Chapter 40: Human Human Fruits

Chapter 40: Human Human Fruits



After they set sail, Cabernet excitedly approached Cherry to tell her about her first outing by herself.

Cherry listened patiently and was particularly interested in Chopper. Having another sample of the human human fruit had the potential to further her understanding of devil fruit by leaps and bounds.

When Cabernet reached the part of her tale where Chopper used his Rumble Ball medicine to give himself additional devil fruit forms, Cherry looked across the deck at the little reindeer with greed in her eyes.

'A talented doctor with insights into the workings of devil fruit? Perhaps he is the one I am looking for to help supplement my lacking knowledge in the art of pill refining?' She pondered, but there was no point in just thinking about it in circles. So she simply went over to talk to him directly.

"Hello, I'm Harpin D. Cherry. It's nice to meet you." Cherry introduced herself. She held out her hand to him and gave her best business smile, which was the only way for her to deliberately look less menacing.

Chopper looked at her hand in confusion, but then he realized what she wanted from him. He could barely contain himself at the thought of his first handshake.

He reached out a tiny hoof, but stopped himself. He transformed into his large form, the only one with proper hands, and clasped Cherry's hand gently, eyes twinkling with wonder.

"Weren't you shouting about being a man before? A man has to have a firm handshake, like so!" Cherry said and clenched his hand hard.

"Geh!" Chopper winced, but he quickly gripped her hand in turn.

"Hehehe, there you go. I knew you could do it." Cherry said, releasing the handshake.

Chopper rubbed his hand seeming proud of himself.

"Cabernet told me that you have a medicine that can influence your devil fruit powers, can you tell me more about those?" Cherry inquired.

"Oh, my Rumble Balls! Hmm, I suppose I could tell you, but you might not understand..." Chopper clearly wanted to go on a passionate rant, but was worried he'd go too far.

"Don't worry whether I'll understand, just let loose and I'll ask questions where I need to." Cherry encouraged.

Chopper kept things simple at first, explaining the basic idea of the wavelengths of devil fruit and how the Rumble Balls distorted them to create new forms. However, as Cherry asked her questions, he quickly realized he could go into the deeper nitty gritty details.

The two of them chattered away for hours throughout the night before their hungry stomachs forced them to pause their discussion. The others aboard the Going Merry stopped understanding what they were talking about 10 minutes in and gave up trying to follow along. Except for Luffy and Cabernet, who were completely lost almost immediately.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

While the group ate breakfast, Cherry compared the devil fruit inscriptions of Cabernet and Chopper with her Life Sense. She noted the various similarities between the two, then a thought occurred to her.

She shifted her Life Sense over to Luffy who was currently trying to eat from everyone else's plates despite not even having finished his own.

"Luffy, are you sure the fruit you ate was a paramecia?" Cherry asked, prodding his thieving hand with a fork.

A little ways ahead they spotted a ship that seemed to be drenched in blood manned by a crew

of cannibals.

How did they know they were cannibals, you ask?

Because they were currently roasting a man dressed in strange swan-themed garb over a

bonfire.

Naturally, the Straw Hats could never ignore a cry for help and decided to interrupt a perfectly

good meal.

They sailed full speed ahead and leapt onto the other ship once it was close enough, almost slipping in the disturbing amount of blood soaking the deck.

"Who are you bastards!" Cried the 'nameless' goons who were promptly swept away by more important characters.

Cherry landed next to the swan man. "Hey, not to be a DOWN-er, but it looks like your GOOSE is COOKED. Hehehehehe."

"THEY'RE SWANS, DAMN IT! OUCH! UNTIE ME ALREADY, YOU FOOL!" The swan man

shouted.

Cherry cut him free and he took part in kicking goon butt with a rather... "flamboyant" martial

art. Cherry didn't feel that it was really her style, but it seemed decent enough that if she had the chance she would consider learning it. One could never have too many weapons in their

arsenal.

"Oi Oi Oi. What's going on out here?" A deep voice issued forth.

A man wearing a leather apron covered in blood and wielding a massive cleaver came out onto the deck. He stood 4 meters tall, had an enormous gut, had not a single hair on his body, and

had teeth filed to points.

"Captain Butch! They're too strong for us! Please help!" A goon shouted near him.

"HAH!" Butch swung his cleaver cutting the goon in half. The blood from the corpse flowed unnaturally fast out onto the deck. "Coward, don't come to me to solve your problems." Luffy, ever the proponent of the bond between friends, was naturally enraged at the sight of this betrayal. He charged towards the cleaver wielding brute without any other thought than to pummel him into the ground.