There was a shift in the air.
Cherry stood, straight and attentive and alert.
"Strange," Cherry muttered to herself.
And impossible, or so she thought.
"Is something wrong?" Jinbe asked, popping a rice ball stuffed with pickled plums into his mouth.
The whole crew was enjoying a nice picnic, courtesy of Sanji, atop one of the mountains overlooking the Flower Capital. It wasn't long before they would all be out at sea again, so they were enjoying the land beneath their feet while they could.
"Maybe? I don't know," Cherry answered honestly, casting her gaze out to the distant shore, barely visible even from this height.
Nami, having her own curiosity piqued, stood as well. She observed the horizon that Cherry was looking towards in curiosity before she said, "That's odd. The wind has shifted."
There in the distance, a cloud began to form. Lower than it ought to be, dark grey and forming a swirl around a single point.
Cherry frowned and met Robin's eyes with hers. They both knew what this was.
"I'm going to go check it out," Cherry said, hopping directly off the mountain side.
…
"What is this?" Ryokugyu said. "Hey, Fujitora! That cloud ain't natural, what are you still sitting around for?!"
Fujitora didn't stir. In fact, he barely recognized that Ryokugyu was even talking to him. He was so close to that something now that he couldn't spare any mind to anything else.
"Oi!" Ryokugyu tried calling out to him again, to no avail.
He briefly considered trying to pull Fujitora away, since the epicenter of the cloud's odd spiraling shape was right above him, but ultimately decided to back off instead. If Fujitora got himself killed because he wasn't paying any attention, that wasn't Ryokugyu's fault. If anything, it'd get the annoying old fart off his back for once.
As Ryokugyu made his way further inland, resuming his current mission, Cherry arrived and hung around at the periphery of the cloud.
"He's making a breakthrough?" Cherry wondered aloud. "In the celestial energy system no less."
It spoke to Fujitora's natural affinity to celestial energy that he was able to do this after such a short time, and with so little of the energy to utilize. Most incredible of all was that he shouldn't even be aware of any particular methodology. He was brute forcing it, the way the ancients did in the Myriad Realms.
A terribly foolish thing to do, but of course Fujitora had no way to understand just how much danger he was putting himself in.
"Tsk," Cherry clicked her tongue.
To interrupt during another's breakthrough was among the worst faux pas that a cultivator could commit against another cultivator, but if she didn't want to watch the old man die a hapless death today, then she had to. It was also a terribly dangerous and foolish thing to do in its own right, as the heavens rarely suffered such things without consequence. In the worst case, she might even have to shoulder a tribulation herself, without any of the benefits that come from them after a breakthrough.
Cherry was quick on her feet, arriving near to him, but not right next to him. She shouted, trying to keep her volume loud, but not so loud that Ryokugyu might overhear, "Fujitora!"
Fujitora did not stir, and the trial was fast approaching.
"Damn it, you old coot! Don't make me come over there or we'll both regret it!" Cherry growled, flavoring her words with a tiny bit of conqueror's haki, hoping to set off his survival instincts.
It was fortunate that Fujitora turned his head towards Cherry then, because she was just about to stomp over to him and give him a good slap.
"Cheapshot, is that you?" Fujitora asked. "I only came to deal with the remnants of Kaido's-"
"Shut the fuck up, you doddering idiot!" Cherry hissed, taking Fujitora aback from the anger she was showing. "Do you have any idea what you're messing with?! Do you even realize that you're in danger?!"
"Danger?" Fujitora frowned. "I'm quite sure I can handle whomever chose to run instead of fighting to the end."
"I'm not talking about that, fool!" Cherry slapped her forehead. "Damn it, if you repeat any of what I'm about to tell you to anyone, I swear I'll find you and strangle you with your own spine, got it?!"
Before Fujitora could answer in the negative or affirmative, Cherry continued. "You're about to undergo a lethal test! One which you have been working towards since Dressrosa, I imagine, but that you are wholly unprepared for!"
Fujitora's bushy eyebrows shot up. "You mean… the energy?"
"Yes," Cherry calmed slightly. "That energy is about to try and kill you. If you weren't blind, I'd tell you to look up."
Fujitora looked up anyway, and paled a bit at what he saw. "Oh… there's… quite a lot up there…"
"You can see it?" Cherry asked. "Ah, did you blind yourself out of some personal conviction? No, nevermind that. Not important right now. What's important is you not turning into barbeque."
Fujitora could feel the hair standing on the back of his neck now. "Lightning is it? I can just put something between myself and the storm, then."
"I wouldn't recommend it. The heavens don't like cheaters and cowards, so you'll only be making things harder on yourself. You have to face it head on and survive, and I can't intervene unless I want us both to die," Cherry explained. "So, survive! That's the only thing that matters! Make it to the end, and you'll live. I'll do what I can with what's left of you then!"
Fujitora couldn't help but think that wasn't really helpful to him. If not for the fact that she couldn't have simply let him get struck without knowing, he might have even thought she wanted him to die here.
Fujitora couldn't see her, but he could see the way the energy swirled around her. The energy reacted to people's innermost thoughts and feelings, and though he was not yet adept at reading the energy itself, he felt like Cherry was trying to tell him something without actually saying it aloud.
'If she tells me what I need to know, it'll hurt my chances,' Fujitora concluded. 'She's being roundabout about what actually needs to be done to survive, but flatout telling me what will get me killed.'
Fujitora thought for a moment, refusing to panic at the building static in the air, foreboding the imminent assault upon his person by the heavens. Apparently. He didn't know if that was mere spiritualism or literal, and perhaps it didn't matter.
"Conviction…" Fujitora had slashed out his own eyes so that he wouldn't see the ugliness of the world any longer, but now he could see the energy. Cherry had asked him after the reveal that he could see it if he had blinded himself out of conviction.
The energy lit up around Cherry as she backed away slowly, as if it were mirroring her own excitement. That must be it then. He would survive because he must survive, not merely because he wanted to go on living. He would not surrender to a fate bestowed upon him by the heavens.
And so it began.