The light overhead isn't from Minion island's overcast sky but instead a steel plated ceiling shining down fluorescence, glass and plastic bottles rattling on shelves against the walls. Everywhere there's monitors and familiar machinery and the distinct tang of antiseptic, sharp beyond the memory sense of blood and snow. For half a second Law looks at it all very blankly and thinks, What The Hell. Is he dreaming. Is he hallucinating. Is he just plain dead. His sight-line completes the rotation of this impossibility to fall upon speckled jeans and a long sweeping coat. And the man standing in front of Law has the blankest expression Law's ever seen. And the man standing in front of Law has Law's father's face. Underneath Law's blood-slicked fingers, Cora-san's pulse shudders. (This is a story where the past and the present collide. Wherein thirteen year old Trafalgar Law and twenty-six year old Rocinante tumble sideways through time-space via the blue desperation of a newly eaten devil fruit, from Minion island to a future distant. Right, unwittingly, onto the submarine deck of a another Law shortly after Doflamingo’s fall.)

Curly-Brow hisses, “What, exactly, am I supposed to have them do?” The guy looks at Zoro and adds, “Amputation via sword?” “Clerical, scribing, changing bedpans? The world’s your fuckin’ oyster and they,” Dr. Old Man thrusts a wrinkled thumb at them, “are your fuckin’ problem now.” Luffy takes this moment to wave and bound right up to the nurse with a chirp of, “Hi! I’m Monkey D. Luffy and I’m gonna’ be the Pirate King. Sorry about your roof.” The nurse stares at Luffy for a solid five seconds, unblinking. Nami whispers despairingly, “Oh my fucking gods.” The nurse turns back to Dr. Old Man and asks, “Am I allowed to submit this one for a psych eval?” -- In which Sanji is the crew's doctor and not their cook. This changes remarkably little.

Sanji sees Zoro approach from a long-ways off. His shock of green hair is unmistakable, even in a crowd. Speaking of, the crowd parts around him naturally, like water around a boat. They give him suspicious looks as he passes, and it isn’t until Zoro is within eye-shot that Sanji realizes why. There is a bundle of feathers in his arms. “What the fuck are you holding?” Zoro winces and pulls a face. “Yeah, so, I can explain." The bundle of feathers moves and the dirt-streaked face of a child peers up at him. The jumble of feathers aren’t just feathers, Sanji realizes with a jolt. They’re wings.

“Luffy.” “Yeah?” “Please tell me I’m hallucinating.” Fear. The smell of it, the sound of it. Luffy’s never felt fear like this come from Sanji before. He hates it. “He’s real. And I think he’s you,” Luffy says. __ A reunion. A camping trip on an uninhabited island. A question. And a gift, or perhaps, an answer. Wherein a Sanji straight from the dungeons of Germa appears in their midst and no one, least of all Sanji, knows what to do about it.

Here’s the thing he quietly decided long ago: he will forget his native tongue in favor of common words, and leave the past in the past.

“Are you familiar with the custom of the sea?” Robin asked. “The one among shipwreck survivors.” Sanji was the cook. It was his job to feed the crew.

On the high seas pirates draw their power not from devil fruit but with deals with demons, and pay the price in turn. Blood, salt, and water, everyone's soul is on the line, but only if you're fool enough to make a deal.