Seaside System - Chapter 6.1

"So this is Punk Hazard, huh?" Kaden commented to himself as he dropped from the air to land on the edge of a cliff overlooking the island, wincing as he did so.

It was a mess of a place. He'd landed on the front side of the island, which was a mess of dead trees as far as the eye could see and massive ruins of destroyed buildings that was probably the old research centre used by Vegapunk initially.

His body hurt like hell. Every moment sent a spike of pain through him. It had been just over an hour now since he'd fought Graydle.

It was a wonder he was conscious at all.

Well, he knew why he was conscious.

It was simple.

After he managed to drag himself from the crater he'd been smashed into by that bastard Graydle, he'd made a beeline for the doctors office in the marine tower and ingested a whole lot of pain relieving drugs.

They were great.

So now instead of every fibre of his body feeling like utter agony was coursing through it, it was just proper normal agony.

It would have been nice to stick around until he recovered back there and maybe get a hero's welcome Luffy style, since that guy always managed to get huge parties thrown in his honour.

He couldn't.

He'd just murdered an entire base of marines including a Vice Admiral. And he was massively injured.

He wasn't planning on sticking around and finding out who would pop up to deal with that fact and when.

And there was more of an urgency in him. He needed that copy of Kaido's fruit, yesterday! That was how urgently he needed it.

He was weaker than Graydle, that was a fact. He won through luck. That disgusted him in ways he couldn't put into words.

So after raiding the marine base for all its funds just like he had for G5, and adding the hundred and thirty or so million beri they had in the coffers to his loot, he'd rushed his way here despite the pain.

Thankfully after months of training himself to the limit and getting his shit kicked in by Commodore Yarisugu, his pain tolerance was pretty damn high.

'Besides…Zoans give enhanced healing abilities on top of enhancing the physical abilities at the base.' Kaden thought.

Though that Axolotl fruit was looking mighty tempting right about now as well. Devil Fruits tended to take the natural abilities of animals they were based on in regards to Zoans and ramp them up to the eleven.

That fruit probably had some crazy ass regenerative powers.

It wasn't an option for him sadly.

Well, it was in the sense that he was going to get it regardless, just not eat it. He'd need to recruit allies at some point, he was well aware that to accomplish anything of remote greatness, he'd need allies. He'd need allies regardless unless he wanted to just hide away from the world.

The devil fruit could be a good boost to an ally in the future. The same with the metal metal fruit. Or he could sell them for a shit load of money.

Even the weakest of devil fruits went for over a hundred million beri. A logia like the metal metal fruit? Five hundred million plus easily. And the same could be said for the Axolotl one too. The power to regenerate lost limbs and more? That was incredible.

So yes, sadly for Smiley, even though Kaden needed the absolute power boost and potential the dragon fruit would give him, he was still going to blow that lonely giant slime up and steal the fruit that gave it life for himself.

'Other side of the island it is.' Kaden sighed, kicking off the ground once more and launching himself into the sky, wincing in pain with every kick.

Honestly, it was almost anti-climactic in a way. Just how easy it was to accomplish his objective that is.

The entrance to Caesar's lab was easy to find, granted he already knew the rough area of it. And right now it wasn't hidden by a blizzard.

It was walled off by a huge metal door and a video transponder snail hanging out front keeping an eye on things.

He just had to wait for someone to step out, which didn't take long to be honest, and then with a quick kick off the ground and moving at rapid speeds with Soru, he was inside before the transponder snail could notice a thing.

It was a huge place with metallic walls and flooring spread into the side of a mountain. And it was sparsely populated.

The only residents of the place, were the crippled pirates who had been 'saved' by Caesar floating, who could only move around thanks to his inventions and Caesar himself.

And considering when Caesar wasn't busy in his lab he was drinking himself silly or ordering whores to attend to him and just generally living it up, it meant that he was more or less completely uncontested when he moved around.

And before long he found it.

'There you are.' Kaden's eyes lit up with glee and excitement as he stepped into an abandoned laboratory room and caught sight of his target. A large purple coloured apple with green spots all over it sitting quietly and alone within a display case

The cloned version of the mythical zoan devil fruit - Fish Fish Fruit Model: Azure Dragon

Kaden wasted no time, quickly he made his way over to it and with a quick punch of his fist, he shattered the glass display case and scooped it up.

Excitement so palpable rushed through his veins he felt his breath come out in short rapid bursts and his fingers trembled, "One of the greatest powers in this entire world, and you're all mine." Kaden laughed to himself gleefully.

Before quickly stashing it in his pants pocket. Right now, he was only wearing his boots, pants and red tank top, alongside a bevvy of bandages over his torso and arms, stained quick deeply with the blood from his wounds.

He turned on his feet and then disappeared in a blur of speed using Soru.

In just a few minutes he was back outside of the lab and retreating away from it, making his way towards a large alcove where he'd stashed his sack of belongings before infiltrating his lab.

He landed beside the sack, wincing as his ribs throbbed in pain but ignored it mostly and then reached into his pocket and brought out the fruit.

"Thanks a bunch Vegapunk, Kaido." Kaden grinned, before opening wide and biting down on the throat.

Immediately a disgusting, sour taste assaulted his taste buds. If he had to describe it in words, it tasted like rancid mouldy shit that had been left to fester at the very pit of an ancient sewer for a hundred years, and took in every steaming pile of shit everyone who had ever defecated and flushed their feces down into the depths of that ancient sewer.

That was how fucking disgusting it was.

Face screwed up in utter disgust, Kaden powered through and swallowed, before biting again and again and again until absolutely nothing was left.

As soon as he swallowed it all, he collapsed onto his backside, coughing and spluttering in disgust, grasping at his throat as he tried with all his might to force himself not to vomit.

Yet even as he did, he felt it.

Maybe it was thanks to his burgeoning Observation Haki. Or maybe it was just because he was so weak currently that the difference was absolutely notable from the get go.

But he felt it as a rushing sensation go through him, felt a tremble in his muscles, a lightness in his body and even the pain that was assaulting his entire body faded a bit somehow.

'…I've gotta check this out.' he thought, trembling with excitement as he called upon the status screen to see any differences.

And his jaw dropped.

Name: Kaden D. Freeman
Strength: 400.5/10,000
Endurance: 447.7/10,000
Durability: 449/10,000
Agility: 356/10,000
Hand To Hand Combat: 258/1000
Swordsmanship: 241/1000
Gunmanship: 28/1000
Rokushiki: (4/7)

Haki:
Colour Of Armament: 121/1000
Colour Of Observation: 134/1000
Colour Of The Conqueror: 5/1000

Devils Fruit: (1/2)
Fish Fish Fruit Model: Azure Dragon (Unawakened)

"Holy….shit." Kaden gaped, mind going completely blank.

What even…how? What?

What was he supposed to think here?

Beyond the crazy stat increases and his potential jumping twenty times over, what did it mean by one out of two Devil Fruits?

Did that mean he could eat two?

How?

'That's supposed to be impossible, isn't it that if somebody eats a second devil fruit they explode or something?' Kaden's thoughts raced a mile a minute.

But wait…Blackbeard ate more than one fruit.

There was a lot of theories amongst fans on why he could because Oda hadn't revealed why or how yet. But one of the common ones was that Blackbeard had multiple souls.

And each soul could have a devil fruit of their own.

But they were clearly physically oriented and not locked to the soul as well otherwise it would be impossible to clone a fruit like the one he'd just eaten!

But if it did work like that….did it have something to do with how he ended up here? After all, this wasn't his original body. Two separate souls had been in this body at one point and the devil fruit the first had, was long gone.

Did that give him like an empty slot…or something?

"Does…does that mean I could eat another devil fruit right now as well?" Kaden wondered, gaping stupidly up at the sky.

Like could he eat the Metal Metal fruit he had right now and become a metal logia on top of a dragon. Could he become a massive metal dragon logia?

Or wait, what about Smiley's fruit. What if he killed it and took its fruit? Wouldn't he get regeneration on top of everything he already had now as well? And Kaido's fruit had a lot…

And wait, it was a zoan as well so wouldn't it boost his physical abilities just like the dragon devil fruit just had for him as well?

Kaden's hands came up to quickly and agitatedly rub at his face as his thoughts began to rapidly circle.

"Stop, stop stop!" he smacked his forehead and forced himself to stop thinking so much.

It was crazy, out of this world and opened up so many possibilities. But he shouldn't get a head of himself. He just ate one fruit and hadn't even tried anything with it yet.

On top of that, it was best not to rush into things now. If he could eat a second fruit, he'd need to think seriously on the options available to him and what would be best for him.

"Beyond that though….how do I even use the fruit?" Kaden wondered, cupping his chin. He closed his eyes in thought and tried willing himself to turn into a dragon.

And then laughed, because no way it was that simple.

He opened his eyes and found himself very high in the air, "Eh?" Kaden blinked, and looked down.

He could see where he stood a moment ago over twenty feet below him, and a long serpentine body of crimson red scales alongside it, "EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH?!?!?!?"

"What what what?!" Kaden panicked, head whipping around to look behind him and yep there it was, a huge, long scaly red boy with a mane of golden blond hair.

How. Why?

It shouldn't have been that easy right? Like, it wasn't easy for-

"No wait, Momo transformed as soon as he ate it, and I didn't." Kaden frowned. Actually, a lot of what Momo did with it didn't make sense. He didn't really train with it at all, but used its abilities by accident sometimes.

Yet when he did try to use it fully the first time, he was able to generate the flame clouds easily. And then managed Kaido's Blast Breath, a strong enough one to nearly take out a literal Admiral in one shot after just a few attempts as well.

And then there was his potential increase. He was expecting a big increase for sure….but not that.

"Is it because of Kaido's lineage factor?" Kaden wondered. The seraphim that inherited the Warlords lineage factor inherited their strength and even their skills.

Did the same apply just from the fact that he had consumed a fruit containing Kaido's lineage factor? Did he inherit some of Kaido's own potential through the fruit as well?

"And why am I red?" Kaden had to wondered, making his way over to a small lake near the alcove and look himself over.

He was utterly massive. He had to be between fifty and sixty feet easily. Not quite Kaido's insane size, but he was only fourteen, his size as a dragon would grow as he did, just like it did with Momo.

His scales were a bright burning crimson red, with a paler red underbelly. A long blowing mane of golden blonde hair akin to a cloud started from his skull and went right to his tail, a pair of shiny jagged multi spiked golden horns erupted from his head.

Golden yellow slitted eyes stared back at him from the waters surface, and Kaden had to admit.

"I look badass." he mused, opening his mouth to check out his new maw of huge razor sharp teeth.

Yet, he was strangely disappointed that he wasn't pink. He'd made cool one liners in advance for the last few months after he'd planned on coming to get this fruit.

Like 'only real men can wear pink' and stuff like that!