One Piece: Dream of Immortality-Chapter 559: Out of the Toy Box

"Why are you following me?!" Uta hissed.

"I'm not following you. I just so happened to be going the same way," Drunk Cherry insisted.

"And where are you going?" Uta interrogated.

"Wherever you're going, of course," Drunk Cherry answered.

"I'm not going anywhere! I'm hiding!" Uta shot back.

"I guess I'm just out for a nice walk, then," Drunk Cherry said. "Me and my pet piggy, naturally."

"'My pet piggy and I'," Uta corrected.

"I didn't know you also had a pig!" Drunk Cherry clapped. "Let's have a piggy play date!"

Uta tried to stab Drunk Cherry for the nineteenth time, only to find the blade could not even pierce her skin... again.

"How are you doing that?! I cut you the first time just fine!" Uta growled.

"You caught me off guard," Drunk Cherry admitted. "Now I know that you're a stab happy little gremlin, so you won't surprise me again!"

"I could stab your 'pet'; How about that?" Uta threatened.

"I could go for some bacon right about now," Drunk Cherry said.

"That's disgusting," Uta slumped, leaning her back against the inner wall of the dumpster they were both hiding in. It hadn't been in use for quite a while, so it was blessedly empty.

"You're right. If I'm to engage in cannibalism then I should go for real dragon meat, not this sack of lard," Drunk Cherry agreed.

"The more you talk, the less I want you in my Uta World. Even if you are one of Luffy's... friends." Uta popped another wakeshroom in her mouth and chewed impassionately.

"How many of those things have you got?" Drunk cherry asked.

"Enough," Uta said.

"Don't you want your old buddy, Luffy, in your Uta World?" Drunk Cherry asked.

"Either he is already, or he isn't. It's too late to change that," Uta said with a softer tone.

"No it isn't. I didn't come here by ship, you know. It'd be a piece of cake to bring Luffy here, and in short order too. I could bring the whole crew, in fact!" Drunk Cherry claimed.

Uta studied her for a moment, all the while Drunk Cherry struck different poses with increasing arrogance that practically screamed "Praise me!"

"Prove it," Uta finally said.

"Ah-ah-ah!" Drunk Cherry wagged a finger at her. "I'm not your friend just because Luffy is. If you want something, you have to pay the price!"

Uta narrowed her eyes. "Name it, and we'll see."

...

"Okay, I've got Drunk Cherry on the case. Uta might be tough in her own world, but in the real world she won't stand a chance against me even if I'm only pseudo-conscious," Cherry said.

"I don't think we should put much faith in that. Your... alter ego didn't seem like the wisest person," Blueno squeaked.

"Nobody is better at pissing people off than me when I'm in a less than wise mood," Cherry countered. "Still, you have a point. I guess I'll go poke her in here too, see if I can get a rise out of her."

"She's a lot stronger in her own world, though. Are You sure you'll be okay- Ah, she's gone," Koby said.

True to his word, Cherry didn't stick around to hear whatever nonsense he was saying.

Finding Uta wasn't hard. Cherry found her still in her stadium where the concert was being held, only now it was flooded to the top and all the people were gone. The toys that swirled in the water, though, made Cherry think of Sugar and her "toys".

"I've met others who treated people as play things. None of them were very nice. In fact, all of them were cruel beyond measure. Certainly not the sort of people who wanted a better world," Cherry said.

"What would you know? I'll let them go when everything is over, and then they'll understand," Uta said. "If they don't, then they'll still be free from violence and oppression. It's okay if they hate me."

"They will hate you. Every last one of them," Cherry claimed. "Right before they die, they'll curse your name with their final breaths."

"They won't die!" Uta screamed. "They'll be alive and well and healthy in my new world! I know they will!"

"Let's say you're right," Cherry said. "What happens when you change?"

"Change?" Uta's brow furrowed.

"Yes, change. When you become corrupted by the power you wield over them. As they say, absolute power corrupts absolutely. What then?" Cherry asked.

"That won't happen," Uta muttered. "I wouldn't do that."

"You don't know that you wouldn't. How old are you? Fifteen, sixteen?" Cherry pushed. "You're barely out of diapers and you're already turning the people who upset you into stuffed animals. You'll come up with crueler ways of tormenting the people who trusted you, and it'll only get easier to do it with experience."

"No," Uta said, barely above a whisper. "Nonononono..."

"Actually, maybe it won't get easier," Cherry admitted. "After all, you already seem to enjoy it."

"NO!!!" Uta's shout carried towards her like a solid wall of force.

"That's the spirit! Hurt me! That's what you really want!" Cherry laughed at her.

"You're making me do this!" Uta shot back, each word tearing through the air like literal bullets.

"Aha! A classic manipulation tactic for a textbook abuser! Go ahead and blame me for your own wrongdoings! Who can stop you in a world where you're god?!" Cherry sneered.

Uta was hyperventilating now. It made Cherry's heart twist up in a knot, but she needed to keep pressuring her.

"What's wrong?! Playing the victim now, are we?!" Cherry called out to her, earning a blast of musical notes from Uta's hand. "Shall I tell you more about the other girl who turned people into toys?! She was the crewmate of a pirate called Doflamingo! Doflamingo took over the kingdom of Dressrosa and for ten long years anyone who stood up to him would be punished!"

Uta's eyes were as wide as dinner plates, making contact with Cherry's own as they slowly filled with dawning horror.

"He didn't kill them, you see! That would be too kind! Instead, he had the girl, Sugar, turn them into toys! They became perfectly obedient after that, so he used them as slave labor! And do you want to know the best part?!" Cherry's smile turned sadistic. "Everyone who ever knew or loved them simply forgot about them, like they never existed in the first place! Of course, the toys still remembered! They were even allowed to roam during the day, to watch the families and friends they had lost go about their lives like nothing was wrong! What a joke, HA!"

"You're lying," Uta choked. "You just made that all up, just to get into my head!"

"Am I?!" Cherry giggled in a way that sent shivers down Uta's spine. "Bring one of your fans out, then! Let's ask them! It was BIG NEWS, so just about all of them are bound to have heard about it!"

Uta hesitated. She didn't want it to be true, but she also wanted to prove it was a lie.

With a barely contained scream, Uta drew out one of the toys near to the surface of the lake and returned them to human form.

"Is it true?!" Uta demanded, hoping against hope.

"I was one of them, Uta-chan... I'm from Dressrosa." The man's words felt like a stab to her gut. "I watched my daughter grow up without knowing me. I brought her here to reconnect, to make up for the time we lost..."

Uta stumbled and fell to her knees. Tears streamed down her face as she tried and failed to find any sign of dishonesty in his grief stricken expression.