Egg wash, flour, breadcrumbs.
With this holy trinity of deep frying, anything can be fried—enough to make the neighbor's kid cry with envy…
Oh wait, no neighbor's kid anymore.
Nao glanced out the window.
Just two months ago, Vice Admiral Chisio, who had been stationed in the New World, was recalled to headquarters, and naturally, Ace's custody was handed back as well.
The house next door was now completely empty.
And Garp wasn't around either.
After Chisio's return, the old man had immediately taken leave from HQ. He hadn't been back since—no one knew where he had gone.
"Done!"
A moment later, the finished product was out of the pan.
While the oil was draining, Nao went to get some cumin, salt, pepper, and chili powder to make a dry dipping sauce.
Then, he sat down leisurely with his legs crossed and threw the crispy, golden Rumble-Rumble Fruit into his mouth like popcorn. He would occasionally take a sip of cola, looking very satisfied…
Only then did the women snap out of their shock.
Seeing how Nao was eating so deliciously and the scent of the oil constantly wafting into their noses, they felt their own mouths watering.
"Can this... actually be good?" Gion still looked doubtful. "With your cooking skills, where you can't even fry an egg without it fusing to the bottom of the pan, are you just pretending to fool us?"
"Of course not. With this classic recipe, even a fried slipper would be delicious, let alone a Devil Fruit." Nao pouted.
After saying that, his expression became strange, and he felt something was wrong.
Huh? Why does my voice sound different? It's like I ate an electric eel. Every word I say is filled with autotune?
"Looks like the fruit's already taking effect."
The women noticed too. Gion watched Nao clutching his throat in disbelief, and had to suppress her laughter.
"When you first gain an ability, it's normal to lose control a little. Practice and it'll stabilize—don't overthink it."
Her gaze drifted to the half-finished plate of Rumble-Rumble Fruit… After a few seconds of hesitation, curiosity won out. She grabbed a piece, took a careful bite—then her eyes lit up. Immediately, she grabbed another handful and began eating happily.
Seeing her reaction, Bell-mère and Shia exchanged a look, then lunged forward together. Before long, even Nojiko and Nami had joined the scramble.
Watching his family fight over it…
Nao stroked his chin, deep in thought.
So Devil Fruits can actually be turned into a table delicacy? This is a big breakthrough… Hmm, maybe I should suggest to Fleet Admiral Kong that from now on, deep-frying Devil Fruits should be passed down in HQ alongside Rokushiki (Six Powers)—as a cultural heritage of the Marine.
...
In a certain training ground behind the fortress.
Nao hung his coat casually on the wire mesh. When he turned back toward the center of the training ground, his eyes were already flickering with faint arcs of blue lightning.
"Alright… let's begin."
He clenched his fists in front of his chest and chuckled to himself. "What do you call this? Hmm, I guess you could call it the first-hand experience of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit…"
It had been over half an hour since he ate the fruit, but it was hard to really test it out at home. Fortunately, night had fallen, and this training ground was empty, so it became the best place for him to test his new abilities.
Since this was a Logia-class Devil Fruit…
Then first—
He'd start with the thing he was most curious about: elementization.
"Elementization…"
Nao lowered his head slightly, watching as his extended right arm began to transform. His once-flesh-and-blood limb, before his very eyes, slowly turned azure-blue, arcs of blinding lightning crackling across its surface.
His arm was only the beginning. The next moment, a faint blue light appeared in his pupils. Then, the luster of his entire body's skin began to be surrounded by flashes of azure light.
Nao's face twisted and fluctuated. It suddenly became blurred, as if it were enveloped in a clear light and had merged with the surrounding environment. The features of his face couldn't be seen clearly.
It's too simple.
Passive elementization and actively transforming parts of the body into elements were two very different things.
The former was a natural gift one acquired the moment they ate a Logia Fruit. The latter, however, required a new user to undergo extensive practice before mastering it.
But that only applied to ordinary people. For Nao—already one of the world's strongest—it took only a few tries before he completely grasped elementization.
"I can feel my organs… and yet it's like they don't exist at all."
Nao stretched out his arm and reached into his chest. "Even my clothes have transformed with me?"
His faint blue fingertips penetrated the surface of his skin without any obstruction and went deep into his abdominal cavity.
He gently stirred it for a moment. It was smooth and fluid. All he felt was the wonderful sensation of countless fine lightning particles passing through each other.
"Interesting."
Behind his blurred human-like face, Nao chuckled. His interest in this fruit grew even more. After a moment's thought, he decided to drop all restrictions on his elementized body.
Buzz!
The surrounding air suddenly vibrated. The azure lightning particles that had a human-like outline suddenly expanded and diffused. In a few breaths, they expanded to their maximum range—
Almost filling and covering more than half of the training ground.
"There's still some strength left, but not much."
Amid the sea of lightning, Nao's indistinct voice echoed. "It feels a bit strange. My consciousness can fill the entire training ground, but it can also converge at one point and appear anywhere I want…"
The next instant—
The blue particles reassembled into a humanoid shape, Nao's outline now appearing a dozen meters up in the air.
That's right—up in the air.
—He was flying.
Or rather, "floating" might have been more accurate.
Though suspended above the ground, he felt no pull of gravity, freely twisting and shifting through the air.
"So only with full-body elementization can I float…"
He looked at his radiant, energy-like body thoughtfully. "In solid form, or with only my lower body elementized, I still can't leave the ground."
Logia Fruits didn't inherently grant flight. Each user had to explore and develop their ability.
Fruits like the Smoke-Smoke and Gas-Gas were exceptions, being gaseous by nature and thus capable of floating due to their low density.
But for most Logias, no matter how far their abilities were pushed, sustained aerial flight was impossible.
Take Aokiji's Ice-Ice Fruit, for example.
Whether in the present or the future, Nao couldn't recall ever seeing that guy fly through the sky purely with his fruit ability.
Otherwise, Kizaru wouldn't need mirrors to travel across the sea, while Aokiji had to leisurely pedal a bicycle…
At their level, mastery of abilities was already at its peak. If such things weren't achieved, it could only be blamed on the fruit itself, not the user.
Fortunately—
The Rumble-Rumble Fruit was not one of those cases.
"Maintaining this floating state constantly drains stamina…"
Nao gauged his condition, when suddenly his eyes lit up. He turned toward the end of the tree-lined avenue beyond the training ground. "But if I use this state to move at full speed, like thunder in the sky…"
Zzzzt!
The sound of electricity roared. Nao's body suddenly transformed into a streak of azure lightning, crossing the hundreds of meters of the avenue in an instant—appearing at its easternmost end.
Truly in the blink of an eye.
Before eating the fruit, even if Nao pushed Soru—one of the Rokushiki—to its utmost limits, his speed was nothing compared to this.