22: Doflamingo’s dramatic performance left Vergo staring at him in disbelief.
Only after Doflamingo fought down his nausea, picked up a napkin, and wiped his mouth did Vergo finally recover.
“Well?” he asked anxiously.
“Do you feel any different?” Doflamingo remained silent for a moment and examined his body.
Nothing seemed to have changed.
His expression darkened.
“Damn it.
That woman Olvia didn’t give me a fake, did she?” He had eaten the Devil Fruit, yet nothing had happened.
Had Ohara deceived him?
Perhaps it merely resembled the Mythical Zoan he wanted but was actually some useless Human-Human Fruit whose only power was taking away his ability to swim.
That made no sense.
Doflamingo had compared it carefully with the illustration in the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia.
It had unquestionably been the Bat-Bat Fruit, Model: Vampire.
While he considered the possibilities, Vergo suddenly spoke.
“Doffy, something flashed across your eyes just now.
It was red.” Doflamingo immediately removed his sunglasses.
The appearance of the original Doflamingo’s eyes had always inspired absurd speculation in his former world.
Now that he genuinely inhabited the man’s body, Doflamingo could confirm that there was nothing strange about them.
His eyes were attractive and suited his features perfectly.
He wore sunglasses partly because they looked stylish, but there was another, more practical reason.
People often revealed emotions through their eyes before they could control their expressions.
By keeping his eyes hidden, Doflamingo made it much harder for others to read him.
“Have they changed?” he asked.
“They have,” Vergo answered immediately.
“Your irises are blood-red.” Previously, Doflamingo’s irises had been completely black.
Now they had turned a deep crimson under the influence of the Devil Fruit.
Before he could find a mirror, an itching sensation spread through his canine teeth.
He reached into his mouth and froze.
His previously ordinary canines had lengthened into sharp fangs.
That was not the only change.
His sense of smell had become far more acute.
Vergo now carried a scent Doflamingo had never detected before.
Blood.
He could smell the blood flowing through Vergo’s body.
More than that, his hearing had sharpened enough to detect the pulse of blood surging through Vergo’s veins and the steady beat of his heart.
A voice seemed to whisper from somewhere deep within Doflamingo’s instincts.
It urged him to take that blood.
Not through crude biting and drinking, but through something far more unnatural.
Though he had never used the ability before, the knowledge felt instinctive.
Through blood, he could steal another person’s vitality.
“Doffy, your teeth!” Vergo exclaimed.
The shout broke through Doflamingo’s concentration.
A predatory light flashed across his crimson eyes, leaving two red trails in the air.
His body moved with unnatural speed.
Before Vergo could react, Doflamingo crossed the cabin and forced him back against the sofa.
“Doffy?” Fear entered Vergo’s voice.
He could feel that something had changed.
The man pinning him down no longer felt like his closest companion.
He felt like a predator standing far above him on the food chain.
And Vergo was its prey.
The closer Doflamingo came, the more tempting the vitality inside Vergo became.
All he needed to do was create the smallest wound.
Then he could tear every drop of blood from Vergo’s body in an instant and consume the life contained within it.
A vein bulged at Doflamingo’s temple.
Two opposing impulses seemed to struggle inside him.
Gradually, the crimson color in his eyes receded.
His irises returned to black.
The fangs in his mouth shortened until they once again resembled ordinary teeth.
Once Vergo saw that Doflamingo had regained control, he asked, “Are you all right?” Doflamingo released him and fell back against the opposite side of the sofa, breathing heavily.
More than ten seconds passed before he spoke.
“I’d heard that Devil Fruits contain wills born from desire.” He looked down at his hands.
“Zoan fruits in particular seem capable of overwhelming their users when first consumed or during awakening.” “Now I understand what that means.” For a moment, Doflamingo had nearly lost himself.
Had his will failed, he might have become a creature ruled entirely by bloodlust—a puppet of the fruit’s power.
The awakened Jailer Beasts in Impel Down were similar examples.
Their bodies had awakened, but their minds had failed to dominate the instincts of their Zoan fruits.
What remained were powerful but barely intelligent creatures.
That danger also revealed one of the advantages of Zoan abilities.
If a user developed the fruit deeply enough and completely subdued the will within it, awakening would become far easier to achieve.
That might explain why awakened Zoans appeared more frequently than awakened users of some other Devil Fruit categories.s.
Logia awakenings remained poorly understood and were believed by some to be exceptionally difficult.
Some Logia users and Devil Fruit researchers held a different theory, however.
They believed Logia fruits might already exist in a state resembling awakening from the moment they were consumed.
According to that theory, the seemingly inexhaustible elemental power granted by a Logia was itself the benefit of awakening.
How much of that power a user could display depended entirely on their own strength and endurance.
A monster like Kuzan could freeze an enormous stretch of sea with a casual movement.
Vergo sat upright again.
He showed no resentment over what had happened.
Their relationship was far too close for him to blame Doflamingo for briefly losing control of an unfamiliar power.
“Besides the bloodlust,” Vergo asked curiously, “what else has changed?” “A great deal.” Doflamingo smiled.
There was a reason Devil Fruits were treated as treasures across the seas.
The moment someone consumed one, they received a completely new form of power without years of training.
Some abilities were active, while others altered the body passively.
Mastering and strengthening those powers still required effort, but the initial transformation happened instantly.
Doflamingo now possessed an instinctive understanding of several fundamental abilities belonging to the Bat-Bat Fruit, Model: Vampire.
One of them was control over blood.
He opened one hand and held his palm upward.
Before Vergo’s eyes, blood rose from Doflamingo’s skin.
More and more emerged until it formed a flowing crimson ribbon that circled his hand.
It was his own blood.
The fruit allowed him to draw it directly from his body and manipulate it freely.
At the same time, he could feel that his body’s ability to produce new blood had become extraordinary.
Almost as soon as the blood left him, his body replaced it.
The loss had already been replenished.