Starting a New Journey

Cabernet and Perona came back into the room. Perona had a rather delighted look on her face.

"Ah, good. Patch up his wounds, Ghost Girl. We'll begin your training once you've recovered, Roronoa Zoro." Hawkeye said in a commanding tone.

"I'm not your servant! Don't order me around!" Perona shouted, having had her good mood spoiled once again.

Hawkeye seemed to remember something and turned to look at Cherry. "Would you like to-"

"No." Cherry shut him down instantly, not letting him finish his sentence. She knew he was going to either ask her to stay a while or possibly even to train with him as well.

'I'm sure I could learn some interesting things from him, but I don't have the heart of a sword immortal. It's not the path I wish to walk.' Cherry thought simply standing up.

"Ready to go, Cabernet?" Cherry asked.

"Huh?" Perona blurted as she was patching Zoro up once again, despite her previous outburst.

"Yeah! Let's go!" Cabernet shouted excitedly. She'd been stuck in this gloomy atmosphere for weeks, she was ready to go out and see the world again.

Perona just watched them longingly. She had to have known deep down that Cabernet would be leaving when Cherry arrived, as she had mentioned more than once that she was only waiting for her.

Still, there was some vague hope that Cabernet wouldn't leave and instead stay with her.

"What are you just standing there gawking for?" Cherry asked, breaking her out of her thoughts.

"What?" Perona asked.

"Hurry up and patch Zoro up so we can leave. Unless you want to stay here with those two sword fanatics?" Cherry quirked an eyebrow at her.

"I-I can come too?" Perona asked with a quavering voice.

"Did you think I was going to leave my precious Cabernet's girlfriend behind? Of course you can come along." Cherry looked at her with some concern, wondering if Usopp gave her brain damage or something.

Perona's adorably round eyes went into overdrive producing tears in thicks streams down her face. "I-I'm coming!"

Perona let go of any delicacy in bandaging Zoro's wounds, causing her to yelp and complain from the pain she caused him.

Soon she was finished tending to him and ran off to pack her things. It was rather odd that she had much of anything to pack since she had been sent here quite abruptly, but she came to meet them with a large suitcase.

They left the determined Zoro and the conflicted Hawkeye behind and went outside, where Cabernet transformed into a ship.

Perona found the sight to be quite fascinating as her mind hadn't quite come to terms with the fact that Cabernet was actually a ship.

They boarded Cabernet and then she lifted up the ground with her enormous black wings.

Cherry directed Cabernet to fly in the direction of Usopp, as she had to deliver the message from his father and give him a training regimen. He'd probably get too caught up with inventing new gadgets if she didn't.

After ten minutes or so of flying Perona suddenly came to a realization.

"I won't be able to talk to Cabby while we're traveling, will I?!" She asked Cherry.

"Well she can talk, but... it's not very cute." Cherry answered.

"I'm always cute!" Cabernet groaned with her voice sounding like creaking wood.

"Y-yeah, she's still... cute..." Perona lied.

Cabernet was quite the fast flyer, much faster than mundane ships, especially when she put her flames out. So it wasn't long until they reached Usopp's location, only a few days or so of flight.

"What are we doing here for? The Boin Archipelago is infamous for being a place that no one leaves alive you know?" Perona inquired.

"We're here to visit Usopp." Cherry said, causing Perona to scowl.

"Why are we visiting the long nose?! I don't want to see him again in my life!" Perona complained.

"Hehehe, we won't be here long. I'm just going to have a short conversation with him, and inform him of Luffy's decision if he hasn't heard yet." Cherry said, directing Cabernet to land nearby to Usopp's location.

The first thing Cherry did was send out her Life Sense. She wasn't terribly surprised to find that the "island" was actually a colossal carnivorous plant. She was actually interested in the plant's innards as they seemed to be quite potent in vital energy and would make for a good base for cultivation pills.

However, although they were plants, they actually seemed like they might be intelligent. She wasn't about to test out how dangerous they are with her current strength, especially since she didn't need any materials at the moment and they weren't going anywhere. She can always come back to harvest them later.

Cherry entered a clearing with a jumpy Perona and a curious Cabernet following behind her.

"Good heavens..." Cherry was truly disappointed at the sight before her eyes.

Somehow Usopp had managed to put on a few hundred pounds in only a month, although he seemed to have wizened up and what currently exercising with a man in a strange suit of armor.

"Cherry?!" Usopp shouted when he saw her. Though he didn't looked happy, but rather frightened from the look on her face. A look that he only saw when he tried to slack off in training, only much more intense than he'd ever seen it before.

"Oh, you're right to be afraid, Usopp. Here I was coming to deliver a message from your father about how proud he was of your progress, and I find you looking like this?!" Cherry was outraged.

Perona however was thoroughly enjoying the panicked and guilty expression on Usopp's face. Cherry had actually forced her to exercise during the journey here, so she knew how intense Cherry was. She also knew that no excuses would be accepted from her, as she had tried to argue that her current figure was perfect and she didn't want to change it. Cherry had responded by giving her exercises designed to increase muscle density instead of mass, and they were several times more difficult than the training from before, much to her dismay.

"I-I can explain! You see, I was force fed by gnomes in my sleep! They're very hard to catch and very sneaky, so there's nothing I could do about it!" Usopp lied desperately.

"Even if I believed that nonsensical story, which I don't, it won't save you from your fate." Cherry said eerily.

After properly punishing Usopp and walking him through his now much more intense training regimen, they were ready to head out once again.

Cherry had found the strange armored man, Heracles, to be quite mysterious. She had asked where he was from , not recognizing his accent, but he had dodged the question. He also never took off his helmet whilst they were there.

...

Momoiro Island.

Sanji was standing still on a beach, whilst his pursuers had stopped behind him with some confusion.

"What's wrong, Sanji-kun? Did you sprain something, or perhaps did you change your mind about wearing the dress?" Asked an okama in a yellow summer dress with some concern.

Sanji looked at them head on, contemplation filling his face.

"Is this... how I treat beautiful women?" He asked them.

"Oh my, Sanji-kun figured it out." An okama in a blue tank top said.

"Hahaha, you said my bet was a long shot. Give me my 10 thousand Beri!" Another said, taking his prize from a grumbling okama in a purple cocktail dress who had bet he would never learn the lesson.

The okama weren't actually the bunch of sexual predators Sanji had previously thought them to be. In fact they could have caught him easily with their skills and numbers. They were trying to show him what it's like to be on the other side, to be constantly chased, cat-called, and ogled.

"It's good you understand now, but there's still the bet with Ivan-sama! So start running, unless you want to play dress up with us!" The okama in the yellow dress said, waving a frilly dress that was barely long enough to cover his butt.

Immediately, Sanji snapped out of his contemplation and booked it even faster than before. Just because he realized his faults didn't mean he would cast aside his manhood.