Cherry led the procession of revolutionaries carrying the idiot drum brothers and Kinderella back to the fortress.
Once inside, Cherry remembered that she should probably unfuse Perona's negative hollow from Wapol.
'Man, I almost feel bad for leaving him like this for weeks. Almost." Cherry thought to herself.
She placed a hand on Wapol's back and activated her devil fruit to release the negative hollow from his body.
The ghost-like form slipped out and had a melancholic look on its face, a stark difference from the usual goofy smile they wore. Only now did Cherry feel some guilt for what she did to Wapol, though the pity was directed towards the negative hollow that had the misfortune to be stuck inside Wapol for so long.
Wapol took a deep breath in and looked around a face filled with wonder and awe.
"This place, it's so… BEAUTIFUL!" Wapol exclaimed with a big smile.
The room they were in was a prison cell and even as far as prison cells go it was pretty dismal.
"I feel so ALIVE! So WONDERFUL! LIFE IS SO AMAZING!" Wapol was shouting at the top of his lungs in pure unadulterated joy.
'Wow. I was worried he would have gone insane after living in the deepest depression for so long, but it seems it only increased his outlook on life after he escaped it. I wonder how long it'll last?' Cherry pondered.
Wapol spun around to take in the rest of his surroundings.
"YOU?!" Wapol pointed at Cherry. "Did you… save me? Even after our previous encounters?"
"Sure, let's go with that." Cherry said, deciding to see where this was going.
"You have my utmost gratitude! I thought I would be trapped in that dreary state of mind forever, but you had it in your heart to rescue me in spite of our rocky past!" Wapol was crying genuine tears of gratitude.
"Mm, well it was the right thing to do. After your brother usurped your throne, your citizens were so upset I just had to do something." Cherry lied.
"WHAT?! That ungrateful wretch! This is the thanks I get from rescuing him from his exile?!" Wapol was enraged.
"Don't you worry though. All your subordinates may have sided with him, but we'll get you back on your throne eventually! We might need your help with the war effort, if you're willing to use your devil fruit to help us?" Cherry asked with a sparkle in her eye.
"Really?! Naturally I'll assist in any way I can, it's the least I can do with you helping me get my throne back!" Wapol agreed enthusiastically.
"Great, you stay here. I'll see you again soon." Cherry said.
"Hm, yes. I will stay here. This is a splendid room, if I do say so myself. And I've got quite the eye for luxury, mind you!" Wapol said, seemingly oblivious to the dinginess of the prison cell, with only an old mattress as furniture.
'It seems that his perception has been altered significantly. Perhaps everything seems to be much better in his eyes after coming out of a month long, deep depression? I wonder if it's permanent?' Cherry pondered as she left the cell, the guards shutting the door behind her and locking it.
Cherry decided to go get something to eat at the cafeteria.
When she was almost there, Robin came running up behind her with crossed arms. Arms bloomed from Cherry shoulders and firmly planted over her eyes. After a quick Life Sense, Cherry realized that Belo Betty was in the cafeteria at the moment.
Cherry had taught Robin how to use Life Sense and she had been practicing with it by preventing Cherry from catching a glimpse of the apparently very sexy Betty.
They had set the rule that Cherry wasn't allowed to use Life Sense inside the fortress so she wouldn't be able to find Betty in that manner.
"That was a close one, darling." Cherry said, wrapping an arm around Robin's waist. "You'll have to feed me since I can't see."
Robin agreed with the stipulation. Truthfully, she wasn't that jealous and she trusted Cherry not to cheat. She was mostly doing this because they both found it amusing, like an inside joke.
Entering the cafeteria, Betty glanced over at them.
"Why do you always have those hands over your eyes when I'm around? Do you have a problem with the way I dress?" Betty asked sternly. She knew they didn't do this for anyone else in the fortress, not even Morley.
"You've gone and done it now, Robin. She's angry at us." Cherry said, whilst Robin blushed with some embarrassment.
"Sorry, Betty." Robin apologized, releasing the hands from Cherry's eyes.
Cherry looked upon Betty for the first time since she arrived here.
"Are you sure you were jealous and not that you wanted to keep this glorious sight to yourself?" Cherry asked, raising an eyebrow at Robin who then punched her in the shoulder.
They got some food and sat down across from Betty to have a chat with her and make a proper introduction.
"I see. So it just turned into some sort of game from then on." Betty said. "I would have preferred if you included me in any games that involve me."
"Hear that, Robin? Maybe we should think of a new game?" Cherry suggested jokingly.
"I can certainly think of a game we can play. It's not very original, but it never gets old." Betty spoke, giving them a playful look over her sunglasses.
Robin blushed lightly and glanced at Cherry. Cherry was looking right back at her with a smirk, but gave no opinion on the matter.
"Maybe we can all meet up after you're finished with your work tonight." Robin said softly after a moment of hesitation.
"That's alright with me. Should we meet at your quarters, or mine?" Betty asked, with a wide smile.
After ironing out the details, Betty returned to her duties with a saunter.
"Wow. I'm very surprised, to say the least." Cherry said, poking Robin in the side.
"Shut up." Robin muttered.
Cherry and Robin went to go train for the rest of the day, then later met Betty at her living quarters where they got to know each other a lot better.
Turns out Betty's devil fruit was useful for more than just improving the morale of an army.
After leaving Betty's quarters late the next morning, they were intercepted by Sabo, who had returned from his impromptu vacation.
"There you are! I just want to say thanks again, it was the right choice to go now rather than later. By the way, Dragon-san wants to speak with you, Cherry." Sabo said, seeming to have a hue weight off his shoulders since the last time they met.
"Alright. Was he mad that you took almost two months off?" Cherry asked.
"... Maybe…" Sabo said, looking a bit sheepish.
Cherry made her way to Dragon's office, where she found him grumbling to himself about Sabo's absence.
"Hey chief. You wanted to see me?" Cherry announced herself.
"Mm, I did. How did you disable the devil fruit abilities of Wapol? Even after taking off the sea stone cuffs he couldn't use his powers." Dragon asked.
"Trade secret." Cherry said, which wasn't the response that Dragon wanted, but he accepted it regardless.
"Very well, keep your secrets. Can you undo whatever you did to him, though? I'd like to make use of his powers in developing new alloys and weapon manufacturing. Thanks to your deception, he's being rather cooperative right now." Dragon asked.
"Sure thing." Cherry agreed.
Cherry went down to the prison cells and unlocked the seal on Wapol's devil fruit. Although, this seal was different from what she used on Serene, as the seal was still in place and could be activated again with a touch.
After another long day of training, Robin and Cherry were lying next to each other on their bed in their quarters.
"So, you like them big huh?" Cherry asked out of the blue.
Robin hit her with a pillow. "No I don't!"
"Are you sure, I've got this martial art I picked up from CP9 though. I could make mine bigger temporarily, if you like?" Cherry asked with a smirk.
"... Maybe…" Robin said, before promptly turning towards the wall and going to sleep.
Time passed by quickly whilst the women grew ever stronger in their training.
Kinderella had surprisingly adjusted well to her new position as Cherry's personal assistant and her skills in serving others grew by leaps and bounds every day. She didn't enjoy it in the slightest, though she always did as she was ordered.
Robin reached the point of her first breakthrough into the second realm of body cultivation.
Cherry assisted her through the process for a smoother transition. Normally cultivators didn't trust each other to do such a thing, not even close family, as it put one's life and future cultivation entirely at the mercy of the other. However, Robin didn't know any better so Cherry just went ahead and did it for her. She didn't plan to bring the paranoia of the cultivators from her previous life into this world.
Speaking of breakthroughs, Cherry's next breakthrough was close as well.
There was a problem in this regard however. During her last breakthrough, her blood bound sword had become a conduit for a tribulation. The problem lies in the fact that her sword was currently serving another purpose and that would be ruined if the sword suddenly decided to come rushing towards her during her breakthrough.
That's why she decided to bring up her idea for what her next mission for Dragon would entail.
Dragon was in a meeting with Sabo and the commanders of each sea's army. Ivankov was a commander too, but he was busy with his kingdom apparently.
Once the meeting ended, Cherry waltzed in before anyone left and approached Dragon.
"Yo, it's been a little while since my last mission as payment for your tutelage. I had a suggestion as to what my next one would be." Cherry said.
Sabo and the commanders paused in interest as to what she might suggest.
"Hm, I'll consider it. What is your idea?" Dragon asked, mildly curious.
"I'll rescue Bartholomew Kuma, and restore his mind." Cherry spoke.
This caused the eyes of everyone in the room to widen. They all knew of Kuma's fate by now. The only reason they hadn't deemed to rescue him yet is because they believed him to be as good as dead.
"Can you truly restore his mind?" Dragon asked, with a trace of hope appearing in his eyes. If it were anyone else, he would not trust such words so easily. Except perhaps if it was Vegapunk who said them, as he too was known to operate outside the norm.
Sabo and the other commanders were subconsciously leaning closer, desperate to hear Cherry confirm her words.
"Mm, I said I would do it so I will. When he sent me flying back on Sabaody Archipelago, I made some preparations to fix whatever brain scrambling that Vegapunk was planning to do to him. I suppose there are no guarantees when that guy is involved, but I'm pretty confident." Cherry said honestly.
"Even a small chance would be good enough. I'm looking forward to seeing him again after so long." Sabo said, his hope tempered with realistic expectations.
The others agreed with his sentiments.
"Very well, please go retrieve Kuma and restore his mind if you are able to do so. We'll keep this information between ourselves so as to not get anyone elses' hopes up." Dragon ordered.
The meeting was properly adjourned this time as everyone went their separate ways.
Cherry went to meet with Robin, Cabernet, and Perona to inform them that they would be going out once again.
Robin in particular was happy to be doing this particular task, as although her experiences with Kuma weren't positive, she had heard many good things about the man from the revolutionaries that she had been getting along with, such as Koala and Sabo.
Perona on the other hand was somewhat annoyed as the mission would eat into her quality time with Cabernet whilst they were traveling.
"Cabby and I aren't even getting anything out of this! It isn't fair!" Perona complained with a pout and puffed up cheeks.
"What's good for me is good for Cabernet. As for you, you get to hang out with us even though you were an enemy not so long ago." Cherry rebutted.
"Hmph!" Perona harrumphed.
Cabernet transformed and off they went.
…
Serene came back to the Thousand Sunny after a training session with Sahkky. She was dreadfully tired and pretty sore as Shakky was quite the draconian trainer.
Apparently the woman was originally from the Kuja tribe, which explains a lot.
Serene walked past the form of Bartholomew Kuma that didn't respond to her presence at all. She still didn't have any clue what he was doing protecting the Thousand Sunny like this and he simply refused to speak when spoken to.
Kuma had accumulated some wear and tear from his frequent battles, but was overall faring quite well, thanks to the efforts of Serene, Merry, and the Rosy Life Riders no doubt.
She found Merry sprawled out on the grassy deck and decided to slump her tired body down next to her.
"Baaah." Merry bleated.
"Yeah, my training went well. I'm improving every day that I train with Shakky by a lot." Serene responded. She couldn't really understand the sheep at all, but she felt like she was pretty good at guessing what she meant.
"Baaah." Bleated Merry.
"I'm too tired to give you pets…" Serene denied.
"BAAAH!" Merry repeated louder than before.
"Ugh, fine!" Serene rolled to the side and started scratching Merry's tummy, much to the golden sheep's pleasure.
They heard Kuma start to move and lifted up their heads to see what was happening. Kuma didn't move any further, so he hadn't detected any hostiles within range.
What they saw was a few familiar figures approaching the ship. This was Cherry, Robin, and Cabernet along with an additional pink haired woman, Perona.
As they got closer, Kuma suddenly spoke up, the first time he had said anything since arriving here.
"Mission complete." Kuma spoke monotonously, before starting to walk away.
"Oh no you don't!" Cherry shouted, motioning for the others to assist her.
"Wait wait wait! He was helping to protect the ship!" Serene shouted, thinking they were going to attack Kuma.
They didn't heed her words however and jumped on him.
Robin bloomed many arms across his body to hold him still as Cherry and Cabernet physically tackled him to the ground.
"Attack registered. Initiating self defense." Kuma chanted in his emotionless voice.
Though he strained against them he was clearly not winning this particular battle of strength, in addition he could not get a good angle with his palms or his mouth to attack with his devil fruit or lasers.
His struggles began to slowly reduce in intensity as Cherry punched his body in numerous places, causing the sounds of destroyed metal to ring out.
"My goodness, Kuma. Couldn't you just behave yourself when people are trying to help you?" Cherry said, once Kuma could no longer move his body to give further resistance.
Cherry placed her hands on Kuma's back and stayed that way for about half an hour before standing up once more.
"Hey Serene, Merry! How have you been holding up? Not too bad I hope." Cherry asked.
"Baaah!" Merry happily bleated.
"I'm fine." Serene curtly replied.
"Thank you for protecting the ship while the others are gone." Robin gave them a glowing smile.
"I-I wasn't doing it for you! I just owe you all a debt, that's all!" Serene explained.
"Hehehe, yeah right. You just fell in love with the Straw Hats, not that I can blame you." Cherry mocked her feeble excuse.
"Well, now that you're back, I don't need to protect the Sunny any longer! I'm out of here!" Serene said, disembarking the ship.
Merry gave a sad look as she was leaving, clearly unwilling to see her go.
"Well, if you need another excuse, how about I pay you to keep protecting the Sunny? Hm, 200 million Beri for two years sounds fair to me." Cherry said, rubbing her chin in thought.
Serene stopped in her tracks and seemed to tremble.
"F-fine! I accept, but you had better pay up or else, do you hear me!" Serene shouted, turning around to reveal the tears flowing from her eyes.
"Sure thing." Cherry said with a gentle smile. 'This girl has come a long way since Alabasta.'
"Alright, gang. We'll stay the night and return with Kuma tomorrow." Cherry announced.
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