"…Nami, don't struggle. Let Carina eat you."
Looking at Nami kicking and squirming inside Carina's giant mouth, El spoke in a calm voice.
"Don't worry, you'll be fine. Carina can eat you and spit you back out."
"…"
Hearing El say that, Nami's movements slowly stopped.
At the same time, Carina—who'd been about to spit Nami out—paused as well. Then, instead of stopping, she tilted her head back and swallowed, using a bit more strength.
In one gulp, she swallowed Nami whole.
Carina's mouth, which had stretched wide like a hippo's, snapped back to its usual delicate size, as if it had been made of rubber that could freely stretch and shrink.
"…What a disgusting ability."
Carina wiped the nonexistent saliva from the corner of her lips, a black line practically drawn across her forehead.
"I don't know why it feels so mild, but this sensation of swallowing a living person… physically and mentally, it's hard to accept right now."
"Thank you for putting up with it, Carina…"
El walked over, gave her shoulder a reassuring pat, and asked:
"After eating Nami, do you feel anything different?"
"Hold on… let me check…"
Carina closed her eyes and focused on the changes in her body.
A moment later, something happened that made Kuina reflexively step back.
On Carina's left chest, a small face suddenly pushed out from under her clothes, bulging the fabric out.
That little face… was Nami's.
"Eh? I'm out?"
The moment her face surfaced, Nami blinked at El and Kuina, who both looked a bit "taller" than usual from her angle.
"What a weird perspective… Did I merge with Carina?"
"Just hearing you talk like that is gross, you know."
Carina glanced down at Nami's face poking out of her chest and sighed with obvious distaste.
But that disgust didn't last long.
El looked at the "one-piece Madara" version of Carina (complete with Nami's face) and continued.
"Carina, try using Nami's Devil Fruit. See if you can call out her power."
"Okay, I'll try…"
Once she calmed down, Carina finally understood why El had told her to eat Nami.
Boom!
Under the gaze of El, Kuina, and even Nami herself, Carina stretched out her palm.
A second later, orange flames burst into existence, wrapping her hand and condensing into a head-sized fireball hovering above her palm.
"I did it… This is Nami's power!"
Carina's eyes sparkled as she held the fireball up proudly.
"Good. Put out the fireball. Let's try another test."
El nodded, satisfied, then drew his sword. He gently took Carina's flaming hand and ran the blade lightly across her index finger.
A thin cut opened up.
But what poured out of the wound… wasn't blood.
It was fire—pure orange flames leaking from the cut.
"It's… elementalization…"
Carina, who had been bracing herself for pain, froze in shock instead.
This time, Nami was the one with the black line on her forehead.
"What a ridiculous ability! You can even use my elementalization?!"
"Nami, can you break out of Carina's body by yourself?" El asked, sheathing his sword.
"Nope!"
Nami tried to move, but only her facial expression changed.
"After Carina ate me, I dropped into some weird place where I can't see anything. The only thing I can see now is what's in front of this little face. I don't even have a physical body in there."
"That space is probably Carina's Baku Baku Space."
El nodded.
"Some Devil Fruit users have a separate dimension inside their bodies. Carina's one of them."
Just like he said, certain Devil Fruits really did give their users an internal "pocket dimension."
The ones El remembered best were the Paramecia-type Shiro Shiro no Mi (the Castle-Castle Fruit, turning the user into a living fortress) and the Logia-type Yami Yami no Mi.
Especially the darkness of the Yami Yami no Mi—it was very similar to the Baku Baku Space, in that it had its own internal laws. Where Baku Baku Space focused on storage, digestion, and synthesis, the dark space specialized in gravity, compression, and crushing—a miniature black hole living inside the user's body.
Everything swallowed by the darkness of the Yami Yami no Mi would be mercilessly crushed and compacted, then released later as a devastating attack.
"Carina, try eating yourself this time. See if you can merge directly with Nami inside the Baku Baku Space," El said, moving on to the next part of his experiment.
"Okay, I'll give it a shot…"
Carina nodded and closed her eyes, searching inward for that strange space she now felt inside her body.
An instant later, Kuina's eyes went wide again.
Right in front of her, Carina opened that terrifying hippo-sized mouth once more—and this time, she chomped down on herself.
From the top of her head down, she swallowed her own body.
In just a few seconds, Carina had eaten herself completely, just as she had done with Nami earlier.
What remained on the floor was a strange, glossy meat ball.
Pop!
A split-second later, it burst with a sound like a balloon popping.
A puff of white smoke billowed out of it, curling through the cabin.
When the smoke cleared, a brand new body stood before El and Kuina.
It was a young girl with two heads and four arms.
The two heads had orange and purple hair, and their faces were unmistakably Nami and Carina.
"What a bizarre feeling…"
Carina's head turned, looking down at the extra pair of hands.
"These two are clearly Nami's arms… but I can still control them."
"Same here," Nami said, blinking with surprise.
"Besides my own Mera Mera no Mi, I can feel Carina's Devil Fruit power too."
"Same for me…"
Carina grinned, eyes sparkling.
"In addition to my Baku Baku no Mi, I can use Nami's Mera Mera no Mi as well."
"That's the terrifying part of synthesis."
El didn't look surprised at all.
"You didn't just fuse your bodies. You fused your abilities too."
If you Enjoyed Reading
Visit my p@treon for more chapters
Advance 80+ Chapters Available
patreon.com/Sagamaster789
If you really Enjoyed Reading. Give Power Stones and Reviews!