have broken a lot of swords before, but I don't think any of them's been cursed."

Cursed swords. She drew a careful sketch of Kikoku on the page. After ten minutes of squinting at Law's nodachi, the drawing still turned out ugly. Eh, whatever. She liked it anyway. She wondered what metal it was made with. She listened to Law tell the story of how he met Kikoku. North Blue, she wrote underneath. Can cursed swords break? Further experimentation needed.

An hour later, the tips of her hair smoking, she added, Note: Swordsmen do not like having their swords set on fire. But could it only be Law? Once again, further testing required.

Aside from writing, she resumed her janitorial duties. And she got the men involved, which meant entering their cabin and flinging mops at their heads. The Hearts were going to go stir-crazy if they did nothing but play cards and drink rum all day. Uni, who seemed to be taking well to his new abode (he didn't complain once about given a hammock underneath Manta's, and Sophie had heard plenty of whining over breakfast about the big pirate's penchant for farting in his sleep), sprang to attention.

White vinegar, baking soda, isopropyl alcohol, she wrote down. The essential ingredients to clean living and excellent chemical-making.

Sophie discovered that the more compliments she gave to Uni—who had a habit of taking orders and executing them flawlessly—the harder the other Hearts worked. They stopped milling around and began mopping in earnest, shouting that Uni was making them look bad.

When she came back to her cabin, a little cup of pudding had found its way to her desk. Machinastein chocolate, probably the last bit of it in the pantry, topped with a mint leaf. She stopped the door, her chest twisting with unexpected nostalgia.

Pudding, Sophie added in her journal. Good for the soul.

(She ran into the galley and threw herself over the cook. "That was so tasty, Hai Xing!"

If her lack of honorific caught him off guard, it was a fraction of an eyebrow raise. Of course, he was also in the middle of frying fish, and the hand holding the pan slipped and he flung hot oil over Sophie's face.

"Ah."

"AHHHH—")

The third day in, Hai Xing made it clear they had to start rationing their food. Two meals a day, one bowl only, no seconds. Sophie was licking her spoon for the last few grains of rice as she reread her notes on the Noctiluca Atoll. Her cheeks were pink and peeling from the hot oil debacle, but was otherwise fine. She was half paying attention to Bepo trying to sneak food off of Penguin's plate, and Penguin hitting him with his chopsticks.

"No more weird experiments today, yeah?" Law said, sitting across from her at the table.

"I am a scientist," Sophie informed snootily. "You might as well ask the sun to stop shining."

"Be careful not to let Haki make your mouth too arrogant."

"I remember you enjoyed it," she said under her breath. Under the table, their knees brushed.

Law's gaze darkened.

Sophie jerked back to her senses. She scooted her feet back under the bench and buried her face in her journal.

"Now that's a name I haven't heard in a while!" Manta said, peering over her shoulder. She was cross-referencing her discoveries on the atoll with Mysteries of the Florian Triangle, and had it flipped open to the dedication page. "The Rumbar Pirates were a crew of musicians back in the day."

"A whole pirate crew?" Sophie asked in disbelief. "Of just musicians?" Fascinating, she was going to add that in her journal!

"Surely nothing livens up a dark night more than music!" Manta declared.

The discussion made Shachi inquire if Sophie's yet heard her share of pirate sea shanties. Which then led to Manta taking out his mandolin and demonstrating for their dear janitor the joy of a rousing shanty. Shachi pulled her out of her seat and twirled her around the galley, as every pirate left their seats to join in. Bepo and Penguin slung their arms around each other, harmonizing. Law clapped along, making no attempt at hiding his grin.

"And chorus!" Manta shouted, plucking the strings.

"Yohohoho!" the Hearts roared. "Going to deliver Bink's Sake!"

The Polar Tang's galley portholes were golden in the darkness of the Florian Triangle.

Later, Sophie opened her journal to a blank page and scribbled Vira. She wrote about Red Sky. The science behind it, and how a cure was found. Long afternoons with a rat named Goliath. Someday, someone might read about how two young academics with bounties on their heads had done something… meaningful. Their actions weren't going to disappear into history.

And she wrote about that cramped little makeshift lab, with the scruffy, prickly-mouthed man sitting across from her, his knees knocking against her legs as he spoke about science the same way she did. Like it was a hymnal.

Something found me in those summer days. She thought back to Beckman's grizzled, cigarette-smelling chuckle, and smiled.

It was still hard to find an excuse for the drops of water splattering on the page.

Now I have to tell it to let go.

It was a stupid, useless thing to cry about a friend who didn't love her the way she—well, it didn't matter! She was a wanted pirate, a marine traitor, and Tenryuubito Slayer! Sophie wished she could shut her feelings off like a faucet. Wasting emotional energy on this was nonsensical, so she only allowed herself another minute to get all the sadness out, then cleaned herself up.

She smacked her cheeks and took a deep breath. Right, then. She stuck her feet up on the chair, cross-legged, and flipped through the empty pages left. The journal wasn't even halfway filled, and there was plenty of room left.

Sophie turned to the first page. She left it untitled for now and wrote, A compendium of discoveries, recipes, and islands visited on my Romantic Adventure of Fruitastic Fabulosity! Hypothetical Volume One.

—

It wasn't all good cheer and impromptu dances. A week into sailing through the Florian Triangle with no end to the fog in sight, tempers started running short. The crew started getting snippy with each other, without the humor in their usual jokes. Law had to step in more than once.

Sophie stayed clear of it. Not because she suddenly took an uncharacteristic vow of non-confrontation, but everyone was stressed enough and she didn't want to be a voice that added to it. (As it happened, Uni had the sense to take the same route as her. During one argument between the other crewmates, she had to drag him away when he stood awkwardly facing a porthole because he wasn't sure where to go.)

One morning, the combination of food rations and the constant tedium of sailing through mist, things boiled over.

Sophie was synthesizing more ghostlights from her Crawfish mushrooms in a beaker when she heard her crew arguing in the hallway.

"—a bowl of leftovers in the fridge last night, and now it's empty!" Valross was saying angrily.

They were shouting over each other when she peeked out. Law was in the middle, trying to talk his men to simmer down. Everyone was hungry, or, like Kamasu, looting the pantry for more rum. Sophie's stomach was growling too, but the idea of arguing about food made it worse. Ah, perhaps she'd retreat into her cabin with the door cracked open like a proper eavesdropper.

The misty light outside was darkening.

"It doesn't matter who stole the food or not—"

"Ah-ha! How very thief-like of you, Penguin!"

"What matters is that we're never getting out of this fucking hellhole!"

A faint howl came from somewhere outside. Was that the wind?

Law twisted around in a half-second, hearing it too. Instinct taking over, she raced down the hallway.

Sophie burst onto the deck. In the swirling mist was… a mountain. Except it hadn't been there a couple minutes ago, and it was moving. It was the largest creature she had ever seen, and she could barely see it through the fog. It was massive; it was miles tall. There was a distant glint from the clouds above, but it wasn't the sun. It might've been eyes.

Here be dragons, Sophie thought, enthralled.

She heard the men screaming behind her. But that was simply sweet music for the meet-cute backdrop she and the giant creature had found themselves in.

"HELLO, MY LOVELY!" she cried, jumping and waving. "DO Y-YOU HAVE TIME ANSWER A FEW Q-Q-QUESTIONS?"

"Sophie, you dumbass!" Her crew grabbed her.

Just her luck: her potential paramour did not appreciate getting called out. With an earth-shattering wail, it brought up a—hand, or a limb, or something, an enormous dark thing that rose up, sending a giant tidal wave rolling forward.

The Polar Tang soared on the crest of that wave. Carried by the ocean, the submarine hopped forward like a skipping stone until it finally burst into light.

—

"Oi, you guys believe in God?" Penguin asked afterwards, the sun shining on his face.

The other pirates started booing him.

"Okay, I get it, you're all heathens."

"Should we start a theological debate?" Sophie said eagerly. "There are only so many variables one can empirically prove, but the relationship between science and religion is quite a f-fa-fascinating topic—"

"SOMEONE STOP HER."

—

She basked in the sun, sprawled across the deck, the wood warm underneath her back. The Hearts were equally boneless around her, like sleepy cats appreciating sunlight for the first time in half a month. The sky was a cloudless blue and the wind was strong.

Bepo sat at the bow of the ship, facing west. Every so often he'd move to the side, like a needle in a compass, and Anko adjust course so the mink was facing straight again.

Valross hit Shachi in the arm. "Remember that time when I called you a dickhead for stealing the leftovers?"

"That was like an hour ago, bro."

"'m sorry, bro. I stole from the bowl. I'm the real dick."

"To be honest," Manta admitted, "I too deserve the mantle of dick."

"Me too," Shachi voiced sheepishly, and abashed agreements rose up from the crew.

Law pinched the bridge of his nose. "Did you all eat the leftovers at different times last night?"

"Aye, Captain… turns out we're a crew of dicks…"

Stifling her giggles, Sophie felt something land lightly on her nose. She opened her eyes and held up the blackened white feather. Smelled like sulfur and ash. Smoke.

A lone gull cawed overhead.

Sophie held her finger up to the sky and traced the bird's flight back to the northwestern horizon. She lifted the rolled-up map out of Bepo's pocket and unfurled it. There were only a few islands dotted around the northern section of the map. Fayruz, Port Dogwood, and… Banaro Island.

Blackbeard's laughter echoed in her mind, as did the confidence in Ace's smile.

Sophie twisted the charred feather between her fingers, then set it free over the water. She watched the feather float cheerfully on until it sank into the darkness of the ocean, and then she couldn't see it at all anymore.

—

They were down to eating salted biscuits, cans of sardines, and whatever fish they were able to catch. Law also made them eat lemons for the good cause of preventing scurvy. The men acquiesced by tossing lemon slices into their rum.

Sophie ate what she was given without a fuss, lemons included. It was still leagues better than eating snakes, rats, and fried grasshoppers in a ditch with bullets flying over her head. She made a point to never grumble about edible food.

Out on the deck, Sophie was scribbling in her journal again. Manta was running a net beside the Polar Tang and Law sat with a fishing pole at the bow with Bepo. The rest of the crew were idly gambling using their hardtack biscuits as currency. Hai Xing seemed especially morose. He wrapped himself up in his knitted scarves and laid on his side, unmoving like a depressed cocoon.

"Well, we'll always have Bepo," sighed Shachi. "In case things get dire."

"Ah, yes. Bepo," said Penguin.

"That's true. Bepo," said Valross.

"Hm. Indeed. Bepo," said Kamasu.

"Evil!" Bepo wailed, batting his heavy paws around, and almost smacked Law into the ocean.

"Penguin, Shachi," Sophie interrupted. "Tell us a story, if you please."

Shachi set his cards down. "What kinda story?"

"Why, a fabulous one, of course!"

"Here's one from when I was kid." Shachi cleared his throat, the pirates gathering 'round. "A tale of the northern lands, all the way at the top of the world," he began in a dramatically deep voice, "where the cold winds would freeze your hairy balls right off and where enormous frost giants called home!"

Hai Xing poked his head out of his knit cocoon. Anko opened the control room door so he could listen. Law leaned against Bepo, watching his crew.

"Blue-skinned, pale-eyed frost-women who suck on the warm blood of cute girls like you to feel aliiiive again!" Shachi hissed, wiggling his fingers at Sophie, and she mimed screaming in a flustered yet confusingly-attracted-to-the-snow-women shock.

Penguin jumped in with legends of brave adventurers who sailed around the frozen tundra of the Land of Ice. As they leaped around mimicking swordfights, their shadows turned huge in the light of the oil lamp and were projected on the side of the quarterdeck. Like a play of shadow puppets.

Sophie found herself writing again. On this cloudless night filled with stars, we are hungry but laughing still, and have yet enough rum to keep us warm. She jotted down the stories as she listened, and titled this new section with a word Penguin spoke of, a long winter that legendary warriors were prepared for: Fimbulvetr, Tales from North Blue.

She waited until the ink dried and carefully closed her journal. Sophie rested her head over it like a pillow, so she might see whirling snow and rainbow auroras in her dreams.

—

"So… hungry…"

The curly-haired chemist was chewing on a slightly moldy lemon, flopped over on the control room's deck, the topmost deck with the highest view on the Polar Tang. She'd be the first to see any islands they came across, though presently she was getting a big eyeful of nothing.

The Polar Tang was unusually quiet. No one had much energy for anything lately. Most of the movement came when the pirates went about their daily chores, silent, stomachs grumbling. Law took up a habit of keeping watch next to Bepo out in the bow of the deck. It was comforting in a way. It felt like he was the ship's figurehead, their insanely powerful doctor-captain, strong enough to conjure an island with the force of his scowl. Sophie noticed he started tightening his jeans with a belt, and felt a fresh wave of sadness.

He'd gotten curt with her when she tried giving him a bit of her share of yesterday's dinner. He was one of the tallest people on the ship and needed more calories, Sophie pointed out, and Law retorted that she was quite thicker than him and needed to eat her fair share. In any case, she was so horrified at the memory of his hands gripping her not-insubstantial thighs she almost threw her plate at his head.

Sophie sighed for what felt like the millionth time. She had cleaned again, counted her bullets, and finished reading her books. There was nothing else to distract her from what Hai Xing would call the inevitable doom of starvation.

"Be real shitty if we died here," Anko said, inside the control room. "Out in the middle of nowhere, with nobody even knowing we're dead."

It's how my birth parents died, Sophie thought to herself. She kept sadly sucking on her lemon, feeling like the poster orphan for miserable scurvy prevention. "Mrph."

The deck creaked as Anko left the control room and joined her. "I'm not ready to die, man. I'm not even a pirate legend yet. Fuck, I don't even have a bounty yet. Those marine bastards, always ignoring the cool helmsman…"

"Is it really that important, being a legend?" she asked distractedly, still daydreaming of noodles and grilled meat.

"Damn straight! That's why we're all out here! To be the biggest, baddest pirate crew on the seas!"

"But legends." She paused to spit out lemon seeds. "Legends… aren't always great, if you look close. Mostly they're about people we're supposed to think are important just because they're… powerful or famous or rich."

"So what? We're all stories in the end, Soph. What matters is who has the best one. Who gets to live forever, like the Pirate King."

She swallowed another mouthful of lemon pulp, making a face at the bitter taste. "So, what, you want to be remembered by people who don't even know you or care about you?"

"That's the whole point," he asserted. "They will know. They will fucking care."

"But maybe… they'll only know stories about your violence and not your kindness." She thought of the newspapers written about her after her attack on G-13. They called her a neurotic, arrogant pyromaniac, and sure, maybe parts of that were still true, but that wasn't all of who she was. "That's not really you that lives on forever, then. It's your… mirage. People might know of you, but that… doesn't mean they'll ever understand you."

Anko stared. "Fuck off, fifty-one million."

"W-well, it's fine if that's what you want!" she squawked back. "And hey, my face isn't even on my bounty poster! Just my mask! If I walked into a town, no one would even recognize me!"

"You and Cap…" he began, and the sudden shift in topic alarmed Sophie.

Trepidation pooled in her stomach. "Eh?"

"You're… the same. Both of you are always looking towards the horizon."

The comparison to Law made her oddly uncomfortable, but that could just be her stomach rumbling. "I'm—but I'm right here."

"You don't see it yet." Anko leaned over on his elbows, squinting out into the ocean. "That's okay. You will."

Sophie didn't know what to say. She picked at her dried, deflated lemon and tossed it into the ocean.

"I'm not cool enough to die yet," he muttered into his arms, the same man who once sailed his own boat down the Reverse Mountain when he was just a kid from South Blue. "Y'know, on St. Poplar… you weren't there, but the way that gloomy starfish broke us out was pretty fucking cool."

She raised her eyebrows. "Mm-hm?"

He threw her an irritated look. "Shaddup."

"You're cool, too. You're our super-duper helmsman, tattoo artist, crossword puzzle master, all-around cool guy. I bet," Sophie added meaningfully, "Hai Xing thinks so, too."

Anko's glare was equal parts disbelieving and embarrassed. "Fuck you," he spat, and she could tell he was touched. "Don't ever talk to me again. Fucking asshole."

Sophie smiled at the sky. "Hey, listen. If we die here, I'll use all of my bombs to blow the Polar Tang sky-high." She elbowed him with a cheesy grin. "So you can be the star you were born to be."

Anko turned around, rubbing at his face. "My eye."

"I—I didn't hit you!"

"That's the nicest way anyone's ever said they'd kill me, you bastard."

"Anko."

"Give me a damn moment—"

Sophie slapped him. "Anko!"

"What!?"

"Land!"

A dark blot had appeared on the horizon. Sophie leaned over the railing, hardly even hearing Anko running back inside the control room and hollering in the speaking tubes, or the deck door bursting open with a stampede of feet.

As they sailed closer, the sun grew warm. Acacia and camel thorn trees dotted the flat landscape. In the center of the island, a freshwater delta formed in a basin in the center of the savanna, spreading out into smaller rivers as it wound across the island and fed the land with teeming greenery. Cawing seabirds soared over the Polar Tang as though saying hello.

The long days adrift were over. They had reached the Omiramba grasslands.

—

Hot wind. Cogongrass swaying like wispy white cattails. The chatter of a hundred voices all around Sophie.

She hadn't waited for Anko to release the anchor, instead diving off the ship and swimming onto the beach. She emerged on a bustling street, saltwater dripping from her hair and clothes, clutching her rumbling stomach.

The town was filled with colorful buildings with thatched roofs, the dried mud walls decorated with paint. Families strolled together. Cattlemen herded cows and sheep. Girls shopping for jewelry pointed at Sophie and giggled. She jumped as a woman bracing two stone pots in a pole across her shoulders clucked at her to move aside. Milk sloshed from the rims.

The people of Omiramba were all deep, gleaming umber, dressed in bright-patterned tunics, golden rings decorating their tightly-coiled black hair. They laughed broadly as the band of pirates caught up to Sophie and they raced to a row of food stalls and began stuffing their faces. About three carts were taken over by eleven pirates as they squeezed onto tiny chairs, famished and sweaty and pell-mell hands fighting for bowls. Sorghum porridge, sausage, fried bread (none for Law, of course), and a thick, meaty stew the cook called seswaa.

Delicious. Sophie leaned back in her chair with a loud, satisfied sigh. Then she decided she could eat another two bowls, so she did, and slumped over, patting her bloated stomach with a loud belch. She was never getting out of her chair. She was possibly going to die in it.

"Where's your ocean, travelers?" asked the cook, chuckling at the voracious pirates.

Shachi said with his mouth still full, "North Blue."

"Ahhh, I had that feeling from you lot. Look at this face, ha! So stern!" He pointed at Law. People were milling around them, also buying food from the carts, and they snickered at the look on the doctor's face.

"Hold on—isn't that the Surgeon of Death?" a man gasped. "And the Heart Pirates' pet bear!"

"My god, one of the Super Rookies on the way to Sabaody!"

"Super what?" Sophie coughed.

"The Archipelago's not a day's sail away! The Log Pose sets in a week, so you can be on your way soon!"

"Oooh, what a cute bear!" a couple of young schoolgirls cooed.

Bepo burped. Law ignored everyone.

They were causing a little commotion on the street. A few older ladies in long pink shawls tutted at the state of Sophie's wet curls, but most of the attention was directed at Law and Bepo.

Now that her stomach was appeased, she took the opportunity to properly look around. The town by the sea, Bohibidu, was more like a sprawling cacophony of houses, shops, and small farms. The streets were shaded with an abundance of short broad trees that were filled with fruits she'd never seen before.

Bohibidu was the largest town on Omiramba, the cook informed, but if they wanted to see the delta they could travel on foot or by cart to the villages further into the desert. Everyone in town was remarkably calm around pirates. When Law mentioned this, they grinned and said they were plenty used to all sorts of travelers visiting. Especially since they were so close to the Red Line.

Her leg jittered impatiently, restless again.

"Be careful sailing west. A fleet of Marine battleships are camped right outside our waters," added another Ramban eating at the carts. "Our nation has been in a stand-off with the World Government for the past three hundred years, but we don't let that get us down."

"Three hundred years?" the Hearts all shouted in disbelief, which made the small crowd laugh.

"Good to know, but that shouldn't be a problem for us," Law said. He glanced over at a motion that caught his eye, and nodded slightly.

"I'll look for a metalworker around town." Penguin rustled his backpack, filled with rolled-up scrolls of mechanical drawings. "After we get new gears and pipes made for our ship, the diving should be good to go."

A man eagerly looked around the crew. "The papers say you have a witch in your crew."

"Our witch flew off." As Law said it, a curly ponytail disappeared into the crowd down the street.

But this didn't stop them from making more wild conjectures.

"I heard anything she touches turns into gold!"

"—must be beautiful behind that mask—"

"—or ugly like a shriveled crone!"

"—warts all over her face and a terrible scar—"

"No, no! She's so stunning she can only take her mask off at night," insisted a man who was projecting his own fantasy onto Sophie's bounty poster, "when the sun isn't competing against her beauty!"

That was too much. The Hearts crumpled with howling laughter.

—

Around Bohibidu Town were tall, crumbled walls, built out of a dusty red stone rather than the humble dried mud like the rest of the buildings. The old-looking walls were randomly scattered about, some used as the sides of houses or for shade by farmers resting with their cattle. It seemed like the town had been built in the ruins of something that had once risen much taller. A palace, maybe? A kingdom?

Sophie walked over the entire town, chomping on tart marula fruit she picked off trees, humming to herself. She investigated bookstores and little shops that sold handmade pottery and the farms filled with grazing crowds. Street performances of musicians playing on wooden drums and single-stringed violins. Children walking with each other, holding books like they were heading home from school. She spotted other travelers, sailors, and possibly pirates around town, going about their business.

She passed men and women in white robes carrying flintlocks and swords; ostensibly Omiramba's warrior class. Most of them were lounging around banks and the town chief's building, talking to civilians and travelers.

It was nice to be on island that wasn't part of the Government alliance. No marines in sight. It felt like being back in Machinastein again.

The wonderful tranquility of Bohibidu was the perfect place to take a breather after the stressful events of St. Poplar and the Florian Triangle. She also counted that night with Law in the 'things she needed a spa weekend to recover from' column.

Speaking of Law, they hadn't… really talked after that night. But there was nothing to talk about, Sophie supposed. They made casual conversation when they happened to run into each other, but sometimes his looks got so weighty she couldn't even make eye contact when she felt them on her back. Their relationship wasn't—or couldn't go back to the way things were; there was no denying that. But at least they were still friends.

She needed to stop dwelling on it. Especially when she had all… this in front of her.

On the outskirts of Bohibidu Town, the setting sun over the savanna was like someone had spilled crimson paint across a canvas. Ruins of enormous gates poked up some distance away, surrounded by smaller bits of rubble, trees, and flocks of birds. The flaming sun hung low behind the strange structure.

A splendid red sun that turns everything into shadows, a town flourishing in the ribcage of ancient ruins, she wrote in her journal. Sophie chewed on a long piece of grass like the farmers she saw, feeling like a cowboy. It'll make you forget everything, just like a kiss by the ocean at night.

A dragonfly landed on her wrist, and she stopped writing. Its jewel-bright eyes glimmered at her, and then its wings hummed off again.

Her heart clenched. Sophie felt an indescribable pang as she watched the dragonfly soar into the air, skimming over the swaying grass. It went off, continuing its journey as the rest of the world returned home.

The sun colored the grasslands in shades of orange and yellow and vibrant black (she didn't even know how to describe it; words or photos or drawings could never do this justice). She watched the landscape for a long time, without moving.

How strange, to feel so small and so at peace at the same time.

As the sun went down, people lit lamps outside their houses. Sophie was walking along the street when a kid running by accidentally hit her leg and fell on the ground.

She immediately reached into her belt pouch and wrapped up his grazed knee. "Pain receptors, pain receptors, stop responding to sensory stimuli!" Sophie chanted, and wiggled her fingers over his knee. "Poof! No more pain."

"Thanks, miss witch," the boy said shyly. His friends hollered at him and they went running off again.

Sophie grinned after them. Ah, to be so young again. When she was their age, she'd been a ball of terror. Until G-13 sorted her out, of course. And carved her into a proper little soldier. And showed her how to make bombs that killed other kids her age, kids just like the ones she came across in Vira, their small bruised hands outstretched in the dirt as though they had been reaching out for help, but died knowing no one was there—

Sophie jolted herself back to the present. She rearranged her face until she could feel herself smiling again and strolled onwards.

She bumped into her crew a little while later, as she wandered across town looking for them.

The Hearts were gathered in a large, circular rondavel with a thatched roof, which they bought for a couple days to save them the trip of going back and forth to the Polar Tang. After so many weeks out at sea, it was a welcome change of environment. Sophie spotted her crew through the big open windows, the light inside warm and inviting.

But something else quickly caught her attention. Her captain and cook were sparring together in an area enclosed by a wooden fence behind the hut. Sparring with a noticeable handicap.

Law lets himself be blindfolded? she thought in surprise, and felt a little peeved she never had the opportunity to try that on him. And then she was immediately horrified at herself for thinking such vulgarities. No one must ever know how indecent she was becoming.

He was in the middle of attempting to block Hai Xing's strikes with a towel tied over his eyes. He was actually doing a decent job of it, and then flinched visibly when Sophie stepped closer to watch. Hai Xing got a solid kick in and Law stumbled back, pulling off his blindfold.

She clapped and they looked over, shirtless and sweating.

Law thumped Hai Xing's back, catching his breath. "This guy is good to train Observation with. He has barely any presence."

"I feel nothing all the time."

Anko stuck his head through the open window, waving a platter of big, juicy bugs. "Oi, Hai Xing! Try this! It's supposed to be a hot fucking delicacy, like me."

"I can already tell it's an affront to my senses," Hai Xing said, though he abandoned Law and Sophie in a heartbeat.

Perhaps not all the time, she speculated.

And then it was just them.

"Hey," Sophie barked at Law, aggressively ignoring his state of undress and—muscle, "help me out with something."

"Sure."

She was a little taken aback at how readily he agreed. "You don't even know what it is. It could be something terrible."

Law eyed her with interest. "Is it?"

"…Shut up and let's go inside."

—

"There's three parts to it, from what I can categorize so far." Law was sitting across from her other in the rondavel, on the floor covered with orange rugs with black geometric patterns. "Sensing where something will move, someone's emotions, and the… presence of people. Their auras. It's particularly helpful when they're hidden from my view."

"I s-see! How interesting…" Sophie's quill scribbled excitedly.

The night had gotten chilly, but there was a crackling firepit in the center of the hut and a kettle boiling water for tea. Oil lamps were lit around the walls. The other pirates were running around and goofing off with each other, towels haphazardly tied around their waists as they came back from the bath.

Uni had taken to standing around Law like his bodyguard, his arms crossed, glaring at anyone who passed by. The Heart captain had to tell him to knock it off, and now Uni was hugging a pillow to himself, staring up at the ceiling like he was undergoing yet another mild existential crisis. Bepo patted him.

"I'm hittin' the watering holes," Kamasu drawled, lifting his pants up over his shiny, naked butt and zipping it up.

Manta and Valross went with him, saying they were going to supervise each other. They also dragged along Uni, saying with chipper and vaguely threatening smiles, "Let's get to know you even better, bodyguard-kun!"

"You think they'll be back within the week?" Shachi remarked.

"I'll bet against that," Penguin snorted.

"So you can't have Observation on all the time," Sophie summarized, tapping her quill against her chin. "It also drains your energy like Armament?"

Law nodded, flipping a page in the medical book he was reading. "Right now, I can still only use it when I need to. Or else it gets…"

"Overwhelming?" Sophie suggested.

"I'd rather not have the unfiltered emotions of entire towns or cities running through my head. On Machinastein, it was a… shock, to say the least. I've learned that I have better control over it when I'm calm." He watched as she made a note of that. "Going to awaken Observation using the scientific method, are you?"

"Being prepared can't hurt." Her tongue stuck out between her teeth as she wrote. "Which one would you say you're best at so far?"

Law rested his cheek on his hand. "Sensing intention. Presence is close behind. I'd know where everyone is in this room with my eyes closed."

"How can you tell?"

"You all feel… different from each other."

Sophie looked at their crew; Hai Xing and Anko were lazing around the firepit, and through the window she watched Bepo sparring with Penguin and Shachi outside.

Law was going to fight a Warlord in the near future. She shouldn't be keeping that information to herself. Bepo probably also knew. Did Penguin, Shachi? She should ask them. It wasn't right to keep this a secret, even if Law wanted her to. She should stand up and demand a crew meeting.

She hadn't realized how troubled she was looking, her brow furrowed and biting her lip, until a tattooed hand covered her own.

"I'd like them to keep smiling," Law said quietly. "Even if it's only a little bit longer."

Sadness welled in her chest. She felt for a second it was a betrayal to agree, but it was his call, so she nodded. Whether the crew learned now or later, they would still learn because it was going to happen. It was up to Law to figure it out. This was his burden, not hers.

"What's my presence like?" she asked, curious despite herself. "Does it make firecracker noises? Am I a vat of bubbling acid?"

He rubbed the back of his neck, his mouth doing that pressed-together thing like it was deciding how much truth to tell her. "Not to wax poetic, but—an ocean. You feel… hungry. Infinite. With sharks. And a habit of drowning people."

Sophie resisted feeling charmed. Law was just telling her his honest perception. "You shouldn't touch me, then."

"I won't." And then his thumb brushed her cheek, and her spine shivered. Law looked down at his hand, rubbing away the ink stains there. Sophie blinked for several seconds, the hope she thought she killed off blooming in her chest again like an ugly spring flower.

She punched him in the shoulder.

"Ah."

"You deserved that," she muttered, and shoved her journal in her teal backpack. "I think I'll find the others," Sophie announced, slinging Arsenic over her shoulder. "I might be gone for a couple days, too."

"There's a bar of hot girls down the road," Anko called. Hai Xing kicked him in the shin. "Ow, what the f—"

"Thanks," Sophie said cheerily, and left without looking at Law's reaction.

—

She didn't, in the end, find the bar of hot girls, or wherever Kamasu, Manta, Valross, and Uni went off drinking (the bar of hot girls seemed likely).

She went out into the savanna to look at the ruins of the tall stone gates. It was cold. She'd heard around Bohibidu that temperatures could dip close to freezing at night. She was wrapped in her boiler suit, holding up a large graduated cylinder with a wine cork to stopper it; inside were tiny floating ghostlights that lit the way.

A herd of springbok antelope flicked their ears at the girl rustling through the grass, and vanished into the darkness when the green light got too close. Sophie stopped at the foot of the stone gates, and craned her neck up.

The gates were much larger up close. Stone blocks rose up like pillars, but if they were meant to be that way or if that was how they fell apart, she didn't know. The stone was faded red and intricate animals were carved in relief, but they'd been chipped away by time.

It was dilapidated, overgrown with grass, graffitied with painted handprints. A farmer she asked about it said simply that it was part of an ancient, forgotten city from almost a millennium ago.

In one jump, she landed at the top of the gates, leapfrogged slightly across the stone, and plopped her butt on the edge of the top. Her legs hung over the side and she set down her ghostlight lamp. There was enough room to lie down and sleep comfortably if she wanted to.

Sophie looked at the moon over the grassland.

And for some reason entirely unbeknownst to her, she thought of the Pirate King.

As much as she tried to poke holes in the mythos of Gold Roger—how could anyone think they could ever rule the whole entire ocean?—when she looked out, she understood. Understood what drew people to those stories.

The stars over the savanna were a river of unending light.

Sophie saw him in her imagination: standing at the bow of the Oro Jackson, his head raised to the wind. He didn't look austere or wicked like in the stories, but faraway, dreamy. Not yet a king.

When Gold Roger lived, he must have seen so many stars.

She breathed out a long exhalation of smoke. A tiny figure on the tall, broken ruins, a cigarette between her fingers, arms held close to keep warm. It'd be nice if Law were here, Sophie thought, and smacked her head twice. Why, so she could kiss him? Fondle his abdomen one last time? She felt like a dirty old lecher. That wasn't what platonic friends did, which they were.

I put the pining in pineapple. Sophie gave herself a tiny pity laugh because no one else was around to appreciate her punnery.

She took a bottle of Omiramban amarula liqueur out of her backpack and ran her hands over the dark glass. She pulled off the cork with her teeth and spat it out, then took a long drink. The liqueur was creamy and vanilla-y, and went down honeysmooth.

Sophie exhaled with vigor, wiping her mouth. "Hey, Moon-san," she said up to the sky. "We're friends, right? Tell me your secrets. I won't judge. I want to know everything."

A breeze whispered past her ears.

She giggled, imagining hearing a woman's voice like a soft reprimand. "Oh, it's like that, huh? I see, I see… Moon, do you know anything about me? Can you tell me where I'm from? I, I tried asking the ocean, but, um… she just called me hers. I don't disagree, but it's not really the same…"

She took another swig from her bottle, then washed down the taste with a puff of her cigarette.

"The sun? Well, you know how the sun is. I'd ask the sky, but I'm still figuring out how to get off the ground." With the unlit end of her cigarette, she traced the thirteen on her wrist. "Moon, I've always had bad luck. Oh! That might be a family trait! You think so, too? Ehehehe!"

The full moon hung enormous in the sky, unfathomable as ever.

Her cheerful smile faded. "There's no reason for me to want more." Her voice was quiet now, slow and deliberate with thinking. "If I lived the rest of my life exactly like this, with those boys… I know I'll be happy. I know that, but…" Sophie looked up, that faraway light reflected in her eyes. "Why am I never satisfied with what I have?"

The moon glowed by reflecting sunlight, but Sophie only saw Lisbeth in there, broken and half-dead and only breathing through sheer hatred. She saw Nellie, and Odin, and Saint Kasimir, and her dead platoon. Twenty-first regiment, Third Battalion, Alpha Company.

"Right. I know… yeah, maybe I was wrong," she said softly. "I don't deserve more. Yet. I still need to earn it. Maybe I haven't… done enough for Law, either."

Sophie took a long drink. Then a second. Then a third. The bottle was nearly empty when she lowered it. Back to old habits. Her eyes drooped, heavy. There was a pleasant, muffled tingling in the back of her mind. She still wanted Law. It was painful to admit, but there it was. She still wanted his mouth, and to stick her hands down his pants for real, and to analyze their futures together like lovey-dovey scientists in love. She wanted to kill Doflamingo first for being a stupid feathery roadblock in her twisted plans.

She was disgusting. Desire made her disgusting. Sophie dug her palms into her eyes, frustrated and tipsy and absolutely helpless about it all. Her body felt so filled with fire, and there was nowhere for it to go.

"Just give me an answer!" she snapped at the moon. "Tell me one right answer that I don't need to figure out on my own. Tell me the truth, how do people deserve love? How do we deserve wanting things we shouldn't want?" She watched hard for a response. "Fine! Okay! I g-get the picture! You don't care about me, Moon! Well, if you cared about anything else besides looking silvery and pretty, you'd do something useful! Like fix this broken world! Why c-can't you do something about that, huh!?"

She didn't expect a voice to answer her.

But one did.

"Hello! Is someone up there?"

Sophie almost slipped off from her very high point on the ruins. "Um," she peered down into the darkness, "y-yoohoo?"

"You startled me! I didn't think anyone would be out here so late!" Whoever this person was, he sounded nice and polite.

She burped a little, then braced her feet against the stone and leaped to the ground. The dirt cracked under her boots, a small ring of dust rising and blowing outwards from her feet. It should've been an excellently graceful landing on paper, except she was inebriated and fell flat on her face with a loud thump.

"Are you okay over there?"

Sophie clambered to her feet, brushing herself off. "All g-good! I was—um, just admirin' the, um—the whole, you know, and lost track of—the ground was slippery."

"Right, right." The young man's humored voice came from the other side of the ruins. "Hey, I don't blame you. It's remarkable. The Gates of the Kgosigadi."

A shadow, passing between two broken pillars.

"Kgosigadi?" Sophie squinted at a shadow passing between two broken pillars. She walked along with it, boots stumbling over the rubble, lightheaded and feeling fanciful. It wasn't every day she bumped into a weird history fanboy in the middle of the night.

"The queens. Legend has it, the old kingdom of Omiramba fell in one single night of tragedy. Eight hundred years ago, divine warriors destroyed it with fire and lightning. They split the desert open, creating the delta basin and riverbeds."

"Fire and lightning." Sophie stumbled against the ruins again, catching herself on the large cracks with wildflowers blooming out of it. "That's just Devil Fruit users, right?"

"Oh? It's rare to meet a skeptic out in these parts of the ocean. Most people indulge in flights of fantasy."

"H-hold on, I'm no cynic! I think it's the study of this bizarre world is the highest art form possible." Sophie lifted her ghostlight lamp, trying to glimpse the man through the ruins, but she only caught the glow from his torch as he kept walking ahead of her. "Ever seen an island fly?"

"A fairytale, right?"

"Or an island swallowed by winter for years?"

"Those are common up north and down south."

"A city hangin' off the side of a mountain, built by common criminals."

"That's just good engineering."

"Hey! Who's the skeptic now?"

"Never said it was a bad thing, ma'am—ah, miss?"

"Ma'am is fine," Sophie said airily.

He chuckled at that, then slowed down and went quiet. She heard a sigh on the other side. "God, this is stunning."

It was; she recognized that even in her tipsy state. Her green ghostlights cast flickering shadows over the carvings of leaping antelope and buffalo, making it appear like they were actually running across the stone.

"Wanna hear something sick?" She continued on, and heard his footsteps start after her. "Some people are actually taught that the Celestial Dragons built this world and everything in it."

"I'm familiar with the megalomania of nobles and saints. How they think the rest of us should be honored to eat their scraps."

"To do great things, you gotta be born great. Please! If those idiots e-ever learned the most beautiful things in this world are made by ordinary people, they'd die of heart failure!"

The man laughed with her. Between the spaces of the broken gate, she could see his wavy, golden hair. A shade off from hers. Not very Omiramban. Must also be traveler.

"So, ma'am," he adopted a light twang when he said ma'am, like he was teasing, "what brings you out here this late?"

Sophie made a face at where she assumed his head was. "I could ask you the same. You're not a serial killer who murders cute young women in mysterious ruins, are you?"

"My line of work isn't… optimal for free time, so this is the only time I have to see these ruins. Though," he said thoughtfully, "that could be a lie and I really am a serial killer. You're flipping a coin here."

She palmed Arsenic and warned, "Don't try me, kid."

"Kid?" he repeated, shocked. "Do I—" He deepened his voice, "sound like a kid to you?"

"Well, no, now you sound bonkers."

"Wow." An exaggerated sigh. "Turns out you can spend your whole life earning yourself a respectable name, and you'll still get insulted by cute young women you meet in mysterious ruins."

"Life's cruel, isn't it?" Sophie retorted, holding in her snickers. He reminded her of the men in her crew, the easy way they joked around. "I was talkin' to the moon."

"…That so? Was it a good talk?"

"Mm-hm." Sophie nodded, even though he couldn't see her. "She told me to come home, but I got too much work to do."

A pleasant laugh. "And what line of work is that? Archaeology? History?"

"I'm a scientist," she shared, the liqueur loosening her tongue, and felt melancholy again. "A chemist. But when it comes down to it, these branches of study aren't that different from each other." Her hands fluttered in the air. "It's all trying to learn more of the truth."

"Ah." There was silence from the other side. "Chemistry. That's a specific trade. Did you just arrive on Omiramba?"

"Yessireee, today," Sophie sang. It occurred to her that she hadn't asked him with his busy job was. Nah, not important. "Why so curious?"

"It's always smart to be informed." His voice sounded odd. More distant.

She reached the end of the ruins, and the young man rounded the corner of the gate. Lean and tall, almost as tall as Law. Wavy yellow hair, falling around his chin. A long black coat that hung around his knees. The right side of him was classically handsome, a pretty boy from his jaw to his brow.

He was pulling on gloves over his hands. "Especially when you come across a familiar face."

Sophie lifted her graduated cylinder, smiling in confusion. "Have we met before?"

He turned his face fully towards her, and there was a burn

over

his

left

eye.

Her cylinder clattered to the ground.

(—dust and exploding mortar shells, she knew that face, she knew it snarling, she knew it in BLOOD—)

Arsenic slammed against his steel pipe, screeching up against it as she blasted bullets that missed his skull by inches.

"Hexhead," said Sabo of the Revolutionary Army.

"Rebel FILTH!" With a raptor-shriek, Sophie threw herself at him. She had been too weak to hurt him when they crossed paths in Vira, but she could do it now. She didn't know why he was on Omiramba. She didn't know if there were more revolutionaries waiting in the wings. She didn't care. Her primal instinct was to kill. She was going to snap his spine. Gouge his eyes out. Dig her bloody hands in his chest and drag out his raw beating heart and—

Sabo punched her in the gut.

Sophie absorbed it with Armament, but it still hurt. She slammed into one of the stone blocks lying around. How did it still hurt this much? Her vision spun, went double. Amarula liqueur dribbled out of her mouth. She wanted to throw up all over him. He had been talking to her, he had been laughing with her—

"Haki?" A sneering chuckle curled out of his mouth. "You're better than I thought, Alchemist."

Sophie bashed her fist into the ground, every shred of common sense drunk on poison. "Bite me."

"As you wish."

Frenzied, spittle down her chin and blood in her hair; she was so enraged she could barely feel the hits of his steel pipe as they crashed together again. The scars she got during the war woke up, burning her skin.

They exchanged quick, flashing blows. It became apparent that he was quicker and stronger than her, even with Haki. His fighting style was brutal. It barely left her any time to brea—

She ripped a grenade from her belt and he zeroed in on it instantly, smashing his hand right over hers. The grenade exploded between their Haki-covered limbs, knocking Sophie off her feet. Before she could reorient herself, she was kicked onto her stomach, eating dirt, hands snapping at her waist.

"I'll take that." Sabo slung her belt over his shoulder. With a jerk of his wrist, he flicked Arsenic from her hands. It spun away into the air, disappearing somewhere behind them. "And that."

She rolled around, ripping her knife out and stabbing it into his—

With one hit of an Armament-covered pipe, he shattered it. The metal bits fell around Sophie's wide eyes. Her knife, the knife she bought on Toa Sang Bay, was utterly destroyed.

But was she going to give up? No! Her hands scrabbled to unzip her boiler suit, reaching up her bra. Cherry bombs exploded in Sabo's face. His pipe shot out of the smoke and struck Sophie in the jaw. Ears ringing, she hit the dirt again, stupefied by the hit and the copious amounts of alcohol in her system. Her vision tunneled, grew dark.

"How many of these are you hiding?" Hands ripped her boiler suit off her arms and down her waist, patting her down for more bombs.

Screaming in sheer wrath, Sophie forced her sluggish body to move and kicked him with all the Armament she could muster. The hit landed in his solar plexus and Sabo stumbled back; she tackled him into the grass, hands around his throat, choking the life out of him, saliva dripping between her clenched teeth like a feral creature.

Blue in the face, he kicked her into the sky. She felt nothing but the brunt force of pain in her chest and the wind, and then he appeared above her, and whacked her down from twenty feet in the air, and raised his pipe to deliver the final—

Sabo reeled back, dripping saltwater.

Gasping desperately on the ground, Sophie lowered her plastic squirt gun.

The corner of his mouth twitched. "Apologies, no Devil Fruit," Sabo said, and punched her so hard she saw pineapples.

She spun and fell like a limbless rag doll. Her arms were roughly yanked behind her back, pinning her down. She was shaking, red-faced and kicking and pounding her head against the dirt, screams of get off, get off blistering in her mouth.

Sabo flung her around so they were face-to-face, gripping her wrists so hard he was threatening to snap them off. "Shut your mouth. It'd be a pleasure to kill you here, but—"

Sophie spat in his face.

He stared at her with sheer loathing. Her glob of saliva trickled down his cheek. She panted, one long curl falling over her face, blood bursting from her nose and her eyes horridly bright.

He sucked in a breath and spat back. Sophie flinched. The filthy wet trickle slid across her forehead.

"But you've made it thoroughly troublesome," Sabo muttered, and flung her over his shoulder.

—

"She's calmed down now. What a pair of lungs, this fucking banshee."

"Did a right number on ya, Sabo."

"Her Armament's strong. It surprised me."

"You didn't hold back either."

"She'll be fine, Hack. Unfortunately. Bootlicking jingoistic marine."

Heavy iron chains around her chest and arms bound Sophie to a thick, sturdy wooden pole that wasn't budging no matter how much she struggled. Everything hurt. The chains were so heavy that they'd bruise her bones if she wasn't using Armament to shield her body. But using Armament was exhausting her when she was already exhausted, so—everything hurt.

She didn't know where he had taken her. Sabo had knocked her out and when she woke up, the only thing she was sure of was that she was someplace far away from Bohibidu Town and her crew. Maybe in a village by the rivers, judging by the strong smell of wet, earthy mud. She was in a tent. Cramped. Walls made of canvas tarp and not much else. A desk filled with papers and quills. And revolutionaries.

A lot of revolutionaries.

Her boiler suit was ripped to shreds. Sophie held her legs tight to her sparsely-covered chest, glaring like a furious, caged animal. After having been rejected by Law and contemplating starvation while floating around the Florian Triangle, this was supposed to have been her spa weekend.

Sophie felt Sabo's cold glare on her as another revolutionary—a tall, yellow fishman with brown spots, addressed as 'Hack' earlier—tossed him a pack of ice for his bruised neck. It was blue and purple where she tried strangling him. His left eye was horribly scarred, dark and flaky with the eyebrow gone too, and if she didn't hate him, she would've found it excellent. That made her hate him more.

Sabo noticed her watching them. "Your first time seeing a fishman you haven't hanged, marine?" he asked icily.

Sophie looked to the side, not responding. She tongued the inside of her cheek—she bit it earlier, somewhere between a kick to the stomach and a steel pipe to the nose. She had tried screaming for help, but stopped after realizing it was futile. They were going to execute her soon. No doubt they wanted revenge for all their comrades the World Government's killed or imprisoned.

"Nice rifle," one man said, raising Arsenic.

"Don't touch her!" The chains rattled violently as Sophie jerked forward. The wooden beam creaked, and she found herself in the crosshairs of half a dozen pistols.

"Joe." Sabo nodded at the other man, who obligingly set down Arsenic. "Everyone, give us the tent."

With one look, the other revolutionaries lowered their pistols. It almost seemed silly; he had to be around the same age as her and was already commanding a worldwide military organization.

How repugnant.

Sabo waited until the last revolutionary left before turning a chair around and sitting facing her. He kicked up one foot over his other knee, his elbow resting on his desk, and scowled. A white cravat over his half-buttoned blouse, a dark blue vest. And a stupid-looking top hat. Dressed nice, but his mannerisms were much less refined.

"Before y-you kill me, I want a last smoke."

"You're not getting anything you want," Sabo replied, and kept studying her.

Her fingers dug into her palm. "No ma'am?" Sophie blew hair out of her face and smiled, eyes curved in fiendish crescents. "I liked it when you called me that."

She thought Sabo was going to kick her across the face. Instead, he reached over for the Den Den Mushi, dialed a number, and let it ring. She narrowed her eyes. Was this some weird psychological trap?

At the third ring, someone picked up. The snail adopted a concerned look, squinting as though looking over their glasses.

"Found her, doc," Sabo said before the other person could say anything. "You were right. Her crew's heading to Sabaody and we bumped into each other."

"What the pineapples are you going on about?" she snapped.

The snail opened its mouth. "…Sophie?"

That voice.

Sophie's eyes grew round, watering.

A small burst of incredulous laughter and, "H-H-Hippo-sensei?"

"Sophie! Kid, is that really you!? Oh my g—how did you—?"

"Meet the newest doctor of the Revolutionary Army," Sabo introduced, and Sophie gaped at him.

"Oi, Sabo! Just because I'm working with you doesn't make me any less of a marine! I'm still a seagull in my heart!"

"Sensei, w-what happened? Are you still in Vira?"

"They didn't tell you yet? The cure worked! We saved… how many, almost ten thousand? Ten thousand and counting. There's—oh, god, I wish you were here to see this, there's grass again. So much grass, and the water's clearing up again, and—"

Sophie could barely speak. "Oh," she half-sobbed, breathless, "oh, that's—"

Sabo dropped the receiver back on the dial. She stared blankly at the now snoring snail, then back up at him.

He leaned forward—after putting a glove on, as though the idea of skin contact with her disgusted him—and gripped Sophie by her chin. "That's the only reason why I'm not killing you, Alchemist. Your Red Sky cure saved lives. But that doesn't mean I'm letting you go."

to be continued

end notes: BEEN WAITING SINCE FOR-E-VER TO WRITE THIS MEETING. to everyone wanting to know law's reaction to sophie's past ahem sordid affairs: i hope you're satisfied with this chapter. you snoopy pervs. somehow this chapter ended up 16k? i debated whether or not to split it two but NAH. there's still plenty of chekhov's guns that i need to fire! get ready for more twists next chapter!

(i think there were one or two people nervous with how roomboom happened and—ya know, you guys were right. is life ever going to be easy for our girl?)

trivia

sophie's honorifics: since kunlun, she's started dropping it for various hearts. it's about time she dropped them for the rest of her crew, right? sophie is still more respectful than most other one piece pirates, but nowadays her respect is perhaps geared more towards ordinary people instead of powerful men.
ehehehe: is sophie's signature laugh, officially! i like it 'cause it's the "eh?" she says when she's confused/has a question about something. (also it's the same laugh as fellow quack scientist hiriluk, and that fits, too!)
atropa: atropine and atropa belladonna, both derived from the goddess atropos, the morai who cuts the thread of mortals and ends their lives. I JUST FIND THIS A FASCINATING PIECE OF TRIVIA.
omiramba: omiramba are ancient riverbeds in the kalahari desert; the setting and culture are based off of botswana.
bohibidu: red in tswana language.