S.A.D.

Cherry dropped down behind an unsuspecting guard in a hazmat suit. The rest of the guards in the room were less unsuspecting as they heard the first guards scream of horror when Cherry ripped his legs off. Nonetheless, they could not resist the inevitable carnage that ensued.

"You're even more barbaric than I could have expected!" The samurai commented, feeling vindicated in his first, er, second impression of her.

"Don't say that, Mr. Shogun. Those legs aren't their real legs, they aren't even bleeding!" Cherry defended herself. Her evil, cackling laughter during the event didn't help her argument.

"I am not the shogun!" The samurai said.

"You aren't? But you're the HEAD of the samurai, are you not?" Cherry chuckled.

The samurai held his breath, grit his teeth, and his face went red from strain. It would dishonor him to laugh at this vile woman's jokes.

"Now then, you-" Cherry pointed at the single guard she hadn't ripped apart. "You go tell your owner that I'm going to steal his S.A.D. juice!"

The guard didn't hesitate and directly fled the room. One of the bisected guards spoke up, "Our master won't let you get away with this! You're a fool for thinking you stand a chance against us!"

Cherry ignored the guards as well as the cries of agreement from his companions. When they continued to mock her loudly despite their helplessness, Cherry walked over to one of them and fused his mouth shut.

"Do I need to shut any more of your mouths or will you be good?" Cherry asked, her piercing gaze scanning the rest of them as the one she just released clawed at his face uselessly.

The rest nodded their heads and obediently said nothing more.

Cherry hopped up to the top of the large tank labeled "S.A.D." While her captive audience and the samurai wondered what she was up to. What they didn't expect her to do was tear open the top of the tanks with her bare hands and drop inside.

There were mixed reactions among the observers. Some reveled in her supposed act of unintentional suicide, others felt an instinctive pity towards her grizzly death, and the rest were too dumbfounded to have any coherent thoughts on the matter in the short term.

Everyone in the room shifted into the third group when they saw Cherry tear open the tank at the bottom and walk out of it completely dry and without a drop of the liquid the tank once contained spilling out of the hole, despite the fact that it had been full just a few minutes before.

*BUUUURP*

The guards' jaws hit the floor. "SHE DRANK ALL OF IT?!"

Cherry didn't actually drink it, she just wanted to see the faces they were making right now. In reality she had fused the contents of the tank into a condensed form. Then she had eaten it.

The stuff was essentially a big vat of very pure vital energy in a chemical cocktail. She didn't know what it was for, but she wouldn't pass up the opportunity to increase her cultivation. She would have to spend some time refining out the impurities later, but there was that much to deal with.

"Come on, Mr. Shogun! We've got a scientist to murder!" Cherry announced loudly, snapping the guards out of their confused stupor. "MWAHAHAHAHA!!!"

Cherry pranced out of the room laughing like a stereotypical villain. She reckoned these dummies would work that much harder to deal with her if they thought their master was in danger. It would also hopefully divert some of their efforts towards protecting their master.

Once out of sight, she slipped into the wall once again and dropped the over acted facade.

"Hey, Mr. Shogun, your son wouldn't happen to be a devil fruit user would he? It would make it a lot easier to find him if he is." Cherry asked.

"No, Momonosuke isn't a devil fruit user. Why would that make it easier?" The samurai asked in return.

"Detection ninjutsu." Cherry lied.

"I see!" The samurai was enlightened, nodding his head in understanding. "No wonder you are so honorless. A kunoichi can easily set aside her own honor for her liege."

"Does that mean you're warming up to me?" Cherry asked with a smirk.

"No, your liege is a filthy pirate." The samurai answered immediately.

"Hehe, fair enough." Cherry said.

In that moment, she felt Trafalgar Law warp to the front entrance of the facility where Vice Admiral Smoker, Captain Tashigi, and their subordinates were gathered. It just so happened that the rest of her group and the children were moving in that direction as well.

Cherry wasn't really sure how Law would handle the situation. Was he planning to release the children or was he complicit in their captivity? Either way, she wouldn't make it there before the others reached the front entrance, not without exposing her location and direction anyways. If Law killed any of her people then she'd just make him watch as she killed everyone he cared about.

Cherry instead went towards another object of interest, something very near and dear to Law's heart that she could use as leverage against him.

In fact, it WAS his heart!

Cherry left the samurai's head in the wall for safe keeping whilst she stealthily snuck into a room where a man wearing a white, puffy coat and sunglasses was eating a hamburger bun with the burger patty stuck to his face.

She had reduced her presence as low as possible, even slowing down her organ functions to a stand still as she crept through the room towards the man. Her goal was the human heart encased in a transparent cube sat on the table next to him.

A light fixture in the hall exploded with an audible pop, drawing the man's attention to the door. Cherry's hand slipped around the other side of him and snatched the heart before he turned his head back to his ketchup sandwich. She sunk into the floor and vanished from sight just as the man noticed the missing heart, shooting to his feet.

The man, Vergo, tore the room apart desperately before he found the odd texture on the stone floor just behind the sofa he had been sitting on. The same texture was present on the wall further back.

'Law wasn't the one who took it. Was it one of the Straw Hats, or a third party?' Vergo's mind raced.

Caesar wouldn't be happy about this, not that he cared if the scientist threw a tantrum. So long as Law himself wasn't involved, Caesar can at least bluff him if it came down to it. Meanwhile, Vergo would try to find this thief.

He also made a mental note to work more on his observation haki. Having the heart stolen literally out from right under his nose was downright shameful.

…

"Oh my, it's the marines." Jinbe stated flatly as he opened the front door of the facility, earning himself an indignant glare from Law.

Smoker, Tashigi, and the G5 marines tensed up. Facing off against one Shichibukai was already risky enough, but adding a former Shichibukai on top of that? That was terrifying.

Smoker didn't know what to make of Jinbe's presence here until some of the Straw Hats poured out of the facility's doors with a group of children in assorted sizes following them. Smoker was still determined to figure out what was going on here on Punk Hazard, but he was a little less eager to start a fight right here and now.

"Ack, the marines!" Usopp exclaimed.

"It's freezing out here!" Nami complained.

"Perhaps you should dress more modestly then, Nami." Franky critiqued.

"I don't want to hear that from you, pervert!" Nami shouted.

"Why, thank you~" Franky took it as a compliment.

"The marines are here, should we leave the children with them like Cherry said?" Chopper proposed.

"Are you sure they're marines? They look like pirates disguised as marines…" One of the children pointed out wisely. Several other children agreed with the one who spoke.

"""...""" Law and the marines were rendered speechless by the casual atmosphere around such an odd occurrence.