"Zzzzzz…" at the highest point of the worn-out mast, a single man was snoring nonchalantly, unbothered by the rough woods.
"Hey, Ace! Come here and take a look, there's a huge fruit in this chest!"
The shouting beneath interrupted his sleep as the expanded bubble from his nose popped out.
"What the hell… where am I?… My Roblox macro, no one interrupted my grinding session, righ-…"
The man above the mast wiped his face doozy and became clear about his situation.
He understood that it wasn't the time to think about the macro. After all, he was kidnapped and taken to a place only god knows where.
He was surrounded by walls, wherever he looked, yet his limbs weren't bounded. 'I wasn't kidnapped after all?' He thought.
As he began to contemplate even further, he heard the voice from below increasingly getting louder.
"That's good news for you! Go on and eat it," a voice belonging to a different person, Ace spoke.
'If I recall… they were talking something about a fruit inside the treasure chest… Ace…Ace?'
"What do you mean!? You're gonna have this, right? You're the one who defeated that huge bird."
"You found it first. Don't shy out, you're practically passing out from hunger."
"You're the one at death's door, you eat it!"
The two began bickering out as the man's memory started clearing up. 'Oh, that Ace! Then this place is somewhere not my room (obviously)'
*Gurrrgle*
Below, the two men's stomachs rang loud as if to announce their hunger.
The two then bitterly laughed and stopped bickering, splitting the fruit in half.
'Ohh, what a faithful CG, it's exactly what I've read in manga.' the man watching above was reacting inwardly until something clicked.
'Wait, if this is the scene where Ace eats the Flame Flame Fruit…,' with a thought, the future and Ace's eventual fates ran at the back of his mind.
'Ace gets ahead of himself after obtaining a small boost in power and misunderstands himself as being invincible. This bad habit of his never got fixed even after being beaten to a pulp by Whitebeard.'
'Then, with a Haki so weak that Oda-sensei didn't even bother show it in foreshadowing style, he goes after Blackbeard and loses against him. This caused him to be brought to marine and eventually lose his life in the end.'
'If you think about it, the cause of all of this is the Flame Flame Fruit. If he never ate this fruit in the first place Ace wouldn't have slacked off training his Haki and being the direct descendant of Roger, there's no way his Haki Potential would be low!"
'In conclusion, eating devil fruit = Ace's death.'
"Stop right there you idiot~!" the man jumped off the mast and head-dive to the fruit in the two's hand.
He then opened his mouth-wide using the two's dumbstruck state to his advantage and took a bite toward one of the fruit before they could react.
"Thief! Spew out the fruit you just ate, bastard!" The person besides Ace, grabbed the man—now promoted to the thief—by his neck in an attempt to take back the stolen fruit.
But he was too late, the Devil Fruit in the thief's mouth had already been swallowed.
"Release me, I will explai- oomf," the man desperately tried to resist but he was powerless against the person strangling him, and soon, his face began changing color.
"You're strangling him, yes, if you keep going it, you'll burn your hand off… WHAT! Your hand is burning!"
'Damn, I can't remember his name," the man thought under the lack of oxygen, almost falling unconscious.
Deuce ran around the place in panic comically as he extinguished the flame in his hand.
- - -
After extinguishing the flame, the three found a spot to sit and re-began their conversation.
"It's nice to meet you, I'm Ace. This guy here… what is your name?"
"It's Deuce!!" Deuce shouted taken aback. He had already abandoned his former name the moment he decided to enter Ace's Spade Pirates.
"Anyway, he is the first crewmate of my pirate, he is aspiring to be a writer."
'Ace probably didn't ask this guy to be his crewmate.'
"Who are you? And the fruit we were about to eat, was Devil Fruit, right?" Ace continued.
"Well asked, I'm Shinrabanshou-man…, is a joke. I'm just a regular person who goes by Sakura Sonata. A lowly human with no ambition."
Sakura's introductions were shabby compared to the characters of this world.
His appearance was even less impressive, as the only memorable feature about him was the messy hair that hadn't been taken care of and the deep-violet eyes of his that lazily stared at them.
"And yes. That was the Devil Fruit. It's a cursed object of this world that grants you ability upon consumption but if you fall to the ocean or have your limbs locked by seastone, you'll be powerless."
"In this world where Haki exists to give a superhuman the method to battle against a supernatural person, a weaker Devil Fruit, this fruit, Flame Flame Fruit by instance, is nothing but a debuff."
Sakura explained his intention without stopping causing Ace to fall asleep in boredom.
The person next to him, Deuce in exchange was intrigued by Sakura's explanation.
"Wait a minute, you're telling a lot. So this burnt are caused by that fruit you stole? Why is a Flame Flame Fruit considered a 'weaker' Devil Fruit? What is Haki?" Deuce began taking notes.
Looking around, Sakura found Ace falling asleep.
'As expected of this buffoon…' Sakura thought inwardly. Luffy certainly influenced Ace to fall asleep mid-conversation.
Sakura nodded then said. "Flame Flame Fruit is considered 'weak' because there's a higher tier Devil Fruit above it called Magma Magma Fruit which apparently 'burns hotter' than Flame Flame Fruit."
"The second reason why Flame Flame Fruit is considered weak is because Ace is the one who used it. This buffoon lacked the imagination to use his Devil Fruit and limited himself to size = power, creating his ultimate move that imitated the sun; Entei."
"I don't understand what you're saying… Ace didn't gain the fruit's power, you ate it." Deuce retorted.
"If I didn't he would have gained it! Tch, despite this guy being the son of Pirate King, he wasted his talent of Haki to over-relying Devil Fruit's ability."
In this instance, a kick from Ace's direction came toward Sakura's body as he passed through Sakura's body which automatically transformed his body into that of fire.
Somehow, the guy woke up the moment Sakura mentioned 'Son of Pirate King'
"You can't hit me without Haki and I can't control this ability yet to convert it into a physical form so you have no way of attack. Just give it up, I don't have ill intentions toward you."
Of course, Sakura's word alone wasn't enough to calm down Ace but he just ignored Ace's relentless attacking. At the end of the day, Ace is just burning himself tired by trying to hit Sakura.
"Now let's explain what 'Haki' is now that Ace is awake. Haki is, the manifestation of will, majorly classified into three categories. 'Observation Color' Haki which allows you to see without seeing and 'Armament Color' Haki which allows you to punch what you want to punch."
As if intrigued, Ace calmed down a little bit and sat down listening to the seemingly useful information.
"Ace, you know Garp, right? When he punches Luffy, Luffy always takes damage despite being made of rubber, right? That's because Garp used this type of Haki to hit Luffy, causing him to inflict harm on a Devil Fruit user who is immune to blunt attack."
"How did you know all thi-,"
Just before Ace interrupts Sakura's lesson, he continues, "Because I've read the One Piece."
What Ace and Deuce at this time didn't know was Sakura's continuous blabbering would last 3-4 days, until they built the boat and escaped the island.
During this time span, not only did Sakura tell the entire One Piece up to Egghead Arc except the part he forgot, he even touched other stories such as Dragon Ball, Kengan Ashura, and JoJo.
Ace didn't like it when Sakura mocked Ace's imagination or cursed future Ace's action which his present self never committed.
"Which idiot dives into the strongest enemy just because their adoptive dad got made fun of when the entire objective of the war is to save that said idiot."
Sakura was spewing flame when he got to the One Piece Summit War Arc… quite literally.