OPSR: Chapter 22

“Like I said already. I stopped that blonde guy from eating the fruit by throwing my shoe at him, went to get my shoe, and felt a strong pull to eat the special fruit at the top. That’s why I did it.” The temple priests and priestesses all looked at me with frowns on their faces as I explained again. Each time someone new came in, they’d also ask the same question, and instead of having someone explain it before, they kept having me state what happened over and over again.

Not even a moment after I finished saying it, another one came in and asked. “What happened? Why did this outsider eat the fruit?” I looked around, slightly frustrated, before I asked. “Do I have to keep explaining this every time? Can we wait until everyone arrives before I explain it to everyone, or perhaps I can just explain it to someone important who can tell everyone else?”

The head priestess finally spoke up. “Well… He’s right, I’m sorry, I’m still figuring out how to do things since my father passed. He used to handle all this. I just sort of panicked when I heard someone ate the fruit.”  She looked sheepish as she spoke, and I couldn’t help but take in her beauty.

She had a full figure that even her priestess robes couldn’t hide. Her robe also couldn’t hide her white hair. She either had white eyes or she was blind, and two horns poked out of her head. Her meek and shy personality made me want to bully her as she kept speaking. “Well… While we wait for everyone to arrive, would you like some food?”

“Sure, that sounds gr-.” “Someone ate the holy fruit!?” “Never mind the food, that appears to be the last priest. So… You’ve eaten the supreme fruit because you felt the urge to? Like it was guiding you to eat it?...” I sat in silence for about ten seconds before I realized they were waiting for me to answer. “Yes.” Another silence before she responded. “Umm… Okay then. I guess you can go?”

Her assistant, beside her, a cute little redhead, spoke up now. “That’s not what we’re supposed to do if someone eats the supreme fruit, Kasumi! They’re supposed to fight the great evil, we don’t just send them away without telling them first and maybe preparing them for the fight ahead.” Kasumi eeps in shock when the redhead speaks, as she stutters out. “R-right, that’s what we should do, Ashe.”

As I stared, I sort of got a good idea of who the two girls looked like. Kasumi kind of resembled Hinata before she got deflated, not one for one, but her eyes and mannerisms reminded me of her a little bit. The redhead was very similar in appearance and attitude to Lina Inverse from the Slayers anime. “So do I get the other fruits? Are any of you going to help me find this ‘great evil’ you want me to defeat?”

Everyone looked at one another again, as once again, no one was really sure what to do. “Is there like a book or scrolls or something I can look at? I’d rather not leave without knowing… Also, if everyone's here, who’s watching the fruit?”

…

Enel held the fruit in his hands as he couldn’t help but laugh out loud. So many times, trying to get the fruit, so many attempts stopped just before he could succeed, and now he could just walk into the temple while it was unguarded and casually pick the fruit off the pedestal. Enel smiled as he slowly brought the fruit up, about to take a bite, when a giant half-bird man appeared next to him out of nowhere. Before he could even realize what was happening or rush to take a bite, a punch was being thrown at his head.

The punch was strong enough to launch Enel across the room, possibly through a wall, if the half-bird half-man wasn’t also holding his hand that still contained the fruit. Instead, it just almost ripped his arm off, only dislocating the bones in his wrist, elbow, and shoulder instead. The pain was enough to knock him out alone, but the wrenching pressure in his arm snapped him wide awake again, Enel’s body's automatismic processes making him feel the extreme pain instead of falling into the gentle embrace of Morpheus.

That was before the next blow landed, knocking him unconscious, finally, but also bringing him right to the edge of death.

…

“Alright, that proves it. I’m taking these fruits right now, so no one accidentally eats them. We’ll talk about what I need to do later, as Kasumi mentioned earlier. I’m starving, let’s talk while we eat…”

Thank god I had developed Soru to a proto level, otherwise Enel would have eaten that fruit before I had the chance to stop him. I couldn’t control it in my human form, just like Kuro, but it was enough if I just had to move quickly in one direction. The next few weeks flew by as Enel was finally arrested for trying to eat one of the sacred fruits constantly. Only their lackluster view of him and their lazy position on capital punishment were why he could get away with attempting it so many times. I managed to convince them to let me take both fruits with me, and I’d come back regularly to see if they figured out who the ‘great evil’ really is.

In the meantime, I was suddenly treated like a god. It wasn’t obvious in the temple because of how passive the people were, but once the city of Birka found out I had consumed the fruit, they treated me like a celebrity, some even treating me like a god. It didn’t take much convincing after that to get a few drops of blood from many of them, and the Birkan strain of lineage factor was the first I truly completed.

I could now shift between human, half-Birkan, and full Birkan from consuming enough lineage factor to complete the Birkan template… Which is when I found out what completing a template meant. All of my forms now have improved hearing. Birkans were born with hearing close to being as good as observation haki. Sure, it was only in a single sense, but I felt it would make learning observation haki easier rather than harder like normal Birkans born with the increased hearing.

Just like that, I consolidated my power, learned as much as I could about my new devil fruit, and I hadn't decided on who would get three of the four I already had. Truth was, this was only the start. Before I went to sea, I wanted more devil fruits; I  wanted more power for my own people. I planned on growing them like seedlings to be more than they were in the original story, while also preparing resources for them to boost them to even higher heights once they joined.

I didn’t plan on giving away any of the devil fruits to my future crewmembers until I set sail… Except one. Nami was just too weak. I knew that consuming a devil fruit changes someone's lineage factor to allow the change, but it also passively would make the person stronger while increasing the cap on their peak strength. I planned to give Nami the thunder fruit, as long as she agreed to be my navigator when I finally did go to sea.