كاجي كاجي نو مي

The Kage Kage no Mi grants control over shadows, both the user's own and those of other living beings, letting them be manifested as physical, touchable forms. The wielder, dubbed a Ruler of Shadows, can sever a person's shadow and slot it into another body, living or dead, with the latter producing a zombie. The fruit went to the former Warlord Gecko Moria, and its effects were first noticed on the shadowless Brook when he crossed paths with the Straw Hats. The name comes from kage, the Japanese word for shadow, and overseas releases title it the Shadow-Shadow Fruit. The fruit itself is a black sphere with a green stem and cloak-like leaves at its side.

Moria can grip a victim's shadow and snip it loose with scissors, breaking the natural law that a shadow must mirror its owner. A removed shadow can be bound by a verbal contract and planted into a corpse to create an obedient zombie that inherits the original's fighting skills and quirks, though the body is only as strong as the corpse itself and gains none of the owner's Devil Fruit powers. The person robbed of their shadow falls into a two-day coma and, while shadowless, vaporizes in sunlight, casts no reflection, and cannot be photographed. The user alone decides when a shadow returns, so simply defeating them does not free it; purifying a zombie with salt or destroying its body does. Moria can also project his own shadow as a semi-liquid fighter that shrugs off damage and swaps places with him to dodge or travel.

The power's apex is self-empowerment: by reclaiming the shadows animating his zombies and stuffing them into his own body, the user swells in size and strength. The same boost works on others, as the Rolling Pirates proved by loading Luffy with shadows. Weaknesses run deep. Stripping the user of access to shadows leaves them helpless, as happened when Doflamingo separated Moria from his shadow. Salt forces shadows back to their owners, killed victims lose their shadows entirely, strong-willed zombies can resist orders, and freed shadows can be turned against the user. Absorbing too many strains the body, and hard enough blows make the shadows spill out of the user's mouth.

Gecko Moria is the fruit's wielder and built an entire zombie army on Thriller Bark, harvesting shadows from castaways and pairing them with Hogback's surgical creations and a freezer of corpses. His shadow clone Doppelman shields and attacks for him, while Kagemusha lets him switch places with it, Brick Bat scatters it into a swarm of bats, and Kage Giri is his shadow-cutting move. Kage Kakumei plants his shadow inside another's to reshape their body, which let the giant zombie Oars stretch like rubber. His ultimate, Shadow's Asgard, absorbs vast numbers of shadows, once a thousand, ballooning him to rival Oars before speed loss and leaking shadows undid him. The Rolling Pirates turned the fruit's logic against him by infusing Luffy with one hundred shadows to form the towering, blue-skinned Nightmare Luffy, who briefly gained sword skills and enough power to topple Oars before the shadows departed after ten minutes. Among classified Devil Fruits, the Kage Kage no Mi is unique in labeling its user a Ruler rather than a type of human.