Capítulo 187: Cherry vs Hawkeye
Hawkeye made no movements when the match officially started as the handkerchief hit the ground. It was his confidence and pride in his skill that assured he wouldn't make the first move against an opponent he didn't see as his equal in strength.
He was somewhat surprised to find that Cherry did not approach him immediately, either. He thought with her speed she would be eager to explode into motion at the very instant the match began.
Hawkeye wondered what she was plotting up until she started to pick at her teeth with the tip of her wooden sword. His confusion quickly turned into exasperation as he understood that she wasn't taking this seriously at all.
Still he simply watched and waited patiently without comment. He had a feeling that if he lapsed in his concentration for even a moment that she would exploit it. It wouldn't matter if she did, he figured, but it would tarnish his image somewhat.
Cherry stopped picking at her teeth when she was satisfied that she had successfully extracted whatever it was that was so important to deal with right at this moment from between her teeth.
Cherry took a stance and Hawkeye's muscles increased their tension in preparation. Then she dropped the stance and looked perplexed at her wooden sword,a s if something was wrong with it.
She took a few practice swings with it and scratched her head in confusion.
Hawkeye's patience was wearing a bit thin now. "Do you want to switch-"
*Thwap Thwap Thwap!*
Hawkeye expertly deflected three projectiles that launched from Cherry's 'practice swings', which he quickly identified as paper thin wooden blades. There was no Haki coating on them so there was no actual danger to himself even if they had gotten past his guard. However, a normal man without his own Haki would have been cut clean in half by them.
Cherry followed the three flying blades with a powerful overhead strike. Hawkeye could have exploited the opening had he not been momentarily busy with the flying blades.
Instead Hawkeye received the overhead strike with the intention to parry. His intentions meant nothing as the unexpected weight of Cherry's weapon pushed him back a step instead.
"Cheap tricks as always," Hawkeye admonished. He didn't much like this bad habit of his daughter.
Cherry didn't answer with words but with a flurry of much faster, but lighter attacks. Hawkeye received them in stride, having easily adjusted to the new information about the differences between their swords.
"It looks like Hawkeye is on the defensive," Robin commented.
"He's just toying with her," Zoro responded.
Zoro was right of course. Hawkeye hadn't gotten the least bit serious, but then again this wasn't a duel. Zoro had been on the receiving end of Hawkeye's training for two years, so this scene was very familiar to him.
Meanwhile, Hawkeye was analyzing Cherry's style in swordsmanship. He couldn't quite pick out any particular patterns in her attacks, like she was switching between many different styles each moment. If he had to give his opinion, he thought that Cherry was someone who understood the sword very well, but that she was far from being a swordswoman at her core.
"I was under the impression you were the talkative type in battle, what's wrong?" Hawkeye asked, as if he was just making small talk.
Cherry didn't answer, but only grinned.
'Something is off…' Hawkeye thought, narrowing his eyes slightly.
Cherry managed to push his sword aside and sliced at his throat. Hawkeye leaned back just far enough to make it miss, but was forced to throw himself off balance when the sword extended in length.
Cherry capitalised on the opening with a stab towards his stomach. Hawkeye became a bit serious and deflected the attack at the last moment. He recovered his stance quickly and decided it was time to put her in her place.
Cherry backed off as she sensed his change of tactics and took a defensive stance.
Hawkeye approached her swiftly, but carefully. His instincts were telling him that something was very wrong, but he couldn't pinpoint what it was. He shifted a bit of his attention to their surroundings and still found no trace of what was causing this feeling of… 'wrongness'.
Hawkeye pressed forward, he would end the match before whatever was happening could come to fruition.
Cherry blocked his first attack, allowing it to push inward until her own sword was almost touching her chest.
'A mistake?' Hawkeye didn't understand. In a fight between swordsmen of their caliber, one would almost never employ a pure block without a counter-attack swiftly following after.
Cherry reached out quicker than he could react and grasped his sword arm in a vice-like grip. Then she opened her mouth wide in a smile not even a demon could love.
Everything clicked into place when Hawkeye saw the scorching bright light at the back of her throat. He recalled the blast of scorching energy she fired at Marineford.
'That's what was wrong. She has only been breathing in this whole time, not out.' Hawkeye realized why Cherry hadn't spoken a word since the fight started.
And here he was, with his face in point blank range.
*GODZILLA ATOMIC BREATH SOUNDS*
Thus came the untimely end of the world's greatest swordsman. Or it would have had he not twisted around the blast of fusion plasma, only burning away the feather of his fancy hat.
Hawkeye went all out in that last move, placing his sword at Cherry's neck.
"That's my win," Hawkeye said in a calm, unbothered voice.
On the inside though, Hawkeye was berating himself for letting it get that close. Cherry had been using her Fusion fruit from the very beginning and he still didn't anticipate her using 'Solar Flare' as a breath attack.
Thankfully he had managed to maintain some of his dignity as a swordsman and as a father.
Cherry didn't look upset at all about the result. Rather she was very satisfied at having cornered Hawkeye enough for him to go all out without having done so herself, even if only for a moment.
"Tsk…" Zoro clicked his tongue in annoyance.
Neither he nor Robin had bet on Cherry's victory. Both were quite confident that the chances of that were very low.
Instead, Robin had bet that Cherry Would destroy the feather on Hawkeye's hat. Zoro had thought it would be an easy win for himself, but Robin knew something that he didn't. Whenever the topic of Hawkeye came up in the past, Cherry would often mention offhandedly how pretentious she found Hawkeye's choice of headwear to be. Thus she was at least 80% sure that Cherry would destroy or damage the hat during the bout.
"It would seem that I've won, Mr. Swordsman," Robin said with a smile. "Do be sure not to damage any goods or wander off while carrying my shopping bags in the future."
Zoro stood up and stormed away, grumbling under his breath. "An easy ten million Beri, she said. How could I fall for that…"
"This was supposed to be a sword fight, you know?" Hawkeye asked rhetorically.
"Plenty of swordsmen in the world use their devil fruit in their fighting style. I just did the same." Cherry made a shameless excuse.
"That's why I didn't say anything about the first few times you used it, because you integrated it into your swordsmanship. That last attack did not," Hawkeye retorted.
"You should just count yourself lucky that that's all I did. That was like, the bare minimum of tomfoolery I can restrict myself to," Cherry said.
Hawkeye heaved a sigh of resignation. There was no way that he could see to correct her path, so he decisively gave up on the idea altogether.
He gave Cherry a rundown of the areas he felt she could improve upon that he'd seen in the fight. Cherry had to admit that the man was a genius. It was truly a shame he hadn't been born into a cultivation world. Cherry imagined he would have become the strongest sword immortal in the myriad worlds in less than a hundred years if he had.
'What he doesn't know won't hurt him,' Cherry thought.
She had no intention to set him on the path of cultivation. She didn't need the competition.
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