"Why..." Tears of mixed feelings fell from Linda's eyes.

"Why?" She ground her teeth as her eyes turned bloodshot.

"WHY!?" She roared. "What have I done to deserve this!?" Her nails dug into her own skin, tearing large gashes as she fell to her knees, hugging herself.

She didn't know how long she simply sat there. It seemed like a day, perhaps more. By now, her wounds had already mended themselves and her tears had run out.

Finally, she looked up and took a deep breath. An old saying came to her mind, one her mother always used to say.

"The world is like a fortune cookie. Sometimes it tells of love and joy, but sometimes it states things you refuse to listen to."

She stood up. No point in crying anymore, no point in showing more weakness.

"You want me to punish this world?" Linda asked, facing the sky.

"Then I'll punish it. I'll show these bastards what it means to see everything taken from them." She whispered and grabbed the devil fruit lying in front of her.

Then, without wasting a moment, she shoved the thing down her throat.

"Ugh..." She almost vomited. It tasted so awful that she doubted anyone could eat such a thing, but then again, she was doing just so.

"Hehehe..." She giggled, almost crazily before breaking out into full-blown laughter. It wasn't a happy laugh, however.

She felt new powers pouring inside of her. Normally, since she already had a devil fruit, this would kill her. However, due to the special nature of the strange fruit that she vaguely remembered eating, there were no problems.

'Not enough...' She told herself. She could feel potential, a gift from Ren that was lying right in front of her. All she had to do was reach out and grasp it.

The ship had long since taken to the seas. Linda looked around herself, only to see the endless expanse of the ocean.

All she had was the ship. It was a miracle it hadn't disappeared, considering everything else had. She didn't know why it didn't, nor did she care. 

She simply sat down in the middle with her legs crossed and her back straight before closing her eyes and delving deep inside of herself with her mind.

For hours, she sat there. Contemplating, reminiscing. She didn't know much about the system, about who Ren truly was, what this world stood for, or even just who she herself was or came to be.

So many questions, so few answers. Nothing so far made sense, and it stressed her. Stressed her a lot, in fact.

However, she knew this wasn't the right thing to do. She opened her eyes and looked at her own hands. They weren't pretty by any means, rather, they were rough and filled with tiny scars, as was the majority of her body.

"I need a goal." She thought. This was the only way to advance. If she kept moving forward with nothing motivating her, and the memories of her past, recent or far away, she would simply become a shell.

She remembered back to some old youtube videos she saw about One Piece, about the author's obsession with carrying wills of other people, like the Will of the D. 

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Well... In that case, I'll carry out Ren's will." She laughed. It wasn't as simple as that, and she knew it.

Still... It wasn't a bad idea. She felt much calmer now, almost too calm. But she didn't mind it.

"Yes... I will carry out his will. I will bring this world to a new era, a better one. But how?" She didn't know. As far as she was concerned, all she knew about the world came from an anime, which she barely watched and only knew some little things about.

The World Government, the Marines, pirates, the pirate king, the Yonkos... That was all she knew. She had seen snippets of episodes here and there, but that was it.

So far, she had come to only one possible conclusion, one that didn't sit very well with her.

"The roots of corruption grasp far too much of this world... Perhaps, all they need is a common goal? A common enemy?" She wondered. Deep down, she had already figured out the answer.

"I just need to become powerful enough to threaten the entire world into uniting, perhaps then, they will see that their ways are wrong?" 

In theory, that seemed like a good idea. Back in her old world, even archenemies would unite when faced with a terrifying and common threat, and by uniting, they would share ideas, fuse them, and resolve their conflicts in ways that would never be achieved normally.

Was this what Ren wished for? She wasn't sure. He was gone, that much was for sure. Linda had to focus to not fall into desperation again just by thinking about him.

She needed more. More power to achieve this. She had received a lot of information regarding her new abilities when she had reawakened, and she knew what had happened. She grasped a random piece of wood and squeezed, the wood felt like play-do in her hands, not even offering a slight bit of resistance.

She was strong, yes, but she had seen how overpowered some characters were. She needed more, and luckily, she now had a viable alternative to continuous, boring, and strenuous grinding. She could simply absorb strong people to become stronger herself, or simply farm the 'easy seas' until she felt confident.

She looked at her hand, playing with her new abilities. She was able to fire laser beams like the sea serpent had done, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. She needed to train that ability for sure.

Furthermore, her body had become... Weird. She could bend it and shape it however she wanted, but she felt that her base form had remained unchanged. She could turn her body into a perfectly round ball, as large or small as she wanted. However, every time she did so, she felt... wrong. Like something was missing. 

Of course, she knew what it was. This was a devourer fruit, one that would allow her to prey on her enemies and absorb them. Hence, she guessed that she needed to bring them inside her body to do so. It sounded sexual, but she didn't feel like making jokes right now.

She tried to form barriers like Ren always did but failed. She frowned and tried different things, but no matter how hard she tried, it simply wouldn't work.

Finally, she understood why she was failing. She had absorbed the fruit, yes, but she hadn't gained it the exact way Ren did. Instead, her devourer fruit had basically eaten the fruit, powering it.

She tried to stab herself, however, she found that she couldn't actually hurt herself. She tried again, much harder, and this time she succeeded, opening up a small cut despite her shoving the full strength and sharpness of her nails into her arm. 

She smiled sadly. Her body's natural defense had obviously grown a lot now, and she doubted even bullets would be able to scratch her. However, was this upgrade worth the life of her best friend/lover?

Finally, the last power she felt was... weird. It didn't exactly feel like a power, but it also did. She took in a deep breath and yelled as hard as she could.

What came out was an earth-shaking roar, extremely similar to that of the sea king. However, it was now several times louder, in fact, it was so loud it created small shockwaves.

When she stopped, Linda smiled evilly. It sounded extremely cool!

Finally, the last power she felt was one that, if it truly was as she believed, might allow her a sure way of escape from an otherwise deadly situation at least once. 

With caution, Linda first tied herself with the mast's rope and then cautiously lowered herself down into the water. Once in, although she felt a lot weaker and found that she couldn't use her laser beams, she could still swim. In fact, she could even breathe underwater.

This exhilarated her. Alone, this was an amazing power, allowing her so, so much more room to work with. Of course, her power went down to 1/4 of what it was when she stood on land or boat, but it was still much better than becoming completely useless.

With her bearings now set straight, Linda thought about what to do next. 

For now, she decided that some practice was in order. She really wanted to test out a couple ideas that had simply been lying in her head.