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"Mr. Stark!"
"Are you admitting...!"
"Was that Obadiah Stane...?!"
"Are you enhanced...?!"
Questions exploded from every direction at once. Reporters surged forward like a wave, microphones thrust out, cameras flashing so fast the hall looked like it was trapped in a lightning storm. The press conference stopped being a press conference.
It became an earthquake.
Backstage, Rosh listened to the roar with a calm, satisfied smile, as if he were watching a plan click into place exactly as intended.
The first domino had fallen perfectly.
Now all that was left…
was the second one.
"Mr. Stark, what exactly is that iron armor? Is it a new product from Stark Industries?"
"Mr. Stark, are you confirming you were involved in a direct battle with Mr. Stane?"
"Mr. Stark...!"
The crowd pressed harder, voices stacking over voices, every reporter desperate to be the one who landed the next headline. The air itself felt electric, crowded with the kind of tension that only comes when reality takes a hard left turn.
Because the truth had just become undeniable: Tony Stark was Iron Man.
Before he'd opened his mouth, most of them had been sure he'd hide behind the company's prepared excuse; some laughable story about a "mysterious bodyguard," a security contractor, a convenient nobody who could take the blame while Stark smiled for the cameras.
They'd been ready for it, too.
If Tony tried to feed them that garbage, they would've ripped it apart on live television and dug until they hit bone.
But Tony Stark… was still Tony Stark.
The most stubborn rich heir alive. A man who treated scripts like insults.
He didn't dodge.
He didn't stall.
He threw the bomb straight onto the table and watched everyone panic.
Now the reporters were scrambling through the aftermath, trying to wrap their minds around what it meant, because if Tony Stark was Iron Man, then what they'd witnessed wasn't just a scandal.
It was a full-scale war between two titans of Stark Industries, mech suits tearing across the city like a sci-fi nightmare made real.
There were too many angles. Too many questions. Too much blood in the water.
"Alright, alright." Tony lifted both hands slightly, not surrendering, just managing the room like it belonged to him. His eyes swept across the chaos, expression almost amused. "You already got what you came for."
"I admitted it," he said smoothly. "I'm Iron Man."
A chorus of voices tried to break through again. Tony clicked his tongue, clearly disappointed in their lack of patience.
"And you're still not satisfied?" he continued. "You want more?"
His mouth curved, sharp and cocky.
"Now, now… don't be greedy."
The hall quieted, not because they were satisfied, but because Tony's tone carried that dangerous promise: I'm about to do something.
He leaned forward slightly over the podium, grin deepening like he was about to unveil a new toy.
"But fine," Tony said, voice bright with that reckless confidence. "Today's a good day."
"You want more?" He paused just long enough for every camera to lock on. "I'll give you more."
The moment the words left his mouth, something shifted.
Not in the room...
In him.
*KAK-KAK-KAK!*
A crisp, rhythmic mechanical sound snapped through the hall like the clacking of precision gears. Then, impossibly, metallic components began to appear around Tony, tiny parts forming out of nothing, like reality itself was feeding him pieces of a machine.
In a heartbeat, the metal storm wrapped around Tony's body.
It didn't look like something he put on.
It looked like something that grew.
Armor sealed across his chest in sleek crimson plates. Gauntlets tightened around his forearms. The helmet formed last, with a smooth, predatory, and unmistakably iconic closing, followed by a final, definitive
*Click!*
A complete Iron Man suit stood at the podium.
The venue didn't just get quiet; it went dead silent.
Every reporter froze. Pens stopped moving. Mouths hung open. Even the camera shutters slowed like the people behind them forgot how their own hands worked.
All eyes locked onto the red metal figure under the lights, gleaming like a weapon made to be worshipped.
No one had ever seen anything like this.
It wasn't just advanced tech.
It was… wrong, in the way impossible things were wrong.
You could almost see the thought spreading across the room, identical in a hundred stunned expressions: 'Was this… even possible? Could this technology exist in this era?'
"As you can see," Tony Stark said, the faceplate sliding open with a soft *hiss!*, "this is Iron Man."
His voice came out crisp and casual, like he'd just revealed a new sports car instead of a reality-breaking suit of armor. The stage lights gleamed off the crimson plating, and in that split second, with Tony's face visible inside the helmet, everyone in the hall got the same chilling realization:
This wasn't a stunt. This was real.
"Mr. Stark!" a reporter suddenly shouted, unable to hold back any longer. "Is this armor a new product developed by Stark Industries?"
The question hit the room like a thrown brick.
It was what everyone was thinking. What every headline wanted. What every stock analyst was praying for. A Stark Industries miracle product; an iron suit that could change warfare, security, transportation, everything.
Tony smiled like he'd been waiting for that exact pitch.
"I know you want to hear me say 'yes.'" He paused, letting the silence tighten. "But unfortunately… the answer is 'no.'"
Then he did something that made the room's collective brain short-circuit.
With a casual shift of focus, like he was dismissing a pop-up window, the armor vanished.
Not "opened." Not "folded away." Not "retracted into compartments."
It disassembled into nothing, plates and components breaking apart into a silent, glittering stream before dissolving like they'd never existed at all. In one heartbeat, he was a red metal war machine.
The next, Tony stood at the podium again in an expensive suit, hands open, expression almost amused.
A wave of stunned murmurs rolled across the hall.
"In fact," Tony continued smoothly, "although I do possess the technology to manufacture armor like Iron Man's…" He tilted his head slightly, letting the implication land. "What you just saw was not built by me."
That only made things worse.
The confusion deepened. Reporters exchanged looks. Cameras zoomed in harder, desperate to catch a glimpse of some hidden mechanism. Some kind of trick. Anything that made the world make sense again.
Tony lifted a hand, palm out, like he was calming down a rowdy classroom.
"I know what you're thinking," he went on. "If I didn't build it, where did it come from? Was it made by someone else?"
He shook his head.
"No."
"Because the Iron Man armor isn't something that was manufactured at all."
He let the next words drop carefully, like he was placing a detonator on the table and daring someone to touch it.
"It's a… superpower."
For a second, no one reacted, like the room needed to replay the sentence in their heads to confirm they'd heard it right.
'Superpower?' The reporters stared as if he'd started speaking a foreign language.
That suit looked like the kind of engineering that belonged in a classified military lab or a sci-fi movie set thirty years in the future. What did it have to do with superpowers?
Then the questions exploded again, louder than before.
"That's impossible!"
"Are you saying it's not tech at all?"
"Mr. Stark, what do you mean by...?!"
Tony didn't flinch. He looked almost entertained by the disbelief, like this was the part he'd been looking forward to.
"I get it," he said lightly. "You're confused. You don't believe me."
He shrugged, relaxed as ever.
"But it is a superpower."
"You can think of me as an X-Man, except I don't have the X-gene."
A ripple went through the room at that word, X-Man. People latched onto it like a life raft. It was a familiar category, even if it still sounded insane.
Tony kept going, tone breezy but precise.
"You can think of me like an X-Man," he repeated, making sure it sank in, "except I don't have the X-gene. My ability is the power to create armor out of thin air."
That… almost made sense.
Sort of.
At least it explained the vanishing act. At least it gave the impossible a label people could try to file away. But the crowd still wasn't buying the full story. The noise swelled again, skepticism boiling over into sharp voices and accusatory shouts.
Then a reporter near the front, voice cutting through the chaos like a knife, called out:
"Then, Mr. Stark, where did your superpower come from?"
Tony's lips curled, and this time his smile wasn't a casual one; it was a satisfied one. Like a chess player watching someone finally step onto the square he'd been baiting all along.
"Well…" His grin widened. "That's because I ate something called a Devil Fruit."
The words landed like a flashbang.
"It's a miraculous fruit," Tony continued, unfazed, "that grants the person who eats it a supernatural ability."
He tapped his chest lightly, as if the proof was already obvious.
"My armor-creating ability exists because I ate a Devil Fruit."
Not with excitement but with disbelief.
Skeptical shouting rose from every direction, a wave of laughter, outrage, denial, and frantic questions that threatened to drown him out entirely.
"Devil Fruit?!"
"Is this a joke?!"
"That's not real!"
"Mr. Stark, are you messing with us?!"
No one believed him, not really. Not yet.
Because in everyone's mind, that incredible armor had to be Tony Stark's invention. That was the world they understood: genius billionaire builds impossible tech.
And this whole "Devil Fruit" thing?
It sounded like a prank.
Exactly the kind of stunt the arrogant, unserious Tony Stark was absolutely capable of pulling, especially on live television, with the entire nation watching.
Tony let the uproar wash over him for a moment, unbothered, like he'd expected the room to panic and was simply giving them time to finish flailing.
Then he raised one hand.
The gesture was casual, but it carried weight. It wasn't a request.
It was control.
"I know you have questions," Tony said, voice cutting cleanly through the noise, "but the owner of the Home of the Devil Fruits is actually here today."
That sentence alone hit harder than a denial ever could. The reporters paused, not because they believed him, but because their instincts screamed new angle.
Tony's mouth curved.
"So next," he continued, stepping slightly to the side like he was clearing space for a headliner, "I'd like to hand the stage over to him."
At those words, Rosh didn't hesitate. He stepped through the curtain and walked onto the stage.
No dramatic pause. No flashy reveal. Just a calm, confident stride, measured and steady, like he belonged under the lights even if he didn't crave them.
The moment he appeared, the room shifted again.
Not with chaos this time but with focus.
"Stark."
"Shopkeeper Rosh."
They met at center stage and shook hands briefly, with a firm, professional handshake, a transaction of mutual understanding more than warmth. Tony had already detonated his headline; now he simply stepped away, dropping down from the podium and retreating with the satisfaction of a man who'd just thrown gasoline on the world.
In an instant, every camera and every pair of eyes snapped onto Rosh.
And you could almost see the thoughts racing across the room.
'Who is this guy?'
'What kind of person gets treated like this by Tony Stark?'
'Why would Stark, Tony Stark, willingly play the opening act just to introduce a "shopkeeper"?'
Even if no one believed a single word about Devil Fruits, their curiosity about Rosh skyrocketed into something hungry and sharp. Reporters leaned forward. Pens hovered again. Microphones shifted toward him like metal drawn to a magnet.
Rosh stood at the podium and looked out over the crowd with calm, unhurried eyes. He didn't smile for the cameras. He didn't posture.
He simply spoke.
"Hello, everyone," Rosh said calmly. "My name is Rosh."
A wave of clicks, flashes, and scribbling started immediately.
"As Mr. Stark said," Rosh continued, voice steady and matter-of-fact, "I can grant people superpowers."
The room tensed half with disbelief, half with anticipation.
"I opened a shop on 73rd Street called Home of the Devil Fruits," he went on. "I sell Devil Fruits there. Every Devil Fruit grants a unique supernatural ability to the person who eats it."
His tone was so calm it almost made the claim feel normal, which only made it more unsettling. The words didn't come with excuses or jokes. No wink. No "just kidding."
Just certainty.
That was when a sharp voice cut in, slicing through the murmurs like a blade.
"Excuse me," a female reporter interrupted, eyes narrowed, skepticism written all over her face. "Mr. Rosh… do you really expect us to believe such a ridiculous claim?"
"A fruit that grants superpowers just by eating it?" she pressed, leaning forward as if she could physically force the truth out of him.
"How could something like that possibly exist?"
The hall held its breath, waiting for Rosh to stumble, waiting for him to crack.
Waiting for this "shopkeeper" to prove he was a fraud.
However, Rosh didn't even blink at the question.
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Next Chapter: Devil Fruits Takes the World by Storm!!
Next Next Chapter: Another Hero Enters the Shop
Next Next Next Chapter: The Fruit Iron Fist Truly Wants
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