ONE PIECE: Lone Sails

The night sky stretched wide, dotted with sparse stars and a thin crescent moon. A cold January breeze whispered through the wooden house, rustling the papers in Noah's study. He sat at his desk, a stack of tarot cards fanned out before him—not conjured by his Devil Fruit, but purchased from a merchant in Rogue Town. One deck of Major Arcana, another of Minor Arcana, their edges worn from use.

In the pirate world, tarot cards were most famously wielded by the magician Hawkins, whose Scarecrow Fruit bore little connection to his divining skill. Noah's Card Fruit, however, felt like the natural heir to such mysticism—a perfect vessel for unlocking the secrets of fate. Until now, he'd honed the fruit's spatial storage, a boon in his early days, letting him amass a versatile arsenal of auxiliary and combat cards. But with the high-risk phase behind him and his mastery of the three Haki types awakened, the time had come to explore a new branch of his fruit's potential.

Devil Fruits, at their core, were the crystallized desires of countless souls in this world. For Noah's Card Fruit—a hybrid of structure and fantasy—the "root" of its power lay in both tangible objects and the collective imagination of humanity. Without tarot cards existing in this world, developing this ability would have been a grueling, inefficient task. Thankfully, they did, and with them, Noah could tap into a wellspring of possibility.

The Graphite Fruit thrived on its natural properties—lubrication, conductivity, resilience. Animal-type fruits drew strength from their species' traits, with mythical beasts gaining an extra layer of power from human fantasy. Noah's Card Fruit required a similar duality: the physical cards and the mythic weight of divination.

He closed his eyes, channeling his focus. His Haki of Observation, with its innate ability to glimpse the future, surged into the tarot cards, merging with the essence of his Card Fruit. The air grew heavy as his physical and mental energy drained rapidly. Five minutes later, the transformation completed. Golden flame-cloud patterns bloomed across the cards' backs, reminiscent of an animal-type fruit's awakening.

"Let's see what you can do," Noah murmured.

He drew a blank card and inscribed a question with a steady hand: [The location of the Slippery Fruit]. Suppressing his Haki to test the cards alone, he tossed the Major Arcana deck into the air. The twenty-two cards scattered like petals, drifting slowly to the floor. The nearest to his query was The Fool.

"The Fool… ignorance?" Noah frowned, lost in thought.

He retrieved the blank card and revised the question: [Is the Slippery Fruit in the East China Sea?] Tossing the Major Arcana again, he watched as The World landed closest.

"The World… completion?" He reached for the Minor Arcana deck, casting it alongside the Major. After several tests, the cards pointed to a desert island near Shields Town. The golden patterns on the tarot deck dimmed, their stored power depleted.

Noah leaned back, piecing it together. Divination consumed the cards' reserves, not his stamina, but the mental energy invested was steep—equivalent to five hours of intense Haki use. He sensed limitations too: the greater the significance of the query or the power of its subject, the more taxing the divination. Beyond a certain threshold, the cards would fail. General guidance, like Hawkins' vague predictions, could be performed daily with ease. Specific targets—objects, people, locations—demanded far more, with no guarantee of success.

Divining the Nika Fruit's location, for instance, was impossible at his current level. Experience also warned him to space out infusions of mental energy into the cards—once a month, ideally—to avoid dangerous side effects. Peering into fate, it seemed, always carried a price.

Yet his Card Fruit, uniquely suited to divination, offered precision at a modest cost. Hawkins' method could only hint at broad trends, while Noah could pinpoint specifics monthly, provided the target wasn't vastly beyond his strength. With the Slippery Fruit's rough location now known—sixteen desert islands near Shields Town, per his East China Sea charts—a systematic search would yield results.

He reached for his forbidden tome, a ledger of secrets compiled from past-life memories. Flipping it open, he listed potential Devil Fruits in the East China Sea, excluding Smoker's Smoke Fruit, the unregenerated Barrier Fruit, and the newly located Slippery Fruit. The remaining possibilities were:

Burning Fruit

Sickle Fruit

Whispering Fruit

Sonic Fruit

Steel Fruit

Paste Fruit

Cross-referencing newspapers and bounty posters, none had surfaced among East China Sea pirates in recent years. The Steel Fruit, however, was claimed by a New World pirate, its current wielder still alive. Among active East China Sea crews, three ability users stood out:

Golden Hook Pirates: Captain Buck, wielder of the animal-type Porcupine Fruit. Jack Pirates: Captain Jack, Paramecia Bag Fruit user. Blood Knife Pirates: Vice Captain Gu Luo, animal-type Parrot Fruit user.

Noah had tracked these groups for two purposes. First, to train Joshua and the crew—combat was the crucible for unlocking their potential. Second, for experimentation. He aimed to study Devil Fruit reclamation, and these pirates would serve as his test subjects.