305 Disappearing Act

*Gulp* *Gulp* *Gulp*

Cherry chugged down an entire bottle of the liquor that the proprietor had brought to her before respectfully bowing as he thanked her for her generosity.

"Are you really okay drinking that much, Cherry-san?" Brook asked her with some concern. He picked up one of the bottles and read the label, "100 proof…"

"Hoooo…" Cherry put down the first bottle and grabbed the second. This time she at least poured it into a glass, even though it was a mug meant for beer rather than hard liquor.

"If you're going to pull off a heist, then you should bring Law into it. There's no one better to have on a heist than a man for whom locked doors mean nothing," Cherry said.

Carina frowned and didn't seem too happy with the idea. Trafalgar Law was his own man, not a member of the Straw Hats, so he would expect his own cut; especially since he would be bringing an invaluable skill into the mix. Which meant less of the bounty for Carina herself.

Incidentally, Nami agreed with her. "We can do this ourselves. Law might be our ally, but that doesn't mean he'll work for free. He'll probably want half all by himself, and that's if we're lucky!"

Nobody disagreed with her and Cherry shrugged her shoulders. They were pirates after all; greed came with the title.

"Well, we can keep that man in mind if we need help later. Once you find out what we're after, you'll be glad to have a bigger cut!" Carina said cheerfully.

"And what is that?" Nami asked her, getting a little annoyed that she wasn't getting to the point faster. "It's not like you're going to-"

"Go after Tesoro's treasury?" Carina smiled wickedly.

"What?! Are you crazy?!" Nami asked incredulously.

"I've been planning this for longer than a year, Nami. The odds are in my favor even without your group. With all of you? It's all but guaranteed to be a success~!" Carina spoke confidently. "Think about it! That's 500 BILLION Beri, ripe for the taking!"

"Nobody has ever succeeded before…" Nami wasn't quite so confident.

"Perhaps I wouldn't be either… but I have this." Carina placed an odd object on the table. "This… is a spare key to the vault. I got it only after painstakingly gaining Tesoro's trust."

Nami frowned, then smiled. "Alright then, I'm in!"

"Atta girl! You can pay off your debt afterwards and get your friend back too!" Carina smirked.

"Oh, we could do that anyways," Robin revealed.

"Eh? Then why did you…?" Carina asked, confused.

"Why would we pay over a billion Beri for that Mosshead?" Sanji asked rhetorically.

"What he means is that we planned to get him back another way. Zoro also understands this and would rather we not pay up to those rotten cheaters," Usopp explained.

"But if we rob him blind and pay him back with his own money, that's even more SUPER~~~!!!"" Franky exclaimed.

"Shush!" Nami snapped at him. "Don't be so loud!"

"I wouldn't recommend using force. Tesoro has his gold inside of all of us and can solidify us into gold statues at the drop of a hat." Carina dissuaded.

"An easy issue to resolve, between myself and Law." Cherry said, with slightly slurred speech.

"Really?" Carina asked in interest, but then she shook her head. "That would only tip him off that something is wrong and ruin my plans."

"Okay, let's do it!" Luffy declared, only after finishing his meat.

"That's what I want to hear! E~shishishi!" Carina laughed.

Nami spoke up again, "Now about the split. I think an 80:20 split in our favor is more than fair-"

"Hold on! This is MY plan and MY key! How exactly is a 20% cut fair to me?!" Carina slammed her hand onto the table and objected.

"You're just one person and there's more than a dozen of us! 20% is already being generous!" Nami shot back.

"Without me, there's nothing you can do!"

Cherry finished off the last of her booze. "*BURP* That's good stuff, hehehe~"

*Crunch*

"Whoopsie~ Hehehe~" Cherry accidentally crushed the glass mug in her grip.

"Uh oh…" Robin muttered and inched away.

"Are you alright?" Carina asked, looking at Cherry's hand to see if there was any bleeding.

"Oh, I'm just fine and dandy~" Cherry spoke and showed off her pristine hands. "Now what was that about- *hic* about being helpless without you~?"

Carina felt that something was off about the way Cherry was smiling at her. It was like she was barely conscious, but at the same time like she was up to no good. Regardless, she answered the question. "Without my key, you can't get into the vault."

Cherry lurched forwards in her seat and slammed her head against the table next to the key, her piercing eyes studying the key almost ferociously. "Mhm, I see~"

Cherry shot on her seat and spun around to a painting behind her and ran her hand down the side of the frame. The gold came off of it as her hands passed by until the whole frame was stripped of every bit of gold. She then pressed the gold in between her hands like a ball of dough until a shape started to come about.

"..." Carina stared slack jawed as Cherry presented what appeared to be a perfect replica of her own key. She took the replica and her own key and compared them closely, using her keen trained eye for detail to suss out any differences. There were none, as far as she could tell.

Carina looked up to see Nami smugly smiling at her. "We need your key, do we?"

"Ugh! FINE!" Carina relented. "Wait, couldn't she just go directly through the vault door…"

Carina looked to where Cherry had been sitting, and she was gone. She looked around and the others also noticed Cherry's absence and looked around too, to find nothing.

"Where did she go? She was right here…?" Carina was confused how she could miss her leaving after looking away for just a few seconds.

"Hm, why is there a hole in the floor?" Luffy commented casually.

Looking under the table, there was a hole right beneath the table where Cherry was last seen.

"I'm sure she's fine," Jinbe said.

"It's not her we should worry about," Robin said with some amusement and a little nervousness. "Well.. she won't ship the ship with us still on it, at least… probably…"

"""Probably?!"""

*smash*

They all turned their heads expecting to see Cherry making a mess, but it wasn't.

"You little gremlins did that on purpose, didn'tcha?! Huuuh?! Because we work for Tesoro-sama, riiight?!" the most stereotypical gangster in the world shouted at a pair of small children, who just so happened to be two of the children among those that were asking them to buy flowers.

"I-I'm sorry, please forgive us-" the boy tried to apologize.

The gangster stomped on a steak in the mess. "Look, you've ruined my new boots, you stupid brats! That'll add 50 thousand Beri to your debt!"

"W-what?! You can't just-!" the boy started to argue.

"Are you tryin' to tell me what I can and can't do now?!" the gangster reared back his fist to punch the boy. The proprietor was already moving to intercept when-

"Eh?!" a sword was leveled at the gangster's throat.

"What do you think you're doing to that child?" Kin'emon growled at him, with Momonosuke standing defiantly behind him.