Grey stayed silent for a long while.
He looked up at the sky, then at the endless ocean stretching before him.
He didn't ask where he was, or how he had ended up on that shore. All he remembered was his name, and the emptiness that had always been there.
"…Where is this?" Grey finally spoke, his voice soft, almost uncertain.
For a long time, he simply stood there, watching the waves roll in and out, as if trying to feel something from their rhythm.
Maybe he was admiring the beauty of it… Or maybe he was just trying to accept that this was his new reality.
He could sense it, deep inside.
Seven things.
Seven primal currents are stirring beneath his heart.
A visceral feeling.
#A/N: "Visceral" means a feeling so deep and instinctive that it isn't born from thought, something raw, uncontrollable"
They were sleeping for now… Silent, but waiting.
"Jōnen Jōnen no Mi(Passion Fruit)" Grey murmured the words that surfaced in his mind, the name of the Devil Fruit, along with faint fragments of how to use it. His eyes lowered, emotionless yet faintly curious. "…Is this what emotions are supposed to feel like?"
#A/N: "Jōnen" (情念) means passion or deep emotion, a perfect contrast to Grey's hollow nature"
Grey tried to reach it, that slumbering storm inside him.
He could feel each one of them, faint pulses buried beneath his calm exterior. But one in particular... responded to his call.
He whispered the word like a name. "… Pride"
The world seemed to hold its breath.
A surge of heat coursed through his veins, burning away the stillness in his soul. His dull grey eyes ignited into molten gold, gleaming with divine arrogance. His black hair flared into a fiery crimson, growing wild and long past his shoulders.
And then, he smiled, a sharp, radiant smile that reeked of supremacy.
The passive emptiness vanished.
In its place stood a man who looked down on the world itself. That made the air itself tremble.
Waves crashed against the shore, not because of the wind, but because the sea bowed. Every grain of sand around him rippled outward, pushed by an unseen force, not Haki, not raw power, but presence.
It was the weight of Pride made manifest.
Grey, no, the embodiment of Pride, straightened his back as if the very sky belonged beneath his feet. The once passive man now radiated the unbearable heat of self-importance, a conviction so pure that reality seemed to accept it.
"The world bends," he murmured, his voice low but resonant, "to those who never kneel"
Golden light coursed through his veins, tracing his skin like living veins of fire. Every step he took left behind shimmering imprints, and even the sea dared not touch him. The water parted where he walked, forming a path of air and light.
Yet deep inside, something else stirred, the other six emotions, faint and restless, whispering within the hollow corners of his soul.
They envied Pride.
They wanted to awaken too.
Grey felt it, that storm of feelings trying to surface. But Pride smirked.
"Wait your turn," he said to the voices within. "The world isn't ready for all of us"
The golden fire flickered, his eyes dimming back to grey, his hair returning to black. Silence reclaimed him, leaving behind only the echo of what had been.
For now, the Visceral Demon had only called one name.
--------
A Few Months Later
The once-quiet island now trembled beneath the roars of monsters, twisted things born from the sea's depths, scales like obsidian, eyes glowing with hunger.
They surged toward the center of the island where one man stood, unmoving.
Grey.
Or rather, Pride.
His fiery red hair whipped in the wind, golden eyes gleaming like suns behind storm clouds.
The corner of his mouth curled upward, arrogant and beautiful, as dozens of beasts surrounded him.
"You dare bear your fangs," he said softly, "to one who stands above you?"
The monsters roared in reply.
Then the world exploded.
Pride stepped forward, and the ground cracked beneath his heel. His punch didn't just strike, it commanded the air to move aside, crushing the first creature into the earth with divine force. Blood and dust scattered, and the remaining beasts hesitated for the first time.
That hesitation, that acknowledgment of fear, made him stronger.
A golden aura radiated from his body, brighter, heavier, more absolute. The next blow shattered three monsters at once; the third sent shockwaves that leveled the trees.
"Good," he said, grinning as his power surged higher. "You finally recognize it... your inferiority"
Every roar, every fearful glance, every moment the beasts realized they could not win, fed him. Pride devoured acknowledgment like oxygen, his strength expanding beyond logic.
Soon, the island itself seemed to bow beneath him. The waves receded, and the horizon burned gold.
The monsters, once a horde, were now a carpet of broken forms around him. Pride stood at the center, radiant, untouched, a living monument to arrogance.
"Remember this sight," he said to the dying creatures, voice dripping with divine disdain. "For even in death... You shall remember who was greater"
He closed his eyes. The flames faded, gold dimming back to grey. When he opened them again, Grey stood alone amidst the silence, the smell of salt and blood clinging to the air.
He looked down at his trembling hand. The feeling of power lingered like an aftertaste... intoxicating and terrifying.
"… So that's what acknowledgment feels like," After said that. Grey didn't linger among the corpses of the fallen beasts. He turned his back to them, to the silence they left behind.
For months, this island had been his entire world, a land ruled by monsters, until he arrived. There were no people, no cities, no voices, only the endless cycle of hunger, sleep, and battle. Each day bled into the next, and each fight carved him deeper into something new.
And through it all, he used only one name.
Pride.
With every victory, every beast that bent or fell before him, the weight of acknowledgment grew heavier. The monsters feared him now, their gazes trembling whenever he passed. And in their fear, he was recognized.
Now, the man who once awoke empty and uncertain stood nearly two meters tall, his physique honed by combat and power. His eyes burned faintly even in his calm state, remnants of the arrogance that had carried him to the top.
Barefoot, shirtless, his skin marked by faint scars and sunlight, Grey walked toward the shore. The ocean stretched endlessly before him, as it had the day he first opened his eyes here.
But something had changed.
He lifted his right hand, watching as a faint shimmer rippled across his skin. From beneath the surface, the mark took shape, a Lion's Head, regal and fierce, inked as if branded by fire.
The mark pulsed once, a living acknowledgment from Pride itself.
Grey smiled faintly. It was small, barely there, but real.
"So… you accept me too"
The wind brushed through his dark hair, carrying away the scent of blood and salt.
Behind him lay a silent island, once a kingdom of monsters, now the domain of a man who had learned the taste of recognition.
The Visceral Demon had taken his first throne.