Cherry used a pair of binoculars to look out towards the glowing horizon. The source of its light had yet to make an appearance and only continued to grow larger in scale.
"I thought you took her down, Cherry?!" Nami squeaked nervously.
"I thought I did too. At the very least she shouldn't have woken up until morning, and late morning at that. Her vitality is strong, but she's still only human," Cherry said with a frown on her face.
She had done a significant amount of damage in her last attack, even weakening the haki on the rest of her body to ensure that it landed HARD, thus why she lost the arm from Big Mom's counterattack at the time. She would have expected Big Mom to be out of commission for weeks if she survived, and that she would never be as strong as she was before even after she recovered.
'What's going on? There better not be another cultivator mucking around in this world. Deus ex Machinas are only allowed to work in my favor, not against me,' Cherry thought bitterly.
She might suspect some kind of devil fruit at work, but she couldn't think of what could have gotten Big Mom back up and ready to fight so quickly. Princess Mansherry had the healing devil fruit all the way back in Dressrosa and Law should be in Wano by now, so those were both out of the question.
"You didn't bring Big Mom back to life with your resurrection fruit, did you Brook? Are you secretly evil?" Cherry asked, just to be sure.
"What? Heavens, no! If I could do such a thing, there are many thousands of people I would bring back before Big Mom!" Brook seemed almost offended by the very idea.
Chopper and Carrot took a sidestep away from him, just in case.
"Ah, I think I can see her coming over the horizon now," Cherry said, focusing her enhanced vision through the binoculars to catch as many details as possible.
Big Mom's form was the first to appear. Her head and Napoleon were wreathed in Prometheus' flames, golden and almost blindingly bright. That was not the most notable aspect of her person, however.
Half of Big Mom's face seemed to have had the skin ripped away from it, showing the damaged muscle and bone beneath. Her frame was without a trace of fat, far too much loose skin clinging tightly to her musculature and skeleton. Both eyes had gone pale white, with one whose eyelids were stretched at a sharp angle and the other without any eyelids at all.
Despite all that, it was the smile that was most disturbing.
"Uh oh," Cherry said.
"What do you MEAN 'uh oh'?! How could it possibly be worse than we thought?!" Nami interrogated.
She took the binoculars from Cherry and had a look for herself, her own eyesight being quite good as well. She sucked in a cold breath and dropped the binoculars unintentionally, her hands shaking.
"None of you guys were at the colosseum in Dressrosa when we were there. There was a guy called Cavendish there," Cherry said.
"The current wielder of Durandal?" Pedro added.
"The very same. He has an alter ego that comes out when he's unconscious and slaughters everyone around him until he wakes up," Cherry decided not to explain the concept of a heart demon to them. "That alter ego, Hakuba, is a lot stronger than Cavendish himself…"
"You're saying that Big Mom is like this Cavendish guy, and that she's STRONGER than she was before?!" Nami almost started hyperventilating.
"I've never heard about such a thing before…" Pedro said.
"Well, you actually have. We just didn't see the connection between Big Mom and Cavendish because they display in very different ways," Cherry said. "No offense to Cavendish, but he's kind of a weak willed guy. Big Mom on the other hand has one of the strongest wills in the world. It isn't easy for her alter ego to take over like with Hakuba, but it did come out in its own way."
"Her hunger pangs," Pedro understood. "She becomes much more monstrous during those times, but unlike Cavendish she has kept control of her own mind somewhat."
"Exactly. At least, that's my working theory," Cherry nodded grimly.
"What are we going to do?" Carrot asked worriedly.
"At the speed she's going, there's no escape unless we use repeated Coup de Bursts," Nami said, doing the math in her head. "However, without Franky here, we can't be certain we won't cause permanent damage to the Sunny from the stress of using it."
"We have to fight," Jinbe chimed in, oozing with determination.
"We can't fight Big Mom, Jinbe! Are you crazy?!" Chopper shouted. "Cherry lost an arm when she fought her, and she still got back up again! Now she is stronger than THAT!"
"What choice do we have, Chopper? We cannot bring this threat to Cacao Island, and overusing the Coup de Burst to escape will jeopardize our journey to Wano. The sea of the New World is not to be trifled with on a damaged ship," Jinbe countered. "Besides, we cannot allow her to get close to the Sunny with those flames. Cherry and I will go out to meet her while the rest of you flee."
"What? Don't drag me into your noble sacrifice, Jinbe. That's rude as hell," Cherry clicked her tongue.
"I do believe that you created this mess, so you should at least help clean it up," Jinbe insisted. "Need I remind you that you didn't need to fight Big Mom until the fight had a decided victor?"
"Don't use reasonable arguments on me! That's cheating!" Cherry puffed out her cheeks.
By now, Prometheus could mostly be seen above the waterline. He was absolutely massive, making the sizable Big Mom look itsy bitsy in comparison. The sea below them boiled and even the steam it created by doing so seemed to be burned away by the sheer heat.
"Alright fine, Jinbe," Cherry returned to her serious expression. "You have to promise to keep a distance, though. I'll let Takako out to make sure you stay away, by force if necessary."
"I won't be able to help much from a distance," Jinbe argued.
"Frankly, you won't be able to help much anyways. Against the regular Big Mom, sure, but not against that thing," Cherry insisted.
Jinbe frowned. "Is she really so much more dangerous in that state?"
"Mm, probably," Cherry said, seeming a bit unsure. It came down to how advanced the heart demon was. If it was at Hakuba's level, possessing a degree of pseudo-sapience, then Cherry wasn't sure she could beat it, let alone protect Jinbe from it.
'At least it isn't a fully realized heart demon,' Cherry felt a shiver down her spine remembering the first and only time she faced such a creature in her previous life.
Cherry quickly shook off the feeling, though. Having even a tiny trace of fear towards Big Mom was a death sentence, given what her devil fruit could do.
Cherry could see Big Mmo with the naked eye, now. She saw as Napoleon was lifted high into the air and the flames that wreathed him roared in anticipation.