Date: Sea Era 1519
The rain in Loguetown didn't fall, it wept.
It washed over the execution platform where a King had once laughed at death, leaving the wood slick and dark like old blood.
I sat on a weathered crate near the harbor, watching the world through a lens of cold certainty.
To the merchants, this was the gateway to the Grand Line.
To the Marines, it was a fortress of "Justice".
To me , it was a house of cards built on eight centuries of rot and silence.
I knew the names of the shadows in Mary Geoise.
I knew the ancient shape of the world before the Void
I held a map of destiny that no living soul in this sea was ever meant to read
"A storm is coming" a voice said
It was a flat, toneless observation
I didn't need to look up
I had tracked this specific anomaly across three islands
He was a boy who looked like a ghost eyes the color of dead embers, a face that wore no mask because it felt no emotion
Kiyotaka Ayanokoji stood at the edge of the pier
He looked as unremarkable as a grain of sand, yet he was the only person in this town who wasn't currently being swept away by the current of the era
"The storm is already here" I replied
leaning back
"It's been brewing for eight hundred years. People just got used to the grey sky"
Ayanokoji turned his gaze toward the horizon, where the sea met the dark clouds of the Grand Line
"The power structure of this world is irrational, It relies on the whims of the few to suppress the many. It is a fragile equilibrium" he said
"It's a masterpiece of cruelty"
I replied finally standing
"But it has a weakness, It's a story with a beginning and an end. And I happen to have read the final chapter"
Ayanokoji's eyes shifted back to mine. There was no spark of curiosity, only the quiet hum of a mind weighing a new variable.
"You claim to possess a record of things yet to happen. If such a thing exists, you are the most dangerous man on this sea." He said
"I'm just the man who provides the matches" I replied
A slow smile spreading across my face
"I need a player who doesn't get distracted by the heat of the flame. I'm offering you a board that spans the Four Blues, Kiyotaka. A game where the prize isn't a throne, but the dismantling of the entire world."
"And the King?" he asked. "A revolution needs a symbol. A face for the masses to worship."
I gestured toward the distant, war-torn kingdoms beyond the horizon.
"We will find a land where the earth is soaked in blood. We will gather the survivors of the carnage and let them struggle until only one remains. A survivor with the 'Disposition of a King' We will forge him into a god of war a conqueror to lead the charge"
"And while he bleeds on the front lines?"
"I will hold the strings of the world's gold,"
I said my voice hardening
"I will control the news that reaches every shore. We will let the King and the World Government tear each other apart until there is nothing left but dust. And then, we will build something that finally works"
Ayanokoji looked at the sea, his thoughts hidden behind that impenetrable stare. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely"
he murmured, reciting the words I had left for him.
"That's why we'll build a world that eventually forgets we ever existed"
I promised
The boy with the ember eyes nodded once a silent contract signed in the rain
"The first move is yours" he said
I looked at my watch
A News Coo was circling above, its wings white against the charcoal sky.
"We start with the truth"
I said.
"It's time we gave Big News Morgans a story that will set the world on fire."