One Piece: Dream of Immortality

Chapter 492: Hug my Grandpa



"I-I'm not a bad liar! I've been lying for twenty years and nobody has figured it out yet!" Denjiro argued. "Wait... did you say you came to kill me...?"

"It's a lot easier to pretend to be someone else when you don't look the same as you did before. Trust me, I'd know," Cherry pointed at her own face, pointedly ignoring his question. "As far as I know, there's only one devil fruit in the world that explicitly allows the user to change their face. People just don't factor that possibility into their suspicions of other people."

"Ah, well... I suppose my face being different did help a bit..." Denjiro scratched his face.

"You can change your face too?!" Toko asked, opening her demon mask to reveal her sparkling eyes.

"Not on purpose, though it is quite convenient for me," Denjiro answered.

"Your face is also different from before? I just thought you did that to your hair and everybody around here was too stupid or blind to recognise you. Huh," Cherry nodded.

She reached out and grabbed him by the face before he could flinch away from her. "Heavens, that's a lot of tension. This has got to be painful."

Denjiro moved her hands with his own. "I suppose it's uncomfortable, but I've grown accustomed to it."

"You should fix his face like you did mine!" Toko chirped.

"Fix your face?" Denjiro asked.

"Yeah, see!" Toko put on an exaggerated frown that caused Denjiro to gasp, then she started giggling so the smile returned.

"How?" Denjiro asked, eyes flicking back to Cherry.

"Nevermind that," Cherry waved away his interest, having no desire to repeat her lies over and over. "I could get your face back to normal, though I imagine that you'd rather wait until all of this is over with?"

"Yes, of course," Denjiro agreed. "I must admit... the prospect is relieving. I am forced to stay away from my elderly mother and take care of her expenses anonymously. It hasn't been easy..."

"You're a good guy, I like you!" Cherry clapped him on the back. "Sorry that I've attacked you twice now, but you've got to admit that you look super shady."

Denjiro nodded.

"Right, so where did you send Komurasaki off to?" Cherry asked. "Toko wants to pay a visit and she's obviously not here anymore, nor is she really dead."

"Hm, it would be safer not to tell you anything. I was hesitant to even advise her myself, lest I be forced to reveal through means or tortures unknown to me. Sadly, she is not as well traveled as I am, so she did need that advice in the end," Denjiro spoke with a furrowed brow. *sniffle* "S-so I can't see Hi- Komurasaki-s-sama...?" Toko started tearing up, her face twisting in that utter despair that only children can muster for such relatively small things. Denjiro felt like he'd been stabbed through the heart. He had to actually check that Cherry hadn't done so when he had focused on Toko, but it was truly just his own guilt trying to kill him.

"Ugh... Alright, she went to Ringo..." Denjiro gave in to the sad puppy eyes Toko was giving him.

"Hooray!" Toko betrayed his trust by instantly erupting into a cheer, her crocodile tears long forgotten.

"Good job," Cherry high fived the girl. "Did Komurasaki teach you that?"

"Yep! Kyo-chan is a sucker for puppy eyes!" Toko stuck her tongue out at him.

Cherry and Toko laughed at the man as he buried his face into his hands, ears going red from shame. He was supposed to be a master manipulator, not someone who can be tricked by a child!

"Thanks, anyways, Kyo-chan-" Cherry said which made him grimace, much to her delight. "I think we'll make another stop before we head that way, but we'll make sure that Komurasaki hasn't run into any trouble when we go to Ringo."

"Right... I'd appreciate that," Denjiro said once he collected himself. "Don't tell anyone!"

"Of course, not. What do you take me for, some kind of career criminal?" Cherry waved goodbye to him and led the also waving Toko out of the room.

"..." Denjiro watched them leave feeling surprisingly less stressed than he had before they interrupted his day like a hurricane. Then he realized, "You ARE a career criminal, you damned pirate!"

He heard Cherry cackling at the front door of the business slammed behind her. Fortunately, most of his men were out at the moment, and those that weren't were too unconscious to overhear his shout of outrage.

...

"Where are we going?" Toko asked once the two of them were back outside and Cherry's face was changed back to her disguise.

"To visit your father, dummy," Cherry said.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Toko let out the sweetest little gasp and was practically hopping alongside her. It looked rather odd for a figure decked out in full samurai regalia with a demon mask, but to Cherry it might just be the cutest thing she'd ever seen.

It wasn't hard to find the man; he was the only other person in the Flower Capital with a S.M.I.L.E. fruit, after all. He wasn't even all that far away.

"A joke for some spare change? A jape for but a single coin?" Cherry was mildly surprised to find him begging.

Cherry dropped the gate guard's stolen- liberated coin purse into his cup and jabbed her thumb at Toko. "How about you give a hug to my grandpa. Heh."

"A hug? I can do a hug! Hugs for everyone!" Yasuie sing-songed with a big, fake smile on his face. To his credit, he didn't hesitate for a second once Toko put her little arms up for the embrace, swooping her into a hug like he was greeting an old friend.

"Father!" Toko squealed in a quiet voice.

Yasuie's eyes widened in shock, almost losing his faux smile. Here he was thinking he was being forced to endure another humiliation, only to find it was a blessing in disguise. "Toko?" Yasuie returned, expertly fighting off the tears of a parent who hadn't hugged their child in quite some time.

"It's me!" Toko answered delightedly. "I'm a samurai!"

"I can see that!" Yasuie didn't need to pretend to smile now. "And this person is... Cherry- dono, I presume?"

"Correct!" Cherry did a peace sign over her eye with a toothy grin. "Not too shabby, eh?"

"I didn't suspect a thing," Yasuie agreed. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it. Might want to put my 'grandpa' down, though. People are starting to stare," Cherry said, and indeed they were. Though, it was doubtful that they would understand the true nature of the two's actions.

Both Yasuie and Toko were reluctant to release the hug, but they did so after a moment

longer.

"You're a funny old man!" Cherry declared loudly with a laugh. "You should-"

Cherry attention was drawn away as several familiar figures flew overhead, carried by Sanji wearing... his R.A.I.D. suit? "He got used to the idea of using that thing awfully quick."

She wondered what had happened for the need to do such a thing so publically. Remembering that the Beast pirates and Orochi's men were trying to root out people with the ankle tattoo Oden's loyalists wore, she realized they must have gotten caught up in that.