The taste somehow got worse with each passing second, coating her mouth with an oily, rancid film that made her stomach churn.
She stumbled to the washbasin and desperately rinsed her mouth. The water helped, but the oily residue clung stubbornly to her tongue.
She sat on the bed, her legs still shaking. Her fingers traced along her arm, searching for any sign of change.
She thought about what she knew from the manga. Luffy had figured out his rubber powers almost immediately, but stretching was hard to miss. Other users had taken days or even weeks to master their abilities. The truth was she had never actually read about the exact moment powers first appeared. The manga had never covered that part.
'Not exactly like there's a user manual for this.'
She brushed her hair back from her face with an irritated gesture. The strands felt oily and stuck to her fingers, and her clothes were clinging to her skin with sweat. The fruit had left her feeling feverish, like her body was fighting off something it hadn't agreed to take in.
She needed a shower.
The small bathroom felt cramped as she peeled off her clothes. Hot water cascaded over her, and the clean scent of cheap soap finally began to overpower the lingering fruit taste in her sinuses.
She closed her eyes and let the water run down her back.
What was she supposed to do now? She could stay in Syrup Village and find work. Hiroshi might take her on, or she could help at the docks. The people here had been kind, and small towns always needed extra hands.
But something about staying felt wrong. She knew what was coming in this world, and none of it stayed in one place.
Merchant ships were probably her best option. They always needed crew, they didn't ask too many questions, and the sailors would be a goldmine of information about what was actually happening across the Blues. She could learn the seas, save money, and figure out the rest as she went.
And eventually, Loguetown. The largest port in the East Blue, the last stop before the Grand Line. If she needed supplies, information, or answers about Devil Fruit powers, that was the place to find them.
The water turned cold, and she reluctantly shut it off.
She wiped a clear spot on the fogged mirror, and then stopped.
Something looked different about her reflection. She wiped another streak through the condensation and leaned closer.
At her temples, subtle streaks of deep purple were threading through her dark hair. She pushed her wet hair back, and more traces of purple appeared, weaving through the brown strands like veins of color.
She stared at the mirror for a long moment, her fingers still tangled in her hair.
At least purple hair wasn't too obviously supernatural. She could pass it off as dye if anyone asked.
She rested her hand against the mirror's surface, leaning in to look more closely. A sharp crack split the air, and spiderweb fractures spread outward from beneath her palm.
She pulled her hand back. She had barely been pressing against it.
But it wasn't just the cracking that unsettled her. When her skin had made contact with the glass, she had felt something beyond its cool surface, a sense of the mirror's structure, how the silvering adhered to the back, what materials composed it, as though the information had flowed directly through her fingertips.
She touched the glass again, deliberately this time. Nothing. Just cold glass, perfectly normal.
She looked at her hands. They looked normal except for a faint purple shimmer across her knuckles that seemed to pulse.
She dressed hurriedly. The steam was making it hard to think, and she needed a clear head for whatever was happening to her.
As she pulled on her jeans, the denim felt strange under her fingertips. She could sense each individual thread, somehow aware of how they were woven together. She traced along a seam, and the awareness sharpened. She could picture exactly how the threads were joined, where they crossed, where the tension held them in place.
She focused on that image, and the seam shifted under her touch. The threads loosened and came together again in a slightly different pattern, tighter in some places, looser in others. Not torn, but changed, as though the fabric had responded to what she was thinking.
Then something else hit her. A flicker at the edge of her consciousness, like catching movement in peripheral vision. Someone was moving up the stairs toward her floor.
She couldn't explain how she knew it was Maya, but she did. The presence felt warm and carried a tinge of concern that she could read as clearly as a facial expression.
Sure enough, footsteps approached her door, followed by a gentle knock.
"Miss? Is everything alright there? I heard some noise."
"I'm fine! Just dropped something. Sorry about the mirror. I'll pay for it."
"The mirror?" A pause. "Well, don't worry about that old thing. I've been meaning to replace it anyway. Let me know if you need anything."
Aria tracked Maya's presence as she walked away without meaning to. The ability came as naturally as hearing. She didn't have to try, it just happened.
Then she became aware of others. More presences throughout the village, each one distinct, scattered across the buildings and streets like points of warmth on a cold map. The sheer amount of information pressing in on her made her head ache.
A yawn caught her off guard. Her body had apparently decided that existential crisis or not, she was exhausted.
She sank onto the bed and pulled off her boots.
"Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and this will all make sense."
She lay back without changing clothes. The patchwork quilt smelled of sea salt and old soap, rough against her cheek.
Through the thin walls came the sounds of the inn settling: footsteps, closing doors, distant waves. And underneath all of it, the constant hum of presences she couldn't turn off.
She squeezed her eyes shut, and purple light danced behind her eyelids.
Sleep, when it finally came, was shallow and restless.
When pale dawn light crept through the window, she felt worse than she had before lying down. Heavy fog had rolled in from the harbor, muffling the village in grey silence.
She made her way downstairs and out into the empty streets. The presences were still there, pulses of warmth from various buildings as early risers began their day, but they had faded to background noise overnight, like her mind had learned to filter them while she slept.
Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn't eaten since yesterday.
A small food stall ahead caught her eye, its red awning a splash of color against the fog. The woman tending it looked up with a smile.
"Good morning! What can I get for you?"
"Whatever's quickest and most filling."
The woman laughed. "I know exactly what you need."
Her food arrived quickly, scrambled eggs, grilled fish, and sautéed vegetables, and she dug in without ceremony.
She was halfway through her plate when a voice cut across the quiet morning.
"I said I wanted fish! This is garbage!"
A massive man swayed at a nearby table, clearly drunk despite the early hour. His clothes were rumpled and his beard was stained with whatever he had been drinking the night before.
The stall owner approached him carefully. "Sir, you ordered the breakfast special. If you'd prefer something different, I'd be happy to—"
"Don't tell me what I ordered!"
He slammed his fist down hard enough to make the dishes jump. His plate tipped over the edge and shattered on the ground, food scattering across the dirt.
Aria's grip tightened on her chopsticks.
"Please, just calm down. We have plenty of fish dishes if you'd like to—"
"You think I can't afford better than this slop?"
He lurched to his feet and knocked his chair backward. His eyes were wild and bloodshot, and the stall owner was already backing away from him.
He grabbed his half-full bowl and hurled it against the wall. Rice and vegetables exploded across the wood.
The image of Sanji flashed through her mind, his fury whenever anyone wasted food, the way his whole body went rigid with anger at the disrespect of it. Her jaw clenched.
The drunk reached out and grabbed the shop owner's wrist as she tried to back away.
Aria's chair scraped against the ground as she stood up.
"Hey. Let her go."
He turned slowly, his bloodshot eyes struggling to focus on her.
"The hell did you just say to me?"
"You heard me."
He released the shop owner's wrist. The woman stumbled back behind her counter, and other customers pressed toward the edges of the awning.
"You picked the wrong man to mess with, little girl."
He lunged at her with more speed than she expected from someone that drunk, his fist cutting through the air toward her head.
Her body moved before her mind caught up, muscle memory from years of self-defense classes pulling her out of the path. But there was something else layered on top of the instinct. She could see faint wisps of blue flowing from his arms as he swung, concentrated in his shoulders and fists like visible force.
He swung again, wild and off-balance, scattering chairs. She ducked under it and circled away from him, watching the blue energy shift with his movements. It surged when he attacked and dimmed when he stumbled.
'There's a pattern.'
His next punch overextended him completely, his momentum carrying him forward with his guard wide open. She stepped inside his reach and grabbed his wrist with both hands.
The moment her skin touched his, a cold sensation ran up her arms. She could feel his energy, and somehow, she could take it.
The blue aura drained from his muscles and flowed into hers. His face went pale and his legs started shaking.
"What... what did you do to me..."
Power surged through her body, and purple light rippled across her knuckles. She let go of his wrist and flexed her fingers, watching the glow pulse beneath her skin.
So that was what the fruit did.
He charged at her again with a desperate shout, but his movements were sluggish now, robbed of the strength she had taken. She caught his fist in her palm and felt nothing from the impact.
She hit him once in the chest. He flew backward through two tables and slid to a stop against one of the awning's support posts.
He didn't get up.
Silence settled over the stall. The other customers stared at her from the edges of the awning, and she became very aware of every pair of eyes in the vicinity.
The shop owner emerged from behind her counter, stepping carefully around the broken dishes and scattered food.
"I don't know how to thank you." Her voice was unsteady. "That man's been terrorizing the market for weeks."
Aria could feel the stolen strength beginning to fade, the purple glow on her knuckles dimming. She looked at the wreckage of the tables and the unconscious man slumped against the post.
"Sorry about the mess. I'll pay for the damages."
"Absolutely not. You saved me from that man. Your meal is on the house."
People were starting to gather, drawn by the noise. She needed to leave before this attracted any more attention.
"Thank you again for the meal."
She turned, ready to make a quick exit.
"That was incredible!"