The Devil Fruit That Ruined Lives

Discovering the Truth and Making a Deal

We are very near the end everybody. The next chapter is pretty intense and a bit violent. I look forward to posting it next week. Enjoy~

When Luffy walked out of the mirror he'd come from perfectly fine, it was a big deal to Katakuri, who had been worried about him. "How'd it go?" was what he asked in a calm voice.

"Urouge is dead, his ship is destroyed and I found a new power," Luffy explained, changing a piece of paper into a sheet of taffy to eat. "That guy, he punched me, but when he did I got stronger with my fruits. I don't have any lethal ones, which I want to, so all that got strengthened was the flower-flower and stick-stick ones."

Katakuri looked interested. "Looks like going on missions would be good for you," he commented. Luffy looked at him strangely.

"I thought you wanted to be the one to help me train everything?" Luffy accused slowly. Katakuri knew he'd been caught, sometimes hating that this version of Luffy was so smart and observant. "Oh, I get it. Big Mom told you that," he said in a monotone voice. He openly thought Katakuri was stupid for only taking her orders without ever protesting, and wasn't impressed that someone so strong was her lapdog.

Neither knew where this view came from, as he hadn't seen any different. Maybe it was because Luffy liked being more independent, so seeing someone he was supposed to respect bowing to someone else put him off.

"Yes, she did, and she was right. You enhanced a new power by being on assignment."

Luffy looked skeptical still. "You want to get rid of me?" he said slowly. Katakuri shook his head. Since Luffy had expressed his true feelings about the family and his relationship with them, Katakuri did his best not to give off any feeling that he didn't like or wanted Luffy gone. Because that wasn't the case.

"No, I want you to get stronger. I know you like being independent and doing whatever the hell you do when you leave into your Mirror World. Aren't you happy about this?" Katakuri asked.

"Okay," said Luffy, shutting down his side of the conversation. The man sighed.

"Let's go write up your report so you can go to bed." Luffy followed him and they both sat in his office, Luffy sitting on the huge desk and telling Katakuri about the mission, omitting some facts easily. The lies werent detected at all.

-x-

Big Mom was surprisingly happy about how the mission went. The family's little puppet was reliable and stronger. So, it wasn't a surprise that Luffy was sent on more and more missions. Sometimes back-to-back, which Katakuri didn't like and Luffy was quickly becoming tired of. He just wanted a week to practice in his room, or spend time with Katakuri training him or just being around. He was alone constantly as no one wanted to put out more work to sail him places instead of him going off on his own.

The only good thing about these missions were that he purposely took longer sometimes to get back so he could practice on separate uninhabited islands. The original island was no longer stable and was just a pile of dead plants and rocks.

But, sometimes he became overwhelmed with the missions and training. After reporting for a mission once that was complicated so he had to go with Katakuri to give a verbal report, he noticed that the other children, who were older than him, never had missions. His brothers and sisters got to stay at home, or play, or just do whatever they wanted while Luffy went on mission after mission with little breaks to even get a good night's sleep.

He started to resent his family even more, using his powers to do their bidding and not even getting any acknowledgement from anyone but Big Mom or Katakuri. A real reward for his work would be finally teaching him to read. He wanted the damn book already. But it was the only thing keeping him "loyal". That he didn't know many of his powers without someone else's permission.