Theatre

Law watched attentively as Fox ran her glowing hands lightly over Jean Bart's back, outlining the slave brand with her fingertips.

"As I'm not in such a hurry as I was in the Auction House I can numb the pain while I do this," she said absently, "or else Doctor Law can administer a local anaesthetic. I'm no doctor and have no knowledge of how to properly determine the dosage of such things."

"How would you go about numbing the pain, Fox-ya?" Law asked, recognising her slightly abstracted state as a variant of the 'teaching mode' so many of his medical instructors had adopted while engaged in their practice.

"It's a matter of interrupting the signals from the nerves in the skin before they reach the spine," Fox answered, "Very useful in preventing a patient from screaming in agony and ruining your ears."

"The spine rather than the brain, Fox-ya?" He had noticed she had specified that the numbing effect was for the comfort of the surgeon, not the patient. How charmingly sadistic.

"Reflex action is governed within the spinal cord; preventing pain from reaching even that far prevents involuntary muscle spasms."

Law had known that reflexes were governed from the spine but he hadn't realised that topical anaesthetic could prevent involuntary muscle movement. "How did you become such a knowledgeable anatomist, Fox-ya?"

Fox looked up from her work, on hand planted flat on Jean Bart's shoulder blade while the other held a scalpel in gloved fingers. "The person who forced me to eat Devil Fruit was delighted to learn that I could keep people alive just by touching them, as it enabled him to pursue his amateur interest in anatomy through vivisection. I learnt quickly, as he made me put his subjects back together afterwards so they could go back to serving his meals and doing his washing."

Ouch. That was considerably worse than he had expected. "How old were you?"

"Thirteen," Fox said, now keeping her eyes on Jean Bart as she neatly sliced open his epidermis without more than lightly scouring the dermis beneath. That only the merest trace of blood surfaced in the wake of the blade showed her expertise. "I learnt to numb pain very quickly, as said person disliked having his ears assaulted. The trick is to deaden the pain receptors so that the patient can still feel what you are doing without experiencing discomfort; not being a doctor, I feel feedback is critical in making sure I am doing the right thing so I prefer my patients to be conscious while I work."

An admirable sentiment, though being able to feel someone rummaging around inside you sounded like a highly effective psychological torture. "How long did those, ah, anatomy subjects survive?"

"They frequently committed suicide after the fourth or fifth round," Fox said blandly, putting down the scalpel and running her ungloved hand over the square she had just outlined. "The pregnant women in particular never survived giving birth even if they made it that far."

Law now understood why Fox was so paranoid about being examined in her delicate condition. What she described had to have happened during her missing years, so before she was fifteen. "What happened when you were fifteen?"

Fox gave him a flat look. "I had a psychotic break and killed a lot of people," she said bluntly. "Temporary insanity; too much stress I assume." She peeled back the top of the skin she'd outlined and gripped it firmly between her fingers. "Brace yourself, Jean Bart."

There was a sucking, ripping sound and the square of skin peeled away to hang from her hands, leaving a red, raw patch of bare tissue where the brand had been. Fox put the skin down in a tray and pulled off the glove, both hands glowing as she placed one on his back beside the wound and let the other hover over the skinned tissue. "Let me know if this hurts," she said, face a mask of concentration as skin spontaneously regenerated both from the edges of the wound and the middle, joining halfway without as much as a scar.

"There," she said, stepping back. "Finished."

Law moved closer to examine Jean Bart, pulling on a pair of surgical gloves and examining the freshly grown skin. He might have to extract a few samples later so he could determine the exact mechanism by which she'd regrown the epidermis.

"That'll be tender for a day or two," Fox warned him as she washed her hands in the sink on the far side of the room. "Can I go now?"

"Feel free," Law said absently, mentally going over what he intended to add to her file and a few leads he could follow up. He also had some new ideas for striking fear into the hearts of the public which would be interesting to try. Vivisection with only a local anaesthetic so that the patient could see what you were doing sounded like it could be fun; he would kill his victims afterwards though. He knew he was a bastard but even bastards had standards.

"Goodbye then Doctor Law; I will see you in four weeks' time at three in the afternoon."

His nose tingled briefly and then the assassin was gone.

Ace looked up in relief as Fox reappeared next to him in the dojo where he was practicing stances. "What took so long? You locked down pretty hard about half-way through; we were worried." Zoro had tried to pretend he wasn't, but it was impossible to deceive people who wandered through your mind every single night.

"Doctor Law wanted me to remove a tattoo from one of his crew," Fox said shortly. "Then he asked a whole lot of invasive questions I didn't want to answer."

"But still answered anyway?" Ace guessed, turning around so he could hug her. It was odd having her feel so small after years of being the shorter one, but he liked it. He could pick her up much less awkwardly now.

Fox snuggled into him, her cheek pressed against his chest. "Yes. Not fully of course, but he has the bare bones."

Ace lifted her up so he could kiss her properly. "I love you, Kitsune," he murmured.

She sighed, wrapping her arms around his neck. "I love you too, Kajin. Anything interesting happen while I was out?"

"No; come on, let's go to bed." It was stupidly early in the morning, after all.

Fox awoke rather late and to the feeling of Swift Hunter nudging her mind. Groaning, she crawled out of bed and shoved her feet in her boots so she could go and investigate. Emerging on deck she found a flying fish letter case waiting for her: her mother had sent her a priority request. Accepting the note and scrambling back down the ladder, Fox shambled into the kitchen and rummaged around in the cupboards until she found something that appealed: a glass of fresh lime juice and a jar of pickled olives and garlic. She'd never liked pickled anything before, but now they just seemed so delicious!

"You're eating those?!" She glanced up to see a vaguely green Ace watching her from the doorway. "I thought they were in there as a joke!"

"Yassop gave them to me; his wife craved vinegary things when she was pregnant so he made sure I had plenty of pickles just in case," Fox said, spearing another garlic piece and popping it in her mouth. "My mother has a request, so we won't be stopping for longer than it takes to resupply, I'm afraid."

"A request?" Ace repeated, retrieving the leftover cooked meat from the fridge and digging in. "Why are you doing it if it's just a request?"

"My mother doesn't give orders: she asks nicely," Fox said dryly, "but that doesn't mean you have much of a choice. Haki savant, remember? We have to go if she's got enough of a bad feeling about this to send me an express message when she knows I've got so much on my plate already."

"Where are we going then?" Ace asked.

"Punk Hazard."

The other half of the second check-up; Molly Garce 16's interest inspired me. But now Fox and Ace have a mission...