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87.1% One Piece: Dream of Immortality / Chapter 446: A Succulent Meal

Chapter 446: A Succulent Meal

The baboon and the lion-dog-thing carried the group of three to a humble home nestled in the trunk of a large tree. The tree was decorated with a thick rope tied above the entrance of the home, with paper talismans hanging off of it as well as an assortment of large bells.

Overall, it appeared more like a shrine of some sort instead of a house that people lived in. If Tama hadn't talked their ears off about becoming a 'bewitching kunoichi' then Cherry might have assumed that she was a priestess in training.

"Come on inside! Make yourselves at home while I cook the rice!" Tama said as she rushed through the front door of the abode.

Luffy plopped himself down on the floor in the small foyer and looked around curiously whilst Cherry followed Tama into one of the other rooms towards the back of the house.

"This is the kitchen? It's pretty cute," Cherry commented, looking at the various cookware. Some of the things here reminded her of home, back at the dojo.

"Ah, you should go relax! I'll be finished soon, I promise!" Tama insisted, fruitlessly attempting to push Cherry back the way she came.

"You said that I could make myself at home," Cherry stated.

"Yes?" Tama didn't know what she meant.

"So, I'll help you make the meal. Just like when I'm at home," Cherry said.

"No! I-I mean… rice is easy, so there is nothing to… help with…" Tama's voice trailed off and her eyes went as wide as saucers.

Cherry had discretely pulled several whole chickens, a twenty kilo bag of rice, and a host of fresh fruit and vegetables from seemingly nowhere. "Let's get started quickly. Luffy might wander off if he doesn't smell the food cooking soon."

"T-there's no way I can accept this! These must have cost you a fortune!" Tama rejected vehemently, despite the drool pooling in her mouth.

"At home, nobody goes hungry. Unless you're taking back your words?" Cherry leveled a glare at Tama that would put even the sternest of mother's to shame.

Tama gulped. "N-no…?"

Cherry smiled sweetly and chirped, "Good~!"

Cherry purposefully neglected to mention that this amount of food wouldn't fully satisfy Luffy's monstrous appetite, even if he ate it all by himself. Otherwise, Tama might try to turn it down again.

Chery wouldn't claim to be a master chef like Sanji, but her mastery with fire combined with the unique advantages provided to her by her fusion fruit, she was able to whip up quite the feast.

Thanks to an unnatural degree of control over heat distribution, it was all finished cooking in record time as well.

In Tama's eyes, Cherry might as well have been performing a magic show just for her; and in a certain manner of speaking, that's exactly what she had done.

"Is it done yet?!" Luffy called out impatiently.

"Yes, Luffy. Give us a minute," Cherry called back.

That snapped Tama out of her trance and she immediately panicked. "The rice?!"

"Relax, I was keeping an eye on it," Cherry assured her whilst wondering whether using awakening to cook was a bit too extravagant.

Tama was blushing furiously now. She had promised to cook for the two of them as repayment for saving her, but in the end she had gotten distracted watching Cherry do all the work.

Cherry snickered at her predicament. "You can afford to be a little selfish, kid. Take the chance while you can get it."

"I won't eat a single bite…" Tama murmured, head pointed at her feet as she trudged back to the foyer ladened with trays of food that looked and smelled more delicious than she ever imagined food could.

"Did you hear that Luffy?" Cherry asked quite loudly as the two of them stepped into the room he was in.

"What?" Luffy asked.

"Tama says she isn't going to eat a single bite," Cherry relayed. "And after all the hard work I put into cooking it, too!"

"Eh?!" Tama yelped.

Cherry could almost see the gears turning in Luffy's head as it slowly tilted beyond the point that someone not made of rubber could manage.

Suddenly his head snapped back upright and he asked, "Did she poison it?"

Cherry burst out laughing and Tama started waving her hands about in distress, insisting that she would never ever ever ever ever do such a thing!

"You said you're going to be a kunoichi, though," Luffy said.

Tama froze in place, too shocked by the logical leap between her refusing to eat and kunoichi's reputation for killing people with underhanded means.

Cherry started laughing even harder; she hadn't even considered that line of thought. Luffy could really surprise you with that pea brain of his sometimes. When she finally got control over herself she said, "Alright, let's eat before it gets cold. That means you too, Tama-chan."

Tama seemed to calm down as she slowly realized that neither Cherry nor Luffy were angry at her, so they probably weren't seriously accusing her of attempted murder.

"I can't eat the food meant for my saviors…" Tama was still being stubborn, then her stomach growled. "B-but I suppose I can taste it… just to prove it isn't poisoned…"

Cherry smirked victoriously as she set the food she was holding down.

Luffy started to dig into the chicken immediately, which was why Cherry chose them. Luffy had to slow down a bit to get all the meat off the tiny bones, leaving more time for others to have their own.

Cherry heaped healthy portions onto Tama's plate, ignoring her feeble protests that she would only have a little nibble of each. When Tama gave up arguing, she used her spoon to take the smallest bit of broth from the vegetable soup that could manage and sipped it.

Tama blinked and belatedly realized that she drank the entire contents of the bowl unconsciously. While the soup itself wasn't fine dining, it was easily the tastiest dish she had ever eaten by far.

"No, I didn't mean to-!" Tama started.

Tama's words were cut off when Cherry shoved a piece of roasted, herb-infused chicken into her mouth. Her face twisted in delight as she savored the bite, before starting to devour all the meat on her plate, even gnawing on the bones. She said nothing when Cherry placed another portion in front of her, simply continuing without thought.

*BLAM*

"Who goes there?!" An old man kicked the front door in with his absurdly tall wooden sandals, brandishing a rather nice sword.

What he found in his home were not the intruders that he anticipated, however. He saw his little student, Tama, with the biggest smile he had ever seen her wearing and tears of joy streaking down her face as she ate a meal whose quality was higher than anything he had seen for a long while.

Tama quickly broke out of her food induced ecstasy upon seeing him, though. "Ah?! Master!"

She glanced around worriedly, unsure if she should be ashamed of her actions or not. When the thought occurred to her that she was enjoying this wonderful meal without sharing any with her master, she quickly bounded over to him and kowtowed. "Forgive me, master!"

The old man felt a shiver down his spine as he caught the eye of the mysterious woman. She was judging him, he could tell; and if he was found wanting, he got the impression that he might just lose his head.


next chapter

Chapter 447: Tenguyama Hitetsu

The old man, in addition to his sword, overly-tall sandals, and yukata, was wearing a big pair of fake wings and a red mask that had a nose almost as impressive as Usopp's. His white hair was long and pulled towards the back in a free flowing style. Cherry got the impression that he was a man of importance, judging by the way he held himself.

"Have a seat, old man. There's plenty to go around," Cherry said. The old man was skin and bones, so it was clear that he wasn't starving Tama while stuffing his own face, at least.

The old man, who calls himself Hitetsu these days, watched the woman play keep-away with a roasted chicken on a tray. The stretchy man was rather desperate to obtain it, but her movements were too erratic for him to catch it.

"I am not hungry," Hitetsu declared.

*GROWL*

"I am not hungry," Hitetsu reiterated, ignoring his traitorous stomach. "Tama should have her fill, first."

"I've had plenty, master! In fact, I'm more full of food than I've ever been in my life! So please, eat…" Tama said, looking like she was about to start crying if he refused again.

*GROOOOOWL*

Hitetsu clenched his teeth. His apprentice's puppy dog eyes and his wailing stomach made it increasingly impossible to remain stubborn. He did not deserve to eat so well, but… perhaps, a reminder of the delicacies he once enjoyed would make a suitable punishment?

"No," Hitetsu spoke with a firm resolve, sheathing his sword. "There are many in this land who are starving death at this very moment. I will not stuff myself whilst my countrymen suffer."

His stomach began to protest once again, but he sent a deadly glare at it and shut it up.

Cherry accepted the old man's rejection and let Luffy have the chicken, which was picked apart in about a minute flat. She felt that he had his own reasons and wasn't being stubborn just for the sake of being stubborn.

Unfortunately, it did seem that Tama was going to follow his example, even as she gazed longingly at the basket full of fruit that she hadn't touched yet.

"Have some fruit, Tama. Don't you want to grow up to be a big, strong kunoichi?" Cherry tempted, tossing a vibrant red apple up and down before crunching down on it with her teeth to showcase how crisp and juicy they were.

Tama shook her head. "I don't want to be big and strong! I want to be lithe and beautiful!"

"My bad. Eat some anyways," Cherry insisted, dangling another apple by the stem before her face.

Tama turned her face away obstinately.

"Well, if we're done with the meal then I guess I'll go have a bath in the river," Cherry said.

"You can't! The river is poisonous!" Tama waved her arms about in a panic. Hitetsu opened his mouth to concur with his apprentice, but paused as Cherry glanced at him meaningfully.

"Why should I believe a disobedient brat like you? You just don't want to share," Cherry said. It was exceedingly obvious what she was doing, but Tama was young and too worked up to notice.

"What?! But- but…!" Tama stammered.

Cherry stood up and started walking in the direction of the river. Even without enhanced senses, one could hear its rushing nearby. Tama moved to stop her, but Cherry just kept on walking like she wasn't pushing against her with all her strength.

"I- I'll eat some fruit okay?! Just don't go into the river!" Tama shouted.

"Alright," Cherry said, stuffing the apple in her hand into Tama's hands.

Tama felt like she had just been played. Of course, that was because she had.

*crunch* "So sweeeeet~!" Tama squealed in joy.

Hitetsu smiled. Cherry wondered what the red mask was made of with the way it morphed and stretched around his mouth.

"Why do you live next to a poisoned river?" Luffy asked, having finished off all the food he could get his grubby rubber hands on.

"It was not always poisoned," Hitetsu frowned at the dour change of subject. "There used to be a whole village here called Amigasa, the village of woven hats. The last of us were driven out or killed by one of Kaido's new subordinates by the name of Drake, in spite of the five samurai who fought to protect them."

"Why?" Cherry asked with a frown. "He already rules the country. What could he possibly gain from doing this?"

Cherry hadn't had the impression that Kaido was a mindless destroyer. She reckoned that he was, at worst, like Big Mom in his attitude. Perhaps she would need to reevaluate that assumption. At least Big Mom only destroyed settlements because she wanted something from them.

"They hid themselves away, which was as good as rejecting the rule of Shogun Orochi, as far as that wretched man is concerned. It even worked for a time. This was a small village, even before the famine took many of their lives, so they were easily forgotten. Alas, they were forced to leave their relative safety in search of food, which brought the Beasts' attention and wrath down upon them," Hitetsu said.

"Why are you still here, then?" Luffy asked bluntly.

"To wait for Ace to come back!" Tama blurted out.

"Ace?" Luffy suddenly had a big, goofy smile on his face. "So, you met my brother, huh?"

"Ace is your brother?!" Tama gasped in shock. "If you're here, does that mean he's coming here soon, too?!"

"No clue!" Luffy laughed as Tama wilted in dejection.

Cherry snatched the hat off Luffy's head, much to her captain's annoyance, and focused on Ace's vivre card that was sewn into the infamous straw hat's band.

"Huh, he's not that far away actually. It'll be a while before he gets to Wano though, if this is where he's headed," Cherry said.

"Really?!" Tama's smile was as bright as the sun, as was Luffy's.

Hitetsu looked a bit skeptical. "I have seen those papers before, but I was not aware they could be used to gauge distance as well as direction to a person."

"For most people, that's true," Cherry said. "I'm not most people."

Hitetsu wasn't sure whether to trust Cherry's word or not, but he couldn't think of a reason she would lie about it. Pointless cruelty was doubtful, given they had let Tama eat her fill from their own food supplies, much in the same way that Ace and his crew had shared their own when they had come to Amigasa.

Perhaps he could afford to trust these two, then. Besides, he didn't have the heart to poison Tama's hope with his own doubts.

"Right! Where's the closest place we can get food and water?" Luffy slapped his thighs and stood up.

"That'd be Okobore, the town of leftovers. However, you would need to cross the wasteland to get there, and it is a dangerous place if you don't know which way to go," Hitetsu said. "Unfortunately, I have my own circumstances because of which I cannot guide you myself."

"I'll guide them, master!" Tama shot her hand up like an eager student in a classroom.

Hitetsu looked unsure, but ultimately nodded. "Be sure to keep to the safe route, Tama. Don't stray too far from it, if you must at all."

Tama nodded seriously, neglecting to mention that she had gotten captured while returning home along that "safe" route. Surely nothing bad would happen a second time, though?


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