As Jinbe and Cherry vanished into the distance unimpeded, the Charlotte children amongst the fleet managed to fish Big Mom out of the juice sea.
The emperor used what strength she could draw forth to clamber the rest of the way onto one of the many Tarte ships' decks and rolled over onto her back sputtering as she caught her breath.
"Mama! Are you alright?! How did you become so thin?!" Daifuku called out with concern, though from a safe distance in case she started to rampage again.
"I'm alive," Big Mom spoke simply as she sat herself up and leaned against the mast. "Prometheus, how did I get here? Last I remember, I was fighting that little girl on Whole Cake Island, not out at sea."
"You've remembered who you are, Mama?" Prometheus asked hopefully.
"I never forgot, idiot! Do you take me for some kind of fool who forgets who she even is?!" Big Mom spat, making the fireball shrink pathetically. "As much as I hate to admit it, I was at that little girl's mercy, so I took a risk and made up some nonsense. I didn't get this far in life just by being a meathead like Kaido."
Seeing that Prometheus was still cowed by her scolding, Napoleon answered her previous question in his stead. "Mama, you brought us out to sea after Cheapshot knocked you out and destroyed the chateau. You were acting a bit strangely, but you were still chasing the Straw Hats and looking for the wedding cake, so we just went along with it."
Big Mom looked pretty pissed at the idea of getting knocked out by an upstart, but it wasn't like Napoleon would lie to her about it so she could only accept it as the truth. "Hmm, right. The wedding cake."
The Charlotte siblings flinched. Big Mom's hunger pangs had never ended without being sated before, and they had no reason to think now was any different.
"I could go for a wedding cake, I guess. I didn't get to have any thanks to that rubber monkey…" Big Mom said, surprisingly calm. "Do you think they're actually making a new one?"
"Even if they are, they'll probably poison it, Mama," Napoleon said.
"That's what I would do if I were them. I'll just have someone test it first," Big Mom said, stunning everyone around her.
Big Mom, sharing? That was improbable even in her normal state of mind, but downright impossible doing her hunger pangs. Had she truly regained her senses?
Her eyes turned to Daifuku, making him gulp nervously. "Bring me to this supposed wedding cake. If they didn't make one or if they poisoned it, then I'll kill all their loved ones to send a message. If they really did make it, then… well, I suppose it wouldn't be wise to create a blood feud with them."
'Are you really deciding whether to create a permanent enmity between our crews over a cake?!' Big Mom's children thought.
Of course, they knew that the answer to that unspoken question was a resounding 'YES'. Big Mom didn't love anything more than she loved food.
In fact, the other three emperors had managed to keep her largely mollified by sending the occasional rare sweet her way every few years. Not enough to be called tribute, but enough to keep her from going on a rampage through their territories after remembering some slight from the past. War between the emperors never ended well for anyone involved, but Big Mom had odd priorities compared to the other three.
…
As Cherry and Jinbe arrived back at the Thousand Sunny, they saw Nami was distracting Zeus with a thunder ball, keeping it just out of his reach like you might do with a cat and a laser pointer.
"Good, you're back!" Nami was visibly relieved, allowing Zeus to catch the thunder ball. "You didn't get hurt again, did you?"
"I'm doing great actually!" Cherry said.
"Her arm turned into soup," Jinbe revealed.
"Snitch," Cherry glared at him. "It isn't even that bad! It'll be back in working order in half the time it took to regrow one!"
"Even if your body is super weird, you still have to take proper care of it, Cherry," Chopper spoke seriously.
"Okay, okay. It really isn't a big deal, though. Big Mom is in no condition to threaten us anytime soon, and by the time she might I'll be even stronger than before, as will Luffy." Cherry was confident in that. "I'll also go check on everyone's loved ones once things settle down a bit, if you want. Make sure there aren't any Big Mom pirates lurking nearby like there was back at my home island."
"Huh? How are you going to do that? And I thought you were from West Blue, so how did you check there?" Nami asked, not following.
"Den den mushi are very strange creatures," Cherry said cryptically. "We'll come back to that later, when we've collected Sanji and Reiju."
Needless to say, she had them all very curious and practically bursting with questions.
"Ah yes, magic snails," Chopper said. When everyone looked at him like he was stupid, he quickly said, "Luffy wasn't here to say it, so I did."
"You can't just steal your captain's thunder like that just because he isn't here, Chopper. Show some damned respect," Cherry said in an eerie Zoro impression.
Chopper and Brook were soon rolling on the deck in fits of laughter.
"Alright, enough joking around! Get your asses into gear or we're going to get surrounded again!" Nami clapped to gather everyone's attention.
Thus, after getting a heading from Sanji vivre card, they pushed onwards.
…
Some time later.
"Oh, wow. Sanji really went and made it to the same scale and everything," Cherry commented, peering at Bege's ship approaching in the distance.
"Did you have any doubt that he could do it?" Nami asked.
"Frankly, I just can't wrap my head around cooking on that scale in general. It's absurd," Cherry said.
"It is pretty crazy, but if anyone could pull it off, then it's our Sanji," Brook said.
"I'm definitely tasting it," Cherry nodded as she decided.
"Do you think it's a carrot cake?" Carrot asked, drooling a little bit.
"No, it's chocolate. I can smell it from here," Cherry crushed her dreams. Seeing Carrot sulk, she added, "I'm sure that Sanji will gladly make you a carrot cake, though."
"You really think so?!" Carrot's demeanor lit up immediately.
"Of course he will. You probably won't even finish asking him to before he's already whisking himself into the kitchen to make it just for you. Worse case scenario, you just have to flutter those adorable button eyes of yours at him and he won't be able to resist," Cherry advised.
"Please refrain from manipulating Sanji with your feminine wiles too much. He's had a rough time of it," Nami sighed in exasperation.
"Oh please, that's exactly what he needs right now. A return to some normalcy," Cherry argued.
"You can use your feminine wiles on me, if you like," Brook spoke to Cherry. She got the distinct impression that he'd be wiggling his eyebrows at her right now, if he had any.