Cables with hooks on the ends of them were lowered into position from the sky island Weatheria to be fastened into place on the submarine in order to raise it back up.
Once that was finished, Nami watched in abject horror and grotesque fascination as the massive kraken that Cherry lovingly called Takako seemed to squeeze into her body through her hand.
"What…? How…? Nevermind." Nami decided not to ask and tried not to think about where all that flesh could have possibly gone to.
"Are you interested, Nami? Well, I'm afraid to say that a sea king would be quite impossible for you, especially one as ginormous as my beautiful Takako. You might be able to manage a small bird or a rodent though." Cherry said, patting her stomach as if she had eaten a hearty meal.
The exact mechanics of how it worked were quite complicated, but simply put it worked by converting the physical body of the contracted beast into either vital energy or celestial energy, while preserving the spirit of the beast inside the cultivator's body so that it would not perish from the conversion process. If one did not possess enough vital or celestial energy themselves, however, the energy from the beast would overwhelm the cultivator and most likely lead to a rather gruesome and very messy death.
If Cherry had attempted to contract Takako during her 5th cultivation realm it would not have succeeded, though she would have at least survived.
In any case, even ordinary people like Nami could manage small, ordinary animals. Provided they possessed the talent to perform the ritual properly. Cherry figured that Nami was smart enough to do so, though she would need to be taught the basics of vital energy manipulation first.
"I'll think about it…" Nami replied. She'd be lying if she had said she wasn't interested, but she would rather die than find out what it felt like to have an octopus crawl into your body.
"Well, make sure you never tell Luffy about it. That doofus is the worst kind of student when it comes to technical skills, but that won't stop him from relentlessly hounding me to teach him. I really don't envy Rayleigh, the poor old man." Cherry said.
The submarine started to be hoisted upwards after signaling the weather wizards up above.
Once they were back up top, the dozens of robed old men were throwing a fit, accusing Nami of being a naughty and ungrateful child.
Nami managed to calm them down when she explained that it was an emergency, that she needed to save her friend from drowning. She conveniently left out the fact that it turned out that Cherry was perfectly fine and in no danger whatsoever.
That seemed to satisfy them so they didn't nag her anymore, though it didn't stop some of them from grumbling to themselves about her erratic behavior.
"I'm glad that you're all alright. I was a tad worried that Nami wouldn't come back with the submarine though." Haredas said.
"What kind of girl do you think that I am?" Nami said, acting like she was offended.
"The epithet the world government gave you is 'Cat Burglar'." Haredas answered with a straight face.
Nami responded by sticking out her tongue in a childish taunt.
They were shown to a room where they could stay temporarily on account of being Nami's friends. It was a fairly simple building, though it was quaint and cozy.
Cherry settled down into a meditative pose to finish stabilizing her cultivation realm.
The sixth body cultivation realm was known as the Perfect Form Realm. In this realm, a body cultivator would slowly convert their entire body into a source of their vital energy, like the heart, as well as completely spiritualizing the body in the same way the nervous system had in the fourth realm. In doing so, the heart and brain cease to be weaknesses that, if destroyed, would result in the death of the cultivator.
In addition, it also vastly increases the speed at which one can restore used up energy reserves, to the extent that one could do so while in the midst of battle if they aren't too strained.
With that finished, Cherry turned her eyes to her sword and revolver. First she started with her sword, as it needed a name worthy of its eloquence and might.
"Sakura Tengoku." Cherry stated clearly.
The blade released a tiny arc of pink lightning in acceptance. Though Cherry could swear it was telling her 'It's about damn time.'
Next she picked up the revolver and took it outside.
She observed the physical changes that it underwent and had an idea of what sort of power it had obtained.
"Man, Franky is going to be so jealous." Cherry thought aloud.
"Why do you think so?" Robin asked curiously. She was curious what sort of power the devil fruit bestowed upon the gun as well, so she had decided to watch.
"Well, let's see with our own eyes, shall we?" Cherry said, holding the revolver in her outstretched hand.
Cherry pulled the trigger and a gentle stream of a dark and fizzy liquid poured out from the muzzle.
"Is that…?" Robin asked.
"Soda, yes." Cherry smiled, thinking about how Franky would react when he found out his ideal devil fruit had fallen into her hands.
The body of the revolver had changed shape to appear as a glass bottle made from dark brown, opaque glass. Though it looked and felt like glass, Cherry could tell that it had lost none of its durability as a result.
"I hope this isn't all it can do though. I'd hate it if my favorite gun became useless as a weapon." Cherry said.
Cherry started to experiment with the revolver, activating different aspects of its devil fruit inscription.
She found that she could produce a wide variety of flavors, though they were all carbonated drinks. Sadly she couldn't make it produce sparkling water, but she supposed that made sense seeing as water was the enemy of devil fruit users.
"What if I do this?" Cherry pondered aloud.
Cherry shook the revolver in a fierce fashion before aiming it once more and pulling the trigger.
*PSSSSH*
A pressurized beam of soda shot out ripped a hole in the simple target she had set up.
"Now that's just silly, hehehe!" Cherry finally felt that perhaps she hadn't lost her favorite toy after all.
"Still, this will require some experimentation, but I think it will all work out just fine. I bet Big Mom will probably be really pissed off that I have a sweet related devil fruit." Cherry said.
"No doubt about that." Robin concurred. "Especially since we took it out from under the noses of her own children."
"I have just the name for you. You shall be called 'Fizzy Pop'!" Cherry said proudly, feeling Sakura Tengoku zapping her on the hip.
"All I have left in the spear now, huh? Perhaps I should make a suit of armor as well, just to have an option if the next fruit isn't a good fit?" Cherry said.
"You don't know how to share, do you?" Robin asked with a smile and a raised eyebrow.
"Maybe I'll go down in history as the world's biggest devil fruit hoarder, hm?" Cherry joked. "Perhaps I should conquer the world and make sure that I do?"
Robin only shook her head at her in exasperation.
Cherry found that Haredas and the other weather wizards were quite adorable in their own quirky way, though she supposed the same could be said of many of the varied peoples of this world.
During her short stay on Weatheria, the weather wizards hounded her with questions after learning she had been at the center of the anomalous storm. While their instruments collected a great deal of data for them to analyze, having a first hand account from ground zero would add a new perspective that would perhaps be enlightening in their postulations.
They were starting to get on Cherry's nerves after about an hour of questioning, so Cherry threw them a bone to chew on by suggesting that the storm, while certainly natural as they speculated, was in fact the product of a will as well. Specifically the will of the world itself.
At first they completely dismissed the outlandish presumption, but in the midst of explaining why it could not possibly be the case they started to connect some dots that seemed to prove the idea instead of disprove it and immediately started to debate each other in a frenzy.
Cherry opened the door, releasing the furious shouts of angry old men out into the world, then shut the door behind her as she stepped out. She found Nami waiting outside, trying to peek inside before the door shut completely.
"What exactly did you say to them that got them so riled up? They weren't even this excited when I tried to rob them blind." Nami asked.
"Some say that warriors are savages, but if you ask me it is the scholars who are the most savage of men. Give them something to argue about and they'll be at each other's throats before you can blink." Cherry stated, somewhat dodging the question.
Nami narrowed her eyes at Cherry, not as easily fooled as the fools they traveled with.
"Can you tell me what you were doing at the center of that storm?" Nami asked.
"Pure bad luck, a coincidence." Cherry stated firmly.
"Oh, and I suppose it was a coincidence the last time you got caught up in a storm on Long Ring Long Land?" Nami asked.
"Yes." Cherry spoke shamelessly.
"Since it was a coincidence, then it's not very likely to happen again, is it?" Nami crossed her arms.
"It's almost a certainty that it will happen again. That's just the kind of luck I was born with. In fact, the first time I was struck by lightning was at the young age of five years old you know. I'm practically a lightning magnet. That is probably how I wound up with the Rumble Rumble Fruit, too." Cherry explained.
Nami was dead certain that Cherry was responsible for the two storms at this point. She didn't have any concrete evidence to prove it, but her gut told her that was the truth of the matter.
Still, without evidence she couldn't exactly make accusations willy nilly and Cherry was a much better liar than the other troublemakers on their crew.
Sure, she could just assume Cherry's guilt in the matter and lecture her about the dangers of throwing yourself into massive lightning storms, but what if she was wrong? Cherry COULD just be messing with her, after all, and be completely innocent.
"Just… be safe, Cherry. Please?" Nami said, with a worried look.
'Geh!' Cherry felt metaphorical pain in her heart. Those sad puppy dog eyes were more effective on her than a thousand lectures.
"I'll try…" Cherry said.
She had no intentions to stop her cultivation of course, but perhaps she could be better prepared for the next one. In hindsight, she had taken on the tribulation this time with a bit too casual an attitude.
Her answer was enough to satisfy Nami for the time being, so she left Cherry to her devices. She entered into the room where curses and obscenities were now being thrown between the old men over minor facts and details.
Sad as it may be, it was time for the three women to part ways with Nami. She had naturally decided to stay on Weatheria to learn everything she can from the weather wizards about meteorology. Something they would desperately need when they entered the New World half of the Grand Line.
Cherry noted that Cabernet was a bit depressed to part ways once again. Not just over Nami, but also from missing their other friends scattered around the world.
"Don't worry Cabernet. We'll see them all again soon enough when the two years are over." Cherry tried to assuage her.
"That's easy for you to say, you're an old lady! Two years is already more than half my life!" Cabernet complained with a pout.
It had slipped her mind that Cabernet was not nearly as old as she looked or acted. While still naive, Cabernet was certainly not a child and from her looks most people would guess she was older than Cherry.
Cherry wrapped her arms around the sad ship girl, followed by Robin who also felt pangs in her heart in sympathy.
Cabernet immediately started tearing up and squeezed Cherry and Robin back painfully hard. Cherry and Robin simply endured the overly tight hug to put her gentle soul at ease.
…
Back at Baltigo.
"CABBYYYY!" Perona shouted, running as fast as she could towards Cabernet.
She leaped at Cabernet, who then caught her and swung her around once before bringing into a snuggly hug.
"Ah, you're back! That's perfect, just in time. We've just retrieved a copy of a poneglyph, Dragon wants you to have a look." Sabo said, receiving them. "Uh, Cherry? Something seems… 'different' about you?"
"I decided to grow out my hair." Cherry responded, showing off a braided ponytail the length of her back. "It's nice of you to notice, but your flirting won't get you anywhere with me young man."
"I didn't mean your hair… Wait, how IS your hair so long? You've only been gone for a few days!" Sabo said, distracted by Cherry's expert deflection skills.
"I already told you, silly. I grew it out!" Cherry stated, like it was the most natural thing in the world, that her hair grew a few feet in length over a few days.
"Well, I guess you did…" Sabo scratched his head, confused.
On the way as Sabo led them to Dragon's office, they ran into Koala.
"Wow, Cherry! Your skin looks amazing! I mean, your skin was always really nice, but somehow it's even better now. It's actually kind of weird that it's noticeably better despite how clear it was before. What's your secret?! Tell me!" Koala interrogated, shaking Cherry's shoulders.
"Hehehe! Naturally the secret is going on a mini vacation with a beautiful woman who loves you!" Cherry said, rubbing her chin like a sage.
"Hmph, keep your secrets then. I suppose that excuse isn't entirely baseless though. Stress is pretty bad for your beauty and as a revolutionary stress is the only thing we aren't in short supply of. We can't all be as carefree as you, after all. Betty seems to manage just fine, but when I asked her how she does it she just told me that she 'drinks, smokes, and fucks' to deal with stress." Koala rambled. "Anyways, see you guys later. I've got some new recruits to train. Ugh."
They watched Koala walk away looking dejected.
"That girl needs a man." Cherry concluded when she was out of sight. "You should ask her out, Sabo."
"Huh?" Sabo said, looking surprised and a bit embarrassed.
"You have to shoot your shot, man. Koala is a real catch and sooner or later someone is going to reel her in." Cherry said.
"What? No, we're not like that. We're just friends…" Sabo denied.
"Really?" Robin asked with a mirthful smile. "You won't mind if I encourage Bunny Joe to ask her then? He's quite enamored with her from what I've seen."
Sabo suddenly felt a great deal of pressure bearing down on him.
"You two go on ahead, I'll be right back!" Sabo raced away down the hall. Notably, he went in the same direction that Koala left in.