"Ace," Konan called out, carefully approaching the silent man.
"Ugh, disgusting," he suddenly spat out, throwing the rest of the fruit away.
Konan observed him for any changes, her skin taking on a faint purple glint. "Do you feel any different?"
Seeing her serious face, he examined himself carefully, "Hmm" he stretched before concluding, "Nope!"
She decided to take a different approach and swiftly threw a punch targeting his stomach, he intercepted it with ease. Except his arm was burning brightly.
He shook his hand with vigor trying to extinguish it, "What the hell is that?!"
"Does it hurt?" Konan waved away Deuce, she wasn't sure he could bear with the heat without Haki.
Ace stopped flailing and stared at his burning arm in wonder, "It doesn't hurt in the slightest!" As he stared at it, the flame subsided and flew to the tip of his fingers, "I can somewhat control it too."
Konan put her Haki-coated hand above the flame, "The heat is tolerable."
From afar, Deuce begged to differ, even from where he was, he started to sweat.
"Congratulations on becoming a demon fruit user I guess." Ace began to gloat when Konan continued, "you can say goodbye to swimming."
He stared at her in panic.
"It's not too late to learn water-walking," she proposed with a devilish grin. Her teaching methods were unsavory, to say the least. "And you'll have to learn how to use these powers too."
He already dreaded it, he thought he had finally escaped her cursed training; however, he had just doomed himself to more. At the same time, he knew that would tremendously boost his strength, so he was very excited.
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Deuce watched them fight from afar, in the safety of the ocean, far from the beach where the fight occurred.
A flurry of kunai flew toward Ace, leaving no room for escape. Ace faced the attack, flames emerging from his body in a wave. It crashed against the kunai, successfully melting them.
Konan emerged from the wave, suddenly appearing centimeters away from him with her fist raised. He barely had enough time to transform his body into flames to avoid it.
Her fist took a purple glint and this time, Ace didn't dare face it directly. He jumped far back, propelling himself with his flames. Konan didn't stop and followed him with a swift kick, which he defended against with Haki-coated arms.
"Good," Konan commented in-between kicks, he was getting better at Haki. "Let's step it up."
A dagger formed in both her hands and took Ace by surprise. Konan rarely used weapons when fighting them.
He narrowly avoided a swipe to the face by bending backward. The blades were black, he wasn't foolish enough not to see the Haki coating them.
He jumped back, cursing when he saw she didn't give him any space to prepare his attacks. Small cuts appeared on his skin, as he failed to avoid.
"Focus," Konan warned, her daggers elongating mid-fight to long swords.
Ace winced as he received a deeper wound on the thigh, the sand flying around swiftly made it worse. He immediately focused to predict her attacks and coat the areas with Haki. The attacks finally became more bearable.
"Don't forget your new powers," Konan advised, seeing him concentrate on defending too much. She paused for one second, allowing him time to gain distance.
He took a deep breath and gathered as much fire as he could to his fist, and before she could react, sent a fire fist her way. He frowned, trying to see through the mist of fire and sand forming. He took some hesitant steps forward.
"You let your guard down," Konan whispered from behind him, papers still gathering to form her legs. She put a hand on his shoulder, and black papers swiftly stuck to his whole body, preventing any further movements.
He burst into flames but there it was useless; her papers were coated in Haki. He didn't give up though and opened his mouth in one last attempt, however, his little move didn't trick her, and papers swiftly covered his mouth too.
When Deuce saw the one-sided fight ended, he came back ashore. "That's fascinating, these papers are like an extension of your own body," he commented, gazing at the papers fluttering around before flying back to her body and merging with her.
He had never witnessed Haki being complementary to a devil fruit before, however in her case, he deducted it was due to her extreme control over her powers, like coating her own body, she coated her papers. It was no ordinary feat, just as her constant use of Haki all over her skin to protect herself from the fire.
He could only wonder why he hadn't heard of her before, she was a force to be reckoned with.
She freed him, and with a wave of her hand, a target formed 20 meters away, with a white wall around. "Try aiming for the target without touching the wall."
After giving him his task, she headed toward Deuce, "Cook." She pointed towards the fruits and small animals they found in the forest. Not waiting for him to answer, she flew up till she was high enough to be able to gaze at the whole island. With a glance, she located a lake, a few mountains, and nothing else. The jungle ate the whole Island, making it difficult to see through the thick vegetation.
Paper butterflies detached themselves from her and flew in all directions, in search of the nearest Island.
Once she landed, she stared at the totally burnt wall and at a sheepish Ace.
"Your aim needs some work..." she commented before replacing the wall with another one. "We'll probably be here for a while, if you don't succeed by then-" she smiled at him and left her sentence hanging in the air, with an unsaid threat.
Meanwhile, she ventured to the edge of the forest as an axe appeared in her hand. They were three, she couldn't fly them over long distances, it would be too taxing. A paper boat would sink the moment she fell asleep and with a demon fruit user in the group, they were doomed. In addition, she didn't know how she could justify being able to use her powers in the water, she preferred keeping that secret as a last mean resort.
She deduced it was easier to craft a wooden boat.
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useless information of the day: I spent a bit over two hours making my own 'aesthetic desktop wallpaper organizer' and I'm happy with how it turned out (人 •͈ᴗ•͈)
(I didn't want to pay for one, and I thought I could do my own customized one) + I can change the background picture at will