Can I Steal Your Heart? - A LawLu fanfic

(Law) Chapter 68 - Pressure

He found himself thrown across the cave so fast he didn't even recognize the rumbling until he managed to look up just in time to see the ceiling fall.

"LUFFY!"

Ignoring the pounding in his head from where it'd hit the cave wall when he was thrown and the itch in his throat from the dust that settled too slowly around him, Law dove to the huge pile of rubble that now rested right where his beloved had stood. His hands started digging furiously, pulling as many rocks off the pile as he could.

"To-rao..." a faint voice filtered through the rock, followed by a weak cough. " 'm okay... Rubber, remember? It just... knocked the breath out of me...."

As good as it was to hear him talking, it wasn't enough. Law couldn't be sure that he'd be getting more air under there, so he still needed to unbury him. Plus, even if he was rubber, concussions and injured organs were still possible. "I'm coming, Luffy. Hang on. Can you move enough to help?"

There was a moment of the pile trembling a little, but it soon stopped. "No," came Luffy's voice. "It's... kinda hard to breathe right now, much less move well."

Law tried to create a Room big enough to move everything, but the cave-in must have pulled down a lot of the rock layer above them in addition to the ceiling. There was too much to move and not enough room to move it to. But he could feel that his Room included Luffy, so he tried to scan him. One of the biggest chunks of rock had landed right on the younger's diaphragm, with a jagged piece breaking the skin. It wasn't a deep cut, and had missed the lungs and other nearby organs. Law wouldn't have been worried about it at all if Luffy could breathe better. But more worrying was the ground beneath Luffy. Law's scan could feel the fissures forming from the weight of the rocks on it, and there seemed to be another space below. Could Luffy survive the fall if it broke? Law didn't want to know. He started digging again, desperately trying to get the rock pile off of Luffy.

"Lovely, I know it's hard, but I need you to keep trying to talk to me. And if you can wiggle any part of your body, even a finger, do that, too. See if you can widen a gap, create a bigger hole for you to get air through, okay?"

"... I'll try. It's... a lot of pressure."

Pressure. If he could pressurize the rocks, could he condense them? He'd used pressure in his Rooms in smaller applications before, usually to keep a heart beating or lungs moving, but never at the scale he'd need for this to work. But he had to try. It might be the only way to get Luffy free quickly enough without either blocking the exit or exhausting himself by trying to move them all outside the cave. He opened a Room, lifting a chunk of rocks off the pile right as a rubber finger poked its way out.

"I think I got something, Torao..."

Law grabbed that finger with his free hand, bringing it to his lips. "I see it. Keep trying, Luffy. Keep trying." He let the finger go, focusing on creating more and more heat and pressure in his Room until it shrunk by almost a third. Then a little more, and the small pile of rocks was getting smaller and red-hot. But he didn't stop, he kept applying more and more pressure, feeling the sweat drip down his brow and his back. Finally, what had been probably three or four cubic feet of rock was less than one and spherical, and he let it go.

"It's getting so hot in here. Is something wrong with me?"

"No. I'm... trying something new. To try to get you free." He didn't have the bandwidth right now to explain. "Don't worry about it unless it hurts you, okay?"

He had to repeat the process ten times before he finally saw skin and a dusty red jacket. Letting the Room fade, he dug with his hands until he could see Luffy's face, too.