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"Is that true?"
"Not a word of it is false!"
People knelt all across the deck, dull thuds sounding one after another as their foreheads struck the planks.
They swore to the heavens: no one had seen how the captain disappeared in the chaos. They had already searched every cabin, finding only the salty sea breeze blowing through.
"He didn't even leave a shadow."
A crewman bent low as he added this in a trembling voice, every word steeped in fear.
Impossible.
The black-clad figure darted into the cabins, dark red scanning patterns sweeping across the lenses of his mask.
Cracks, hidden compartments, beneath the ballast... even a rat's heartbeat should have had nowhere to hide.
But after three passes, he returned to the deck in silence.
"Well?"
The owner of the rubber arms tilted his head and asked.
The man in black cleared his throat.
"No trace."
Unless-some power that defied common sense had intervened.
"It's a Devil Fruit."
The voice came from the rubber boy's left cheek.
Both turned their heads at once.
"Didn't you ever wonder? A tiny creature trapped in a glass tank turned into a mountain of flesh in an instant."
The voice continued, "If there's a fruit that can manipulate size, everything makes sense."
"A Devil Fruit power?"
They spoke in unison.
On these seas, anything inexplicable would ultimately be attributed to a Devil Fruit. It was practically an ironclad rule.
Haki could work miracles too, but this was different.
"Exactly."
The one attached to him spoke with absolute certainty. "Suppose someone could shrink himself to the size of a speck of dust. His disappearance in plain sight would no longer be a mystery."
Before he finished, Luffy raised his left arm. Lightning shot from his fingertips, coiling around the base of the