Brulee had rarely ever been as angry as she was at this moment.
It was one thing to sarcastically attack her appearance by calling her beautiful, after all she was used to far more direct insults directed at the scar on her face; but insulting her precious big brother, Katakuri? Right to her face without an ounce of fear or shame?
She immediately forgot that Cherry was technically a guest and that she was strong enough to snap her like a twig in a frontal confrontation. Even Cherry's insinuation that she was planning to marry Katakuri was lost in the sea of her rage.
Brulee lunged across the table like a feral beast. The shriek she let out as she did so clued Cherry into the fact that she might have touched upon a sensitive topic with her blathering.
Cherry kind of wanted to just see what happened, but Robin's disappointed glare appeared in her mind's eye so she elected to dodge. Well, Brulee was probably just going to strangle her or something; nothing interesting.
One front flip later, Cherry was standing on the other side of the table and Brulee was crashing to the floor along with everything on the table, cloth and all.
Brulee immediately stood up again and seemed to have regained some of her sense as she glared at Cherry without making another blind lunge.
"Mfmfmfmf?!?!?!" Pekoms started to squirm in his seat.
Cherry turned to look behind her just as a hand reached out of a mirror, gripping her shoulder with incredible strength and yanking her towards it. The hand of her own reflection.
She tried to wrench herself free from the grip with all her might, but the hand was actually fusing itself to her flesh using her own devil fruit ability! Moreover, the reflection was an equal match for her in terms of physical power!
It all happened too fast for her to draw her sword and cut off the arm tugging her into the glass of the mirror
Only instead of crashing into the glass, she passed straight through into a very strange space filled with various mirrors of all kinds of shapes and sizes. The reflection of herself had vanished just as she had crossed the threshold.
Cherry turned around and faced the mirror she had passed through, placing a hand against it and finding that it was solid.
"Wiwiwiwiwi!" Brulee approached the mirror from the other side. "How do you like my new devil fruit technique? Onii-chan isn't the only one who has been training to prevent you from escaping again!"
"You went that far for little ol' me?" Cherry looked genuinely touched.
Brulee smiled maliciously. "What misplaced confidence you have; but then again, you are quite new to the New World. You have no idea who you're messing with, do you?"
"A woman with self esteem issues as big as her breasts?" Cherry guessed, glancing at Brulee's cleavage.
Brulee sputtered and put her hands over her chest. "I don't have self esteem issues!"
Pekoms kept shaking his head at Cherry, trying to make her stop provoking Brulee. Cherry did the reasonable thing and ignored him.
"We're the Big Mom pirates!" Brulee pressed on. "One of the four Emperors of the New World! We have dozens of officers who could be notable pirate captains in their own right, and our Sweet Commanders are individually stronger than that upstart Doflamingo that you're probably still high off defeating! A big shot in Paradise you may be, but here your lot are a dime a dozen!"
"And that doesn't even include the big bitch herself." Cherry agreed.
"That right- DON'T CALL MAMA A BITCH, YOU BITCH!" Brulee caught herself, looking over her shoulder to make sure she wasn't overheard. Fortunately the staff seems to have hidden themselves away the moment the commotion started so as to not get caught up in it.
"Mm, you're right of course." Cherry nodded sagely. "That monster deserves more creative insults, not something so common."
"... You really don't understand the situation you're in, do you? My Doppel-napper technique is perfect for dragging unsuspecting victims into my Mirro-World using their own strength against them. Once you're in my Mirro-World, there is no way out. Only my own power can bring things in or out!" Brulee explained darkly.
Cherry tilted her head in thought. She looked around curiously as Brulee waited for her to fully realize how doomed she was. Cherry's eyes finally stopped on a point on the opposite side of the red and purple checkered tunnel she was in.
Cherry pressed her ear to the mirror between Brulee and herself, causing the former to scrunch her eyebrows in confusion.
*flick PING*
Cherry flicked her finger and the mirror she was looking at shattered. Another mirror in the restaurant shattered at the same time.
"Force is no good and only destroys the mirror huh?" Cherry rubbed her chin, still seemingly unconcerned with her predicament.
"So you understand! You're trapped in there forever! Wiwiwiwiwiwi!" Brulee cackled, but her laughter slowly died off at the lack of reaction from Cherry. "Why are you pretending not to care?! Panic! Despair! Show me the face of someone who is doomed!"
Cherry raised an eyebrow at her. "Firstly, why in the world would I give you the satisfaction? Secondly, I'm not nearly in as much trouble as you're trying to make me believe."
Brulee squinted her eyes at Cherry, "Hoooh? And what foolishness makes you so confident?"
*pipipipipipipipipipipiPING*
Several dozen mirrors shattered in quick succession causes Brulee to nearly choke with indignation. Worst of all was that she had heard several of them on her side, as well as some shocked screams in the distance indicating what was likely even more breaking mirrors close by.
"I could break every single mirror in your little pocket dimension unless you let me out? I imagine that they're more useful to you than just trapping people, like allowing you to travel about without the restrictions of the real world and faster too, I imagine." Cherry threatened with a toothy smile.
Brulee hated to admit it to herself, but that was a very effective threat. She might have been too hasty about this; she should have waited until Katakuri could work together with her.
"If you destroy any more of my mirrors, I'll leave you in there until after the wedding," Brulee shot back, doing her best to keep the panic out of her voice.
Cherry's smile twisted into something almost unnatural. The implication with that was clear. Cherry would still be stuck in here after she missed the tea party, meaning there was nothing to stop Big Mom from retaliating for the slight against her by attacking Cherry's loved ones elsewhere in the world.
Brulee flinched. This little girl wasn't even ugly like she was, but her face was so frightening!
They stared at each in silence, waiting to see which one of them would break it first. It wasn't all that long of a time, but it felt like hours to Brulee, a drop of sweat rolling down her face.
The restaurant's front door opened and a tall figure marched inside.
"Are you alright, Brulee?" Katakuri asked, though from his easy demeanor one might guess he already knew she was.
Brulee blushed a bit as Katakuri's gaze landed on Cherry in the mirror. His eyes flashed with something and he said, "Let her out of there before she destroyed all the mirrors in Totto Land, Brulee."
"Wha-?!" Brulee spun to look at Cherry. "You were really going to do it anyway?! Are you crazy?!"
"Chop chop, I don't have all day." Cherry looked infuriatingly smug.
Brulee grumbled before reaching inside and pulling Cherry through the mirror by the front of her robes.
"I'm glad that's settled. Shall we have dinner then?" Cherry asked nonchalantly.