User blog comment:Cajadehu/How Blackbeard stole Whitebeard's Devil Fruit Power: Theory/@comment-25926617-20160502011456

Too me their is two options.

1: Maybe when someone dies you see the DF 'leave' their body sorta like a spirit and BB used his DF to  absorb the spirit... or he could have just absorbed the power as WB died. The only aruguamnet I can see is why does Burgess go around trying to stab ppl if he needs his captain to absorb the DF and if BB can absorb a power does that mean he can give them too? Or would he be the only one who can absorb them in which case he would have tons of DF instead of his entire crew. The main support for this is no one else has figured out how to do this so since there is only one Yami Yamo no mi then only that person can do it. It also doesn't account for Marco's comment on BB 'unusual' body. Or Zoro and Luffy saying 'them'

2: When a DF user dies the DF just goes to the nearest fruit. This seems the more liekly to me because Burgess has a weird bag on his back that could hold different types of fruit. Also Smile dying and then it being reborn in the apple shows that this is a very likely possibility. The thing with this one is that since Ceaser obviously had the apples placed there for this reason then Vegapunk knows about it so unless he is a rebel then the WG knows. Seems to me that Doffy might have known and that is how he aquired the Mera Mera no mi. Tho he could have just used his underworld connections. I feel like among the big shots this is farily common knowledge just because it doesn't seem all that hard to figure out. This also lends credence to BB being 'special' in his body type.

Of the two I lean towards the 2nd just because I can't find anything that actually shuts this down like the firast one does.