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17.54% One Piece: Dream of Immortality / Chapter 90: Teddy Bear

章節 90: Teddy Bear

Cherry carefully snuck up on the newcomer and Moria through the forest.

When she found a good vantage point, she saw the large man with little bear ears speaking to Moria.

"What?! Them?! Defeat me?! I won't be done in by a bunch of upstarts! Crocodile was a fool and a loser, I'm not the same as him!" Moria shouted at Kuma, clearly offended.

"It appeared that you were running away from them just a moment ago?" Kuma replied monotonously.

"Damn you, Kuma! I wasn't running away, I'm just forcing them to split up and search for me, then I'll take their shadows one at a time!" Moria exclaimed.

"You can ask for my assistance if you need it." Kuma replied.

"Never! I have my own pride, I won't ask for YOUR help to kill a few brats!" Moria insisted stubbornly.

"Very well. In regards to Crocodile, his successor had been chosen." Kuma explained the situation around Marshall D. Teach, also called Blackbeard.

Cherry briefly recalled Luffy mentioning the name 'Blackbeard' and that his brother was apparently hunting the man.

Cherry turned her attention to this Kuma fellow, who was apparently another Shichibukai. Most of his body had apparently been replaced with nonliving material, similar to Franky. There was a good chance he was also a cyborg.

Another thing she noticed, though it was just her intuition, is that this Kuma fellow is a big softy. She wasn't a hundred percent sure, but she'd bet a lot on that fact.

The two Shichibukai finished speaking and Moria stalked away whilst Kuma went in another direction. Cherry considered whether to follow one of them, and which one if she did.

Kuma was going to pass the time until events here were over, then make his report to the world government. He would not go out of his way to help the world government, and certainly not for Moria's sake.

'Perhaps I can blast away a few of Moria's subordinates to make things difficult for him..." Kuma thought, but he suddenly stopped walking.

He could feel something tugging on his decorative bear ears.

"I'm disappointed. I had hoped they would be real..." Cherry said.

Kuma swung at her with his pawed hands, but he found no target to strike. He turned around to see Cherry smirking at him from about 10 meters away.

"Harpin D. Cherry, aka 'Cheapshot'. Bounty of 350 million Beri." He spoke robotically.

"That's me! I see you're a big fan of mine. I don't give free autographs, just so you know." Cherry mocked.

"If you went on vacation, where would you like to go?" Kuma asked the same question he's asked many people in the past.

"That's a tough one. I suppose it would count as a vacation to go knocking on Hawkeye's door and pester him to death." Cherry said thoughtfully, casually side stepping to avoid Kuma's palm strike.

Kuma sent a flurry of attacks towards her, but not a single one touched even a single hair on her head, which was important as she just finished growing it back. Cherry didn't even look like she was having any trouble dodging at all.

"As I thought. I was right about you." Cherry nodded at her own words.

Kuma was some what curious to what conclusion she has come to about him. "Right about what?"

"You're as much of a big, fuzzy, huggable teddy bear on the inside as you appear on the outside. Otherwise you wouldn't be holding back right now, I think." Cherry explained with confidence.

Kuma was shocked at this. So much so he was thankful for his stoic cyborg face, which was quite a rare occurrence. He WAS holding back, but not by that much. He was using enough of his ability to pressure a normal pirate with a bounty around 300 million Beri.

He decided to turn up the heat, firing his mouth beam as well as using his Paw Paw Fruit to the fullest extent he could.

Cherry laughed like she was in amusement park as she danced around his attacks. It had gotten a bit tougher to do so, but between her superhuman reflexes and Observation Haki it was still manageable.

"I see, I see. You increased the difficulty because you have something to protect, something secret, and you can't afford to be seen as going easy on pirates, huh?" Cherry was just throwing a guess out there, but from the momentary pause from Kuma, she concluded it to be correct.

Kuma stopped his attacks and raised his hands into the air. A pulsing could be heard as a massive sphere in the shape of a paw appeared in the air and started to shrink in his hands. He couldn't use this attack in battle normally as it takes too long to charge up, but Cherry hadn't attacked him yet, so he decided to chance it.

Cherry just watched as he condensed the air into a smaller and smaller space, eventually clutching it between his clasped hands. When he opened them towards her, she activated Tekkai to the fullest extent that she was able and got blasted backwards along with a large portion of forest.

When the dust settled, Cherry came walking out of the mess of dirt and trees, as if she had only been caressed by a gentle breeze. "That's attack is certainly destructive, but the destruction is too spread out. It'd be much more devastating to hit someone directly with it."

Kuma just stared at her silently. He wasn't sure what to do about her except using lethal force, but even that may not be enough.

"By the way, that Blackbeard fellow you told Moria about. What did he do to get the World Government's attention? It had to have been something big since you said he never even received a bounty before." Cherry asked.

"I suppose it will be known to the public soon anyways. He captured 'Fire Fist' Ace and brought him to the marines." He said.

Bells seemed to ring in Cherry's mind. 'Ah, so that's how it is... So be it.'

She sighed and simply walked away from Kuma, then stopped to look at him. "I won't tell anyone you're a revolutionary."

Kuma nearly lost his balance at those words. "What...?"

"Oh wow, really? Interesting." Cherry grinned at him, then turned away to leave for real this time.

'She would be a valuable asset to have in the war effort. Something tells me that she wouldn't go for it, though.' He sighed in defeat and went in a different direction.

After a while, Cherry noticed the fog lifting whilst she enjoyed a bottle of rare wine that she snatched from the kitchen. The light of dawn was threatening to break over the horizon, it would bathe the massive ship with light in less than an hour.

Luffy and the others had finally manage to corner and force Moria to fight them properly. Instead of releasing the shadows from his zombies, he chose to absorb them for a massive power up.

Cherry elected not to intervene, as they could handle him just fine without her. Moria last words before blacking out were something along the line of "If only I had Oz...", whatever that meant. Probably another zombie he never got a shadow good enough to put into.

Kuma reported Moria's defeat to his superiors, who then ordered him to destroy the witnesses.

Cherry knew he wasn't going to do that though, especially since his real boss is Luffy's father. As expected, he found his own excuses not to eliminate them.

A big party was held to celebrate Moria's defeat and the return of the many shadows of his victims. Moria's unconscious body was dragged away by the invisible pervert and who she presumed to be Doctor Hogback. Strangely there was no signs of Perona, Cherry was curious when and how she left Thriller Bark, but didn't spare it much thought.


next chapter

章節 91: A Friendly Match

The celebration party turned into a welcome party for Brook after he told his story about a certain whale named Laboon and found out that the Straw Hats had met Laboon still waiting for him after they crossed Reverse Mountain.

Serene in particular took to heavy drinking, both to drown her complicated feelings about her father and to dull the embarrassment from the other's teasing her for her 'noble sacrifice'.

She quickly turned into the life of the party as she had many party tricks she could do with her massage arts, such as puppeteering people to do awkward poses and silly faces. Although it was an impressive display of precise control over another person's musculature, it took too much set up to be effective in battle.

Cherry drank several people under the table, even though she was drinking mugs of hard liquor instead of beer like they were. When Robin noticed how much Cherry was drinking it was already too late.

The second coming of Drunk Cherry was upon them.

Drunk Cherry stumbled over to the unconscious Zoro, who she had witness absorbing the 'pain and fatigue' from Luffy, courtesy of Kuma in exchange for sparing them.

"Cherry?" Chopper asked, unsure what she was doing.

"I've always wanted to try something, and now's the perfect time, I think..." Drunk Cherry slurred.

Chopper didn't know why, but he felt like whatever she was up to wasn't anything good. Yet he hesitated as Cherry had never done anything to place them in harm's way.

*Bam*

"OOF!" Zoro woke up with a yelp of pain as Cherry punched him in the chest.

"AHH, WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO AN INJURED PERSON!" At this point Chopper belatedly realized that Cherry must be a bad drunk.

"What the hell..." Zoro said, clutching his chest. His heart was pounding so hard he could almost believe it could break his own ribs.

"How do you feel?" Drunk Cherry smirked.

"What kind of question is that?! I feel... I feel... strong, full of energy..." Zoro was confused, it had hurt only a moment ago, but now all the pain was gone and it was even replaced with an almost euphoric sensation of power.

What Drunk Cherry had done was an injection of her Vital Energy, then fusing it with Zoro's Vital Energy so it wouldn't be rejected. She didn't have to punch him though, that's was just her being mean.

Doing this had the effects of increased strength and healing potential. This was only temporary though, as she had only given him a tiny amount. Too much would have a destructive effect if the individual wasn't a cultivator. In fact an ordinary person wouldn't survive it at all, mortals had to be tough like Zoro.

Zoro started taking off his bandages in spite of Chopper's protests. Chopper stopped fussing when he saw that the wounds underneath had healed extensively, so much so that it would have taken several days normally.

"How did you do this, Cherry?! Please tell me!" Chopper exclaimed.

"Devil Fruit." Drunk Cherry dampened his mood instantly. "MORE IMPORTANTLY! Look at what I've got Zoro! Hehehehe!"

Zoro looked at the sword that Drunk Cherry was holding in front of his face and almost started drooling, but then he noticed the evil look in Drunk Cherry's eyes.

"Are you just showing off? I won't beg you for it." Zoro said.

"You don't need to beg, hehe. You just need to last a minute..." Drunk Cherry said, lipping her lips.

The men in the room started hooting and hollering, telling Zoro to 'go get her'. Robin crushed the teacup in her grip.

Zoro didn't misunderstand her though. He knew what she was actually saying.

He grabbed his swords and stood up, walking outside. Drunk Cherry staggered behind him, drawing Shusui from its sheathe.

"Hey, did we get it wrong? It looks like she's gonna kill him?" One of the men asked the guy next to him.

Many of the people present decided to go watch. Chopper wanted to stop them, but he was stopped by Luffy who only smiled. "Zoro would have his pride hurt if you tried to stop him now."

Robin felt a bit silly for her overreaction to what, in hindsight, was likely just Cherry using weird phrasing on purpose.

Outside, a fair ways away from the party, Zoro place a sword in his mouth and drew his two other swords.

"You lose if you surrender or can't fight any longer before the minute's up. And don't you worry, little boy. No matter what happens to your body, Chopper and I can't put you back together good as new, so don't hold back. Time starts with the first clash of swords." Cherry spoke without the slur she had before, her focus being sharpened by bloodlust.

Zoro nodded and wasted not time. He charged forward.

Cherry brushed his blades aside with her free hand and stabbed the sword towards his abdomen. He twisted and barely dodged it.

They continued to dance around in the fashion for about 10 seconds before Zoro realized something. 'Shit! She said the time starts with the first clash of swords, but she hasn't let me touch her sword at all!'

He shifted his focus to hitting the sword in her hand at all costs, causing her to chuckle.

Another 20 seconds passed when he finally manage to connect his blade with hers.

"Hehe, now that the time has started, let's get serious, shall we?" Cherry said mirthfully.

Armament Haki coated Shusui and Cherry launched a flurry of flying slashes, leaving no room for Zoro to dodge. He sent his own flying slashes to meet them, but they only slowed them down before they bore down on him.

Zoro breathed heavily, enduring the pain of the deep gashes in his body.

"55 seconds left." Cherry didn't let up. No, she became even more vicious.

"50 seconds."

"45 seconds."

"40 seconds."

All the people who were previously cheering for the exciting match were now pale as ghosts. They truely thought that Zoro wouldn't survive to the end of this fight. No, it wasn't a fight, it was just a cold blooded predator toying with her prey.

Zoro was a mess at this point. He was covered head to toe with his own blood. He knew he wouldn't have survived this long if not for whatever Cherry had done to him, but he could feel that power fading as well. He needed something more if he was going to win this.

"30 seconds."

"20 seconds."

Zoro's left arm was cut off at the shoulder.

Cherry was no longer smiling, only a stoic expression adorned her face. Her eyes pierced into Zoro like swords.

His focus was leaving him and he fought to keep his eyes open. He saw Luffy and the others watching from the sidelines. His mind wandered back to the moment he promised Luffy that he'd never lose again after he was beaten. Was he going to lose again?

His eyes shot open. 'NO!'

"RAAAAAGH!" Zoro screamed through gritted teeth. He used his remained swords to strike at Cherry with everything he had left.

'Who cares about the remaining time! I'll just defeat you right now!' Was what his determined eyes were shouting at Cherry, at the world.

Black light ran the length of his blades and clashed against Shusui, pushing Cherry back.

A small smile graced Cherry's lips. "I surrender."

Zoro collapsed only a moment later and Chopper came rushing over.

"Get his arm for me will you, Luffy?" Cherry said as she sheathed Shusui, walking over the Zoro.

As Cherry said before the fight. It turned out to be very easy to piece Zoro back together with Chopper and her combined efforts.

"Phew! Now that I've sobered up, I need another drink!" Cherry said loudly.

Robin grabbed her into a chokehold and started dragging her back to the ship. "I don't think so."

"Oh come on! It wasn't that bad! Zoro awakened his Armament Haki and everything! Okay, okay, I'm sorry!" Cherry protested, but didn't resist. Her smile said she didn't want to either.


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