'Where did she go?' King stalked the halls of Onigashima as the ground beneath his feet quaked.
He knew that Kaido must be doing something to the island. Only his captain and Big Mom had the power to shake the very earth the castle was built on, and Big Mom wouldn't dare.
Okay, she would dare; but not right after joining hands with Kaido.
What Kaido or possibly Big Mom was doing was none of his concern at the moment, though. He had one of the last members of his race on the planet to "save".
Nevermind that she didn't want anything to do with him.
He was already wondering if she'd be amenable to shacking up with some skypeian lad. Maybe have a bunch of little half-lunarian babies that would call him Grandpa...
King never wanted kids himself; he wasn't willing to subject his own child to the discrimination that he was forced to weather. However, the more he thought about it the more he found the idea of protecting the next generation of his kin to be a pleasant one; even if they weren't his own blood.
Especially if they weren't his own, cursed blood.
He couldn't tell other people not to have kids, though, so that was perfectly fine.
King paused both his thoughts and his feet. His narrowed eyes scanned the empty room, but only found abandoned food and alcohol and a few unconscious Beast pirates. Even so, he knew that there was something more here-
King flapped his wings hard, launching himself out of the way of-!
An assortment of flying desserts???
King only had a moment to stare at the pile of sugary mush before his senses warned him of another threat.
Twin flashes of light burned at the edges of his feathers before exploding against the opposite wall.
King caught sight of the perpetrator only briefly; a hulk of a man who was more metal than meat, his nipples still glowing from their discharge. He faded from view like a mirage before King could retaliate.
"So this is where you were hiding?" King rumbled, noting the similarity to what happened with his quarry before he lost them.
It wasn't the worst place in the castle to hide. It was somewhat out in the open, yes, but that only made it less suspicious whilst at the same the scattered remains of the party served as decent cover.
King settled his nerves and slowed his heart to a heavy, slow beat; something that took him many years to accomplish. It calmed him and set him in the perfect mindset for observation haki. He would not let these idiots get one over on him again.
Countless sproinging sounds reverberated from and off the walls. What had to be several metric tons of cake, pie, icecream, and all manner of sweets rained down.
"What did I do to deserve this?" King wondered.
"What did I do to deserve this?" Cherry wondered.
That bastard, Kaido, was lifting the entire damned island! Like, it was literally flying up and up and up into the air!
What kind of maniac does that?!
By the time she realized what she was up to, it was too late to stop him. If she meddled with those little clouds of his carelessly, she could drop the island back down to the sea and kill everyone on it.
This was so, so much worse than just sinking the island.
The Red Scabbard who were awake and aware enough to tell what was going on wore grim expressions as well. There was a certain resignation there as well, likely because their young lord Momonosuke wasn't here to perish with them.
Even if no one in Wano accepted Momonosuke as the rightful Shogun of Wano, at least Wano would be free to make the choice themselves.
The only viable option to resolve this that immediately came to Cherry's mind was to start evacuating people right away. The problem with that is that almost no one would accept her help. The samurai wouldn't leave without finishing their quest, and her crew and allied crews would be similarly stubborn.
Nami and Usopp might agree to leave, but even as cowardly as they tended to be, they wouldn't leave their friends behind to save their own necks.
"Heavens above, I'm going to have to do it, aren't I?" Cherry sighed deeply.
"Do what?" Kiku asked.
"Math... blegh," Cherry shivered.
The question marks above Kiku's head were almost visible to the naked eye.
"No use putting it off, I suppose," Cherry crouched and started carving into a nice unblemished spot of the roof with a fingernail.
Kiku sat up a little bit to see what she was doing, only to find an assortment of symbols that she couldn't make any sense of. It wasn't a language she was familiar with either.
It was kind of frustrating since Kiku was quite good at mathematics. Her brother made sure she was well educated, being a vassal of Oden-sama.
"Are you sure that's really math?" Izou voiced Kiku's inner thoughts.
"Shush!" Cherry hissed at him and went back to her nonsensical alien scribbles.
It was only natural that they didn't understand. She could spend the rest of their lives teaching them the concepts she was working with, but it would be no use. A mortal mind could not comprehend such things; it was not a matter of intelligence.
As Cherry continued to give physical form to her calculations, Kiku and Izou first squinted then rubbed at their eyes.
"Onii-sama... I think I'm seeing double..." Kiku said.
"Maybe we're both concussed? I'm pretty sure that weird looking 3 was over there a few seconds ago..." Izou pointed.
"I think I'm going to throw up," Kiku swallowed.
"You better not puke on my work!" Cherry growled at her without looking up.
Kiku and Izou decided they weren't that curious if whatever magic Cherry was doing would make them lose the contents of their stomachs.
"Okay?" Cherry stood up and reviewed her writing. "Okay! Yeah, this should work!"
Truthfully she was just trying to sound confident. Fake it til you make it, as Usopp says.
But hey, if it doesn't work, then it just means a lot of people might die! No big deal.
"Now where is Zeus?" Cherry scratched her chin, scanning the castle for her next kidnappee. "Aha!"
Cherry suddenly sunk into the roof, leaving a hole behind in her wake. This also put a hole right in the middle of her "math", causing them to stop acting in ways that writing has no business acting.
Conveniently, Zeus just so happened to be located directly beneath her, pretty much. She need only drop straight down through the various floors to her destination.
"Nami! I need to borrow your pet cloud!" Cherry shouted.
She didn't see Nami with her eyes, but she did see King covered head to toe in icing, pie filling, whipped cream, and chocolate fondue.
"Am I interrupting something?" Cherry asked tentatively.
King took a swing at her, an attack meant to kill her in one brutal and efficient strike. Cherry nudged it to the side and let it carve into the floor instead.
"I didn't say I wanted to join in on your food fight, brat," Cherry flicked sickly sweet gunk off her hand.
"Brat?" King narrowed his eyes.
"Hey, don't butt into our fight!" Franky shouted from somewhere.
"Listen, I can't help it if everyone presents their behinds to me for kicking! I'm very popular!" Cherry shouted back.
"Touche," Franky said.
"Exactly! I'm surrounded by enemy tushies!" Cherry threw her arms up in frustration.
King wished he could go back to just dealing with the idiots from before.