章節 428: Big News!

Cherry ended up spending a bit more time at Shimotsuki village than she had originally intended.

Koushiro was an interesting fellow to talk to, and he wasn't above showing Cherry a few things about swordsmanship that he had figured out over the years. Cherry knew perfectly well how to swing a sword to lop off a head or two, but she was sorely lacking in the more subtle aspects of the art that more dedicated practitioners were capable of.

In turn, Cherry left the man with a few pieces of enigmatic wisdom she had received or found in her own time. Most of it didn't make much sense to her, but Koushiro's eyes were sparkling just like his cute little students' eyes had earlier, so she assumed there must be something more to it.

Needless to say, there were no Big Mom pirates lurking around, so it was finally time to return to the Thousand Sunny.

Cherry bid Koushiro and the students goodbye, made her way to the nearest den den mushi, then she was off to dreamland.

It was a couple of hours after she left that she found her way back. The sun was just coming up in this part of the world and the crew was currently relaxing in their own way after a hectic couple of days.

Which meant they were arguing over something stupid.

"I will NOT use that thing!" Sanji shouted just as Cherry popped out of the den den mushi. "Cherry-chan! Welcome back! I said NO!"

"Come on! I wanna see you shoot a beam!" Luffy begged, grabbing Sanji's pant legs.

"I don't need to shoot beams to get stronger! I'll become the strongest without the power of science!" Sanji huffed, waving around a black canister with a number 3 printed on the side.

"You don't need to worry that much, Sanji. Even if the worst should happen, and the Raid suit awakens your genetic modifications including the emotional suppressant, you can still count on Cherry over there to do something about it like she did for me," Reiju said as she played checkers against Pudding. The latter was close to pulling her hair out as she tried to work out how to win without moving her pieces away from the safety of the sides of the board.

Sanji huffed. Truthfully, that was the primary reason he didn't want anything to do with the Raid suit. "I want to get stronger the old fashioned way. With grit and sweat and blood!"

"I can oblige you there, Sanji," Cherry said, and he felt a shiver down his spine. "I would like to say, though, that unless you chuck that canister into the sea right now, we both know you'll use it the very instant a beautiful woman is in danger and your regular strength is insufficient."

Sanji frowned and made to throw the canister into the sea immediately.

""Noooooo!!!"" Luffy and Chopper whined.

Sanji couldn't do it, though. Even the very idea that he might fail to protect a woman because his strength was lacking prevented him from tossing away this power. It didn't help that he couldn't bring himself to doubt Cherry's ability to poke around in his head until she fixed him.

"Haaah…" Sanji lowered his arm with a deep sigh.

""Woohoo!!!"" Luffy and Chopper hooted in victory.

"Hey guys! The newspaper is here!" Carrot called out from the crow's nest. She hopped down with a particularly thick issue of the World Economy Newspaper.

Cherry perked up. She wondered if Morgans kept his end of the deal, but she didn't think there was much of a chance that the man didn't feature an attempt on the life of an emperor of the sea.

She took one look at the front page and laughed. "That old bird didn't even mention Bege! That's hilarious! Hmm, seems like he has a talent for photography. He got the money shot I practically handed him on a silver platter with perfect timing."

"Why in the world did you take your helmet off for a stupid photo!" Nami wrapped her hands around Cherry's neck and throttled her even as she laughed.

"They have to see my face, don't they? Otherwise, it could be anyone in the armor," Cherry argued.

The image of Cherry hitting Big Mom so hard the skin exploded off of half of her face, all while smiling like a deranged lunatic unconcerned about her left arm flying away with the shockwave, covered almost half of the front page. Fortunately, the main headline simply stated-

"STRAW HATS DEFEAT BIG MOM!"

-so Cherry wouldn't be stealing all of the attention. If anything, people around the world will be wondering what kind of monster Luffy is to keep someone like Cherry under control.

"They included new bounty posters too!" Carrot chimed.

Looking through them, they found that Sanji's had actually increased to just above Zoro's bounty at 330 million beri, leaving him extremely smug.

Luffy's bounty shot up to 2 billion beri, much to their captain's delight.

Cherry's bounty went up to a disappointing 2.5 billion.

"This is bullshit! Who and where is the bastard that decides the bounties?! I'll kick his ass!" Cherry erupted.

"I thought you didn't really care about bounties, Cherry?" Nami looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"I don't!" Cherry shouted. "-But I kicked Big Mom's ass! Twice! I should at least have a bounty higher than that old, hungry bitch!"

"And she got right back up again, while you lost an arm," Reiju said, smiling with squinted eyes when Cherry glared at her.

"Damn it…" Cherry slumped. "I knew I should have just finished her off…"

"They would have minimized it anyways. That's just how the World Government does things. At a certain point, the bounties don't really matter that much and the government only cares about propaganda. That's why Katakuri' bounty is only a bit more than a billion beri," Pudding said, sounding confident. It made sense that she would know a bit more about how bounties go, coming from a family of criminals with high bounties. "If anything, you should take pride that they're being so stingy. It means they actually see you as a threat."

"What?" Nami muttered. "Are they going to be sending admirals after us now?!"

Pudding paused. "That… isn't outside of the realm of possibilities. They wouldn't want you to keep growing or they'll have more emperor level threats to worry about… What have I gotten myself into…"

While Pudding and Nami were having a nervous breakdown (even Reiju was having second thoughts), Luffy was giggling to himself and said, "If we beat some admirals, I bet they'd have to give us even higher bounties!"

"With the Snail Network, marine headquarters is only a hop, skip, and jump away!" Cherry smiled.

"Do NOT go picking a fight with admirals!" Nami warned them.

Luffy and Cherry stared at her, then their eyes quickly darted to the den den mushi and back again.

Nami dashed towards the den den mushi so quickly one might think he had spontaneously developed Soru. Luffy and Cherry were hot on her heels, though, and soon all three were wrestling on the lawn, trying to snatch away the den den mushi from one another.

Reiju and Pudding watched them with a warm sort of feeling in their chests, thinking that maybe they hadn't made such a bad choice after all.

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章節 429: Aboard the Polar Tang

The next day, in a part of the New World about halfway between Whole Cake Island and Wano, a submarine bearing the mark of the Heart Pirates rested on the surface of the sea.

The currents, winds, and the weather in general had been unusually calm in the past twenty four hours. Not Calm Belt calm, but enough so that they suspected there was an island nearby, but no island has shown itself thus far.

The crew took advantage of this lull in the chaos that was sailing the Grand Line regardless of the strange circumstances, though, taking turns soaking up some sun on the top deck.

"Oil? You run this submarine on oil?!" A shrill shout was heard below the deck.

"What else should it run on?!" The heart pirates' shipwright shot back.

"How about something that won't catch fire and kill everyone on board?! Like cola!" Franky argued.

"Cola?! There's no way you could run a sophisticated machine like our engine on a sugary fizzy drink! That's absurd!" The other shipwright was reasonably skeptical.

"Hmph! Works wonders in my Thousand Sunny," Franky huffed and opened up his chest cavity. "And in myself, I might add!"

The shipwright was struck dumb at the sight of cola bottles hooked up to what he vaguely recognized as an engine inside of Franky.

"What the fuck?" were the only words he could voice in response.

Nearby, the polar bear mink, Bepo, could be seen playing chess against Robin.

Bepo had his face scrunched up in deep concentration and only after a full minute of this did he finally light up and make a move.

Robin instantly made a move of her own. "Checkmate."

"Wha-? How-? When-?" Bepo glared at the board as Robin watched him go through the five stages of grief, before finally giving in and surrendering.

'So cute…' Robin thought as she gazed upon Bepo's devastated expression.

"Why do you keep playing against her, Bepo? You've played like a hundred times and haven't won even once," a man named penguin asked as he leaned in his chair, balancing on the back legs precariously.

"I was so close this time, though!" Bepo argued.

"That's just what she wants you to think, bro," Penguin said. "Nico Robin has spent her whole life fooling people when her own life was at stake. Chess is just a game to her."

Penguin nearly toppled over when Robin smiled 'sweetly' in his direction.

"But chess is a game?" Bepo didn't understand what he was trying to say.

"Tsk, this is why your bounty poster says your the crew's pet- ATATATATA?!?!?!" Penguin really did topple over this time as two hands grew from his shoulders, grabbed his ears, and gave them a good yank.

"Bepo-san is a valuable member of his crew and Law is lucky to have him," Robin stated simply. Bepo's bush shone through his furry cheeks.

Deeper inside the ship, Momonosuke was receiving lessons from Kin'emon and Kanjuro.

"When will math even be useful in the coming battle?" Momonosuke complained with a pout.

"I thought in much the same way when I was a lad, but when Oden-sama brought me on as one of his retainers, there were certain expectations of me. Having to learn basic arithmetic as a grown man was, quite frankly, mortifying. It will be even more so for someone of your high status, Momonosuke-sama!" Kin'emon tried to persuade him.

Momonosuke wasn't even sure they would all survive the coming battle, though. The impression that Kaido had left on him was too great, an impossibly tall mountain to scale; and instead of being taught climbing (fighting) techniques, he was being taught mathematics.

He could not voice those doubts, however. The last thing a lord should do is dishearten and demoralize his subordinate, so he kept his mouth firmly shut.

Up above, on the upper deck is where Zoro preferred to exercise and meditate (nap). Merry was curled up on his lap as he did the latter.

Usopp carefully tended to the pop green plants that he had brought with him. They weren't able to get as much sunlight as he preferred, since the submarine often submerged to avoid particularly bad surface weather.

Law was working on his tan in a foldable lounge chair as a few of his crew hung out in the fresh air.

"I don't like it," a large scary looking man grumbled.

"You've been saying you have a bad feeling since yesterday, Jean," another of Law's crewmen, Shachi, said.

"Well, I do. I got a bad feeling right before I got enslaved too, and I didn't listen to my gut then. Maybe if I had…" Jean said.

"Hey, captain? Shouldn't we be getting a news coo soon?" Ikkaku, the sole woman on Law's crew, asked.

There was a brief pause in silence before Law went from looking like a lazy cat to sitting upright and alert.

"We need to get out of here, and quickly," Law jumped to his feet.

"What do you mean captain?" Shachi asked, a bit caught off guard by how serious his captain was acting.

"News coos deliver on a weekly basis. They're also masters of avoiding dangerous weather, even the nigh unpredictable weather of the Grand Line. With the good weather we've been having, there's no reason we shouldn't have received the weekly copy of the World Economy Newspaper yet," Law explained as he swiftly put his pants and shirt on.

"We've been passed over before in the past, though?" Shachi still wasn't convinced.

"We haven't been passed over once since entering the New World, except due to nasty weather…" Jean's face darkened. "The World Economy Newspaper is based in the New World. Every news coo they have comes from this sea."

"Oi, long nose! Call your friend back down here! We're submerging!" Law all but commanded Usopp.

"Huh? What for?" Usopp hadn't been listening to them talk as he was distracted by a particularly prickly pruning procedure.

"Just do it, or we'll leave her behind!" Law stormed back below deck, his crewmates rushing to furl the sails and bring them inside.

Usopp could sense the urgency in the man, so he quickly climbed up the main mast and shouted up at Cabernet. "Cabernet! We need to go inside now!"

The winged woman swooped down, picked Usopp up, and brought him down to the deck (he only screamed a little bit). "What's up?"

"I don't know! We're submerging apparently," Usopp threw up his hands in an exaggerated shrug. "We'll have to ask Law about what's got him so flustered."

Cabernet nodded. She was used to other people knowing more about things than she did. Instead of getting worked up about it, she went over to Zoro and gave him a loud slap to the back of the head.

"W-what the hell?!" Zoro awoke with a start. "What'd you do that for?!"

"You're too hard to wake up, this way's easier," Cabernet explained simply, with an innocent look on her face that Zoro couldn't tell the authenticity of. "Law wants us back inside for some reason."

Merry hopped out of Zoro's lap and gave a big stretch with her little sheep legs, before seeming to shake the drowsiness off of herself.

"Hey, hurry your asses up!" Shachi rudely shouted towards them as his group finished rolling up the mainsail.

"We're going, we're going! Goodness, so bossy…" Usopp complained.

"Hey, could we go check out the shipwreck I saw before we go back under?" Cabernet asked Shachi.

Shachi looked at her. "Shipwreck?"

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