1515 — Nine Years Before the Present
Poison…?!
The realization hit like a hammer to the back of the skull. A dull, throbbing numbness spread through his limbs, turning his veins into lead. The world tilted violently. The sky, a vast expanse of uncaring blue, spun into a vortex.
He didn't hit the deck with grace. He crumbled. His massive frame folded in on itself, slamming into the rough, splintered wood of the ship's deck.
Then, the blackness claimed him.
[Flashback]
The world was not blue.
It was searing, blistering red.
The smell of boiling oil was thick enough to choke on. The massive iron pot loomed over the plaza, and inside, a man stood with a smile that defied the cruelty of the world.
Kozuki Oden.
A gunshot rang out—a sharp, final crack that severed the silence of the executioner's square. The titan fell.
"I'll kill you, you little brat!"
The voice belonged to a serpent. Orochi. The Shogun's laughter was shrill, grating against the ears like metal on bone. Before the boy could even process the death of a legend, he was lunging.
Pain—a hot, searing line of agony across his chest. Blood splattered, warm and sticky, dripping onto the pristine stones.
He looked down. Shackles, heavy and cold, clamped onto his wrists, digging into his skin. They were supposed to contain him, to bind the legacy of the fallen.
He turned his head. In the distance, the castle—his home—was a furnace. Toki's castle. The flames licked the night sky, turning the clouds into embers. The world was burning, and everything he loved was turning to ash.
---
"Oi! Wake up, you lump of meat!"
A sharp, painful kick to the ribs snapped his eyes open.
The nightmare evaporated, replaced by the harsh, salty air of the Grand Line. He gasped, his lungs burning as he pushed himself up. His head swam with dizziness.
"Are you alive? Or are you just that pathetic?"
He looked up. A man stood over him—a low-level Beast Pirate grunt, sneering. He blinked, his cyan eyes unfocused and swimming with the remnants of his dreams.
"Mother…?" he whispered, his voice gravelly and broken. "Father…?"
The pirate threw his head back and laughed, a cruel, mocking sound that echoed across the deck.
"Dreaming about your parents? How touching. It's surprising you're still breathing. That poison should've stopped your heart in an hour… but look at you. Still breathing after four days."
The pirate nudged him again with the toe of his boot.
"Get up. We've reached Sabaody Archipelago. Unload the crates, and don't make me tell you twice."
---
He sat up, his hands instinctively clutching his throbbing head. The memories—Oden, the fire, the shackles—they were fading, but the fury they ignited remained.
Poison.
The memory of the ship's boarding gate flashed through his mind. He had been walking, head down, lost in his own brooding, when he had collided with someone. An officer. A man with the mammoth's fruit—no, one of Jack's elite subordinates. The man had reacted with reflexive violence, a tail lashing out, piercing his skin.
A scorpion's stinger.
Venom.
---
He pushed himself to his feet. Standing at seven feet and four inches, he was a tower of a man. His long, raven-black hair spilled over his shoulders, whipped into a frenzy by the harsh sea wind. He was dressed in the standard, ragged Beast Pirate gear, but it hung off his massive, imposing frame like armor.
Heavy bands of metal circled his wrists—too broad to be called bracelets.The edges were rough, imperfect…
He walked out onto the main deck. The sunlight was blinding, piercing his eyes like needles. He winced, his hand instinctively going to his hip, where two sheathed katana rested—one wrapped in deep, blood-crimson leather, the other in a pattern of stark white and ocean blue.
The ship was a hive of activity. Horned men and mutated beasts scrambled everywhere, hoisting crates of contraband.
"Hey! Don't just stand there like a tower, you idiot!" a man shouted from a distance. "Help us with these crates!"
He looked down, his expression blank, unreadable.
"Right," he muttered, his voice deep and resonant.
He stepped forward, his legs wobbling slightly. The poison still coursed through his blood, slowing his reactions, making his limbs heavy. He bent down, scooped up a crate, and began to walk.
"Hey! Walk properly, you giant!"
Whispers followed him. They floated on the breeze, nasty little things.
"Should've been dead with that poison."
"Lucky bastard, surviving Krait's sting."
"He should stay far away from Captain Jack... Krait will just kill him if he keeps lingering."
He stopped dead in his tracks.
"Stop right there."
The voice was cold, high-pitched, and cruel—like the hiss of a dying man.
He turned slowly. Standing behind him was a short, wiry man. He couldn't have been taller than four-foot-nine. His eyes were narrow, slitted, and dangerous.
Krait. The scorpion.
"You're still alive, huh?" Krait sneered, his lips curling back to reveal jagged teeth. "From next time, don't try to bump into me, you black-haired freak."
Krait leaned forward and spat—a thick, yellow glob of saliva landing directly on the man's face.
The Beast Pirates erupted in laughter. The deck shook with their jeers.
"Yes, sir," the giant replied.
His voice was calm, but his grip on the crate tightened until the wood began to groan and splinter.
Snap.
Veins popped along his forearms, bulging like thick, angry ropes. The poison in his blood seemed to react, not by killing him, but by boiling the rage already simmering in his gut.
"Are you angry?" Krait cackled, emboldened by the giant's silence. He stepped forward and delivered a swift, stinging kick to the giant's shin. "What will you do even if you are? You're nothing but trash on this ship."
Krait's grin sharpened. "Hey… once we're done at Sabaody Archipelago, maybe we'll cook you the same way they cooked that fool from Wano."
He tilted his head, eyes gleaming.
"What was his name again… Oden?"
A few pirates snickered.
"Yeah. Boil you alive and see how long you last."
The deck filled with the raucous, mocking cheers of the crew.
They saw a slave.
They saw a punching bag.
They did not see the beast beneath.
The giant placed the crate down.
He did it with agonizing care, as if he were putting a child to bed.
The world went quiet.
Not silent—
empty.
The smell of boiling oil clawed its way back into his lungs.
Then, without a sound, he straightened his posture.
Thud.
His fist moved.
It wasn't a punch; it was a falling meteor.
Krait's head snapped back with a wet crunch. His nose shattered inward, blood spraying in a crimson mist across the deck. Before Krait could even hit the ground, the giant followed up—another fist, another devastating impact.
Crack.
The wooden deckboards beneath Krait's feet disintegrated, splintering into toothpicks under the force of the collision. Krait was pinned to the wreckage, his body trembling, his eyes wide and vacant.
Silence.
Absolute, terrified silence gripped the ship. The laughter had died in their throats.
The giant stood up. His face was masked in the blood of the man who had poisoned him. His cyan eyes, once dull and confused, were now burning with an icy, terrifying intensity.
He looked less like a man and more like a calamity—a force of nature that had just been unleashed.
"What..." one of the Beast Pirates stammered, his sword dropping from trembling hands. "What did he...?"
"Kill him!" someone screamed. "Kill him now!"
One pirate froze mid-step, eyes narrowing.
"Wait… that face… those eyes… he looks like—"
Shing.
The spell broke.
A dozen pirates lunged, blades drawn, weapons raised.
Not all of them moved with the same confidence.
A few hesitated—just for a heartbeat.
They had seen that punch. That speed. That force.
One pirate's grip trembled around his blade. "W-Wait… something's wrong with this guy—"
"Shut up and move!" another barked, forcing himself forward despite the chill crawling up his spine.
He didn't move away.
His vision blurred.
For a split second, the world doubled—two sets of enemies, two decks, two skies spinning over his head.
His knees threatened to buckle. The poison clawed through his veins, dragging his body down, screaming at him to stop.
A blade grazed his shoulder—just enough to draw blood.
He stepped into them.
"I'll kill all of you," he whispered.
It wasn't a threat.
It was a promise.
He spun. His leg whipped out like a scythe, catching the lead pirate square in the face. The man's jaw shattered instantly, his body flying into the mast with a bone-jarring thud.
Behind his back, his hand blurred.
Shing.
The twin katana—the red blade and the white-and-blue patterned one—were in his hands before the pirates could even blink.
He vaulted into the air, gravity seeming to bow to his command. From his vantage point, looking down at the swarming, terrified crew, he looked like a god of war descending from the heavens.
The ship groaned. The wood screamed as he landed.
"Feral Requiem."
He swung the blades in a single, fluid arc—a fiery, shimmering slash that cut through the air itself.
Blood sprayed. Wood splintered. The crates burst open, spilling their contents into the sea. The deck was a chaotic canvas of carnage.
He didn't stop.
He moved through them like a ghost—a blur of red, white, and blue—reaping lives with a look of absolute, cold pity.
He didn't care about their names.
He didn't care about their captain.
He only saw the faces of the executioners who had laughed while his world burned.
He stepped over a fallen pirate, his eyes locked on the next target, his blade dripping crimson onto the deck.
He didn't need to shout.
He didn't need to explain.
He just looked at the remaining pirates, his cyan eyes devoid of mercy.
"Die."