The three Vinsmoke brothers were carted off to the medical wing of the castle where they would make a full recovery in record time, such was the nature of their enhanced bodies. Even Niji's unfortunate situation was something that could be handled in less than an hour.
"You're very skilled. I've never even seen Cipher Pol agents with as much proficiency in Rokushiki as you," Reiju complimented genuinely. "You made fighting those three look downright easy."
"The result would have been different if it had been a real fight, I'm sure." Cherry neglected to mention that said result would have been skewed even further in her favor.
"You know, before I am a warrior and a king, I am a scientist. In particular, I am specialized in the analysis and manipulation of lineage factors, that is the very blueprints of life. If you were interested, we could have a look at yours. Perhaps we'll find something interesting?" Judge spoke politely.
Cherry absolutely knew this creep was up to something, but she couldn't help but to be intrigued by the offer. She hadn't ever heard about this 'lineage factor' thing he spoke of, and knowing about it could be very useful information.
She looked at Sanji in search of some clue about the man's true motives, but he looked just as lost as she was in regards to the new term Judge had casually thrown out. Reiju didn't look confused like her younger brother did, but that was because she had schooled her expression into a well practiced smile. That in itself gave Cherry some information, though, even if it wasn't that much.
"I've never heard of 'lineage factors' before. Tell me about them." Cherry decided to probe for information.
"Primarily it will show your racial ancestry," Judge said. "I believe that yours is sure to show an interesting past of mixed relations."
That wasn't necessarily a lie, of course; it certainly did do those things. What he didn't mention was how he could utilize that information in the creation of clones, or the fact that devil fruits altered the lineage factor of a person. Though in the latter case, he was sorely ignorant despite his best efforts. Vegapunk had already cracked it with that stupidly huge head of his, much to his chagrin.
"I'm sure it would, with my father being Dracule Mihawk and my grandmother being from the Kuja tribe." Cherry said.
Naturally Judge knew about her father, but having Kuja blood was new information to him! Perhaps the two powerful bloodlines intermingled in a way to create this monster in front of him, or maybe there was something more lurking beneath her skin. He HAD to know.
"How about it then?" Judge pressed gently, keeping his excitement from showing anything beyond academic interest. "I only need a small sample of blood."
Cherry seemed to mull it over for several moments. She squinted her eyes at Judge as if she was trying to see through whatever deception he was trying to pull over her eyes.
"Sure why not," Cherry finally agreed. It wasn't that big of a deal and she was interested in what it would tell her about her body.
Even though she had agreed, that didn't mean she would leave her blood with the man to do with as he pleased. There are far too many techniques available to cultivators that could make use of blood for her to risk allowing him to keep it. At her stage of cultivation, it was a trivial matter to remotely destroy her own blood, especially in the Soul Fusion realm where the soul permeates every cell in the body.
Reiju had an inscrutable expression as stood silently by the side. Sanji had a vague idea of what Judge was up to since all of his children were bioengineered, but he trusted Cherry to be able to handle whatever came her way. Plus, he has bombs strapped to his wrists and didn't feel like testing his father's temper even if Cherry didn't seem that concerned about them.
…
Two Jinbe's clashed together as Luffy clashed with a large, six-armed man wearing armor made of biscuits.
"Your fishman karate is certainly strong, but mimicry can only take you so far." Jinbe-One spoke resolutely.
Jinbe-Two answered, "This is the real deal, I'm afraid. It's you who is going down today, imposter."
"Which one is which?!" Nami fretted on the sidelines of the chaotic fight.
The self introduced Sweet General Cracker was matching Luffy's blows easily and Jinbe was facing an imposter so he couldn't help. Nami watched them both closely whilst keeping an eye on Luffy's fight in the hopes of rooting out the imposter.
As soon as she could work out who the fake was, a super charged lightning tempo would quickly turn the tides, if not outright put the imposter out for the count. She didn't have any hopes that a high level member of Big Mom's crew would just die from one of her attacks no matter how much stronger they were.
Unfortunately, any attempts made by either one to intervene with Luffy's fight get stopped by the other before they can show their true allegiance.
That was, until now.
Cracker parried Luffy's elephant gun with three shield bearing arms, leaving an opening for him to stab at Luffy.
Jinbe-Two thrust his fist out not at Jinbe-One, but towards Cracker! A force slammed into Cracker's side, sending him stumbling over and ruining his counterattack against Luffy. In turn, Jinbe-Two took a hard blow against his defensibly raised arm from Jinbe-One.
"There!" Nami knew immediately then who the real Jinbe was!
*Rumble Rumble Rumble!*
Thunder clouds formed ominously overhead as Nami spun her staff. With one final downwards strike Nami called out, "Lightning Tempo!"
*ZAP!!!*
Jinbe-Two was struck instantly and Jinbe-One capitalized on his suddenly stunned state with brutal efficiency!
"Why…?" Jinbe-Two lay defeated on the ground and didn't understand why Nami had done this to him!
"Hmph! As if the real Jinbe would interfere with Luffy's fight without being asked! It's one of those stupid 'manly' things!" Nami explained her reasoning.
"Kukuku! Wrong choice!" Jinbe-One laughed ominously.
"Eh?!" Nami raised her staff defensively, positively shocked.
"Just kidding," Jinbe-One said with a goofy smile as he scratched his chest awkwardly. "Maybe it's a bad time for a joke, though?"
Nami's eye twitched, "You think? Go help Luffy!"
"Hm? But you understand, right? He didn't ask for my help, so it wouldn't be right to butt in…" Jinbe said.
"I don't give a fuck about what's manly! If you don't want a lightning bolt too, then get moving!" Nami threatened.
"Ah, sorry Luffy. Nami is too scary…" Jinbe reluctantly joined the fight.
From the way the fake Jinbe was still twitching on the ground, he felt it was best not to test how serious Nami is with that staff of hers.
Cracker frowned deeply. "You can't even hold off one fishman on land, Brulee?"
Naturally he didn't even count Nami as an opponent. She was more like a giant hornet in his eyes; she had a nasty sting, but was easily squashed.
Due to Brulee's incapacitation, he would have to up the ante somewhat. He wasn't foolish enough to believe he could take a super rookie and Jinbe at once without putting in the effort.
Cracker started to crack apart in a literal sense, with an odd clapping sound accompanying it just like when his single pair of arms split into three pairs. Likewise, three identical Crackers emerged from the single one, and the clapping sound didn't stop there.
Seeing that things were about to get dicey, Luffy quickly bit into his haki coated arm and blew. His body expanded into his Gear Fourth form and he charged forward, smashing apart one of the Crackers.
Jinbe understood that this was about to become a battle of attrition and he knew that Luffy could only sustain Gear Fourth for so long, so he similarly acted quickly and smashed apart another Cracker with a few powerful blows.
However, by the time they had destroyed those two Crackers more moved in to take their place, much to Nami's horror. Cracker had already been putting up a challenging fight, how were they supposed to fight more than one of them?!
"These biscuits are too tough. At this rate, we'll expend all our energy just fighting the fakes," Jinbe complained calmly.
"If they're made of biscuits, then I'll just eat them to restore my stamina!" Luffy declared, biting into the thick neck of one of the Crackers. "Ouch! They're so hard!"
"Of course they're hard, you fool! Did you really think you could eat them?!" The real Cracker mocked him from within the crowd of Crackers.
Luffy started to shovel the smashed biscuits into his mouth and swallow them whole rather than try to chew them up.
Jinbe thought it was a bit silly, but let Luffy do his own thing. Luffy had a way of getting shit done with the wackiest tactics.
Meanwhile, Nami was trying to come up with a way to help. She looked around at the scattered remnants of the destroyed Crackers as they reformed into new crackers.
Suddenly, she had an idea. If the biscuits were too hard to bite, then she'd just have to soften them up!
She spun her Clima-Tact over her head, quickly manipulating the moisture and temperature of the air in the forest. Not long after, clouds formed amongst the canopies and started to sprinkle, then rain, then downpour onto them all.
Sure enough, as the water soaked into the biscuits of the Crackers they were becoming softer and easier to eat.
"Thank you for the assistance, Nami!" Jinbe called out, gathering water along his hands before firing cannon ball sized bolts of water through the Crackers.
"Ah, yes, of course…" Nami said, realizing she should have done that from the start instead of doing it to make it easier for Luffy to eat the biscuits.
"Tsk, so that woman is going to be a problem after all?" Cracker clicked his tongue, realizing he had been too dismissive and should have dealt with the weak link first. "Are you cowards just going to stand there, quaking like newborn fawns?! Or am I going to have to report your treason to Mama?!"
A massive, monstrous tree and half a dozen or so odd creatures stood a fair distance away from the battle. The tree stuttered out in fear, "W-we can't, General Cracker! She feels just like Mama! We can't attack her!"
"Why not?!?!?!" Cracker was enraged at their inaction. "Stop beating around the bush!"
"It's coming from her overinflated chest, General Cracker!" A rabbit man in a musketeer outfit cried out, literally quaking in his boots.
""Huh?!"" Both Nami and Cracker were surprised to hear that. What in the world could they mean by that.
Nami only had one clue on the matter, so she fished out something she had received and forgotten about over two years ago on Thriller Bark. A slip of paper given to her by the captain of another pirate crew named Lola, who had promised that her mother would treat them well if they showed it to her.
They hadn't had any clue who Lola's Mother was before now, but Nami was putting the pieces together at record speed. Nami held it out towards the homies that were cowering behind her and asked, "Is it this?"
"""Ahhhhhh?!?!?!?""" the homies screamed in terror.
Nami's unsure expression became a confident and sadistic smile. "Hoh? This little old thing has you scared, does it?"
As Nami thought about how she could leverage this newfound power, Jinbe and Luffy continued to demolish the increasingly soggy Crackers, and Luffy continued to swell to an enormous girth. It got to the point that Luffy was even huskier than Jinbe, and still kept eating!
This completely ruined any plans of a battle of attrition that Cracker had. While he could make new biscuit soldiers endlessly so long as he could clap his hands, their defensive capabilities were reduced in the dense rain while Jinbe was only stronger with the presence of so much water.
He had to end this in a single blow!
The real Cracker launched forward towards the immobile mass of rubbery flesh that was Luffy; an easy target!
Jinbe moved to intervene, and even succeeded in breaking Cracker apart. However, the real Cracker was a much smaller man hidden within the larger man's biscuit form!
Cracker continued his charge unaffected by Jinbe's failed interception.
"Die!" Cracker shouted with a smile that was more of a snarl. He thrust his sword into exposed belly unimpeded. "Huh? Wait, what is this-?"
"Gear Fourth: Tank Man!" Luffy flexed his abs in a way that sucked Cracker further into his rubbery flesh. Then with another flex, Cracker was sent flying through the air, through several of his biscuit soldiers, through the homie trees, and away into the distance! "Get lost!"
…
Smoothie was getting tired of waiting for Cherry to come back and was deciding whether to barge into the Vinsmoke castle looking for her charge when she got a call on her den den mushi.
"What?" Smoothie answered casually.
"General Smoothie!" A voice she didn't recognise, so it must be a nameless subordinate. "General Cracker just flew all the way from the Seducing Woods and crashed into the Chateau! He's all beat up and unconscious!"
"Who did it? I'll kill 'em right now." Smoothie demanded.
"We're not totally sure, General! He was on a mission to capture Straw Hat, that's all we know!" the subordinate explained.
"What's your name?" Smoothie asked out of nowhere.
"Er… it's Deeduo, General…" the subordinate answered dutifully.
"Good. For being so useless, I'm going to kill you later. Don't run away or I'll kill your family in front of you first." Smoothie hung up the den den mushi without waiting for a response.
"How the hell did Cracker lose to a rookie?" Smoothie wondered aloud. Certainly Cracker was the weakest of the three Sweet Generals by a country mile, but he most certainly wasn't weak. Moreover, he was in the Seducing Woods, which was made entirely up by homies.
It was a mystery. However, she wondered if she should even bother to go personally. It was likely that a small army of her brothers and sisters was already forming to take revenge; and while they were individually weaker than Cracker, quantity was a quality all on its own.
Plus, she had her own duties to attend to. Would Cherry back out of their deal the moment she left her to her own devices?
"Probably," Smoothie concluded. Then again, she really didn't want to deal with the troublesome woman any more, either. What a quandary.
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