Sengoku sat down on the ground after finishing his brief temper tantrum and inwardly admonished himself for losing his cool.
He reflected over his failure during this mission and came to the conclusion that there wasn't too much of a reason to be upset. There were too many unexpected variables, rather pretty much none of the variables they had expected had been present at all.
'I knew I shouldn't have awakened, haaaah…' Sengoku sighed.
The trouble with his awakening is that it had a drastic effect on his mental state. Primarily he obtains great wisdom and an endless capacity for compassion.
'That was the first time I've deliberately caused as much pain as possible while awakened though.' Sengoku thought with a strange feeling.
He knew that it had something to do with some profound realization he had about Harpin D. Cherry. It was unfortunate that after reverting from the awakened state that the loss of wisdom also resulted in the loss of that knowledge. Still, he knew that Cherry had a secret, something related to her quick increase in power. He suspected that there was something odd there and now had a confirmation to that end.
'Perhaps I should pay a visit to her hometown? Perhaps I'd learn something there, maybe by speaking with her family?' Sengoku pondered.
Sengoku wouldn't have to resort to these methods if enlightened Sengoku had just captured Cherry from the beginning instead of messing around. Of course he suspected that enlightened Sengoku never intended on capturing her to begin with, but only intended to "test" her.
'No, forget this bullshit! I'm retired, damn it! No more meddling, just let Aokiji take care of all this annoying crap!' Sengoku caught himself and promised to leave everything to the youngsters from now on.
…
Cherry opened her eyes and saw a clear blue sky above her, the sun burning high in the sky beaming down on her face.
Her body ached. Proof of just how much damage had been done to her body from forcibly fusing another devil fruit into her body. They weren't kidding when they said someone who ate a second devil fruit would "explode".
'The data I got from doing it was very informative, though. I might be able to work out a way to do it safely in the future.' Cherry considered.
The cause seemed to lie in the fact that the devil fruit inscriptions started to violently clash against each other. She was lucky that the inscriptions themselves hadn't been damaged by this.
Strangely, she didn't think that this was a technical issue with compatibility or a deliberate in-built function like the sea curse. Rather, she could swear that they felt "alive" somehow, like rivals fighting each other over her body. She cast that idea aside as soon as it occurred to her, though. How absurd would it be if they had their own will?
Cherry shifted her body, realizing that she was on a mattress and covered by a blanket.
"You're awake?" Robin asked from just out of sight.
"I see you remembered the time I said it would be nice to wake up to the open sky after getting knocked out. It was only an offhand comment I made several months ago." Cherry said, sitting up to look at her.
"Yes, well, I wasn't going to let you miss such a rare opportunity, was I?" Robin answered, sipping a cup of coffee.
"Thank you." Cherry said appreciatively.
"So what happened?" Robin asked, her expression shifting towards curiosity and a bit of admonishment for being reckless.
"I just fused Sakura Tengoku with my body to imbue myself with its lightning logia abilities, that's all. Most of the damage was from that rather than from Sengoku." Cherry explained.
Robin frowned at her. She'd figured that Cherry did something stupid, but not THAT stupid.
"Was Sengoku really so bad that you had to resort to that?" Robin asked.
"I'm not really sure that WAS Sengoku, to be honest. He was like a completely different person. If he hadn't gone easy on me after awakening his devil fruit, I would have been dead meat for sure." Cherry said, though her light tone contrasted with the dire implications of her words.
Robin felt that there was more she hadn't said, though. Something that weighed heavily on Cherry's mind. She didn't need to wonder for long, however, as Cherry wouldn't keep any secrets from her.
"After he awakened, he seemed to get an inkling of an idea about me. Some shallow understanding of our shared secret." Cherry spoke seriously.
It took a moment for Robin to realize she was referring to cultivation.
"How did he manage that? Did he already know beforehand?" Robin asked.
Robin knew just how terrible it would be for the World Government to get their grubby hands on cultivation. It would ensure that the world would never escape their grasp.
"No, Sengoku only just then seemed to get an idea of it. Even then, I doubt it would be much more than the most basic concept and nothing about the actual mechanics of it. The worst that can happen is that it'll paint a target on my back and I've already got quite the large target from my actions at Marineford, so no big deal." Cherry said, ending with a sigh whilst running her fingers through her messy bed hair.
Belo Betty came out from Cabernet's cabin with a tray of food.
"Oh good, you're awake. It would have weighed heavily upon my heart if you had died in my rescue." Betty said with a friendly smile.
Betty was wearing an apron, but wasn't wearing any sort of top beneath it. It seemed that she wasn't comfortable without some sort of cleavage showing at all times, not that Cherry or Robin were complaining.
She had prepared a simple but tasty meal consisting of white rice, some sort of boiled crustacean sea king meat, and soup. The faint aroma of her cigarette smoke reminded Cherry of Sanji's cooking, which she would never admit that she had started to miss.
Perona came out following the smell of the food and they all enjoyed a nice meal together.
They recounted their experiences during the rescue mission. Cherry was quite proud of the ladies for being able to take down two vice admirals, even if they were only of average strength for the rank. The other women listened to Cherry's tale in turn with a feeling of dread over Sengoku's oppressive strength.
"So how'd you get caught anyway, Betty? I know you aren't the strongest in the revolutionary army, but you should be better than that." Perona spoke somewhat rudely, slurping down a strip of oversized crab meat.
"To be honest, it is a bit shameful. We went to liberate an island from a pirate threat. There were some suspicions with the information, but it was plausible enough that we had to at least make sure it was real. The marine ships came out from behind pillars of rock as we approached the island to make landfall and sank our ship before we could put up any real fight. I wound up falling into the water where I could only wait to be captured helplessly or drown. I suppose I'm thankful they chose the former, rather than the latter." Betty explained. She wore a sad expression as the members of her crew had either perished in the brief battle or were taken away instead of being held at the East Blue marine base like herself.
"Ever since Aokiji took over as fleet admiral, the marines have become much more cunning in their approach to dealing with us and pirates. While it might be better for the ordinary citizen that he became the fleet admiral instead of Akainu, it's arguably worse for us as Akainu would typically be more aggressive and direct. Marine operations against us have actually reduced in number since he took over, but unexpectedly they have also become more successful." Betty said.
They finished their meal in relative silence after that, each with their own thoughts.
'I wish I could have some of that crab too…' Cabernet thought, mentally drooling.