บท 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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