Sinking Beneath the Waves

Cherry took a few minutes to catch up to Luffy. She needed to deal with the marines that had separated from their main attack force to search for the real Straw Hats. Cherry thought it was rather amusing that they actually believed those frauds were the real deal right up until she talked to Sentomaru on the den den mushi.

"Luffy!" Cherry called out.

"Huh? Cherry?!" Luffy turned to see her casually catch up to him.

"I'd tell you that the fake mustache was stupid and would never work, but I'd be wrong it seems. The marines have gotten dumber somehow during these two years." Cherry sighed.

"Shishishi I think it looks cool~" Luffy chuckled.

"Let's get back to the ship quickly-" Cherry started.

"CHEEERRRRRRRRRRRRYYYYYYYYYY-CHWAAAAAAAAAN!!!!!!1!!!" A wild Sanji appeared.

"""Targets located,""" Several pacifistas were heard in the distance.

"You stupid cook, you've given us away." Zoro came up behind Sanji.

"What the hell did you say?!" Sanji shouted.

The two of them looked to be on the verge of coming to blows. A common sight between the two before their separation, but terribly annoying and inconvenient in this exact moment.

Cherry drew Sakura Tengoku from its sheath and threw it up into the air. There it turned into a streak of lightning and pierced through the heads of each of the charging pacifistas in the distance, frying their circuitries and returning to Cherry's hand.

"Hurry up or we're leaving you behind," Cherry said, though she was mostly kidding.

Swooping wings were heard from above when a giant, colorful bird landed nearby. Riding atop it was Chopper and Rayleigh.

"I can tell you've gotten stronger Luffy," Rayleigh spoke with pride.

"Thanks to you! Thanks for everything these past two years!" Luffy thanked.

"No need for that-" Rayleigh tried to deny, it was just the whim of an old man after all.

"I'm gonna do it, Rayleigh! I'll become king of the pirates!" Luffy exclaimed with a smile.

Tears welled up and almost fell from his eyes at the sight of that smile that reminded him so much of his old friend.

Chopper's giant bird friend took them back to the ship very quickly.

"I've got a lot of samples in Cabernet's storage that we can have a look at. I'm sure they'll be very interesting to you," Cherry told Chopper as they dismounted the bird.

Chopper waved goodbye to the bird and replied. "I sure hope so. I've advanced my medical skills by a lot, so it'll be great to have a wide variety of plants and fungi to study the properties of."

Sanji took one look at Robin and Nami, then blood sprayed from his face like a fountain. He'd been okay with Cherry because she dressed rather conservatively in her martial arts outfits, but Robin and Nami were the type who liked to show some skin.

"..." Cherry was speechless. Surely there was a limit to how 'excited' you can get at the sight of cleavage?

Luffy was gawking at Franky's cyborg bod. Serene was saying some final goodbyes whilst clinging to Brook's leg. Grandma Angela was waiting off ship where she and Cherry exchanged their goodbyes.

A cannonball barely missed the Sunny from a marine warship before it was intercepted by the Kuja Pirates, indicating that it was time to set sail before any other obstacles could get in the way.

Franky inflated the ship's bubble coating from beneath the ship and removed a buoyancy device, allowing them to sink beneath the ocean's waves.

The sinking wasn't particularly fast, and given how far down Fishman Island was said to be they were in it for the long haul.

After admiring the beauty of the ocean from beneath the waves, and a couple of idiots intending to catch fish through the bubble, Nami decided to explain the dos and don'ts with the ship's coating for their own safety.

The sudden shift of Nami's assets resulted in Sanji rocketing himself through the bubble with his nose bleeding before she could even begin.

"How terrible, Sanji will die if he sees any mermaids at this rate…" Brook observed.

"He'll need a blood transfusion when we arrive. I hope that Fishmen have the same blood types as humans…" Chopper said, inspecting Sanji with concern.

"We don't need to go that far. I don't really want to touch his face when it looks like that, but I guess it's necessary…" Cherry grimaced.

Cherry grasped Sanji's face in a vice-like grip and poured some vital energy into him. Part of it was to accelerate his body's blood production to replace what he'd already lost, the other part she made fortifications to the veins and arteries in his nasal cavity. That way he might not even bleed if somebody smashed his face, let alone from a little excitement.

"As you saw, the bubble will stretch to an extent and pressure beyond a certain point will cause you to pass through to the other side. You can even fire guns and cannons through it. We just have to avoid having too many breaches all at once. That means avoiding sea kings and environmental hazards such as undersea cliffs." Nami explained, ignoring Sanji's self-inflicted plight.

Cherry stood up and wiped Sanji's blood off her hand with a clean rag that Chopper had handed her. "And we won't need to worry about either of those things."

"Huh? Why not?" Usopp asked.

Cherry didn't speak but instead approached the wall of the bubble. She shoved her hand through, making sure to use enough strength and speed to breach it instead of just stretching it.

*Wooooosh*

The Sunny was pushed sideways as monstrously huge tentacles erupted from Cherry's dainty arm, revealing itself to be an octopus of incredible size, even by sea king standards.

There was still plenty of light from the surface this far down, so they could all see the dark blue kraken, Takako, in all her glory.

"AHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Chopper and Usopp screamed.

"Cool! How did you do that?!" Luffy was fascinated.

"This is Takako, the very best kraken in the whole world!" Cherry introduced with pride, Takako curled her tentacles and flexed the muscles like a bodybuilder showing off.

"How did she fit?" Brook asked innocently.

Takako glared at him menacingly.

"Takako is at a perfectly healthy weight, don't call her fat. That's just rude, Brook." Cherry admonished, as if it was obvious.

"Ah, I see. My apologies, then." Brook just went with the flow and Takako decided to forgive him this time.

"Right. Takako should be able to handle any external threats easily enough, so don't go messing around with the bubble, okay?" Nami asked them not to doom them all to a watery grave, hoping they would behave.

Sanji woke up from his brief visit to dreamland and stood up. "I would like to apologize, ladies. I haven't been around any beautiful women these past two years, so I got over excited. Please forgive me for my uncouth behavior."

Many of them were stunned speechless. Cherry even went so far as to rescan him with Life Sense a few times to make sure he was the real Sanji.

"Wow, Sanji actually apologized for being a pervert?" Usopp spoke incredulously.

"The blood loss must have turned him into an even bigger idiot." Zoro insulted.

"SHUT UP MOSSHEAD!" Sanji cleared his throat. "Ahem! I've come to realize that even if you ladies tolerated my behavior, that didn't make it okay. I intend to be more mindful of my words and actions towards you in the future so as to not make you uncomfortable."

"Ivankov really set you straight huh? Though setting you 'straight' probably wasn't his intention…" Cherry commented.

Memories flashed through Sanji's head and sent a chill down his spine. He couldn't be happier to be away from that place, no matter how strong he became because of it.