Spa Day

Miss Spa Day was not having a good time. Not. At. All.

This was supposed to be a simple mission. Go into the rebels' headquarters, kill the rebel leader Koza, use her devil fruit power to make the surrounding people hallucinate him being killed by an assassin from the royal faction. Easy.

Then it all started to go down hill when that woman got involved.

At first she was elated when she spotted her. She had been given a mission to find the former Miss Halloween several months ago, but had no luck and couldn't complete it. So if she could capture her now, it would be a nice little gift for Mr. 0 to help him forget that little failure.

She used her devil fruit and released her hallucinogenic perfume to incapacitate the group. However, Miss Halloween and the other woman seemed to realize something was wrong only a moment after contact and leapt into action. The other woman transformed into some kind of wooden construct and flew away with with her target, while Miss Halloween had stopped her breath to slow the foreign influence from taking hold.

Even when she was eventually completely caught in the hallucinogenic world, her mind did not seem to be muddled at all.

Miss Spa Day wasn't a one trick pony, though. She still had her Massage Arts, a martial art form that forces the opponent's body to relax. This came very much in handy when she got her throat caught in Miss Halloween's death grip. If she was even a moment or two late to act she might have had her throat torn out by that brutish woman!

She wasted no time using her Massage Arts to relax her into a deep slumber, but the moment she got started on one of her legs that monster managed to slash her across the face. She had been prepared to dodge any random blind swings, but not such a deliberate strike. If she had been too careless, that swing may have cut clean through her head.

'My adorable face?! It's ruined, disfigured, I'm going to be hideous!' She lamented, more upset at the thought of a terrible scar than at the two near death experiences she just had.

She angrily returned to her work after cursing, this time treating Cherry like a fully aware opponent, which seemed to be enough. She knew she'd won when she saw Miss Halloween's sword vanish and she started to breath again.

She manipulated the hallucinations of the rebels present to witness a scene of the two women revealing their true colors and kidnapping Koza in order to execute him for treason in Alubarna.

That wasn't the original plan, but it was the best she could do on short notice, even if it was a bit of a gamble. If she made it out that he died, then if he returned later they would know for sure they were tricked.

She grabbed Miss Halloween, who was a lot heavier than anticipated, and dragged her to the carriage waiting for her with camels bred for their strength, stamina, and speed. She needed to be in Alubarna for the next stage of the plan.

...

Cherry had already woken up and regained most of the use of her limbs by the time Miss Spa Day finished meddling with the rebels minds, which wasn't very long at all. She gave no outward indication of this, however.

'She intends to take me alive, is that it? Well that's fine by me. Bring me to your owner, little kitten, so I can take care of this mess in one fell swoop.' Cherry thought calmly.

First she put together the information she had obtained about the devil fruit ability.

'It seems to influence others through the medium of a gas or scent that must be breathed in. It allows the user to control the physical senses of the target and even muddle the minds of weaker willed individuals. A devastating ability for the unprepared, but easily countered by holding the breath beforehand.' She thought.

'As for it blocking my Life Sense, that's not a big surprise. Life Sense has no spirit component, so it is still a physical sense in a way like the 5 senses. Since devil fruit utilizes vital energy as well, it likely blocks it even though the user herself should be ignorant of it.' She concluded.

But if her physical senses were under control, how could she tell when and where Miss Spa Day was attacking her? Naturally this was a consequence of partial success in the Spirit Root Realm. Most of her motor neurons were directly connected with her soul at this point, thus she could tell when her muscles weren't responding properly. If she had completed the Spirit Root Realm, she would not have lost her sense of touch either.

It was almost funny, since if Miss Spa Day had attacked her normally, she could not have located her as she had attacked.

Cherry considered what solutions she could employ, aside from hoping Miss Spa Day made a stupid mistake like letting her out of the hallucination.

'I won't be able to make any progress in cultivation in a short period, so that's not an option.' Cherry discarded. 'Hmm, should I try to awaken Observation Haki? Being cut off from the outside world like this is probably the perfect time to do so.'

Cherry began to meditate, emptying her mind of erroneous thoughts and doubts. She first focused inwards, as she knew her own body better than anything else and tried to sense it with her will.

She felt her heart beat, but it was a bad fake at best. She focused further, deeper within her. The world outside of her was no longer within her perception and time lost all meaning to her.

She felt an inkling of something, like a soft sound from the other side of a thick, stone wall.

'Just a little more, almost there.'

...

Hours after Cabernet flew out of Katorea she could see Nanohana on the horizon.

Koza and the other two men started coming out of their stupors. Seeing they were dangling quite a ways up in the air, their faces paled.

"What's going on?!" Koza shouted, but didn't dare to struggle.

"We're escaping." The large wooden figure carrying them said in a deep voice.

Cabernet carried them down to the ground and let them stand on solid ground, much to their relief, then she turned back into her human form. Koza recognized her now.

"What happened? Why did we escape?" Koza asked, looking at the sun that had moved well beyond the time he thought it was. "How long have I been out?

"An enemy that Cherry could not protect you from appeared, so she ordered me to take you away. It should be sometime in the afternoon." There was a hint of bitterness and sadness in her voice.

"Then I need to go back! I can't leave our men in Katorea at the whims of an unknown enemy!" Koza shouted.

He ran towards Nanohana in the distance, intending to acquire a camel from the rebels stationed there to return to Katorea as fast as possible. Farafra and Erik followed close behind him.

He didn't ask Cabernet to bring him back because he still didn't trust her. For all he knew, this Baroque Works was a work of fiction meant to distract him.

Cabernet was conflicted. She wanted to return to Cherry right away, her order had been fulfilled after all. At the same time, she knew this man was important to her friend Vivi and even Cherry thought he needed protecting.

She slapped herself on the cheeks. 'This is no time for personal feelings! Lives are on the line, right?!'

She followed after Koza.

As they got closer to Nanohana, they could see smoke rising from it. Then they saw a massive ship crash into the city.

Upon arriving Koza asked what was going on and found out the King had appeared and set the city on fire with the intent to kill everyone. He only ran away when the massive ship had crashed into the port.

"Just what the hell is going on today?!" Koza was confused. What should he believe? That the King had truly gone completely mad, or that the secret organization he was warned about was real?

He looked at his trusted comrades, then at Cabernet. "Tell me everything you know, without any theatrics or riddles."

Cabernet didn't really know why Cherry wanted to act so mysteriously in the first place, so she told Koza everything she knew about Vivi and what she discovered about Baroque Works.

The three men were shocked to the core by what they heard. The whole thing was madness, but it didn't seem so crazy compared to the chaos that had happened today.

"Why didn't you tell me this before?!" Koza shouted exasperatedly.

"I'm sure Cherry was getting to the point, before she was interrupted..." Cabernet muttered with some guilt.

The townspeople had reached a boiling point. The ship that had crashed was full of weapons and they were arming themselves, getting ready to cross the desert to storm Alubarna.

"Koza watched them feeling helpless. "I have to stop this, but would they even listen to me at this point?"

"Maybe they won't. Are you just going to give up though? Because I know Vivi wouldn't." Cabernet smiled encouragingly.

Koza's spirit was roused. "Right. I can't do anything by doing nothing. Let's do this."