Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Nami has a den den to nowhere in her navigation room.

It's a small and innocent thing, no accessories, just spots of soft yellow and black decorating its shell. Unobtrusive as it sleeps. Right until it catches her eye, and she sits and stares at it for hours.

Stuck, like if she looks away for even a moment, it'll disappear and she'll lose something important. Something irreplaceable. something that she can never get back.

She stares until the room goes dark.

The shadows hang dark and empty along the walls. And it's like a switch is flipped in her mind and she starts noticing-

Everything

-There are notes written in handwriting right next to hers on so much of her work. At least four different styles of penmanship and yet it's the messiest one that pulls the strongest on her heart.

It's messy and unattractive. Something she'd normally never let mare her hard work and yet she finds it on her maps. In her logs and smushed into notes, folded and tucked under eternal log possesses and in books, with more squeezed into the margins right next to her own writing.

Like conversations playing out on paper before her eyes. And for the life of her she can't recognize who its from. And she can't bring herself to get rid of them

That might be the most damning clue of all.

-

Zoro keeps checking over Sunny's railing like he's expecting to find someone down there. There should be more people down there

'Down where?' He'll ask himself. 'The fucking water?' And dismisses the notion entirely to go take a nap

But even then, the nagging feeling won't leave him be. His haki reaches out over the Sunny, just like always, how else can he watch over his crew and captain while he gets some rest?

But rest is the wrong word now. How can it be rest when his insides jolt in panic every time he comes up short on his count.

It's annoying. Because the count is right. Ten. Always ten. Newly ten but always ten and yet.

He's coming up short.

-

Sanji has been talking to ghosts as he cooks.

'Can you pass me that-'

'I need the-'

'See, if you do it like-'

He works alone.

He hasn't had sou chefs since the Baratie. No one on this ship could help him with some of the task he keeps finding himself compelled to voice to no one but himself and the food, anyway.

He's making to much food. Even for luffy.

He's over estimating the Sunny’s stores like he's expecting to have access to more than he does. Like he'd need more than they have.

And yet, he keeps restalking like that's how it is at every island they pass. He should stop. It's a waste of money. It could become a waste of food.

And yet, Nami never mentions the small increase of a drain on their grocery budget. Her eyes, lately, caught somewhere in the distance. But Sanji wouldn't really know how she feels about it.

His eyes keep drifting back to the kitchen.

-

With every new idea Usopp has in the workshop, he'll turn to share it excitedly with Franky.

like always.

And then together they'll turn, searching the room for another excited mind, asking for an opinion that never comes but they can hear clear as day in their heads.

Not like always.

There should be another brilliant mind working right alongside theirs. And there are one too many scrunchies scattered around the shop. Colours and designs he's never seen before.

And Usopp's not opposed to the patterns and designs. They're just not ones he remembers picking out. He must like them, though. Seeing as they hold his hair back perfectly. They must be his. Who else with long curly hair works in the Sunnys work shop?

On the deck, as he sketches. He finds himself misplacing his drawing materials. His mind expects them to be on in his lap. Or under his knees as he sits cross-legged and hunched over his sketchbook, even tucked near his side and out of the way of foot traffic as he works.

But consistently. Every time he reaches out for a colour he just put down he finds his hands meeting empty air and looks up to find them all on his left. The perfect distance between him and the shadows in his mind.

like there should be someone right beside him to share them with

-

Choppers Infirmary is haunted by the ghosts of his profession.

Thousands of pages of notes and documents with consultations written in a hand he's never met. Signatureless

Equipment is missing, and he keeps forgetting to replace it because somewhere in his mind he knows, Knows!, it's close by and well cared for.
And it's scaring him a little because they're not. He's missing things he might need later to save his crews lives and he can't make himself replace them.

There are also things in his infirmary that don't belong to him. Instruments for procedures he only half knows. Things so far out of his specialty it would be Idiotic to practice them without a second opinion. And yet...

He keeps looking to his right as he and Usopp fish during the day. Just the two of them because Luffys been distant in a way that has him worried, but he can't focus on that worry over the mess that is his own head, because he keeps looking to his right. Like the line of fishers should keep going. Happy and bantering as they shush each other not to scare the fish away.

Why do they have so many fishing rods again?

-

Franky keeps finding blueprints with ideas he doesn't remember having and tools he didn't buy around the workshop.

There's a gift on his shelf. 'How does he know it's a gift?' It's a shitty trophy made of scratched yellow scrap engraved with the words 'world's okayest sub uncle'

Underneath it, scribbled in sharpy. Is a heart-felt thanks for all his help building their new home.

He adores that dumb hunk of junk. It warms a place in his heart every time he notices it and yet there's confusion, too. Because he looks to the shark sub and mini Marry and thinks. Surely that's what it's about. What else could it be?

But it feels like more than that. Like he's forgotten someone important that he should be proud of, he helped them build their own dream.

-

Brook keeps playing melodies he would swear he's never heard before.

And it scares him. Because no matter how long he was stuck in the Florian triangle, he never forgot the songs he learned. The precious gifts he was shown during his journey with his first precious rubble crew.

They're what kept him sane, the songs he knew. 'tho is he sane? He had no brain? Yohohoho'

He keeps getting stuck on a lullaby he knows is important. Deep in his bones, in a place his mind can't reach, but his soul remembers. Every song is a gift and this one's important.

But he can never make himself play past the first few chords. There are lyrics he knows should accompany them. Each pluck of a sting and glide off a bow sounds hollow without them.

The song is beautiful and precious. He knows that much. Entrusted to him as the last musical remnants of somebody's home.

Only... He can't remember the words. Or the language they're sung in...

-

Jinbei finds himself handing the helm off to hands that aren't there.

Only for a moment. Never long enough to jerk the sunny from her course, but even as he grabs the helm and reprimands himself, he always catches the same thought as it runs through his head.

'Careful. Don't hit them'

Hit who? And his grip will tighten as he thinks.

'Who ever is missing'

He tries to convince himself he's just adjusting still. Missing the Sun pirates. but he's sailed plenty since then and never tried to hand his duties off to people who were never there. He wouldn't willfully make that mistake. Not with his crew's lives in his hands.

-

Robin has noticed everything. For her. It starts when she finds herself looking for a third presence in her and Namis' room as they get ready to settle in for the night. Laying on the bed trading gossip and painting their nails. Indulging the fun girlhood activities they were both robbed of in their youth.

She'll catch herself looking for someone else to join in. Another soul, like them, inexperienced in the small wonders of womanly companionship.

Only to find the room as full as she knows it should be. There are only two female presenting straw hats at the moment, she'll remind herself. But a quick glance at Nami's face makes her think she's not the only one chasing ghosts in her mind.

It's not just in their room that she finds herself missing people she thinks she should know.

There should be more. They should be following to the Sunnys left. A happy yellow? Trail in the water. Striding along the Lions current.

The deck seems lonely with only ten, which is absurd. Ten is all they've ever been. But even still. She sees her crew, same as her. Looking for the ghosts that haunt their home.

The library is her domain. The others use it of course, but she cares for it. And lately the library has become her own trove of forgotten history. An excavation of sorts.

Day after day she'll uncover new bits of paper on all kinds of subjects, crammed in between pages of all kinds of books.

She'll find stacks of books hidden away next to a reading nook like their reader could return at any moment. The peace and stillness unbroken as no one but her dare tread these haunted shelves.

There are new tomes on the shelves. Logged in her handwriting and sorted on her shelves and yet as she runs her hand down the spins, she can't remember for the life of her where they came from. Why the creaks of their old worn spines and the faded crinkles of small salty water marks next to a forgotten northern language make tears of her own well up unwittingly in her eyes

Ever so slowly. She can see it tearing at their spirits, too. Cracking a pit right next to their hearts that even the Sunny herself echos cries in the creaking of her haul and the snapping of her mast. Looking for a little sister lost far from the current at her side,

The hardest to see is their captain. Oh, their captain. Lost like he's never been before.

-

Luffy knows something has been taken from him. There's a hole in his mind, in his heart. A hole in the space by his side that leaves him cold and his heart racing as if he's anticipating an attack that never comes.

There's a voice he counts on hearing every day, commenting on the simplest of things that leaves his certainty shaken when silence is all that ever greats him.

There's a heat he turns to find in his sleep that startles him awake when he turns to it and only finds cold sheets.

Numbness spreads further and further out of his chest. Radiating from a wound he knows cost him almost everything and yet, for some reason, he can't bring himself to fully despise it for the day it represents.

Because somehow impossibly, it's become a reminder of more than just loss

And that's really what gets him. That realization. Because something- someone has to be missing, missing from his memories, for the physical manifestation of the worst day of his life to be more than just the empty place in his chest, he remembers it being before Jinbei talked sense into his grief-stricken mind

-

"They're gone"

The crew looks up from the empty dinner table. He wasn't loud. He didn't need to be. Meals have been quiet lately. Even when every one of them is as loud as they can be. Desperate to pretend they haven't been robbed of something none of them can remember

Now the room hangs heavy in silence. Not a word needs to be spoken. They all know what their captain means.

"They've been taken from us. "

He corrects himself. And the room warms with the fire of retribution that sparks in their hearts when finally, what they've all already known is put into five simple words.

"Who are we missing, though?" Usoop asked. Ever the one to ask the hard questions.

"How could we lose an-" and Nami stumbles, trips over the hole in her memories where someone, some people, precious to all of them, should be. But she tightens her fists and pushes on "an entire life's worth of people?"

Robin allows her elbows to lean comfortably on the table and rests her chin atop folded hands. Immune to the pressure from the eyes that automatically turned to her and her expertise as she thinks.

And she says

"I'm unsure. A devil fruit most likely"

And it's not surprising anymore to any of them when the next urge is to turn to the place to their captain's left. Empty. The phantom timber of a smooth voice playing through their heads but deaf to their ears as the natural flow of their planning stutters.

They push through

"How," Jinbei asked the group, the world maybe, at large, "can we have become so intertwined with a large enough group of others that we feel their absence so deeply and yet still function as a crew with no technical problems?"

"How could we get used to traveling with that many people and let them get taken from us!?"

Hooves bang on the table as Chopper stands on the bench and turns his question on Luffy specifically, surprising the room with his anger. Because they're all missing people but Chopper?, he knows, somehow in his heart, that he and Luffy keep reaching for the same, kind, hand and missing it by inches.

"Because we weren't always together. "

The room turns as one to see white smoke drift lazily out the open window. Eyes drawn to deft hands by the clink of a lighter being flicked shut and slipped into a pocket from where Sanji leans against the kitchen sink.

He leans with the small of his back resting against the marble countertops he helped Franky pick out when the Sunny was still little more than a dream on blue parchment. The counter he keeps and cares for meticulously, a cook's kitchen is their kingdom after all, and nestled to his left he rubs his finger almost obsessively over the small chip gorged from the stone that he has no memory of making. And no desire to have fixed.

"We all know something's missing. " Zoro pulls the attention of the room to himself now. Ignoring the shaky smoke filled release of breath that is its own sign of appreciation, just as the crew's full undivided attention is when he speaks up in moments like these

Ignoring the almost unperceivable tremor that runs through hands that should never shake. He takes the attention onto himself because he understands the cooks shaken nerves. They’re the wings of the pirate king. It’s their job to protect him and everyone else in their fucked up little family

And looking at everyone through his one good eye, Zoro tries his hardest to ignore the phantoms that stand at his back. The reminder of his failure in the guise of two cheery voices. Both as deceptively good at putting others at ease, inviting underestimation, as his own lade back demeanor is.

Lade back and lazy, Right up until the first mate is needed.

Mates?

"The who and why don't really matter," he reminds them. And Zoro turns his head with purpose. Handing the conversation back to his captain. And as the world comes to stop at this mans heel, Zoro grins.

"What matters. Is what we're gonna do about it"

And his grin gets nasty. And around him the rest of the Straw hat pirates grown their own grins with his into a smirk.

Into a deadly bearing of the teeth in a crude facsimile of a smile that promises death and worse, because at the head of the table sits their captain

The Pirate King.

And he's never needed a thrown, he journeys astride a lion made of the sun and wood.

He's never needed a crown, a halo of straw shadows his eyes from those not smart enough watch his mouth

Because the smile that graces his face is a promise.

Because the pirate king doesn't need opulence and finery. He has his friends. He has his crew. He has his family, but it's become clear now that they're no longer whole

Someone took from the pirate king and his crew

You don't do that

Chapter Text

If someone had asked him a month ago what he'd do if he forgot something. He thinks he might have laughed it off with a shrug. If he forgot then obviously it wasn't that important in the first place, right?

That line of thinking opens a hole in his stomach now. 

Luffy knows himself. For all the social cues he's told he misses, the weird social niceties and rules of society he actively disregards because, come on, who needs all those rules anyway? He's a pirate! 

For all that. The idea that he could forget a nakama, multiple, and his first thought is that they were never important in the first place??

It makes him sick with himself. 

Nami says he cant think that way. Robin pointed out that, if he followed his own logic in line with his normal behaviours then he was logically right. Luffy as he is, does not forget things important to himself. ever. 

This was stolen from him..

He didn't really understand all of what she said... but Zoro explained it simpler and he agrees with the gist of it. 

Luffy doesn't forget his Precious people. His friends and family. His nakama. Of course he knows they're important. Even when he can't remember them he knows that in his heart!

And laughing, he tells his crew this through crescent moon eyes, his smile big enough to creas them and hopefully soothing his crew's worried hearts. 

But the heat from Akainus's magma is a phantom sensation in his chest. The pain of it is a reminder he clings to on his worst nights. Because if he focuses on the pain he might be able to ignore the other phantom that haunts his waking nightmares, the impression of Ace, still warm and clinging to life in his arms. 

Some nights all he wants is to remember his brother in perfect detail. Every little thing about him. From the number of freckles on his face to the feel of his hugs as he held Luffy in their tree house late at night. Grumbling all the way but holding him nonetheless.

Other nights, He wishes he could forget the smell of burnt flesh and wet slide of blood on skin as he held his, in that moment, last living brother. Actively dying in his arms. 

Memories have always been a, what's the thing Usopp said?, a double edged sword? Yeah. 

Which, okay? But dont swords have a blunt side? Zoros only have one sharp side? Jinbe said he was being too literal. And yeah, alright. Two sided sword, so cool!!

But again. Memories. 

He's not a big thinker. Why bother spending time he could be exploring or eating going over stuff he already knows in his head? If it's important his friends have got it covered.

And there was that word again

Important 

They were important to him. He knew that. Whoever they were, they were important to all of them

Are, Are important to all of them. 

With a huff Luffy shook himself out from his hunched over position. shaking his head and slapping his cheeks, before hopping down from his place on the Sunnys head. The best spot for thinking on the rare occasion he felt the need to. 

As his sandaled feet hit the Sunnys deck he felt the eyes of his crew land on him. They'd been overly attentive as of late. And he knew why, he felt the same with them. But in moments like this he kinda wished they'd stop worrying about him so much

With his head held high he made his way past the few who had wandered onto deck with him, Jinbe, Franky and- 

"Luffy"

Pausing by the stairs to the Sunnys upper deck he caught the lazing form of his second out of the corner of his eye

"Zoro"

The tension in the air was in his head. It had to be. Jinbe and Franky kept to their self appointed tasks, pretending they hadn't followed him onto deck to babysit him after he’d stormed out of the kitchen earlier, and did not react in any way to the emotion he could feel penetrating the air between him and Zoro

Then again. He and Zoro had always understood each other in a way all their own. 

"I won't stop you, you know"

And, that was dumb because.

"Of course i know that"

Zoro was his greatest ally in communicating his thoughts to the rest of the crew. Probably his closest friend outside of Usopp and his loyal second in everything. 

Everyone on the crew was his friend. He didn't want a crewmate he couldn't be friends with, that would be dumb. but they were also his crew. And the distinction was important, though more so in the beginning than now that they'd found their groove. 

Zoro made it easier to hold those lines in the moments that mattered and, in the same sense, cross them too. 

So Zoro saying that, was just wasting breath. Which he knew. And Zoro knew he knew. Which meant he wanted Luffy to- ughhh, think on it more. 

With a groan Luffy abandoned his path up the stairs and instead threw himself bonelessly to the deck in the Luffy shaped space at Zoro's side.

The swordsman had been in this position for an hour now, since he'd followed Luffy out. Three steps ahead of Franky and Jinbe. So he'd been expecting Luffy to come to him from the start. And that rubbed a little on his pride as a captain, he could handle this himself, but also warmed him as a friend, annoyingly at the same time. 

Staring up at the sky, a vibrant, beautiful blue that mocked his sower mood, Luffy huffed again. Making sure it was long and drawn out, ignoring Zoros amused snort. Just to make sure Zoro wasn't under the impression he was happy about this. even if he was listening

And he began to think some more. Because apparently Zoro thought he'd missed something.

Or...

Checking again out of the corner of his eye Luffy watched Zoro's relaxed face as the swordsman lay reclined beside him. Arms behind his head, basking in the sun. 

Not missing something. Maybe... not understood? But no, that was the same as missing something. Nothing about the situation was hard to grasp. At least in the grand scheme of things

They were missing people. Precious people and a lot of them. 

Someone had taken their memories. Stolen not only the moments that mattered most but the people attached to them too.

And that made his blood boil. How dare they. Whoever they were, he'd clobber them. He wanted to kill them, as rare as that was for him. 

But he couldn't. It's been almost a full month of backtracking and reading and talking and more talking, to others, to themselves. Going over and over again and again with new ideas and rehashing old ones. 

Because the problem with having your memories tampered with was that, typically, you don't remember that you've forgotten anything and who did it.

They were stuck looking for the asshole and Luffy couldn't do anything but stay out of the way. 

And it was driving him insane!!

'Ah!' flinching at the sudden contact Luffy rose on his elbows and stared Zoro down. The sudden elbow to the side hadn't hurt but it had pulled him from his thoughts rather violently which was probably the point. 

Rolling his eyes he ignored the green haired idiot playing innocent and feigning sleep beside him, like he couldn't tell he wasn't asleep, the jerk, and layed back down. Letting the tension he hadn't noticed coiling in his fists and neck relaxe and squished himself a little aggressively into his partner's side in revenge. Purposefully not smiling at the small grunt it pulled as he wiggled closer to his side. 

Situated, Luffy turned his eyes back to the sky and let out a real sigh this time. Deeper, from the chest. He'd been doing that a lot, sighing. Another thing that worried his crew. Another thing he was burdening them with. 

He knew this mood wasn't normal for him. But then again they'd never really had a problem he couldn't find and punch into a solution.

Even at his lowest. Doing the impossible. He'd done it. Made it into and out of Impel down. Into Marineford and got Ace down from that platform. 

He did that. He just... Couldn't make it the rest of the way. Not as he was

But he was alone then. Everyone was helping to get him there but he was still alone in the end. 

He isn't alone now. 

(He wasn't then either. He saved him in the end. He'd be dead without him) 

These probably weren't the thoughts Zoro wanted him to be thinking on. He wasn't used to thinking for so long though. Zoro can't blame him for where his mind went. He couldn't control it! 

But maybe that was the point. Because, yeah alright. It was definitely the point. It's what Zoro and the others have been telling him again and again these last 29 days. 

There was no point beating himself up over what he couldn't do now. That's why he had a crew. He picked the best of the best to help him get where he wanted to go when he couldn't get there himself. 

He said it again and again. He can't lie, he can't navigate, he can't cook or research or fix a broken bone. Not play music or build or swing a sword.  

He could steer a ship but not very well. And Jinbe does more than just steer. They all do. 

And he makes sure they can do what they need to get them there. What they want to do on the way. That's what he does. He protects them..

He was supposed to protect them..

In his head he feels the hole where someone precious once belonged. Over the month he's learnt what it feels like when his mind brushes up against where they should be. He prods at it purposefully all the time. But sometimes he stumbles into a moment and finds the shadow of them already lurking there.

Someone precious to him is missing. And they definitely would have chewed him out for that thought. 

It's a bitter-sweet ach that fills his heart. And he smiles a little as he prods the hole in his memories again. Chasing the feeling for as long as he can. 

They would snap at him and tell him off. Protect them? Ha! They don't need his protection. 

And yeah, that sounds right. They're strong. He trusts them to come back (come back? Where'd they go?) but wrong at the same time. He would protect them just, not like he has to for his crew.

Alrighttttt ughh, he gets it. Zoro didn't need to rub it in, the bastard. He can just feel his smug grin as he lays pointedly still awake beside him. 

Luffy is aware he's got to be patient. Robin, Nami And the others are going over everything they know at almost every moment of the day. 

But that makes him feel even worse!! 

There's nothing he can do to help! Everything he tries only makes things worse! He tries to bring them snacks and he eats them all by accident! He tries to fetch books but can't find them and makes a mess Robin has to clean up! He looks for clues with Chopper and Brook in all the writing left around the ship but he's only able to focus for five minutes at the most

He's more useful to his crew just staying out of the way and he knows they know he feels horrible about it. Which makes them feel horrible about making him sit out, which makes HIM FEEL HORRIBLE! 

And it goes like that 

"Luffy"

"Ughhhhh" rolling away from his friend Luffy flops himself face first into the grass 

"I know"

Even mumbled as it is into the grass Zoro still hears all he's saying in those two words. Thank god for Zoro, he thinks. As his best friend heaves himself from the ground to sit up with his arms resting on his bent legs. He can feel the swordsman's eye burning on the back of his head but what is he to say? There's nothing anyone can do to change the situation until they find a lead. 

Zoro. Ever the faithful friend and follower, does what he does best. Getting his captains head on right. 

In this case he achieves this by standing from the ground and stabbing the deck where Luffy's head once lay. 

Raising an eyebrow from his new spot on the deck at the sudden attack, Luffy regards Zoro wordlessly. And a wide grin overtakes his face

Yeah okay, this is as good a way to pass the time as any

A grin is all Zoro needs. A matching one of his own is Luffy's cue to really get things going. 

They'll be careful not to hurt Sunny, but this? Exactly what Luffy needed. If nothing else it'll keep his mind from wandering too far into the past where things hurt more than he wants them to.

-

-

-

-

"Finally"

"Eh?" 

Franky looked up from the mess of metal and wire he'd been dicking around with for the last hour or so to find Jinbe staring out onto the deck. 

Following the helmsman's gaze he found the red and green blurs of his captain and first mate going at it like two idiots who were acting like they weren't on a boat.

"Ahhh they better be careful, I'll be pissed if i've got to rebuild a chair or something, those are so easy it's boring"

Though, maybe he could pawn it off on Usopp. Kid was always looking for something to busy his hands with. He loved to tinker. Even with the mundane stuff.

Then again, the cyborg thought. Eyeing the two beats in human skin as they clashed a little too close to Nami's favourite sun chair. If they wrecked that thing and then Usopp experimented with it instead of putting it back together exactly? They could all kiss a peaceful next few months goodbye.

Nami held grudges like no one else and she made it everyone's problem 

"Honesty?" Jinbe begane and Franky desperately turned his full attention to his fellow crewmate. Ignoring the hole in his memories where it felt like another vengeful, lovable, grudge holding asshole once resided. "I don't think Nami would even mind at this point. Anything that gets Luffy out of his funk for more than a few minutes"

And Franky had to agree with that. This whole situation was tough. It was hard for everyone to wrap their head around, He didn't even want to imagine what could be going through their captain's mind that had him so despondent and deep in thought as of late. 

It wasn't like Luffy to linger. But the longer a solution lay out of reach the more depressed he seemed to become. 

He wasn't the only one either. They were the pirate king's crew. No one messes with them like this. Nami was focused to an obsessive degree. Robin right alongside her, pouring over book after book. It worried him. Not that the others didn't also worry him. 

Sanji fretted. And when he fretted he cooked, attempting to keep spirits up and bodys fed as everyone poured their everything into research.

Usopp had started by ramping up his stories. Bold claims and even bolder theories offered at every brainstorming session. But as days dragged on and spirits sank he fell quiet. The young marksmen seemed to hesitate to offer an idea which wasn't like him at all. Usopp should always speak his mind. 

But he'd been worrying over Luffy and Chopper Specifically. His best friends seemingly hit the hardest by their missing friends. And as Luffy tried and tried to help anyway he could, failed and pulled into himself. Chopper seemed to get angrier and angrier. Snapping and muttering as he pushed them all away.

Brook did what he did best and provided a refuge in music. In the quiet moments when no one could bring themselves to turn another page. All exhausted and worn out. He'd fill the void with beautiful sound that chased away reality if only for a little while. 

And Franky found himself in this weird little club with Jinbe and Zoro. Being there for whoever needed it. No matter what they needed. 

At this point he'd spent days awake right alongside Robin. Grabbing whatever she needed and filling in for Namis strategic mind when the navigator was pulled away. Either to do her job or rest so she could continue to do her job. They needed her at her best, always.

Speaking of Nami, he helped her and Jibne a lot too. Nami’s mide was amazing. Strong as a steel trap. It wasn't a surprise to anyone that Robin requested her help with back tracking through their journey to find the discrepancies in their memories. 

So when she was busy with that, he and Jinbe kept them on course and stayed aware of the weather as best they could.

Sanji mostly just needed someone nearby. A person to converse with and keep him in the present moment while Zoro was busy keeping their Captain sane.

Speaking of keeping sane,

The door below Franky cracked open and a small fuzzy head poked out, already grumbling in annoyance.

Franky leaned forward and watched the top of a blue and pink hatted head bob as it followed Zoro and Luffys, actually pretty tame for them, fight across deck

"Idiots" he could hear the teen grumbl "they're gonna hurt themselves"

Franky heard Jinbe sigh from behind him and, yeah he agreed. That was probably the person they were all the most worried about at the moment.

Franky knows he's been complaining. Thinking about how down everyones been. But they're determined. That's who they are. Their spirits aren't broken and though things are tough they haven't given up.

This will not be what breaks the pirate king's crew. They have too much pride and drive for anyone to even pretend it could.

But Chopper... 

The kid’s a teen. A half human, half deer teen but still a teenager. 

It's been quite sometime since Franky was a teen himself but he remembers how big everything seemed. Everything that went wrong was the worst thing that could go wrong. 

He had so much rage and anger inside of him after Tom and as he grew and hormones started rampaging he found that even a minor inconvenience could make him as angry as the day Tom died all over again. 

The older members of the crew had joked before, now that time had passed and the wound was less fresh, that they were lucky they'd missed half the crew's late teen years if they were still this moodie as grown twenty somethings. 

It was a light hearted jab at how energetic the youngsters were. 'All that energy, you remember that? Why, when I was their age' so on and so forth. All that good stuff. 

But Chopper had never been a part of that. The kid was growing into a fine young deer man, often the most mature out of the younger group, though he had his moments. 

He had such an important job and he took that job seriously. But he enjoyed it too. He liked keeping people happy and healthy. He'd really come into himself since he'd started truly learning from ’T$or@*o'

Jibe grunted in question as Franky shook off his flinch but let him be pretty quickly as he shook his head and waved him off.

That had been happening a lot. The more they realised they were missing. The pain of prodding at the hole in their memories became harder to ignore. Especially when they directly tried to think about it.

Chopper has been taking it hardest, Him and Luffy. And it's not surprising why. 

The more Nami and Robin went through their logs. The more they recorded and interviewed the others. The more obvious it became that, while they were all missing the same people. Luffy and Chopper were missing a lot more than just that.

Chopper and Luffy had whole swaths of days, months even, that they couldn't remember. because, presumably, they had spent those days almost exclusively in the company of someone who’d been erased from their memories.

Most of them could remember days with holes of missing moments littered throughout. Maybe whole hours here or there where they were doing something with someone missing or skips in conversations where someone else's voice was supposed to come in. 

Luffy and Chopper were rightfully distressed to find whole calendar days gone from their minds.

Luffy, as is his way. Simply became more determined than ever to find their missing friends and get those memories back.

Chopper? Well, Robin and Franky had quietly Theorised one night that the little guy might be confronting a fear he hadn't known he had before.

Chopper was a happy kid. He loved people and he loved life. But most of all he loved being a Doctor and Luffy.

After the realisation that they were missing a lot more than just memories of people Chopper had demanded everyone get a check up. No one wanted to argue, it was no problem with them. He was their doctor. But the outcome had Franky wishing they'd pushed back a bit, maybe waited a few weeks instead.

They had scars Chopper couldn't remember treating. And his notes were, like Namis, full of handwriting he couldn't recognize. There were procedures documented in their files the reindeer could not remember learning and when he tried to re-teach them to himself he was met with the same stabbing pain they all were when they brushed against the holes left by the stolen memories. 

But where their health was concerned Chopper never slacked so he pushed himself. The young doctor was relentless in his pursuit of knowledge and they could all see the toll it was taking on him.

Eventually Luffy made the hard decision. After weeks of debating and begging the little guy to stop, Luffy finally put his foot down and told Chopper, as his captain, to take a break and stop. 

Chopper. Mature, brilliant and so smart for his age. Is still so painfully young. And it occurred to them all that this had to have been the first time in his life where Luffy's orders were not aligned with Chopper's own desires.

Chopper of course listened. They're all sure the kid knows Luffy is just concerned. They all are. But he took that order to stop personally and has been giving Luffy the cold shoulder since. 

Brook thinks it's simply because he has no other target to direct his anger and frustration towards. He's young and experiencing such strong fear and anger outside of a life or death situation for the first time. It's not a sickness he can cure or an opponent he can defeat. 

And though Luffy may play dumb he's far smarter in matters of the heart then anyone is willing to give him credit for. Their ever empathetic Captain knows Chopper doesn't mean his cold attitude. No one looks up to Luffy more than Chopper does. But still. That's how things are.

The situation?

A mess

The crew? 

Determined as ever

Franky knows in the end. They'll find who they're missing. It's only a matter of time now. They are the Straw Hat pirates. They are the pirate king's crew.

And the longer this memory stealing bastard hides the angrier they get. And the angrier they became the worse they were gonna beat his ass when they found him. 

It was like one big boiling pot of anticipation. Zoro was letting their captain blow a little steam out but the Sunny was a pressure cooker at this point. with all ten of them hunting this devil fruit user like a pack of starving wolves or a better yet, a pack of sharks. 

And there was blood in the water. They could all smell it. 

A smirk broke on his face as Franky found himself imagining the noose closing ever so slowly around their prey's throat. 

"Hey idiots!" 

Chopper's call breaks Franky from his hazzy introspective. Looks like the little guy was drawn outside by more than their captain and first mate's racket.

the red and green whirl wind stop in their tracks and, Satisfied he has their attention Chopper pulled an unnerving smile of his own from behind his exhausted eyes and waved a hoof at the door

"You should all come in!"

"Robin thinks she's found something”

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It's quiet 

He didn't expect it to be quiet

Then again. He never expected this

He misses the noise…

He knows they're with him. Lost somewhere in the nothing like he is. He wishes they hadn't followed him but he knows it was impossible to expect they'd let him go off on his own again after last time. It breaks his heart how much they love him sometimes.

He should have told them he loved them to more often.

Now he's not sure if he'll ever see them again. 

Loyal to a fault. Even when he's doing something reckless in the name of someone else. 

He loves them. 

He misses them too

Being forgotten is exhausting….

He always thought death would be peaceful but that's too much to ask for for a monster like himself. This is as much as he deserves in the end.

He just wishes… wishes that his crew didn't have to suffer with him…

It's worth it though. At least…He thinks it was?

He can't quite remember

Chapter Text

No matter how closely tried to it the idiot dragging him through fucking desert during noon was, he was not actually the sun, so Law had no problem cursing out the blazing bitch in the sky for all the misery it was currently inflicting on him. 

"This is dumb" 

"You love it"

Actually. Fuck the sun, especially Luffys sun. 

"This is insane!"

Luffy turned only his head around and gave Law a capital L Look. 

"You're still here though?"

Law gave him a look right back while throwing his arms to the sides 

"Apparently i'm insane!!" 

"Probably!” The idiot AGREED! And found a rock to hop on top of! Shesheshesheing his Stupid laugh all the while 

"Idiot! You're insane too!"

"Never said I wasn't!"

"Ugh!"

"Torao~"

Snapping up from where he had his face hidden in his hands Law shot Luffy the dirtiest glare he could manage

"What! Luffy-ya?"

The straw hatted captain simply smirked at his suffering. His smile curling like a smug cat as he peered at his ally and leaned in closer to his sweat covered face.

He was enjoying this way too much.

"Are you done complaining? I wanna get to the good part!"

Law grit his teeth and held in the growl he could feel building at the back of his throat. That would only amuse the other man even further and if he was teased about secretly being a cat one more time today!- 

"Fine" he gave in. But not without serious effort on his part to get the words through his clenched jaw. Luffy though took the admission for what it was and ignored Laws' still simmering ego as he lept off his perch and lost himself in his dumb little celebration dance. Arms flailing and feet tapping like an idiot with no rhythm

As much as it pains Law to admit, even if just to himself, Luffy could see right through his bitching. The other caption knew he was just complaining for complainings sake by this point. Luffy had dragged him this far. They both knew if he really hadn't wanted to go then there was no way the Straw Hatted idiot could have made him

He had to believe that. This was obviously his choice, Penguin. No Straw Hat did not have him wrapped around his finger, Shachi! 

Stop apologising bepo! 

He was off track..

Wiping his hands over his sweat drenched face once more, Law grimaced at the amount of moisture that gathered on his palms and wished, for probably the hundredth time in the last hour, that the stupid treasure map lead to anywhere but a desert island. 

He was a northern boy. Snow was in his blood, this shit? This sweltering sun and dry humid air? Not indicative of a healthy Trafalgar Law living environment. He was not thriving, thanks.

At least he wasn't the only one suffering he thought vindictively. Hearing the faint cursing and trampling of both their crews left in the far distance behind them. 

Sweaty bangs stuck to his forehead uncomfortably as he watched his ally skip and hop around like the sand wasn't hot and heavy, not a care in the world. Tony-ya said he'd feel the heat later and his skin would definitely be feeling it for long after. Which made the teasing a little more bearable at least in the moment. 

Lord knows he'd be hearing the whining once they were all back and Luffy was confined to the shade while he waited for his sunburn to heal.

For now. Law simply gathered his patience, shook his hair from his eyes one last time, and stalked past the rubber buffon. Snatching the back of his shirt as he passed

Luffy. Uncaring or used to the man handling at this point. Continued to laugh and flail which. Whatever, good for him. He wouldn't be laughing later when it was Law's new alo plants Tony-ya would need to complete his specialised rubber alo oil for his sunburn. Dummy. He'd make him beg then. 

Even a single please would vindicate his suffering at this point. But he'd make the rubber man admit he was wrong about burning in the sun. It's like he totally forgot all about Alabasta. Tony-ya and his medical file certainly hadn't.

"Torao~! Ugh- hey!"

Arms now free to be crossed, Law turned and stared Luffy down from where the rubber man was picking himself out of the hot sand. A pout on his sand covered face bringing a smirk to Laws lips

"Yes, Luffy-ya?"

"We're going the wrong way" he spat out a glob of mud after wiping the back of his hand across his mouth and pointed further to the west

"That's where the old lady said the map would lead. To the tree that looked like a dog. That one over there"

Law could feel a twitch forming in his eye brown from how hard he was glaring. Luffy. Never one to be beat in anything. Glared back just as hard 

"Idiot"

Law threw his hands to the sky! Done with Luffy's dumb shit.

"Then you lead!! I'm not the one apparently memorising maps for once!! If you're so sure then stop messing around and lead!"

"Oh ho~?"

Luffy perked right up like the dog that caught the scent. A wide smile overtaking his dramatic pout and exaggerated glare. Law froze. A bead sweat completely unrelated to the heat sliding down the side of his head as he ran back his own words and deflated.

"Oh god" 

"You want me to lead?" Luffy asked. Completely rhetorical and full to bursting with melodic delight

"I take it back," he groaned. But it was too late. Straw Hat had what he wanted and he was running with it now. 

"No way! That's what you said! You'd follow my lead!!" 

"I never said I'd follow!" Law tried to correct but it was a losing battle. Yet he was not one to give up. Straightening, he put his all into at least ending the argument.

"But if you're so confident you know where you're going then, by all means!-" Law swung his body to the left and threw his arms to the side in a grand gesture to the dog tree in the distance "lead all mighty Pirate king! Well see how far you get!" 

"Oh ho ho" hat shielding his eyes Luffy coyly covered his mouth with the back of his hand and, what the hell, Law gazed on in disbelief, There was no way he hadn't learnt that move from Nami-ya "you can try to hid it behind fancy words, fancy man!" 

"I hate you" he deadpanned

"But I know now!" Throwing his fist into the air Luffy flun his head back so hard his straw hat fell off and caught on the string to hang around his neck "Follow my lead! I'll get us there!"

"I hate this" Law told, really?, no one at this point. Luffy definitely wasn't listening 

"To adventure!" 

The lightning quick snap of rubber was Law's only clue that something was about to happen. And it was instinct and the slight pressure coiling around his middle alone that had him snapping to attention and shouting

"Luffy-ya don't you fucking DARE-!" 

A cloud of sand was all that was left in their wake. That and the fading sound of cackling laughter and distant cursing. 

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"Around the Heat bizarre islands there have been rumours of some unlucky son of a bitch whos been going around bragging that he stole the pirate kings greatest treasure"

Looking up Nami met each of their eyes and was satisfied to know they were all following along so far  

"Obviously. He wasn't talking about the one piece"

There are only so many things Luffy would call his treasure. His hat for one. And as embarrassingly happy as it makes her he calls them his treasure too. His nakama 

So it stands to reason that if the hat is here. And they're here. Then the only thing left was the thing they were all desperately looking for 

A crack rang through the room.

Whipping her head up along with a few others Nami came face to face with 

A fire

There was a promise of retribution burning in Luffy's eyes. It was at times like these that Nami was reminded why he out of all others was the man to claim the title millions had spent decades chasing 

It was exhilarating. Being next to him when he was like this. Luffy made you feel like you could move mountains 

A chunk of the dining room table sat splintering and shattered beneath her captain's hand. The whole table shook with his rage 

It was a cathartic moment. Made all the better by being the one allowed to deliver the news. A month. Almost thirty days they'd spent searching. Looking for any clue as to who had taken their mysterious nakama. And finally 

Finally!

They had a lead.

Like a wolf locked onto the scent of prey Luffy wasted no time in giving the order. And Nami was all too happy to spring from her seat alongside the others and help their captain feed his fire and track this bastard down

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"I hate when you do that"

"Mahhh Torao" Luffy whined from where he sat nursing a bump on his head "you sure do hate a lot. Pretty sure that's bad for your heart"

Torao grumbled from the other side of the dog-shaped tree. Refusing to look him and probably nursing a bump of his own in silence

"Torao~"

Attempted silence 

The shifting of sand was a soft sound but still audible in the quiet of the desert. Slowly, inch by inch Luffy made his way closer. crawling through the sand until he sat pressed against the surgeon's side. All wide eyed and pleased at the acceptance of his presence in Laws space. 

"The heat is really getting to you, huh?" He asked softly for once. Laws glare never wavered from it's point on the horizon watching the small mountains now visible from their position. But Luffy didn't need Torao to look at him to understand him. The other slowly leaning into his side answer enough. 

Smiling was his default most of the time. But with Torao it felt like he had a new smile for every new situation he found himself with the other in. This one felt soft with the affection burning through his chest at Torao’s grumpy pout. He was always so fun to tease when it was hot. 

Torao seemed to love the heat but only when he controlled how hot a certain place was. His room on the heart's second sub, the Hope, was always so cold. Yet he covered his bed in three different comforters, with one weighted blanket on top and a heated blanket on the bottom. 

An absolute weirdo! Luffy loved it. He could be so silly when it was hot outside. Especially when he had to leave his own hat behind because of the heat. 

Ah!

"Here"

Gently, Luffy pulled his knees under him and stretched up to place his own hat on Torao’s head. A hat designed to be light weight and keep the sun off your face. Perfect

Flinching, less from Luffy touching him and more from the surprise of it, Luffy watched happily as his friend brought a hand to the hat and touched it gently. Tilting it forward to gaze at with big golden eyes that shimmered with emotion in the hats shade

He was quiet for a moment before Luffy caught the soft huff of laughter as the surgeon lent back against the bare gnarling dog tree and bumped Luffy's shoulder with his own. 

"Now you'll burn even worse. Dumb ass"

That was hilarious, so Luffy laughed. Ah, he could feel his 'Torao’s being silly' smile slip onto his face.

"I wont get burnt. Dummy, who're you calling a dumb ass?" 

He was aware of the arm as it slipped around his shoulders and pulled him to lean back against the tree next to his ally as the other bonked their heads together and then rested his on top of Luffys. 

"Just stay under it with me. Tony-ya will be pissed if you're any more burnt then you're already gonna be later today" 

"Sure" Luffy agreed. Content to put their adventure on hold and wait for their crews to catch up if it meant getting to stay like this for a little while longer 

"If you say so" 

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"I have -can't go out into the blazing baking sun- Disease! It's incurable, impossible to overcome! No way i can't make it out there!"

"Usopp" Nami grunted at him which was way less then he was expecting given the mood as of late.

From the corner of his eye Usopp could spot Chopper draping a long breathy lining around his horns and hat. Gaze fixed with a single minded focus on the task and the world around him empty to the reindeers mind's eye.

It was hard not to stare. It was hard not to fret and hover. Namis glare smoothed out into a small frown as she caught onto what he was staring at. And clued into what reaction he was hoping for. 

They'd made port. The Heat Bizzare islands consisted of three medium sized islands and one huge one. Each with a different kind of heat making up their weather.

They were docked on Heat Magmar. The second hottest of the islands. The first hottest was un inhabited on account of, it was litterly just a giant fucking volcano and the last settlement to live on it perished in an eruption hundreds of years ago. 

Talk about yikes

Heat Magmar was named for its proximity to the volcano island and the sweltering heat its desert could reach at its peak during the day. 

This place's heat index was insane according to Nami. Alabasta eat your heart out, am i right?...

Anywho. The other two islands ranged anywhere from a mildly hot summer day to a brisk spring morning. 

So obviously they had to go to Heat Magmar because nothing in Usopp's life could ever be easy.

Then again he'd never wanted easy. Even if that was a thought he'd often debate with himself over, he knew it was true. Most of the time.

Luffy was on a witch hunt. They all were. But in these small moments Usopp tried his best to lighten the mood. 

Usopp was a storyteller though, not a comedian. As funny as he thought he could be, that just wasn't his calling. It didn't seem to be working anyway so... 

Shrugging on his pack and adjusting his sun hat, Usopp dropped his disease bit for the day and moved to join the others by the plank. 

Coming up beside Robin, Usopp gave her a nervous smile and looked out to port.

It was massive. The port itself was bustling with movement and life.

Namis logs said they'd been here before. Those pages were some of the last with the extra messy writing on it too. 

Their friends disappeared somewhere on this island. 

A pressure was building in his chest. And as Chopper finally came trotting over to join the group now ready to depart, Usopp took a rare moment to think about what he was feeling. For once it wasnt fear

It was anger 

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"Honesty captain, we told you not to go chasing after him" 

"Mmhh"

Zoro found the twitch he could see building in the Hearts second first mate's eye hilarious. It was nice to know they weren't the only ones with a stubborn bone headed captain. No matter how put together Law liked to pretend he was. 

"You always complain about him rushing off and doing whatever he wants but the second we turn around we find you've gone chasing after him!"

"Tch, I didn't go chasing after him"

Zoro hid his laugh as best he could in a cough but he could hear Brook snickering behind him also watching the exchange so it probably didn't matter in the end. 

Penguin, self proclaimed older brother to said captain and one half of the acting Hearts pirates first mates was currently shaking with the waring desir to thrash his own best friend and younger brother. His Superior and the man he'd sworn to follow to the end of the line. The man who swore up and down was not as bad as Monkey D Luffy, no way. 

And nothing else. He definitely wanted to smack his own captain. It was fucking funny as hell 

The hearts laughed at them all the time anyway. This was just payback for that. Karma if you will

Law was a raging hypocrite and it was an absolute treat to see his crew deal with his side of the Law, Luffy puppy chase. Cathartic in a way. Cleansing as Sanji had once said.

Zoro's own captain, far more insightful than he let on and the world's biggest little shit stirrer was skipping along the Heart captain's side. His hat still perched on the former's head and smirked at the surgeon's crew from behind his back. Absolutely rubbing in the fact that Law had followed after him instead of staying with the crews like he swore up and down he would when they'd first agreed to this little adventure on the dock of Zoros, by far, least favourite island. 

It was a relief to run into the Hearts here. They were meant to meet up again in a few weeks but Luffy had been insufferable lately. He wanted his favourite playmate to go chasing around the yard with or something, this dog metaphor was getting away from him now. Whatever.

Point was. Luffy was in a Law mood. And truthfully? They'd all missed the Hearts at least a little bit. Zoro had definitely missed the three man comedy act that was Penguin and Shachi fighting Luffy for their own captain's attention. 

Speaking of the orca man. Shachi had slid over to Penguins side and was consoling the man, trying to sooth his temper while glaring daggers at Luffy's blinding grin of triumph. 

Luffy- 8

Hearts- 5

He needed to update Nami on the score. Robin and Jean were pulling ahead by a gross amount in the bet and she'd need to find a way to rig it if he, Usopp and Uni wanted even a chance at winning. Always bet on whichever side Nami bets on. She'll make sure she wins, come hell or high water.

Sanji tried to kick him, lightly for the cook, in the shin but Zoro side stepped and flung his fist out into open air as the cook moved out of the way. But he had his attention now. Turning a glare that said 'what?' Sanji just rolled his and turned towards the front. 

Following his gaze Zoro saw they were coming up to a cave entrance. Presumably the one the map was leading them to. The super sketchy map thay Luffy had found in the middle of butt fuck nowhere that some old hag just happened to know an aincent story about?

Yeah sure. Nothing wrong with that.

Not

But Luffy was Luffy and they were his crew. And Law was as drawn into Luffy gravitational pull as Luffy was his. And where Law went his crew followed. Because at their heart (phft no that wasn't a pun) they were a good crew and Law was a good captain.  

So together they went. Almost thirty something idiots in a desert walking into a trap

Coming to a stop at the lip of the cave Zoro exchanged another glance with Sanji and yeah, they were both itching for a good fight. 

And really? There were no better idiots than these he'd want at his back in a fight then the Hearts. It felt as natural as breathing to follow next to Shachi and Penguin with Sanji at his side and the rest at their backs. 

The captain's strolling on ahead without a care in the world. They knew their crews would follow

Honestly? Where else would they want to be then with them?

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Chopper glared at those lingering around them in the old dusty bar. Chattering quietly in nervous groups and eyeing anyone new who walked in while his own crew spread out and got to work gathering intel

Well, half of them. 

Chopper went with Luffy's group. Sticking close to his captain's side. He felt bad about snapping at Luffy. He felt bad about a lot of things lately. His attitude, his performance as a doctor. He felt bad about feeling bad which made him feel worse about it which soured his mood causing him to snap at someone and honestly? 

Chopper was just tired. 

Tired and in pain.

He missed someone so badly it felt like there was a hole in chest. 

He hasn't felt like this since Doctor Hiriluk died. It feels like grief. 

Chopper squashed his side against Luffy's leg as his captain sat down with Zoro and Brook to order some food. He knew he was taking up a lot of space right now being in walk point but with the way Chopper had been feeling lately, he wanted to be as far from human as he could get. 

It was his devil fruit that granted him the ability to give name to these cursed feelings. He didn't want to feel like this anymore. So why should he have to? Brain point was too small to keep up with the others in this heat anyway. He'd be taking ten steps for every one of Zoros. It's not like having a full grown reindeer in clothing was going to attract any more attention then a walking talking afro skeleton in the new world anyway. 

Moodily, he watched Nami charm the bar maid for the latest gossip across the room. the woman seemed hesitant at first but was soon enthralled in the navigator's wicked whiles, chatting up a storm while Chopper watched Nami's hand weave in and out of the tip jar. Plucking bill after bill while ringing the barmaid dry of all her intel and coin. 

Nami was scary

Turning away he tried to catch sight of Robin and Franky out the window but they must have moved on to somewhere else on the street by now. Gathering intel from amongst the midday market crowd. 

Sanji was supposed to be supplementing Namis' knowledge with whatever the rest of the bar patrons knew but. From where Chopper was sitting? He couldn't tell if Sanji was learning anything about the island history and local news or just about its dating scene...

Luffy was happily digging into a steak as more food came flooding from the kitchen and Zoro was watching the crowd in that unintrusive sneaky way of his 

Brook was drinking tea? Chopper could never tell where the skeleton was looking. But neither could anyone else, so maybe he was learning something? 

Lastly Usopp was with Jinbe. They'd left to follow their log book and try to retrace the crew's steps from the first time they were here.

Chopper should have gone with them. Jinbe was just as bothered by the heat and dry air as he was but the knight of the sea wasn't complaining. What was he doing here? Nothing? Being useless? Why was he-

"Chopper"

A hand landed gently on the his snout. Pulling his attention up from the floor and to his captains eyes 

Luffy had that spark in his eye. The one that had once convinced Chopper to leave behind everything he'd ever known and follow his dreams out to sea with a stranger

He'd been looking more like himself lately. Now that they had a direction to go. A lead to chase. That made a weight on Chopper shoulders lessen. He'd been worried about Luffy. Not that he'd been great at showing it.

Luffy tapped under his chin and brought his attention back to the present. Finding his captain with a smile on his face 

"We'll find them. Trust me"

And he did. Of course he did. The problem was he wasn't sure he could trust himself right now. Was anything he remembered right? What if one of them got hurt and he found he didn't know what to do in the moment that mattered most. 

Chopper tried on a smile for his captain. It felt crooked and unnatural on his fully cervidae face but Luffy understood what he was trying to say. Chopper thought, as he patted his snout gently and went back to his meal, that Luffy understood him better than anyone else sometimes. 

(Almost. But HE just got it. He understood. Monsters. Both of them. For how they were born for how society treats them for it) 

It felt nice to be seen. He knew he could trust Luffy 

He just didn't know if Luffy was right to trust him

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Bepo was of the option that Law should just give in and admit they're permanent allies with the straw hats at this point, get the embarrassment done and over with. 

The longer he held out the more teasing he'd have to endure when he Inevitably had to suck it up and admit that they spent more time with the Straw hats then without them at this point and that any talk of one crew was Inevitably followed by talk of the other. 

They were an unlikely pair now. The Straw Hats and the Hearts. The pirate kings beating heart. The surgeon of death's faithful shadow haloed in a crown of gold. 

All the public and news poetic ways of saying these two idiots were obsessed with each other and their crews were too.

Clione told him that was a bit harsh. Which, oops. Sorry. But Bepos was right and he felt he should say it. 

It can get tiring, placating Law's ego. Even Bepo agrees that by now there's really no label that works for whatever their relationship is and all it entails. But having a label would make things a little easier.

Anyone with eyes can see Straw hat and Law are in love with each other. But to call it a romance wouldn't really be right? Not in the way all Bepos romance books said it should be anyway. Penguin and Sanji agree that a typical romance is not whatever their two captains have. 

Then again to call them just friends doesn't feel like enough either 

Friends to Straw Hat meant a lot. He had a lot of friends. Straw hat had toppled governments and dethroned kings for friendships less than a day old.

Law didn't do friends. Law had Acquaintances. And Law had people he'd die and kill for. 

It was kind of all or nothing with him. Ride or die, Ikkaku said, Franky taught her that one.  

But again. Friends weren't enough. They'd surpassed that the first time one of them declared they wouldn't go on without the other, way back in Dressrosa and later again in Wano. 

That wasn't even mentioning all the shit They'd dragged their crews into since then.

Where was Bepo going with this again? Ah yes. Law needed to stop fighting their unofficial tie to the straw hats. 

From his place at the back of the group Bepo watched the others spread out in the cave and begin poking around while Law and Straw hat continued to bicker up front. The farthest two into the cave as of right now. 

It would make Bepos' job a whole lot easier if his captain just put a label of some kind on it so his poor bear navigator could stop fretting about what he'd write in his brother's eulogy once Penguin finally snapped and killed him. 

At this point it wouldn't be mutiny, it'd be self defence with how wound up Law had made the poor man

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Robin looked on apathetically as Franky kicked the snivelling man into the wall of his burning general store. His body came to a violent stop with a sicken wet crack as he hit wood and it splintered under the disgusting weight of his broken limbs. 

Franky growled as he cracked his knuckles and stalked after the man. Which, impressive fear tactics for a man made of metal, that cracking sound must be part of the design. But also. Robin held her hand out, calling her partner to a stop and taking the lead instead herself. 

Their prey lay shaking and defeated in the hard packed sand. His face hidden from her simply by his refusal to pick it up at this point. A coward through and through. 

The closer she drew to him the clearer his voice became. And what she thought were at first prayers to a god of some kind seem to actually be a mantra he clung to in what he thought were his last moments.

Robin still haven't decided if they were or not

With every step she took he flinched and with every flinch his voice rose. By the time she'd crouched by his side she could make his chant in crystal clarity

"You weren't supposed to remember, You weren't supposed to remember, You weren't supposed to remember, You weren't supposed to remember-"

"Remember what?"

It fell

Deathly 

Silent 

Hatred burned like acid through her veins. Robin looked on with her hard won face of apathy still firmly in place as their first lead in this wrecked town tried to roll his head to see her, confused by the sudden feminine voice. She couldn't blame him for forgetting her existence since she'd hung back as Franky took the lead. Swinging in like a bull after only two words 

Two words was all they needed to cement this man's guilt. 

Cracked in dirt, tears, blood and snot the man looked pathetic. But she saw hope spark in his eyes at the arrival of a new, softer foe. 

He was wrong

seeking an angle of salvation, He’d unwittingly turned to look the orchestrator of his death in the face. 

It was a beautiful look in his eyes, hope. She remembered her first true taste of it. Chain at the top of a marine tower calling to her captain. His forgiveness for her actions was her first breath of fresh air in decades.

Too bad she wasn't a very forgiving woman. 

He seems to realise his mistakes fairly quickly after that.

Franky stood with his arms crossed on the street as she worked. A menacing giant of a man able to keep the curious onlookers at bay with his mere presence alone

Or maybe that was the macabre display she was putting on for everyone with eyes to see. 

Either way. They were uninterrupted 

The fire brigade of the town waited for her and Franky to clear the area before seeing to their duties, which she appreciated. At this point she was sure they'd been recognized. It's not like she and Franky were trying to hide who they were, whose crew they belonged to.

It was nice, she will admit. The perks fame afforded one at times. 

Franky whistled, impressed, as she walked by. And Robin let a real smile break through her stone cold exterior, just for him. 

"Watching you works always a treat Miss demon child"

That pulled a giggle from her and shook a tension she hadn't noticed she was holding from her shoulders. Franky always knew how to lift the weight from her heart and mind. 

"I'd say the same to you. Sir Cyborg Franky. That left hook was faster than last time, and the knuckle crack?"

Franky led them through the crowds. Unimpeded by the masses as they parted in the face of his massive size. Though now that she looked there seemed to be less people then one would expect for a thriving island port city of its size. 

Frankys face when she focused back on him, had taken on a slight pink ting and, ah. She loved that his face could still do that. How charming

"Always been able to do it. Was the ball joints scraping on the hand casing but I figured long term that wasn't great and built in a sort of metal air pocket to pop like normal joints. It's louder now too"

Robin playfully bumped her shoulder into his side. Both ignored the smear of blood it left behind and laughed instead at the comfortable camaraderie. Smiling up at him Robin clasped her hands around the object behind her back and teased Franky. 

"You truly think of everything, don't you"

Franky, ever in tune with her mood, caught the movement for the aborted fidget it was and turned his eyes to their recently acquired prize now resting horizontally in her grasp behind her back. 

"That's his isn't it"

And Robin could see the pain it took him to even acknowledge the object plain as day on his face. And she could feel the ache building in her head as its existence sat distantly in the back of her mind. 

She tightened her grip. In her hands She held something precious. Something important. She could not let it go. 

"Luffy will want it back" 

Franky knew she knew that wasn't what he meant but at the same time, of course it was. There was nothing there, but Luffy would definitely want to see it. 

And he would be upset to lose it so of course her and Franky had to grab it. But both Straw hats were trying so hard not to think about who the he in this situation was 

Her mind drifted back to that store. To the man who ran it. A building they'd almost walked past. It felt like there were eight businesses on the street until suddenly she had turned around and there were nine. 

Walking in felt like wading through a dream. The man at the counter was a blur to her. Even now his features were fading from her mind. 

He'd seemed surprised to see them but not anything else. 

He wasn't expecting them to be there but he continued as usual because they were.

Franky had been the one to spot it. In a barrel of swords and umbrellas. 

When they'd asked about it he man had told them he'd

“found it”

But the look in his eye. The way he smirked like he knew something they didn't and he delighted in that fact. He knew exactly who they were. 

Somehow, he knew exactly what this object meant to them. 

Her grip clenched tighter around the long object behind her back.She couldn't remember what it looked like. as Robin held it in her hands she found herself actively forgetting there was anything there. So she focused on the facts 

Its top was fuzzy. A pleasant buzz chased the acid from her veins as she rubbed her thumb back and forth along a long coiled silk rope. Her pinky bumped ever so often into the shallow impressions of crosses carved along its body. 

It felt happy to see a familiar face.

All she had to do was keep her grip firm and her mind in that middle place between acknowledging the precious cargo existed and letting what that meant slip in and out of her mind like an ocean wave caught in the tide. 

He'd want to see this 

He'd want this back

-

-

-

-

The knowledge that you're walking into a trap, in Sanji's experience, was usually enough to give you the info you need to even the playing field. 

This shit? he thought as the ground shook apart into a thousand pieces and the roof of the cave splintered and cracked, was not an even playing field

The moss head had been right for once but it didn't count because Sanji had totally clocked how sketchy the situation was too. It's not like it was hard to see

Their notoriously gullible captain runs off on his own the second they dock and then returns two hours later with a 'mystery' map from a 'mystery disappearing' store and some 'mystery' old lady then randomly runs into him and tells him an Ancient legend pertaining to this one of a kind map?

You'd have to be an idiot not to see how weird that was. 

Grunting, Sanji swooped down to grab two of the Hearts and pull them from the middle of the collapsed floor and further to the side while grumbling around his cigarette. 

Be an idiot, or simply smitten with one.

Law was where Sanji expected him to be. Right alongside Luffy at the front of all the action. It looks like some weird huge worm thing had broken through the floor

Dropping from the air next to Ikkaku and Jean Bart, Sanji let his load of Uni and Hakugan drop unceremoniously to the ground. 

Ignoring their groans of thanks Sanji turned to Ikkaku with a smile 

"Glad to see you made it out of the fray safe, Ikkaku~swan"

She scoffed, not taking her eyes off the beast in the middle of the caver while Jean stood over her and his newly arrived crew mates eyeing the ceiling and protecting them from any falling rocks

"No time for flirting, you Mutt, thats a fucking Krayt dragon. No doubt about it"

Sanji paused. Taken about by the info as he whipped his head back around to size up the sea king sized land serpent looking thing. 

"That thing? That's what all the locals were raving about? But it's so..."

"Tiny" all three agreed together 

"Sanji!" 

"Chopper!" He greeted his friend with a laid back wave as the reindeer came speeding over lightning quick in kung fu point. 

Without stopping Chopper sprung by him and Jean, grabbed Ikkaku and Uni around the waist and continued on his way towards the cave entrance. A blast of air carrying his parting words and the dues confused screams back To them. 

"Get out! Robin says it's the baby!"

Perplexed, Sanji watched the currently big little guy scamper out of the cave together with Hakugan and Jean. Slowly he turned to catch Jean's eye. They were thinking the same thing

"If that's a baby?" 

"Where's it mom?"

He knew they could handle anything this dumb ass island threw at them. But Zoro was going to be unrelentingly smug if Sanji didn't get his ass back in the fight before that mama came. 

-

-

-

-

-

-

Brook always thought that if music hadn't called so strongly to his soul in both life and death. He might have been a comedian. 

Though most of his best jokes in his opinion came from being a reanimated skeleton. Which he wouldn't be without the Rumble pirates. A crew of musical pirates. If he wasn't a pirate, would he have eaten his devil fruit? Ah life is so strange sometimes.

There was no telling where he'd be without Luffy. Brook Shuttered to even entertain the idea. A world without Luffy wasn't one he wanted to live in.

He wondered what their lives were like when their missing Nakama where there. They must have been important, they must have trusted them dearly. 

Did they travel together long? When did they meet? Whose song was he forgetting? Whos melody sat soly in his muscle memory, stolen from his mind. A lullaby he never knew he was trying to play until his bow had met string....

Brook had no muscles to hold memories with, that was true. But his body remembered the movements to a song his mind had let slip. 

They must have been dear, dear friends. If his body so desperately wanted him to remember them through the only way he remembered anything while trapped in the endless dark of the Florian triangle 

They must have been very dear indeed. Why else would the eight of them be circled around Robin's empty hands? Shaking with tears and rage.  

Brook looked away. One of them needed to be focused on their surroundings. And he knew his mind well enough to know it was not strong enough to hold onto the idea of whatever object Robin had brought back. 

Franky was with him. Keeping look out and making sure no one stumbled onto their little huddle in the alley behind the bar. Zoro seemed torn between challenging himself to retain the shape of the object, joining Brook and Franky in their vigil or keeping an eye on Luffy.

Oh, poor Luffy. If Brook could not look directly at the object for long he definitely could not bear to watch his captain stare unflinchingly at Robin's hands. Shaking visibly with strain. Forcing himself through tears to never take his eyes from the object's mysterious form.

Brook couldn't remember whoever this object belonged to. But he could remember how he felt about them tangentially through their relation to his captain. Because watching Luffy try so desperately to hold onto a piece of them through this small sliver of who they were was devastating. 

Robin seemed to agree. This whole time she had held strong. Her arms outstretched before her, presenting her and Franky's prize but her eyes had remained fixed on their captain's face. As blood started dripping from his nose she made the decision to retract the item. Moving to hide it behind her back once more.

At least she tried. 

At the first twitch of movement Luffy's hand shot out and gently clasped hers around the wrist. Freezing everyone in their place 

"Please" his captain begged. Voice small in a way Brook wasn't used to.

"I want to remember him"

"Luffy" Nami begane. Tracks of tears already drying on her pain pinched cheeks from where she stood pressed against an equally pained Sanji whose eyes were clenched against the sun and leaning quietly against Nami both for and to offer support "it's hurting you" 

Chopper stood at his full reindeer height next to Luffy. Eyes clenched tight and pressing the side of his face into Luffy's stomach as his large body shook with suppressed sobs

"I'm going to forget again" Luffy admitted and Brook could feel the quiver in his young captain's voice echo the shaking in his soul. His heart cried out just as loudly for their lost friend. He wondered if Luffy could hear all their voices crying with him. 

Calling out to souls yet lost. 

"Captain" Robin, instead of pulling away, walked closer. Until her front pressed against Luffys and the object was squished between their chests. She held steady on her captains eyes while his remained entranced on the objects

 "take it"

Slowly. Luffy took his hand from Robins and grasped the object tightly with both hands right above hers. 

"Good, now look at me"

"Robin-"

"You have it" she cut him off. Still in that gentle way she only was with him and Chopper "you have it now. So it won't disappear. Even if you forget what you're holding. You'll still be holding it"

They all waited with baited breath, though, Brook himself didn't need to breathe, as Luffy clenched his fists around their only physical proof outside of absent memories that their friends were real. That they had Existed. And trusted Robin's words. 

She met Luffy's eyes with a smile and a single tear when he finally looked up at her. Before she let go completely. And instead grasped his still trembling shoulders 

"You have it" she reminded him

"I have her," he agreed. And Brook felt a small spike of pain shoot through his brain at the added pronoun before it was gone. And he could only remember that there had been pain but not why. 

Robin gave their captain one last pat on the shoulder before she let him go and stepped away. Back into the shadow of Franky's towering form. 

Luffy continued to hold the object protectively. Bringing it close so it rested against his chest, right next to his heart. 

Zoro went to speak next but Brook had just caught movement from further down the alley and shifted his stance, silencing the swordsman in a instant 

It wasn't necessary though. As from around the corner came Usopp, sprinting like his life depended on it

"Guys!" He called. Coming to a sliding stop next to Brook "you've gotta come now!"

"Did you find something?" Sanji jumped in. Voice desperate for something else to turn their captains focus to

"Fuck something" Usopp spat as he gasped for breath. And it occurred to Brook that he and Jinbei had followed the log book to the outskirts of town. "Jinbei and i fucking, we found them"

Silence 

"What?"

Brook had no idea who spoke. For all it mattered. It was what they were thinking

"It's a yard, like a graveyard but not a graveyard" Usopp rambled. "It feels like trying to remember? Fuck that doesn't make sence, forget that. What matters is that Jinbei and i. We can't remember a fucking thing about it except that it exists once we step out" 

"Take us there" 

Usopp turned to look at Luffy and flinched immediately away from the sight of him

"Ow, what, what the hell is Luffy holding?"

"We'll explain on the way" Zoro cut in. Pushing past the others to grab Usopp and physically turn him back in the direction he'd come from

"Jinbei is waiting for us right? Let's go join up with him before something happens while he's all alone"

"Right" back on track Usopp took

Off back down the alley with every single one of them hot on his heels. 

"We didn't want to split up but Jinbei wasn't sure if we'd be able to find the entrance again if we both left so he said to find you all as quick as i could"

"Smart" Brook agreed

Because it was. 

And unbeknownst to them, absolutely the right call.

-

-

-

-

-

Franky could not believe this shit 

From his spot outside the cave next to Robin and Bepo all three watched the chaotic display that was the monster trio plus Law leading the greater Krayt dragon mama on a wild goose chase through the desert like a pack of idiots. 

"How have we all survived this long?" Bepo moaned in despair from between him and Robin and for some reason that set both of them off into full blown hysterical laughter because, honestly? How the hell were they all still alive!?

The dragon was chasing Zoro across the sands but a little further ahead Luffy seemed to be standing, waiting for them. On a closer look the idiot had his shirt off and held in his hands like a fucking matador.

He was a smear on the horizon compared to the dragon! Law seemed to agree if the way he was seemingly berating the other captain was anything to go by. But he also wasn't moving out of the way and while Zoro held the beast's attention Sanji followed along in the air closer to its head throwing its focus off. 

Once all three were almost on top of Luffy and Law the surgeon's room exploded across the desert and Luffy sprang up onto the dragons face with a shout loud enough to carry across the scorching hot plains

Luffy clung to the dragon as it thrashed and shook the ground. swinging back and forth with laughter as his arms extended from the force of each swing and then snapped right back. Essentially flicking the dragon in the face with his body. Law appeared on its head while Zoro ran up one of its six legs and charged for its neck.

Sanji found a good spot by its back and ignited a fire on his leg. Gearing up to attack.

Luffy was finally shook off but as he flew through the air he righted himself at the peak of his ascent and inflated his arm to twice the dragons size

The Krayt dragon froze, Franky would have sworn up and down the damn thing looked like it was going to shit itself.

With a smirk Luffy called his attack in sync with the others and the dragon really started to thrash now. But it was too late. 

Zoro flew at its neck while Sanji came down hard on its back. Luffys fist met the dragons face with a deafening crack while Law's sword Pierced the top of the dragons skull and grew to pierce straight through its jaw. Luckily providing him a hand hold to grab onto and not get launched off the beast's head by the force of Luffy's punch.

The scene? 

Exploded 

And so did the dragon.

Quick Franky grabbed hold of Rabin and Bepo just as the shock wave from the attacks reached them. Holding his ground Franky laughed along with Robin and a few crazy others as Heart pirates not quick enough to grab hold of anything went flying by. 

Jinbei had Nami and Usopp while Chopper used his heavy point next to Jean Bart to hold a good number of Hearts in place. Brook looked like a flag in the wind as he held onto his sword stabbed into the ground with one hand and his hat with the other.

As quickly as it came the wind stopped. Sending all those braced against it face first onto the ground. 

Slowly Franky pulled away from Robin and Bepo to catch sight of their four idiots dancing and arguing around the dead beast. Luffy's distant shout of 

'wahooooo!'

Sent him and Robin right back to laughing while poor Bepo just sighed and flopped back down. 

-

-

-

-

-

-

Jinbei couldn't take his eyes off the massive dragon skeleton that towered over the garden entrance and cast its shadow all along the scorching sand. 

It was a relief not to be in the direct sunlight. But the presence of the bests remains nagged at something in the back of his head. Something familiar. 

It was frightening. Learning that your mind had been messed with. That empty feeling in your heart where something once lay but now only empty space remains. 

Fisher had once told him of the dead slaves that lay abandoned. Left to lay exactly where they'd died in the streets of Mariejois. Like a piece of trash left waiting for the garbage man to come clean them up. 

Stepped over and even on as nobles went about their days. Treated as Less than people

Less than garbage.

Jinbei stared at the great Krayt dragon's skull becauses if he looked behind him while Usopp was still gone he felt as if he'd find himself somewhere like the streets of Mariejois. A beautifully gilded cage littered with the disregarded remains of men. 

It was a Garden smack dab In the middle of the desert. At first he and Usopp were uneasy with how seemingly out of place it was. Who builds a garden in the middle of nowhere and abandons it?

But after Usopp had left Jinbei had taken to studying the surrounding area and the more he looked the clearer it became that the remains of a large settlement lay buried in sand all around them. 

What he'd assumed to be trees and rocks littering the landscape where on closer inspection actually Roofs and walls, street lights and stairs half collapsed and enshrouded in decades of sand. 

Robin had done extensive research on Heat Magmar before they'd arrived, Jinbei knew because he'd helped her. 

The settlement of Heat Magmar had no records of reaching out farther than the dune wastes. 

But with the ever creeping feeling drifting from behind his back Jinbei was starting to doubt the validity of their research. 

The presence of old city ruins brought many questions to mind. But most pressingly. If someone or something had destroyed the city. 

Why had it left the garden alone?

It was Lush and green, full of picturesque flowers and finely crafted marble benches and fountains. 

Perfectly preserved. 

It was a garden

Usopp had called it a graveyard

Jinbei found it hard not to agree with him.

He stood exactly on the threshold. Right under the garden's towering black metal gate. 

He and Usopp had been drawn in this direction by the great dragon's skeleton after coming to a dead end at the collapsed entrance of a nearby cave. The log had led them this far. Surely they couldn't give up then. 

Usopp had asked him about heading back for the others and continuing to explore all together, which was over all the far smarter option. But Jinbei was haunted by the face Luffy had made when Nami had suggested he go with her group into town.

He had obviously wanted to join Jinbei and Usopp. On any other day he would have. But Jinbei could see the navigators logic in the decision. Luffy was burning for answers. He was itching for a fight. He was a liability to his own safety.

None of them had any idea what they were up against. It was selfish of them but, if Luffy went rushing in blind and they lost him too whatever this was? If they forgot Luffy existed? 

It would kill them

He shook the thought away. It didn't matter. They would not let whatever had taken their friends take their captain too. He had just wanted a little more than nothing to bring back to Luffy. Something more than a dead end. He didn't want to see Luffy's despondent face again. So they'd pressed on. 

They certainly found something 

He thought as he peaked once again at the garden from the corner of his eye, this was bizzare and probably exactly where they needed to go. 

This was it. He felt it in his bones. And it was better to go in all at once then leave anyone behind. Just in case. They had something to show Luffy, now Usopp just needs to get them all here. 

They would win. They would retrieve their missing friends. 

Or they'd all disappear together.

"Jinbei!" 

Catching himself Jinbei tore his attention away from the gate and turned to find his crew running under the massive dragons skeleton to reach him

"Usopp! Everyone!" He waved back. Twitching at the sudden feeling of pressure he hadn't noticed building disappearing in a flash. Swallowing. The knight decided to focus on what was in front of him.

And let whoever was watching them believe they remained undetected. 

"Woooo! Look at that thing!" Nami held a hand over her eyes as she braced her other hand on her waist and leaned backwards to take in the skeleton towering above them "I would hate to see this thing in the flesh, it's huge!"

"I believe it's called a greater Krayt dragon" Robin began but was quickly cut off by Namis sharp turn and genuinely surprised look 

"That thing!?" She asked. Her voice raising in pitch "that's a Krayt dragon!? Like the one from the log!?"

Jinbei hummed softly to himself and in his mind agreed with Nami’s surprise. The log was full of holes. Paragraphs and names seemingly blurred or missing all together, but there were a fair few mentions of this beast as penned in their navigator's own hand detailing an encounter with one. The sheer size of its skeleton left many a question about its true size when wrapped in flesh.

"What the hell Robin" Nami mumbled as their archaeologist continued on about interesting facts she'd learned about the beast and its diet while out on the town. 

Usopp approached and slapped him firmly in the arm. Releasing a heaving sigh of relief as he did 

"Man, I'm glad nothing happened while I was gone. I know you're strong man but leaving you behind didn't feel right at all"

Jinbei just laughed and reassured the sniper he was well while Zoro, Sanji, Chopper and Brook rejoined from where they'd split off to go inspect the outside of the garden's fence. 

Finally Jinbei focus landed on Luffy who uncharacteristically brought up the rear of the group. He had something clasped in his hands, held tight to his chest. But the more Jinbei tried to make out its shape the worse his head felt

Quickly, Sanji grabbed his arm and pulled his attention over to the cook. He was also watching Luffy just not directly. He seemed to be keeping watch on their captain from the corner of his eyes. His gaze hovering only above the rubber mans shoulders 

"Robin and Franky found it in some freaky shop that appeared out of nowhere"

Jinbei sucked in a quiet breath 

"Like-"

"Yeah, exactly like in the log. Just, don't look straight at it" 

Jinbei hummed again, and, following Sanji's Advice, turned back to Luffy while only focusing on the top half of his body. It helped quite a bit. 

"Usopp said they were here" 

Everyone settled down and gathered around as Luffy began speaking.

Jinbei cleared his throat and kept his gaze focused solely on Luffys face

"We believe so. The log led us to a cave not far from here. though it was collapsed we could spot the skeleton quite clearly from there and guessed that if it was the beast the locals say lived in the cave then it only made sense that we and our friends would have investigated it as well, the day they disappeared-"

"Taken"

Jinbei paused. He'd said it so quietly but Jinbei had still heard. He would not talk over his captain. Not today

"They were taken from us"

That pressure was back. Jinbei was absolutely sure by now that they were being watched. The others could feel it to. Luffy was holding himself back remarkably well. Even he was aware how dangerous a person seemingly capable of erasing a person's existence was. 

"The day they were taken from us" Jinbei agreed. Steel lined his voice and he let it carry on the wind. They weren't hiding. This game of cat and mouse was actually a hunt between wolf and rabbit. 

And Luffy had just given them permission to bear their claws 

"The garden is shrouded in the same phenomenon that we suspected the store was" Jenbie continued

"Im positive it is" Robin jumped in to confirm "now having experienced both. The garden didn't apare for us until Usopp pointed it out. From how close we were we should have been able to see it from miles away." 

"Not to mention whatevers stops us from remembering wherever the hell it is we grabbed from the shop" Franky piped up. 

Almost unwillingly Jinbei felt his gaze flicker down at the mention of its existence but looked away as soon as he could. From the small flinches and tightening of skin around eyes, he wasn't the only one drawn in by the objects' thrall.

"Jinbei, Usopp" Zoro pulled them back on track. "Any idea what we're dealing with?"

Usopp scratched the back of his head and turned to him. Jinbei simply nodded at the young man and took a metaphorical step back

"Well," the sharpshooter begane. Crossing his arms and fidgeting with his suspender strap "i'm pretty sure i've actually read something like this before"

That was evidently more than the others were expecting. Suddenly Usopp was pinned under eight pairs of expectant eyes.

Contrary to his usual stage fright in tense moments Usopp resolve only seemed to grow under the attention. 

"Look, i may not know Devil fruits but i do know stories. This place? What's going on? It reads like something i've read about before. This whole thing. I'm just not sure how it all ties together"

"Tell us" Robin encourage and that was all Usopp needed 

"It was a story I read to Kaya once. Of a beautiful maiden seduced by a hypnotic melody blowing on the wind. She decided to follow it but when she found where it was coming from the sound suddenly stopped. She wasn't where she'd found the music but back in town. She went back to her home but couldn't find anyone. She looked high and low even asked the neighbouring town but they said no one had ever lived there before" 

"People kept disappearing" Nami piped up

"Yes!" Usopp snapped his fingers and pointed to Nami "you know what im talking about!"

"Kinda?" Nami fidgeted with her hair "it's definitely not a story you should have been telling Kaya at ten" 

"I changed like, a lot"

"But I know Nojiko was obsessed with old eastern horror stories for a while when we were young. But that was just a fairytale, it was meant to scare kids!? What was it that was eating her town again? Some kind of dragon, right? A musical one?"

Jinbei felt a shiver slid down his spine as Nami and Usopp continued debating. Unwillingly, his eyes were drawn to the far off ruins of the city all around them. 

Following his eye Robin finally took notice of them too and what he imagined had started as a suspicion in her mind quickly turned to fact as she froze and held out her hand to Nami and Usopp.

"Don't turn" she told them all in a whisper, voice low and strained."don't look at whoever is watching us from over the fence"

"Robin?" 

"Do you hear that?"

Silence descended among them. And, yes. Faintly, just hiding under the wind. Jinbei could hear a song.

Now that he was aware of it. He was sure it'd been there the whole time.

Robin shot a shaky smile at their captain which pulled a confused smile from him in return, trying to give her comfort in the face of her sudden fear. 

"Most legend's come from devil fruits. The first devil fruit users were the origins for many a tall tale and the sources of all kinds of strange phenomena that most society at the time couldn't even begin to comprehend. This may not line up exactly with that legend but it gives us something to work with"

Luffy's smile turned into a smirk and Zoro learned it wearing a matching one of his own. 

"Okay, what do we need to know?" 

-

-

-

-

-

"Oiii!! TORAO!" 

She felt something

"You're gonna miss out on the feast if you just keep standing there!!"

Once she'd pointed it out. He could feel it to

"Oii! Are you even listening to me!?" 

He couldn't unsee it now

"Torao!" Luffy huffed as he came to a sliding halt beside him "oi! Stop ignoring me!" 

But even Luffy's bitching and little bratty stomps couldn't pull his eyes away from the shape in front of them.

"There's a wall"

"Eh?" 

The air wished like a whistle as Luffy presumably whipped his head back and forth. Law wouldn't know. He gripped Kikoku tighter. Letting her hum of bloodlust rush up his arm and didn't take his eyes off the sudden obstacle. 

"There" 

Luffy stilled at his side. And Law could tell the exact moment he could see the wall as well. 

"Torao..."

"Yeah..."

"What the fuck"

...

"Oi!! LUFFY!" A new voice called. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!? WHERE'S OUR CAPTAIN!?" 

Finally tearing his eyes away from the fucking magic wall or whatever it was, Law turned around with Luffy and, truly, with no planing, pointed at the wall together and shouted back 

"MAGIC WALL!" 

silence

"What the hell are those two on?" 

"Oi! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TWO- GAH!"

"You don't have to repeat me, idiot!"

Tumbling down from the back of the Krayt dragon, Law watched two of his oldest friends land on their feet, Shachi rubbing at a bump on his head while Penguin stalked over and right up into his personal space. Cringing his face back Law gave a resigned sigh as Penguin begane poking and prodding all around 

"What did you do now? Did you get a concussion?" The hatted man grumbled, ignoring Law half hearted swats as he grabbed him by the face and pulled him down to Inspect his eyes "Straw hat better not be feeding you delusions or something. You've always said Idiocracy was contagious after all"

"Penguin" grabbing his friend by the wrists. Law did his best to pry the man's hands off his face and then swing him around to face the wall. blocking out Luffys snickering all the while 

Leaning over Penguins shoulder he pointed in front of them and simply said 

"Wall"

And again. It was like all someone needed was another person to point it out because suddenly Penguin was tearing himself from Law's loose parody of an embrace and rushing towards the now solid metal fence. Running his hand along the metal and poking the leaves that stuck through

"What the fuck" Shachi breathed. Watching as Penguin walked up to nothing and then started poking at a wall that definitely was not there before 

"Yeah basically" Luffy agreed. Popping up right next to the man and scaring the shit out of him. 

"Don't do that straw hat!"

"Sheshesheshe" 

"Should we call the others over?" Penguin asked. Backing away from the fence now and rejoining their group of four.

And Law paused to give that a serious thought. Kikoku did not like that place. Whatever it was. She'd pointed it out to him as a warning not to get closer. He's not sure if the sword was aware he couldn't see it at all until she pointed it out to him but now that he could. He felt like there was a building pressure inside his head warning him to stay away. 

With hindsight now hitting him in the face like a flailing rubber wrist, Law should not have then pointed it out to Luffy.

"Oh hell yeah!" The rubber man shouted before stretching his arms back up the Krayt dragon and flinging himself to the top 

"OI!! EVERYONE! THERE'S SOME MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARING WALL OVER HERE! COME CHECK IT OUT!" 

"it's not a disappearing wall" he mumbled to himself uneasily. Turning back to the fence with Kikoku white knuckled in his fist. "Its an appearing fence"

"In the middle of nowhere?" Shachi asked. Sweat sliding down his face as sun glasses covered eyes nervously gazed towards the rows of sharp black pikes at the top of the fence. 

"Oh yeah" Penguin stated sarcastically "cuz'thats not sketchy as hell. Not at all"

And law had to agree because that was-

 The garden was Burning  

WheRe waS EvEry oNe? 

                      "Law don't you dare"

"Im sorry"

                    "I WONT FORGIVE YOU!" 

StuCk In ThE NOtHiNg

-the way their outings usually went. But now that Luffy had found another adventure he was going to chase it Relentlessly...

"Law?" 

Law flinched violently away from Shachis hand on his shoulder. Turning he met the worried faces of his two crewmates. His family. Seeing his reflection in Shachis shades brought him to an awareness of his own panicked breathing. 

"Dude" Penguin came up to his side. He didn't try to touch him, Penguin had known him long enough not to try. But his presence at Law side brought an Immediate wave of relief and feeling of safety.

"Are you okay? You just went paper white?"

His crew was here. Of course they were. Where else would they be? 

"The-" he had to swallow "the fire, did you see? Or..."

His first mates could only stand there and stare at him. Faces full of worry

"Captain? Law? You have to tell me right now what's going on, you're scaring us man" Penguin kept his voice low and soothing. Law couldn't tell if that annoyed or relieved him.

Something was wrong. 

He could hear the straw hats' voices in the distance. On the other side of the great dragon's carcass. The rest of his own crew was with them. Safe 

They were all safe 

"Penguin, Shachi" 

But he had to double check 

"Where is our crew?"

They looked at eachother with an expression Law could not understand before they were turning back to him and he could suddenly see it clear as day. They were scared 

He was scared

"Law, I can hear them right now. Straw Hats bringing them over"

Law swallowed again. It felt like he couldn't stop making the movement. Humans did not produce this much Saliva. When was the last time he blinked

"Shachi...Luffy never went back over the dragon."

All the noise around them 

                                   STOPPED 

"Law?" Shachi whispered. But his lips didn't move. 

A melody played soft and soothing on the wind. The only sound around them.

"Where are we?" Penguin asked. Hand clasped unbreakingly in Shachis. Like it had been the whole time. Except, they had been apart earlier? Hadn't they? 

Law reached for Shachis right hand and said 

"I can't quite remember"

-

-

-

-

-

-

If someone had asked Luffy a month ago what he'd do if he forgot something. He knows what his answer would have been. These last thirty one days, it's a question he's thrown himself at again and again. Like somehow if he just thought up a different answer then the question itself would change 

What would he do if he forgot something over a month ago? 

Nothing, obviously it wasn't important 

Now? 

He'd do everything to remember 

Luffy knew himself. He did not forget his Precious people.  

Even at his lowest. When he tried so damn hard to forget that fucking smile on Aces face, at least for a night. Just one night without being haunted by the spectre of his brothers misplaced relief in death. He couldn't do it.

He carried them forever in his heart. 

His heartbeat was out of sync in his chest. 

He'd noticed it when Robin had handed him the thing. 

The thing that buzzed in his hands with unrelenting rage and blood lust. She was trying to tell him something. But she wasn't speaking in a way he could understand. Her words were missing 

(He'd always been able to understand her with the voice or all things. But no one truly got her like he did)

She was missing someone too.

The sky was a gradient of blue, purple, pink, orange, yellow and red. The sun was setting. It's light casting long reaching shadows over the clouds and along the earth like great cavernous claw marks. 

Luffy stood at the gate. The sun glided slowly towards the horizon in front of him. And as he stood and watched it make its final arc through the sky, the red bled everything. chasing away all other colours until only the red remained.

The thing buzzed as the sun completely fell to hide behind the garden. The last rays of light reaching out around its sides, like it was grasping for anything to to hold on to

Until they too were pulled below.

The sky was red, purple and black now. Light fading as the haunting melody rose on the wind

From the left side of the garden Zoro and Robin emerged. Catching his seconds eye Luffy received only a shake of his head in return

Through the front it is then

"You all remember what to do?" Robin asked as she and Zoro rejoined the group. 

She was met with a round of nods all given with varying degrees of confidence. It had to be enough.

"Right" he heard her swallow her nerves as her grip on her marker tightened. 

"No more stalling then" 

Luffy took the first step. And then the next. The thing in one hand and his own marker in the other. 

The others followed his lead. Also a step behind. Through the gate and into the garden. 

The grass swished beneath his feet. Overgrown and popping out between the cobble stone that made up the walkway.

He could immediately feel a change in the atmosphere after Crossing the threshold-

-Turning to his crew behind him. He found half of them missing and the other staring back at him confused. Cocking his head Luffy noticed how bright everything suddenly was. He looked up. And up and up because now he was on the ground. 

The moon was out

The sun had barely set five minutes ago. Whipping his head back down Luffy pushed himself up and turned to Franky taking note of how batterd he looked, Chopper, Usopp and Sanji as well. 

Looking down he caught sight of blood on his chest and cuts all over his body, his hands aching and bruised 

Fling out his arm he saw his own handwriting. Messy and almost unreadable but there none the less 

It found us 

Fight 1

It went in trees

Keep going

Without a second thought Luffy left the search and rescue team to pick themselves up and shot off in pursuit. 

The trees? There, those looked recently trampled and over the raising sound of a song he could hear Zoro and Nami engaging in battle 

Flying out of the trees Luffy smashed right into-

-Luffy pulled himself from the ground with a grunt. Robin was collapsed in a pile of stone rubble next to him. It was probably a statue at one point but not anymore. 

With a heave he pulled himself out and dragged himself over to her. She looked fine. As fine as any of them could be in the middle of a fight. 

"Robin, you good?" He asked. Extending a hand out to her. 

"Yes" she grunted through clenched teeth. But took his hand anyway and allowed him to help her out of the rubble

"Good, how many do you have?" 

She looked at her arm and winced. Before pulling out her marker and adding another mark. 

"Five, you?" 

Luffy went to answer but was interrupted by another person flying into the ground between them. Sharing a look both he and Robin rushed over and peered into the creator to find Sanji at the bottom groaning in pain 

"Fucking, eight, bitch" he mummbled to himself as he pushed onto his elbows and looked up catching sight of them 

"Hello Sanji" Robin smiled down 

"Oh look" he whispered almost too quiet for Luffy to hear "An angel~"

"Sanji! He waved his arm wildly down the hole. Offering his stretched arm to help him up "what're you doing over here? Aren't you supposed to be looking for our friends?" 

"Oh look" Sanji said again, cringing away from his hand as it waved in his face "a wild rubber idiot"

With a sigh Sanji took his hand and let Luffy snap him up out of the pit, though his cook missed the landing by a bit. Frowning Luffy crossed his arm, ignoring Robins giggles and nudged Sanji with his foot

"Oi! Sanji! You said eight? Stop fighting it and go find the others already"

Pushing himself up on his stomach Sanji growled and barked "it's not like I'm trying to run into it! It's like the damn things everywhere at once! I swear It's trying to split us up!" 

Just as quickly as he started bitching though Luffy watched his face fall as the melody in the air rose once more in pitch.

"Fuck, Luffy look out!"

Nerither needed further warning, he and Robin jumped apart as a massive black Appendage of some kind cracked the ground they once stood on. 

Landing Luffy flipped around and snarled, alright mother fucker lets see you-

- Luffy came too, wet and gasping for breath. Rolling on his side he let himself lay dazed and alive for just a second. 

He could hear another person beside him coughing and gagging for breath but if they were coughing then they were breathing. Both of them were alive. 

Just beyond the trees in his immediate line of sight Luffy could just make out the massive form of one of Usopp's pop greens battling with a long wiggly black mass. 

Both behemoths were so dark they almost disappeared into the night sky. Luffy could only see their movements from where their bodys passed in front of the stars that littered the night sky.

Stars...

Rolling his eyes skyward Luffy saw the moon was almost at its peak. They'd been fighting for hours then. 

It felt like it’d been thirty minutes at most. 

Another thought struck him and he finally lifted himself onto his knees. From the corner of his eye he could see Nami getting up as well and straightening out her wet hair. But what caught his attention were the marks on his arms 

It found us 

Fight 1111 1 11111 1 11111 1 

Kill it

It went in trees

Kill it 

Keep going, Keep going, don't stop

Kill it 

You have ten crew mates. You're looking for your friends 

DONT LET IT EAT YOU 

Luffy shook out his arms, Both suddenly numb and tingling, and looked up to find Nami pale as a ghost from reading the same warning on her arm.  

It wasn't in either of their handwriting. They didn't know whos hand writing it was  

They made eye contact and the same horrible thought passed between them. 

They only remembered eight straw hats.  

"We have to kill it" because obviously this had gone on long enough

"Sure, you say that Like its that easy" Nami pushed to her feet. Voice steady and strong but her body and eyes betrayed her. violently shaking from fear and fatigue with tears slipping silently down her cheeks 

Luffy followed her. Ignoring how the water from the lake Nami had fished him out of refused to dry in two spots starting from his eyes and streaking down his cheeks. His heart hurt again. 

He had let whatever this thing was take two more people from him.

"I won't lose anyone else” he swore. His voice was as steady as Namis. But he knew she could see what he really felt. His eyes betrayed him too.

"What's the plan? Or are we just throwing ourselves back into the fray?" 

And that question drew them both up short because they had had a plan. The markers and writing on the skin was a part of that plan. 

Who suggested the plan again?

They locked eyes once more and Luffy was afraid a little of the dread building in his gut showed on his face

Yeah ok, that was bad. Luffy was not a plan guy. His part of the plan was probably not to follow it anyway. But if Nami didn't know what she was supposed to do?

A thought struck him then. As the melody on the wind rose to a crescendo once more he quickly grabbed his marker and circled the mysterious writing on his arm before doing the same to Nami. 

Confused, she looked up into his eyes and he grined. A fire replacing the dred in his gut and he knew this could spark her resolve too

"We kill it. That's the plan"

And she smiled back with a fond roll of her eyes and- 

-his fist connected with the long draconic snout of an enormous black beast. Its large yellow eyes were twice the size of his body, but as he cold cocked it Luffy noted Zoro and Brook take off the things other two heads and suddenly the ever present music died out. 

"What the hell is that Brook!" Zoro yelled from Luffys left "Thays not a fucking devil fruit that another real ass dragon!!"

Watching the thing reel back in shock, Luffy had to agree. It could be another dragon devil fruit but it looked nothing like Kaido had when he was fully transformed. Each step back it took was a thunderous crack against the earth and Luffy let himself fall backward while his crew screamed at each other over his head. 

"Ahh, well, thinking it was a devil fruit was a logical idea! ah, Also i'm pretty sure that's not a dragon"

Brooks' answer echoed just barely loud enough to be heard over the roars of pain. 

"Eh!!??"

"I do believe that's what they call a Hydra!"

"EH!!!!"

Oh! His arm! Looking down Luffy found his red shirt sleeves had been torn basically all the way off. His cardigan was almost a vest instead. Nami wouldn't be happy about that

It found us 

Fight 1111 1 11111 1 11111 1 1111 1 1111 1 1111 1 1111 1 1111 1 

Kill it

It went in trees

Kill it 

Keep going, Keep going, dont stop

Kill it 

You have ten crew mates. You're looking for your friends 

DONT LET IT EAT YOU

Ten crew mates. He and Nami had counted eight, right?. He could only remember seven now, shit. 

but he had an idea. 

Twisting his torso around like a cat in midair Luffy spread his arms and legs to slow his descent before inflating and bouncing off the ground towards a pile of limbs that looked somewhat like Chopper and Usopp. 

Rolling to a stop beside them he deflated and laid on his back until Brook and Zoro joined them. Once they were present Luffy sprung up onto his butt and pointed in the general direction that the multi headed dragon?? Had gone 

"We gotta kill its voice!"

"Eh?" Chopper and Usopp groned unenthusiastically from the ground 

Zoro and Brook seem to clue into what he meant right away though and exchange a quick super special swordsman look with each other. 

Luffy watched them come to a silent decision and he agreed wholeheartedly. This was the best way to do this 

"Okay" Luffy agreed out loud and turned to Chopper and Usopp while Zoro and Brook took off to keep the thing distracted "You two make sure Jinbei and Nami know" 

Both doctor and sniper popped straight up, equally as covered in marker as Luffy knew he was himself, and began demanding to know just what the hell it was they were relaying. 

And, oh yeah. Digging around in his shorts pocket Luffy discovered he'd lost his marker somewhere. So his fight counter probably wasn't even right anymore, whatever

Ignoring that and the two crew mates still chewing him out, Luffy crawled over and simply snatched the one from Usopp's front pocket and then snatched his sniper's arm next. 

He ignored the 'dont let it eat you' circled on Usopps arm, in Jinbei's hand writing this time, good to know that obvious piece of advice had gotten around. and underneath that Luffy wrote out 

Kill it

And circled that too and then added the word plan to it and pointed it to the bubble. Before adding his new idea 

Dnt let it sing

and circled that again.

Done and quite proud of himself Luffy turned and did the same to Chopper, his fur held ink surprisingly well. 

"That's too many circles Luffy" Usopp whined but Chopper gasped in realisation after studying the new instructions on his arm.

"Luffy! You're a genius!"

"what?" 

Luffy shot Chopper a thumbs up and a sparkle twinkled in his eye 

"Thanks, I know"

"Oi"

Ignoring Usopp, Luffy sprang to his feet and chased after Zoro and Brook. Ready to rejoin the fight now that he had an idea of what to do. Calling over his shoulder he reminded them

"Make sure Jinbei and Nami know! Oh! And don't get eaten!"

"Obviously" they yelled together 

Just as he broke the tree line to the clearing, Brook and Zoro had corralled the dragon thing in Luffy heard the song starting up again and picked up the pace. 

As he got closer he saw Brook and Zoro harassing the beast's last head. Grinning Luffy picked up speed, hopped once, twice and launched himself at the dragon right at its face. 

Coming up fast Luffy flew by Zoro and watched Brook retreat from behind the beast as Luffy drew his arm back, inflated it and hardened it with Haki and went to finish this!

Just as his fist made contact with the last head. Two withering masses of flesh burst from the other two neck stumps and reformed into two fully intact heads. 

Making eye contact with one Luffy swore and-

-there was something in his hand...

There was something he needed to do...

Luffy couldn't remember why he'd come here... 

Who had he come with?

The thing in his hands pulsed in time to the heart in his chest and Luffy threw his body to the left and- 

-found himself staring down one of the black dragon's heads. Because it was the black dragon, or a-

-hydra. Luffy jumped back unsteady but kept his grip on the thing tight because, because it was keeping him from forgetting? Wasn't it? Somehow, the beast's song couldn't affect him while he held it. 

Holy shit

He knew there were still things he was forgetting but as the thing in his hands pulsed again Luffy threw himself into action and caught sight of the writing on his arm

KILL IT

And. Yeah, he'd listen to that. What else did he have to lose?

Nothing

Luffy charged. The hydra roared, its three necks thrashing in the predawn sky as Luffy bounced from tree to tree, smashing into the dumb dragon and hitting it with all he was worth. 

Now that the stupid beast couldn't trip him up with missing memories it was having a hard time keeping up. Luffy was fast, Luffy was strong

This thing was what was beating him down!? For real!? 

He was the pirate king!! This thing could go to hell!!

The thing, the sword in his hand, pulsed again. Pure blood lust shooting up his arm and filling him with a second burst of energy.

 She wanted revenge, she wanted to be used

Luffy was not a swordsman. But he could hold her steady while she struck the final blow if that's all she needed from him

One last time Luffy kicked the beast in the side, taking satisfaction from the way it wailed and stumbled to the side. Shooting away while it was distracted Luffy found the perfect spot for her to strike and unsheathed her blade 

Kikoku sang in his hands. He knew her. A piece of her soul was trapped in that dragon but she herself was here with him. And Luffy was so happy he could understand her again

Across from them, the hydra straightened itself out and focused all three heads on them once more. The left and right started building its song. Raising the sound higher and higher, it was making his ears bleed. 

The middle one stared him down. Its blazing yellow eyes displaying nothing except raw animalistic hunger. 

There was a second song building though.

Luffy could hear the drums 

As the beast reared back Kikoku shreaked in his hands and Luffy kicked off the ground like a shot. 

The hair in his face bleached and wisped before his eyes and the ground he'd just left distorted and rippled like solid water. In a second he was at the dragon's neck and with a cackling laugh Luffy let Kikoku lead them in a spin that sliced the middles head off and then had them plummeting downwards with her blade ripping through its stomach

From neck to crotch they speared the bastard. And the other two heads choked on their songs and screamed in agony as Luffy hit the ground still holding kikoku and was Ricochet back towards the sky. 

Laughing, unable and unwilling to stop, Luffy let the tears fall from his eyes as the massive black hydra roared with its last breath and hit the ground dead. 

And suddenly he remembered 

Everything 

-Convincing Torao to explore that stupid map with him

-finding the garden

-being so completely overwhelmed and blindsided by an enemy they couldn't even remember they were fighting

-Law 

Just

Law

Standing in front of him. Kikoku in his hands. Luffy hadn't understood what was going on; he was hurt? Law had told them to retreat. He said the Hearts would be right behind them. 

He trusted them

They made it out but by the time they'd crossed the gate it was already too late. The Hearts had been eaten. They'd been forgotten. 

-the old lady who had told him about the map. She'd found him again. That's right! She'd asked where his other friends were. She seemed sad when he hadn't known what she was talking about 

-that guy from the shop! He'd had Kikoku! He sent people to the hydra and took whatever was left behind!

-the ship. The month of waiting 

His friends 

His crew!!

Ten! Ten crew mates! He was the pirate king!

Luffy hugged Kikoku to his chest and let her buzz at him in comfort. He sure had forgotten a lot. 

Shaking his head Luffy took in his bleached clothing and tried to remember when it was he'd forgotten about gear five? This could have been over wayyyyy earlier if he'd just remembered he could do that.

Then again. Torao had been such a big part of his life since Dressroba. Luffy honestly was amazed at how much he'd forgotten now that he could remember it all

"Oii!!" 

Snapping to attention, Luffy zeroed in on movement by the dragon's corpse. A small figure was waving their arms at him

A grin as bright as the sun split his face as Luffy cackled and dove towards the ground. 

The closer he got the clearer it was to see a grinning crying Nami covered in dragon guts jumping up and down while flailing her arms 

"Luffy!- gahs! Hahahaah!" 

Her choked off shout broke off into giggles as he ran into her and yoinked her into a spinner mid air hug

"You did it! Oh my god you really did it!" 

"We did!" He agreed! Howling his joy to the sun "You're back! You're all back!" 

Suddenly Nami pulled back and squished his cheeks between her palms 

"Come on idiot let's go find them!" 

She didn't need to tell him twice. 

Together the two of them plus Kikoku dropped down to the ground by a slippery mountain of dragon guts and found more people dragging themselves from within. 

Nami hopped from his arms and made a beeline to help Robin climb out and- 

-Luffy remembered now. She'd been the first one eaten. Chopper hadn't been able to remember the second dragon head and Robin had pushed him out of the way- 

Robin smiled at Nami and her grin only grew in size when she spotted him. Laughing she waved which he returned but let her embrace Nami for now as he bounded over to help pull Franky out-

-because he'd jumped in after Robin after making sure to write the additional warnings on his and Namis arms. Luffy didn't even want to imagine the pain he must have felt holding on to the memory of Robin long enough to do that and then charge right in after her- 

Sanji and Zoro were the next to come tumbling out of all those innards. Pushing and shoving while shouting all the while. 

With a hop Luffy soared over them and over to where Jinbei was trying to help Chopper untangle Usopp from dragon Intestines. 

Brooks shrill laugh echoed from inside the beasts stomach cavity creating an eerily cool noise that had Nami Usopp and chopper jumping in fright and screaming that the beast was back from the dead 

That was hilarious, they were hilarious! He loved them! He loved them so much! 

even over his rambunctious laughter Luffy caught the soft gasp of breath Jinbei let out in surprise, Twisting around and straightening up to find what he'd seen Luffy and the rest of the Straw hats followed their helmsmans eye to the slice of flesh further down the dragons stomach as it shifted and moved aside to reveal a mass of white and orange tumblring to the ground. 

Laying face first on the ground they watched it moan before pushing itself to its knees to reveal 

"BEPO!" 

 Nami flew at the bear and threw herself into his arms. Sure as always that he'd catch her 

And he did, almost as automatically as breathing his arms came up to cradle her tight against him as she shoved her face into his dirty blood and gut covered neck 

"Miss Nami!?” He yelped in surprise “Are you okay? What's wrong?"

"I missed you! You idiot!" And Luffy laughed again at Bepos growing panic as the bear looked down at his human friend and realised she was crying

"Ah! Sorry!"

"Don't apologise!"

Two voices yell together and two hatted man pull themselves from the flap of flesh and came tumbling down after their navigator 

"A beautiful woman is hanging off you Bepo! You lucky bastard!" Shachi wailed. Even crawling out of a hydra stomach couldn't stop his jealous streak. 

"At least appreciate it while it lasts!" Penguin seemed to be weeping, from the relief of being free or from jealousy of his own, honestly? Luffy couldn't tell. Those two were a riot

"Sorry, But, i'm only interested in lady Bears"

"Gah!

The rest of the Straw hats cracked up right alongside Luffy this time. laughing out right at the duos never ending comedy act as they clutch at their chests

One by one more Hearts were climbing out of the beast's stomach. Like little ants all dressed in orange Luffy watched Ikkaku and Uni get hauled out by Jean Bart and Hakugan dragged Clione back into The guts in search of his mask. 

Uni had just popped out as the hearts first mates sat back up and shouted at Bepo

"Don't apologise!"

Both let out cut off squawks of surprise as two trunk-like arms slipped behind them and pulled them to their feet and shook them by the shoulders. Placing them squished in the middle of Zoro's chest and his huge grin 

"Funny enough i missed you idiots too" he laughed, oblivious to their desperate struggles to escape his suffocating grip

"Ack! Roronoa! Too tight!"

"Captain! The straw hats are acting weird! And Zoro is trying to kill us! Help!"

A hush fell over Straw hats and as one they turned to follow the sound of an answering grunt across the Intestine filled field. 

Luffy felt the world slow. Because right there, being hauled from his own personal pile of guts by the back of his shirt by his disgruntled mechanic was Trafalgar Law. Their ally and his!- 

"Torao?"

"Mugiwara-ya?" Finally free of his crew and no longer drowning in dragon guts, Law sat on his hunches and looked up. squinting at Luffy's blurry form standing in front of him through a face full of hydra blood. 

Luffy watched in awe as Torao dragged his hands down his face, trying with little success to remove the blood and other bodily fluids from his eyes.

Obviously confused, Luffy watched as Torao tilted his head to the left, a distinctly Luffy-like move that he recognized the other captain had to have picked up from spending so much time with him! That was too cute. A flush warmed Luffy from the heart and had him grining and pink all over 

"Did something happen?” Torao tried again. “What are we doing here?"

Luffy's heart was caught in his throat. And he knew Law could feel how fast it must be beating from inside the surgeon's own chest. He watched as, upon receiving only more silence Law rubbed excessively at the last of the fluids in his eye and turned to observe the rest of his crew 

"Where even is here?"

Law turned back to question Luffy only to finally notice his fluffy white appearance and the absolute waterfall of tears welling in his eyes.

"Luffy-ya?"

And that was that

-

-

-

-

-

-

 The sky is blue. Just blue. It could be any colour though. Luffy wouldn't care. He wouldn't even be able to tell the difference from his spot wrapped around Torao’s front with his face buried in the other's neck. 

"I hate that you did that"

It was peaceful. Perfect weather, perfect company. Luffy still couldn't settle down though. It had only been five hours or so since they'd gotten back from the garden. Since the world had righted itself in his head. 

Law sat with his back against the Sunnys rail and his legs sprawled out in front of him. He was hunched slightly forward with his arms dangling off of Luffy's shoulders in the loosest definition of a hug.

simply content to lean against Luffy and be held in return. 

"Hate’s not good for your heart. Luffy-ya"

Luffy thumped Torao on the back, probably a little harder than he meant to if the grunt of pain he received was any indication. 

"That's not funny"

"I'm not trying to be" 

Law pulled back and Luffy reluctantly let him. Torao’s eyes were like liquid gold. If Luffy stared hard enough he swore he could see the emotions shimmering just below the surface. The surgeon took Luffy's hand and pressed it palm flat against Law's own chest. 

"Your heart wasn't built for hate" 

Law's voice was soft with conviction. Like that was a secret. Like Luffy hadn't felt hate and rage with his own heart before. Sometimes. He wished he could see himself the wayTorao does. He wished a lot of things…

"I wish you wouldn't do that” he admitted to his hand and the chest underneath it. Unwilling to see what emotions he could catch swimming in those eyes if he dared to look up now “Promise me you won't do that again"

Law, the asshole, didn't even pretend to think on it

"I can't"

"Promise me" he snapped back. His fist curled into a ball underneath Laws where it was still cradled it to his chest. 

"You'd hate that” because Law knew him so well “You know i can't promise that" 

Because Luffy knew he was right. But his heart still hurts. He just wanted to not hurt for a minute. Just a moment.

"Lie to me"  

"I can't"

"Lie to me,". 

"I'm sorry"

Luffy ripped his hand away from the feeling of his own heart picking up speed and instead shoved his head back into the space between Law's shoulder and neck. Squeezing him hard around the middle. 

"Don't apologise, idiot."

Because Law knew him. He knew him a month ago, he knew him years ago, but most importantly, he knew him now. 

Law wouldn't lie to him. Not about this. Becausehe knew it might make Luffy feel better now, but in the future?

Luffy loved and hated that about him. 

Luffy hugged him anyway

"Just, don't leave. Not like that. Not again"

Law's arms came up slowly behind him. Hands dragging over fresh red fabric and strong muscles underneath before wrapping him in a hug just as tight and desperate as his own

"I'll try"