Cherry had been keeping her Life Sense active ever since they had dived below the surface. This was mainly to keep an eye out for sea kings that Takako may have trouble dealing with.
However, something else entered the periphery of her Life Sense's range. It was a smaller sea king followed closely behind by a number of humans. Likely the sea king was pulling a ship along, which incidentally meant they were gaining on the Thousand Sunny at a steady pace.
Most importantly, Cherry recognized one of the human's devil fruit as one of the other pirates that was present at the fake Straw Hats' gathering.
'Does he want revenge? No, why would he want revenge? I made him so sparkly, after all.' Cherry thought.
Cherry sent a command to Takako to take some distance with the Sunny so that she wouldn't be seen when the other ship was in visual range. Wouldn't want to scare them off before they had a chance to make their intentions known, would we?
Cherry returned her attention to the others where Franky had finished explaining why Hachi hadn't been there to guide them to Fishman Island as he had promised and that Bartholomew Kuma had actually saved them and helped to protect the Thousand Sunny during the last two years.
"Eh? Where's the octopus going?" Luffy noticed.
"She must have found something tasty to eat. She'll be back soon enough, she won't go far." Cherry lied.
Nami squinted her eyes in suspicion, so Cherry decided to shift the topic.
"Usopp, come over here." Cherry commanded, pulling a barrel over.
"Huh? What for?" Usopp asked, both curious and a little anxious.
"I'm going to see how diligent you've been with your exercise. Don't think I'll let you off the hook just because you lost all that weight." Cherry said, placing her arm in the position for an arm wrestling match.
"There's no way I can beat you, though…" Usopp lamented.
"Oh, I want in on this." Zoro said.
"If Mosshead is playing then so am I! Also I get to hold Cherry's hand, huhuhuhu…" Sanji said.
Thus began an arm wrestling tournament amongst the brawnier crew members.
"Aside from the normal rules, you also can't break the barrel. If you break the barrel, you get to do all the ship's cleaning for a month." Cherry added.
Cherry let Usopp push against her hand with all his might for half a minute before she was satisfied with his progress and ended his suffering instantly.
"I knew I couldn't win…" Usopp complained.
"How about you try against me then, Longnose-kun?" Robin squared up against him with a smile.
Usopp thought about it and accepted the challenge. He knew Robin was stronger than she looked, but he'd grown a lot since two years ago. Surely he stood a good chance against her!
*WHAM*
Usopp's hopes of a close match were shattered without mercy as Robin slammed his hand against the barrel with ease. He couldn't even make an excuse like he wasn't ready as they had a countdown and everything.
Usopp's tearful eyes landed on Nami and he thought 'Ah, at least I'm only the second weakest…'
*Whack!*
As if she'd sensed his rude thought, Nami bonked his head.
"Baaah!" Merry tried to cheer him up.
"Merry says that you could beat her at arm wrestling too." Chopper translated.
"Thanks, Merry…" Usopp scratched her chin.
"Oh! Because Merry would be disqualified for not having any arms, correct?" Brook accurately concluded.
The tournament got started in earnest. Luffy couldn't wait any longer and went up against Zoro.
Their arm strengths were rather similar, but soon it became apparent that the rule not to break the barrel was more complicated than it was at a glance. It started to creak before they could even start applying any real strength to the match.
After a bit of back and forth of pushing the limits of the barrel's wood, they figured out the trick to it. Applying armament haki to the barrel to reinforce it.
After a battle of epic proportions, contained solely atop a wooden barrel, it was Luffy who came out on top. As a brawler, he held an advantage over Zoro, a swordsman, in the area of grappling.
Next was Sanji and Franky. Franky wanted to test his bionics against organic muscles and Sanji just wanted to hold a woman's hand. Normally Sanji would never use his hands in combat, but this didn't really count as a fight and it was a small price to pay for the reward.
Franky beat Sanji hand over fist. Sanji didn't train his arms for strength, after all he fought with his kicks.
Sanji wasn't too upset about it, at least until Cherry said "I guess you're out now Sanji, I won't be joining the losers bracket so I guess we can't arm wrestle."
Sanji collapsed to the ground in depression.
Robin went up against Luffy and Cherry went up against Franky. Luffy and Cherry won those matches and were facing one another in the "finals" of their little contest.
"It's just you and me now, Captain." Cherry teased.
Luffy only gave her a wide smile, ready for the challenge.
Cherry placed her hand in his palm, the countdown started, then as it finished the ship suddenly shook.
"It's a pirate ship?!" Usopp shouted.
Sure enough it was as he said. A pirate ship with a moose figurehead and pulled by a sea king that looked like a cow had bashed against the Sunny at the side in such a way that the bubbles touched together.
They could hear the shouting of the pirates on the other side of the bubble as they prepared to board. Almost all of them were covered in glitter.
"Is that you, Momoo?!" Nami exclaimed, looking at the cow sea king.
The sea cow studied her, then turned its gaze to Sanji and Luffy. Suddenly, the poor beast had a panic attack and started pulling the pirate ship away.
"Follow me, men! We'll kill them all!" Shouted the one pirate that had no glitter as he jumped through the bubble barrier.
However, his ship was pulled away from the Sunny before any of the other pirates could board.
"Let it rip with the gatling guns, boys! Riddle 'em with holes!" He shouted.
"""...""" No one said anything as the man slowly realized he was alone
"I see, you must be a logia type." Cherry stroked her chin in thought. That would explain why the glitter didn't stick.
The others raised their guards hearing that he was a logia type devil fruit user. They were often tricky opponents, in the worst case he might even be able to sink them before they could stop him.
The enemy pirate, Caribou, was trying to think his way out of this pickle he got himself into. Originally he was going to try to say that he was just a normal member who was being threatened, but there was no way they'd believe a devil fruit user could be threatened like that. Least of all a logia type.
"Should we throw him overboard?" Franky suggested.
"Please, no! I'm sorry, I really mean it! I only became a pirate to pay my sick mother's medical bills! Have mercy!" Caribou begged, waving his sleeve arms about and prostrating himself towards them.
"Oh no! Your mother is sick?!" Chopper believed him without hesitation.
"Don't be stupid, Chopper! He's obviously lying!" Usopp said, having a great deal of experience in the realm of bad lies.
"Let me ask you, where did you find that sea cow you had pulling your ship?" Nami asked.
"Oh, hello there- GEH!" Caribou was interrupted by Sanji's foot kicking him in the face.
"Stop leering at our navigator and answer the question, you bastard!" Sanji demanded.
"We just found it swimming around the area. It's the mark of a pro undersea traveler to have a sea king pull your ship…" Caribou answered.
"Really?!" Luffy exclaimed. "Cherry, you should have Takako pull the ship!"
"No. Takako is a proud princess who would never stoop so low." Cherry stubbornly denied.
"Boo! Stingy!" Luffy childishly complained, before going around the ship in search of a sea king that would satisfy his standards to pull the future king of the pirates' ship.
…
"What the hell is wrong with you, you damned sea cow?! You left Big Bro back there all alone!" Caribou's younger brother, Caribou, shouted in panic.
Momoo the sea cow didn't hear anything he said though. He was too caught up in his own panicked state to listen to them.
*SWOOSH*
A colossal deep blue limb shot up from beneath and wrapped around Momoo. A second followed immediately after and wrapped around the ship.
They were brought over to the creature's face where its gigantic eye observed them with cold disregard, like a man might do to a group of ants.
The pirate crew shook in fear at the sheer immensity of the beast. Only one word could escape their quivering lips.
"""KRAKEN?!"""
The tentacle that was gripping the sea cow that was frozen in terror and the one holding the ship started to pull the two apart, until the ropes binding the sea cow to the ship's bow snapped.
The Kraken casually tossed the ship aside and swam away with the sea cow, which was presumably its next meal.
The pirate crew's collective heartbeat gradually calmed down and they thanked God for sparing their lives, the first and only time they have ever genuinely prayed.
Takako on the other hand, gleefully forgot all about them and started swimming back to Cherry with the sea cow she was asked to grab for her.
While the Straw Hats were talking Caribou was glancing around in search of his ship and crew. Surely they'd come back after they got that damned sea cow back under control.
When he turned to look to the ship's left he saw something shift in the dark waters in the distance. He squinted his eyes in an attempt to see better and when he made out what he was looking at, he nearly pissed himself in fright.
"You have to turn starboard!" Caribou shouted.
"Why would we do that? Are you trying to trick us?" Usopp asked skeptically.
Caribou pointed toward their port side. "Look! There's a damned kraken headed straight for us!"
"""..."""
"Why are you looking at me like that?! We're all going to die!" Caribou started to panic, he wished he had never decided to chase after the real Straw Hats. They were insane!
"Takako~!" Cherry cheerfully called out as the great beast approached them. "Did you bring me something~? What a good girl you are, Takako~!"
Takako smiled shyly and presented her prize, the sea cow that had been pulling Caribou's ship. It had long since fallen unconscious from mortal terror.
Caribou saw the broken ropes attached to its body and lost all hope of rescue.
"Now what should we do with you?" Nami pondered aloud, looking at Caribou with disdain.
"I-I'm just your helpless prisoner! You can't kill me, that'd be a war crime! A sin against God!" Caribou argued.
"Tying him up wouldn't do any good since he's a logia type, but we can't just let him run wild on our ship either," Franky said.
Cherry picked up the barrel they had been using as an elbow rest for their arm wrestling competition. She pushed it outside the bubble and filled it with sea water before bringing it over to Caribou.
"Get in." Cherry commanded.
Caribou really didn't want to make himself helpless like that. "Surely we can come to some arrangement-?"
Cherry grabbed him by the throat, just firmly enough to make it hard to breathe whilst her nails drew blood from where they dug into his skin.
"There's only two options. You go into the barrel, or I have a little fun with your heart?" Cherry gave him an ultimatum whilst racing a finger across his chest above his heart, effortlessly leaving a shallow cut.
While Cherry had said it in a way that insinuated she would rip his heart out with her bare hand, she was actually referring to placing a seal on his devil fruit inscription. The sea water barrel was easier though, not to mention that she didn't want to be in physical contact with this greaseball for an extended period.
Caribou got into the sea water barrel, feeling the devil fruit curse taking hold as he did so.
'Damn it all! I'll get my revenge!' Caribou cursed to himself.
Cherry popped a hole in the barrel's lid with her fuse fruit and screwed it back onto the barrel nice and tight, leaving only Caribou's head poking out.
"Nami! It looks like we've reached the undersea current!" Robin called out.
Everyone gathered to look upon the downward current that would bring them into the true depths of the ocean, several kilometers below the surface.
"Awesome! Shishishishi!" Luffy laughed.
"It's so dark I can't see the bottom…" Usopp cowered.
"Will the Sunny be able to take a current like that…?" Nami sounded unsure.
"Trust in the Sunny, She's made of Adam Tree wood after all!" Franky assured her.
"And in Takako. She won't let anything bad happen to us." Cherry added, Takako concurring with her version of a thumbs up.
"I don't suppose you have TWO krakens?" Caribou asked, looking over the edge of the drop off with Cabernet's kind assistance.
Sure enough, when they peered over the edge, they saw a yellow colored kraken with several crushed ships wrapped in its tentacles.
"OHHHH! Let's make that one pull the ship! Shishishishi!" Luffy made up his mind.
It would normally be an insane idea, but with Takako the others didn't feel all that threatened by the beast.
"I guess you just need to decide whether you want to fight it yourselves or have Takako bully him into submission." Cherry said.
"Of course we'll fight him ourselves! And you stay out of it too, Cherry! You already got to tame a kraken, this one's mine!" Luffy insisted.
Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji signed up for this particular suicidal outing. Cherry managed to fashion water tight bubble suits for them, a simple matter for a skilled craftsman especially given the malleability of the material.
"Why are you helping these idiots?! What if they get swept into the current?!" Nami asked incredulously. She knew there was no stopping them, but Cherry didn't have to enable them.
"They'll be fine~... probably. Takako can fetch them if they get swept away." Cherry did a poor job at assuring her.
The yellow kraken that was snarling at them suddenly lashed out. Before he could grab a hold of the Sunny, he was blocked by the three idiots.
Takako, who was hanging back behind the ship, caught sight of the tentacle and squinted her eyes in annoyance. Krakens were very solitary creatures and occupied vast territories. They didn't like running into each other outside of their mating season, which only happened once in every decade or so.
'Who does this punk think he is?' Was essentially what she was thinking.
If Cherry didn't stop her, she would have pummeled the poor thing into the cliff side. Takako has been stewing in Cherry's high quality vital energies for over a year now, so she was easily a step above other krakens.
The three idiots predictably defeated the big octopus, they also predictably got sucked into the current alongside the beast.
When a body that big gets jolted to the side, it moves a lot of water. So naturally the ship also got dragged into the current right behind them.
The ship turned forward, facing directly down into the black abyss. They moved so quickly that even gravity seemed to lose all meaning as they were pulled to the back of the ship instead of the front.
The weaker members of the crew passed out while the stronger members made sure they didn't get hurt while bracing themselves.
"This is rather nice isn't it? I thought it'd take a lot of time to get to the bottom, but at this rate we might even get there today." Cherry spoke whilst plastered to the wall.
"I'm faster." Cabernet claimed.
"Not over long distances, you aren't." Cherry rained on her parade.
"Am too." Cabernet insisted.
After only about a minute or so, the ship leveled off in an area of complete darkness. A few minutes after that the others all started to wake up.
"It sure is cold down here…" Usopp spoke, trying to distract himself from the fear of the endless darkness before them.
"I don't like dark places! Something is watching me, I'm sure of it!" Brook said, which made sense as this place was even darker than the Florian Triangle was.
"You're probably just feeling that creep's eyes wandering your backside, Brook." Cherry pointed at Caribou, who felt aggrieved at the accusation. He couldn't say anything though, as he really had been looking at the skeleton at that moment.
"Either that or the horrible deep sea monsters all around us." Robin said darkly.
"""Don't say something so terrible!""" Nami, Usopp, and Chopper shouted. They hoped she was joking. She was not.
"We're about seven kilometers below the surface." Franky said.
"That leaves about three more to go then." Robin continued.
"I hope Luffy, Zoro, and Sanji are okay…" Nami worried.
"I'm sure they're fine, wherever they are. Takako, dear, would you mind towing us along until we find the idiots- ahem, boys?" Cherry sweet talked the blue kraken.
Takako assented to the task and grabbed onto the Thousand Sunny gently. Cherry pulled out her book of vivre cards and told Takako which direction to bring them.