章 443: A Bear And A Girl
Mary Geoise felt odd to Cherry ever since she had arrived. She hadn't felt it from the sea below the few times she had visited Sabaody Archipelago, but now that she was inside the city itself it was ever present.
It was a feeling adjacent to disgust, for lack of a better word. A faint, indescribable pressure or presence that made her want to leave and get some "fresh air".
There was a very clear origin of this feeling, which she found upon first using Life Sense. The very instant that she focused on Pangaea Castle she was overwhelmed with that metaphysical nausea, like she desperately needed to vomit from a stomach she didn't actually possess.
All she got was several pings from devil fruits or their users and nothing else. She could force herself to focus through the feeling if she tried again, but would you willingly stick your head into a bucket of rotting meat, feces, and bile?
As horrifically nasty as the experience was, there was a small bright side to it. It was something entirely new to her. She had never once encountered something like this in the myriad realms of her past life, and that was somewhat interesting.
'I'm still not going in there,' Cherry thought, suppressing a shudder.
Whatever it was, it wasn't her problem as far as she was concerned. She didn't come here to lop off the heads of the world government's proverbial hydra.
"You sure you don't want to come to the Revolutionaries full time?" Lindbergh asked, looking over the detailed map of Mary Geoise that Cherry drew for them. "If we had known you were such a capable spy, we would have made better use of your talents when you were with us…"
"Stop it, Lindbergh," Sabo scolded, though he seemed to have had the same thought. "Dragon told us not to poach Luffy's crew."
"I understand your caution, Ms. Harpin, but is there a reason you left the location of Pangaea Castle completely blank?" Kurasu asked, pointing at the big white space on what was otherwise a beautiful map of the world's best example of a hive of scum and villainy.
"It's icky, I'm not going in there. You lot shouldn't either," Cherry said simply.
"Ew, if Cherry-chan doesn't want to go then I don't either!" Morley concurred.
Sabo, Kurasu, and Lindbergh got the feeling that Cherry wasn't just being pointlessly childish and that there was meaning behind her words. They made a mental note to be careful if they should have to enter the castle, but they wouldn't shy away if it came down to it.
"Well, I've got to get going now. Make sure that Shirahoshi, Vivi, and Rebecca stay safe for me, will ya? Great. I might see you in a few days if you haven't already blown this joint, so see ya later," Cherry stood.
After saying her goodbyes and sharing some sweets she nabbed from Totto Land with Morley, Cherry touched Sabo's den den mushi and disappeared in a wisp of white flames.
"Did that just happen?" Lindbergh asked.
…
Cherry didn't leave Mary Geoise just yet. Instead, she popped out of a den den mushi held by a particular pink haired girl.
The girl in question was peeking around a corner, quietly watching one of the celestial dragons' manors. Outside of the manor, Bartholomew Kuma sat eerily still as he awaited new orders.
"Hey, watch'a up to?" Cherry asked.
Jewelry Bonney nearly jumped out of her skin in fright. To her credit though, she recovered immediately, whipping around and planting a dagger in Cherry's chest up to the hilt.
Cherry glanced down at the dagger in her chest, then back at Bonney with an unimpressed look. "You'll have to do better than that, kid."
"What…?" Bonney's immediate reaction was regret for killing someone who wasn't the enemy she had expected, then it morphed into confusion that the attack achieved a whole lot of nothing. The whiplash of it all left her a bit dazed.
"What are you doing in a dangerous place like this, kid?" Cherry repeated her initial question, not bothering to remove the blade stuck in her heart.
"I'm not a kid!" Bonney snapped out of her befuddlement and sneered. "And that's my business, not yours!"
"You aren't fooling me, kid, I wasn't born yesterday. And it is my business if I decide to poke my big nose into it, so fess up before I decide to be a responsible adult," Cherry insisted.
Bonney looked like she wasn't sure whether to run away or put her foot down and be stubborn, but she definitely wasn't planning on being honest from what Cherry could tell. However, after she gave a half second glance at Kuma, she didn't have to for Cherry to get a rough idea.
"You know Kuma? Did he save your life or something?" Cherry asked, causing Bonney to flinch.
"S-something like that…" Bonney admitted, still looking for a way out of this conversation that didn't expose her presence to the manor's guards or any CP0 who happened to be nearby.
"In that case, you can leave. Some folks who've snuck inside like you are planning to jail break him as we speak, and they stand a better chance at succeeding than one brat who's in over her head," Cherry said.
"Why should I believe you?!" Bonney hissed, looking over her shoulder to make sure they hadn't drawn any attention.
"Kuma saved my crew from an admiral, so I owe him at least that much," Cherry said simply.
Bonney studied Cherry's face, searching for some hidden sign of truth.
"I'm not leaving until I see it with my own eyes," Bonney finally said.
"Hmmm, good enough I suppose," Cherry unceremoniously yanks several hairs from Bonney's head, making her clamp a hand over her mouth to stifle a yelp. Cherry answered the unspoken question in Bonney's angry eyes. "Just in case you get captured. I'm not risking a kid being left in the hands of those wretches without some assurances."
Cherry plucked the dagger from her chest and slid it into Bonney's boot sheath. A few drops of blood failed to reach the ground before they turned to ash. "Hope to see you around, kid. Just not around here."
Then Cherry was gone.
Bonney cast another glance towards Kuma, expression shifting from annoyance to concern. She couldn't deny that she was ill equipped to stage a rescue attempt all by herself in the heart of Mary Geoise. So she would watch and wait for now, after resuming her guise as the queen dowager of the Sorbet Kingdom.
…
Cherry popped out of the den den mushi that Luffy was shouting at onto the deck of the Thousand Sunny.
Dead ahead, pillars of stone rose up out of the sea, the waters of which churned and swirled endlessly, creating a large amount of foam over the surface.
"Are we close now?" Cherry asked, looking around at the others and a strange octopus with a rope tied around its head.
"We are, but we haven't been able to contact Kin'emon. He was supposed to advise us on our way in…" Name sighed.
"My chocolate cupcakes are done, come and get them!" Pudding almost skipped out of the kitchen. Her face twisted into a scowl upon seeing Cherry. "Ah, you fucking bitch! Why did you come back so soon?! Now I'm one cupcake short!"
Cherry vanished and so did one of the cupcakes on one of Pudding's trays. "First come, first served!"
Pandemonium erupted on the deck.
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