In response to Law's words, there was an imperceptible shift in Cherry's mood. She wore the same casual smirk on her face as she did before making his goal known to them, but she was prepared to immediately and ruthlessly shatter his skeleton.
Whether or not she did so depended on his next words.
"Which Emperor?" Luffy asked curiously.
Kaido and Big Mom were good answers to this question. Cherry had already run afoul of both of them, mostly Big Mom. However, Whitebeard and Shanks could be a problem depending on Luffy's reaction to those answers. Cherry wasn't personally invested in either of them, even though she had positive impressions of both of them.
"Kaido." Law stated bluntly.
The tension left Cherry's body and Law had no idea how close he came to needing a skeleton transplant.
Luffy considered him for a moment before giving a big goofy smile. "Sure! Shishishishi!"
"Luffy?! Don't just decide to go against one of the Four Emperors on a whim!" Chopper (Nami) shook him by the shoulders.
"You should have known that Luffy would be going up against the Four Emperors eventually, Nami. Just how long has he been saying he's going to be 'King of the Pirates!' Isn't that right Luffy?" Cherry said casually.
"Shishishi, of course! I'm not gonna stop with just one either!" Luffy laughed jovially.
"You should be careful, Luffy. Pirate alliances almost always end in betrayal, and for a trusting person like yourself that's all the more important to keep in mind." Robin explained calmly.
"You gonna betray us?" Luffy asked.
"No- ouch!" Law yelped as Cherry plucked a few hairs from the back of his head.
"It doesn't matter if he will or won't betray us, because I'll hound him to the depths of hell if he does." Cherry said, tucking away the hairs with a sinister smile. Law had a vague idea what she wanted them for and he didn't like it one bit.
This did seem to soothe any misgivings some of the others had about allying with a sitting Shichibukai however, particularly one that had a ridiculous devil fruit power that could rearrange your body parts or swap your consciousnesses.
Law decided not to make a big deal about it. He didn't plan to betray Straw Hat in the first place, and he had been willing to hand over his own heart to Caesar for the sake of this plan. What was a rogue vivre card in the hands of a mischievous demoness compared to that? Actually that might be worse now that he thought about it.
"In any case, there are three goals we need to accomplish on Punk Hazard. First, I need to get my heart back from Caesar as I had offered it to him as assurance that I wouldn't act against him. Second, we need to destroy the facility that creates a substance called S.A.D. as it is important to Kaido for reasons I'll explain later. Lastly, we have to kidnap Caesar himself, because he's the only one who can manufacture S.A.D., so he'll just start making it again after a while once he's fixed or replaced the facilities necessary for its production." Law laid out his short term goals.
Luffy had steam coming out of his ears as he tried to absorb this information to no avail. "Kick Caesar's ass, got it!"
"Do be careful not to kill him…" Law felt the need to reiterate.
"You forgot the real first objective! Give me my body back!" Chopper (Nami) shouted at him, no longer able to hold in her dissatisfaction.
"Can't you just stay that way? It's funny." Luffy said, picking his nose.
"""No!""" "I'd rather not."
Law used his devil fruit to put everyone back where they belong. Well, except for Franky who was now in Usopp's body. "Hey what gives?! I've been separated from my SUPER bod for too long!"
"The other one isn't here for me to finish the job, so that sounds like a YOU problem." Law said heartlessly.
Usopp (Franky) charged out into the snow to find Usopp and get his body back. "Damn it! This body isn't top heavy enough! How am I supposed to run properly like this?!"
"... While he does that, I'm going to get my heart back." Law said, turning around and coming face to face with Cherry.
In Cherry's hand was a human heart surrounded by a transparent, gelatinous cube. "Tut tut, Law! I warned you not to fall for me, but it seems I've stolen your heart regardless!"
Law checked his pockets and found that both of the hearts in his possession, belonging to Smoker and Monet, were still there. Meaning that at some point Cherry had randomly acquired his heart. "Would you mind giving that back to me?"
"I could, but are you sure this one is yours? I might have swapped it out for one of the two in your pockets, you know?" Cherry teased.
"Of course I'm sure. You think I wouldn't know what my own heart looks like? I'm a doctor, remember?" Law said in exasperation, careful to keep as much venom out of his voice as he could manage.
"You've got a point there, but better safe than sorry right?" Cherry brought the fingers of her free hand toward the heart in a wiggly fashion.
Before Law could stop her, she started to…. Tickle… his heart. Such a thing shouldn't even be possible as the nerves in the heart were far from being the type that were responsible for a ticklish sensation. Yet the madwoman actually had him stumbling forward, desperately stifling his barely controlled laughter.
To her credit, Cherry stopped messing with him when he reached her and let him snatch it out of her hand. She wore a satisfied smirk that told him he wouldn't enjoy traveling with her on the same ship, and yet he was going to be stuck with her in exactly that situation for weeks.
Law stuffed his heart back into the gaping hole in his chest before Cherry could change her mind, and suddenly he felt whole again. While one could get used to not having a heart physically present in their chest, it left you never feeling quite right. Like something important was missing, which was exactly the case of course.
A loud mechanical tone sounded before thick metal doors began to crawl closed over at the facility a short distance away.
Law's face darkened. "It seems that Caesar's planning to test his new weapon right now!"
He immediately rushed toward the closing entrance way. While he may be able to cut his way through with ease, it would still leave the way open for what was likely to be an incredibly lethal gas. He didn't bother to look back at the Straw Hats that he assumed were following close behind him. He did not, however, account for the several dozen children who were not nearly fast enough to reach the door in time, not even the larger ones with much longer strides.
As a result, Law slipped into the doorway with time to spare, but not a single Straw Hat except for Cherry got through the door.
"What the hell are they thinking?" Law cursed.
"They aren't going to leave the kids behind. If you didn't want to ally yourself with a bunch of sentimental fools, then you picked the wrong crew. Now, cut a big hole in the door with your power. I'll put it back when they're through." Cherry said. "Be quick about it too, because Zoro will just cut through it for real with no regard for damage."
"Do you have any idea how heavy that much steel is?" Law asked rhetorically.
Cherry answered anyway. "Do I look like a noodle-armed wimp like you? Even Luffy could pick it up if he tried, let alone me."
Law sighed and acted quickly to cut the hole big enough for the children to pass through. Cherry went over to it and promptly stuck her hands to it with fusion and pulled hard. Law wasn't kidding when he said how heavy it was as even Cherry had to strain a little bit. The hardest part was being precise, as any fool could have just bashed it open in that state, but Cherry couldn't afford to risk damaging the door.
Sure enough, when she finally got the thing lifted over her head, Zoro was there on the other side prepared to slash it apart. Thankfully, even he wasn't dumb enough not to see it was unnecessary and aborted the attack.
"Impressive." Jinbe complemented sincerely. He had confidence that he himself could lift that much steel, but his build was much larger on top of the fact that fishmen were naturally stronger than humans by many times. Even then he wasn't sure that he could hold it so steady, followed by putting it right back where it had been before.
"I need to increase my training." Zoro felt he wasn't properly taking advantage of the natural superiority of a man's musculature if such a scrawny woman was so clearly stronger than himself. Kuina would scold him for not doing the best he could with his lot in life, he thought.
"Hot." Sanji said succinctly.