Dr. Kureha stood at her door, arms crossed, the ever-present scowl on her face deepening as she stared down the snowy path leading to her home. Winds howled across the frigid slopes of Drum Island, flurries swirling like ghosts in the air—but none of it fazed her. She had seen worse. She had survived worse.
For over a century, she had lived through war, plague, revolution, and the slow erosion of sanity that came with watching the world burn and rebuild itself time and time again. She was Iron-Blooded Kureha, the Witch of Drum Kingdom, a healer whose knowledge rivaled the lost sciences of the Ancient Kingdom. She had no patience for nonsense.
And this—this—was nonsense.
She'd been expecting a shipment. As usual, the Donquixote Family merchants had climbed the treacherous mountain with their routine delivery of exotic herbs, rare minerals, and contraband ingredients too delicate or dangerous to be found anywhere but the Grand Line's most secret corners. They never bothered her. They never lingered.
They would quietly stack the crates inside the shed next to her home—a shed they had built themselves without asking for a thing in return—and leave behind a manifest before disappearing like phantoms in the snow.
That was the agreement. But today was different.
The merchants were already making their descent, their work complete. And yet, four figures remained behind—a young man, two teenagers, and a child—standing at her threshold, backs straight, eyes forward, the cold biting at their clothes but not at their resolve.
"Brother Ross asked me to hand this over to you, Lady Kureha…" the teenage girl spoke, her voice calm, her bow respectful as she extended both a manifest and a sealed envelope.
Donquixote Robin. Kureha recognized the name before she even looked at the letter. She had kept her eye on the budding pillars of the Donquixote family, the ones even the World Government had classified as dangerous and had placed a bounty on. The old woman's eyes narrowed.
She hadn't even opened the damn envelope yet, but she already knew what was inside. Her gut told her. Her gut had never been wrong.
"Tch…" Kureha scoffed. "If I'd known that brat Rosinante would make such troublesome requests, I'd have never let myself get hooked on these exotic goods of his… This is a trap, plain and simple."
She ripped the envelope open with a single swipe of her nail, the gold wax seal bearing the Donquixote crest snapping like a brittle memory. As her eyes scanned the contents of the letter, her frown only deepened—though now, it was touched by something else. Not quite annoyance. Not quite sympathy.
Curiosity.
The letter was direct. A short introduction for the four standing before her: Smoker, Rob Lucci, and Donquixote Robin, all three with active bounties on their heads, each exceeding 100 million berries, and on the first half of the Grand Line, that would make them big shots, but Kureha just saw well-tempered brats yet to be truly tested by the sea.
And finally… Trafalgar D. Water Law.
Kureha's eyes lingered on the last name, especially the D part, the cursed clan. She lifted her gaze and, for the first time, studied the boy standing quietly near the back.
He was no taller than her knee, his posture tense yet composed. The way his eyes flicked over his surroundings without moving his head… the subtle calculation behind his stillness. He wasn't afraid of her—not in the usual way. He was prepared. Hardened.
Too hardened for his age. She stepped forward without a word. Law didn't flinch. Her eyes scanned his face, then his hands, then the pallor beneath the surface of his skin. Her expression shifted slightly—just for a heartbeat—as realization struck.
Amber Lead Syndrome.
She raised a brow, muttering almost to herself. "So… you're a survivor of Flevance?" The words dropped like ice. Law stiffened—only slightly—but to Kureha's experienced eye, it was as if she'd stabbed him in the chest. His jaw clenched. Robin took a subtle step forward, as if to shield him, but Kureha waved her off with a glance.
She had seen that pain before. Many times. She had even warned the fools who had caused it.
"The Donquixote family sure knows how to attract interesting ones…" she mused, but there was a hint of respect for the family for harboring a boy even the world rejected.
"Sorry, kid," she said, her voice lowering, a gruffness masking something gentler. "If you've come all this way hoping I've got some miracle cure for Amber Lead… forget it. That knowledge is gone. Erased. The only thing that might save you is the Ope Ope no Mi—and even that's a long shot."
She watched him carefully, expecting tears. Desperation. Maybe even denial. But Law simply nodded once. Stoic. Focused. He had already made peace with the truth.
Kureha let out a slow breath, eyes flicking to the rest of the group. "Let me guess. You're here because Rosinante wants me to train you. You, specifically."
No one answered. They didn't need to. She turned back to Law.
"So… not to cure yourself. But to save someone else."
Law's eyes flickered—not a full expression, but something deep moved behind them. She saw it.
"Sibling perhaps…?" she asked bluntly.
He hesitated, just for a second. Then nodded. Kureha stepped back, shaking her head with a bitter smirk. "Damned fool. Just like him."
Robin blinked. "...Like who?"
"Girl," Kureha said, her voice gravelly and sharp as wind slicing through the snow. She didn't even turn to face Robin—her gaze was locked on Law like a predator gauging a wounded beast. "You think he's the first one from Flevance to come crawling up this mountain, looking for salvation?"
She snorted, spitting into the white snow with disdain.
"There've been others—a few. Brave? Undeniably. But bravery without wisdom is just another shade of stupidity. They came here full of hope, full of desperation, thinking I'd hand them a miracle wrapped in bandages and vials."
Her tone dropped, colder now. Heavier.
"But when I told them the truth… when I showed them what the world had buried—they broke. Every single one of them. Hope turned to tears. Tears turned to screams. Some begged. Others cursed me. None stayed."
She paused.
Then her eyes narrowed, the faintest glimmer of something ancient flickering behind her pupils—not quite sorrow, but memory. A ghost.
"…Except one."
She turned fully now, her hunched frame seeming taller somehow in that moment, as though the mountain itself bowed to her.
"There was a fool like him once before," she muttered, voice almost reverent, "someone who refused to kneel. Who chased a cure across dead nations and cursed islands. Who stared death in the face, not to defy it—but to understand it. He didn't want a miracle. He wanted the truth. Just like this boy here."
Her gaze settled on Law again, harder this time. Measuring. Weighing. Seeing deeper than skin and bone—straight into the broken but unyielding core that was keeping him upright.
"I don't remember the name of that fool anymore," she said, "but I remember his eyes. They burned like yours do now, boy. Like a wildfire that didn't know it was surrounded by ice."
Silence settled, heavy as a blizzard. Then she shifted, coat whipping in the wind.
"I buried that fool's bones myself. But he died with purpose. Let's see if you'll do better."
Kureha turned away from them, her coat flaring in the wind like the banner of an ancient empire long forgotten. Arms folded tightly across her chest, she stared into the white horizon beyond the edge of her mountain, as though peering into a past only she could still remember.
Her voice cut through the wind—low, cold, and razor-sharp.
"Those bastards from the World Government… They came to me a century ago—panicked, desperate. Scientists. Scholars. Nobles. Even royalty. All too proud to admit they couldn't decipher the truth behind Amber Lead. So they came to me." She laughed bitterly. "Me. Hailed as a once-in-a-millennium genius in medicine, I wanted to cure the world, so I helped them uncover the secrets."
She spat into the snow.
"I was young, naive, back then. Believing knowledge alone could change the hearts of men. Thinking if I uncovered the truth, exposed the danger, the sickness… that they'd listen. That they'd stop."
She glanced over her shoulder, eyes smoldering beneath her brow. "But they already knew. Every last one of them. They knew Amber Lead was poison. They knew it rotted flesh and soul alike. But still they wanted it."
Her tone grew darker with each word, the wind now howling around her like an echo of history refusing to die.
"Because it glittered. Because it shimmered in the sun. Because it made their coffers swell and their enemies kneel. They chose beauty over safety. Power over life. Entire nations damned in the name of wealth and status."
She uncrossed her arms and let them fall to her sides, fists clenched.
"I told them what would happen," she hissed. "I warned them. I asked them to stop. But they didn't. They buried the truth under lies and gold, and when the bodies started piling up—children,mothers,villages wiped from the map—they turned their backs and left the blame with the dead."
She turned back fully now, her gaze falling hard on Law.
"That's the world you're trying to fight against, boy. A world that would rather let a child rot in agony than part with a coin."
Her eyes softened for the briefest second—just long enough for the pain behind her fury to show.
"I spent decades to truly understand what this world was all about. And during that time I took more lives than I had saved, the blood that I can't wash off my hands even today…!"
"You think I'm a doctor?" she muttered, voice raw. "I'm a relic of a war you've never heard of. A witness to how far mankind will go to look away from truth if the lie is prettier."
Snow whipped around them in silence. Then, finally, she sighed—tired, ancient, but still unbroken. "…But maybe, just maybe, the world needs a few more fools like you. Who don't run. Who don't forget. Who still think there are things worth fighting for."
Robin's expression faltered. "Wait… you were the one who discovered—?"
"Yes," Kureha snapped. "The World Government buried the research. Branded it 'dangerous misinformation.' But not before they used it. Sold it. Profited from it. And when it all came crashing down, they burned the truth alongside the bodies."
The mountain wind howled around them, lifting snow into dancing wisps. The cold bit deeper.
Kureha turned her gaze back to Law—sharp, piercing.
"I won't lie to you, boy. You're a walking corpse. You'll be lucky to see twenty. But if you're really here to learn, to earn my knowledge and not waste my time with sob stories… I might consider it."
Her eyes narrowed.
"But if you're weak… if you're only here because you want to chase a ghost—leave. Now."
Law didn't blink.
"I'm not weak," he said, voice quiet, but resolute. "And I'm not chasing ghosts. I'm making sure my sister never becomes one."
Silence. Then—Kureha laughed. Not a mocking laugh. Not warm either. But loud. Deep. The laugh of someone who had stared down death and laughed back.
"You've got fire, brat. Good. You'll need it. Because I don't teach fools. And I don't teach cowards. If you survive me, you'll be better than 99% of the world's doctors—and 100% of its butchers."
Law bowed—deep and full, the kind of bow one only gives to a master, a mentor, a figure who commands not just respect, but reverence. It was the first time he had bowed to anyone like this, and he didn't take it lightly.
He hadn't expected Dr. Kureha to accept him so easily—perhaps not at all. But the century-old titan merely chuckled under her breath, a smirk ghosting across her face as if the boy's sincerity had peeled back a layer of the armor she wore so proudly.
Then, as if the moment never happened, she spun on her heel, the wind catching her lab coat like a cape as she faced the remaining three.
"As for the rest of you—" she began, voice sharp as a bone saw, "this isn't a damn children's home."
Robin, Lucci, and Smoker immediately stood straighter than broomsticks.
"The only reason you're even breathing my air is because that little bastard Rosinante's been pestering me for years—and unlike most men, he sends me rare medicinal ingredients instead of flowers and flattery. So I'll allow you boarding—but understand this..."
Her eyes narrowed like scalpels.
"You'll be responsible for every chore in this place. Mine included. And if any of you disturb me during my research—just once—I will personally throw you off this mountain to let the snow wolves fight over your limbs. Is that clear?"
The three nodded stiffly, though Smoker's face had already turned pale. Kureha cracked her knuckles and turned to Lucci, who was deadpan and unreadable as ever.
"You. Shovel the entire yard. Not a flake left in sight. Miss a spot and I'll have you licking it clean with your tongue."
Smoker let out a snort of laughter. Only for Kureha to pivot to him like a hawk. "Oh? Think that's funny, ashtray boy?"
Smoker immediately stiffened. "Uh—no ma'am. Not at all."
"Good. Because you, my little nicotine chimney, are going to fetch me Laphan King meat. I've been craving it for months now. You have until dusk. Spoil meat,meat and I swear I'll feed your lungs to the crows and pickle what's left of your brain."
Her grin was wide. Too wide.
Smoker's jaw dropped. "L-Laphan King?! You mean that snow beast with four tusks and an ice breath that freezes steel?! How am I supposed to—"
But she was already ignoring him, turning back to Law and marking a few boxes on the manifest.
"These crates here—" she said, her tone immediately calm and professional, "need to be processed and moved to my lab. Handle them with care. Your family clearly went to ridiculous lengths to acquire these, and I won't have a single herb spoiled under your clumsy fingers."
Law nodded with grim focus, already dropping his bag and heading toward the shed with quiet resolve. Robin, meanwhile, stepped forward with curiosity sparkling in her eyes. "What about me, Lady Kureha? What will I be doing?"
Kureha glanced at her with an amused hum. "You? Oh no, dear. Let the boys break their backs for once. Come, let's have some afternoon tea."
Robin blinked. "...Eh?"
"In the letter, Rosinante said you're a sharp one—book-smart, keen-eyed, and polite. And in all the years I've known that brat, not once has he exaggerated. I assume you have questions. I have tea. Let's go talk like civilized women."
Before Robin could respond, Kureha had already looped an arm through hers and dragged her inside, muttering something about the medicinal benefits of cinnamon while chuckling to herself.
The door slammed shut, leaving behind two very dumbfounded boys and a rising blizzard.
Lucci, silent as always, wordlessly grabbed a shovel and began carving lines in the knee-deep snow, not so much as grunting. Smoker stood there like a man who had just realized he'd enlisted in the wrong army.
"I should've stayed in Dressrosa," he muttered, lighting a cigar with a steady hand. "Or gone with Gladius. Hell, even Issho-san wouldn't make me do this kind of crap."
He turned, scanning the snowy wilderness, a desperate puff of smoke escaping his lips as the realization settled in.
"Where the hell do I even find a Laphan King?!"
The wind didn't answer. Only the mocking caw of a snowbird echoed in the distance. He sighed and activated his Observation Haki, the telltale shimmer in his eyes lighting up as he started walking toward the forest.
"If I die today because of that old hag," he muttered, "someone better bury me with a damn steak."
****
Little Reiju sat opposite her mother, Vinsmoke Sora, inside the warm confines of the Revolutionary Army's underground base. Their reunion had been tearful—painfully so. Even the ever-busy Livia, commander of her own division, had set aside her duties to witness this long-awaited moment: a mother reunited with the daughter she once believed dead.
For now, the world outside—its wars, revolutions, and vendettas—had paused. All that remained was this fragile moment between blood, memory, and regret.
Sora bustled around the small kitchen space with the frantic energy of a mother trying to make up for time lost. "Here, have some more," she said, piling another helping onto Reiju's plate without waiting for a reply. Her voice trembled slightly, betraying the emotions she tried to suppress.
"Haven't you been eating properly...? What kind of meals have they been giving you—those pirates?"
She turned to fetch another dish, cheeks flushed and hands moving fast, as though keeping busy would stop the ache in her chest.
Reiju smiled faintly, eyes following her mother's movements. She shook her head gently—not in denial, but in silent understanding. If anyone who had ever stepped foot into the Donquixote family's inner palace had heard Sora's worried complaints, they would have burst into laughter or tears. After all, those within Doflamingo's elite ate like royalty—every meal a feast, every bite seasoned with wealth and power.
But Reiju said nothing. Because she understood—this was her mother's way of coping. Cooking, feeding her, doting on her—these were all expressions of guilt disguised as affection, love steeped in pain. For in the shadows of their reunion lingered the haunting truth: Sora had once left her daughter behind, marooned on a dying island, believing her already lost to the abyss.
It hadn't been Sora's fault. She had been powerless, unconcious, broken. But guilt had its own rules—it didn't care for reason.
Sometimes, in the quiet moments, Sora imagined what could've happened to her daughter if the Donquixote family hadn't found her. That thought alone could stop her heart cold. Livia, seated on a nearby stool, watched the exchange in silence—until curiosity got the better of her.
"So, Reiju..." she began gently, "how did the Donquixote family take it? Letting you go, I mean."
Her voice was light, but her words carried weight. Everyone knew: the Donquixote family didn't lose members. They didn't let go. Once you were in, you were bound by a bond thicker than blood.
Reiju didn't answer.
Sora's back stiffened, her hands faltering for just a second as she garnished a plate. The silence stretched, heavy and telling.
Livia's brow furrowed. The lack of answer told her everything she needed to know. Her eyes flicked toward Sora, who resumed prepping the next dish with slow, deliberate motions, as though she hadn't just heard the worst.
"So… you're planning to leave again?" Livia asked softly, the hurt just barely creeping into her tone. "Leaving your family behind... to go back to that pirate crew?"
She didn't say it with hatred—there was no venom in her voice. Livia respected the Donquixote family in her own way. But hearing Reiju call them home, over the mother who raised her, still stung like salt in an open wound.
Reiju finally looked up. Her voice was quiet, but resolute. "They're not just a pirate crew, Livia-san... They're my family, too."
The words echoed like thunder through the quiet room. Sora didn't flinch. She didn't turn. She simply continued plating the food.
But her shoulders shook—barely, subtly. Silent tears spilled from her eyes, trailing down her cheeks unnoticed and unacknowledged, soaking into the apron she wore like the grief she tried so hard to bury.
Livia saw it. Her chest tightened.
"Sora..." she said gently.
But Sora waved her off without looking back. "Let's not talk about this during lunch," she said, voice soft but strained. "You've barely touched your plate."
She walked over and placed a perfectly fried fish onto Livia's dish—hands steady now, like a mother performing a duty she'd practiced countless times. But Livia knew the truth. Her friend—her strong, defiant, loving friend—was breaking inside.
Sora didn't speak of the guilt she carried. She didn't say the words out loud: I left my daughter behind. She survived without me. And now she belongs to someone else.
She didn't say it. She didn't need to. Because Reiju's silence had already said everything. And still—despite the ache clawing at her heart, despite knowing that her daughter had found love, loyalty, and home elsewhere—Sora said nothing. She didn't confront her. She didn't plead.
Because she had no right to. She was simply grateful Reiju still remembered her and called her mother at all.