Crap!
Rorschach cursed inwardly.
Things had gone exactly the way he'd feared—they were exactly as bad as he'd expected.
That lunatic Purple Man had made his move on him too.
And just as expected, Rorschach had been caught.
What now?
For a split second, his whole body tensed, but then an idea flashed through his mind.
Purple Man controlled people by releasing toxins.
Sure, those toxins were so absurdly mystical they practically shattered common sense, but no matter how ridiculous they were...
They were still toxins.
And if they were toxins...
Then this was easy.
That was it!
Rorschach's eyes lit up.
With a thought, he instantly shifted into his elemental state.
His entire body transformed into a radiant golden figure.
And just like that, the restraint vanished.
Rorschach immediately felt his freedom return.
His guess had been right.
If Purple Man's power relied on toxins, then what happened when there was no biological body for those toxins to act on?
His control naturally became useless.
Once Rorschach turned elemental, his entire body became photons. There were no cells, no tissue, no human biological structures left for those toxins to influence.
Purple Man's control collapsed on the spot.
"What the hell?"
"What is this?"
Purple Man's eyes nearly bulged out of his skull.
One second there had been an ordinary man standing in front of him, and the next, that man had been wrapped in a glowing golden aura.
A tidal wave of shock crashed through his mind.
He simply couldn't believe what he was seeing.
Could this be... a mutant?
But there was no such person among the mutants on file!
Purple Man was completely thrown.
Still, this was not the time to think.
The moment he saw Rorschach become a being of light, he knew he'd stumbled into someone he absolutely could not afford to mess with.
Without a second word, Purple Man turned and ran.
Of the Thirty-Six Stratagems, retreat was the best option.
Unfortunately for him, this was no longer his decision to make.
Szzzt!
Rorschach fired a single photon into Purple Man's body.
The tiny particle slipped inside and vanished without a trace.
Because it was only a single photon, Purple Man noticed nothing unusual at all.
He fled in a miserable panic.
He flagged down a taxi, ordered the driver around with his power, made him drive as fast as possible and get as far away as possible.
Only after crossing several traffic lights and putting serious distance between them did Purple Man finally let out a long breath.
"Phew!"
Who the hell was that guy?
Even now, just thinking about it made Purple Man feel cold all over.
He couldn't be sure whether that glowing man had truly been immune to his control, but he hadn't dared test it.
That thing had been far too bizarre.
And it wasn't as though no one had ever slipped free of his control before.
Jessica Jones had already broken free.
She just didn't know it yet.
"Why was Jessica at that freak's place for so long? What were they talking about?"
The more Purple Man thought about it, the more uneasy he became.
He immediately decided to have someone investigate that glowing freak and dig up everything on him.
But first, he needed to get out of here and return to his base in Hell's Kitchen.
The city was dangerous.
He needed to hurry back to the countryside.
What Purple Man didn't know was that every single move he made was already under Rorschach's control.
That tiny photon inside him was being tracked perfectly. No matter where he hid, it wouldn't matter.
Purple Man had already attacked him.
There was no way Rorschach was letting him go.
He just hadn't wanted to kill someone inside the Devil Fruit shop.
But Purple Man had already been marked for death.
"Shopkeeper, what's a Devil Fruit? Why does it have such a strange name?"
Another customer had walked in.
Rorschach pushed those thoughts aside, put on a warm smile, and went back to work.
"Hello, miss. A Devil Fruit is a very magical kind of fruit. Every single one of them contains a mysterious power."
…
As though nothing had happened at all, Rorschach continued receiving customers as usual.
Whenever there was no one around, he played a few rounds of Honor of Kings or scrolled through short videos.
As relaxed and easygoing as ever.
Still, there seemed to be an unusually high number of customers today.
Normally, on a weekday, the shop only got twenty to thirty random visitors.
But today there were clearly far more than that.
Rorschach immediately understood what was going on.
Those extra people were most likely Purple Man's spies, sent to dig into his background.
He didn't care.
He wasn't afraid of Purple Man learning about him, because it wouldn't change anything.
Rorschach had already locked onto Purple Man's location.
Once night fell, it would be time to collect.
"Take care!"
After seeing off the last customer, Rorschach checked the time and decisively closed up shop.
"First, dinner."
"Then I'll go collect the debt."
He made that decision with a smile.
…
Hell's Kitchen.
Inside a luxurious private room in a high-end hotel.
"A fruit that gives people superpowers just by eating it? How can something like that possibly exist?"
Purple Man still looked shaken.
Even after sending people to verify the information over and over again, he still found it impossible to believe.
Superpowers.
Could really be obtained that easily?
What kind of miraculous things were these Devil Fruits?
He thought back to his own childhood—
the endless pain, the years of being used as a lab rat, the inhuman suffering, the countless times he had wanted to die...
He had paid a horrific price for the power he possessed now.
And yet all someone had to do was eat a single fruit to gain superpowers?
The comparison made something twisted burn inside him.
Unfair.
This was far too unfair.
Why had he needed to suffer so much to gain his ability?
Purple Man's shock toward the Devil Fruits quickly turned into warped fury.
If he could, he wanted to destroy that Devil Fruit shop.
He wanted to kill that young shop owner.
But Purple Man knew perfectly well that the shop owner was no ordinary man.
That man had turned into living light right in front of him that morning.
Even now, the memory left him shaken.