One Piece: Dream of Immortality-Chapter 558: Boy Scout

"Aha!" Cherry exclaimed.

"You found something?" Gordon leaned back to look at her from a balcony.

"I found a dictionary!" Cherry smiled.

"Oh, er..." Gordon scratched his jaw. "That's good?"

"It's a translation dictionary for the language on the ceiling," Cherry informed.

"Oh! That is good, then," Gordon nodded. "How long do you think it'll take to translate?"

Cherry popped the hard cover open and flipped through the pages at lightning speed. "Thirty seconds?"

"That doesn't sound quite..." Gordon searched for words that sounded less harsh.

"There, I've got the whole book memorized," Cherry said, sliding the dictionary back into its place.

"Really?" Gordon blinked. "That's... pretty amazing."

It was pretty unbelievable as well, but he knew as well as Cherry did that joking at a time like this would be foolish. He didn't know what kind of person she was, but he didn't think it was likely that she would lie like that for no benefit.

"I guess it is. Memorization is easy if you know the tricks to it. Applying what you've memorized is the hard part," Cherry stepped out into the center of the room to study the text and pictures on the ceiling. "Ugh, why is the syntax so weird? And it's all poetic too, maybe thirty seconds isn't quite enough after all."

A minute later, Cherry nodded. "Okay, got it. Mostly."

"What does it say?" Gordon asked.

"Come along. I'll explain it to everyone at once, so I don't have to repeat myself." Cherry gestured for him to follow.

...

Most of the crew was fast asleep. A day full of revelry followed by a gut busting feast had a way of putting people out of action.

One exception was Robin. Her cultivation, meager as it was, was plenty to keep her awake through the night, should she so choose.

As for why she was awake?

"You are not tired?" Jinbe asked, settling himself down next to her on the balcony overlooking the Flower Capital, still as bright and bustling as it had been during the day.

"I'm just worried," Robin sighed.

"About Cherry running off? She does seem to do that fairly often," Jinbe said.

Robin nodded. "She does; more so now that we're all back together. I suppose I had gotten used to having her practically glued to my side these past two years. I think she knows how lonely I can get and now that our friends are here, she's more free to step away for a bit."

"I see." Jinbe let the silence go undisturbed for a moment. "Sometimes, despite how immature she acts, I get the feeling that she's the eldest of us. It's a strange feeling, given how young she actually is."

Robin chuckled. "I know what you mean. Brook is 90 years old, and in her eyes he might as well be no different than our younger boys. They say that old people never feel old themselves, more like they're still young in aging bodies. I think Cherry does feel that she's old, in a way that no one else in the world may be able to appreciate."

Robin wondered if giants ever felt the way Cherry seemed to feel, like time didn't mean all that much on the grand scale because she had so much of it. She wondered if she'd feel that way someday, and whether she would tire of it. As Cherry had once told her, forever is a very long time.

"An old soul, hm?" Jinbe hummed. "They say that Whitebeard is like that. He knew what he wanted right when he set out to sea; a family. That's not something young people usually chase after."

"I'll be sure to pay more attention the next time we meet him, then," Robin said.

...

It was thankfully easy to find the others. Cherry hadn't been looking forward to tracking them down without the ease of her Life Sense.

"You all met back up faster than was planned," Cherry commented.

"None of us were having any luck, and Uta seems to have done something to the stadium," Koby cut to the chase. "Who is this?"

"This Gordon, Uta's adoptive father. He helped me find the information that we need," Cherry introduced.

"Oh, good, then you found something?" Koby relaxed considerably after he heard that.

"Yes," Cherry affirmed. "By the way, why is Blueno...?"

"Don't ask," Blueno's voice came out like a squeak. He was considerably shorter and somehow even more top heavy than before. He looked a bit like somebody's attempt at making a toy resembling himself, only a bit too realistically.

"Okay. You're awfully grouchy today," Cherry mocked. "Anyways..."

Cherry gave them a brief rundown of the so-called prophecy on the ceiling in the castle's library.

In essence, Tot Musica was tied to the Uta Uta fruit in some fashion, and had been since ancient times. There was no way for someone inside the world created by the fruit to escape under their own power, but if the user summoned Tot Musica into both worlds by singing its song, then there was a way.

"All we have to do is attack Tot Musica in both worlds simultaneously, it'll be destroyed and everyone trapped in the Uta World will be set free. Gordon here informed me that it was actually Tot Musica who destroyed Elegia when Uta unknowingly summoned it, so we know that she hypothetically has the capability of doing so again," Cherry explained.

"There is a problem, though," Gordon spoke up, gathering the attention of the group. "Red Haired Shanks and his crew only barely defeated Tot Musica, and they only managed it after the whole of Elegia had already perished by its hand."

That was indeed a problem. While Red Haired Shanks hadn't been an emperor at the time of Elegia's destruction, he would not have been much weaker, if at all. Their group wasn't weak by any means, certainly not with Cherry with them, but could they beat Tot Musica before it slaughtered all the concert goers?

"Shanks will come. Of that, I am certain," Gordon added. Bartolomeo, Blueno, and Helmeppo looked skeptical, but there was little point in arguing about it.

"There's no way that one of the Emperors of the New World is gonna come save a bunch of nobodies," Bartolomeo apparently wanted to argue anyway.

"Why do you think so?" Cherry asked for clarity.

"Because Shanks left her in my care and took the blame for Elegia's destruction to spare her from the terrible truth. I may have raised her longer than he did, but I don't doubt that he is more her father in her heart than I ever will be. Her hate for him is so deep because the love she had for him was the same," Gordon said.

"Damn, that sucks," Bartolomeo muttered, somewhat mollified.

"Well, that's the foundation for Plan A," Cherry clapped. "We just have to cause enough trouble for her that she'll summon the damned thing."

"How do we do that?" Koby asked, looking eager to get started.

Only, everybody gave him a funny look.

"W-what?" Koby mumbled.

"You're such a boy scout sometimes, Koby," Helmeppo sighed. "To think you'd need to be told how to cause trouble."

"I- I know how to cause trouble- stop chuckling while shaking your head, Helmeppo!" Koby chased after Helmeppo as he walked away.