"What do you want to do next, Law? Want to come with us? To the Grand Line," asked Lucien with the utmost serious expression. Looking at Law's blank expression, he knew the only driving force behind him up to now had been revenge.
Revenge against the injustice his parents faced, Revenge for his sick sister who was bombed because of the decision of the royals. But now that revenge was over. He just shot the man who was responsible for the death of his family in the head.
Law just continued to stare at the sea for a few more minutes before slowly turning towards Lucien and just slowly said, "Just take me back to Flevance and bury me with my parents, brother Lucien. I want to bury my parents and get buried with them too." and just asked for his own death.
Just as the word came out, he was slapped across the face, went thumbling across the ship and almost over the ledge and into the water if Idris didn't catch him in time.
"Rocco wanted you to be better than him. Have a life and live it freely as you wish. Your mother wanted you to be safe and happy for all your life, and you just want to throw it away like that," said Lucien as he walked up and picked up Law and held him at his eye level.
Law snapped out of what probably was a mild concussion and shouted, "What do you want me to do? I am dying. I will die in probably a few years, sick like the rest of them from Flevance. There is nothing any of us can do. That is the curse that has been placed upon us. There is only one path for us, death. So just let me die peacefully instead of being sick. I don't want to be hurt and coughing up blood. It is better to die whole."
Lucien set Law down.
Law straightened his hat and looked up at him. The red mark from the slap was still coming up on his cheek.
"There is a way. There must be," said Lucien.
"There is no way," Law said. "My father spent years on it. Every doctor in Flevance spent years on it. They found nothing. And whatever they did find, whatever notes they kept, whatever research they built, it is all ash now. It was bombed with the rest of it." He said it the way someone says something they have already made their peace with. "There is nothing. There never was anything."
Lucien was quiet for a moment.
"This world is not logical," he said.
Law looked at him.
"I mean that seriously. I have been travelling for six years. I have seen things that should not exist. Men made of Sand. Men made of Rocks. Rubber. Ice. Slime. Things that medicine and science have no framework for." He sat down on the deck in front of Law. "A world that produces all of that does not run out of answers just because the research got burned. The answer exists somewhere. We just do not have it yet."
"That is not an argument," Law said. "That is hope. Hope is not medicine."
"No. But it is a starting point."
Law looked back at the sea. His jaw was tight. He did not say anything for a moment.
Lucien's mind was already moving. He thought about Germa. The scientists there were genuinely brilliant in the way that mad people with unlimited resources and no ethical constraints tend to be brilliant. Curing a genetic disease built up across generations would be exactly the kind of problem that would light Judge up. It was the right kind of challenge for them.
He shut it down immediately.
He knew what happened to people who became interesting to Germa. He had seen the colosseum. He had seen what the ninth opponent was. He had watched Sora sitting pregnant and decided to live with the cost that hadn't fully arrived yet. He was not walking a seven-year-old through those gates under any circumstances.
"There is one idea," he started, and then stopped.
"What?" said Law.
"Nothing. It won't work."
Law looked at him for a moment and then looked away. He knew better than to push when Lucien closed a door that fast.
Idris spoke from behind them.
"Black market."
Both of them turned. Idris was leaning against the mast with his coffee, looking at neither of them specifically.
"Devil Fruits," he said. "The world produces things that should not exist, as you said. Some fruits heal. Fruits that alter biology. Fruits that do things no one has a name for yet. If there is anything in this world that touches what Law has, it will surface through the underground trade networks before it surfaces anywhere official." He paused. "It is not a cure. It is a search. But it is a real one."
Lucien looked at him. Then at Law.
Law had his eyes on the deck. He was thinking. The same expression his father probably made when working through a problem he did not yet have an answer to.
"You want to go to a black market," Law said. "To look for a Devil Fruit that might cure a disease that the best doctors in Flevance could not cure in a generation of trying."
"Yes," said Lucien.
"And if there is nothing."
"Then there is nothing, and we look somewhere else. But we look first before we decide there is nothing." Lucien leaned forward. "You are seven years old, Law. Your father did not spend his life in that hospital, so you could give up on a boat before we have even tried."
Law was quiet for a long time. Long enough that the sound of the water against the hull filled everything.
"I want to be a doctor," he said eventually. Quietly. Like it had been sitting in him the whole time, waiting for a reason to come out.
"I know," said Lucien.
"My father was a doctor. I always wanted to be like him. Better than him, even. He always said I had the hands for it." He looked down at his hands. The white spots on the skin. "I still want that."
"Then want it. Hold onto it." Lucien stood up. "That is what we are going to work toward. We find a fruit, we fix you, and you become the best surgeon this world has ever seen. You make it so no one else goes through what your family went through because the medicine was not good enough."
Law did not respond straight away.
"Where do we start?" he finally said.
Idris had already pulled out a small folded map from his coat. "There is a black market port three islands south. Brokers, information networks, underground trade. If anyone in North Blue has seen a fruit that touches biology or healing, the thread will start there."
"Then that is where we go," said Lucien.
He stood up and went back to the sail. Law sat against the mast for a while longer, looking at the sea. Not at nothing this time. At something further out, something past the horizon.
Idris finished his coffee and set the mug down on the railing.
One thing at a time.
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1 Chapter For Every 50 Power Stones. Please Do Support.