In Mariejois, the most dangerous place isn't the throne room.
It's the cellar.
Not because of what's in it.
But because of who thinks they own it.
Devil Fruits don't sit in museums. They rot in vaults, passed between nobles like wine bottles, misused and misunderstood. A Celestial Dragon doesn't study power. He inherits it.
I, however, had plans.
Winter was ready.
The world wouldn't be for much longer.
The Rumble-Rumble Fruit wasn't in the vault.
I knew that long before I ever set foot in it.
Because I remembered.
From my old life.
Skypiea.
The God Enel. Lightning incarnate.
Except in this life, he hadn't found the fruit yet.
Because I found it first.
It wasn't hard to send an expedition.
Mariejois nobles waste money like a fireplace burns wood. A single letter to a Marine Vice Admiral I'd "invested" in, a hint of treasure above the clouds, and off he went.
They thought it a myth.
Most didn't believe Skypiea existed.
But my men found it.
And they found the fruit.
Not in some temple. Not in a vault.
On a tree.
Waiting.
They brought it back in a shock-proof case. The courier died mysteriously a week later. Throat slit. Mugging, they said.
I believed them.
Because I'd arranged it.
No witnesses.
Winter held the fruit in her hands.
Storm-gray. Jagged white swirls. It hummed against her skin.
"The Goro Goro no Mi," I said softly. "Eat it."
She looked at me.
"Will it hurt?"
"Yes."
She smiled.
"Good."
She bit into it. Gagged. Nearly dropped the thing.
But she swallowed.
And then she screamed.
It wasn't pain.
It was awakening.
She dropped to her knees, convulsing. Lightning arced across her shoulders, splitting the marble floor. Her hair floated, her eyes glowed.
And then—
Silence.
"Are you alright?" I asked.
She looked up, breathing heavy.
"I can hear everything."
"What do you mean?"
"The wires in the walls. The lights. The heartbeat of this room."
She touched the ground.
"It's all... energy."
"Can you control it?"
She clenched her fist. Sparks flared.
"Not yet."
We trained underground.
Winter's progress was terrifying.
By the second week, she could light her blade.
By the third, she traveled as lightning—instantaneous, terrifying, precise.
She could kill ten men in a blink.
But she didn't.
She waited.
"Not until you say so," she said.
Meanwhile, I planted a rumor.
A Logia had awakened in the South Blue. Untrained. Wild. Causing shipwrecks.
Cipher Pol scrambled. Agents dispatched. Files sealed.
And nobody looked at me.
One night, Saint Roswald cornered me.
"I heard your slave glows now," he said.
"Bad lighting," I replied.
"She's dangerous."
"Yes."
He smiled nervously. "You're building something."
"Of course I am."
"May I join?"
I tilted my head. "You're not qualified."
He laughed. Then he didn't.
Winter floated in the vault.
Meditating. Lightning crawling over her skin like tame wolves.
She opened her eyes.
"Have I done well?"
"Yes."
"Then why do you still look afraid?"
"Because I know what happens when gods walk the earth."
She smiled faintly.
"I'm not a god."
"No."
"But you're close enough to pretend."
That night, I wrote a letter.
To an old pirate scientist. Vegapunk's lesser-known rival.
I offered him asylum.
He offered me a schematic.
If Winter was thunder, I would build her a storm.
We were still hidden.
Still quiet.
But the moment she bit that fruit on my orders, the game changed.
We weren't prey anymore.
We were the spark.
And the storm was coming.