THEORY LUFFY IS EXTREMELY CLOSE TO AWAKENING HIS DEVIL FRUIT

Gomu Gomu powers explained and awakening

The Gomu Gomu No Mi

This fruit gives the user a body that has properties of rubber immediately. When an outside force is acted on Luffy, such as gravity when Shanks held him upside down, his body stretched. Similarly when using his muscular strength he is able to stretch his body as well. In addition to stretching, he is also able to twist himself, and expand by using his astounding diaphragm muscles to suck in a lot of air. Immediately after consumption, the Gomu Gomu No Mi grants the user the ability to stretch, twist, and expand or more generally allows the user the power of expansion when acted upon by an outside or muscular force. The user becomes a rubber-man.

So Base Luffy= Powers of external Expansion via force
However Second Gear expands upon the powers of base luffy by giving him the ability to compress and release his blood through his legs, also known as “pumping” blood. Luffy is also able to do this without any force. This was Luffy’s first step into awakening.

Second Gear=Power of blood compression without force
Third Gear introduces another idea to the expansion powers of the Gomu Gomu no Mi, the ability to expand internal body parts via force. Luffy does this by using his muscular strength to flood his bones with air.

Third Gear=Power of bone expansion via force.
Fourth Gear is where this all starts to get interesting. Luffy has applied the idea of internal expansion gained by third gear to his muscles via force, but has to use Haki to control the expansion as well as to use the ability of compression. Because muscles are way denser than blood, Luffy needs to use force to compress his muscles which is why he uses Haki. The ability of compression is what allows him to “load” his punches as well as what gives him the ability to fly by pumping his legs. This is the first form where Luffy has mixed expansion with compression on top of a constant barrier of Haki. Keep in mind that Haki is NOT needed for awakening.

Fourth Gear=Power of muscle expansion and compression via force and Haki.
Awakening

Now lets line these gears up.

Base Luffy= Powers of external Expansion via force

Second Gear=Power of leg blood compression without force

Third Gear=Power of bone expansion via force.

Fourth Gear=Power of muscle expansion and compression via force and Haki.

The different gears give us different variations of the expansion and compression powers. Most of the time needing outside force except for second gear. All awakening is, is the ability for Luffy to use compression and expansion without using force, as well as being able to apply these principles to ALL parts of the body or spirit. Luffy would then be able to use muscle expansion and compression without needing to use Haki, and would be able to fluidly switch and combine gears. Luffy has already partially awakened his devil fruit, and lets look at this from each gear.

Base Luffy

In the New World Luffy has been shown to be able to expand without force. Remember when Luffy scared the crap out of Nami by wrapping his head around her? Similarly, Luffy was able to wrap his pinky around Shirahoshi’s finger without force as well. These seem like tiny examples, but that ability was not shown in pre-time skip.

Second Gear

After his training with Raleigh Luffy is now able to enter second gear through pretty much any area of his body, as well as localize its effects.

Third Gear

During thriller bark, Luffy was able to fuse gear second as well as gear third, thus using both the power of compression and expansion at once. Also King Kong Gun is effectively a fusion of third gear and fourth.

Fourth Gear

The signs of awakening in this gear are very interesting as Luffy is able to use the principle of expansion and compression with his Haki, which Doflamingo had commented on. This means that Luffy is able to give his spirit the properties of rubber which fits with the idea that awakening would lead to an ability of “rubbify” any part of a persons body or being.

The gist of this theory has been said elsewhere, but Luffy’s awakening will be complete control of his elasticity, of his ability to compress and expand any part of his body with simply will alone. Luffy is almost there in being “woke” as he has shown principles of awakening in all forms one way or another, he just has to connect the dots.

WHERE DOES IT GO FROM THERE

Awakening in this way would be a boost to all forms of Luffy, and his base form would get a huge powerup, as luffy would be able to “load” his punches, kicks, jumps, without needing to go to Gear Fourth. He would effectively gain Bellamy’s base abilities in this form. Same thought process can be applied to all gears and this would be a HUGE instant powerup.

Now this coming part is PURE SPECULATION, so please take it part with a large heaping of salt. That being said, I think that awakening is not even close to the last powerup that Luffy will get. First he has to show the different forms of Gear Fourth, then I believe he will awaken. After awakening, Luffy can still play around with the VASTLY improved flexibility of his devil fruit. Luffy would now be able to mix any gears, switch at any time, and incorporate Haki in any way that he wished. My personal speculation is that that his final form will be a mixture of gear fourth and gear second.

Gear Overdrive: Luffy would use expansion on his muscles and increase their volume while simultaneously use compression on his muscle fibers to give a leaner look than that of traditional gear fourth, while increasing the potential destructive strength of Luffy. He would also use blood pumping via his blood directly. Constantly increasing blood flow at a much faster pace then what we have seen before to increase speed and strength immensely. Luffy would coat himself in armament haki, giving himself an appearance of the monkey god, Sun Wukong. His attacks would occasionally use gear 3 as well and use compression to imitate Rokushiki. But as always, there is a wide range of flexibility for his attacks. Because Gear 2nd and haki depletion is still harmful to his body, this form would cause immense damage to Luffy and would probably leave him on the verge of death. This would fit in with the massive foreshadowing that Oda has left which hints that Luffy may one day push himself to the verge of death(all of the times Gear 2 used pre-timeskip and Ivankov hormones and Luffy’s reckless nature).

*Theory by cardboardspectator