A Small Detail Missed in Chapter 1112
Just a thought I had after reading Chapter 1112. I can’t think if we’ve seen any other mythical hybrid transformations like traditional Zoans. But in the most recent chapter Luffy seems to show Nika like traits in his base form. This makes me think he could be finding the hybrid for his Zoan fruit.
When he eats the Hákarl from the Giants his muscles bulge like they did when in Gear 5 against Kaido, We’ve never seen base Luffy be able to do this without physically blowing air into his bones.
He does then go on to use Gear 3 without us visibly seeing him blow into his arm, so it’s possible that he’s now just growing his limbs which hasn’t been possible for him until now.
The Giants responding to Luffy after eating supports this as well. They say “your body is so expressive” which is similar to what they said in Chapter 1111 when his scars got blown off in Gear 5.
It seems like if this is a new hybrid form where he can use elements of Nika while in his base. By the rules of Awakening he can likely just affect his body (e.g. Gear 3 at will, muscle muscle, helicopter arms or some other funky stuff he does). But to use the real power of Nika he would need to transform (e.g. his reality bending like removing his scars, turning surroundings into rubber).
I’ve got no idea what implications this has for the future or power scaling but its just a theory that came to me after reading the new chapter.
