Hostage Situation

Cherry blinked her eyes open, satisfied with the sudden progress she had made in her cultivation, then she frowned.

This was not where she was supposed to be when she came to.

"Oh good, you're awake. Saves me the trouble of beating you conscious," a brutish man with a lion jutting out from his stomach said with an ugly grin.

Cherry found that she was currently tied up with ordinary rope. Thin rope, around her wrists and nothing more. The kind of rope that was more than enough to bind a regular woman of Cherry's stature, perhaps, but far from sufficient if one wanted to stop Cherry from killing everyone in this room in about ten seconds flat.

"Who are you?" Cherry asked.

*WHACK*

A pathetic blow struck Cherry upside the back of her head, further cementing the fact in her mind that these people had no clue who she was. She allowed her head to be moved so that her attacker didn't shatter his hand on her skull, as well as to maintain the appearance of helplessness for the time being.

"Don't disrespect Holdem-sama! Do you have any idea who we are?!" The unfamiliar voice came from a man with gazelle legs, the man who hit her just now.

"Calm down, Gazelleman. Go have a drink or something," Holdem shooed the man.

"/Gazelleman? That's your name? Pfft~" Cherry snickered.

Gazelleman looked ready to hit her again, but then Holdem's lion roared and scared the wits out of him. He looked up to see his boss was losing his patience, so he quickly bowed and scuttled away with his literal tail between his legs.

"Now then, why don't you tell me about your thief friends, hm? Are you working with Ushimitsu Kozo?" Holdem asked rather patiently, though Cherry knew this was part of some petty power play that didn't work on people with real power.

"I've never stolen anything in my life. Can I go now?" Cherry held up her tied hands, as if it were obvious that he would agree.

A vein bulged on Holdem's forehead. Weak women were supposed to be cowed immediately or at least tremble in fear. Even strong women only kept a stoic facade of defiance; whether they kept it up was another matter. What women didn't do, weak or strong, what openly mock him to his face.

Holdem's lion, Kamijiro, growled and ripped deep gouges out of the floor in front of Cherry, only prevented from gutting her because Holdem didn't let the lion get any closer than he was.

"I recommend you reconsider your words before things get ugly…" Holdem threatened.

"Things are already looking pretty ugly from where I'm sitting though?" Cherry shuffled around to face away from him. "Ah, that's better~"

Holdem ground his teeth in rage as he stood to loom over the petulant woman. "I've been more than patient with you, but no more. We'll do this the hard way. Get me my sword-!"

*BLAM* *CRUNCH* *CRASH*

The building exploded around them, wood splintering and flying all over the place. Holdem's men panicked and ran around like headless chickens until he barked orders for them to follow. That was why he was in charge and not some other idiot; he kept his cool under pressure.

Holdem grabbed Cherry and stuffed her sideways in Kamijiro's mouth, making sure to tell him that she wasn't for eating. He quickly exited the building and jumped onto a neighboring rooftop to observe the damage.

"Urushima? Who could do such a number on a man like him?" Holdem wondered aloud, as he saw that Wano's best sumo wrestler had been the projectile that destroyed his headquarters. Urushima had a massive bruise forming in the shape of a hand across his entire front side.

"Ch-! Sakuranbo!" someone shouted from below. Holdem looked and saw a small group that looked much like the description of the other thieves that had been given to him. He smiled.

"Well well well, did you come to get your friend back?" Holdem spoke loudly. "You can join her in chains, if you like!"

The thieves didn't answer. They looked at his hostage, the one they called Sakuranbo, as if they were waiting for something to happen. The tall woman next to them leaned in to whisper something to them, annoying him greatly.

"Tell me who you work for!" Holdem became impatient. "Is it Ushimitsu Kozo?! That mountain bandit, Shutenmaru?! Speak quickly or Kamijiro will crush this little lady in his powerful jaws!"

"What little lady?" the green haired one spoke up.

"This one-!" Holdem pointed and looked down to find Kamijiro soundly asleep and the woman nowhere to be seen. He quickly spun around in search of his hostage, but she was nowhere to be found. "Where did she-?!"

Holdem whipped around to look at the thieves on the street to find them running away. "Catch them! If you let them get away, I'll have you all flogged to the bone!"

The lesser Beast pirates jumped into motion even as Holdem himself gave chase. He slapped Kamijiro a few times to wake him, but the lion was completely out of it and did not stir.

'What the hell happened?!' Holdem couldn't understand.

The thieves suddenly split up into two groups, making his job all the more difficult. He could only hope that his men were competent enough to catch the group he chose not to follow as he went after the child riding the lion-dog and the young man in makeshift sumo garb. He presumed that the latter had been the one to dispatch Urushima, and as such should be the strongest one of them.

…

Back at the destroyed headquarters, Gazelleman dug himself out of some rubble.

"What happened?" Gazelleman coughed and looked around concernedly.

"You made a mistake," a cold voice drew his attention.

When he turned his face to look, a hand gripped his face like a vice and lifted him up off the ground. The weak woman he had mistaken for a child.

"I have some questions for you~" Cherry said, sending chills down the man's spine.

…

"Not that way!" Okiku pulled Zoro away from another random diversion from their path. She had needed to do so five times in the last minute. "How can one man be so terrible with direction? You just have to follow me!"

"I was just taking a shortcut!" Zoro insisted, though he knew it wasn't really true.

"Holdem isn't following us, so we're the ones who are supposed to rob the farm," Okiku said.

"Are you sure that Sakuranbo communicated a whole plan like that with a few hand signs?" Zoro asked. It had just looked like she was waving at them to him.

"They were a little difficult to parse without any prior planning, but I think they were fairly straightforward," Okiku said.

Zoro wondered if she was just making things up. Perhaps this was an elaborate trap to divide and conquer them? Luffy had accepted it instantly, though, so what could he say now that his captain made the decision? If things go wrong, he'll cut his way out, as always.

Okiku pulled Zoro back to her side again as his mind started to wander just as she spotted a treasure barge rolling out of the farm's main gate. Perfect.