One Piece: Dream of Immortality

Chapter 3: Going to the town



Cherry told her Grandma that she wanted to go down to the town. She didn't want to worry the old woman by sneaking off, at least not yet.

"Alright, you can go with Borke to do the grocery shopping. Don't go wandering off on your own. Just because I've been spoiling you doesn't mean I won't discipline you if you act recklessly." Grandma stated, trying to look stern.

Borke was one of the two disciples that Cherry determined to be 'some-what talented'. He was a young man in his late teens, nearly 2 meters tall, extremely muscular, shaved head, a ordinary face, blue eyes, and dumb as a bag of hammers. He was honest and extremely loyal to her Grandma, so she had a good opinion of him.

Though that didn't stop her from messing with him. He's such an easy target she just can't help herself. Cherry finds it especially funny how he never seems to realize she was the perpetrator, no matter how obvious she makes it. She had once painted him red from head to toe while he slept, and then painted her own hands red. After waking up (and taking far too long to realize he was covered in paint) he had asked her if she knew anything. She shrugged, revealing her red hands.

"Ah!" He shouted and pointed at her hands.

'Is this the moment I get caught red handed? hehe' Cherry thought.

"They got you too, Cherry! It's one thing to prank me, but pranking Master Angela's granddaughter is going too far! I'll definitely find out who did this!" He stormed off to interrogate the other disciples. Cherry had nearly suffocated laughing.

The other disciple she had taken notice of was Slenk. He was a few years older than Borke, rather short at 1.5 meters tall, sported a green mohawk, green eyes, handsome, but looked like a snake. Unlike Borke, he was very intelligent and observant. If it weren't for the fact that Cherry remembered him protecting her from another disciple's bullying when she was still an idiot, she would have been very wary of him.

Cherry met up with Borke when the time came to go down to the town. Pebbleton was where most of Boulder Island's residents lived, with the rest living in small farming or fishing villages.

After her grandfather died, more pirates started to get bold enough to mess with our dojo. So the marines set up a base to discourage them. A number of the dojo's disciples end up joining the marines after all. They often ended up becoming officers because of their swordsmanship; one even became a Captain.

Cherry and Borke walked down the main street, which was bustling with activity.

Occasionally, Cherry would meet eyes with someone, who would then flinch and look away quickly. She wondered if someone had started false rumors about her or something, but then remembered how intimidating her face was.

After accidentally making a child cry, she tried to put on a friendly, innocent smile. This seemed to have the opposite effect, as people instinctively opened a path ahead of her.

"Oh! People seem to be especially polite today." Borke said. He looked down at Cherry and flinched.

"What's wrong Borke?" Cherry said, sensing an opportunity. "Did something startle you?" This time she gave her best attempt at a demon's twisted smile.

Borke started to sweat, a rather strange thing to happen on such a cool morning. "I-I was just surprised to s-see Cherry's evi- um, beautiful smile, haha!" He gulped.

"Oh! Then I should do it more often, since you like it so much!" Cherry said with great amusement.

"T-that's not- I mean, you don't have to go out of your w-way for my sake, Cherry. Um, I think I r-read somewhere that smiling too much will make your face hurt. Yes, I definitely read that somewhere!" Borke said, his eyes darting around, trying to look anywhere but at Cherry.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Cherry let her face return to it's natural frown. "Alright then, but let me know if you ever need cheering up. I'll happy to give a smile."

'I've grasped your weakness, Borke. I hope you're prepared, hehehe'

The two arrived at the farmer's market, where Borke hurriedly went to collect the things on his grocery list.

Cherry spotted the blacksmith the dojo get's it's swords from nearby and decided to have a look.

When she opened the door a bell above her rang and she walked inside the store. Various weapons lined the walls and counters in the room.

A young man came into the showroom from a back room and spotted her. "Hey! This isn't a place for brats to play around in! Get lost!"

Cherry had expected this, but she had a plan. She called it 'Spoiled young mistress won't take no for an answer!' It wouldn't work on prideful master craftsmen, but it was good enough to deal with this guy.

"Don't you know who I am?! I'm the granddaughter of Harpin Angela and Harpin D. Mortis! Don't compare me with common children who can't handle a blade without tripping and stabbing themselves with it! I want to speak with with whomever is in charge here!"

The young man was stunned silent. He'd had the brats argue with him before, but he was at a loss with this one. If what she said was true (and she was wearing the dojo's uniform, so it may very well be), then he couldn't afford to offend her. 'I'll just go get the old man and let him deal with her. She'll regret not leaving when I told her to, I bet!' He imagined the haughty little girl carried by the scruff tossed out the door like a stray cat.

He put on his best sales smile and assured "Yes, of course, young miss! I apologize for not recognizing you're, uh, esteemed excellence. I'll get the master right now!" He scurried into the back room while bowing repeated towards her.

Cherry knew what he was up to, planning to exaggerate her bad attitude even more than it already was to the master no doubt. Naturally, she had a plan for this as well.

She walked over to one of the sword racks and started searching. It didn't take long for her to find the best piece in the shop. It was a mass produced sword, nothing special at all about it, but she could tell it was made by the most skilled smith in this place. Even when made in a hasty manner, the skill in it's make was plain to see in her eyes.

'Now to put on a show.' She walked to the center of the showroom and started going through the motions of the dojo's particular style. Cherry wasn't a sword immortal in her last life, in fact she hardly ever fought at all, let alone with a sword.

However, she did possess a great deal of knowledge about swordsmanship, book-learning you might say. It was necessary to know how a sword would be used to make a good sword. And she had made the best sword ever crafted by someone who hadn't reached divinity. After a few moments, an irritated old man burst into the showroom. "Which arrogant brat thinks she can come into MY smithy-" He stopped dead in his tracks, his mouth dropping gob-smacked at the sight before him.