Chapter 345: Poison Fish

Chapter 345: Poison Fish



The next few days were filled with multitudes of challenges one after the other without end. The crew ended up having to take shifts getting some sleep, or at least attempting to do so with all the tossing around the ship did. Cherry was the only one to stay up the entire time and helped keep people energized whilst manning the ship.

They were thankfully not without food, though it was practically impossible to cook anything more complicated than roasted fish or sea king meat that Takako fished up. The sea creatures could sense the tumultuous seas, though, and fled far away or very deep to avoid it, forcing Takako to go far afield to catch anything.

"It's so ugly~! E-hahaha!" Carrot laughed at one of Takako's catches, a seahorse the size of a land horse with a big, human-like nose with seaweed poking out of the nostrils.

*snort*

The seahorse sucked the seaweed up its nose as it lay on the deck. Its seeming lack of a mouth likely meant that the nose was, in actuality, the mouth or mouths.

"""Hahahahaha~!"""Luffy, Carrot, and Chopper lost it.

A dreadful heat wave washed over the ship as the morning sun rose in the sky. So intense it was that the sea itself became scalding hot and even started to boil. Takako would not be harmed by this with her tough skin, but it was terribly uncomfortable so she took refuge in Cherry's vital energy sea.

Nami's Clima-Tact went a long way at keeping them cool, both directly and launching cool balls into the water to prevent the ship from acting like an oven.

The minks and Chopper were still quite hot even with these measures, though, hiding in whatever shade they could find and hugging frozen barrels of water desperately.

"Nami, I'm hungryyy-" Luffy whined whilst holding a fishing pole.

"Then catch something. You ate the lion's share of that seahorse this morning, why are you even still hungry?" Nami fanned herself.

"But we skipped lunch! And what about snacks?!" Luffy's head lolled around aimlessly.

"We don't have the luxury for snacks anymore after you used up our supplies, Luffy." Brook gently chided.

"How are you sweating?" Cherry asked Brook in an abrupt change of topic.

"It's hot?" Brook tilted his head in confusion.

"..." Cherry blinked at him and sniffed the air. "Is that... milk?"

"I can't help it, okay!" Brook cried.

Everyone looked up as he was doing and saw what looked like flurries of snow coming down from the sky.

"That's right, we've entered Mama's territory now. The cotton candy snow is a dead

giveaway." Pekoms concurred.

"Cotton candy snow?" Nami asked incredulously, reaching out to taste some. "It really is? Are

the clouds made of sugar?"

Chopper burst out onto the deck once more with a doctor's bag in hand. He rushed over towards Cherry, before getting distracted by the tell-tale scent of his favorite sweet. "Cotton

candy?!"

Their den den mushi started to chime, which Pekoms said was the true mark that they were inside Big Mom's territory proper now. He insisted on them wearing some manner of disguise from henceforth.

"What disguise? You don't think Big Mom knows what our ship looks like?" Cherry said, looking worse than she did before but otherwise acting like she was fine.

"It's not a certainty, but it's very unlikely that anyone who matters in Mama's crew knows what an upstart's ship looks like. They'll only know your faces and your jolly roger at best."

Pekoms said, then added, "No offense."

"There's a ship coming, Pekoms!" Pedro called down from the crow's nest.

Pekoms gazed out over the water. "Probably a biscuit ship. Hurry up and pull down your flag!

And hide or disguise yourselves!"

"What? We're not taking down our flag!" Luffy refused stubbornly.

"They'll recognise you immediately!" Pekoms argued.

"I don't care! A jolly roger represents the pride of its crew!" Luffy was adamant and crossed

his arms.

*This is Germa! We have identified your vessel as belonging to the Straw Hat crew!* The almost mechanical voice played over loudspeakers.