Nika Awakening is actually the only way to stop Blackbeard’s Darkness!

Before Chapter 1044, people had no idea that Luffy will have one of the most powerful devil fruits in the series.

The Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Nika is the only devil fruit power that the World Government wanted to erase from the entire history. It allows the user to transform into the legendary “Sun God” Nika.

So we learned that Luffy has this legendary devil fruit ability that once Joy Boy had. This devil fruit was so powerful that it’s nearly a Toon Force ability that gives Luffy enough freedom to do almost anything he wants.

Sun vs Darkness concept was already highlighted in Blackbeard’s previous battle, where Ace probably used his Logia Awakening via Entei and covered the half of the island with his fire, that his ability looked like an island sized Sun:

Basically, before Chapter 1044, people were still saying things like Luffy’s Haki is more important, not his devil fruit ability. But Oda proved these people wrong. Post-1044 One Piece gives the main character one of the most powerful devil fruit abilities, with the concept of being the Sun God.

Luffy has now the ability to do almost anything the he wants, with more freedom and more power once its power has awakened. And Blackbeard is the only character who can counter this freedom and power, with its darkness that can turn everything to nothing.

It makes so much sense that Blackbeard specifically searched for Darkness Logia, when there are also other powerful Logia abilities in One Piece. It was probably for countering an absurd and a very powerful Toon Force-like ability.

The Reason why Blackbeard captured Koby

In Chapter 1059 we see a newspaper reports about Koby being captured by the Blackbeard Pirates. The theory I see people talking about the most is Blackbeard turning in Koby’s bounty to Cross Guild and then you get the Alvida reunion. That would be super cool and I think that’s plausible but I think that could still happen on top of the theory I have.

So Kuzan is affiliated with Blackbeard and the prevailing theory is he’s undercover for SWORD. So that interaction is a very big possibility. However, what if another reason Koby was captured is to prove Kuzan’s loyalty? Blackbeard has shown that he knows far more than he lets on so what if he’s already suspicious of Kuzan and he wants Kuzan to kill Koby in front of him to prove he has fully removed himself from the navy.

Kuzan would refuse which leads to the reveal that he actually is part of SWORD so he tries to escape with Coby but is wounded. One of the reasons Kuzan is affiliating himself under Blackbeard could be to try and discover the method that Blackbeard used to acquire two devil fruits powers and how the Blackbeard Pirates steal other powers and before he passes he could impart the knowledge he’s gained to Koby and also give Koby his ice power somehow in the process.

It makes a lot of sense to me if the reason Koby becomes a big part of the story again is because he’s the one who’ll tell Luffy about Blackbeard’s secret. Blackbeard could monologue and tell Luffy during their battle but I think it would be so much more dynamic if Koby was the one to do it. Imagine the panel after a couple arcs where we see Koby again after awhile and he suddenly uses ice powers and he reveals why he has them.