Morning of the Wedding

Pudding had a plan.

Sanji had yet to run off with his little friends, which meant that she was likely to be forced to marry the complete loser. When she woke up this morning and the staff started her preparations and makeup for the wedding, she knew that he was still in the chateau and as such seemingly all hope of him running away was lost.

That was until a thought occurred to her. A part of her plan when she was still going to kill him during the ceremony could be used for a different purpose.

All she had to do was reveal her third eye to him at a critical moment, ideally when he lifted her wedding veil for the kiss. When he saw it, he would recoil in disgust and create a controversy as a result. With the right words in that moment of weakness, she would break his will to go through with the marriage!

"What's so funny, Pudding-sama?" her makeup artist asked curiously.

"Oh, I'm just giddy about the wedding, is all. Pay me no mind and continue," Pudding excused. She hadn't even realized that she had been laughing to herself maniacally.

'Pudding-sama is so cute~! I'll do my best!' the makeup artist thought, deciding then and there to do the best she had ever done!

Meanwhile Pudding was caught up imagining all the different ways that Sanji might react to her true appearance, none of them being very good. Her favorite was the one where he faints like a little bitch.

…

"Where did that woman go?" Bege asked in a whispered tone.

"She told one of the men that she was going to 'find a blacksmith' last night and hasn't returned since then, Godfather," one of Bege's men answered.

Bege frowned. There was no good reason for her to have run off to find a blacksmith in the middle of the night before a major operation.

Bege glanced at Katakuri who was perched atop the gate into the wedding venue. The man's presence here made him nervous, and with a missing member of his plot he was beginning to worry that the whole plan had been exposed.

Since Bege had arrived here about a year ago, Katakuri had never lost the look of distrust from his eyes when he looked Bege's way. Worse, Katakuri had always had a keen instinct and in combination with his monstrous observation haki, he was a force that couldn't be crossed.

Katakuri had killed one of the guests before they could even draw his weapon already this morning, so Bege reckoned he was in a bad mood on top of the other troublesome points about the man.

Katakuri perked up and Bege turned his attention back to his duties. Bege suppressed a frown when he saw who was coming.

"Oh, it's Budgie, right? Long time no see," Cherry strolled up to and right passed him.

"Oi! We have to check you for weapons before you can go inside!" Bege shouted at her.

Cherry shot a dirty look his way that said 'Do you have any idea who I am?' then ignored him. "Katakuri, you really got this idiot working security?"

Bege was caught between a feeling of anger and the necessity to maintain his cover. He wasn't supposed to have had contact with Cherry and had to play the part of a loyal dog. She really wasn't making his job easy, though.

"I'll handle this one, Bege," Katakuri commanded and hopped down from the top of the gate. Bege was simultaneously relieved and alarmed.

"The sword, the pistol, and the spear. Hand them over," Katakuri spoke succinctly, holding out his hand toward Cherry.

"Hehehe, you're well informed, I see. These hands of mine are just as dangerous as my weapons, you know?" Cherry chuckled, and handed over the three blood-bound weapons. It wasn't like she couldn't call them to her if she needed them.

"Irrelevant, rules are rules," Katakuri said curtly.

Cherry twirled her hair around a finger and fluttered her eyelashes. "So… are you going to accept the engagement?"

Katakuri nearly spat blood. "NEVER!!!"

Bege and his men were shocked to see the man get so worked up.

"Ah… I see…" Cherry looked so forlorn and despondent at the moment that every man within sight of her felt an instinctive desire to comfort her. Even Katakuri felt a stabbing sensation through his heart so profound that he briefly thought he was literally stabbed.

"I… er… um…" Katakuri didn't know what to say and was immensely glad to have Cherry's confiscated weapons in his hands because he wouldn't know what to do with his hands otherwise.

Bege and his men's jaws had dropped. There he was, the mountain of masculinity and greatest warrior under Big Mom's flag, flustered by a woman.

Meanwhile, Katakuri was having an internal crisis. Had he misjudged her? Was his image of her in his head a caricature of a troublesome woman and it was only natural for her to be more complex than that in reality?

Katakuri's eyes flashed and all his unease faded away. "You can't fool me, Cheapshot."

"Damn, I thought I'd get it passed you for sure…" Cherry stomped her foot frustratedly.

Bege and his men were confused by this very sudden change in atmosphere, like from a man and a woman experiencing the awkward beginnings of a dramatic romance to an adult scolding a child for a prank.

As for what that prank may have been, only Cherry and Katakuri would ever know because he had foreseen it before she could pull it off. Or that's how it would have been until Cherry handed over a dull-edged dagger dripping with fake blood to Katakuri, who accepted it without any sign of being surprised.

"One of these days you'll let your guard down again and I'll get you good!" Cherry pointed at Katakuri with her other hand on her hip as she made the declaration without an ounce of shame for the failure of her adolescent prank.

As Cherry swiveled on her feet and walked into the venue, one of Bege's men exclaimed, "Godfather! You're bleeding!"

"What?" Bege was startled. His subordinate was pointing at his back, right around where his left kidney would be.

He pulled off his coat and found a bloody red splotch with a small hole through it where his man had pointed at him. Given the fact that he hadn't actually been stabbed, it was immediately clear what had happened.

Bege shot a glare in Cherry's direction where he met her eyes as the gate closed behind her and she winked at him with a smirk.

Unbeknownst to Bege, Katakuri was sweating a bit. He hadn't seen her do that to Bege at all, hadn't even noticed after the fact. Did he catch her attempt on himself because attacks on oneself were easier to sense with observation haki or because she had wanted him to catch her?

'No, she can't have improved that much in such a short time. That kind of genius simply couldn't exist.' Katakuri assured himself, and he wasn't exactly wrong to believe so.

There existed a possibility that Katakuri was afraid to even consider; that Cherry could have learned enough about Katakuri himself to fool his haki specifically.