Chapter 344: Luffy's Cooking
"I thought I was the only one who could separate my soul from my body, yohohohoho!" Brook laughed.
Pedro and Carrot were slumped forward on the deck with the illusion of their souls leaving their bodies. Cherry stood over them domineeringly and clicked her tongue in
disappointment.
"Aren't you supposed to be from a warrior race? How are you already tired?" Cherry asked indignantly.
"I have soreness in muscles I didn't know I had..." Pedro groaned.
"I feel like an overcooked carrot..." Carrot whined.
"Up and at 'em!" Cherry jabbed them both in the back with a finger.
Pedro and Carrot shot up to their feet, suddenly full of energy.
"Now, let's do it again!" Cherry smiled.
Pedro and Carrot paled.
"I've got dinner ready!" Luffy cheered, looking quite pleased with himself.
The fact that he had been in the kitchen for hours now didn't bode well at all, but most of the crew hadn't noticed when he'd first gone in.
"Oh no, what has he done now..." Nami spoke hesitantly, clearly not wanting to even confront whatever Luffy had 'cooked' for all of them.
They filed into the dining room to find the most horrid excuse of food any of them had ever witnessed. Somehow the resultant mass of biomatter was violently purple with noxious fumes seeping from a saucy substance from bubbles.
"Luffy, this isn't edible! Did you use all of our food for this?!" Nami was irate, more angry at herself for forgetting that Sanji wasn't here to fend off her goofball captain from the kitchen.
"Of course not!" Luffy denied.
Nami sighed in relief.
"I used the rest as practice!" Luffy smiled like he was terribly clever.
"We can't eat this, Luffy! It'll kill us all!" Nami throttled him.
"Sanji tastes the food before he serves it too...!" Luffy argued.
"Tastes, yes, not devours." Nami retorted.
Everyone had a nice peaceful meal, pleasantly surprised at the food's quality even though it wasn't all that impressive. Brook took a portion out to Jinbe and Luffy was released to gorge himself on the leftovers, which was plenty even though he bemoaned the amount remaining. "We'll still need to come up with something, but at least we won't be starving tomorrow. If the weather is forgiving we should hopefully be able to fish something up." Nami said.
They still had Nami's orange trees, of course, but Nami was loath to hand them out willy- nilly. Scurvy was a serious health concern on the sea after all, they couldn't just eat their entire source of vitamin C. Not to mention that they're a keepsake that reminds her of home.
"I'll just have Takako grab something, no big deal." Cherry said.
"..." Nami blinked at her. "Right, your pet kraken. How could I forget that...? Wait, you knew food wouldn't be a problem from the start? Why did you let me worry about it, then?!"
"It's not my fault if you forgot my beautiful baby girl-" Cherry gushed. "Remind me why we aren't having her pull the ship to our destination?" Nami asked.
"I will if time gets tight, but it's better not to arrive too early to a party." Cherry spoke as if it were natural.
"You're planning to crash that party, though. Wouldn't it be easier to do that early? What if we're too late and Sanji gets married before we get there?" Nami asked irritably.
"We'll bring his new wife with us? He's a grown ass man and he can make his own decisions, and live with the consequences of his actions." Cherry said with finality. "We're still going to
get him back, though."
Nami sighed and supposed that was true to an extent.
"Yeah!" Luffy concurred, stomach bulging a bit less than the captain probably preferred. "And don't take the romance of sailing on the seas away from me! Takako is fun, but there's
no harm in adventuring at our own pace!"
Jinbe could be heard chuckling at that, seeming to agree with the sentiment.
"Roger took, what, two or three decades to become king of the pirates? Slow is the way to
go!" Cherry nodded. "And we're already on the right track to beat his time by no small
amount, too!"
"Yeah, we're gonna beat his time! Fastest pirate king in history, shishishi!" Luffy laughed.
*Fwoom*
"""Cyclone?!?!?!"""