The anomalous bounty hunter was starting to turn blue in the face, but whilst Cherry was annoyed that he did something to her, she didn't plan to kill him.
Not yet, in any case. Whatever strange abilities he possessed, they were something wildly different from what she was accustomed to, even more so than the curses she had encountered up until now.
His traitorous lackeys were whispering amongst themselves. Mostly just exclamations about 'Cheapshot' and what she was doing in East Blue. None of their business, that's what.
They didn't try to help their ex-leader, nor did they attempt to run away. Several cast wary glances at the woman called Ginnry, clearly hoping that she would leverage whatever relationship she had with Nami to escape. A wise choice.
Before she could begin extracting any useful and interesting information from the anomaly, something most unusual occurred.
He exploded into countless rainbow hued cubes, which themselves vanished shortly after. Surely she hadn't squeezed him so hard that he'd popped? His throat had barely had any give at all, despite clenching her fingers around it with about half her strength.
The traitors were just as shocked as she was, judging by their gaping mouths and bulging eyes.
Cherry didn't know what that meant, but her keen senses had picked something up the very instant before he shattered.
Every cell in his body died simultaneously.
It happened so fast that it couldn't be a trick. He shouldn't have had any idea that she could detect such a thing.
So, either he really did just spontaneously experience instant total cell death, or it was another technique that allowed him to escape her grasp. But what kind of escape method required you to die?
Well, the kind where you regenerated from a small cell sample hidden within a secure location. When Cherry completed Soul Fusion, she'd be able to accomplish something similar.
Cherry's Life Sense raked the surrounding ocean for any sign of the anomaly. It was somewhat shocking that she didn't find a single trace of him. Not even naturally shed hair or skin cells, which was absurd since the ship he came in on should be covered in such.
So the range of his technique was much further than she imagined. That was troublesome. Especially since she had no desire to hunt him to the ends of the earth, no matter how interested she was in his abilities.
Was she going to have to give up here and hope she found him again in the future? Well, she could exhaust a few more avenues before that.
"Hey," Cherry looked up from her musing and addressed Ginnry. "Where's that guy's home town?"
"Huh? But…" Ginnry hesitated for some reason. Surely her treason wasn't just an act, and she actually did like the guy?
"Cherry isn't going to go around burning down villages, Ginnry. Just answer her," Nami chimed in.
"Well… you have to promise! That loser was from the same hometown as me!" Ginnry named her price.
"Pinky swear," Cherry stuck out the digit necessary to make the most solemn oath there was.
Ginnry took it with some hesitation. "We're from-"
"Nevermind," Cherry said, instantly turning away from her and marching for the door. "I found him."
It was kind of weird that he reformed with such a long delay, and also that he didn't regrow himself from a handful of cells. He just sort of…appeared out of thin air. He was even fully dressed in the same clothes he had been wearing before.
Teleportation that destroyed the original and made a perfect copy, perhaps?
With a blur of movement, she was standing behind the bounty hunter as he desperately tried to get the ship out to sea. It wouldn't have saved him, but she supposed that she could toss him a few points for the effort. Even if the ship was a bit too big for one man to sail by himself.
"Are you the original, or a copy?" Cherry asked, causing him to jump.
"What?!" he exclaimed and scrambled away from her.
"When your body died, was your consciousness transferred to this new body, or are you a replication?" Cherry clarified.
"Huh???" he didn't seem to understand.
Wait, no, there was the dawning existential horror.
"If you aren't sure, there's a few tests I could try. You can return to life after dying again, yes? It's not a one time thing?" Cherry asked, maintaining a professional tone.
"Wait, wait waitwaitwaitwait!" he started to back away from her with his arms outstretched in between them. "I can- I can just tell you what you want to know, right?"
"Do tell, then," Cherry kept the pressure on, backing him into both a literal and metaphorical corner.
"I'm a gamer!" he shouted.
Cherry cocked her head. "Okay?"
"It means I have the [Gamer System]! My life is like a video game!" he elaborated.
Cherry didn't really know what those words meant, but there was something in his voice when he said 'gamer system'. She couldn't quite place what it was; however, she was sure that it meant something.
"And what does it entail, your life being like a 'video game'?" Cherry inquired.
"Well, I get abilities, and I can grow stronger by defeating enemies or completing quests," the 'gamer' revealed. "Like the one I'm on right now! If I survive, then I'll get another extra life!"
An extra life? "You mean, if you die you'll simply… resurrect?" Cherry clarified.
He nodded swiftly.
"And how many extra lives do you currently have?" Cherry asked, her eyes boring into his.
"Ah, I used up my last one when you killed me…" the gamer twiddled his fingers.
Cherry drew her sword and lopped off his foot.
"Ouch?!" the gamer shouted in alarm. "What was that for?!"
Cherry tilted her head. "Your foot is still attached? How?"
She definitely felt her sword pass through his ankle, and yet all that remained of her attack was a bright red line where she had cut him.
"It's my [Gamer Bod] skill!" the gamer regained his wariness of her. "Any and all harm that comes to me is represented by my [HP] numerically, and no physical injuries will be able to debilitate me."
Ah, that was how she accidentally killed him the first time, then. She had assumed that because his throat didn't give beneath her grip that she could squeeze harder. This was not the case, apparently.
"Tell me how many extra lives you actually have, or I will find a more creative way to punish you for lying to me," Cherry warned.
"Two, two! Damn it, how did I attract the attention of this yandere psycho?" the gamer bemoaned.
"You threatened my crewmate's surrogate father. Are you stupid?" Cherry raised an eyebrow.
"..." he gaped at her. "Wait, your crewmate is Sanji?"
"Yes?" Cherry was pretty surprised that a bounty hunter wouldn't know one of the biggest bounties in the world.
"So, you're in the Straw Hat crew?" he asked again, and Cherry got the urge to drown him since she was the one who was meant to be asking the questions here.
"Yes. Do you live under a rock?" Cherry snarked back at him.
"You're a reincarnator!" he accused her, jabbing a finger in her direction. "So you jumped on board with Luffy the first chance you got, huh? That's pretty lame, following the main character around like a little duckling. Don't you have any ambition?"
Cherry was dumbfounded. She felt like he came to the right conclusion for the very wrong reasons.
More importantly, though… Luffy is the 'main character'?