Fusion

Time felt like it came to a stand still in Cherry's mind. The look of surprise illuminated on Cabernet's face was burned into her retinas.

Cherry had no way of knowing just how strong this secret weapon of the Neo Marines was. However, from the raw energy building up she could make a guess that it would annihilate the Ryugu Palace and leave nothing behind.

She didn't know it would be that strong, as she had only scanned it with Life Sense from a distance. Certainly the vital energy contained within was potent, but that was only a part of what she could feel from it at this moment.

Cherry's hand plunged itself into the side of the cannon, ripping apart the thick steel barrel as it pierced through. Her hand burned to a crisp instantly as it reached the unstable energy still barely contained within its rapidly disintegrating container.

Absorbing it was impossible as it wasn't solely vital energy. Instead she placed a bet on something else, something she still didn't fully understand. Her devil fruit.

Her dense vital energy surged into the inscription construct at her heart, only saving a portion to prevent her hand from being reduced to nothing. She felt it connect, but that was only a small relief. The energy resisted her fiercely. It refused to be contained any longer than it already had been.

The violent, destructive energy first traveled down the paths of least resistance. Down the barrel at Cabernet and through the hole Cherry had thrust her hand through.

Cabernet was blasted backwards through a wall beyond Cherry's sight. She could only hope that was a good sign, as the energy had to have been at least partially blocked by Cabernet's absurd defense in order to have knocked her back instead of burning through her. Cherry had no room to spare any concentration to check on her.

Cherry on the other hand was much closer to the epicenter of the detonation, and she had firmly planted herself to avoid being thrown back like Cabernet. The cannon's barrel started to crack and melt under the strain until nothing remained of it. Cherry was enveloped completely in the quickly expanding sphere of raw energy.

Cherry was much tougher than steel, so she was doing marginally better than the cannon on account of her still existing. At least she thought she did, not that she could spare any thought to entertain an existential crisis.

Time became meaningless to her then. All that mattered was fusion. Make the energy into one whole. In all her focus something seemed to click into place. Suddenly it made sense.

The blinding light and roaring sound disappeared, and it was replaced with endless darkness and quiet. That was only natural though, as her eyes and ears were nothing but dust in the wind.

She didn't hear Garcelo suck in a cold breath, for the first time during his encounter he was struck with genuine fear. Not for himself, no, his little life was but a sacrifice readily made for the greater good. What he feared for was his noble cause.

Harpin D. Cherry stood at the center of a sphere of destruction about 20 meters in radius, stopping just short of Garcelo himself. Her body was little more than a charred skeleton and in her hands she held a shining, pink gemstone before her. When her head turned as if to look around with nonexistent eyes, Garcelo could hardly believe his own eyes.

Sure, she had a crewmate who himself was a living skeleton, but Soul King Brook's life was supported by his devil fruit. Cherry's devil fruit should do no such thing. It was impossible, unbelievable, terrifying!

Garcelo launched himself at the blackened bones with the intent to crush them. He had a feeling this would be the only chance he ever got to end Harpin D. Cherry.

*BAM*

A flaming fist fractured his skull before he even closed half the distance to Cherry. He managed to open his eyes to see Blood Wine Cabernet staring him down with her demonic visage. She herself hadn't been completely spared from the Dyna Stone's destruction, her torso bearing a cauterized hole in her chest and fourth degree burns radiating around it.

Garcelo fell quickly into unconsciousness, though he was very unwilling to do so. Cabernet hadn't held anything back in that blow she dealt him, anyone else would just be glad to still have a head.

'Cabernet…' Cherry sent through their mental link.

'I'm here, Cherry.' Cabernet sent back. She went to Cherry's side but didn't know what to do as Cherry looked so fragile.

'Good. I need you to do something important for me, Cabernet.' Cherry sent.

'Of course! Anything!' Cabernet responded eagerly, hoping to be of any help she could.

'Tell me… am I still sexy?' Cherry sent shamelessly.

'Um, well…? You've lost some weight, so I'd say you need to put some meat on your bones.' Cabernet responded in a serious tone.

Cherry wanted to laugh at that, but only her teeth clattered together. Annoyingly they couldn't withstand even that much and broke apart as she did so.

Cherry hoped that Robin wouldn't see her like this. It was one thing for your body to be destroyed during a tribulation, as the heavens will help restore what is lost if you survive it, and another entirely to suffer such substantial damage under normal circumstances.

It was a pointless hope though, as Robin and the others entered the palace only ten or so minutes later along with the royal family.

"Cabernet?!" Chopper rushed to the lunarian woman to tend to her wounds.

"Cabernet, where's Cherry?" Nami asked with concern. All she saw were the unconscious Neo Marines and the blackened skeleton behind Cabernet.

Cabernet gestured towards the skeleton which garnered gasps of shock from the crew. Almost all of them started to cry over their lost friend, even Jinbe and the royals who had hardly known her. In contrast, Brook had a distant look and Robin had gone pale.

When Cherry's skull shifted to point in their direction, several of them nearly jumped out of their skins in fright.

"Cherry says 'All this blubbering is distracting me, cut it out!'" Cabernet helpfully passed on the message from her link.

Luffy started to celebrate, taking the fact she wasn't dead in stride despite what her ghastly state would suggest. Robin similarly heaved a sigh in relief and easily accepted it as she knew from Cherry's secrets that such a thing was possible, even if she temporarily forgot that fact due to the shock of it all.

"Yohohoho! I'm not the only skeleton on the crew now, it seems!" Brook said in a good mood. He couldn't count how many times he had wished his old crewmates' skeletons would stand up and tell him they weren't actually dead.

"Cherry says that you're also not the coolest skeleton in the crew anymore." Cabernet said.

"What the hell?! I'm a world famous rockstar, damn it!" Brook shouted in indignation.

A question hung in most of their minds on how it was possible for her to still live, though. Certainly she had survived many terrible wounds before, but it never came close to this. So, how?

"Ugh!" Usopp and Nami had to turn away when tendrils of flesh started to sprout from the charred bones and knit themselves together.

Chopper watched it with a level of professional fascination.

The remaining process took another 20 minutes before Cherry was good as new. Sanji had barely managed to scrounge up enough willpower to excuse himself from the room voluntarily to avoid peeping on her naked form. A feat that the ladies were very proud of him for.

"Yohohoho! I've seen her bare bones, which is as good as naked in my book!" Brook teased Sanji, making the chef throttle his skeletal neck in jealous fury.

Cherry studied the pink gemstone in her hand in silent contemplation. If she was being honest, she hadn't expected this outcome. She only hoped to save her young friends from a tragically early demise. Her life had already been quite long already, so it wouldn't be a waste in her heart to die such a noble death.

But instead, her devil fruit had awakened, and she had fused all that energy into the gemstone she now held in her hand.