章 407: Puddle
Cherry landed on the shore line where the Thousand Sunny had previously been anchored, but no longer was. She walked over to a sizable crater in the earth and jumped down into it.
"What am I going to do with you, Pedro?" Cherry asked.
Pedro did not answer.
"I was going to use this myself, but I guess you need it more than I do," Cherry set the object in her hand down onto Pedro's half liquified body.
She could help a mortal's healing process along, but regenerating anything bigger than a finger would require a lot more than the boost that injecting her Vital Energy would provide. As such, sacrifices need to be made.
Pedro was very close to death; close enough that any mortal doctor would have just said he was dead, period.
"This is going to suck for you, Pedro. The mortal form isn't designed to take this kind of energy influx," Cherry said, knowing that Pedro couldn't hear her.
The air thrummed as she began the process. She focused on keeping his brain alive until his body was sufficiently repaired, or rebuilt more like.
The heart and lungs were first, being the most vital organs for sustaining life functions. She jolted his mind awake when she finished with them.
*GASP!*
Pedro sucked in a breath and regretted it immediately. He let the air out of his lungs in a blood curdling scream.
"Keep breathing or you're dead," Cherry jolted his mind again, making him briefly focus on her words. "I know it hurts worse than any pain you could have ever imagined, but it will pass. Breathe."
Pedro, with the nerves of steel of a man who blew himself up to kill the enemy, did exactly as Cherry told him. He barely even registered that it was Cherry who had spoken to him, the pain was so great. Each breath brought with it a new layer of hell.
"Good, keep going just like that. If you lose focus, then your lungs will stop and that's more work for me to do while I'm saving your ass," Cherry encouraged him.
Minutes passed by like millenia in Pedro's perspective. He only wondered briefly if death would be better once, and only for a split second at that. His will was strong, he wouldn't give up so easily.
Breathing stopped being an exercise in self torture when the bone, flesh, and skin of his chest had finally enclosed his chest cavity. It still hurt to breathe, but now the pain of his missing extremities had taken the majority of his focus.
"Ch-Cherry…" Pedro growled out, his vocal cords felt like they were being massaged with a cheese grater as he spoke. "W-what happened…?"
"You tell me, buddy. Looks like you got blown up," Cherry said, mildly surprised he could even speak.
"R-right… I blew up Perospero…" Pedro remembered. The event oddly felt like it happened a long time ago.
"And yourself along with him? You're crazy, you know that?" Cherry chuckled.
"I d-don't have much time left, anyways…" Pedro mumbled. His eyes wandered lazily, then widened. "Y-ou… Your-"
"Don't worry about it," Cherry said, knowing what he was talking about. "I'll be fine, in time."
Ten minutes later, Cherry released a breath and stood up. "You're good to go. Don't say I never did anything for you."
"I don't believe I ever said such a thing before, and I'm not going to start now that I'm even further in your debt," Pedro said, trying to stand up, but finding it quite impossible with the way his body felt like it was a thousand times heavier.
"There are no debts between friends. Even stupid friends who go and blow themselves up," Cherry said, picking Pedro up in a familiar fashion.
She proceeded to skip through the air over the ocean, presumably in the direction of the Thousand Sunny.
The ship was fast, especially with Nami's navigation and Jinbe at the helm, but the two of them did eventually catch up to the others. Nami seemed to be making good use of Zeus, having him create a strong wind to carry them onwards.
When she landed on the deck with a loud *THUD* several people nearly jumped out of their skin in fright.
"We're under attack!" Chopper squealed prematurely.
"I sure hope we aren't, cause I'm beat, let me tell you!" Cherry sighed, dropping the exhausted form of Pedro onto the lawn deck, startling him awake from the nap he had started taking.
"PEDRO?!" Carrot was in tears as she piled atop him on the ground, squeezing him in a hug so tight you might believe he'd float away if she let go.
"You're back, Cherry," Nami sighed in relief as she came down from the quarterdeck, then she paused and pointed at her. "WHERE IS YOUR ARM?!"
"Big Mom seems to think that offense is the best defense. She was wrong, but she did get me pretty good at the end there," Cherry said nonchalantly, waving the short stub that remained of her left arm about. "I got her better than she got me, of course."
Chopper was looking over Pedro is disbelief when he heard Nami say that, and seeing that Pedro was no worse for wear than extreme exhaustion, he rushed to Cherry's side to look over her.
"Stop fussing, will you?" Cherry said, playing keep away with her stump. "It'll grow back once I get some energy back."
Carrot barreled into Cherry's chest. "Do you mean it? You saved Pedro, you can't die…"
Cherry patted her back with her good arm comfortingly. "Yes, I mean it."
"What happened with Pedro? We all saw him explode with that dynamite strapped to his chest. I'm not sure that even I would have survived that with my devil fruit back in the day," Brook asked.
"Well, he was more puddle than Pedro when I found him, so you're right about that. If he hadn't used armament haki, then there wouldn't have been anything left to save judging by the size of that crater he made. I would have reattached my severed arm if I didn't need to burn it up to regrow his body," Cherry explained. "Can't regrow clothes, though."
"Yes, that would explain why he's mostly naked," Brook said. "I'll go get him some of Zoro's clothes."
"You can do that…?" Chopper looked like he was considering the medical implications of a woman who could sacrifice bits of her body, which she could regrow at her own leisure, in order to restore another person's body from well beyond the point of no return.
"Where are Luffy, Sanji, and Reiju?" Cherry asked curiously, noting that they weren't here.
"Luffy dragged that scarf guy into the Mirro-World and broke the mirror behind him," Nami recounted. "Sanji and Reiju went with Pudding to make a new wedding cake, so that Big Mom wouldn't tear her entire territory apart in her hungry rage. Maybe that isn't an issue anymore, though?"
That last question was filled with hope. Cherry expertly dashed it like a ship upon the rocks in a storm. "No clue. Big Mom is one tough old monster, so she may die or she may not. My money is on 'not', despite my efforts to the contrary. I'm doubtful that she'll be in fighting shape before we can escape, though."
"Well, that's something at least," Nami sighed, rubbing her brow. "All we have to do now is collect everyone and get as far away from this place as possible."
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