The royal palace.
Hearing Chiba's words.
Luffy froze, his mind going blank.
Every word Chiba spoke mercilessly tore apart the beliefs Luffy had clung to.
"The reason he treated you well."
Chiba coldly unveiled the truth.
"Was not because he thought highly of you."
"It was because the fruit you ate chose you."
Luffy instinctively touched his stomach.
"The Gum-Gum Fruit?"
"How could the Gum-Gum Fruit have chosen me?"
The Marines were equally bewildered.
The Paramecia Gum-Gum Fruit might not have been common, but it was certainly not some top-tier power in the New World.
Would Red-Haired Shanks really scheme against Garp's grandson over a mere Gum-Gum Fruit?
Chiba returned to the throne.
He picked up the teacup from the nearby table and took a light sip.
Let's talk more about this fruit.
"Do you really think it's called the Gum-Gum Fruit?"
Chiba's gaze locked onto Akainu.
"The World Government spent eight hundred years trying to recover that fruit, yet every time, it slipped away right under their noses."
"To conceal its true name, they even went so far as to rename it the Paramecia Gum-Gum Fruit."
Akainu's brow furrowed tightly.
He vaguely remembered that over a decade ago, CP9 had been escorting a Devil Fruit when it was seized by the Red-Haired Pirates.
Who's-Who, the CP9 officer in charge of the escort, had even been thrown directly into Impel Down because of it.
He had found it strange at the time.
Was an ordinary Gum-Gum Fruit really worth the World Government coming down that hard?
Chiba's voice continued to echo through the great hall.
"Zoan Devil Fruits possess wills of their own."
"And that fruit possesses the strongest self-awareness of all."
"Its true name is the Mythical Zoan Human-Human Fruit: Nika Form!"
Nika?
The moment that name was spoken.