Not because of bloodline.
But because he understood one thing better than anyone else:
The essence of Devil Fruits was an extension of "will."
The more desperately you wanted to achieve something, the more power the fruit would grant you.
Not through training, nor through trial and error.
Through conviction.
Luffy had never thought about "how to awaken." All he thought was—"I want this punch to blast through that ship."
And then, he awakened.
It was that simple.
Zunesha remained silent for a long time.
At last, it slowly lowered its head. "I lost."
Luffy released his grip.
The force wrapped around the massive ship instantly dissipated.
Zunesha's body returned to normal, but it neither attacked nor fled.
It simply stayed where it was, staring at the boy at the bow, its gaze as complex as tides that had crossed centuries. "You want me to submit to you?"
Luffy shook his head. "I don't need anyone's submission."
He held out a hand and gave Zunesha a thumbs-up. "I want you to be my friend."
Zunesha froze.
In eight hundred years, no one had ever said those words to it. "Stop dawdling. Let's go take a look."
"Go!"
Their figures flashed, and they shot forward, arriving before Zunesha's head in the blink of an eye.
When they arrived and saw the tiny, nearly negligible figure before Zunesha, both of them were dumbfounded.
The Mokomo Dukedom on Zunesha's back had been completely affected when Uchiha Yi fought it.
The violent tremors had been caused by Zunesha backing away, making the entire dukedom shake as though it were caught in an earthquake.
Quite a few Minks had taken nasty falls. "What's going on? What happened?"
Duke Inuarashi's face was filled with shock. Nothing like this had ever happened in the Mokomo Dukedom. "Duke,