Warning: Contains spoilers for chapter #1118 of One Piece.

SUMMARY

Luffy’s Gear Five may have more than one effect on his surroundings, including the ability to awaken freedom.
Gear Five’s abilities may defy logic due to Luffy awakening freedom in people and his surroundings.
Luffy’s ability to awaken freedom in others ties into his journey to seek the ultimate freedom as the Pirate King.

One Piece‘s Egghead Arc has managed to surprise fans yet again with the shocking revelation that Bonney has managed to copy Gear Five and, controversial as this twist may be, it hints that there may be much more to Luffy’s awakening than meets the eye. Ever since the truth about Luffy’s devil fruit was revealed it has been clear that there is nothing normal or predictable about its powers and the same may be true even for its awakening.

Bonney’s transformation in chapter #1118 of One Piece suggests that Luffy’s awakening may have more than one effect on the objects and people around him. Other than turning people and things into rubber, the true hidden power of the awakened Nika Fruit may be the ability to awaken freedom itself.

As seen in the latest chapter, Luffy inspires a sense of freedom in Bonney, which finally allows her to transform into Nika and replicate Gear Five using her devil fruit. This would also explain many of Gear Five’s perplexing abilities and reality-defying feats as a product of the Nika Fruit simply imbuing Luffy’s surroundings with freedom, allowing him to manipulate anything and everything as he sees fit.

Gear Five Has More Than One Effect on Luffy’s Surroundings

The Nika Fruit’s Awakening Has Properties of a Paramecia Awakening

As far as Zoan awakenings go, the Nika Fruit already has one of the most unique devil fruit awakenings in One Piece. Much like Kaido notes in chapter #1045, Luffy’s ability to transfer his rubber powers to his surroundings mimics a Paramecia awakening, but his white-haired appearance is more like that of a Zoan awakening, which usually grants a new transformation with greater strength, speed, or durability.

According to Volume 3 of the Road to Laugh Tale, there are quite a few Mythical Zoans that possess Paramecia-like abilities, like Kaido’s ability to create flame clouds, Sengoku’s ability to turn his body into gold, and Marco’s ability to turn his body into flames. However, only the Nika Fruit behaves like both a Paramecia and a Zoan when it comes to its awakening.

Gear Five also has the rare ability to extend Luffy’s stretchiness to the people and other living things around him, as seen by his ability to blow Kaido up like a balloon, and his disturbing ability to stretch Kaido’s eyes to reach out and grab his nose. Luffy has done so even on Egghead when he comically flattened Kizaru and Saint Saturn like pancakes. These instances prove that the Nika Fruit’s awakening can affect people, and as such it is very much possible that Gear Five could have a second, more abstract effect on people, like imbuing them with freedom.

Gear Five’s Abilities May Have a Simpler Yet Genius Explanation

Luffy Doesn’t Just Make Things Stretchy, He Makes Them Free

The idea that the Nika Fruit can awaken freedom in people and Luffy’s surroundings might better explain why Gear Five’s abilities often follow no logic. At first, it was easy to explain many of Gear Five’s feats as Luffy simply making things stretchy. However, recent fights suggest the Nika Fruit’s powers go much beyond that, making his surroundings free from rules of logic and reason and allowing him to bend them to his will.

As seen in chapter #1111, Gear Five can also seemingly conjure objects out of nowhere and manipulate the flow of time. Gear Five continues to defy all logic, and it would make perfect sense if there was an in-world explanation to go with Oda’s desire to make things more goofy and cartoonish. This theory also perfectly ties in with the notion that the Nika Fruit’s powers are limited only by Luffy’s imagination and creativity and why the Nika Fruit has been described time and time again as the ability to turn imagination into reality.

Luffy Has Been Awakening Freedom in Others Since The Very Start

As unexpected as Bonney’s transformation into Gear Five was, the development makes sense in the context of Luffy’s interactions and his journey in One Piece thus far. Luffy has arguably been inspiring people to be free since the very beginning of his journey, long before he ever awakened the Nika Fruit.

Luffy also values freedom above all else, with his mysterious dream also being reliant on becoming the Pirate King just so that he can be the freest person in the world. As such, the Nika Fruit’s power to physically awaken freedom could not be a more fitting power for Luffy and might even explain why the devil fruit chose him in the first place.

Overall, there is still much that fans do not know about the Nika Fruit, or even devil fruit awakenings for that matter. Many things about Gear Five still do not make sense, with One Piece leaving many blanks to be filled as it often does with so many of its mysteries. With Vegapunk effectively taken out of the picture, it is unclear whether there will be any more opportunities to delve into the secrets of devil fruits and their awakenings, though fans can only hope the Final Saga will address these mysteries in some way or another.