One Piece Mysteries: How Blackbeard can have two devil fruits

Okay, we can’t say this is the ultimate mystery in One Piece series, but this is the ultimate mystery surrounding the devil fruits. This topic will never die even after the truth about Blackbeard’s ability to use two devil fruits is revealed. From the moment Blackbeard was first introduced in the series in chapter 223, many fans already knew that he will take a big part in the whole story.

As the story progressed, it became more clear to us what Blackbeard’s role will be. The climax of Blackbeard’s character build-up was during the marineford arc when he surprisingly wielded Whitebeard’s devil fruit powers. This was a surprise for everyone because he is the only person known to ever wield two devil fruits. So, let me discuss briefly how this is possible.

How devil fruits work

Before we dive into the Blackbeard side of this mystery, let us first try to understand devil fruits. This is imperative in the discussion since the whole mystery about Blackbeard revolves around devil fruits. As we all know, devil fruits are mystical fruits granting superhuman powers to whoever consumes them.

The origin of devil fruits is based on legends that they are the fruits of the sea devil. Confined within each devil fruit is the spirit of a devil. Once a person consumes the fruit, the devil’s spirit will be transferred to the person giving him new powers and abilities. It is said that only one person can have the power of the same fruit at a time.

Also, a person can only have one devil fruit powers. The concept is that once a devil’s spirit is already within a person, it will not welcome another devil spirit. There would be an internal conflict so to speak and the person who consumed two devil fruits would inevitably die. We also learned on Punk Hazard and Dressrosa, that once a devil fruit user dies, the devil fruit is reincarnated within a nearby fruit.

Blackbeard’s ability to extract devil fruit powers

Now let’s talk about Blackbeard. Not on his ability to wield two devil fruits yet, but on his ability to extract them. We first saw this after Whitebeard’s death in the Marineford arc. His crew covered Whitebeard’s body with a black cloth where Blackbeard then entered. When the cloth was taken, Blackbeard already possessed the gura-gura no mi.

However, this ability does not seem to specifically work on Blackbeard alone. In chapter 925, we saw Shiryu of the Rain in possession of the late Absalom’s devil fruit power. It is possible that Teach learned a way to directly extract the devil fruit spirit before it is reincarnated into a nearby fruit.

I think it is something that anyone can learn to do, that’s why they covered Whitebeard’s body, to keep the secret to themselves. An evidence of this is Blackbeard’s crew’s ability to take other’s powers as well. However, the power user has to be dead before their powers can be taken.

Teach learned more about devil fruits

Okay, let us now dive into how Blackbeard can have two devil fruits. It is obvious that he learned something about devil fruits that no one else knows about. It is not surprising as he spent a great deal of time studying them from the devil fruit encyclopedia.

His ability to take devil fruit powers from a dead person may be surprising. But the same can be said about Dr. Vegapunk’s accomplishment of feeding devil fruits to inanimate objects. There is still so much to learn about devil fruits. Maybe Teach also learned about how to get two devil fruits to coexist in one body.

However, there are several instances where we cannot simply ignore the fact that Teach’s body is different.

Blackbeard’s body is the key

When Teach was first introduced in the Skypiea arc, we already learned that he is not ordinary. After his monologue about dreams, Luffy specifically said that Blackbeard is not just one guy. Zoro then reinforced this when he said that there is more than one.

We cannot play on the assumption that they were talking about Blackbeard’s crew as they were not with him at that time. We cannot also say for now that there are two beings living within the body of Teach. However, we can be sure that his body is not normal.

In chapter 557, Marco said that Teach’s body is different. He also told his crew that they should also be aware of it. He then thought that it may be the reason Teach pulled off having two devil fruits. Also in chapter 966, Shanks and Buggy talked about Teach when he did not sleep for three days during their battle with the Roger Pirates.

I also have a reason to believe that Marco’s message for Luffy is about Teach’s body and ability. Maybe he knew Luffy and Blackbeard will be facing each other in the future, that’s why he asked Nekomamushi to relay a message when he was in Sphinx.

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Image credits:Viz Media/ Funimation/ Onepiece.fandom

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