Chapter 53

The morning of the Tea Party dawned bright and cheerful, a stark contrast to the violence brewing beneath the icing.

Whole Cake Chateau stood tall, a monument to Big Mom’s gluttony and power. Inside, the Underworld Emperors gathered—Morgans "Big News," Stussy of CP0 (undercover), Du Feld the Loan Shark.

And at the altar stood Vinsmoke Sanji and Charlotte Pudding.

"Let the wedding begin!" Big Mom sang, drool dripping from her mouth at the sight of the massive wedding cake. "Wedding Cake~!"

But the script was about to be flipped.

The Signal

A massive explosion rocked the venue.

Luffy burst out of the wedding cake itself.

"SANJI! I'M HERE TO RUIN THE WEDDING!"

Clones of Luffy (made by Brûlée's mirrors) ran everywhere. The cake collapsed. The guests screamed. Big Mom went into a rage.

"STRAW HAAAAT!"

While the chaos unfolded—Bege's assassination attempt, the broken picture of Mother Carmel, and the scream that knocked everyone out—a second front opened outside the Chateau.

The Nightmare's Arrival

Kurumi stood on the roof of the Clockwork Rose, which was currently hovering above the Chateau using Breath Dials and Carmen’s hot air lift.

Below her, an army of Big Mom’s enraged children and allied pirate captains were swarming the courtyard to stop the Straw Hats from escaping.

"They have numbers," Laki noted, looking through her scope. "Thousands of chess soldiers. Dozens of ministers. And three heavy hitters: Daifuku, Oven, and Perospero."

"We are the rear guard," Kurumi ordered, her red eye glowing. "Luffy breaks the castle. We break the pursuit."

She jumped off the ship.

"Zafkiel: First Bullet – Aleph."

She plummeted toward the army like a black comet.

Nightmare vs. The Genie

She landed in the center of the courtyard, cracking the candy pavement.

"Who is that?!" Charlotte Daifuku roared, rubbing his belt. "A intruder?!"

A massive blue genie with a halberd emerged from the smoke. Genie of the Lamp.

"Die!" Daifuku ordered.

The genie swung his blade. It was huge, capable of slicing ships.

Kurumi didn't dodge. She drew her rapier.

Temporal Edge.

She parried. Her small blade met the massive halberd. Sparks flew.

"Heavy," Kurumi gritted her teeth. The genie was pure muscle and Haki.

"You can't stop me!" Daifuku laughed. "Majin Slash!"

He pushed harder. Kurumi’s boots slid backward.

"Laki!" Kurumi shouted.

From the sky, a streak of white light descended.

Mosa Mosa: 100x Mass – Falling Star.

Laki dropped a lead weight from the ship. It hit the genie’s shoulder with the force of a meteor.

CRACK.

The genie stumbled.

"Now!" Kurumi used Aleph to accelerate. She ran up the genie’s arm.

She aimed her flintlock at Daifuku’s real body.

Bang.

Daifuku blocked with Haki, but the force knocked him back.

"Annoying fly!" Daifuku recalled the genie to defend himself.

Heat vs. Heat

"Hot! Hot! Hot!"

Charlotte Oven, the Minister of Browned Food, walked through the crowd. Anything he touched burst into flames.

"Burn them all!" Oven shouted, heating the air to 300 degrees.

"Finally," a voice laughed. "Someone who understands temperature!"

Carmen dropped from the sky, her red dress wreathed in white flames.

"Atsu Atsu no Mi: Maximum Output!"

She landed in front of Oven.

"You're the heat guy?" Carmen sneered. "Let's see who cooks who!"

Oven glared. "Heat Fruit? A Paramecia? I am the oven itself!"

They punched each other.

BOOM.

Fist met fist. Orange flames clashed with white heat. The shockwave vaporized the nearby chess soldiers.

"You're warm," Carmen grinned, sweat evaporating instantly. "But I'm a blast furnace!"

She increased her heat. Her white flames turned blue.

"Blue Flame Kick!"

She spun and kicked Oven in the neck.

"Gah!" Oven stumbled, clutching his throat. "Blue fire?!"

Ghost vs. Candy

"Perorin~!" Charlotte Perospero, the eldest son, created a massive wave of candy syrup. "Turn into sweets, little pests!"

The candy wave surged toward the Clockwork Rose.

"Eeeh! It's sticky!" Perona screamed from the deck.

"Ghost Princess!" Laki shouted over the transponder. "Don't let it touch the engine!"

Perona floated down. "Negative Hollow!"

She sent ghosts into the candy wave.

Nothing happened. Candy has no soul.

"It doesn't work on goop!" Perona wailed.

"Use the bombs!" Kurumi ordered from the ground.

Perona snapped her fingers. "Special Hollow: Mini-Ghost Rap!"

She created fifty small explosive ghosts. They floated into the candy wave.

Snap.

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.

The ghosts exploded, shattering the hardening candy into sticky rain.

"My candy!" Perospero screamed. "You ruined the texture!"

The Pirate Captains

While the commanders were busy, the allied pirate captains charged Kurumi.

Diesel (Long-arm tribe).

Mobile (Long-leg tribe).

Drug Peclo (The Scythe User).

"Get her! She's the Time Witch! Her head is worth 850 Million!"

Kurumi stood alone in the center of the encirclement. She was surrounded by fifty seasoned New World captains.

She smiled. A dark, terrifying smile.

"You want my time?"

She holstered one gun. She held up her pocket watch.

"Then pay the toll."

Zafkiel: Shadow Devourer.

She didn't use time. She used the darkness of her shadow—a secondary ability of her fruit that allowed her to store "time" (lifespan) from others.

Red hands erupted from her shadow on the ground. They grabbed the ankles of the pirate captains.

"What is this?!" Diesel shouted, trying to pull his leg free. "It drains… my energy!"

"I'm hungry," Kurumi whispered.

The hands pulled. The captains felt their stamina draining rapidly. They aged a month in seconds.

"She's eating our life!" Drug Peclo screamed, slashing at the shadows.

Kurumi drew both guns.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

She fired with surgical precision. Each shot hit a knee, a shoulder, a weapon hand. She wasn't killing them; she was disabling them while her shadows feasted.

"Monster…" one captain gasped, falling to his knees as his hair turned gray.

Kurumi walked through the field of drained pirates. Her caloric reserves, which had been low, spiked back to 100%.

"Thank you for the meal," she curtsied.

The Escape

"Luffy! Get to the ship!" Sanji shouted, carrying Nami.

The Straw Hats burst out of the collapsing Chateau. The Vinsmokes were covering them. Bege was in his castle form.

"Kurumi!" Luffy yelled, seeing her in the courtyard. "Let's go!"

"Go!" Kurumi ordered. "I'll hold the rear!"

She looked up at the enraged Big Mom, who was riding Zeus and Prometheus, screaming for cake.

"MAMA-MAMA!"

Big Mom swung Napoleon (her sword). A shockwave the size of an island tore through the ground.

"Run!" Jinbe shouted, steering the Sunny.

Kurumi looked at the slash coming toward her.

I can't block that. Not even with Haki.

"Laki! Pull me up!"

A rope dropped from the Clockwork Rose. Kurumi grabbed it.

Zoom.

She was yanked into the sky just as the slash obliterated the courtyard where she stood.

"That was too close," Kurumi panted, landing on the deck.

"We did it!" Perona cheered. "We ruined the wedding!"

"Not yet," Kurumi looked back at the ocean. Big Mom wasn't stopping. She was walking on water (via Perospero's candy slug). And her fleet was mobilizing.

"The real nightmare begins now," Kurumi said grimly. "We have to survive the Territory Waters."

"Carmen," she turned to the cook. "How fast can this ship fly?"

"If I burn the engine red-hot?" Carmen smirked. "Faster than a cannonball."

"Do it. We have a date with Wano."