章節 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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章節 444: Shipwrecked

Sanji ended up being the odd man out in getting Pudding's cupcakes. He actually managed to grab two of them, but he gave one to Nami and one to Carrot. When he turned back to get his own, the rest had already been snatched by the others. Jinbe and Pedro, who had been the least eager to get any and were last as a result, at least had the decency to look guilty.

"Sorry, Sanji. I thought you had already gotten one…" Jinbe apologized, before stuffing the entire cupcake in his hand into his mouth.

Sanji could only really blame himself, so he lit a cigarette to look like he didn't care. The tears streaming down his face and his quivering bottom lip gave it all away, though.

"I-I'll make another one just for you! A sp-special one…" Pudding said hurriedly, poking her fingers together and looking away when she said that last part.

"That's okay, Pudding. I'm not the sort of man who tells a woman to slave away in the kitchen for him," Sanji said.

"That'd sound really cool if there wasn't any snot dripping down your face," Brook sent a merciless verbal jab his way.

'So cool~' Pudding thought regardless.

"So, who's this guy?" Cherry asked, pointing at the odd octopus on the deck.

"What the hell?!" Nami shouted. "When did that octopus get here?!"

"He's been there since I got back, at least," Cherry said, licking the chocolate icing from her fingertips.

"He's been there for about ten minutes," Reiju added helpfully.

"Why didn't you say anything?! It could be dangerous!" Nami complained.

"IYOOOoooOOO~!" *POMPOM* The octopus gave an odd yell and bonked its own head like a drum.

"He says that he just wants a ride to the top," Jinbe offered helpfully.

"The top of what?" Luffy asked, stuffing his whole hand into his gob to 'clean' it.

"That, I presume," Pedro pointed out a massive cliff face with a waterfall streaming down into the sea.

Giant koi fish began to bound up and down in the water next to the Sunny. So naturally, Luffy jumped onto one of their backs without any concern for his own safety. "I got one Sanji! Can we eat it?!"

As Sanji started listing out ways one might prepare a giant koi fish whilst Nami and Jinbe got to work steering the ship in the right direction.

Although Nami wasn't aware of the specifics on how to enter Wano, she could guess it had something to do with that water fall. A lesser navigator might not think that way, but Nami had ridden a knock up stream into a sea of clouds so this wasn't all that strange to her.

As it turned out, Luffy immediately grabbing onto a giant koi fish wasn't the worst idea in the world. The fish were headed straight for the waterfall themselves and had started to swim up the current to the top of the cliff. Luffy held onto two of the fish in the fashion that one might tie a pair of horses to a cart, then up they went.

After reaching the top, the koi fish continued to drag them upstream until the body of water opened up into a large lake.

"There's a whirlpool! Turn! Turn!" Nami shouted in alarm.

They weren't going to be able to turn in time, however.

The ship jerked and sent Pedro, Chopper, and Brook overboard. Jinbe dove in after them.

Sanji grabbed Pudding and Nami whilst Reiju picked up Carrot, then both bounded over towards a nearby rocky peninsula.

That left Luffy and Cherry on the ship. The former was currently wrestling the octopus, who was terrified for some reason that made little sense to Cherry, but she didn't care all that much about it. She just needed to make sure that the Thousand Sunny wasn't crushed along some rocks or something. Baby sitting Luffy to make sure he didn't drown in the process was a simple matter.

The whirlpool started to drag the ship under, so Cherry shouted, "Take a deep breath Luffy!"

Luffy obediently sucked in as much air as he lungs would hold, which was quite a lot of air, then firmly clamped his hands over his mouth and nose.

Mere seconds later, the Thousand Sunny plunged beneath the water, caught by the terrible current of the whirlpool. Giant tentacles emerged from Cherry's body and started to wrap themselves around the ship like a protective cocoon.

They banged up against a few rocks along the way, but they were eventually deposited onto a sandy beach some distance away from where they started.

Luffy lost his battle to hold his breath against the weakness of the devil fruit curse near the end and Cherry caught him by the ankle before the blast of air pouring out of his lungs sent him flying off to who knows where.

Takako slunk back into Cherry's vital energy sea once everything stopped moving so fast and Cherry gave Luffy a good wringing to get the water out.

*cough cough cough*

Luffy spat some water up as he started to regain his wits. "That… was fun. Let's do it again!"

Cherry flicked his nose. "Stop it. We've been separated from the others."

"They'll be fine," Luffy spoke with confidence, hopping to his feet.

"I'm sure they will be, but fine is a relative term. We're in enemy territory now," Cherry said. "Speaking of which, have you given any thought to how you're going to beat Kaido?"

"I'll walk up to him and kick his ass!" Luffy declared.

"He isn't going to be as easy as Katakuri was, you know?" Cherry warned.

"Katakuri wasn't easy to beat at all, though?" Luffy retorted.

"Exactly, dufus," Cherry said. "Kaido is rumored to be even tougher than Big Mom is, and I'd have had an easier time carving a sea route through the red line than I did punching through her thick hide."

Luffy crossed his arms and tilted his head. "Hmmm…"

It was good enough that he was actually thinking about it first for once, so Cherry thought about leaving the topic there for now. Then a thought occurred to her, so she voiced it.

"How far were you planning to take your devil fruit ability, Luffy?" Cherry asked.

"What do you mean?" Luffy asked.

"I mean, are you planning to train it to a higher level, like Doflamingo did?" Cherry clarified. "Or do you want to go the Roger route and become a master of haki?"

"... Both!" Luffy decided, as if it were that simple. Perhaps, for him, it was that simple.

"Well, haki is something you'll figure out in time, but your devil fruit is another story. I won't claim to be an expert, but the next level, awakening, is something easier said than done. I only managed it when most of my body got vaporized on fishman island. My entire being was focused on the act of fusion in order to contain the energy of the dyna stone that would have destroyed the whole place. I think your will has to synchronize with that of your devil fruit to achieve it," Cherry explained.

"How do I do that?" Luffy asked.

"No clue!" Cherry shrugged in exaggerated fashion. "You devil fruit is still mostly an enigma to me, other than it seems to be a Human Human fruit model. You'd know better than me on this."

"So I'm not thinking rubber-y enough. Got it!" Luffy nodded. "Do I have to almost die, too?"

"I doubt it," Cherry shook her head. She wasn't exactly sure on that point, but the last thing she needed was for her captain to go seeking death.

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