Darling Typhoon [One Piece Law x Luffy]

13. How to Hunt A Straw Man

"I thought you'd be good at this, but it seems you really are a child."

Doflamingo's voice was velvety, smooth, yet cold at the same time. It was unusual for the vibrato in someone's voice to make it so clear of their intentions towards you—but it had only taken Law a few months since the adoption to understand its lethal subtext.

Everyone Donquixote Doflamingo laid his celestial eyes upon was inferior—nothing more than a tool.

In Law's case, he was merely an increasingly disappointing one.

"Was all that practice for nothing?" A rustling of clothes, perhaps changing his posture. Law wouldn't know—he refused to look at him. "Hmm, Law?"

Law hated when he called his name. At the reminder of the grueling 2 hour sessions Doflamingo ordered each day, the child grit his teeth.

Everyday was spent in biology lessons, anatomy lessons, chemistry, holed up in a make-shift basement lab doing dissections. Then, after getting to see Lammy for a few minutes, he was taken to practice suturing in Doflamingo's drawing room.

The head of the Donquixoted Family would sit across from him, and despite his busy schedule cluttered with illegal, clandestine affairs, two hours were set aside each day to watch his newest protogé fiddle with strings and a suture kit, or do some other morbid surgery practice.

To date, it had been 2 months since this careful preparation began.

After leaving the nursery where Lammy spent most of her days on an IV drip, Law was prepared to endure Doflamingo's bored stare as he played a game of chess.

But today was different.

After 60 days, Doflamingo wanted to see the fruits of his investment.

Guards escorted Law from the drawing room, and instead threw him into the study—a dark, fully-panelled rosewood room.

The furniture was all worth millions, yet Doffy had no issue slashing his right-hand man's arm with the shattered edge of a decanter. Blood dripped all over the carpet, staining the floor red.

"Fix him."

Doffy said the words the same way you'd say, "Close the door," or "Turn off the light."

Tools.

Suddenly, a bodyguard kicked Law's knees, forcing him to the floor.

Thud.

What landed before him was a familiar suture kit.

Now, as his fingers trembled, one hand held the forceps and the other held the needle driver.

Vergo was an emotionless mannequin, blood weeping from his bicep as he sat in an expensive leather armchair. Doflamingo seemed to be aware of this.

"The leather is expensive," came Doffy's oppressive voice. "I'll have to take out the compensation for this elsewhere."

Law grit his teeth.

"You're crazy! I've never done this on someone alive before!" Used to dead animals, frogs, and the fake wounds from the suture kit—Law was unused to poking human flesh.

More importantly, there really was a problem with this man's logic.

Law wasn't the one who sliced open their supposed second in command just for the sake of seeing if a 10-year old could suture the wound! Yet he complained of blood staining his furniture. Law didn't even like Vergo. For all he cared he could bleed out!