One Piece: Dream of Immortality

Chapter 391: Katakuri's Bad Day



Katakuri was having a bad day.

Big Mom kept insisting that he reconsider marrying Cherry and he kept vehemently refusing. However, each time she asked him the pressure, both figurative and literal, increased. It seemed that she was dead set on it being him who went to the chopping block.

He suspected that his mother believed that he was the only option that had a chance in hell of actually keeping Cherry somewhat reined in, otherwise she would have asked one of his more seductive siblings already.

"You aren't getting any younger, you know, Katakuri," Big Mom said with a 'motherly' smile. "Don't you want children of your own?"

Katakuri stood before her like an immovable mountain, but on the inside he was struggling a bit to resist the might of Big Mom's conqueror's haki. She couldn't do much more than that, given Katakuri's unique position in her crew; head and shoulders above the rest in terms of power. Big Mom couldn't be in two places at once, so having Katakuri was the second best thing and that couldn't be jeopardized by forcing this engagement too hard.

This wasn't the first time that Big Mom had brought up the issue of him having children. He was tempted to answer honestly for once, that he didn't have any plans of having children while his monstrous mother was still alive, if at all.

Of course, he didn't phrase it that way. Instead he said, "I could never have children with that woman."

The pressure of Big Mom's conqueror's haki vanished like a puff of smoke in the wind. "Why not?"

Now that wasn't a sight he saw very often; Big Mom sulking. The vast majority of the times that she didn't get her way immediately, she threw a massive tantrum, which from one of the world's strongest people was more of a natural disaster. Even Katakuri didn't dare to deny her outright like he had been doing with this engagement to Cherry, instead choosing to be as diplomatic as possible.

Seeing the monstrous woman pout at him was kind of disgusting, to be honest.

"I find her detestable," Katakuri said after a moment of silence. It wasn't really true, but his feelings regarding Cherry were very confusing. The only thing he was certain of was that he definitely didn't want to marry her; he felt a revulsion for the idea down to his very core.

'Not to mention that I'm almost certain this whole thing is a big joke to her...' Katakuri thought, and he didn't want any part in it lest he become the butt of that joke.

"Fine, fine. Go on then. Leave your poor mother without any grandbabies to spoil..." Big Mom waved him away.

Katakuri took the chance to leave while he could. She had called him about a dozen times today, so he expected that he would get called once or twice more before she went to bed for the night.

He was walking back to his room for a much needed donut break when he heard his name called by a familiar voice.

"Katakuri-onii-sama!" Mont-d'Or called out.

Katakuri sighed inaudibly and turned to face...

"What happened to your face?" Katakuri asked him, furrowing his brow.

Mont-d'Or wouldn't have been recognizable if not for his unique sense of style, even though his clothes were all torn up. His face was all puffed up and swollen, his makeup ruined and showing a great deal of red, black, and blue beneath it.

A few of his other siblings stood behind Mont-d'Or, looking to be in a similar state of 'roughed up'.

"That damned Straw Hat happened!" Mont-d'Or spat indignantly.

"Didn't Mama call off the manhunt, at least temporarily?" Katakuri asked.

"Of course, we were just going to capture them after a light beating," Mont-d'Or admitted.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

"We couldn't just leave Cracker's defeat unanswered. It would make us look weak in front of the peasants and the guests, especially Morgans," Amande added. She wasn't as beat up as Mont-d'Or, but she had a fair few burns and was still smoking from what ordeal she went through.

Katakuri's brow furrowed further. "I take it that you didn't win as easily as you thought you would."

There was an audible, collective gulp after he said that.

"Well... that's the thing, Onii-sama..." Mont-d'Or spoke low and slow, like he really didn't want to say what he was about to say. "We lost..."

You lost..." Katakuri almost couldn't believe it. "Was Harpin D. Cherry there?"

That would explain why they lost and would also allow him to not get involved, he hoped.

"... No..." Mont-d'Or said, seeming very small.

"You assembled an entire war party, fought on our own home turf, that mad woman wasn't even there, and you STILL lost?" Katakuri sounded immensely disappointed, which might as well be a fit of rage for their typically aloof elder brother.

He didn't actually care that they'd lost so much as they hadn't brought this to his attention AFTER his donut break. Truly an unforgivable sin.

Of course his younger siblings here were unaware of his true thoughts.

"W-we underestimated them, Katakuri-onii-sama! Jinbe is about what we expected and that little navigator of theirs is a real glass cannon, but Straw Hat himself is almost a match for you! We couldn't have seen it coming, he's just a rubber man!" Mont-d'Or hastily passed the blame onto the enemy.

He wasn't really wrong to do so either, as just about everyone who went up against Luffy underestimated him on account of having such a seemingly goofy 'paramecia' devil fruit. Those kinds of devil fruit were a dime a dozen in the New World.

Katakuri immediately saw through this excuse though. A large mochi arm reached out of nowhere, grabbed Mont-d'Or around the waist, and brought him closer to look him right in his nearly swollen shut eyes.

"Tell me again that he's 'just a rubber man'," Katakuri growled at him and Mont-d'Or suppressed a whimper. "Am I 'just a mochi man'? Are you 'just a book man'? There's no such thing as 'just' anything, only how well suited a devil fruit is to its user, and you of all people should understand that."

Katakuri plopped Mont-d'Or down on his feet, far more gently than the latter expected, then he asked, "What were the casualties?"

Depending on the answer to that question, he might need to go finish what they started. Ugh.

"Just the homies. They didn't even try to stop us from leaving," Amande said, as Mont-d'Or was still composing himself.

"They just let you go?" Katakuri found this curious. True, Straw Hat had never been particularly blood thirsty according to what he had heard about him, but just letting the enemy leave was beyond that.

"His mistake, right Onii-sama?!" Mont-d'Or finished collecting himself. "Once we get treated a bit in the infirmary, we can head right back with you and take them out!" "Unfortunately, I have an important task to do for Mama and thus cannot help you in your foolishness. Go find Smoothie if you need someone to fight your battles for you," Katakuri dismissed the attempt to rope him into their mess.

He was glad that no one in the family was seriously hurt. That meant he could have his donut

break after all!