Peeping

Cherry scanned the city with Life Sense, something she was finally making a proper habit of, and quickly located who she was looking for. Both people, in fact.

The first was Sanji, of course. She wasn't going to let her favorite blond, curly browed, tobacco addicted chef be blind sided by an assassination attempt.

Cherry bounded across the rooftops, a blur of motion to anyone who happened to look up as she passed them by. She was quickly scaling up the side of the Whole Cake Chateau when she heard a gunshot.

Redoubling her pace, she leapt over the railing of one of the many balconies of the chateau where she now saw Sanji peeking into a girl's bedroom. If not for her concern for the occupants of the bedroom, as she was certain the gunshot came from there, then she would have teased him mercilessly.

"You're right, I'm going to marry that perverted fool, though that wasn't always the plan," Pudding said, glaring at Reiju with three cold eyes.

"What do you mean?" Reiju asked, her breathing somewhat strained and blood flowing from a gunshot wound in her thigh.

"The plan was to kill the whole lot of you! That's the way it should have been, until that bitch went and changed things!" Pudding growled. "And now I have to marry that, that… thing!"

Reiju's expression darkened, as did Sanji's outside.

"It's rather rude to call your mother a bitch, is it not?" Reiju snarked.

"Hmph, I was referring to that 'cheap' whore, Harpin D. Cherry. Mama decided to rope her in and that killing your idiot brother wasn't worth alienating her. The rest of you are still dead meat, though. You can only blame yourselves for having such a poor relationship with the two of them." Pudding ranted.

"Is there a need to kill us at all if you're going through with the marriage?" Reiju asked.

"Of course there is! Mama wants your army and your technology for ourselves, not some self important jackass to control it in her stead!" Pudding enunciated carefully, like she was speaking to a small child.

"That's what these are for," Pudding held the pistol in her hand aloft. "Candy jacket armor piercing rounds. Worked like a charm, didn't it?"

Pudding's personal homies cackled gleefully, like she had made some hilarious joke.

"Shut up!" Pudding shouted at them, making them shrink back in silence. "This is no laughing matter; I still have to marry that dork! Even when I tried to steer him towards making a run for it, he still stubbornly insisted on going through with it! Why did I ever pretend to actually like him, damn it! I should have played up my unwillingness!"

Pudding was pulling on her pigtails in frustration as Reiju watched her with a little bit of morbid fascination.

"So, what now?" Reiju asked. "I was already suspicious of all this. If I suddenly go missing, then you can guarantee that Father and my brothers will know that something is wrong."

Sanji tensed. It was clear to Cherry that he wouldn't let Reiju be 'disposed of', regardless of the consequences.

"Oh please, do you really think I'm so stupid? This was just a convenient test, since you came snooping around where your nose didn't belong. You'll be at the wedding just like the rest, waiting to die," Pudding stood up, and what happened next was as strange a sight as any that Cherry had seen in this world.

Pudding touched Reiju's head, then pulled her hand back. With the hand came what looked like strips of film, similar to the film strips from the movie theaters in the Ballywood kingdom.

"One snip here~" Pudding cut the film with scissors. "And tape this down here~" She attached a different strip of film to the cut section sticking out of Reiju's head. "Then you won't remember a thing, except that you were caught up in an accident. Our soldiers can be so clumsy with their guns sometimes."

Cherry frowned. This wasn't quite as bad as the Sugar situation, but it still made Cherry uncomfortable to see someone who could fuck around with other peoples' memories. Hopefully Sugar's devil fruit was unique in the ability to affect people without ever even meeting them.

On the other hand, Cherry inwardly celebrated her judgment of Pudding's character. 'I knew it! She was faking that nice and sweet exterior!'

Whilst Cherry was reveling in being right, Pudding ordered her homies to take the now passed out Reiju to one of the infirmaries. Sanji, who was in a terribly depressed mood after having multiple bombshells dropped on him at once, turned to leave and finally noticed that he wasn't alone on the balcony.

To Cherry's credit, she looked suitably solemn on the outside for the circumstances.

"I'm just a fool, aren't I?" Sanji spoke quietly, smiling self-deprecatingly.

"Of course you are," Cherry agreed. "-but there are many things that are worse to be, and we hardly have a shortage of fools in our little crew."

Sanji snorted; he couldn't dispute that.

He looked down at the basket in his hand. "Er, do you want this? I made it for… there's no need for it to go to waste."

"I already ate the equivalent of, like, half a horse a little bit ago. I know someone who would eat it, though." Cherry said.

"I suppose so, though he might be disappointed by the portions." Sanji said. "Before that, I need to check on Reiju…"

"What a dutiful brother!" Cherry wrapped her arm around his shoulders. "Let's go then. If you're with me, nobody will give you any trouble, or if they try then they won't get very far."

Cherry led Sanji back into the chateau and didn't bother with any sort of stealth or sneakiness.

"What's this I've heard that you're getting married, too?" Sanji asked casually, though something in his voice gave the impression that it was anything but casual.

Cherry quirked an eyebrow at him. "A fake engagement gives me more than enough freedom of movement around this place, you know?"

"What?" A flower vase asked.

Cherry raked her hand through the vase without damaging it in the slightest. Its face vanished and it didn't speak again.

"This stuff is weird," Cherry mused, holding a ball of pure vital energy that contained a pseudo-ego. "Gross too."

Cherry crushed it in her palm, dispersing the energy into the air before wiping her hand on her clothes like it had been dirtied.

"So it isn't a real engagement then, just one of your… pranks?" Sanji said, his mood seeming notably lighter. "I was worried that I'd have to choose between you and Robin-chan."

"What?" Cherry was confused.

"If I snitched to Robin about you cheating, I would have betrayed you; but if I didn't, then I would have betrayed Robin-chan!" Sanji explained seriously.

Cherry laughed cheerfully. "You always side with Robin over me, Sanji. Every single time, no exceptions, you get me? I like you guys well enough, but Robin adores all of you, so you can always know that she has your best interests at heart."

Sanji nodded seriously, making Cherry laugh again. It meant a great deal to him to have clear instructions in case a similar situation cropped up in the future, though.