Under the submarine lights, the body drifting in the ocean looked like a dead fish. That was what Anko called it, anyway.
Upon closer inspection, it was a marine. With a half-empty packet of smokes in her pocket. A smoking, yellow-haired marine, just like… well, there were plenty of smoking, yellow-haired marines. Nothing unusual about that.
He would've forgotten her easier if it hadn't been for those hands.
He slid his palm in like a handshake. Pause, careful now. The body continued to rise and fall slowly, in a deep slumber. The fingernails were short wretched things, bitten and burned away. He moved higher, up the motionless wrist, over an alien landscape of beaten flesh…
Her eyes opened. He kept still.
The marine drooled down her chin, half-conscious, half-dead, so revolting he almost laughed. Her eyes skipped over him, not registering his touch. She looked at her IV drip.
"…cubic crystal… most beautiful…"
The .9% normal saline solution. Saline, sodium chloride. NaCl had a cubic crystal structure.
The marine hummed in ambiguous satisfaction and went back to sleep. But suddenly Law could not take his eyes off that sweaty face, that double-chin; how she glowed, reflecting all the ugly fluorescent light in his operating room. He brushed her damp hair away from her face and said, "I'll enjoy carving you open. Thank you for this learning opportunity."
Whistling a funereal tune, the captain of the Heart Pirates prepped for torture.
So, anyway. Time went on.
From that day, a few years passed—around three, more or less.
Hot oil crackled. He stood sentinel by the stovetop, barefoot, half-zipped clothes hanging off him, loose enough to fall right off if he shrugged. The captain of the Heart Pirates wasn't hungry this early in the morning, but nevertheless a rumbling stomach had gotten him out of bed. He itched his lower back, the movement lifting his shirt over scratches left by stubby nails.
To the former marine, he asked, "How do you want your eggs?"
methyl nitrate pineapples
hypothesis finale
"I remembered."
"When?"
"Right after. Saw the papers and everything came back to me."
"You couldn't have done it sooner? How many years has it been?" Sophie probably shouldn't berate a guy after he lost a brother. It was too heartless. Maybe just a little more. "My god, how many of Ace's bounty posters have you seen?"
"I told you. I've never been interested in pirates."
"I recall you being so interested in me you tried to kill me."
His scoff sounded tired. "There are exceptions to every rule, obviously."
"I told him about you, Sabo. Well, he wouldn't shut up about you, so putting the pieces together was simple. He didn't believe me at first. I had to hit him upside the head a few times, but… he did, in the end."
"…Do you still have my vivre card?"
"Yes."
"Good. Come find me on Baltigo. Bring your journal. I want to help you publish it."
"Okie dokie. It's a boring story, for the record. Hope you're okay with that."
"I remembered something else. I wanted to travel the world as a pirate. I wanted to write stories. I'd title my book 'Sabo's Adventure'."
"…Are you for real? No one will believe me. Don't you know that everywhere I go, I'm… look, I don't care about defending myself. If you want to help me, then turn back time. Make things go back to how they used to be."
"But there is no old world for you to return to. The past is gone. The story you have is named kleos. Fame is now your currency, Sophie."
She said, "It hurts."
"…Think it over, at least. Changing the world's perception of you in the short term is impossible. You're right. But in the span of a hundred or a thousand years, history may remember you differently. Fight back. I can't—for fuck's sake, not even I can read the hatchet jobs about you anymore. There is a way you can take revenge. You can turn your words immortal."
In the time it took Law, her first reader, to finish Methyl Nitrate Pineapples, Sophie attacked the Polar Tang with a mop and a bucket of soap water. She cleaned until there was nothing more to clean, and Penguin told her to settle down because she was making everyone nervous. She hid in Law's bathtub, peeling new scabs off her knuckles. The door opened, and he held the battered journal in one hand as he knelt down beside the tub, his eyes bleary from a long day of reading.
"You have to go to Baltigo," he said.
"Will y-you wait for me?"
He reached for her scarred hands and held them.
She would learn later that it had been Law who had called Sabo first, rifling through his desk for the number an astute Koala gave him back on Omiramba. That he had known Sophie still woke up crying, that he had asked Sabo to please, please help.
"Marine! Marine! Bombardiers, ready!"
Shouts rang among the windy spires of Baltigo's battlements. The intruder touched down on the alabaster landscape out of nowhere, a standard-issue marine cap with the brim tilted over eyes. Caught flat-footed, revolutionaries sprinted to their battle stations.
Koala squinted through binoculars. "Sabo! That's—"
"Hold fire!" Their Chief of Staff stood at the top of the battlements, glaring at the intruder. Who held up a torn vivre card like a white flag.
"That's a marine, Sabo!" an officer protested.
"Not a marine," another hissed. "The marine."
Sophie waved back at the army. Her boiler suit was tied around her waist and an unbuttoned tropical-print shirt flapped around her middle. The officers cursed her out and flipped her off. The doors were pulled open.
And there he was: a flurry of blond hair and burn scars shouting at the top of his lungs, "Wearing marine whites here? Are you batshit insane, Hexhead?"
"How else am I supposed to get your atten—"
She broke off, because Sabo hugged her.
No. He didn't hug her. He smothered her with shoulders and elbows and hands. She breathed hard against his shoulder, where he folded over her like a tall blanket made of blue leather and hatred for landed gentry. He smelled of day-old sweat. Every time she began to stammer, "S-s-sorry," he snarled, "Look, just. Shut up. Just shut up."
"He's on Rusukaina," Sophie blurted out. "Luffy. It's near Amazon Lily. If you wanted…"
He muttered, "Let's not talk about that right now."
She remembered that scrawny kid staring at the sea, his voice flat after the revelation: oh, so neither of us could save Ace. Sometimes, in towns where people hurled their garbage at her, she would cry fat crocodile tears and wail for their forgiveness until, disgusted, they left her alone. Sometimes she'd cackle and say that she would've gotten away with it, if it hadn't been for that rubber monkey and his merry band of fools. Other times she wouldn't do anything at all. She would hold still and shut her eyes, and the jeering crowd would grow silent, and her surroundings would fade, until finally, between one blink and the next, she vanished. Oh, didn't you know? Strangways Sophie had never existed. She was a conjuration, a daydream. Time rewinds, the planet's axis returns to its rightful tilt, Ace wakes up with a yawn…
Sophie opened her eyes. Sabo still smelled rank. She pulled back and saw her hand on the arm of Ace's brother, felt him shaking, felt her feet still planted on terra firma, heard the wind die down then rise again.
She dusted off his shoulders, straightened out his cravat. It wasn't silk. It was plain humble cotton, worn on the edges. A proper, pampered noble would've turned their back on her the moment she arrived, but she couldn't find any trace of former nobility on him. "You didn't kill me on Vira, Sabo. Things might be different if you had."
The wind pushed the hair back from his bad eye. "They might be."
"You want to cash in that coupon? Though it's late to do any good."
"I won't give you an easy way out. I don't let ex-marines get off light, ma'am." Sabo grinned. The slight motion wrinkled his deformity, and it was so pretty that the dried grass at their feet turned a little greener.
Sophie threw herself back into his chest. Good thing his cravat was made of simple material. It would take multiple washes to get all the snot out.
She hung around Baltigo for a few days longer. She spoke to Dragon the Revolutionary, in the flesh, and didn't faint. She talked with Koala about Jinbe. She and Sabo had a lot to catch up on.
But there was one more reason why she stayed.
The Devil Child had recently been rescued during the liberation of Tequila Wolf in East Blue. The Revolutionary Army brought her to Baltigo, and when Sophie was talking to Koala and Sabo, she saw—her, standing at the top of the stone stairs. The last survivor of Ohara. Robin was frozen like a shark catching the scent of blood. Sophie, in the middle of furtively adjusting a wedgie in her pants, froze too, shocked.
Hands! Hands, everywhere!
"Aaaagh! Whyyyy!?" Sophie screamed, contorting into a pretzel.
Robin's pleasant smile flashed like a guillotine. "You are Luffy's enemy, are you not? Seis Fleur! Slap!"
"Wha—" Slap. "Hgeh!" Slapslapslapslapslap! "Hgablurururghh!"
Sabo and Koala broke them apart. She once met Robin's former boss in Impel Down, that hook-handed sandman, and no wonder Robin was just as rude as Crocodile. Plotting conspiracy under the Alabasta sun made a girl mean.
Sabo held Sophie back, who was screaming that Robin had used a litigious number of limbs on her and she was an evil woman with a slap fetish. "To put it simply," he said, attempting to soothe all parties, "the Marineford War was Sophie's fault the same way the attempted assassination of Mayor Iceburg was Luffy's fault. Let's all try to get along, okay?"
"Shaddup, yuh half-fried mango! Whah dosh dat even mean," Sophie snapped through a split lip and swollen cheeks. Sabo made an observation about her bulbous hamster face. She bit his ear—the bad one, because, for scientific purposes, she needed to know what his scar tissue tasted like—Koala gave up, and Robin ascended the staircase, back into her own lofty terrain.
Sophie's first meeting with the Devil Child went badly.
The second didn't go any better.
"Why did you come find me?" the evil woman with a slap fetish asked from her window. She was sipping a cup of coffee an officer prepared for her. "Do you need something?"
The revolutionaries waited on her hand and foot, as if she were some kind of celebrity. Sophie ground her teeth. Robin wasn't wrong. An idea had occurred to her. While the Revolutionary Army was figuring out the logistics of publishing her book, she wanted to include everything she knew about the Poneglyphs. For that, she wanted Nico Robin's blessing.
Officers hastened to the commotion, hoping to see Robin get another slap in.
"But Poneglyphs don't belong to Ohara!" Sophie yelled, pacing below the window, in the white Baltigo dust. "This language is about the history of the world, and therefore belongs to the world! Everyone has the right to study it!"
"Islands who get caught with your book will be blown off the map."
"Sharing knowledge is a scholar's greatest obligation! So that one day someone can stand on our shoulders and see farther than we could!"
"You hieratic boys never care who you hurt," Robin said from her high perch. "Don't call yourself a traitor when you haven't learned anything."
When Robin said boy she meant marine, she meant a marine who unzipped themselves and sprayed bullets. "I'm d-different. I have changed."
"Is it true you have no country? You don't know your history, the history of your people, your ancestors?"
"What of it?"
"So that's why." Robin nodded with a sort of faux-polite, unemotional quality that reminded her of Law at his most irritating. "You don't have an island you hold dear. You can't understand that this knowledge only brings misery."
"She may not look it…" Sabo poked the chemist's cheek, who was staring at her feet, her steaming face resembling a cube of fried bacon. "But Sophie has come a long way from the World Government."
"Is that supposed to impress?" With a crook of an indifferent brow, Robin shut the glass and drew the curtains.
"Shit," he muttered. "That woman is intimidating. Hey, don't take it to heart…"
"That woman… that evil woman… is suspiciously sexy!" Sophie exploded, knocking all the eavesdroppers back on their feet. She rounded on Sabo. "Nico Robin is tall, mature, shaped like a goddess, a-a-and she's good at sick burns? That's not right! What do you think?"
He was thinking about all the paperwork he would've preferred to do than have this conversation. "I'm ignoring that. What now? Will you leave in the Poneglyph notes?"
"I'm not the last survivor of Ohara. My old home only burned because I set fire to it." She chewed her lip. "I'll talk to her again."
"Are you sure?" Sabo assessed her like a wartime consigliere. "I have to ask, is this even necessary?"
"Yes! As a scientist, my research should be front and center! Poneglyphs, lichtenberg trees, brimstone moths, I have a wide range of botany and zoology notes that I've collected in my experiments—"
"What about Blackbeard? And how you left the World Government?" His eyes narrowed. "You know, the reason why we're doing this."
"Right," she said. "Of course."
"Sophie—"
"I'll get the final draft to you soon. I know your publishing houses are waiting. Just… let me try, please?" She shot him a quick, earnest smile. Sabo shook his head as if to say, if she kills you, I will have to write the most inconvenient letter to Trafalgar. Please don't make me write this letter.
Robin spent long hours exploring Baltigo's ruins. She was willowy and striking even in the plain gear of a revolutionary officer. Like a beautiful mountain goat, she competently picked her way up dusty white stones. Trailing behind her, Sophie called, "Akuma-san! Madame Devil!"
Her ability to ignore someone so annoying must be a superpower. She was the sort of woman who went, "…" while smiling enigmatically; it was easier to perceive the emotions of a brick wall. Just like how Law was all cool, detached, and unbothered before Sophie cracked him open like a naughty walnut. Hmph! Challenge accepted!
"Devil-san, we're pretty alike if you think about it!"
"These are several hundred years old, at least…" Robin murmured from above, appraising the carvings.
"We're both women of letters. A scientist. A historian. An equal chance of being executed for offending a priest."
"Dried aqueducts, gardens, altars… deep traces of erosion…"
"The shade of our eyes and our complexion are also similar!"
"…but that's to be expected, given the passage of time and the Army's need for plumbing…"
"Plot twist! Could it be? Perhaps I too am an Ohar—"
Hana Hana hands tossed Sophie away as one tosses rubbish.
Eventually, lost and dispirited, Sophie sat down in a shadowy courtyard pierced by small honeycombs of pale light. She didn't know where she was. This deep in the ruins, she couldn't even hear the omnipresent Baltigo wind. Sabo had, of course, sent agents to keep track of her in case she got into real danger. But if they found her suffering amusing and decided on an impromptu coffee break, well…
Lizards scurried over broken fluted columns. The stone walls were studded with shriveled ivy. She picked up a small rock and pressed it to the wall. Her calligraphy wobbled with uncertainty, but she began recreating the mysterious script she saw on Omiramba's Poneglyph.
After a while, there came a flutter of flower petals that was Robin watching over her shoulder. Sophie ignored her. A few moments later, Robin moved on.
A few moments after that, she came back and said, "It normally takes a decade to learn."
Concentrating on the next glyph, Sophie asked, "Weren't you, like, eight when Ohara died?"
Robin made a small noise in her throat and closed her eyes. She did not seem to be in awe of Sophie's savoir-faire.
"Oh, I don't mean to be rude. My childhood was also spent studying. Most of my companions were the long-dead authors of the books I read. Poneglyphs are the same, aren't they? Friends waving at you from across the centuries." Sophie nervously checked Robin's hands. "If you're just gonna stand there all Woman-of-Darkness-like, leave me alone! My face still hurts."
"You're doing it wrong." Robin, with her own rock, wrote above Sophie's messy markings. "There. Copy that."
Sophie hunched, shielding her small, lowly territory on the wall. She did, warily. Her lines struggled where Robin's were neat and pleasing. It filled her with a terrible, stupid sort of fury.
Robin watched impassively. "What do you know about Poneglyphs? You want to write about them, but what do you really know?"
"The Void Century, the D name, the Ancient Weapons. It explains what they are."
"You'd think so, but it's been twenty years and I'm still searching for the true history."
"Gold Roger found it. Didn't he? He stashed it at the end of the Grand Line, with One Piece. That's why the World Government hates him so much. 'Wealth, fame, power… and the true history! The man who obtained everything! He left it all… at that place!'"
Sophie looked at the difference between their writing. She felt like a child again, stumbling in the dark, sounding out the syllables to hy-dro-gen. "If that's so, Roger owes me an explanation. The men of D have forced themselves into my life and changed it irrevocably. I want to find out what's real and make my own conclusions."
Robin said, "You and Blackbeard…"
"Fire Fist Ace says to you, 'Tell me where that traitor, that vainglorious nobody Teach is, and I'll fight him for my father's honor. Look at me, I'm a quick-draw cowboy without a horse. How can I lose?' These men do whatever they want, but I should have known better. I should have thrown myself in front of Akainu. Look at me. No lineage, no island, no charisma, no great powers… it would have been an honor for someone like me to be Ace's human meat shield."
Robin could have been made out of marble. "You don't truly believe that."
Ace would be insulted if she did. "It's what people have told me."
"The sheer arrogance of them to see your life as forfeit, when they couldn't save Fire Fist either. Ignore them."
Astonishment startled Sophie into momentary silence. "…Wh—really? Um… a-are you allowed to say that?"
"I failed to consider your situation." Robin was looking away, her face tight with uneasiness. "I was angry on Luffy's behalf."
"Oh, no, no, completely understandable!" Wow! Robin was actually kind, wasn't she? "It's why Sabo… it's why I want to publish my journal. This is my retaliation against Blackbeard and the World Government! I have to load it with the biggest rocket launchers I have, because then… then…"
What would someone think, when they read about how she once viewed Teach as a friend? Or how she kept trying to crawl back to the World Government? Were they going to think, maybe you deserved it?
"I guess," she awkwardly scratched her neck, "to make up for the fact that it's me. I'm not… you know, clean. This isn't clean or pure, like your pain. My mistakes were embarrassing. My life has been an embarrassment."
"A marine traitor who inadvertently killed Whitebeard and set off this calamitous age?" Robin lifted her eyebrows. "What could possibly be embarrassing about that?"
"Oh… sure. What is my humiliation, really, if not an icebreaker for awkward conversations?"
"It's a unique bit of trivia."
"It could be handy, even? If I'm ever playing bingo and 'setting off the apocalypse' is an option…" Sophie lifted her arms and finger-gunned Robin. "I'm your guy."
"I've been trying to summon the Devil my whole life, but you did it in, what, a day? I'm jealous."
"Stop, stop, I feel sick." Sophie sat on her knees, laughing deliriously.
"I had a great plan, once," Robin said with a sharp little smile. "I would have killed the whole world, if that meant the Straw Hat Pirates could keep living. Enough about purity. There are no mistakes. Only lessons."
Sophie looked up, crouched down by Robin's feet. "How have you put up with it so long? For the next ten, twenty years, if I even live that long, it'll just be… a war that will never end. What do I do?"
"When people shame me, I punch back. When they hit me, I break their bodies. I'm a pirate. I do as I will. And you?"
Take courage, Sophie.
"I won't publish anything related to the Poneglyphs," she said. "I am different from the World Government. I'll prove it."
A silence passed.
"I'll have to cut down on the research anyway, to make room for the Blackbeard stuff. Or whatever. What? Don't look at me like that."
Robin sat on the dirt with her. She kept looking at her. For the first time, Robin was at her eye level, and it was impossible to ignore her angular, ice-blue gaze, framed by raven hair.
"Okay, fine! Here's what I really mean! We're all trapped in a history that we don't understand, and until we understand it, we can't be released from it. But I never asked about the pain the Poneglyphs have caused you, or how much it must hurt to love them. You're the expert. I'm smart enough to know when to defer to other people. Not always. But on occasion."
A longer silence.
"Hello? You're supposed to say 'Wow, that is so admirable of you, Alchemist-chan! Forgive me for my slap fetish. Next time I'll only do it if you ask politely.' N-no, wait, w-w-what am I saying—"
"Sabo was right."
"—just a slip of the tongue! No subconscious feelings revealed! Hm? What was that?"
"Nothing. It's been a very long while since…" Robin had a deliberately subtle way of speaking. As if careful not to reveal too much, she spoke around words, grasped the shadows of them. "Enthusiastic discussion about history and Poneglyphs do not happen often around me."
Sophie caught on. "But you and the scholars…"
"They never included me. I learned to read it on my own, in secret."
"…Eh?"
"It was too dangerous. I was too young. I learned anyway. Why not? I'm an Oharan and this is my legacy too."
"But… you've been… alone all this time?"
"It is not so lonely," the brilliant scholar said, "when friends are waving at me from across the centuries."
She saw that somber little girl in the bounty poster, surrounded by archaeologists who all resembled her in some way—her piercing eyes, or her sharp nose, or her olive-brown skin. In certain cold weather, a certain shade of white in the snow, Trafalgar Law would raise his head to the north wind and be transported back to Flevance. An island was also an anchor in a storm. A lodestar. An origin story.
"Can I ask you one more shameless question, Robin-san?"
Even orphans have a history, Teach had said on the boardwalks of Toa Sang Bay, both of them nobody pirates forgotten among the crowd. Don't you know? Our history is the history of the world.
"You were right, you know. Poneglyphs don't scare me because I have no island. I don't know how it feels to lose something that precious. It wasn't a harsh truth. It was just the truth. But I think… it creates a balance. I think I made a deal with someone before I was born. 'You will sacrifice your own history, your island, your ancestors, but in exchange…'"
Sophie touched the ancient script. It came away softly on her hand, in particles of glittering stone-dust.
Afterwards, when Sabo found her—he was out of breath, awfully certain that he'd be sending the Surgeon of Death an inconvenient message—she was sitting by herself in a daze. Sophie was looking up at the pockets of sunlight, her expression stunned.
If you asked Robin why she had done it, she would tell you about Professor Clover declaring, 'Who says we don't have the right to study the true history? What close-minded nonsense! All people have the right, by virtue of being alive!' She would tell you how the Baltigo ruins rearranged itself as Sophie made her argument, her trembling voice beginning to echo with the past. Stone became a holy tree and countless books filled the shelves. Somewhere, another marine traitor laughed, "Dereshishishi…"
"…and that's the story." She clapped her hands together over her head. "Please don't be annoyed!"
"It doesn't bother me," her famously irritable captain said.
"Really?"
"To recap. You murdered a World Noble, broke out of Impel Down, people either hate you for betraying the World Government or killing Whitebeard, depending on who you ask… studying Poneglyphs doesn't even make it on the list of your reckless, unwise—"
Sophie jumped in his lap and threw her arms around his neck. The chair tipped backwards and caught itself at a diagonal slant against the cabin wall. There were many advantages to being lab partners with a doctor—he often smelled like coffee because he was overworked, and because he was overworked he was too tired to dodge her hug attacks.
Law patted the top of her head, trying to push the curls out of his mouth so he could breathe. "I'm out to kill the Warlord-King of Dressrosa. As if I could tell you, 'No, this is dangerous, don't even try.'"
She kissed his cheek. His expression remained indifferent, but he stopped talking and folded his arms around her waist and rested his head on her chest. His hair stuck up like black crow feathers, compelling her hands to run through them.
"Plus, it could be useful down the road," she said happily. "This history has to do with your D, you know."
"Don't say it like that."
"You're not interested?" She could see it on his face, the indifference.
"As long as you're happy, right?" She cast him a dubious look and Law said, "I have more important things to worry about."
Donquixote, he meant. That was fine too. Sophie would show him she was too smart, useful, cute, attentive, and devoted to not bring with him to Dressrosa, when the time came. She would work hard and pass Law's unspoken test with flying colors!
Robin made her swear she'd burn the notes once she memorized them. She thumbed through the pages. "Robin said if I can translate this line in a year, she'll consider me teachable."
"One year? You didn't tell her how fast you picked up signing?"
A miffed look. Don't you know me better than that?
Not for the first time, Sophie wondered if Law could be called handsome. He had a face that made people shudder and palm their weapons, a face that belonged to a scheming villain in a storybook. But she liked how unpleasant he looked when he scowled, and sometimes it even made her flush. And when his eyes closed in a deep laugh, her heart did cartwheels. "You got time. Stop studying and help me plan the siege on Rocky Port."
"Calling it a siege is so dramatic. Anyway, I need to learn about nominative-accusative alignment and split-ergativity… my god, I think Robin gave me something super hard to translate. This feels sadistic, actually. Why are all last survivors of islands so cruel?"
His grin vanished. In its place was a sneer. "I thought you liked it…" His fingers slid up her spine, "…when I'm cruel."
Sophie set down her studying materials.
A little while later Law murmured in her ear, "Limetta," and she tasted sweet lemons.
The Rocky Port Incident was a catastrophic mess for the World Government. It would be remembered as the event that shot the notorious Surgeon of Death to a 440,000,000 beri bounty.
The marines who were there witnessed their Master Chief Petty Officer chasing after the Alchemist and yelling at her to (please) take off that disrespectful marine cap. This was alarming on several levels, most of all because the good-natured Koby was notoriously difficult to anger. She badgered him to betray the Marines. "Come on, you were so cool shouting 'Let's stop this already!' at Akainu!"
Koby slammed his foot down; his kick broke through cement. The Alchemist flailed away in fright. He was stronger than before! Taller, too! Oh, how scary! How scary! She lowered her gas mask and blew herbal smoke in his face, sweet like daises. A brave marine clamped a seastone manacle around her wrist. His companions blinked, wondering, did the Alchemist have a…?
"Is this supposed to do something?" Sophie chirped, and bashed the seastone cuffs against Koby's head.
He took that hit, then grabbed the back of her head and smashed her face into the ground. He yanked her arms behind her back.
"Ouch! Churl! I'm the Great Chemist Sophie, I shall not be manhandled—"
"Hold still!" He took off his jacket and pressed the fabric against her bleeding head.
"…What are you doing."
"I can't allow you to die now that you're under arrest!" Koby was now tying the jacket sleeves around her head as he yelled, pelican heart beating bright. "It would be dishonorable! A-a-against Marine code! You have to be alive in order to be sentenced!"
She stopped wailing. "Oh, Grapefruit-kun…" Grimacing regretfully, she opened her mouth. "I feel bad about this."
The cherry bomb on her tongue detonated.
100 beating pirate hearts, delivered to Marineford. In a stunning act of cannibalism, the Surgeon of Death devoured his own kind, capturing the attention of the Marines…
Smiling her enigmatic smile, Shakky looked over her newspaper and appreciated the festive view before her.
Shachi and Penguin were leading the crew in a rousing, passionate off-key rendition of Bink's Sake. Laughter painted every corner and crevice in her Rip-Off Bar. Nursing a pint of apple juice, Sophie distractedly twirled a pair of battle-won seastone cuffs around her hand.
It has come to our attention, the World Economic Times went on in a smaller article, that Alchemist Sophie has published a book of crimes. Her fanciful lies have no basis in reality. We can assure our readers the World Government has repeatedly told us there has been no jailbreak in Impel Down, and they will strike without regard at any publishing guild associated with…
Sophie was more withdrawn than usual. Law was drinking next to her, nodding along to their crew's singing. Then, as if struck by a trivial, passing thought, he leaned down and murmured something in her ear. He straightened back up again. She choked on her soda. She glared at him, two spots of pink blooming on her cheeks, then casually slipped the seastone cuffs in her pocket. She scurried away to link arms with Hai Xing and Anko, joining them in song.
Shakky pretended she hadn't seen anything. Law raised his pint, a silent question. How much will the damage be?
She lifted her own glass in a toast. "It's on the house today, Warlord."
The Surgeon of Death was formally invited to Mary Geoise, to pay his respects to the Fleet Admiral.
He declined.
Instead, he sent the Alchemist as his proxy.
It was a long flight up the Red Line. Mary Geoise, the Holy Land, the capital of the world, glowed like an opulent diamond. Sophie wanted to sneak in to see the Empty Throne, but Tsuru's women intercepted her at the gates. She was protected by the sphere of Law's influence; they let her keep her grenades and her gun, and showed her to a council room in Pangaea Castle.
The magnificent archways were bone-white, paler than a tomb. If Luffy had never broken into Impel Down, she would have been brought here from the great gaol, to work endlessly in a glass cage displayed like a taxidermy butterfly. See how she twitched and stammered? How she avoided certain numbers, how she mutilated her own hands? She knew how the World Nobles felt about exotic species.
A marine barked at her, "What are you smiling for, traitor?"
Sophie said cheerily, "Do you think Fisher Tiger once roamed these halls, setting it on fire?"
Vice Admiral Tsuru motioned the marines to take a step back. She was a sturdy, incisive woman who washed sinners clean for a living. "The invitation was meant for the Surgeon."
"Sorry, Gran," Sophie said. "You have to settle for me. Where's ol' Gramps?"
"Sengoku is enjoying his retirement."
"Excellent. But the real reason?"
"He left when he heard you were coming instead of your captain. And that boy Sakazuki decided you weren't worth his time." Tsuru shook her head, as if to say, these men, these so-called powerful men. "Tell me, why do you address us as family? It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, like poison."
There was a fern-like lichtenberg scar on Sophie's middle finger. She had gotten it fighting for her life against Aokiji, by Ace's side. She picked at it. "Aren't we all children of the sun? Aren't we all sheep in a great shepherd's flock?"
"Must she wear that hat," a marine whispered.
"I only wear it when I want to be a nuisance."
"Settle down, ladies," said Tsuru. "Don't let her get under your skin."
Her smile spread, like slow-acting biotoxin. "So. Uncle Sakazuki is moving HQ to the New World. Uncle Kuzan resigned with the disgrace of a loser. Is it true they fought on Punk Hazard? Vegapunk's old stomping grounds? Do you mind sharing its coordinates? It sounds like an excellent vacation destination. As a fellow scientist, I am a huge fan."
Tsuru said mildly, "I hear there's a book being distributed on islands outside our jurisdiction."
"There are many books like that. Travelogues, cookbooks, saucy romances—"
"Anti-World Government material. Offensive propaganda. Dead World Nobles, you know, that's touchy stuff. And we've gone so far to cover up Impel Down… to think all our efforts might be wasted. What a shame."
"My sympathies." If they thought that was bad, they had no idea what Robin asked her to leave out. "But about Punk H—"
"As it happens," Tsuru said, looking amused, "I found a copy."
Her smile fell. Already? "H-how?"
"PINEAPPLE GIRL!"
The doors were flung open. A giant pillowsack sauntered in, his cotton-candy-blue hair flowing behind him, his large red nose a-honking. Buggy, former apprentice to Gold Roger, opened his copy of Methyl Nitrate Pineapples with a flourish.
"'Buggy the Clown heroically (adverb added) led the charge (exaggerated) through Impel Down! The jailbreak was a huge success thanks to his efforts (and others)!' I must admit, a modest man such as myself was taken aback when I read those (excessively overstated) words in your book! Finally, I thought to myself, a true fan appears! Alchemist Sophie! It does not surprise me that a bright young girl such as yourself would view me as a god of the new world! Be grateful, for I've decided that I shall have you write my flashy biography! Buggy the Clown, leader of a thousand armies, ruler of oceans! GYAHAHAHA!"
"To sum up," Sophie said later, "Tsuru didn't take the bait about Punk Hazard, and then the whole conversation got derailed by a clown. You weren't the only Warlord she invited. For some reason Buggy thinks he saved me in Impel Down, but I just remember him throwing me at Magellan. Anyway. It'll take some time to figure out Punk Hazard's whereabouts."
"They're being careful after Blackbeard and Crocodile royally fucked the Shichibukai." Law was absently brushing his fingers through her hair. Grey shot through the short curls in front, and the roots had gone silvery-white. "But what did they expect, really."
She snorted at his casual arrogance. "You should be careful. You're trying to do the same, in case you forgot. Alright, stop." She batted away his hand, self-conscious. "I've turned into a crone."
"I have a fondness for cleaning-obsessed grandmas."
"I'm younger than you, scumbag."
"It's about your general aura," Law assured. "So? How did it feel to finally visit Mary Geoise?"
"I… don't want to think about how much I used to love the World Government…" Sophie listened to the steady beat of his heart. Every so often, her fingers twitched, her nose, her eyes. "I j-just want to love you. Is that okay?"
He lifted her chin so he could take a look at her. His smile bordered on violent. "That's what I like to hear."
She felt her cheeks heat up. Woe! Gone were the days of being obfuscating and mean to cover up her burgeoning feelings. She was lovesick. She could no longer hide it. It was the worst. It was exhilarating. "You know I struggle with attachment issues."
Was Law the sort of man who was moved to tears by displays of wholesome adoration? Perhaps not. He was the sort of Warlord-Supernova-asshole who offered to deflower Sophie on an empty beach in the Florian Triangle. Lately, he was feeling victorious. "You know what I think? As long as you love me, nothing else matters."
She curled her fingers against her cheek, a heavy blush rising, nervous eyes darting about. "Don't be evil, okay?"
Law tsked. "Can't help that part."
He turned twenty-five, and then she turned twenty-one. She asked him to pierce her ears for her and fastened on big pink heart earrings, liking how they swayed. Law got himself a new, mushroom-like hat with a thick fuzzy bill. His old one was getting too frayed. Hai Xing upcycled it into a little hat for Law's favorite, most evil-looking den den mushi.
They drank their teas in the morning, contraceptives prepared with intention, and grimaced together at the taste. "If I ever get you with child," he said grimly, "it would be the end of me, my work, everything," and it made her laugh. Only Trafalgar Law could say 'with child' like some tortured antihero pacing the stage of a tragic play.
He was too prideful for a proper sleep routine, but when he saw her clamber into his bed, he'd inevitably wander over, take off his shoes, and—at some point—rest his head on whatever soft thing was closest to him (a pillow, or her stomach). He shaved in his small bathroom mirror while she brushed her teeth in her underwear, jostling elbows with him, making sure he looked passionately at her butt.
Her most super-duper favorite part of the day was waking up and remembering that she was in an ardent lab partnership. Love! She was in love! She had many partnerly duties to attend to, and she would attend with aplomb! Strangways Sophie was nothing if not diligent!
She waggled her quill, leaning on his operation table. "How about honey-poo."
"No."
"Babe? Baby? Babyface?"
Law just turned his blood-splattered face to look at her.
"Doesn't fit." She crossed names off her list. "Murderface? Fetus-kun. Vile embryonic placenta puppy. Foul-mouthed little zygote boy." She snickered as he started to peel his bloody gloves off. "Oh, have I charmed you? Should we go somewhere m-more private?"
He said, "If the cadaver so much as looks at you, I'll cut its eyes out." Wasn't that just romantic?
Her self-appointed duties did not end at pet names. She took it upon herself to clean his cabin from top to bottom. Law, who was usually entertained when she swept through the submarine and made sure to keep out of her way, froze when he saw her. Sophie, equally shocked, lifted an old, crumpled book of collected Sora, Warrior of the Sea comics, and asked her captain what on earth he was doing with Marine propaganda for children.
"It's nostalgic," Law defended grouchily.
"Got it. And here I thought you'd pin the blame on Penguin and Shachi."
"…It's Penguin and Shachi's." His ears were turning red.
"I'm not judging. I've read those comics before. I heard the series was really popular in North Blue."
"And why wouldn't it be? Sora the Sea Warrior fights the warmongering Germa 66!" A beat. "…Or so Penguin and Shachi tell me…"
She listened to him talk for hours about the history of North Blue and the Germa Empire and how Sora, Warrior of the Sea ingeniously combined them both in its masterful storytelling. But of course, her duties did not end there! She also watched him sleep, ironed his shirts, dusted his commemorative coin collection, color-coded his socks, doodled Surgeon of Death with hearts everywhere in her journal and beside it Surgeoness Sophie, set fire to the galley while cooking him dinner…
"Captain," Bepo said after the flambé incident, "you have to talk with Sophie."
Penguin and Shachi: "Her… tendencies—"
"How weird and intense she gets—"
"—it's out of control."
Law would've said something earlier, but she looked so happy showing him how neatly she rearranged their—his—cabin. He experienced a more pleasant version of heartburn. "She's having fun."
"She's crying right now to Hai Xing and Ikkaku about the ruined pudding! They kicked us out of the engine room! And now Anko's pissed because he had to rescue the cast-iron pans, and everything is your fault, Cap."
He hid a grin. "I know."
"It's good you're happy," Penguin said slowly, "and getting more sleep these days—I mean that in a wholesome way, don't glare me—but, it's just… Sophie's young, and—"
"I'm young too," snapped their grumpy, bearded captain. "I'm not some ninety-year-old geezer with arthritis like Benn Beckman."
"—just be careful. No false promises, right?"
Law told them he would handle it.
And by that he meant: when he found her, he told her that there was no reason, ever, why she should feel embarrassed for the way she loved him. It could never scare him off. Sophie raised tear-stained eyes, whispering, promise? And Law promised. He also added, "But feel free to keep crying. I'm enjoying this."
She coaxed more stories about Law's childhood from him. He was tight-lipped out of habit; he didn't like digging up what was buried. But Sophie figured she should know if she was going to join him in Dressrosa, right? So she asked. And because it was her, Law went over the full scope of his travels with Rocinante, the years running with Baby 5 and Buffalo. He reconstructed the friendless days in Flevance spent in fasting, prayer, and mutilating the odd frog.
"No wonder you're so wild now. If we had met back then, I would have been your friend."
"We would've hated each other," Law corrected.
"Yeah, most likely. But in, like, a rambunctious and endearing way." Besides, it was one of those silly things people promised each other. An oath of a lifetime. "It would be nice to see Flevance bustling again…"
"Oh?"
Sophie gasped in horror. "It—it's not like I'm implying anything about repopulating your island!"
"I… never said—"
She thumped his head repeatedly with his fluffy mushroom hat. "A-a-a-hem! Ahem! Ahem-hem-hem! I have never been to Flevance, is what I meant! It's hard for me to imagine what it looks like! There are no harlotrous intentions behind my innocent words. Do you understand? Absolutely none."
Law reached into a desk drawer and unearthed a bundle of dusty maps. "I see. Should we go?"
"Hm?"
"To Flevance."
So the Polar Tang went.
Past the bookshop where songbirds nested in crumbled white stone… up a road overgrown with field grass and dandelions… and there, a house overlooking the sea.
The limetta trees were in full bloom.
A month after that, the Payback War arrived.
Hachinosu was deep in the New World, flung far in its outer wilds. Sophie navigated by the stars, wrapped in Law's fleecy yellow-and-black jacket, a portable oxygen tank on her back. Into the tropopause, above the clouds, passing over great cumulonimbus clouds flashing with thunder. Follow the hummingbird's beak, straight on till morning.
She timed her path to the migration of the caelum whales, sky whales that swam in the White Sea. Their passage created a powerful air current. She pulled out a fluffy sheep from her potion bottle, or maybe it was a cloud (hydrogen peroxide, a splash of dish soap, catalase enzyme from baker's yeast, solid enough to hold weight, light enough to float), and hitched a ride in the updraft.
She slept, ate her onigiri, and watched the whales soar through the galactic river of stars. A finger pointed heavenward—saw 'em right after crossing into the New World! She smiled. She imagined being back in that cell, not the Sophie back then but the Sophie that was now, telling him, I've seen them too. His eyes would widen in delight. You get me, Curls? Yeah, Habanero-kun, I get you. I finally get you.
After a few days of travel, she saw a beleaguered pirate ship on the horizon. Swooping around a tattered sail, Sophie went into cruise control beside the Victoria Punk, lowered her oxygen mask, and called out a salutation to its captain.
Eustass Kid, the worst of the Worst Generation, was eyebrowless. He was also missing an arm.
The quarterdeck creaked under his weight as his big boots thumped over. The full girth of his torso was wrapped in bandages, which ended at a stump on his left side. He had to be near seven feet tall. He was all red: red eyes, red hair, red lips curled in a bad-tempered sneer. But as Kid leaned his good elbow on the railing to speak to Sophie, there was a shrewdness to his narrow gaze. "So you're that Alchemist fucker, huh?"
"I'd like to reply 'Oh, so you're that Captain degenerate, huh?' but calling you Captain gives me the heebie-jeebies."
His answering look was forceful, muscled; a fighting bull. "What can I say. Give it a try, you might like it?"
Sophie had never met the Kid Pirates before, but their crew and hers teamed up outside the Sabaody Auction House. It made sense to be polite, didn't it? She liked Kid's ugly spotted pants and his swaggering nastiness. They reminded her of Law.
"Nice to meet you, fellow Supernova crew!" She waved at the pirates, who looked like they just got back from a fistfight at a punk-goth rave. Killer, with his scythe-gauntlets drawn, waved back. "Thank you for fighting with my crew on Sabaody!"
"Fighting with." Kid seemed conflicted between laughing or spitting.
"It was nice of you, Kid-san," she insisted. He looked funny with no eyebrows. Hers, thick and hairy, bounced up and down. "You've been causing mayhem in the New World for a while now, right? How much farther to Hachinosu?"
"That's Blackbeard country."
"War's coming."
"You're out for blood."
"Only out for what I'm owed."
Kid rubbed his chin. "Ain't weak," he decided. "Mad as fuck, but ain't weak. You made a strong showing on Marineford, Alchemist! I liked that, and I like your weird-ass gun!"
His hand clenched the air and yanked. Arsenic lurched so sharply it went over the railing of the Victoria Punk. The beefy pirate—he was, simply put, refrigerator-shaped—caught her in his magnetic field and dangled her in front of him. She was outraged at this flagrant display of his Devil Fruit. How dare he be so ridiculously overpowered!? Arsenic gave a ladylike cough of indignation.
"There-fuckin'-fore," the magnetic tomato growled, "allow me to bestow some sorely needed wisdom on you. Stay away from those Emperors. You see this? This is Red Hair's handiwork."
Sophie stopped flailing and breathed, "Shanks…?" because Kid was lifting his stub of an arm. Shanks, who was a drunkard and annoyed his crew with rowdy singing? Who despite all his power and fame, had a certain middle-aged loser quality about him? She couldn't believe he was vindictive enough to turn Kid into his doppelganger. "He wouldn't do that to a rookie. Not him. Not Benn Beckman, my former lover."
"Don't be stupid. Emperors, Warlords, Supernovas—there are no heroes out here."
"Shanks stopped the Marineford War. He's p-probably teaming up with Marco right now! Off to kill Blackbeard together!"
"The Phoenix would let another Emperor help him?" Disgust rippled across Kid's lumpy face. "He's got no pride left after his old man bit the dust?"
"Well, I don't know anything about that. But I'm still going to Hachinosu!" Sophie earnestly patted Eustass Kid on his angry shoulders. "I appreciate your concern, Kid-san. You're a swell guy. I'm sorry about your arm, and I hope we can be friends in the future!"
His magnetism went slack, as did his jaw. "You are a fucking idio—"
"What a strong captain you have!" Sophie called as she flew away. "Best wishes for your success!"
"Thanks, Alchemist! Good luck!" The Kid Pirates waved at her, and said to each other, "What a nice witch…"
Kid scowled. He grunted to Killer, "A normal man would kill someone for saying that cutesy shit to him, right?"
"Let it slide today, Captain," Killer suggested.
Sophie tore through the sky. In her heart, she knew Eustass Kid was right. To be known by an Emperor was also an invitation for death. And maybe her help wasn't necessary. Marco and the Whitebeard Pirates were still stronger than gods, even without their captain. But she had to see Teach die with her own eyes. She still dreamed of Vista holding his flower swords to her throat as he wept.
Hachinosu greeted Sophie with lush palm trees and gorgeous tropical weather, trumpets blaring, girls dancing and throwing flower petals in the air, singing, "Fortuna! Fortuna Alchemist! We've been waiting for you!" She stood immobile on the warm sand as the pretty girls adorned her head with a flower crown. Behind the retinue of dancers and trumpeters and drummers and pirates cheering for Blackbeard's Lady Luck was the man himself, welcoming her joyously into his country.
"Ducky! What's next on your agenda? Peaches of immortality? Apples of discord? Have you been enjoying your fame as the destroyer of Edward Newgate? Zehahaha!"
Big and beastly, glowing with health and ale, Teach swept off his flamboyant tricorne hat and bowed deeply at her feet. A low sigh swept through his retinue, admiring the performance. When she first met him, his shirt had been stained with beer and cherry pie crumbs. People pushed him aside on Kunlun's walkways, but his patient smile never wavered. He had waited a long time for Fortune to call on him. When she knocked, he was ready, he had flung the gates wide open to greet his destiny. He extended his hand to Sophie. Rubies and black pearls sparkled on his knuckles.
"Teach." Endure it. "I make my own fame these days. Did you like my book?"
A dark eye gleamed at her. "I marked every line you mentioned me, superstar. Come in. I saved you a seat at my table."
In the storm, she saw the other sniper by the glint of his glasses right as he saw her.
Van Auger and Sophie pointed their guns at each other, angles matched exactly, the blunderbuss Senriku and her Sen.
Senriku's bullet blew past Arsenic and struck her in the shoulder.
Marco caught her as she fell off her floating sheep-cloud. They flew high over the churning sea and endless bursts of exploding shells. Izo spotted the blue flare, and, rallying the forces, he shouted, "The two pineapples are alive! Forward!" But everywhere she looked, a Whitebeard ship was burning. When Edward Newgate was alive, he did not run with young pirates. Most were middle-aged, over forty, gallant men well-fed on a long life of adventuring. But Teach filled his crew with half-mad starving dogs. They had been fed the roaches of Impel Down; they had waited a long time to feast.
Her arm was busted. Healing flames got to work. "Marco! What's the plan!?"
"It's time!" His beak was trailing blood; he'd taken a direct hit from his Pops' earthquake, though it was Teach's now. "I'm calling it!"
"No! It c-can't end like this, not again," her mouth ran with slobber, he cleaved her life apart, turned it into, "mess mess mess, I clean and clean and it goes bad again, his filth, his fucking dirt, I need to see him die, I need him dead!"
A furious fault line ripped through the air. Blackbeard roared his brother's name. He roared her name too, but he didn't use her name, that was the funny part, he said, "MINE, THAT THING, THAT LITTLE ROACH—IT'S MINE!"
Marco pulled his wings in tight and shot downwards, brilliant aqua flames galloping behind him. He shouted at her to fly away, save herself. Smoke-crazed, she tightened a belt of grenades across her chest—she was the Alchemist, she was a mad scientist, and Marco was a pineapple, not her captain. She called for Ace to watch her and fell backwards off the wing.
"Hey, kid. You want to hear something funny? I'm no pineapple; I'm a 'phoenix pear'."
Marco winked. His talons caught her and flung her screaming into the wind. The last thing Sophie saw was a thousand blue songbirds blazing in the ripe black pit of the vortex—
"Any last words, brother?"
and dashed its invincible self against the darkness—
"Eat shit, Teach."
The Whitebeard Pirates lost.
That unconquerable crew went up in smoke, the embers of their fire damp and dead. Marco vanished somewhere in the New World. Big Mom snatched up Fishman Island. Marines stormed Idyll Island, tore down Whitebeard's flag, and enlisted the locals to start building a military base. Due to proximity, those marines were from G-13.
Revolutionary protests were sweeping across the sea. Have you read the Alchemist's book? Did you hear about Impel Down? About Blackbeard, that fiend? Did you see how she wrote about her wretched, hateful, adoring, lifelong love for the World Government? They say if you run your hand along the spine, the pages would weep tears. If the Alchemist could have her eyes opened, it's possible for anyone. A small surge of resignations roiled the Marines. For any marine who quit their enlistment out of the blue, an order was given to search their barracks for a pineapple book.
She made it back home. The needle went in and out of her shoulder. The pain in her head was worse. "Brain's gummed up. My marbles, my marbles… I see fire everywhere."
"Even in the dark?"
Especially in the dark. Her brain was so useless she started to laugh.
Finger swept through her hair, untangling the wires in her head, braiding them neatly together. Law held her teary face and promised, "You'll wipe your boots on him one day."
This, their love language: assuring each other of the inevitable deaths of their enemies. Sophie swore to herself she'd return the favor when the time came to go to Dressrosa.
She imagined a saint. She kneeled and prayed, tell me how to wash off the poison of the World Government, tell me how to cleanse curses. Her saint said, people who are born worthless can't change the fact. She said, no. Her saint said, I'm a worthless man with the blood of a demon flowing in me. She told him to shut up, she said I'll show you blood doesn't matter. Even babies born in ditches, in shipwrecks, may transmute themselves into gold. Sophie pulled out his knife and said, "If you think your worth is decided by your inheritance, then so is mine, which means I'm worth nothing. Is that what you think?"
Her saint said, "Fuckin' hell, Curls, can you let the dead rest?"
There were tiny patterns in Perihelion's blade, which she only spotted by looking very close. Crucible steel: pig iron, wrought iron, glass, ash. The combination of high-carbon and low-carbon swept into each other in a symphony of dancing molecules, and formed patterns like wood grain. Or mountains. The mountains of Dawn Island, Colubo. She saw Ace in the heart of a blazing forge, molten metal sweating from his skin, his black eyes alight. In classical alchemy, fire is associated with sulfur, the principle of combustibility, and the soul. Some say it's the most fundamental of all elements: the fire of knowledge, the fire of divinity.
Once in G-13, on a fair morning, a seagull sailed through the open window and dropped a bounty poster on her desk. She studied the boy. He was getting older. He was starting to look dangerous. Absently, she scrawled across the freckles: igne natura renovatur integra, then stayed her hand, frowning. She folded the evidence into a glider and hurled it away from her, recklessly hard out the window, and watched it soar furiously into the wind until it dropped away and vanished. She picked up her bag, ran down the tower stairs, and left the threshold of G-13. The ship to Vira was waiting.
A list of Alchemist Sophie's current subjects of study:
Science: Aqua fortis in the morning. Running a household required a steady stream of money. Law could feed the Polar Tang for three months by making short work of a banking house, but then they got notice that Warlords are forbidden to evaporate beri from patrons of the World Nobles. Law spat on the letter and told the gull to deliver it back to Fleet Admiral Sakazuki. But the threat was made. She bought ore in bulk from fishman miners; Shakky's connections, who treated her well, who believed Boss Jinbe's testimony about her over the rumors. She turned that ore into mosaic gold and vermillion, cobalt and terre verte, and sold the paint to artisan guilds. When a beleaguered child or young damsel came up to her, slipping beri in her hand and whispering for a hex from her grimoire, she gave them a vial of arsenic powder and told them, just a sprinkle will do the trick. She kept her chemicals neatly labeled.
Poneglyphs: Grammar in the afternoon. Robin had instructed her to memorize five hundred glyphs and understand their basic components. She, relieved by the number, laughed, oh, five hundred in total, that's all there is? With a pleasant smile, Robin said, there is over fifty thousand. But let's start you out easy. I learned this when I was six.
Romance: The hour of the ox belonged to her and her captain only. Off you go.
Nico Robin was approaching her thirties. She had survived the Oharan massacre when she was eight, and from then on embarked on a pilgrimage of suffering. She joined Baroque Works at twenty-four, watched it crumble at twenty-eight, joined the Straw Hats, and witnessed a second miraculous destruction, this time of Enies Lobby and Cipher Pol 9. She was a woman of the world. She had seen things the likes of which cannot be imagined.
Sophie clenched her notes in shaking hands and read out with total seriousness, "'Shut up about your chest pain. We will sew the God of Bells into history's quilt.'"
Robin wasn't reminiscent of her namesake. She was more in the species of falcon, with tapered angles and serene surveillance. Her hair looked soft and smelled of Baltigo sagebrush. The picture of poise, she inhaled thoughtfully…
…and snorted. She covered her mouth. "I didn't mean that."
Sophie looked at her blankly.
"I'm sorry, but you spoke with such confidence."
"Well… I spent a year working on that…"
Robin chose the wrong time to sip her coffee. Porcelain clattered, and she was coughing and delicately patting her mouth. Sophie curled up into a fetal position on the floor. Remarkable: in all of her journeys, this was the first time Robin had seen such a pathetic toad.
"I knew it sounded weird," the toad croaked, "but I told myself, 'Sophie, it is impolite to judge people who lived a millennium ago. Maybe they were just kinda weird back then!' Give me another year… please, I'll try again, I can solve it, I promise…"
"'Keep thy motives in heart, with closed mouth. We are those who will weave history with the ringing of the great belfry.' Your translation wasn't a total failure. You can read pronoun inflections correctly, which is no small feat."
"YES!" The toad jumped up with the ecstasy of earning a good grade. Human again, Sophie clasped her hands together and her large beseeching eyes glimmered with hope. "This means I'm teachable, right? Yes? Please?"
Robin crossed her legs. Her hands showed her occupation: scars, callouses, graceful and precise movements indicating an expertise in dislocating joints. "Are you sure you want to do this? This might be the last time we meet. Once you return to your ship, you're heading to the New World. Soon after that, I'll be returning to Sabaody. Will it be worth it, to keep studying?"
"I'll find you in the New World." Sophie fiddled with one of her short, stubby braids. "I'm tenacious. I'll track you down."
"Nevertheless. Now our crews have run the gauntlet of Paradise. Now the ocean ahead of us is one that turns men into kings. If, one day, our captains have business with each other?" Robin smiled, semantically agile. "Would you fight me, Sophie?"
She lowered her eyes. "I don't know." Her eyes flicked up again, curious. "Do you think I'd win?"
Robin opened her mouth, then closed it, surprised. To answer yes was unthinkable; to answer no was opening the door for Sophie to cheerfully reply, in that case, my only sensible option is to not fight you, now let's go back to what I'm actually here for. Robin couldn't help but laugh. "Arriviste philosopher. Give me your notes. I'll make corrections."
Outside, the long midsummer day kindled into sunset, and the ruins of limestone and quartz dissolved into hues of burnished copper. It was an evening of farewells. A knock came at Robin's door. It was Sabo, wearing his blue coat and top hat, a knapsack slung over his shoulder. Koala and Hack were likewise in their traveling gear. He shook Robin's hand, exchange well-wishes, and turned to Sophie with that fiendish, half-charred grin of his.
He held out three pieces of blank paper. "As promised, a vivre card for you, Trafalgar, and your navigator Bepo."
"Why's mine already ripped?"
Sabo patted his coat pocket.
She tweaked his burned ear. He rolled his eyes. His bad eye dragged. She said, "When you see Ace again, pour him some fruit juice from me." Her smile widened. "He'll probably hate it, though."
The New World: those in Paradise vowed it like a promise. We survived this half of the Grand Line. One day, past the Red Line, we'll meet again.
"Eh? You've never been to Laugh Tale?"
"Excuse you, Miss Rude!" huffed Buggy the Star Clown. "I was ill at the time with 'You'll Die if You Go to that Island Disease! Shanks also stayed behind, to take care of me… ah, that is to say, he was too intimidated to go without me!"
What a disappointment. Sophie had thought that by writing Buggy's biography, she could learn more about One Piece. The Warlord posed in his pirate finery. He instructed her to describe him in gratuitous detail, especially his air of nonchalance, his sprezzatura, if you will.
She sat on silk cushions embroidered in harlequin patterns. Up in the Warlord's balcony seat, she had a best view of the tent. Below, a man pranced about with his lion, trapeze artists flew through the air, and a strongwoman showed off her muscles by hefting her iron mace. The Buggy Pirates had claimed the island Kirai Bari in the New World. Buggy Town was a collection of colorful circus tents, and within those tents his mercenaries partied day and night while awaiting dispatches to their next job. Thinking of Shanks, she attributed this constant need to party as a genetic trait of the Roger Pirates.
But back to Buggy's biography. "In terms of stories of the Oro Jackson, this is illuminating… I've always been taught that Garp caught him… but if Gold Roger turned himself in because he was terminal… maybe he thought he wouldn't have lived long enough to see his son born?"
"Hey, keep the focus on the flashy leading man. 'The trauma of seeing his captain die at such a young age turned Buggy the Star Clown into the hardened man he is today', yada-yada, really jazz it up." Buggy sighed. His bright red nose was so large, so round… "If anything, me'n Shanks were the only sons Captain Roger had. Poor bastard! Never knew how great his pops was, that's for sure."
Honk.
"He did know, actually." Sophie honked his nose again. "Whitebeard was a great father. He followed Ace out to sea."
"MY NOSE," Buggy roared. "I'LL KILL YOU."
"I'm sorry, I couldn't resist. Your nose is just so very interesting."
"I KNOW IT'S—" Buggy looked up at the ceiling. He started laughing slowly. "Gyaha…haha…HAHAHA! GYAHAHAHA! The stories are right about you, Alchemist! You are undoubtedly a genius! Your prodigious mind can see what no other human has ever seen before! I cannot hide my debonair mystique from you! I expect no less from the writer of my biography! Drink up, drink up—oh, that's right, you don't drink booze." He waved the servers in. "Glass-slipper berries imported from Totto Land. Fruit-crazy, aren't ya?"
Translucent berries, catching the light, glittered. How odd. Sophie hadn't mentioned she liked fruits, but he didn't need her to say it, he had read her book. "I prefer fruitophile. It's more dignified."
"My biography should be real flashy, you know?" Buggy thoughtfully rubbed his blue stubble. "If you ignore my handsome looks—I know, very difficult to do, but please try your best—I am a humble man on the inside! My only wish in life is for fame and absurd wealth! But which of my plentiful dashing adventures best captures that sentiment…"
"Oh! That reminds me of something." She showed Buggy a page in her journal. "Do you recognize this?"
The former apprentice of Gold Roger grabbed it. He held up the sketch that Robin drew of the golden bell of Shandora as if seeing an old friend. "Kid, have I got a story for you…"
Thrown off-course by a storm on the way back from the New World—her flying rifle managed several brave hours in dense, midnight fog, while she desperately consulted Law's vivre card. Sen jerked its last breath, out of solar power. She screamed all the way down into a copse of skeletal trees, startling a murder of ravens into taking flight. Above her, dark hills curled up like wide-brimmed witch hats.
Sophie wrung out her damp shirt and shivered. She tucked the vivre card back in her pocket. Was it day or night, she couldn't tell, the sky was covered in gloom. Yasopp's golden star powered down. On Machinastein, she worked as a scientist for President Ursa's chocolate Dials. After Marineford, she rebuilt her broken rifle and renamed it Astral Arsenic (or Assy Arse, as Law called it, when he wanted her to choke him).
"Hold tight, Sen-chan, I'll get you fixed." This was a problem. Sophie couldn't be late heading back to the Polar Tang. Law wasn't going to sail to Dressrosa without her, but she wouldn't want to keep him waiting.
Ah, but first… Sophie raised Perihelion. "Is this your first time seeing this island? Well, what do you think?"
Branches rustled. The heroine of a gothic horror novel gaped at her.
Sophie was dragged out of the forest by the heroine, a young woman clutching a stuffed teddy bear to her chest. Her short pink petticoat floofed and poofed around her legs as she floated. She was talking rapidly. "Have you ever been a handmaiden? Can you serve tea and help a girl choose outfits, that sort of thing? I've been stuck with two disgustingly boorish apes, and it's just been torturous on my lonesome without any servants—"
Sophie was still wiping mud off her face. She was shocked by this girl's cute appearance. She was giving Law a run for his money when he slept snuggled up against Bepo. She once tried taking a photo of them, but the shutter sound on the cameko mushi went off and she screamed and flung the snail at Law's head. "I'm more like a janitor, or a h-housekeeper, I guess, but—"
"Perfect! I accept! My name is Perona, but you may address me as Mistress, yes?"
A castle, just over yonder. More inhabitants?
"Oh, your poor, yucky hands! Your filthy hair!" She tugged leaves out of Sophie's curls. Lights from the castle dappled over them. "Gosh, you're heinous! Would you be agreeable to wearing a life-size teddy bear suit?"
Sophie considered seriously. "Is it cute?"
"Hold on, why do you look like…?" Perona peered closer. "YEEEEEK!" She let out a wail so frightful Sophie almost had a heart attack. "What in the goddamn—aren't you the Alchemist!?" She flew away in a flurry of pink ringlets and hid behind the stone gargoyles on the castle arches. "Give me a fucking warning next time! Don't call yourself a maid, are you stupid!?"
"But I am a… no, not a… whatever, may I please stay in your castle? I need to do some tinkering."
"You need to tinkle!? Go piss in the woods!"
"Tinker!" Sophie shrieked. "I need to fix my gun! And wait for a sunny day so I can fly back to—"
"Sunny!? Don't curse me! I'll get that green oaf to cut you up and serve you for dinner, fuckhead!" Perona swore a lot for someone who wore poofy skirts and pink platform boots. She was looking at something else on the castle grounds. "Don't let her in!" she roared down at the vegetable garden. "I'm telling you, don't you dare let her in, unless you make her my servant!"
There was someone there. A vampire farmer was digging up turnips, squatting on his haunches, his menial hands working the dirt. He looked up; he had obviously heard the voices of two shrill young women screaming at each other.
"Excuse me!" Sophie beseeched, wringing her hands. "Oh, please, kind sir, can you spare some pity for…"
Wait.
What?
The ghastly pale vampire stood. His farmer boots squeaked. Those calloused hands that were covered in turnip dirt also wielded the greatest sword in the world: the black blade Yoru, bringer of a thousand nights. Currently, he was holding a tiny shovel.
"The girl from the war," Dracule Mihawk murmured, his eyes bright as coins.
"You—" Arsenic, heavy.
"Broke—" A ring of gold circled its neck.
"My—" The wind smelled of magma.
"GUN."
Armament bullets glanced off Mihawk and ricocheted into the woods; moving almost too fast to see, he had passed his small shovel under the bullets and flicked them over his shoulder. The steely old fruit bat wasn't even looking at her, he had gone back to his turnips, how dare he, she yanked the safety pin off a pineapple grenade, how dare he—
Her baby detonated too early, no, it was cut in midair before reaching its target; a sword in the smoke, crashing against her gun. Not Yoru. A katana. Green hair, cropped to stubble. Earrings. She knew that face. Seen it in the papers. The long, terrible scar stretching across his bare chest. He had been watching from the windows, and when he'd seen her display of weaponry, came barreling out the castle and threw himself into the fray.
"Nice bloodlust, bananafish." The Pirate Hunter licked his teeth. "Top-shelf stuff. My sword's singing."
He fended her off with a red-hilted katana, a wavy indigo pattern in the blade. There was a familiar purr to it. Almost like Kikoku.
Sophie put all her weight behind Sen. "Roronoa! Why are you stopping me!?"
"From pissing your life away? I'm doing you a favor, lady. 'Sides…" The look on his face could not legally be classified as a grin. "The one who's gonna kill Mihawk is me."
"Then let's do it together, right now!" Robin said her crew loved their captain, would do anything for him, even spend two years training on their own, scattered around the world. Sophie pushed closer. "Or did you not know? Your master over there stopped me from rescuing your captain's brother."
"He ain't my master."
"He fought Straw Hat. In M-Ma-Marineford he went after Luffy, he nearly killed him."
His cyclops eye gazed back. "Shit happens."
"…You are more basic than sodium hydroxide!" Perihelion cut quick.
He deflected—a second sword, pure white. Roronoa Zoro had three. Definitely overcompensating for something, wasn't he? And she thought Law's six-foot-tall nodachi was theatrical.
"Oh, please just get out of my way!" she shouted at the younger swordsman, glaring over Zoro's shoulder at Mihawk.
The greatest swordsman sat back on a garden chair, kicking one rubber boot on his knee. Perona handed him a glass of wine—she carried two—and shouted, "Don't kill her, butthole! She's my servant! I wanna dress her in a teddy bear suit!"
Zoro cracked his neck. He flipped his katana around his wrists.
"I am not fighting you," Sophie said scathingly. "I have no interest in a cheaper version of Hawkeyes."
Mihawk swirled his wine. "Little witch, the only place you could afford me is in your dreams." He nodded at Zoro to begin.
Rayleigh's shoulders shook with laughter. "Mihawk enjoys cutting young upstarts down to size. I know this well."
"You giggle, sir, at my expense, humiliation, and trauma." Peri worked through the skin of an apple. A ribbon of red unfurled around her hand. "How's the would-be Pirate King?"
"Progressing." The Dark King was stirring his beans in a clay pot. "Two years is not nearly enough time to beat the basics into that boy's head."
"I'm sure it'll work out. Soon enough, he'll be breakdancing through artillery fire…"
The wild animals of Rusukaina were standing guard, keeping their eyes on her. When master and student sensed the stranger touching down, and Luffy saw who she was, he had gone snarling into the forest with his beasts.
"Shakky-san tried helping me with the advanced forms of Haki. I, my body, or blood, or whatever—isn't suited for it. Do you think… there are just some things that are impossible? That aren't, like, for everyone. Because you have to be born for it?"
Rayleigh seemed surprised. "You take a pessimistic view of things. I don't want to further your cynicism."
"I'm not a cynic at all. Try me."
"Well, in my experience…" He ran his hand through his white hair. It was unkempt in a way that made her think, Gross. Good for you, Shakky-san. "There is truth in that old saying: lineage is power. You can see how the world trembles when men of the blood step onstage. Though, of course, their strength is their own."
Was it?
"Do you think… I'm not insulting his power, I know how strong he is…" Sophie was careful, wearing a mask of indifference. "But do you think Luffy would still be Luffy if he had been born a nobody orphan? Nameless father, no island, no D or anything?"
"Young lady, I am his mentor," Rayleigh said with stifled amusement. "I believe I'm required say, of course he would still be the same."
"Hmph. Right." He was honest about his bias, at least. She chomped into her apple and glanced at the forest again.
"Did you want to see him? I'll allow it. We're on a lunch break."
"N-n-no!" Sophie sprayed bits of apple on herself. "No, um, w-we're going to run into each other in the New World eventually… erm, that is to say, I'm in no rush… I'll cross that bridge when I come to it… I just wanted to see if he was doing alright."
Rayleigh gave her a shrewd look, but said nothing. He looked like any carefree, do-nothing bum. He was playing dice against himself as he waited for his beans to finish cooking. Buggy said he loved gambling. Shakky said he was in shocking amounts of debt. He was doing that thing old codgers tended to do, politely appreciating her fluffy hair, nodding wisely at the satin juice on her lips. Sophie was pretty sure she'd seen three or four Silvers Rayleighs completely sloshed in random alleys throughout the Grand Line.
But he had been to Laugh Tale. Robin said she wouldn't trust anyone else's interpretation of the true history. Sophie considered herself more practical. Any information could have its uses. She just had to ask.
She wiped her mouth, locked onto his gaze. "Silvers, why weren't you at Marineford?"
He stopped stirring his beans.
Wrong question. But her mouth was running on. "And d-don't give me that 'my time is over' drivel. Whitebeard was one of you. You knew him for decades. He was one of the only good ones, wh-who put a sense of honor in his sons. He was the last of you."
"Let me get this straight. You came all this way just to harangue me about Luffy and Whitebeard?"
"Yes," she said stoutly.
Silvers Rayleigh threw his head back and laughed. He reached beneath his glasses to rub his eyes. "You misunderstand something. Men like me do not call ourselves heroes. I'm a retired old drunk. I believed in Edward Newgate."
Sophie steamed in chagrin. The nerve of him, to be so compassionate.
"You are a very forward girl," the Dark King observed.
"Outrage is my third favorite emotion." Cold, bright discontent, simmering below the surface. "Ever since I learned about the D's, it's like I can only ask questions I know have unsatisfactory answers."
"If you keep going, perhaps there will be a good answer waiting."
Sophie lifted a brow.
Rayleigh blew on a hot spoonful of beans. "I'm in the habit of mysteriously encouraging youngsters these days."
She looked out at the jungle, thinking back to the stories she heard in Impel Down. In those stories, he ran wild in the mountains, calling out to the trees, the wolves. She circled her mouth and made that wild-wolf-sound, that wind-in-the-trees-howl. Wasn't as good as his, of course, and she got spit all over her chin. But it was as loud as she could holler, and her eyes watered, and Ace would've approved.
She stood up with a small stretch. Then she heard it—
An answering howl, somewhere past the sun-dappled leaves and rushing rivers and wild apples, past the berry bushes and moss climbing up old logs and animals asleep in their dens and burrows. It was the howl of a wolf missing his pack. Somewhere, Luffy was sprawled like a backwoods country boy in the boughs of the trees. Perhaps he was dreaming.
Ace loved this kid 'til his dying breath. You get me, Curls? Not yet, Habanero-kun. But I want to.
"Silvers, Shakky-san says to hurry up with this training business."
"She said she misses me? That's unusual."
Powering up her rifle, Sophie amended, "Her exact words were 'I need someone to clean the rain gutters.'"
For the past two years, she slept lightly and ate well. She swatted dust out of blankets and scoured moldy pipes, she practiced her war face in the mirror and accidentally set Law's toilet on fire a few times and tripped down flights of stairs with her nose in a book. She would leave for weeks, then pop up one morning in the galley peeling potatoes for Hai Xing. Every soul aboard the Polar Tang could recognize Sophie's returning footsteps tap-tap-tapping across the deck, her push against the door, her arms laden with souvenirs: fruits and books.
"Clione," Uni said gravely. "It was your job to tell her we're dirty lechers and we want stabby things and nudie magazines."
"Ugh," Ikkaku said.
"Don't 'ugh' me, you wanted gear parts and nudie magazines."
"Yes. Because that's respectable."
"I did tell her," Clione grumbled. "She just shook her head in disappointment and gave me an orange."
"An orange isn't so bad," Jean Bart said. "Sophie says they come pre-sliced, like a gift from god. Is that not comforting?"
Clione said, "No, not when we haven't figured out what the hell she's worshipping."
There was no Log Pose to Punk Hazard. There were no coordinates on any map. But there were clues to its location: a talkative Lieutenant who heard something-or-other about Vegapunk's experiments, a Commodore who was there when Caesar Clown escaped arrest.
West-northwest of the islands Mystoria and Raijin. A sea awash in fire.
They had sailed past Fishman Island. Jinbe wasn't there. After abandoning his Warlord seat, he had been forced to leave with the Sun Pirates. Now the flag of Big Mom flew over the port. Sophie wanted to apologize to King Neptune personally, but the guards recognized her and said, no, you must go, Boss Jinbe said you might come to see him and to turn you away. For your own safety, Alchemist. Whitebeard was respected here.
"Did you read yesterday's rags?" Ikkaku asked. "There was another article about us."
"I thought it was about Sophie," Clione said.
She elbowed him. "Us by association. Show some solidarity."
"That's right," Jean Bart agreed.
Uni said, "I can't really see myself as a 'deceitful pernicious man-trap fink who practices blood sorcery'."
Above them appeared a mop of shaggy curls. "You called?"
They yelled.
Sophie pulled them up from where they were sitting in the engine room. "We're almost there! Hurry! I want to see your faces."
"Anko said he'd alert us when we reach the surface," Uni protested.
She shoved Jean Bart through the door. "Fortune favors the punctual!"
"When has Fortune ever favored you in your life?" Ikkaku laughed.
"First time for everything!"
The Polar Tang emerged from the sea. Wind filled the sails. The ocean swelled beneath their feet. Their faces, she meant, lit by New World lightning, watching the Red Line recede behind them. Anko was at the helm, Iruka his apprentice, and Hai Xing by his shoulder. Bepo pointed the way. Penguin, Shachi, and Jean Bart seized the lines that held the sails steady.
Law stood at the bow, motionless, facing forward like a sentry. He breathed; the line of his shoulders rose and fell. The rain bent around him, the waves withdrew, nature retreated to give him space, as he looked out into the final sea of the Grand Line.
He lifted his hand. "Full speed ahead!"
Into the New World.
The smoke smelled like mullein leaf and chamomile. He closed his eyes to relax in it.
But then an alchemical finger prodded at firm doctoral muscle. "You have Hai Xing's bento packed? First-aid kit? A shaving razor? Bepo's vivre card? Do you want your comic?"
"Damn it, how do you keep finding that?" Law swiped the Sora, Warrior of the Sea comic away from her. Sophie was buzzing around him and it was making him restless. "You're not sending me off to summer camp. Settle down."
"My man, off to battle his archenemy." She primly sat next to him on his bed. "What a sordid tale of vengeance. The pathos will be galvanic and thrilling. Is now the t-time you ask to take indecent photos of me? To remember me by when you're on the road?"
"Do you think I objectify you in my every waking thought? Even scum have their limits."
"Oh." She decided not to mention the cameko mushi she bought for that express purpose. "That's fine. You won't need them."
"Well… let a guy contemplate…" Law was now twenty-six. He had put on some weight, though that wasn't saying much. He still wore his favorite pair of spotted denim jeans. He had a few strong interests in life and cared about little else. Sex was nothing more than a passing amusement for him, but as it was frequently suggested by one of his interests, he had become accustomed to the practice. When Sophie felt cocky, she called him 'my man', like a cheeky reminder. Law, you are my man. "This is not something you usually offer."
"You mock me! In all levels except physical I am virginal. Put your filthy hands elsewhere."
"I'm not even touching you."
She fidgeted, biting her braids. "Put them s-somewhere in-d-decent."
To think: Law, a Warlord, a demonstrably Very Powerful Man, was being worked to the bone by a neurotic and deeply repressed chemist. If she wasn't demanding him to help with some hazardous experiment that had a good chance of blowing up the Polar Tang, she was singing this song in his bed, in the shower, on his desk… he should file a complaint. Oh, what an awful thing to be at my lab partner's beck and call to fuck whenever she wants to… this is torture, really…
Her cigarette was slow-burning, heady, pleasant. His mouth was a breath away from the awaiting throat, but he watched it from the tail of his eye, thoughts drifting, frowned. "What did you say? I 'won't need' them? Why?"
"I dunno." A beat. "My bounty's gotten higher."
"Bounties aren't necessarily about strength."
"Three hundred and sixty. A perfect circle! So delightful! Your four-forty mil is pretty good too. Divisible with my age, twenty-two. Isn't that the most amazing thing you've ever heard?"
Law supposed now he had an actual reason to care about his bounty. "Yeah. That's pretty cool."
She hummed happily. "I'm glad we've established we're both powerful individuals. We can destroy Doflamingo together and crush him into tiny bits of flamingo bones."
She was dumping more soap into his bag. She'd follow him off a cliff. Law said, "You're not coming with me."
Sophie paused for three full seconds.
"Uh-huh. Sure. Whatever." She deliberately avoided his gaze, still smiling; he could see her adapting in real-time, her mind racing, trying to change the mood with some joke. He wasn't in the mood to play along.
"So you get it?" Gentle, he tucked a curl behind her ear. "You understand."
"…Seriously?" She was amazed. "I've been your lab partner for two years, and, what, this is it? Nonsense. Absolutely not. My darling, if you think you're leaving the Polar Tang without me, you'll have to dump me first."
Law held her face, his broad callused hands tender. "Fine. It's over. We're through."
Sophie sat there, frozen. No movement but the shocked flicker of her eyes, working through that statement. It did not intrigue her. She had no curiosity whatsoever to examine it. She calmly set it aside and said, "Counterpoint: nothing is over and I am coming with you."
"No."
"Yes."
"Sophie."
"My god! Stop trying to turn this into a big, dramatic thing, Lawrence."
"That's not my name, Philosophia Duchess Sparkles C-4 Rocket Launcher."
Sophie clutched her chest. "Now you address me by my chosen title? Right when you break up with me, which also didn't happen?"
She was indomitable. "If it's any consolation…" Law practiced this. He had to say it. He wanted her to know. "I'll miss you."
She looked at him like he just offered her a plate of dry turd.
"Trafalgar D. Water Lawrenzio, you plan to fight a Warlord pirate crew. A whole crew. You need someone to watch your back. We've been through this before. Do you remember when I argued to join this crew on Kunlun? You said no. Remember when we kissed for the first time and you wanted us to end before we even began, but I argued about how good we'd be together? You said no too. Yet here we are." Smoke brushed him like a little kiss, and he remembered a night when she rode him while tracing his tattoos with the burning end of her cigarette. "I'm good. I can do this."
"You've gotten strong. It's not enough." The truth was that nothing would ever be enough. She could have a Devil Fruit, she could have Conqueror's, still he would never take her along.
"Oh ho ho, being saucy, are we?" The hurt was visible on Sophie's face. "You'll be alone. And I have Haki."
"So do Penguin and Shachi. This whole crew can fight. They're not coming along either." He tried to explain this with sensitivity, but she shoved him away.
"Because they're going to Zou with Bepo." She stood up, shoulders squared. "You're being ridiculous. You have to take me with you. You can't afford not to. I'm too useful."
"I don't care," he said quietly, and Sophie stepped back like he had just slit her throat. She was ashen. Perhaps that was too blunt? Law adjusted his face, aiming for affection. She started hitting her knuckles on her own forehead.
"M-maybe I couldn't help Ace or Marco, b-but—"
He was on his feet in his instant, grabbing her wrists. "Stop that. This isn't about them."
"But I can do it this time! I've had practice!" She tore away from him and paced around, gesticulated wildly. "I can be good. Y-you even said… I could love you. You gave me permission." A burst of manic laughter. "You, you, you wanted me to."
He only realized he was grinding his jaw until he felt the muscles burn. "I've always said this was going to end."
"I thought you were being coy!"
"Coy? What the hell for?"
"Because y-you don't say things like, "Help me,' or 'Come with me,' or, 'I love you too'." It hung in the air like a blaze of glory. Sophie wasn't the nonchalant girl with the cigarette and knowing eyes. She didn't love expecting reciprocity; if she did, she would never be able to love anything. She set her jaw. Stared him down.
He mustered all of his emotions from the depths of the filthy cobwebbed cavern where his heart was, and shoved them into his words. "Whatever happens… I'll keep the memories of you forever."
She gagged. "Ew, stop! That's disgusting!"
"Disgusting?" Law snapped. "What the fuck?"
"Stop talking like that!" Sophie shouted at him. She sat back down, trembling with anger. He could practically taste her stubborn youth, her impossible determination. Her hands touched his arm. That was fucking calculated, she knew how he felt about her hands… "Don't leave me behind."
If she looked closely, she would've seen that he was shaking too. But Law had always been better at hiding it. His eyes were flat like the onset of grey rainclouds, and he said, "Promise you're not going to come after me."
"No, no, no…" She was pleading, shaking her head, tugging at her braids, stammering over him.
"The horror is my burden. I need to be with it alone, until I learn how to excise it from me."
She touched his chest, the spot where magma burst from Ace's heart. "No."
"The only way you can help me is to stay safe so I won't be distracted with worry."
"No."
"Where's your vivre card? Can you tear me a piece?"
"NO!" Sophie roared, and flung herself at him. Law swore as they toppled over. She pinned him down on the bed, beat her fists on his chest, bawling like some panicked animal. "I won't let you go! I won't!"
"Sophie, cut it out!" He tried to hoist her up by her armpits—caringly, of course. She kicked him. "That's enough! We're done!"
"I'm punishing you as a crewmate, not a lover!" She attempted to suffocate him with a combination of a pillow and, less successfully, flat tits. "Which I still am, by the way! I'll tie you up and we'll go sailing to Dressrosa together!"
A marveling smile pulled at his mouth, despite it all. "You know how absurd that sounds."
Her hands slammed down. Her tattoos, the heart, the XIII, were on either side of his face, love and ill luck. "'As long as you love me, nothing else matters.' Why did you say that to me if you didn't mean it?"
Something in him snapped. Law rolled her beneath him in the least romantic way possible: he was too lanky for grace, their heads banged together, his fist was bunched in her shirt, shaking her by the fabric. He hissed in her face, "We have been through this before. Again and again, you're the one who leaves. Can you wait for me like I've waited for you? Can you see this is how I care about you?"
Her eyes were bright as if she was about to cry. She did. Frustrated, angry tears. "That's different, I had people with me—"
"What about me? Where was I?" He watched her flinch. The answer was: here. Biding his time. Knowing this day was just around the corner. Revenge for Sabaody. "I'm not going to Dressrosa to die. I'm coming back."
"Whitebeard g-got his face blown off right in front of me. You can't promise me anything, Law. Nothing on this ocean is ever certain." He could feel the drowning gasps of her heart. Her knee was bruising his inner thigh. The cotton shorts she wore hugged the dip of her navel. "Please. I can protect you. Please."
He was already ripping the drawstrings undone. Look at him, the ever-opportunist. "I'm not Ace."
"I'm not Rosinante. Is this your solution? You ravish me in carnal melancholy and leave me behind like some forlorn cottage maiden?" Her voice caught on a whimper, tears rolling down flushed, wet skin.
"Great minds think alike." And fools seldom differ. He remembered the first time he slid himself inside her: Sophie screeched and put a fist-sized dent in the wall, bit his lip open, clawed his shoulder apart. She criticized his lazy tempo. She clung to him like a boa constrictor with abandonment trauma. She wailed that he was talking far too dirty for her delicate ears; she could barely concentrate on feeling like a flower nymph frolicking in a meadow arranged in a perfect fibbonaci sequence. He wouldn't forget the violent bleeding happiness she made him feel.
Her hips were tucked against his body, her hands scrabbled at the muscles in his back, digging in, trying to keep him here with her. She whispered, "I only love you this much because you wanted me to surrender everything."
Flevance and Spider Miles were an eternity away. He could give her all his stories, but that wouldn't bring back what was gone. So what if he kept himself warm using her hot heart, so fuming with life? He reached between her legs and snarled as she came with him, "You knew what I am when you chose me."
He rolled off her. She wouldn't look at him. Out of stupid reflex he tried to grasp her hands, but Sophie curled away from him. She sank into herself, wrung out, cold. For a moment he thought: how strange, you look like you could be from North Blue too.
"You cannot come after me." He gripped her shoulder, hard enough to bruise. "You cannot. You will not. Promise me."
"Okay," she said. "Okay."
Law didn't cry. He hadn't done so in years. He was sure he had lost that particular ability. Now he was the sort of man who could zip up his jeans, rip a piece of her vivre card for himself, and move his thoughts on to the day ahead: what he wanted, what he was going to do to get it.
She knew what he was. He tattooed death on his hands when heart had five letters, too.
The captain of the Heart Pirates left in a snowstorm on Punk Hazard.
The Polar Tang charted a course for Zou.
To Perihelion, she said, "Bet you've never seen a giant brick walking on four toothpicks."
Zunesha stretched up into the clouds, grey and great and primordial. While their captain was off skipping to his doom, the Hearts would vacation in the land of the Mink Tribe. Doflamingo was going to smear Law in oil and fry him like a mozzarella stick, but hey, the Hearts would be relaxing in safety. The circumstances were totally equivalent.
Sophie exhaled sharply and tightened her laces. You made your choice. Save the sarcastic jokes when you meet Law again. It's comedy gold. You are processing the breakup really well, Sophie. We deserve, like, a million A pluses for how normal we're being.
"Dude, you're loudly muttering to yourself again," Anko said.
"What? No, I'm not." She turned and loudly muttered to herself, "Hrngh… I thought we talked about this, Sophie…"
With a large steel chain, Jean Bart finished securing the Polar Tang to a foreleg. Gloves and rope were distributed for climbing.
"Is everyone ready?" Penguin shouted, slinging on a hefty backpack. "We won't be coming back down for a while."
"Provisions, check," said Hai Xing, who had tied a frying pan to his head for lack of any space to put it.
Shachi nodded. "Important."
"Dirty magazines and board games, check," said the rest of the crew.
Shachi nodded. "Very important."
"I wish Captain was here," Bepo said to the air. His small dark eyes, looking up at Zunesha, were sad. He should've been smiling. He had waited over a decade for this moment.
"He's the worst," Sophie agreed. Her backpack was stuffed full. She was ready too. "Leaving us before you could celebrate with him."
They were his oldest friends. They had known him for thirteen years. They had put a fight, argued, but never once had they looked surprised at his decision to go alone. He's always been like that, Penguin said afterwards, sometimes I think his oldest friends are paranoia and obsession. Shachi added, but who can blame him? Except you, Sophie.
Bepo gave her a pat. His big furry face was stern. "I can't celebrate with you either."
She dipped her head. Rueful, apologetic. "It was supposed to be you three."
Penguin reached out with his fist. "Law gave us a responsibility."
Shachi joined. "He's gonna be so mad, Soph."
Bepo, with his big white paw. "Thanks for taking the heat. Now get going."
It wasn't a hard choice; she had a thing for fire. Sophie bumped their fists. Then she hugged them and kissed Penguin and Shachi on their cheeks.
"Holy pineapples," they said.
To the great elephant, home of the Mink Tribe, she thought, Please keep them safe. She imagined a sunken eye looking back at her, blinking slowly with understanding. Here, in the shadow of Zunesha, the Hearts and their wayward chemist parted with joy.
"Get our D back, little lady!"
"But don't be distracted by it! Don't let it tempt you…"
'I hope Captain finds more coins.'
"I don't think that's his priority, Iruka. Gonna be so annoying being the only girl. Come back soon, okay?"
"Ration your food, Sophie."
"Try not to like, die or anything."
"If things get too much to bear, remember we're waiting for you."
"This time, you only need to bring back one souvenir," Anko said. "Just the one. Think you can keep track of that?"
Arsenic was heavier and longer than two years ago. Gears clicked into place. Yasopp's star glowed. She looked around at the faces of her crew. In hopeful gazes: bring him back. In others: do not let him die alone.
They entrusted her with this.
With a big smile, the Alchemist vowed, "I'll drag him back from Hell if I have to. Nobody dumps me and gets away with it."
It was a long way back to Punk Hazard. The sun rose; high noon.
"HEEEEY!" Sophie bellowed, hands cupped like a bullhorn. "Wakey wakey, hot stuff! It's been a minute! Are you getting on well up there?"
Ace was probably napping. She should've brought some firecrackers. But then a cloud moved past the sun, and she fancied it was him waking up with a stretch and nudging it away so he could peer down at the annoying girl doing whatever the post-death version of chucking pebbles at your window was.
"You better be stuffing your face with hot peppers! You hear me!" She shook her fist with a threatening glower. "Swim good, okay? And towel off when you're done because no one ever wants to see you all naked and dripping like a nubile sea god. Yeeee-uck."
She squinted at the light between her fingertips. The warmth it spilled on the world was hot and gaudy, like a freckled cowboy.
Ace strolled out from the clouds, thumbing through a pineapple book. "Can we discuss this? 'Fire Fist Ace was unsurprisingly adored by the world due to his terminal shirt allergy—'"
"Am I wrong? Shut up! Don't be gross, Habanero-kun."
"You're the one who wrote it!" He snickered at her flouncing excuses and the huffy way she closed her eyes to ignore him. He tipped his cowboy hat up with a finger, his boots clomping along. "It made me laugh."
That was all she wanted.
"But 'unsurprisingly adored'? You are rewriting my legacy a bit."
"You had no idea." She rolled her eyes. "You still have no idea. Be nice and give me some moral support! I'm embarking on an adventure!"
"Chasing down your troublesome ex-lab partner who will never have pecs like mine," Ace sighed pityingly. "What's with you and trying to save doomed men? This can't be healthy."
"It isn't. I ought to bill your entire clan for emotional damages."
"My little brother and your captain are going to make a huge mess of the world. I can feel it in my departed bones. But I don't like the idea of a girl cleaning up after a bunch of guys. Bit outdated for me," he drawled, puffing out his chest. "I have modern sensibilities, you see."
"Then watch over me, Ace," she said.
A glider soared past the clouds, paper wings stubbornly flying on until it hit its mark. He reached out. It landed in his hand, as if it had been waiting for him.
Ace unfolded the bounty poster and his eyes lit up. He traced her handwriting. "You kept this in your memories all this time."
"The longer I stay here, the less I want to leave—but I have to go," she told him, and he smiled. "There are so very many things I have to do. Warlords and Emperors and secret histories and revenge and Law is going to be furious with me, bulging forehead veins and everything. Take care of your brothers first, but keep a weather eye out for my prayers too, okay? You don't have to respond every time. Once in a while is enough."
"The wind is at your back. The tide is running for you. Can you feel it, Sophie?" Ace had stopped now; she was leaving him behind. He dissolved back into stardust and entropy, until there was only his hand, fast fading away, pointing sunwards—
Can you hear it?
The world is telling you: this is only the beginning.
IGNE NATURA RENOVATUR INTEGRA
"Through Fire, All of Nature is Reborn."
— Aphorism of the alchemists