Chapter 175: Admiral Candidates
Cherry brought out her spear and released Sakura Tengoku, which transformed into lightning and buried itself into the ground.
'Great, now we have to look out for ghosts AND lightning from the ground.' Both Gion and Tokikake complained in their minds.
Gion leapt backwards to give Tokikake some space while he reared back his fist.
"Moon Crusher!" Tokikake's fist flashed forward.
In spite of its speed, Cherry felt that it had a certain weight to it. She dodged in the direction of Gion, causing the punch to barely miss her.
Tokikake redirected the punch into the ground and the ground cracked in a wide radius, quaking beneath their feet like a bomb had gone off.
Cherry countered with a swift spear thrust. Gion approached from behind with a stab, but was blocked by a bolt of lightning from the ground between them.Nôv(el)B\\jnn
Tokikake tried to deflect the spear thrust with a fist. He was successful in changing the trajectory of the attack, but he took some damage to his arm from the vibrations contained within.
The villagers of the Fungwood heard the sounds of distant battle. To them it sounded more like an all out war than a duel between only a few participants.
More of Perona's Hollows encroached the battleground in an encirclement. Gion and Tokikake would be forced to deal with them to avoid demoralization, but Cherry was immune to their existential depression.
Sakura Tengoku danced in and out of the earth, moving faster than a person could with the Rumble Rumble Fruit without the weakness of perception to restrain it.
"Web Cutter!" Gion shouted.
Her sword flashed quickly, forming a web-like pattern out of sword light that rapidly approached Cherry and threatened to dice her up.
Cherry could not block this, but she did not attempt to dodge either. This attack was unfocused and as such it was weak. The trap that Tokikake was waiting to hit her with, however, was not weak.
Cherry held out her arms like she planned to hug an old friend. Her body was coated head to toe in armament haki the very moment that Gion's attack arrived. Full body armament haki was a tricky thing to maintain, but easy enough to do if you only held it for a few seconds and you didn't plan to move.
Tokikake frustratedly redirected the attack he planned to hit her with when she dodged into the lightning sword instead, sending it flying away as it reverted to its form briefly. He also batted away a few Hollows before charging Cherry once again.
The question was whether they should try to retreat or if they should push to the end. Cherry's character was unclear. She might just let them leave if they retreat, or she might take advantage of their weakened resolve to kill them outright. They knew the straw hats didn't have a tendency to kill their opponents, but Cherry had threatened to kill marines before and the other straw hats weren't around right now.
"Hehehehe, you want to leave huh? Go ahead, I won't stop you. It was a good fight, you two are pretty tough. Maybe one day you'll become admirals, hm?" Cherry instantly saw through their thoughts and backed off.
"..." Gion and Tokikake were still hesitant and took advantage of the lull in the fighting to get some energy back in case they needed to fight.
"Hey now, I've never killed any marines before so don't look at me like that. I only threatened Sengoku because he took my friend hostage, and you don't have any hostages as far as I can
see." Cherry said.
Perona's Hollows started to encroach en masse as she had the time to build numbers. They left a clear escape route in the direction of the marines' ship.
Gion and Tokikake shared a look then started to retreat, keeping their guards up the whole
time.
Cherry didn't stop them, she thought they were good people. At least they were better than the 'absolute justice' marines like that spider freak. They actually cared about their
subordinates.
Cherry found Luffy's way of doing things to be an interesting challenge. As a cultivator she had a lot of blood on her hands and was very used to murder, so not doing it was a strange and
new experience.
She did wonder why in the heavens he was like that, though. He certainly didn't get it from Shanks, who he idolized. Shanks was as much a killer as anyone else dwelling at the top of this
world.
Perhaps he got it from Garp, then? She didn't think it was very likely, even though he was a big
softy.
'I guess it's just his thing. Maybe he wants to gloat after becoming the King of the Pirates that he didn't take a single life doing it? That's a pretty good boast...' Cherry walked back towards the village with various thoughts.