Warning: There are spoilers for chapter #1118 of One Piece.
Summary
Luffy's Gear Five can have more than one effect on his surroundings, including the ability to awaken freedom. Gear Five's abilities can defy logic because Luffy awakens freedom in people and the environment around him. Luffy's ability to awaken freedom in others is tied to his quest for ultimate freedom as Pirate King.
A pieceEgghead's Arc surprised fans again with the shocking reveal that Bonney had copied Gear Five and, while controversial for the change, it suggested that there might be more to the awakening. Luffy's consciousness is beyond what you see. Since the truth about Luffy's devil fruit was revealed, it has become clear that there is nothing normal or predictable about its power and this may be true even when it awakens.
Bonney's transformation in One Piece chapter #1118 shows that Luffy's awakening can have more than one effect on the objects and people around him. In addition to turning people and objects into rubber, The real hidden power of the awakened Nika Fruit may be the ability to awaken freedom.
As seen in the latest chapter, Luffy inspires Bonney with a sense of freedom, eventually allowing her to transform into Nika and copy Gear Five with his Devil Fruit. This also explains many of Gear Five's puzzling abilities and reality-defying feats as a product of the simple Nika Fruit. brings freedom to Luffy's surroundingsallowing him to manipulate anything and everything as he sees fit.
Gear Five has more than one effect on Luffy's surroundings.
The awakening of the Nika Fruit has the properties of Paramecia awakening.
As far as Zoan's awakening goes, the Nika Fruit had one of the most unique devil fruit awakenings in One Piece. Like Kaido's note in chapter #1045, Luffy's ability to transmit rubber power to the surrounding environment mimics Paramecia's awakeningbut his white-haired appearance resembles that of a newly awakened Zoan, often giving new transformations with greater strength, speed, or durability.
According to Volume 3 of Road to Laugh Tale, there are quite a few Mythical Zoans that possess Paramecia-like abilities, such as Kaido's ability to create fire clouds, Sengoku's ability to turn his body into gold, and Marco's ability to turn his body into flames. However, only Nika fruit works like both Paramecia and Zoan when it comes to its awakening.
Gear Five also has the rare ability to extend Luffy's stretchy abilities to humans and other living things around him, as demonstrated by his ability to blow Kaido up like a balloon and his disturbing ability to stretch Kaido's eyes to reach out and grab him by the nose. Luffy did this even on Egghead when he comically flattened Kizaru and Saint Saturn like pancakes. These instances prove that the awakening of the Nika Fruit can affect humans, and thus it is possible that Gear Five can have a secondary, more abstract effect on humans, such as giving them freedom.
Gear Five's abilities may have a simple but genius explanation
Luffy not only makes things stretchy, he also makes them free.
The idea that the Nika Fruit can awaken freedom in people and the environment around Luffy could further explain why Gear Five's abilities are often illogical. At first, it was easy to explain many of Gear Five's feats as Luffy simply making things elastic. However, recent battles have shown that the power of the Nika Fruit goes beyond that, causing his surroundings to escape the rules of logic and reason, and allowing him to manipulate them to his will. .
As seen in chapter #1111, Gear Five also seems to be able to summon objects from nowhere and control the flow of time. Gear Five continues to defy all logic, and it would make perfect sense if there was an in-world explanation that suited Oda's desire to make things more silly and cartoonish. This theory also fits perfectly with the notion that the Nika Fruit's power is only limited by Luffy's imagination and creativity and why the Nika Fruit has been described time and time again as having The ability to turn imagination into reality.
Luffy awakened freedom in others from the beginning
Although Bonney's transformation into Gear Five was unexpected, this development makes sense in the context of Luffy's interactions and his journey in One Piece thus far. Luffy is said to have inspired people to freedom from the very beginning of his journey, long before he awakened the Nika Fruit.
Luffy also values freedom above all else, with his mysterious dream also based on becoming Pirate King just so he can be the freest person in the world. Therefore, the Nika Fruit's power to awaken physical freedom couldn't be a more suitable power for Luffy and could even explain why the Devil Fruit chose him in the first place.
Overall, there are still many things that fans don't know about the Nika Fruit, or even the awakening of the devil fruit. Many things about Gear number five still doesn't make sense, with A piece leaving a lot of gaps to be filled in as usual with its many mysteries. With Vegapunk effectively out of the picture, it's unclear whether there will be any further opportunities to delve into the secrets of devil fruits and their awakening, though fans can only hope that the Final Saga will resolve these mysteries one way or another.
A piece available from Manga Plus and Viz Media.