"Is this some kind of joke?"
Darren’s expression was unreadable as he stood amid the shattered remains of Swollen Town, watching Katakuri—barely twenty years old—command the battlefield like a seasoned war god.
He hadn’t just mastered Observation Haki to the level of foresight...
He’d awakened his Devil Fruit.
This kid... is terrifying.
Darren knew what Awakening meant. When a Devil Fruit user pushes their power to its absolute edge—beyond mastery, beyond instinct—they step into a realm called Awakening.
Each of the Three Major Devil Fruit Types evolved differently.
Zoan types gained monstrous recovery, their bodies healing from mortal wounds like nothing.
Logias? The manga hadn’t shown it outright, but the aftermath of Punk Hazard—the war between Kuzan and Sakazuki that forever changed the island’s weather—offered hints. Weather control, perhaps. Elemental dominance.
They could alter the environment itself.
And Katakuri—standing there in his sea of living mochi—was the embodiment of that truth. The town around him had melted into a pulsing, undulating swamp of white, all of it under his will.
Darren blinked, momentarily thrown.
Is this the Charlotte Family’s crowning jewel? Or... did he awaken mid-fight?
Had he—Marine Vice Admiral Darren—accidentally played the role of some divine battle sensei?
No, he quickly shook the thought off. It didn’t make sense.
Katakuri’s control over the awakened Mochi-Mochi Fruit was too precise, too fluid. This wasn’t a first-time power spike. This was practice. Mastery.
This guy’s talent really is terrifying.
"You’d better start praying, bastard!"
Katakuri’s voice tore through Darren’s thoughts. With a roar, he slammed his palm into the ground.
The earth surged like a living wave.
A roaring tide of sticky white mochi exploded outward, devouring everything in its path—buildings, rubble, even streetlamps—all dragged into the writhing mire.
Darren’s eyes snapped wide. Without hesitation, he vaulted into the air, twisting midair like a dancer, narrowly avoiding the engulfing wave below.
But even as he dodged, he analyzed.
The way the mochi moved. The way Katakuri controlled it.
Every gesture. Every shift of energy.
Darren’s Magnet-Magnet Fruit and Katakuri’s Mochi-Mochi Fruit were both Paramecia. They operated differently, sure—but their fundamental developmental paths might share common ground.
And Darren’s Devil Fruit development had been stuck at 83 points for far too long.
Even a single step forward here would be worth it.
From below, Katakuri’s pupils flared red.
He slammed both arms—now transformed into mochi—into the earth.
Dozens of thick mochi tendrils burst skyward like pistons, each one targeting Darren mid-flight with pinpoint precision.
A barrage of pure mochi, guided by future-sight, rose to seal every route of escape.
Smart. Darren’s lips twitched in admiration.
Blue sparks flared at his fingertips.
Two brilliant flashes—one black, one white—sliced through the sky like twin bolts of vengeance.
The Great Grade-21 blade and Skillful Grade-50 blade howled through the air under Darren’s magnetic control, weaving like threads through a needle’s eye.
Shockwaves rippled outward, white rings slicing through the mochi storm as the swords hurtled straight for Katakuri.
Fast. Katakuri’s breath caught.
The vision he saw in the next second left no doubt.
Evade—and he’d lose an arm. Or worse, a heart.
Only one path left: head-on.
His eyes narrowed. He grit his teeth.
Behind him, the ground erupted into two towering mounds of mochi.
The moment he stepped forward, the mounds shifted—solidifying into massive fists.
Each coated in rich, jet-black Armament Haki.
"Monstrous Strength: Mochi!"
The twin fists collided with Darren’s blades, sending sparks cascading like fireworks. The air cracked.
A deafening explosion tore across the battlefield. The ground split like fractured glass, forming yawning chasms as smoke and mud belched into the sky.
And Katakuri wasn’t done.
Before the dust could settle, he surged forward. His own fists blurred into ghostly afterimages, striking with the rhythm of a machine gun.
The Peerless Doughnut mimicked his every motion, unleashing a second wave—fiercer, faster, devastating.
Darren didn’t flinch.
"Hahahaha! That’s more like it!"
He activated his Observation Haki to the fullest, merging it with his biomagnetic field perception. Red aura flared in his irises, overlapped by brilliant arcs of blue electricity.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
An unrestrained, full-throttle, no-holds-barred brawl.
Observation Haki +0.05
Observation Haki +0.07
Observation Haki +0.06
And somewhere in the background, unnoticed even by Darren himself...
The number ticked upward.
Observation Haki: 70.
And with it—a new trait emerged.
Observation Haki: 70 (Magnetic Field Sensing)