Z City — a crumbling back alley.
A towering figure loomed in the shadows, over three meters tall. Its body twitched with yellow sparks, its eel-like head slick with slime.
"I've evolved," it rasped, voice crackling like static. "Eating too many electric eels… and now I'm something greater."
It leaned closer to the girl it had cornered.
"Don't struggle. You'll become part of me soon enough."
"Help! Someone—anyone—call a hero!"
The girl's voice shook. Her back pressed against the wall, nowhere left to run.
Her name was Sato Haruko, a 23-year-old operator for the Hero Association. Most days, she handled danger reports and disaster classifications from behind a screen.
She'd seen monsters before.
Just never like this.
"I've already jammed every signal in the area," the eel-like creature said with a smirk, faint arcs of electricity dancing along its arms. "No one's coming."
Haruko squeezed her eyes shut, tears slipping free on her face.
Then—
BOOM.
A thunderclap split the sky.
A blinding bolt of lightning crashed down, tearing the ground apart and swallowing the alley they were at in a burst of light.
Silence followed.
Haruko slowly opened her eyes.
The monster was gone.
Nothing left but ash.
The street had been blasted into a massive crater, the surrounding buildings scorched black.
"What…?"
Her voice barely came out.
Then, from somewhere deep inside the crater—
"Where the hell am I…?"
A voice.
There was someone down there.
Haruko hesitated for half a second, then rushed forward and peered over the edge.
At the bottom stood a young man, tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in loose, unfamiliar robes. He looked completely out of place — and completely unbothered.
He yawned.
"Hey," he called up casually. "You from around here? What world is this?"
Haruko blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Then she slapped her own cheeks lightly.
Okay. Stay calm.
Clearly, he'd taken a hit to the head.
"I'm Sato Haruko, Hero Association operator," she said, forcing her voice steady. "You've been caught in an incident. Please stay where you are — we'll send a hero to retrieve you."
That seemed to satisfy him. He didn't argue.
Haruko exhaled in relief and quickly contacted headquarters.
But down in the crater, the young man's thoughts were anything but calm.
Hero Association?
Operator?
He looked around at the ruined city… then back up at the girl.
"…You've got to be kidding me."
Memories surged through his mind.
Yunze. Twenty-two. Shut-in. Anime addict.
Dead.
Truck accident. Saving a kid.
Then—
Another world.
He'd been reborn in the world of One Piece, landing right where the Rumble-Rumble Fruit appeared. Before anyone else could claim it, he ate it.
Lightning became his power.
Over ten years, he pushed it further than anyone before him.
Faster. Stronger. Untouchable.
He built a quiet life in the sky, far from the chaos below.
And then…
He took a nap.
And woke up falling.
Now here he was.
Again.
"…Twice?" Yunze muttered. "Seriously?"
He clicked his tongue.
"Well… no point complaining."
He raised a hand.
Lightning gathered instantly, crackling around him before forming into solid steps in midair.
A staircase of pure electricity stretched upward.
Yunze stepped onto it and began to walk.
Above, Haruko's phone nearly slipped from her hand.
Her eyes widened as she stared.
Step by step, he climbed out of the crater, lightning roaring beneath his feet, wind whipping his robe behind him.
For a moment, he looked less like a person—
—and more like something out of legend.
As he reached the top, the fabric on his back shifted in the wind, revealing two bold characters stitched across it:
Thunder God.