The island had returned to silence.
But it was no longer peace.
It was the stillness of the hunted holding their breath, the world watching a boy who had not yet learned to walk without stumbling — and yet had just touched something primordial.
Serena D. Walker sat alone beneath the sakura tree at the edge of their home, Allen cradled in her arms. He had been asleep for hours, face resting quietly against her chest, his tiny fingers curled into the fabric of her robes. But even unconscious, his expression wasn't peaceful.
It was troubled. Haunted.
She stroked his silver hair softly, her violet eyes unfocused, cast far beyond the ocean horizon. Not into the present… but into the past.
Into his past.
She had seen it.
Not all of it. Not clearly. But enough. When his dormant Haki burst for the first time, it collided with her own Observation like crashing waves — and in that impact, memories bled through. Emotions, images, sensations not belonging to a child.
> A cold apartment. Screaming parents. The sound of a door slamming and never opening again. Hunger. Loneliness. Pain no one saw. The boy's only comfort… a comic book.
A world he didn't belong to, yet wished he did. One filled with adventure. Freedom. Brotherhood.
Serena's heart had shattered the moment she felt it.
Her arms tightened protectively around Allen's sleeping body.
> "You were broken long before I met you," she whispered. "But not anymore. Not while I still breathe."
The grass beneath her shifted. Heavy footsteps. Serena didn't look up.
Hades stood behind her, arms folded, gaze like stone.
"I know why he was drawn to it now," she murmured. "It's not just a Devil Fruit. It's a… resonance."
Hades didn't speak. The wind did — picking up faintly, brushing strands of Serena's hair across Allen's cheek. The boy stirred slightly.
"It's him," she continued. "That fruit… it's tied to his soul. To his suffering. It isn't tempting him with power. It's calling him home."
Hades closed his eyes.
"Then it's dangerous."
"Of course it is," she said. "But so is hope. And love. And rebirth."
There was silence for a moment.
Then Serena spoke again, softer this time.
"Why didn't you stop him?"
Hades didn't answer immediately. He stepped beside her, staring at Allen's sleeping form — at the way his small chest rose and fell with soft breaths, at the faint golden shimmer beneath his skin that hadn't been there before.
"Because the moment he touched the light," Hades said, "I saw something I've never seen before."
Serena looked at him.
"I saw you kneeling in his presence."
Serena blinked.
"I don't understand."
Hades turned his gaze skyward. "Neither do I. But my instincts don't lie."
—
Inside the boy's dreams, the world was nothing but feathers.
Golden. Black. Falling. Rising.
Allen stood in the center of a storm of light and shadow, barefoot on cracked marble, surrounded by twelve great wings that moved in a spiral — six radiant, six scorched.
He looked down.
There was a mirror.
And inside it, he saw both versions of himself — the broken child from the old world… and the one here now.
The fruit hovered above them.
A voice rumbled.
> "You were cast aside. Forgotten. Would you let them forget you again?"
Allen looked up.
"No," he whispered. "Not this time."
> "Will you become their hope? Or their punishment?"
"I don't know."
> "Choose."
"I just want to be… me."
> "Then carry both. The holy and the fallen. The broken and the divine. Let the world decide which one to fear."
The wings folded in, wrapping around him.
—
His eyes snapped open.
It was nighttime now.
The stars above were unnaturally bright.
Serena was asleep beside him, head resting lightly against the tree, one arm still around his waist.
Allen slowly sat up. The world felt… quieter. Not still. Not muted. But watching.
And then he said something.
Only four words.
Spoken to no one.
Yet the ground pulsed.
> "Heaven will kneel first."
—
The next morning, Serena found the phrase carved into the earth beside where Allen had been lying.
But not with a tool. Not by hand.
The grass had simply wilted into the letters.
She stared at it in silence.
And for the first time since she met Hades D. Walker, she felt something she hadn't felt in decades:
Not fear.
But reverence.
The kind one feels when standing before a god.
---
In a far-off sea, beyond the Calm Belt, a Den Den Mushi twitched awake in the hand of an old man in a marine coat.
He lifted it to his ear, frowning.
> "What is it?"
The voice on the other end was shaking.
> "We've detected something. A Haki surge. Not adult. Too pure. Too loud. It cracked two monitoring stones."
The old man stood up slowly.
His hands trembled for just a second.
> "From where?"
> "…It's the Calm Belt, sir."
He swallowed.
> "Get me the Five Elders. Now."
Back on the island, Allen looked up at the sky.
The stars had begun to shift.
Something ancient had turned its eyes toward him.
And Allen D. Walker…
Smiled.