[Third Person POV]
Several days had gone by since Hajime had recruited Akeno.
Those days, though safer for her, were far tougher.
She had been pushed to her limits multiple times, questioning whether it was the right choice, but after the training, she was glad she made it.
No longer running for her life, not having to purify houses to buy food scraps.
There was still the problem of her mother being dead, but if her new friends weren't lying, then that was only temporary.
She wished they could do it now, but her miko mother had taught her about the gods. Messing with the gods was asking for death, and messing with death gods was even worse since they controlled your afterlife.
Of the two of them, she easily preferred Tsubaki.
She could talk with Tsubaki about their incredibly similar pasts.
On the other hand, she didn't know what to feel about her new leader, Hajime.
On one hand, he saved her and promised to revive her mother. On the other hand, his training was brutal. His training was so difficult that she hadn't even finished one exercise session yet.
Maybe she could-
*Bam*
Akeno fell onto her butt, groaning in pain.
"Ow!"
"Pay attention. Being distracted is an easy way to get killed. What were you even thinking about?"
"That you're a monster making us girls have to fight you."
Before he could respond to that comment, Hajime had to dodge another combined attack from Tsubaki and Kimiko.
The four were training, with Blue sitting off to the side.
They'd start with their physical exercises, and after taking a break, would switch to combat training. They always fought Hajime three-to-one and hadn't been able to win at all. Whenever it seemed like Hajime was about to lose, he pulled out some random ability to defeat them all.
Yesterday, Hajime shot some weird laser out of his eyes. The day before yesterday, he somehow shapeshifted into her while creating a large dust cloud, making Tsubaki and Kimiko attack her instead.
Today was no different. When Akeno shot her strongest possible lightning attack at Hajime, he ate it! Like, how?!
She didn't even know that was possible!
The fight ended shortly after that, with all three girls lying on the floor.
"I think we're done for the day; you guys can have the rest of the day off. I have something I want to test out," Hajime said before leaving the training field.
The field was silent before Tsubaki spoke up.
"Want to get some omurice without him?"
"Yes!"
-----
While the two girls were getting food, their team leader was leaving the city.
He was looking for a criminal so he could test one of his new powers.
{ Mother Carmel }
{ Assimilation Progress : 2% }
Two days ago, he got a new assimilation slot from his gacha and, taking the opportunity, immediately slotted her in.
While Hajime might have had more powerful cards, he assimilated her because of the soul fruit.
Hajime had been thinking about this for a while but preferred getting actual strength before getting an extremely dangerous power.
The soul fruit had several abilities, each of which could be considered godlike in its own way.
The first was the ability to absorb the life force of someone else. While it doesn't sound strong on its own, when paired with nearly immortal races like devils and the devils' proclivity for sin, it creates dozens of targets with a large amount of available lifeforce.
There are thousands of reincarnated devils, many of whom became strays due to greed, each of which likely has several thousand years of lifeforce to take.
He thought it might even be possible to work with a devil, reincarnate other criminals, then absorb their extended lifeforce.
Add on the fact that the soul fruit's abilities should also allow him to gift life force, and he could have a functionally immortal army.
While Big Mom did have the restriction of needing people to fear her for it to work, that would be easy to rectify with his abilities.
The second ability, giving life to objects, was just as powerful.
For example, when Charlotte Linlin made her hat a homie, the created homie, Napoleon, was extremely powerful. Able to telepathically relay information from other homies to Big Mom and turn into a powerful weapon, it was one of the more powerful 'weapons' in One Piece.
Now imagine if he used it on the stuff from the gacha.
The Thanagarian Mace, Excalibur Blessing, The Milano, The Colossus, Yatsufusa, and Jack Sparrow's Compass.
If turned into a homie, any of those items could easily reach the level of a Longinus, if not beyond it. And what if it turned into an artificial sacred gear? Maybe he could make a new level of sacred gear.
And what about his own?
How would his own sacred gear change if he upgraded it with part of his soul?
He'd test that once he had more experience, but it was a godly ability.
The last ability was just as good as the first two: soul manipulation. Hajime would be able to steal sacred gears with enough practice. Maybe even connect to God's system and reprogram it for his benefit.
Soul abilities are also very rare, so few people would be able to defend against it, like the Hero Faction. Knowing them, they'd try recruiting Hajime once he was more famous.
Their only requirement to join is that they are human, so Hajime was someone they'd want to recruit. They'd bring him free sacred gears by then, including three of the top Longinus.
Speaking of which, the True Longinus has a remnant of God's will, another thing Hajime would have to test. Could he communicate with it? A will is similar to one's being, like a soul.
Would it be possible to bring God back or even absorb him? Plus, like with his sacred gear, he could turn other sacred gears into homies, creating an army of living weapons for his faction.
He could also probably bind non-sacred gears, like Tsubaki's naginata or Kimiko's staff, like a pseudo Zanpakuto.
That's why, right now, he was headed to one of the many rogue magicians nearby. He needed to get in some practice.
While devil fruits are powerful, they aren't easy to train.
It could take years for the average person even to be able to use a devil fruit, and decades to master.
Despite her age and experience, Big Mom didn't awaken her fruit. Even her son Katakuri awakened his devil fruit before her.
While Big Mom likely failed to develop enough understanding of the soul fruit, that also shows the complexity and potential of such a fruit. How strong would the soul fruit be if Katakuri's fruit was so powerful after awakening?
That led back to why Hajime was currently at the rogue magician's base.
His template isn't Big Mom but Mother Carmel. Though the two shared the same devil fruit, their use of it was very different from each other. Carmel was never a fighter and often worked with the world government, causing her to neglect training her fruit's abilities.
Her only creative ability was to create homies, just like Big Mom, though even that was less developed. Big Mom made thousands of homies, gaining experience from making each one, while Carmel only made a few to help with her work.
If Hajime was actually to use these powers to their fullest, he needed to get experience so he wouldn't accidentally kill himself or his friends.
-----
[Hajime POV
Breaking into the house, I quickly subdued the magician using lightning magic to paralyze him.
Once the magician was lying unconscious, I began my testing.
I started with a simple test of trying to touch the magician's soul.
I was trying to be as careful as possible, going incredibly slowly, to avoid making mistakes.
While I knew I could always look for another target, too many would be noticeable. Besides, once I was experienced enough, I could start speeding things up.
I didn't need others to know that I could and would manipulate souls.
While pissing off the death gods was something to avoid, I wasn't that concerned with it. Most magicians who practice some form of necromancy have bounties because they did something to the soul after it had left the body.
That was when the death gods 'claimed' souls as theirs, even if they weren't in their realms. So when a mortal takes their property, it's no wonder they'd be upset.
My abilities, however, allow me to manipulate the soul while it's in the body, and even if I take it out, it would technically be mine since my magic was the one to 'claim' it first.
This was why the devils had so many ongoing disputes with other factions.
Killing people from other factions was commonplace. Devils died to other factions just as much as they killed, with the same being true between all factions. The leaders would generally pay compensation if the individuals killed were of higher status, like pureblood devils or Greek demigods.
The only parties truly angry with devils were the death gods who had souls stolen from them.
Since my magic would 'claim' the soul before it even left the body, I wasn't concerned about them.
What concerned me more was Sephiroth Graal.
The soul fruit shared properties with the Longinus, and should anyone see me use these abilities, they'd likely assume I had it.
That would mean that not only would other factions do whatever they could to recruit or kill me, but also the most dangerous faction, the Khaos Brigade, would be the most curious.
They already knew who had Sephiroth Graal, so seeing someone develop a similar power would likely have them investigate me.
I needed to be careful.
-----
As I used the fruit's powers, I felt something change.
My powers were reaching into him, and when they felt like they were grabbing something, I slowly started pulling until a small glow appeared from his chest.
Once the glow peaked, it dimmed as it disconnected from his chest, turning into a glowing orb floating above the man.
Before I could do anything, though, the orb escaped my grasp and vanished.
My senses heard the man's heart stop the very second I lost control over his soul.
I didn't gain much information from this test, but it was still useful.
The main thing is that I can't let go of the soul; otherwise, I will lose my ability to control it.
I wonder where it went, though.
Maybe I can try working on a soul mark to find out next time.
If it takes them to some underworld, then I might be able to use it to teleport there, like the devils and their summoning fliers.
I knew from this that the tests would be increasingly annoying. First, I needed to control souls reliably before trying anything further, like creating homies.
Another thing that I needed was a character to assimilate from Bleach.
That world's power system focused completely on souls, so it would make it easier and safer for me to use these powers.
Homies required soul energy in their creation; my soul would make them stronger.
My sacred gear was the only object I knew I could safely make into a homie.
It was already attached to my soul, so giving it life with my soul only makes sense. It might even give me a power-up since it would be stronger and likely make my soul stronger by extension.
With testing being this difficult, it would take a while before I start trying to take sacred gears. I don't want to risk destroying them since they're already difficult to find.
I already knew where two highly valuable sacred gears were, and I wasn't going to risk losing them because I was greedy. I know canon will start in a few years, so I don't need to rush things related to it.
I redeemed the bounty for the magician before destroying the body and leaving to find another test subject, wanting to get some more experience before returning to the girls.
__________
Author's Note:
Thanks for reading; I'll see you next time!