Chapter 6
Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece, but Kyra was my idea.
It is very late, and Trafalgar Law is very annoyed.
He stalks the halls of his submarine, hands stuffed in his pockets and an irritable scowl on his face. He has just left the crew's quarters after sending Penguin and Sachi out earlier to collect everyone, having once again given strict orders that none of them is to attempt to bed Miss Kyra unless she expresses a desire to share herself with them first. Pirates they all may be, killers and plunderers and all around ne'er-do-wells, but Law absolutely will not tolerate rape. Aside from Bepo - who is just too damn shy around females of any species for something like that - none of his men are animals, and if they ever cross that line, their captain will not hesitate to kill them. Neil is lucky he's such an amazing cook, or he would have received a much harsher punishment than the broken nose from the Heart Pirates' resident witch, courtesy of the captain himself.
Actually, Neil is really rather fortunate that Bepo is so unfailingly loyal to Law, or he might well have found himself getting mauled by a pissed-off polar bear. The surgeon is still somewhat in awe of the notion that his first mate was very clearly protecting Miss Kyra in the kitchen earlier. The girl might have been the one to throw the cook across the room into a wall, but Bepo looked ready to tear the man limb from limb and then possibly eat the pieces. He had actually bared his teeth at a crewmate. In all the years the shy bear has served as Law's subordinate, not once has he ever threatened a crew member unless doing so under his captain's orders. Apparently the woman's presence has awakened some kind of protective instinct in Bepo, which Law finds both fascinating and troubling in equal degrees. Bepo has never before expressed any indication of giving a damn for anyone aside from his captain and himself; what is it about Miss Kyra that has made the walking teddy bear so protective after only a couple of days in her company?
She's definitely a strange one, Miss Kyra. Between her extraordinary powers; this phobia of needles; and her newfound ability to turn Bepo into her own personal guard bear, the girl has done more than her share to liven things up for the Surgeon of Death.
Instead of bringing the expected grin to thin lips, thinking about this and the unprecedented experience of having to give his crew the same order twice simply worsens Law's mood. The fact that the girl is not in her room when he checks does not help; the captain broods about the day he's just gone through even as he returns to his own chambers and showers, hoping the hot water will relax the tense muscles in his back and clear his mind somewhat at the same time. Covering his body only with a pair of comfortable sleeping pants and toweling his hair so that it sticks up in all directions, the sadistic surgeon ambles off for the galley, thinking some coffee might settle him for sleep.
The room is dark when he enters, leading him to believe it is empty. Flicking on the lights, Law is about to head for the cupboards to unearth his coffee grounds when he stops dead, surprised to see Miss Kyra slumped over the table. He can hear her breathing; the girl is fast asleep. A half empty bottle of some amber liquid and a very small glass sit before her.
Law can feel a grin spread over his face. Silly, sad little girl always drinking alone. Foolish little girl falling asleep out in the open, no locked door to protect her from a ship full of men.
He eases towards her, ideas and scenarios dancing within his mind. His nodachi is in his room, but a knife from in here would work just as well. There's a scalpel hidden on the small lip under the table where the leg meets the top to the right of where he sits. So many options are open to him with such a blade. He can remove her heart from her chest and hold it in the palm of his hand. It won't have to hurt; he can use his Devil Fruit abilities, she won't feel a thing. Her hair looks so soft and she should still smell of lavender, like she did in the infirmary this morning. If his fingers caress her cheek, she will not flinch from him as she does while awake. If he cuts her with that hidden scalpel, he can watch as her strange powers do their work; he so wants to see them in action. Should he decide to sample a taste of her, he is confident that he can do so without waking her. Miss Kyra is asleep; vulnerable; completely at his mercy.
Or... Law can wake the witch over whom he is hovering, and have some fun with her that way. She's been drinking, after all; alcohol has been known to loosen the tongue. He can ask her some of the questions that buzz like insects within his brain. He can tease her into a drunken, frothing frenzy. Maybe Miss Kyra will even agree to let him see her healing up close, if he asks her the right way.
And this way, she will still be alive and here tomorrow; Law will not be deprived of the entertainment she is so amply providing.
Tattooed fingers weave gently into the curly raven locks.
The girl is awake in half a second, bolting upright in her seat before throwing herself to the side in a dive to the floor. Her hair is subsequently yanked from Law's loose grasp as she hurtles to the nearest corner, shield popping into existence and blue eyes too wide in her face. The Surgeon of Death watches quietly, waiting for his magician to wake up enough to register his presence. It will be obvious when this happens; he just has to wait for the obscenities to start flying.
"What th' fuck're you doin'?" Ah, there she goes. Delightfully slurred, too. Excellent.
"Shouldn't I be the one asking you that, Miss Kyra?" Law picks up the liquor bottle to emphasize his point, watching as her cheeks flush red in either anger or embarrassment. "Haven't I told you before that drinking alone is a bad idea?"
She doesn't answer, merely pulls her knees to her chest and hides her face in them, arms wrapped around her ankles as her protective barrier dies.
"Go 'way," she mutters, just loud enough for the doctor to hear.
"I don't think so," is his reply, even as he turns and heads over to the particular cupboard in which the crew keeps their drinking glasses. Law pulls one out and goes back to the table, plopping down in his seat and propping his feet up. "I think I'll join you. Come sit with me, Miss Kyra."
The girl does as he orders rather reluctantly, stumbling to her feet and falling back into her chair with a complete lack of coordination. Her head is immediately smacked down onto the table, her arms thrown over it as though she is protecting herself. A hiccup rocks her slumped body comically, and the captain has to work to keep from laughing at how utterly pathetic the woman looks right now.
"What d'ya want, ashhole?" The words are almost indecipherable, jumbled by both Miss Kyra's level of inebriation and the fact that she's speaking into the table. "Jush wanna sit n'drink. Lemme alone."
Law has to wonder just what the hell his magician has been drinking. How potent is the stuff in the bottle, to have her three sheets to the wind after just half of it has been consumed? Bringing it under his nose, he gives the liquor a sniff and nearly coughs at the strength of the smell.
"Where did you get this, Miss Kyra?"
"Shtole it. Fucker shold me, so I fed 'em to a Shea King. S'not like he needs tha shit anymore, right?" One of her hands moves from her hair to search the table in front of her, obviously seeking the bottle Law still holds. When she is unable to find it, Miss Kyra raises her head and gazes blearily ahead. "Shit."
She folds her arms on the table and rests her chin atop them, humming lightly to herself. Before he can place the tune, her head comes up a little. "You gonna drink that or jush sit there n'hold it? I wan some more."
Law chuckles, filling his tiny glass before putting the bottle down in front of Miss Kyra again. "Bottoms up then, Miss Kyra."
She makes a halfhearted salute with her own refilled glass towards him before knocking it back like an old pro. Law follows her example - which turns out to be an exceptionally stupid idea. What is this stuff? Pushing his glass away and turning his attention back to his sloshed crewmate, the surgeon studies the girl's drooping eyelids, the light grey bags that vaguely resemble his own. Why is Miss Kyra not in bed?
"You should go to sleep soon," Law suggests gently, watching as she drinks from her cup yet again. She chokes, setting the container down and coughing for a moment. Her head shakes furiously back and forth, her balled up fists smacking her temples again and again. Law immediately reaches out and grabs her wrists, pulling hard to keep her from continuing. He opens his mouth to ask her what in the hell she's doing when she bursts into speech.
"I don' wanna shleep. Gotta stay awake 'til I'm done wif tha liquor. Can't go ta shleep 'til then. Gotta drown out tha nightmares. Drown 'em. No shleepin'."
Ah. So that's why she's sitting here alone, so late at night, drinking some of the strongest liquor the pirate captain has ever come across. His brain reminds him that victims of trypanophobia suffer from insomnia; perhaps this is one way the woman forces her body to stay awake some nights. He wonders briefly what kind of shape her liver is in if imbibing in obscene amounts of alcohol is a regular occurence for her.
"I don't wanna go wif you tomorrow," Miss Kyra suddenly blurts out, tugging sluggishly at her captive limbs. "Don' wanna go watch some guy die for nothin'."
"You are a pirate now, Miss Kyra," he replies calmly, eyes seeking out hers to no avail as those blue orbs dart randomly around the room. "You will have to accustom yourself to watching others die."
The girl bursts out laughing, the sound as far from mirthful as the screams of the dying. "Accushtom myself? Fuck you, captain ashhole. Been killin' people since I was six. I killed my own father, so don't patriz...part... don't talk down to me."
Law has no idea what the hell to say in response to that. What do you say, when a slip of a girl reveals herself to be a patricide? Groping to understand this girl, this puzzle, he asks, "You killed your father?"
"Yeah. Liked to shlap my mother 'round. Tried ta kill 'er. I schreamed n'grabbed 'im by the arm; his head blew up." She fists her captive hands and then throws her fingers wide. "Pop. Like a bubble. Got brains and blood and bone all over me."
The pirate is still digesting this little tidbit when the sorceress decides to throw another one at him. "Damn bear wanted to know what I dream about. Like he needs to know 'bout my fuckin' nightmares. Fuzzy bashtard doesn't wanna know that shit. Not my nightmares, nuh-uh."
"Nightmares about needles?" Law is careful to keep his voice soft and gentle, a contrast to the iron hold he still has on her wrists. He can feel it when the woman trembles; feel it when her delicate skin jumps and twitches beneath his fingers.
"Needles," Miss Kyra whispers shakily, eyes staring off at something only she can see. "Needles, an' burning in my veins, an' him. He's always there; he won't get outta my head."
She suddenly turns to look straight at him, a rather manic glint in her gaze. "D'ya know what ammonia tashtes like?"
Law feels a strange cold wash over him.
"Shit. That's what it tashtes like. Ushed to drink it; they'd shtrap me down n'pour it down my throat. Mix up a batch o'chemicals n'leave it in the room wif me. Fumes'd make me puke blood from breathin' 'em in." The girl is saying all of this as though reading facts out of a book, as though it happened in a fairy tale and not in her actual life. If not for the sheen in her eyes and the way her hands are twitching in his grasp, Law might think she is lying.
"Were you... were you a prisoner somewhere, Miss Kyra?" he asks, moving his grip to that he can hold her fingers in his and feel the way they are spasming. Not necessarily to calm her; he is fascinated by her unguarded reactions to the topic they have broached, especially since she brought it up in the first place.
"Prisoner...experiment...whatever. Jush a fuckin' lab rat, anyway...fucking monster, nobody's gonna help a monster, nobody..." Her voice trails off into nothing, glassy eyes staring into space again as her mind wanders elsewhere.
They sit in silence for several minutes, the Dark Doctor examining his sorceress's face until she lowers her head. She rests it against the table, her face turned away from him and her hands limp in his grip. Law slowly lets her go; her arms lie where they fall, as though she doesn't have the energy to move them anymore. The girl whispers something, and Law leans in slightly.
"What was that, Miss Kyra?"
"Shouldn't'a bid on me. Shouldn't'a brought me here. Dangeroush... I'm dangeroush. They'll... they'll come lookin' for me... Come n'get me... He'll come..." After a long pause, Miss Kyra's breathing evens out; she has fallen asleep again in mid-sentence.
The Surgeon of Death silently stands and moves to her side. Carefully, not wishing to wake her again tonight, the sadistic killer gathers the thin woman up in his arms so that she is cradled against his bare chest. The walk to her room is short, the door is already open for them, and moments later Miss Kyra is being gently laid upon her bed. She looks deathly pale in the moonlit room; the doctor in him urges Law to check her pulse or her temperature. He does neither of these things; he simply covers her with her bedding and leaves the room, pulling her door closed behind him.
An experiment, she says. A lab rat. 769, the dead Marine from the sushi bar had called her. What kind of person would use someone like Miss Kyra for the purpose of experimentation? It must be the World Government, which by extension means the Marines. For what other reason would a seemingly ordinary civilian like Miss Kyra harbor such hatred for the Navy?
Did she really kill her own father?
Law stretches out in the comfort of his own bed, brooding once again. So many questions that pop up because of this girl. When one is answered, it is replaced by a dozen more. Such a thing is by turns intriguing and infuriating for the perpetually curious man. When he wants an answer to something, he gets it; he does not get fifty additional questions and a vague understanding. The surgeon itches to know more, to know everything.
Oh, well. There's no hurry, after all. Miss Kyra is stuck with Law now, and with her powers he doubts the woman is going to get killed anytime soon. He has plenty of time to study her, to pick apart the knotted puzzle that is his little murder mystery until he knows every little detail about every little part of her.
He has all the time in the world.
"I want waffles, lady!"
"Hey, girl, make some sausage while you're at it!"
"Oi, Hot Stuff, is the coffee done yet?"
Kyra slams both hands down upon the counter in fury and spins around to glare murderously at the gaggle of men sitting around the table sporting ridiculously diverse headwear, all of them talking at once in an unintelligible babble of noise.
"SHUT UP!"
Silence reigns supreme. She takes this opportunity to make a few things clear to them.
"I'm not your fucking brute of a chef. I'm making a shitload of toast, some bacon, scrambled eggs, and some coffee. I get half my toast and half the eggs 'cause I'm making it and if you fuckers eat it all I'll kill you. You want something else, go find that asshole with the beanie. And my name is Kyra; if anyone calls me Hot Stuff ever again, I will take that person and show you all why your crazy bastard of a captain wanted me on this crew so bad. Got it?"
Not a peep in response.
"Good."
On that note, the toaster ejects its contents, using the last of the five loaves Kyra has decimated. Grabbing the hot bread and tossing it onto a plate stacked high, the grumpy mage snags the giant platter of bacon and decides to just levitate the mixing bowl of scrambled eggs. Somehow, everything makes it to the table without mishap just as Law slouches through the door, Bepo right behind him.
"Was that you I heard threatening my men just now, Miss Kyra?" the captain questions with one of those annoying little smirks. The woman has decided that there should be names for his smirks, as all of them are just slightly different from each other. This one is his 'your-anger-is-terribly-amusing-my-dear' smirk. Smug bastard.
"Yeah, and?" Shuffling back towards the coffee, she summons a mug into her hands and fills it. She had been hoping to be able to scarf down breakfast and then make a run for it, but with Law now in the room that's probably not going to happen. Gods know the man loves to torment her.
"Nothing. I just object to being called crazy."
Kyra turns and gives him a look. "I call it like I see it, Law."
"How's the hangover this morning, Miss Kyra?"
The sorceress fights down a blush of embarrassment, lowering her eyes to scowl at the floor. "I don't get hangovers. All the alcohol gets burned off once I'm asleep."
She has told Law about her father's death. She has told him about some of the experiments she endured. She has hummed one of her mother's beloved lullabies in Law's hearing, and she has mentioned him.
She's going to drown herself at the first opportunity.
"And did you sleep well?"
Kyra doesn't answer his question, simply leans back against the counter and raises her hand in preparation to summon some food to her. He's doing that on purpose, isn't he, using that tone in his voice as though speaking to some bimbo he's trying to seduce? Surely he doesn't need to do that. Isn't it bad enough that Law carried her to her room last night after she passed out? Isn't it sufficiently humiliating that Kyra told the man about the experiments? Screw drowning, it takes too long; maybe she can manipulate her magic into letting her get hit by a cannon ball or something. Quick and easy, she'll be dead and out of her misery in a heartbeat. 'Til then she will eat over here, keeping some much-needed distance between herself and the infuriating Supernova at the table.
"Come sit down, Miss Kyra. Your food will grow cold."
Damn it, damn it, damn it all to hell.
All through breakfast, while Kyra eats as fast as possible with her attention seemingly fixed on her plate, she can feel Law's eyes on her. Sure, the rest of the crew is sneaking frequent glances and Bepo occasionally speaks to her from her left, but the captain is going overboard. He watches Kyra like a hawk until the last forkful of scrambled eggs is stuffed into her mouth. When she drains the dregs of her coffee and stands to begin the cleanup process, a tattooed hands shoots out and latches onto her wrist to stop her.
"The men can take care of the mess, Miss Kyra. I want to talk to you in private."
Oh, shit. Kyra hopes for a desperate second that the bear will jump to her defense the way he did last night with the cook. She can handle a grabby idiot, she can deal with a crew full of obnoxiously loud men; the place where she could really use some help is with the captain and his too-perceptive eyes. Sadly, Bepo says nothing, merely sits gnawing on a stray piece of bacon as the rest of the crew stands to begin cleaning up. So it is that Kyra finds herself trudging reluctantly out of the room behind Law, knowing full well that nothing good will come of this.
The mage isn't sure whether to be glad, furious, or extremely uneasy when Law leads her to his bedroom. Glad because at least it isn't the infirmary this time; furious because it's the man's flippin' bedroom, for Roger's sake; or uneasy because... well... it's the man's bedroom. The surgeon pulls her over the threshold of the chamber so that he can close the door behind them, waving to indicate Kyra should sit in the desk chair. Perching on the edge of his bed, the Dark Doctor studies her as she squirms beneath his gaze, seriously wishing she had the guts to leave.
"About last night."
Oh, perfect. Of course it's about that. Kami and the gods hate her, after all. "Yeah?"
Law grins at her, obviously aware of just how little Kyra wants to have this conversation. "Relax, Miss Kyra. I just want to ask a few questions. Surely it won't kill you to talk to me."
It might, but she very much doubts he would appreciate her telling him that.
"You expressed a desire to avoid today's execution. Why is that? You don't seem to have a problem killing others."
Kyra shrugs, mildly relieved to be starting out with such a simple question. "I hate the Navy. I don't care about watching them slaughter some guy just to piss off Whitebeard. That's all this is going to be, you know? The whole execution thing is just an excuse to justify starting a war because the higher ups in the Navy and their bosses in the World Government are all scared shitless of the old man. This Firefist guy's just the unlucky scapegoat. I don't have any desire to see him die for their gain."
Here she gives her captain an annoyed look. "And you don't have to make it sound like I'm some blood hungry maniac who slaughters indiscriminately. I hate the fucking Navy; I kill Marines. I don't go around blowing up helpless civilians or butchering pirate crews. If so I probably would have killed you by now."
Horror of horrors, here comes Law's 'you're-so-cute-when-you-threaten-me' smirk. "Noted. And you will still be accompanying us."
She scowls in defeat. "Fine."
"Were you a prisoner of the World Government?"
So much for the simple easy questions. "For six years. I think I was about twelve at the start, eighteen when I escaped."
"Why were you taken by them?"
That is an incredibly stupid thing to ask. Kyra lets her power fill her, feels her hair start to stir as if caught in a breeze and knows that her eyes are completely pitch black. "Why the hell do you think? I'm a fucking monster. They wanted a new toy and I'm practically indestructible. They could do whatever the hell they wanted to me and never have to go looking for a replacement. It's not like they ever had to worry about an uproar if the general public ever somehow found out they were doing dangerous experimentation on a teenager; I'm a freak, nobody was going to give a shit about me."
Law is frowning heavily, almost sneering at her as though disgusted or disappointed. "Don't call yourself that."
Well that came out of nowhere. "Call myself what?"
"Monster. Freak. Don't call yourself that again."
Kyra says nothing, releasing her hold on the magic so that her hair settles and her eyes return to their regular shade of blue. Why shouldn't she call herself those words? They're true, aren't they? She has been both things for her entire life; why shouldn't she answer to such familiar and accurate labels? Hell, even the cook last night had called her a freak; has the surgeon forgotten that already?
Law's frown changes, becomes less of a sneer and more of an uncomfortable expression. It looks as though he is suddenly feeling rather awkward. "And what you said about your father? That was true?"
Her father. Fuck, why did she tell this man about that? Why does she have to get so chatty when she drinks? "Yeah."
"How old were you at the time?"
"Six." A brief hesitation; should she tell him? Oh, what the hell... "He was my first kill."
She can still see it sometimes in her sleep, mixed in with the rest of her nightmares. Her father as he straddles her mother, big hands around a tiny neck. Her mother crying and gasping for breath, her father's shouts - "Witch! Give ME the spawn of evil for a child, will you?" - her own screams - "Papa, Papa, don't hurt her! Mama! Let her go!" - interspersed with images of her father's head exploding, flashbacks of the cold examination table, and his face gazing down from above.
You will never escape. I won't let you.
"Miss Kyra?"
Kyra jolts out of her reverie, nearly toppling the chair in which she sits. Law is watching her through half-lidded eyes, no doubt analyzing her every twitch. She wonders briefly how long she has been lost in thought under those eyes.
"What about your mother?"
Excuse me? Kyra is instantly tensed, curling into herself rather like a cat just before it springs on unsuspecting prey. "What about her?"
"Did you kill her as well?"
The sorceress has to grab the arms of the chair to keep from launching herself at the man in a fury. She can feel the magic jumping to the surface again to turn her eyes onyx, she can feel herself snarling at Law like an animal; it doesn't matter to her. How dare he ask her that? How dare he insinuate that Kyra would have ever laid a hand on her mother in anger? Kyra's mother was her whole world, she longs to see her again; and this bastard asks if she killed her?
"Don't you ever say that again," she growls menacingly, glaring at Law hatefully. "I would never have hurt her. Ever."
Law says nothing. Kyra takes a deep breath, forcing the magic back. She doesn't kill pirates unless they try to kill her first. This one is just an asshole; he doesn't deserve to die even if he did ask a cruel and personal question just now. Composed once more, Kyra turns her face to the side and stares longingly at the bedroom door.
"Anything else you wanted to ask right now?" she mutters, very much wanting to get out of here and hide in her room for a few hours.
Apparently yes. "How did you escape from them? When you were a prisoner of the Navy and World Government?"
Now the answer to that is something she would rather show the curious pirate before her. The expression sure to grace his features should help to make this conversation less trying. Plus it'll be great payback for that stunt he pulled getting her turned into a kid by the pink haired bitch. "I'll give you a demonstration when we leave to go watch the show. It'll make more sense that way than if I tried to explain it, okay?"
Law stares at her in silence for so long Kyra starts to wonder if he's going to let her leave at all. At last he stands rather abruptly; Kyra lurches to her feet before she can think about what she's doing, instantly uneasy with having someone looming over her.
"That'll be all for now, Miss Kyra. You can go."
She's not going to stick around and wait for him to change his mind. She's out the door and shut into her own room in seconds. Kyra will simply hide in here until it's time to go, and everything will be fine. She'll give Law a scare with her special means of travel, and it will feel great. Everything's going to be fucking aces.
Those words become a repetitive mantra as the angst-ridden woman paces up and down her room, hands alternating from wringing each other to popping her fingers to holding tightly onto her upper arms. Something's wrong today, she can feel it; something is horribly wrong today and she is going to be right in the middle of whatever it is. She tries to tell herself that she is overreacting; the whole world is going to be busy watching this stupid execution, what trouble could possibly go on aside from the upcoming brawl at Marineford?
But even as she attempts to convince herself of this, Kyra knows it's bullshit. Her magic is roiling and coiling inside her, more concentrated and much heavier than it's been in a long time. Alarm bells are blaring in her mind, even if she can't figure out why. Her instincts are screaming at her that something is coming, something is going to happen, and she has to be ready for it.
Thus the uneasy mage passes the time until there comes a sharp knock on her door. She opens it to see the bear standing there.
"Captain said it's time to go."
Kyra breaks out into a light sweat at the words. Trying to shake off her trepidation, she follows Bepo out onto the deck of the sub, where Law waits with the rest of the crew. The captain gives her a grin, showing teeth as he ambles over to her.
"Well, Miss Kyra. What do you have to show me?"
Oh, right. Time for payback.
"You said you wanted to know how I escaped, right? You'll need to hold onto me."
Law immediately closes the distance between them and loops an arm around her waist. Should have known he would take this as an invitation to get fresh. Kyra glares at him briefly; a grip on her arm would suffice just as well. Deciding to ignore him for the moment, she looks to the fluffy first mate and asks, "Do you want to come with us?"
At a nod from his captain, Bepo hesitantly walks over to stand beside her. Kyra reaches up and grabs him by the collar of his orange jumpsuit, feeling a grin threatening to swallow her face. This is going to be awesome revenge. Glancing over at the rest of the crew, the young mage allows her magic to change her eyes and watches as they all flinch back.
"Meet you by the screens," she says.
The next instant black energy envelops Kyra, Law, and Bepo in a large bubble. The dumbstruck crew can only stare as the bubble shrinks smaller and smaller until disappearing with a pop. The three who once stood on the deck of the Heart Pirates submarine are nowhere in sight.
On a different part of the island, in the middle of the large crowd standing in front of three giant screens, a black sphere enlarges itself from thin air until it reaches the size of an average adobe house. Onlookers gape in wonder as the bubble shimmers for a moment before vanishing, revealing a girl who is laughing almost hysterically; a man in a yellow-and-black hoodie who stumbles and falls gracelessly to the ground; and a polar bear in a diver's suit who throws himself down and covers his head with his paws, whimpering all the while.
A/N: Please review. Beta'd by Tomas the Betrayer.