Nika

The few glimpses of Nika come mostly from silhouette, showing a thin warrior with stretchy, noodle-like arms and legs and hair that rises in flame-shaped points. Something covered his thighs, and his weapons differed between accounts: one hand gripped a spear while the other held a short blade, and a shield also appears in some descriptions. Dr. Vegapunk notes that Luffy's awakened Gear 5 state resembles how the ancient texts pictured Nika.

The giants of Elbaph imagine him a little differently. In their telling he is dressed in a kilt-style garment bound by a waist sash, draped with a scarf shaped like a cloud, and armed with a sword and shield rather than a spear.

The legend Who's-Who learned paints Nika as a kind and heroic figure, beloved by slaves and counted as their friend. Stories promised that he would arrive to break the chains of the oppressed, lifting smiles onto their faces and scattering joy everywhere he traveled.

Worshipped across the ages by slaves who longed for a liberator, Nika may or may not have truly walked the world, though Vegapunk confirms ancient records that name him. The Buccaneers passed his story down through generations, and the giants of Elbaph still honor the Sun God with festivals. Wary of what he symbolized, the World Government, and especially Nerona Imu and the Five Elders, treated him as a danger and scrubbed his name from history. Among the World Nobles some dismiss him as a children's bedtime tale, and a flawed translation of the Elbaph holy text, the Harley, even casts him to some youths as a God of Destruction.

Who's-Who, a disgraced former CP9 agent jailed for losing a Devil Fruit, first heard of Nika from a prison guard and began praying to him to ease his misery. When that guard abruptly vanished, he guessed the tale was forbidden and escaped to dodge harsher punishment, later raising Nika during his clash with Jinbe. The Sun God's power survives in the Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Nika, a Mythical Zoan fruit first held by Joy Boy, who led the Great Kingdom against the Twenty Kingdoms during the Void Century. The government renamed it the Gomu Gomu no Mi and reclassified it as Paramecia to bury the truth. Stolen from a government ship by the Red Hair Pirates, it was eventually swallowed by a seven-year-old Luffy, who mistook it for a snack and has carried Nika's abilities ever since, awakening them at last after his defeat by Kaidou.