Warning for detailed gory descriptions ahead

Law picked his way lightly over the rubble, heading towards his next target. He had already dealt with a dozen bodies left by this battle, and there were dozens more for him to attend. Not that it would be any trouble. He was well used to haunting the torn up aftermaths of horrible accidents and massacres, seeking out the mutilated remains of the dead from their final resting places on earth. In the limbo between worlds the passage of time was meaningless, but he would still be busy for a while.

After climbing over another large section of collapsed wall, Law spotted the corpse he was looking for. It was sprawled face down in a pool of blood—presumably its own—and he rolled it over with a shove of his boot, assessing the damage with a cursory once-over.

The body was bare from the waist up, deathly pale and smeared with blood. Red hair darkened with sweat and grime framed a face set with dull, sightless eyes. Law paid little heed to the gruesome appearance however, focusing instead on the traumatic injury that had likely caused the man's death: one arm had been almost completely blasted off at the shoulder, leaving behind a useless limb and a wet red mess surrounding the shattered remains of his humerus. The brachial artery was obliterated; without doubt the man had bled out in seconds.

Law knelt at the corpse's side and took out a scalpel to begin cutting away the damaged flesh from the bone, meticulously picking out any white bone splinters and setting them aside. Once the wound had been deconstructed, he laid aside the knife and started the process of reassembly. He used his devil's fruit ability to find the pieces of bone that had been blown out of the arm entirely, calling them to his hand with an effortless flex of will. Each fragment was returned to its original place, fitting seamlessly into the break. From the marrow to the outer membrane of connective tissue, the bone was eventually reconstructed back to its complete form.

He was just beginning to reattach bits of muscle fiber when the corpse spoke.

"Are you an angel?" the dead man croaked.

Law glanced up from his work. It had been a very long time since a mortal had woken up in the middle of reassembly. No matter how much he sliced and rearranged their flesh and bones, it wasn't as if the dead could feel it. It didn't surprise him though, he had seen stranger things happen. The man was struggling to keep his eyes open, yet still managed to fix Law with an unwavering stare that was bright with awareness.

"Yes," Law lied.

He supposed he did appear rather otherworldly to mortals, although he had never bothered to ask one what it thought of him before. He found them quite dull, not to mention extraordinarily clumsy—they were always coming up with new ridiculous ways to die. Considering the circumstances he could see how this one would mistake him for something else. In truth, his vocation was much more important than those over-glorified lapdogs they called "angels," and there weren't many others who could do what he did. Humans tended to gloss over many of the details of life after death, so if angels were an easier concept for this man to understand, Law wouldn't bother to correct him.

"Then... I'm dead?"

"Yes, technically speaking." Not a complete lie, but the connection between the world of mortals, death, resurrection, and the afterlife was simply too much trouble to explain to some random human.

The dead man let his eyes fall shut, either he had nothing to say about that or he was too exhausted to continue speaking, and Law returned to piecing the mangled arm back together.

He worked methodically, layering the reformed bone with muscle and skin, guiding veins and nerves through the flesh with a deftness that came from eons of experience, until the arm was made whole again. In time it would completely regain its original level of functioning, and anyone who looked at it now would never be able to tell where the fatal wound had been; it was as if it had never existed. Law smoothed a hand over the cold limb to confirm that everything was back in its correct place. It twitched in response to the touch, and he stroked it again just for the sake of feeling something in motion. The bodies he worked on tended to stay still.

The man shuddered, and Law sat back to get a better look at his face. Those eyes were open again, glaring up at the sky. He didn't appear to be dead at all now, though Law knew that his heart wasn't beating, and could see his chest wasn't rising to take in breath. However, if he continued to progress at this rate, that could very well change.

He wondered idly if it was somehow significant that this one woke up early; perhaps this man could somehow be clinging to the cusp of life and death, or maybe he had an exceptionally strong spirit that was well-suited to enduring the passage between worlds.

How curious.

As he watched, the man suddenly looked back at him, "My crew. What happened to them?" his voice was strained.

Law had no idea who this human was talking about or whether they were dead or alive, nor did he care to find out. He was only here to put the pieces back together and send them on their way.

The man tried again, "If they're dead, just tell me."

Law decided to simply ignore the question, and turned his attention back to examining the body for any other grievous injuries. Apart from the arm, the man had died remarkably unscathed besides some minor scrapes and bruises, and Law deemed him intact enough to make it into the next world.

"Hey, answer me, asshole!" A hand suddenly reached up and grabbed weakly at his wrist, and the contact sent a jolt of sensation up his entire arm. Law couldn't remember the last time someone had insulted him, let alone touched him. It had certainly never happened with a corpse before, and even among his fellow deities he was considered a bit strange and off-putting for mucking around with human parts in his "Room" all the time. His reputation had never bothered him, he preferred to work alone without interference, although the lack of social interaction did lead to a certain kind of tedium.

But now this anomaly was disturbing his routine.

Law shook off the hand with a flick of his wrist and leaned over the man to look directly into his eyes. The mortal didn't flinch, in fact he seemed to be gaining strength back with every passing moment. Soon he might be able do more than move his arm.

"What is your name, human?"

The man glowered at him, answering only after some obvious deliberation, "Eustass Kid."

"Eustass Kid," Law repeated, testing out the sound, "It has been a long time since anyone dared to speak to me as you just have."

"Am I supposed to give a shit? If you know what happened to my crew you better tell me right the fuck now before I bash your fucking angel face in." It was an empty threat at the moment, but Kid's body was starting to tremble, and his fists were already flexing restlessly as he fought to control his limbs.

"Calm yourself. It does not matter where they are now, you will see them again once you pass into the afterlife." Law brushed his knuckles lightly against Kid's rigid jaw in what he thought would be a reassuring gesture and the man jerked his face away, far from calm.

"Fuck you," Kid snapped, now shaking with the effort to move. Law caught his chin with one hand, forcing Kid to meet his eyes despite his attempts to twist out of the grip.

"I do not believe you fully understand the situation you're in, Eustass Kid. It would be unwise to struggle." That only seemed to infuriate him further, and Law watched with growing amusement as the mortal did the exact opposite of what he was told.

Kid's arms and legs were coming alive in fitful spasms, so Law decided to act now to keep the man in place. He released his grasp on Kid's chin, and before Kid had a chance to realize he was free Law was already moving to hold down his shoulders and bringing a knee up and over Kid's waist before sitting down primly astride his abdomen.

Kid bared his teeth in a warning snarl, eyes wide and flashing dangerously. The mortal was displeased by the change, Law concluded.

Physically Kid far outweighed his lanky form, but being even a lesser deity had its advantages and Law easily kept the larger man pinned. If Kid had realized the futility of fighting he didn't show it, and continued to thrash around. He tried to wrench Law's hands away, and kicked viciously into empty air, but even with his returning strength he couldn't unseat a god.

Law studied Kid's face closely, observing his fury with clinical detachment despite the fact that his own nose was only a few short inches away from gnashing teeth. He cataloged the way Kid's pupils contracted to pinpricks, how his brow creased with rage, and the veins that were starting to stand out from exertion at his temples. The constant change in the mortal's features was fascinating.

Previous encounters with humans had convinced Law they were rather meek things, though admittedly he did not have much experience with the ones that moved. Living mortals tended to cower in fear before him, and in the afterlife they instinctually kept their distance, like a school of fish swirling away from an apex predator. For his part he preferred to just avoid them.

But this man's reaction was distinctly abnormal, and Law was beginning to think he had happened across something genuinely rare.

With that in mind, he resolved to elicit some new expressions from the mortal. Law knew very little about human emotions, and nothing of how to manipulate them, but that wouldn't dissuade him. Emotions were derived from the mind, and from his point of view the mind was only a subset of the body. And he knew the body very well.

Law snatched Kid's wrists out of the air as he was trying to punch, pinning them to the ground above Kid's head with one inexorable hand. The mortal only had time to make an indignant noise, the movement had been too fast for him to resist. Law used his free hand to trace the shell of Kid's ear, ending with a gentle tug on the earlobe. He rubbed that spot between his thumb and forefinger, knowing that area contained a high concentration of nerve endings, and watched Kid's face intently for a response.

The man reacted, but again it wasn't the way Law intended.

Kid twisted violently, flailing as hard as he could against the ground. "What the fuck, you damn freak! Get off me!" he roared.

Law ignored the outburst and moved his fingers to stroke down the man's neck, trailing over fine hairs that stood up reflexively in the wake of his fingertips. He curled his fingers to drag his nails over Kid's throat and the mortal stilled abruptly, sensing danger.

The new response pleased Law and he kept dragging his nails down until they caught on the man's clavicle, another sensitive area. He laid his palm flat onto the bone and slid it from sternum to shoulder in one smooth motion. He could already feel the slow throb of a pulse awakening under the skin; the mortal was recovering at a rather impressive pace. Kid was breathing heavily from his previous exertions, warily trying to discern the god's intent through narrowed eyes. No doubt the human was still somewhat weak from having only recently died, but that clearly wasn't going to keep him from fighting for long.

He reached down further to scrape his thumbnail over a nipple before rubbing it until it stiffened.

Kid curled his lip back and growled through his teeth, "Fucking pervert." He flexed his arms and gave a sharp tug to test Law's grip again, but the hold hadn't weakened.

"I'm not going to hurt you. If you stop trying to hit me, I will let you go. This would be easier with both hands."

Kid glared at him, "If you try to fuck me, I'll fucking kill you, you piece of shit."

The assumption was so unexpected Law actually smiled. It was a small smile, and in combination with his flat gray eyes it made him look rather deranged, but it was a smile nonetheless.

"I do not intend to 'fuck' you. As I said, you do not fully understand the situation you're in. You cannot return to the realm of the living, and I am responsible for sending you into the afterlife, but your circumstances are quite unique. I would prefer to keep you here for further observation."

The man sneered, "Seems like more than observing, damn freak."

Law's lips curved ambiguously, "Patience, mortal. I'll bring you to heaven in due time. Now, stay still."

With that promise he released Kid's wrists slowly. When he was sure the mortal was not going to resume his struggles immediately, Law moved his hand down to begin properly experimenting with the man's nipples, his strange smile fading back to nothing as he refocused his attention. Simply rubbing them had little effect besides encouraging blood flow, but now when Law pinched and pulled he was soon rewarded by Kid tensing his stomach and scowling at him.

Interesting.