Chapter 21: Chapter 21
"This Seal will be branded above your heart, and should you ever intentionally do anything to hurt me or anyone on our crew, the seal will explode, and take your life with it. This goes for revealing the location of our future hideout, giving away the secrets to unlock chakra, or even giving away vital information." Ronin said solemnly.
When Meli heard this, a slight panic went through her eyes, as the thought of being branded with a bomb would be terrifying for anyone, but she had no intentions of betraying Ronin's trust ever again and wanted to make things right. So, after swallowing what felt like a mouthful of sand and calming her nerves, Meli looked back at Ronin with a resolute expression as she gave a stuff nod.
Knowing that there was no turning back now, Ronin pulled out a seal tag that looked different from his normal tags. Instead of being written with black ink like the rest, this seal was made using his own blood. Because it was made with his blood, not only would he know the second one of these brands exploded, he could also know where they are after a certain distance, able to tell whether they were alive or dead, and if push came to shove, he could also make the tag disappear if they leave the crew honorably, or he could detonate it if they choose otherwise...
In truth, if he was any other person with this time of brand, it would truly be the ultimate "slave collar" in a sense, as no one would be able to go against his order least they want to die. This is why unless Ronin would absolutely trust this person with their life, he would never teach Blood Brand Seals to anyone else.
After gently pulling Meli's kimono slightly to the side, just enough for her large, soft breast to stay within it confines, Ronin carefully placed the brand over her heart and began pumping chakra through it. Once the seal activated, the red symbol glowed brightly until it completely disappeared from the paper. When Ronin pulled the now blank tag away from her chest, a symbol of three blood red tomoe swirling around each other appeared on her chest, Meli looking down in surprise as the brand was painless and looked like more like a cool tattoo.
The brand was pretty cool as the middle of the tomoe look like an awesome three sided blade being formed, but it was also the symbol for the Japanese god, Raijin, which found to be rather ironic. Raijin was a powerful thunder God that rode on a nimbus and lived in the clouds, and he planned to build a hidden cloud kingdom and his specialty what lightning. Ronin liked the symbolism of the brand so much, he planned to make it the image of his crew. If everyone was going to have the symbol branded on them, at least then it would make sense.
When the others saw the brand was painless and that it actually looked badass, they let out a relieved sigh and were lining up to get theirs next, pushing and arguing with each other like children trying to get first place in line. When Ronin saw this, he silently shook his head as a smile graced his face, as only his crew could take a serious moment like this, and make it light-hearted. Also, none of the realized that whole they were fighting, Devon had snuck to the front, and got his brand next, except his was on his right shoulder.
After half an hour, thanks to them playing around, Ronin was finally done branding the immediate crew members, and would have to see who else wants to become official members of the crew, or would prefer to stay villagers for when they found a base. Now, it was just Meli and Ronin in the cargo hold, Ronin sitting down as he recharged his chakra and Meli stood before him fidgeting with the hmm of her kimono, unsure of what to say or how to say it.
Seeing her stuck in her own head, Ronin decided to start, "Just start from the beginning, Where are you from? Do your people possess magic? What is the significance of you and these chests?" Ronin fired off a few questions, but each question only seemed to make her more nervous.
Knowing that Ronin didn't like beating around the bush, Meli decided to blurt out and say what she needed to. "I come from a Mink tribe that used to live with the other Minks on Zou Island, but they wanted to stay secluded and hide from humans while my tribe believed we would never make any true progress if we continued to hide away, so we left for the outside world to find our place amongst the humans."
"We ended up in the South Blue thanks to this Blues abundance of different animals and wildlife, it was like paradise for use, but not long after we settled, pirates arrived. At first they just demanded tribute, they they began harassing a few of us girls in the village, then... when we had nothing left, they raided. My father was the chief of our tribe, and he was also the strongest of us all, one night we all got very sick, and in the middle of the night, they attacked my father and mother first, but they didn't account for my father to still being so strong.
"My father was a warrior while my mother practiced the rare art of magic, and no, I was too young to learn magic at the time. Along with the rest of the village, my parents fought against what seemed like an endless amount of pirates, but my father was the only warrior, so left and right, my people start to get killed by the pirates, some raping girls right there in the middle of the battle, laughing while the girls cried and begged under them." Meli said, her voice started to crack, as tears came to her eyes from remembering the tragic scenes.
"Seeing that things weren't going out way, my parents sent me away with these chests and said to hide away and not trust anyone. I-it's not that I don't trust you, or anyone else from the team, but... " Meli said as her voice trailed off.
"That's enough about that. With the seal in place, you'll just have to work on rebuilding the trust that you've broken with everyone. And from what I can gather, after you ran with the chests, you were soon captured by Harriman like you told me before. Okay, everything is starting to make sense now. Anyway, it's a shame you weren't taught magic, but luckily you do have a Devil Fruit. Go ahead and eat it, that way we can increase the firepower our crew has." Ronin said without affection. It will take him some time to get back to being close with Meli like he was before.
After Meli trying to push the Devil Fruit to Ronin as a way of apology And Ronin denying it, Meli finally took the strange fruit in her hands. Taking a deep breath, Meli took a huge bite of the Devil Fruit and immediately felt bile rise in her throat that she had to fight down.
"You got this. Master Genko said only one bite is needed for one to get the powers. All you have to do now is swallow." Ronin said as he watched eat with a distant expression.
After what felt like an eternity of struggling to swallow the mushy, yet somehow still crunchy fruit that tasted like a mouthful of baby shit that has been sitting out on a hot day, Meli finally managed to swallow the bite.
As soon as she swallowed, her whole body felt like it was primed to explode, as small crackles released all over her skin.
Luckily, Meli already knew some information about the Burst-Burst Fruit, so after taking a deep breath, she started to calm down, her body somewhat returning back to normal.
"So, it seemed like you knew about this Devil Fruit when you first saw it. Tell me, what is it capable of?" Ronin asked, genuinely curious how powerful Meli had become.
"It's called the Burst-Burst Fruit, and it's classified as a Special Paramecia fruit. It gives me the ability to create, control, and absorb explosions in different forms. I could punch something a it would have explosive power behind it, or the one I was told about was 'Talismans'. I can make an object I touch into an explosive, even a timed one, and have control over it." Meli said with a sweet smile, as if she didn't just admit to her having a completely deadly new power.
'Hmm, so in a way, her power is a lot like Deidera from Naruto,only far more powerful. That guy was some serious trouble, but if what she says is true, she now has complete control over explosions, to the point even her body is like a walking powder keg.' Ronin thought to himself as he pondered of this new revelation.
"Well, as you can imagine, due to the nature of your power, I have to ask that you wait until we either find an island or we get a sturdier ship to train your new abilities. We wouldn't want an accident in the middle of the ocean. If anything, see if you can use just one finger. That would help in many ways, including with control." Ronin said as he rested his head against the wall of the Cargo hold.
After that, Meli went up to the main deck while Ronin remained in the cargo hold. Understandably, the situation was still very awkward between the two, so Meli decided to give Ronin time to forgive her.
Still sitting against the wall, going over future plans and ideas in his heard, something had caught Ronin's attention at the side of his eye. In the pile of treasure that he stole from the Navy base, Ronin saw a small, brown wooden chest nearly covered my piles of gold. As if drawn towards it, Ronin made his way over to the chest, until it was sitting in his hands. Without any preamble, Ronin opened the chest to find a large blue cherry with white, cloud-like swirls on it, and a golden 'T' shaped stem on top.
'Another Devil Fruit? aren't these supposed to be rare?' Ronin thought to himself. Then he figured that they were both found under unusual situations, one as a momento from dead parents, and the other was stolen from a government base.
Part of Ronin wondered if he should eat the fruit, as he remembered the conversation with God, then realized that if he was going to risk fucking this world up, he probably already did, so fuck it. And with that, Ronin took a decent bite of the fruit and immediately pushed it to the back of his mouth and swallow it. He couldn't understand why if you know it's going to taste bad and you only need to bite into it once, why do people keep trying to chew it?
After he swallowed the fruit, Ronin immediately felt weightless, as if a strong breeze rolled through, he would just drift away. Then as natural as it was to breathe, Ronin looked at his hand as it turned into a fluffy cloud, gently swaying about.
'As I thought, it's a cloud fruit, and a logia no less, nice! Now I'm almost certain that in some way, God is influencing the world around me to make it more interesting for him. My Raikage bloodline, my ambition to rebuild the Cloud Kingdom, and now I just so happened to have stumbled upon a Cloud logia fruit. I'd have to be blind not to see all of these connections.' Ronin thought to himself as he continued to play around with his new power.
It was strange, at the back of his mind, Ronin felt like he knew how to perfectly use the power of the Devil Fruit, but when he actively thought about it and tried to use it, his mind entered potato mode. All of it was just so odd. After nearly two hours of training, Ronin had some modicum of control over his fruit. At the very least, he wouldn't randomly turn into a cloud and fly away with no control... at least hopefully not.
"Ro, I think you should come up here and see this!" Bonney yelled from the main deck, as she was the only one loud enough to be heard through a whole ship.
Ronin decided that on the way to the Medical Island, they would stop at every island the log pose pointed them to, that way they can actually explore the Grandline rather then just traveling from point A to point B. Knowing that they more than likely arrived at an island, Ronin made his way to the main deck, only to be greeted by what could be called a small scale war.
Rushing to the front of the ship, Ronin joined Devon and the others as they watched the war wage on with interest. A pirate fleet was battling against a handful of Marine ships and surprisingly, a giant Sea King that looked like something straight out of Pokemon.
This was it! This was the random, exciting Grandline adventure he hoped for
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Lord_Bell
Lord_Bell What do you think of the Devil Fruits? How do you think this small war will turn out? Should Ronin get involved for a chance at some money?
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone