บท 409: Fleeing the Fleet
Cherry stood at the very top of the Thousand Sunny's main mast, right above their Jolly Roger waving in the wind.
The encirclement by Big Mom's fleet enclosed around them at a steady pace, and soon the closest ships would be within cannon range.
They were already well within Cherry's sword range, however.
With a spin and a flourish, Cherry carved a 360 degree arc in the air with Sakura Tengoku. The circle expanded outwards at the speed of lightning, clipping off the top halves of every mast it came in contact with, crippling most of the fleet's ability to sail.
Only a scant few ships had someone aboard with enough strength and the speed to block the sudden attack. Those were naturally the personal ships belonging to Big Mom's children, like Charlotte Daifuku, which were also the finest of the bunch.
Cherry dropped down to the deck between two piles of cannonballs taller than she was. She cracked her neck performatively, then picked one ball up in each hand.
"This is where the fun begins!" Cherry hooted.
Cherry's arms blurred into motion and the piles of cannonballs began to decrease in size.
Daifuku stood aboard his personal vessel with a scowl on his face. He had been under the impression that Cherry would be tied up fighting his mother, or even just dead by his mother's hand; not on the Straw Hat's ship that he was pursuing. He wouldn't have been so confident with just a fleet of Tarte ships if he'd known about this.
"Why didn't they inform me that she escaped Mama?" Daikfuku growled in frustration.
He had only barely moved his genie in time to receive that sword strike from the woman. If he'd known she was aboard the enemy ship beforehand, he could have anticipated it more easily. He was just lucky that he kept his guard up.
He didn't know that the Whole Cake Chateau was leveled to the ground, along with the communication center inside.
"We're being fired upon!" cried a voice from the crow's nest.
"Impossible! Nobody has better cannon range than the Big Mom Pir-!" Daifuku exclaimed in disbelief.
He could not continue to disbelieve as the wood of his ship was splintered along long streaks as cast iron balls ripped through at several times the speed as normal cannon fire.
"We're taking on water!" Many more shouts from his crew rang out in a similar vein as they hurried into motion in an attempt to save the ship from sinking.
Daifuku was oddly calm amidst the chaos. His eyes wandered to the ship of his younger brothers and he watched it get torn to shreds by cannon fire he could barely track with his eyes. He saw how most of the damage was focused on the lower decks and made a quick decision.
He rubbed his belly, making his genie appear. His crew watched with hope in their eyes, anticipating whatever plan he had to save the ship.
Then he had the genie place him on one of the neighboring Tarte ships; notably, one that wasn't sinking.
While Daikfuku's original crew was sinking into the depths of despair and also literally sinking into the depths, he ordered his new crew, "Hurry up and get that mast repaired! They don't have unlimited ammunition! I want that stupid lion ship sunk!"
The crew of the Tarte ship redoubled their efforts, inspired by the confidence that one of their governors clearly had that they would succeed!
Back on the Sunny, Cherry cackled as she ran out of cannonballs. If she'd been a bit more careful with them she might have been able to sink a ship with two or three shots a piece, but it was way more satisfying to riddle a ship with dozens of holes instead. She had focused on the ships belonging to the Charlotte children, anyways, as they were the biggest concern.
"Use a Coup de Burst. They'll struggle to reorientate themselves now and fall behind," Cherry suggested.
That was certainly true. They had to repair their masts before following in addition to turning themselves around with a bunch of other ships getting in the way to boot.
The crew scrambled, having already set up the ship's mechanisms for the boost. With a short warbling sound, the ship blasted off into the distance and over the encircling fleet of Tarte ships.
Cherry could have sworn she heard someone cursing below them as they flew overhead, making her chuckle.
"Great! Now we can use Zeus to escape!" Nami celebrated.
"Perhaps it would be wiser not to move too quickly," Jinbe suggested.
"What?! How could it be a good idea to go slower?!" Chopper didn't understand.
"Sanji must have time to finish baking the new wedding cake. If we arrive too early, we'll be bringing that whole fleet down on top of his head," Jinbe spoke reasonably. "We're also being tracked, as Cherry previously stated. Keeping the enemy in our sight is not the worst idea either."
"If they know where we're heading, won't they have ships waiting for us there? Sanji may already be in trouble!" Nami argued.
"I do not think so," Pedro chipped in. "It is far more likely for Big Mom's crew to come at us directly, rather than allow us to reach our destination. I have little doubt that as that fleet follows from behind, a new one shall appear from the front before we reach Cacao Island."
"Just how many ships does Big Mom have?" Chopper asked, feeling an odd mixture of fear and aggravation.
"Upwards of a thousand, last I heard. Though that was some years ago, so it's likely more now," Pedro said. Then seeing the dazed look on Choppers face he added, "We aren't going to see them all. They do need to keep many of them on patrol around the territory."
"Not that the numbers really matter, in the end," Cherry said, cleaning her nails.
They kept an even pace and eventually the fleet behind them did settle into pursuit. Nami convinced Zeus to produce just enough wind to keep them out of reach from the fleet behind them, but not outrun them.
A couple of hours of this and the nervous tension on the Sunny had significantly reduced almost to the point of boredom.
"Hey," Carrot spoke up in the quiet.
"What's up, Carrot?" Nami asked.
"Isn't it a bit too soon for the sun to be coming up?" Carrot tilted her head cutely.
A faint glow could be seen on the horizon, much like the earliest light coming from the sun that had yet to rise into view.
"The full moon is almost right above us," Pedro said. "The angle is all wrong for it to be the sun…"
Everyone looked at the slowly growing light in the distance with building trepidation.
Nami's mind raced for a possible weather phenomenon that could cause it. Perhaps some kind of freak light refraction? A massive underwater volcanic eruption? She even considered a forest fire despite the impossibility of such a thing on open water.
Anything was better than the truth.
"Mama's coming…" Zeus whispered quietly, though he might as well have been shouting given how quiet the world had seemed to be in that moment.
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