章 149: Fight on the Marine Ship

Sentomaru felt the nervous energy leave his body and a wave of acceptance of the dismal situation fell over him.

"Since it's come to this point, there's no use in worrying about it." Sentomaru spoke softly, readjusting the massive axe he held on his shoulders.

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to part with the devil fruit without a fuss, would you? I don't much like the idea of competing over it with Katakuri." Cherry asked politely with a friendly smile, but with a clearly implied threat hiding beneath.

Arcs of electricity dancing across the length of her sword causing the ordinary marines to gulp and take several steps back.

Sentomaru casually tossed the box containing the devil fruit to his officer behind him.

"Take out the devil fruit. If she tries to take it or attacks you, eat it." Sentomaru ordered.

Cherry's smile widened at the man's decisiveness to lose the prize rather than surrender it.

The officer on the other hand was cursing his bad luck, as no matter how powerful devil fruit abilities were he did not possess the desire to be cursed for that power. Especially as he knew where the limit of his talent lies and that therefore he could never make proper use of it.

Sentomaru assumed a defensive stance ideal for deflecting blows as he knew that she excelled at piercing defenses. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, they gave off the impression of aresolve as deep as the ocean.

"Hehehehehe! How am I supposed to kill you if you look at me like that, Sentomaru?" Cherry said with elation.

Such people were few and far between amongst the cultivators she was familiar with. Even the seemingly honorable sword immortals would more often than not turn into cowards and knaves when faced with a choice involving death and/or treasures.

The poor regular marines were quivering with fear, though. Cherry's well practiced expression had slipped and revealed her true mannerisms.

'She's the devil!!!' Was the only thing they could think of when witnessing her genuine smile and laughter.

*Boom!*

The wood of the deck shattered beneath her feet as she launched herself at Sentomaru.

"RAAAAH!" Sentomaru roared as he struck the side of Cherry's sword with his palm as she pierced towards him.

Electricity burned his hand and arm, but he did not hesitate for even an instant to bring the axe down on Cherry's head.

Cherry's body twisted to the side and brought up her own palm from her free hand. She slapped his axe aside with a strength that surprised Sentomaru.

A chime like a gong rang out from the axehead and Sentomaru felt a fierce vibration reverberate from it down the handle.

'If I hadn't coated the axe with armament haki, my axe would have turned to dust from that attack.' Sentomaru observed as he made his next move.

He was silently grateful that this tiny, monstrous woman hadn't yet to learn the advanced forms of armament haki or she might have sundered his weapon regardless.

This was an incorrect assumption on his part, though he can't be faulted for making it. Cherry's proficiency with haki hadn't been very great during the war at Marineford, which was the last time he had seen her in action. A few months was too short a time to reach that level, according to his common sense.

Cherry also wasn't going to reveal her whole bag of tricks for no reason either. She didn't plan to kill the marines or Sentomaru here, so she wouldn't use advanced haki unless forced to do so. An unlikely scenario, in her opinion at least.

Over on the Big Mom pirate ship, Katakuri had his brows furrowed in annoyance, a vein popping out on his forehead.

First, Cherry had disappeared before he had a chance to extend an invitation to his Mama's next tea party. Then when he finds her, she's trying to steal his devil fruit from the marines.

The only upside was that where he had been worried the marines would escape after getting their paddles unstuck, now their main mast and sail were destroyed. So there was no chance of the marines outrunning him.

He patiently waited for his ship to get close enough as he observed the fierce battle taking place. Loud booms, ringing gongs, and flashes of lightning were common during this time.

His beloved little sister, Brulee, was a bit nervous at the sights and sounds, though her faith in her beloved older brother didn't waiver. She just wasn't much of a fighter, at least not compared to the two combatants on the marine ship.

Finally they were close enough and he wasted no time hurling himself through the air over the gap between the ships.

Katakuri landed on the marine ship and calmly gauged the situation.

'The trash is on the verge of pissing themselves in terror. Sentomaru is nearly exhausted and moderately injured, mostly from electrical burns. Harpin D. Cherry is completely fine, the only signs of her having fought for the last several minutes being her lightly damaged clothing.' Katakuri analyzed, taking less than a second to do so.

"You're late to the party, friend. We've almost finished our little dance without you." Cherry teased, showing no signs of anxiety at his arrival.

"Speaking of parties, you ran off before I could invite you to Big Mom's next tea party." Katakuri said, ignoring the slightly disrespectful tone.

The marines lost the last vestiges of whatever hope they had left. If these two made an alliance here, they were completely doomed. Even the reinforcements they called couldn't save them.

"Nah." Cherry said, sneering at him.

Katakuri had been annoyed before, but now he was furious. Though his calm exterior barely showed it. His conqueror's haki washed over the entire ship, but focused mostly on Cherry. Even so, most of the marines were instantly rendered unconscious.

Cherry wasn't entirely unfazed by the pressure Katakuri created, but she held fast and steady on her feet.

"You're a fool to have refused an invitation to Mama's tea party. Even more so for doing it in my presence. At the very least you should have lied so as to live another day." Katakuri reprimanded.

"If I did that I would get the chance to slap you around, now would I? Hehehe." Cherry mocked.

*BAM*

A large fist made of mochi slammed into Cherry without warning and sent her flying, almost over the side of the ship and into the ocean.

"Who are you going to 'slap around'?" Katakuri asked in a dark tone.

*BAM BAM BAM*

Several strikes in quick succession slammed into her, first sending her flying up and then juggling her in the air.

"Me?" Katakuri spoke.

*BAM*

Cherry was sent crashing into the deck.

"You can't even stand before me, let alone hit me." Katakuri said.

*FLASH*

Katakuri casually tilted his head to the side as lightning whizzed past where his head had just been.

"Pathetic." He mocked.

Katakuri twisted his body with minimal movements, dodging a rain of bullets.

"Your attacks are too predictable." He said, his tone more filled with boredom than rage.

He stomped down on a spear that thrust towards his groin. Slight surprise showed on his face. Not from the attack itself, but only from the fact that the spear didn't break.

"Your weapons are wasted on trash like you. Your moniker, Cheapshot, is truly well deserved, as the only thing you're capable of is cheap tricks. You'll find such tricks don't work against real power." Katakuri said.

"Hehehehehe!" Cherry laughed.

"Why are you laughing?" Katakuri questioned. "Have you gone mad in the face of despair?"

"Hehehe! I'll admit that you're stronger than I expected. However, you're too inexperienced." Cherry mocked.

Katakuri furrowed his brow in annoyance. However, before he could speak again, someone else spoke first.

"Nii-chan! They took the candies!" Brulee cried out in alarm.

Katakuri swiveled his head in an instant, seeing a brown skinned woman with silver hair and jet black wings racing away from his ship.

*Fwoosh!*

Cherry's figure rocketed away from the marine ship during his momentary distraction, far faster than he expected she was capable of.

"Haha, she got us both…" Sentomaru huffed, leaning against the wall of the cabin.

Sentomaru's officer burst out of the cabin's door and shouted worriedly. "Sir, the devil fruit was snatched away from me by arms! I think it was Nico Robin!"

Katakuri had never felt so humiliated in his life. He had fallen for a 'cheap trick'.

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章 150: Research and Development

"You're all crazy! Not you Cabby, you're just crazy cute, but the two of you are completely insane! Why in the world would you provoke the Big Mom pirates?!" Perona ranted at Cherry and Robin.

"It all worked out perfectly though? Robin snatched the devil fruit from the marine guy, no problem. Then while I distracted Katakuri, you hollowed Charlotte woman and her crew to snatch the fancy candies too. You helped, so that means you are guilty too." Cherry said.

"I-I only helped because Cabby asked me to! You're the one who put HER up to it! It's all your fault that Big Mom is going to kill us all!" Perona practically screamed, the only thing holding her back from completely freaking out being Cabernet's arms around her.

"She'll probably eat us, while we're still alive too." Robin joked darkly.

"Noooooooo!" Perona started hyperventilating in panic.

"What's the big deal? Big Mom might be angry, but it's just a devil fruit. She won't personally hunt us down over something so relatively small, will she?" Cherry spoke reassuringly.

"Actually, she'll probably be angrier about the candies. I've heard she has quite the sweet tooth." Robin added.

"Nobody would go on a rampage over sweets, Robin. That's ridiculous."

…

"Mama is going to go on a rampage, Nii-chan! What do we do?! Not even you can escape if her hunger pangs start up again!" Brulee was panicking as well.

"Calm down, Brulee. Mama didn't know about the candies, we were just going to get the devil fruit. She'll be angry that we didn't get it, but I just need to do some extra work for her and she'll forgive us. As long as no one tells her about the candies, that is. They aren't easily acquired so if her hunger pangs start up over them, she might destroy all of Totto Land." Katakuri spoke calmly, having recovered from his outraged emotions.

"Y-you're right as always, Nii-chan." Brulee started to calm down as well.

She glanced menacingly at their crew who were listening in filled with anxiety. "None of you are to speak of the candies. If Mama DOES find out about them, you'll be the scapegoats. So keep your mouths shut, understand?"

The crew nodded furiously and saluted the siblings. They didn't need to be told that. Big Mom's hunger pangs were a natural disaster and they all had family in Totto Land. They wouldn't dare risk their lives, even without being told.

"Katakuri-sama!" One of the pirates spoke up. "What about the marines?"

That was an important question that didn't have a simple answer. Most of them had already been knocked out by Katakuri's conqueror's haki when Brulee had shouted about the candies, but Sentomaru and a few of the stronger marines had resisted on account of the fact that they weren't the main target of the pressure.

Normally, they'd just kill them all and be done with it. The problem lies in the fact that Sentomaru worked directly under Vegapunk. Big Mom, as a collector of people, would not want to sour relations with the unmatched genius. Stealing one devil fruit wouldn't be a big deal, but killing a valued subordinate might be.

Katakuri looked over at the marine ship. Sentomaru overheard the question as the Big Mom pirate ship had already pulled up alongside their ship by now.

He turned to look at his still conscious crew members. "This is classified information. Speak of it to no one."

Marines were quite accustomed to being given gag orders like this, so they accepted it easily. Even more so knowing they'd die if they didn't.

Katakuri turned away and gave the orders to set sail once more, this time to return home to Totto Land. Sentomaru and the few marines heaved sighs of relief as they watched the Big Mom vessel disappear over the horizon.

…

"You've got your devil fruit, now. So what next? Are you going to piss off Kaido too, for good measure?" Perona said, still somewhat peeved about the whole affair with the Charlotte siblings. Cabernet had slowly calmed her down with some gentle coaxing, though.

"We can if you'd like? I don't know why you're being so timid, Perona. Didn't Moria want to be king of the pirates too? You were bound to come up against the emperors by following him too." Cherry said.

They were already back at the Kano Kingdom, enjoying a nice meal after the excitement they just experienced.

"Hmph! Moria-sama already learned his lesson in the New World and was preparing for his next attempt, before you and that rubber monkey of a captain ruined everything!" Perona complained.

"Ouch!" Perona looked back at Cabernet, whose lap she was sitting in, with a pout. "Why did you pinch me?"

"Luffy is a good boy. Don't say mean things about him." Cabernet stated simply.

"Hmph, fine…" Perona muttered, reluctantly agreeing.

"As for what next? None of your business. We'll return to Baltigo tomorrow." Cherry said rudely, earning a pinch from Robin herself.

The next morning they said their goodbyes to Chinjao, Sai, and Boo, then made their journey back to Baltigo as she said they would.

Now Cherry had a choice to make.

Would she fuse the devil fruit with either her revolver or spear, taking the chance that it wouldn't be enough to push her cultivation to the perfection of the fifth realm. Or would she risk losing the devil fruit by attempting to refine it into a far more potent pill form.

The biggest risk of the latter was whether the pill would retain the vital energy inscriptions within the devil fruit, or if they would be destroyed in the process. If it failed, she may even lose the potent vital energy that was necessary for the perfection process, let alone the abilities that the devil fruit would confer to one of her blood bound weapons.

After some thought, she decided to apply her primary focus into studying the devil fruit and devil fruit users she had access to. The chance of success could only go up with each breakthrough of her understanding of the mysterious fruit.

Luckily she had quite a few to analyze inside the headquarters of the revolutionary army.

She asked them to demonstrate their abilities for her so she could observe the changes with her Life Sense. Some were willing, but others were less so.

Still, she compiled a great deal of information and started mapping out what she knew about every devil fruit she has come across.

After a few weeks of hard work, Cherry had some decent results to show from it. Not only was she reasonably confident in creating a devil fruit cultivation pill, she even had a strong enough understanding of vital energy inscriptions to attempt to create her own. Though they would be pretty basic in comparison to devil fruit.

However, first came her breakthrough into the sixth realm. Then she could worry about making her own vital energy inscriptions.

Cherry didn't stay on Baltigo to attempt her breakthrough, of course. It would cause quite the alarm and they would be liable to disturb her.

Robin did come along to observe for herself this time, as she missed it the last time she did so on Long Ring Long Land. Perona didn't want to be left behind alone, but Cherry told her she was out of luck and ruthlessly abandoned her like a litter of puppies in a cardboard box on a rainy day.

Arriving on some random rock jutting out of the ocean, Cherry was dropped off and Cabernet flew some distance away with Robin to watch from a safe distance.

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