章節 117: Hero of the Marines
Cherry burrowed out of the ground where there weren't any nearby marines and made her way towards the battle from behind their lines.
She looked over the scene to see what changes had taken place.\
A horned giant with yellow skin that was big enough to make other giants looks small was collapsed on the wall that was between the bay and the marine forces.
Pacifistas had shown up behind Whitebeard's allies and started to lay waste to them.
One of Whitebeard's allies had stabbed him through the chest in a sudden betrayal, though with the energy Cherry had loaned him that injury wasn't all that serious.
The surprising thing was that Whitebeard forgave the traitor. Whitebeard was a great model for healthy masculinity she supposed.
Ace and Luffy, who had been freed from their restraints, were having a lot of trouble fighting their way out as they were surrounded by enemies. In particular it seemed that Garp had decided to stop them.
"Since this is the path you've chosen, you'll have to walk it over my dead body!" Garp said to them. Though his words were harsh and unyielding, the tears streaking down his face betrayed his conflicted emotions.
Cherry rushed through the crowds of marines with her traceless steps. By the time the marines she passed by realized what happened she was already beyond their reach.
Garp swung a fist towards Luffy who was charging him. Unexpectedly, it wasn't Luffy that he clashed with, but the spear of a young woman with sharp eyes.
"Hey, you old coot! How about I do you a huge favor and keep you company for a while, hm?" Cherry spoke with a smile.
Garp showed no annoyance or anger at her intervention. Instead there was an immeasurable relief and gratitude.
Garp pushed her back with his haki coated fist. "I won't go easy on you, girl!"
"That's good old man. How would I be able to face Luffy after killing you, huh?" Cherry teased.
Ace and Luffy took a hint and used the opportunity to push through the throngs of marines away from Garp and Cherry.
Before they started in earnest, the world seemed to tilt.
"Whitebeard..." Garp muttered, suggesting that it was the legendary pirate's doing.
"That there is a real man, Garp. You need to pull your head out of your ass and see what's really important." Cherry lectured.
"This is no time for talking, fight me!" Garp launched himself at her, his indomitable fist bearing down on her.
Cherry held nothing back, she couldn't afford to against this man. As she poured her haki into her spear, thrusting it towards the old man with all the vibrational energy she could muster, she felt a familiar tickle of something far beneath the surface of herself. That last time she had felt it was her fight again Wilson Alexander at Water 7.
*Boom*
The clash between fist and spear sent both of them taking several steps backwards. Nearby marines who had been hoping to interfere were sent flying away, clearing a circle for their fight to take place in.
A few more exchanges occurred, with Cherry always losing out, but not by too much. These were just probing attacks however, to gauge each other's strength.
Soon Garp got serious and Cherry was in a real tough spot. She was always on the back foot, but hadn't taken any direct attacks yet.
All the while, Cherry was trying to draw upon whatever power it was that was lurking beneath. She had an idea of what it was, but didn't know what she needed to do to bring it out.
"You aren't going to get anywhere with an attitude like that, girl. You won't even be able to beat an old man like me." Garp commented during one of their rare, very short respites.
"What do you mean, old man. I'm doing the best I can here." Cherry said, fending off another punch.
"You're fighting to stall, not to win. That's fine for anyone else, but if you want to get somewhere in the world you'll need to be more like Luffy." Garp said nothing more and sped up his onslaught.
'Why would I fight to win? I know I can't win against him, so what's the point in deluding myself?' Cherry thought. Then an idea started to form in her mind. She looked over at Luffy who, despite obviously being out of his league here, seemed to have every confidence in his ability to succeed in his goal.
'Let's try it then...' Cherry though, then entered a half meditative state. She tried to convince herself that she could beat Garp, despite his overwhelming strength.
Cherry's eyes widened and she went on a desperate offensive. She started to take his attacks now, but she also started to break through his defenses as well.
Garp sensed the change that came over her and could only grin widely. 'Me and my big mouth...'
A marine captain tried to take advantage of Cherry's lower defenses and aimed his bazooka at her.
Cherry sensed his intent and glanced at him.
*Voom*
The marine captain suddenly collapse to the ground unconscious, baffling his comrades around him as to what happened.
Garp and a few powerhouses that were paying attention knew better though.
'Conqueror's Haki.' They thought simultaneously.
"So that's what it was after all. Interesting." Cherry spoke to herself. It didn't really help in this fight against Garp right now, but she had high expectations for the future.
The marines raised some sort of steel wall around the bay, but Whitebeard shattered them left and right with his devil fruit power.
"Things aren't looking up for your side Garp. Sure you don't want to switch?" Cherry mocked.
Garp only shook his head.
Cherry brandished her spear. She intended to win this fight despite the poor odds.
Once poor the old man and young woman clashed. Like before Cherry was fighting in a seemingly crazed manner, allowed strikes to get passed her guard. However, Garp started to take more damage now, not to mention that his arms felt like they were on fire from all the Hasshoken blows they'd taken.
'What kind of technique is this? It even penetrates my armament haki somewhat.' Garp thought. If Chinjao had heard this, he would be crying tears of hatred.
Whilst Garp had countless tiny fractures in his arms and many cuts and shallow stab wounds, Cherry was starting to look like a mess. Even with her body that ordinary people couldn't hope to damage, she looked like she was at death's door.
The marines around her had gone pale from fear at how this woman who ought to be dead a few times over was still fighting as hard as she was in the beginning of the fight, and against the hero Garp too!
Cherry's tactics started to get wilder and wilder. At one point she even bit down on Garp's right ear and took a chunk out of it.
"You damned brat!" Garp forgot about his original gratitude towards Cherry for giving him a way to avoid choosing between family and duty. Now he was just angry.
Whitebeard was cleaving his way through the marines like a hot knife through butter. The three admirals and Sengoku had to personally face him to to keep him from advancing, but of course Whitebeard wasn't alone so they were on the losing side.
Garp was running out of stamina, the years have not been kind to him. Cherry on the other hand wasn't even out of breath, which he found to be absurd considering her injuries.
"Time to end this old man. It's my win." Cherry taunted.
"Not if I can help it!" Garp charged her.
Cherry thrust her spear to meet his fist, but the impact didn't come this time. The spear simply vanished from her hand, and in its place there appeared a revolver.
*BANG!*
Garp didn't manage to coat his torso with haki in time and he felt a bullet ripped though his abdomen.
That wasn't the end either as Cherry took advantage of his surprise and exhaustion to land a drop kick into his face.
Garp fell backward and skid along the ground for a few dozen meters before coming to a stop. His strength was failing him and he barely managed to prop himself up enough to see Cherry run away.
Garp plopped himself back down and waited for the medic marines to start fussing over him. He was out of the fight now, so he could rest easy knowing Sengoku couldn't complain too much.
章節 118: A Wild Blackbeard Appears
Cherry weaved through the crowd towards her next target. The fight with Garp had left her with major injuries but now wasn't the time for licking her wounds.
Along the way she found that Captain Hina was in her path, so as she passed her she turned around to blow her a kiss before rushing out of sight again.
Hina had made a strange face at that. One which simultaneously showed concern for her injuries, and like she wanted to finish her off.
Some weirdo in a pink feather coat had struck Luffy hard enough to stun him, but seeing Admiral Sakazuki break off from the fight with Whitebeard and head towards them caused him to back off.
Cherry was able to overhear Sakazuki say some mocking words about Whitebeard to Ace wich worked splendidly as a taunt. Ace earned a blast of lava for his reckless charge and Sakazuki turned to Luffy who was just getting his bearings back.
Sakazuki made to end Luffy's life with an arm made of lava. Ace rushed towards them and placed himself directly between his little brother and the hotheaded admiral.
Admiral Sakazuki's lava fist burned through skin and flesh.
Just not the flesh he expected to burn.
'I thought that soft old man, Garp had been holding back against her, but it seems I was wrong. Her body is far tougher than I could have imagined...' Sakazuki analyzed, seeing that his attack didn't pierce all the way through Cherry's body.
Cherry grabbed onto the arm that was halfway pierced into her chest and wrapped around it with her arms and legs. Smiling like a devil who felt no pain from her burning flesh, she suddenly contorted her body with all her strength, the haki coating her arms and legs preventing Sakazuki from being intangible.
Sakazuki's face contorted in anger and pain, then a sickening SNAP was heard by everyone nearby.
"Damned pirate!" Sakazuki shouted, using the arm that hadn't been snapped at the elbow to try and smother Cherry in boiling, molten rock.
Jinbe had already snatched up Ace and Luffy and fled with them under his arms as quickly as he could.
Sakazuki's attack came down upon the helpless Cherry who still had an infuriating smile on her face.
*Schwing*
Sakazuki's good arm was sent arcing away by a flying sword attack. He wasn't harmed at all as the attack contained no haki to counteract his intangibility, but that didn't stop him from glaring at the perpetrator.
"What do you think your pulling, Hawkeye? You want to lose your Shichibukai status?" Sakazuki spoke through a tightly clenched jaw, barely containing his boiling rage.
"It was an accident?" Hawkeye answered shamelessly, maintaining his signature poker face.
"Thanks a whole bunch, Papa~! I knew you loved me~!" Cherry spoke in a sing song voice and winked. She had already gotten back to her feet and weaved through the nearby marines.
*BOOM!!!*
Sakazuki was hit hard by shockwave attack from Whitebeard before he could even think to give chase.
Soon after a swordsman called Vista and the phoenix devil fruit user Marco engaged Sakazuki, preventing him from interfering at least for the time being.
Jinbe, Ace, and Luffy finally made it to the other side with the bulk of the pirates. Whitebeard seeing this ordered them all to retreat.
Something strange caught the attention of the marines and the pirates in this moment. A massive giant wearing a prisoner's jumpsuit was hiding poorly behind the fortress and soon a group of people made themselves known.
"Zehahahaha! It's been a while, hasn't it old man?!" Blackbeard shouted.
The marines started to recognize the people he'd brought with him. they were an assortment of the worst criminals from Impel Down that were judged to be bad enough to be erased from history.
Blackbeard went on a rant about how it had been his plan all along to use his position as a Shichibukai to break them out for his crew.
"Teach!" Whitebeard shouted his name, drawing his attention.
Blackbeard saw Whitebeard winding up his arm and seemed to panic at the sight. rightfully so, as Whitebeard swung his fist soon after and crushed the portion of the fortress they had been standing on into gravel.
Whitebeard started telling him that he was no longer his son and that he would be put down for his betrayal.
'Is this really important right now?! It's time to run away now, old man!' Cherry thought with exasperation. This was why she didn't hold her pride so high.
'At least the marines don't seem to want to get in the middle of it. Guess they want the pirates to kill each other?' She observed the marines who were just watching on the sidelines.
Blackbeard made a big show of his devil fruit power in front of the whole world like an idiot. It was some kind of darkness fruit and it seemed capable of sealing devil fruit powers when he touched someone, like he did with Whitebeard just now before getting slashed, like an idiot.
Whitebeard grabbed the idiot by the head and activated his devil fruit to blast him with a point blank shockwave, crumbling the stone below them.
'There's something weird about this guy, but I can't quite put my finger on it. I guess I can get a closer look later... unless he dies here, which seems likely.' Cherry thought.
Cherry was pretty much done getting involved in the action now, unless she absolutely had to. Her injuries needed some time to recover from and were reaching a point where she was at risk of dying.
'If old Whitebeard gets himself killed, that's not my problem. Though I'd prefer that he didn't, since he owes me a big favor now.' Cherry thought, observing the fight.
"Damn it, kill him!" Blackbeard shouted, pulling a pistol, whilst his new crew jumped into action to attack Whitebeard. Perhaps if it had been the Whitebeard of before he would have fallen to these attacks, but not now.
Whitebeard swung his glaive in a wide arc, fending off the melee attackers, whilst the bullets that rained down on him simply glanced off his body as he precisely protected himself with minimal haki coverage.
Blackbeard almost looked like he was going to cry. He had no clue what was going on, wasn't Whitebeard practically on his death bed? How in the hell was he fending them off so easily.
Blackbeard scrambled to his feet to try and run away, when his leg was suddenly pierced by a bullet. Glancing back he saw Cherry smiling at him with a revolver pointed in his direction.
Blackbeard was no pushover, though, even if he was kind of stupid. Despite the enhanced pain shooting up his leg from the wound he still stood up and began to flee. Whitebeard wasn't keen on him escaping, but Blackbeard's crew weren't letting him get a clear path to him.
Whitebeard saw that he wouldn't be able to kill Blackbeard today, given that the marines were still waiting to swoop in like vultures to feast on whatever remains. His clicked his tongue in annoyance and began to pull back towards his own crew for a retreat.
He had accomplished his goal here, he shouldn't risk his sons and daughters for the sake of revenge.
The pressure was eased from their side as the marines split their forces between Whitebeard and Blackbeard. Fresh marines were coming out of hidden places in the fortress to relieve the exhausted and battle worn marines, though, which didn't allow them too much wiggle room.
Cherry approached Whitebeard's side. "It's not going to last much longer, old man. We need to get out of here before it wears off."
"I know, I can feel myself getting weaker by the second. By the way, you look like you've been to hell and back, young lady." Whitebeard spoke. Cherry didn't miss the change in the way he addressed her, and felt the heightened respect he had for her.
"How would you like to become my daughter, hm?" He offered sincerely.
"I'm afraid I'll have to decline. I'm still got a rotten father that needs to be taught a lesson or two." Cherry decline politely.
"Hawkeye, huh? Good luck with that, Gurara!" Whitebeard chuckled.
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