262 A Big Harvest

*BIP BOP BAM*

Several expertly applied punches and kicks later, Cherry was left with a small hill of unconscious Donquixote family guards.

"It's so satisfying when they go down so easily~ Just a light tap and they're out like a light, straight to dreamland~!" Cherry let out a satisfied sigh.

"Who the hell are you?! No, it doesn't matter… because you're already dead meat!" A tall, rotund woman came out of what seemed to be an office.

The woman had a device on her back that Cherry had never seen before, but judging from the nozzle attached to a hose held in the woman's hand, she guessed it would spray some caustic or flammable liquid.

Strangely, Cherry felt that this woman was familiar, though she was certain she didn't know the woman herself. After searching her memory, she came upon a possibility and decided to voice it.

"You wouldn't happen to be related to a man named Andrew, would you? Goes by the nickname 'Butterball'?" Cherry asked.

'Butterball' Andrew was a man Cherry briefly met years ago in the kingdom of Kano. He had attempted to rob her, and luckily escaped with his life since he had been merciful in the attempt.

"W- What?! Y- You've seen my Andrew?! You've seen my big brother?!" She asked desperately, her face that was once full of cruelty now looked pitiful.

"He tried to rob me a few years back. You'll be happy to know I left him in one piece, I imagine." Cherry said.

"There's no way my big brother would lose to a two bit henchman like you! You must be lying to me!" The woman said, voice full of indignation.

"Oh right." Cherry reversed her Seimei Kikan technique, returning to her original appearance and discarded her sunglasses.

"..." The woman silently took off her backpack and set down her strange weapon on the ground. Then she prostrated herself and begged "Please spare my little life, I'm only a middle manager!"

Cherry was dumbfounded by this, but after thinking about it for a moment, it made sense. They wouldn't just make any old brute into the boss of such an important factory, so she had to possess some level of decent intelligence. That intelligence probably told her that opposing Cherry was more dangerous than betraying Doflamingo.

"Off you go then, before I change my mind. I last saw your brother at Kano…" Cherry paused and frowned.

Kyuin, the boss of the factory, didn't notice her strange expression as she didn't dare to look Cherry in the eye. She muttered thanks and gratitude over and over and she slunk out of the factory whilst trying to take up as little space as possible.

She originally joined the Donquixote family in hopes of reuniting with her long lost brother, figuring that there was a decent chance he'd turn up here if he had any dealings with the underworld. Now that Cherry was here, she reckoned that Doflamingo's days were numbered, and thus she could leave without consequence to go find her beloved brother.

Cherry hardly noticed her exit, instead coming to terms with the fact that she had apparently forgotten someone again. Her vivre card book was fine, so it wasn't anyone on the crew which was a relief, but only a small one.

"Haaah…" Cherry heaved a sigh. "I guess I'll just take care of the toy maker now rather than later…"

Upon scanning the underground area again, though, she paused. "Well, since they're here, I'll just let them take care of it."

Cherry folded the corners of two of the vivre cards in her booklet, specifically the ones belonging to Robin and Usopp. It probably wouldn't do much good, but it wouldn't hurt to leave some additional clues either. After thinking for a moment, she put a kiss mark onto Robin's card and giggled to herself.

She marched onwards, deeper into the factory. Soon enough she was knocking slave drivers unconscious. A few might even have accidentally gotten hit a bit too hard and would suffer lifelong paralysis as a result, but if they didn't want that to happen they shouldn't be whipping the little munchkins who were already doing their best!

"What have you done?! Why have you hurt our benefactors?!" The tontatta slaves were outraged.

"Benefactors? How have they benefited you in any way?" Cherry asked curiously.

"Our princess is sick! They were making the medicine to make her all better!" One angrily shouted.

"That was obviously a lie." Cherry spoke bluntly.

"Ehhh?! Really?! They lied to us?!" The tontatta chorused in shock and disbelief.

"W- Wait a minute! If it was a lie, then what about the medicinal fruits we've been growing here?!" One chimed in with surprising skepticism.

"The only thing these fruits are good for is cursing people." Cherry spoke a half-truth. Although, now that she could get a good look at them, about 9 in 10 of these fruits really were only good for cursing people.

"Ehhh?! We cursed the princess?!" They shouted in horror.

"Hold on, if they are fruit that curse people, doesn't that make them devil fruit?" A squirrel-ish tontatta added.

"But the princess already ate a devil fruit. She can't get any more cursed can she?" A leafy tontatta piped in.

They let out a collective sigh of relief.

"If she already ate a devil fruit, then eating another one wouldn't curse her. It would make her explode." Cherry said, doing her best to keep a serious look on her face.

"WE MADE THE PRINCESS EXPLODE?!?!?!" Half of the tontatta fainted on the spot.

Cherry felt that maybe, just maybe, she went a little too far in teasing the gullible little fools.

"Well, I seriously doubt they would waste a valuable product to kill a valuable hostage." Cherry magnanimously showed mercy.

"R- Right! That makes sense! Huh, hostage? OH NO, THE PRINCESS HAS BEEN TAKEN HOSTAGE!" They exclaimed.

Oddly enough, this outburst woke up the fainted tontatta who then looked ready to go to war.

'I guess they really like their princess…' Cherry thought as she watched them whip themselves up into a righteous frenzy.

The sight gave Cherry the same impression of a kicked hornets' nest. Those hornets swarmed to a particular section of the factory, leaving Cherry behind.

Cherry turned her gaze onto the tanks of S.A.D. and the field of S.M.I.L.E.s with a greedy smile. She skipped towards them like a dainty princess, humming a song along the way.

Using her fusion fruit, she condensed the artificial devil fruits into a less bulky form, not bothering to preserve whatever effect they may have granted as she considered such effects to be subpar and not worth consideration.

As for the S.A.D. juice, she just directly absorbed what she wanted from it to digest later during her daily cultivation sessions.

She didn't find the drill fruit, but she still hadn't looted- er, checked the place where they were storing the artificial devil fruit that were ready for shipment.

She moseyed on over to the warehouse where they kept the rest of the fruits, checking on Usopp and Robin as she went. They hadn't yet confronted the officers, so she would probably have time to head over and watch.

Swinging the doors of the warehouse open dramatically, she stepped inside like she owned the place. Right after she shot forward as fast as she was able, just as a clawed hand sliced through the ends of her hair. 

"Damn it, not YOU again!" Cherry said disdainfully.

The tall, thin figure chuckled darkly. "You aren't happy to see an old accomplice? My cold, dead heart aches…"

None other than Wilson Alexander, master assassin and wielder of the reap reap fruit, stood before her once again.