Darkness.
It came not with silence, but with sound — the roaring chaos of sirens, metal, and screams.
Kaen could still hear them. The cries. The begging. The thunder of explosions. The world he knew collapsing in a heartbeat.
He was dying.
His body was pinned under the twisted steel of a train, flames crawling closer, smoke burning his lungs. He had been just a man — an ordinary one, chasing a dream of freedom, of truth, of a world without lies. But as the world around him burned, he realized something cruel…
No one ever escapes the world's chains.
"If there is a world beyond this one…" he whispered through the smoke, his eyes heavy, "…then I want to live without fear. I want to know everything."
And with that final breath — Kaen died.
---
When the light returned, it wasn't white.
It was blue.
Endless blue.
The gentle sway of waves brushed his face. The warmth of sunlight danced on his skin. He gasped, coughing out seawater, feeling grains of sand beneath his fingers.
He was alive.
But this wasn't his world.
The air smelled of salt and freedom. Seagulls circled overhead, their cries echoing over an empty coast. Far across the horizon, he saw a sea so vast it felt alive — pulsing, breathing, whispering.
Kaen rose to his knees, drenched, trembling. His reflection in the water wasn't the same.
Younger. Sharper eyes. Black hair matted by sea foam.
And there — marked faintly under his collarbone — an ancient symbol glowing blue: the Crest of Ohara.
"Ohara…?" he muttered. "Isn't that the island that—"
A sudden rush of images flooded his mind — books burning, scholars screaming, Buster Call cannons raining fire.
And one final memory — a child's hand clutching an ancient tome before flames consumed everything.
"You are the last one," a distant voice whispered through the tide.
"Carry the Sea's Memory."
The ground trembled. The ocean stirred.
And from the depths, a single object drifted toward him — an oddly shaped fruit, swirling with deep ocean-blue patterns.
It pulsed, humming with a heartbeat that wasn't his.
"A… Devil Fruit?" Kaen muttered, picking it up. "No… something else. It's alive."
The waves crashed louder. The fruit's glow grew stronger, pulling him closer — whispering in a language that didn't belong to men.
He didn't understand why, but he knew what he had to do.
He bit into it.
The taste was unbearable — like drowning and burning at once. He fell to his knees, clutching his chest as his veins turned a luminous blue.
The sea roared. The clouds swirled.
And for a moment — just a heartbeat — he heard it:
"Welcome back, child of the sea."
Kaen screamed as power surged through him — the weight of the ocean pressing down on his soul.
Then silence.
Only waves.
When he opened his eyes, his reflection had changed again — his pupils rippled like waves, glowing faintly with the color of the deep.
He felt it — the pull, the connection, the voice of the sea itself.
He was no longer just a man.
He was something more.
Kaen stood, wind brushing against his face, and gazed across the horizon.
He didn't know how he came here.
He didn't know why he was chosen.
But he knew this —
Somewhere out there was the truth of the world.
The truth that Ohara had died for.
And he would find it — even if he had to tear apart the sea itself.
"This world took everything from you," the ocean whispered.
"Now, take everything back."
Kaen looked up at the rising sun, a quiet grin forming on his lips.
"Fine," he said. "If this is the world of pirates…"
"…then I'll be the one even the sea fears."
The waves answered with thunder.
And thus began the legend of the man the world would one day call—
Kaen Ohara, the Sea God's Successor.
---
To be continue...