Earth · A Certain City
A torrential downpour raged in the dead of the night.
In the darkness, Ronan dragged his broken body forward, shielding the two trembling children behind him with what little strength remained.
Before him stood a mob of armed thugs—scavengers who preyed on the weak in this lawless zone, killing for sport and profit.
"Hand them over," their leader snarled, eyes gleaming with greed, "walk away, and you might live."
Ronan only smiled coldly.
In his past life, he'd been ordinary—just another face in a dying world.
Yet even in that chaos, he had clung to one unshakable belief:
Justice must not be trampled.
He steadied his breath, knuckles whitening around his fists. He knew he would die tonight.
But he would not take a single step back.
The next moment, the thugs surged forward.
Ronan fought like a cornered beast—falling, rising, falling again. Steel pipes shattered his fingers. A rifle butt caved in his ribs. Blood soaked through his tattered raincoat.
But he never let himself fall before the children.
Not until the final bullet pierced his heart in that cold, rain-lashed night.
As his vision dimmed, he looked up at the storm-choked sky—
and a faint, weary smile touched his lips.
"If there is an afterlife…"
"…let me be reborn in a world where absolute justice can scour away every last trace of filth."
Darkness swallowed him whole.
[Year 1501, Sea Calendar]
New World – Marine Headquarters, G-1 Branch Hospital
The corridor was silent save for the distant drip of rain and the low hum of fluorescent lights.
The stench of blood clung to the walls, mingling with antiseptic—turning the military infirmary into something closer to a charnel house than a place of healing.
Inside an emergency room, Ronan's eyes snapped open.
Blinding white light seared his vision. Above him loomed a sterile, impersonal ceiling.
Muffled voices filtered through his haze:
"…Thank god they got here in time…"
"…He's Vice Admiral Sakazuki's nephew—we can't afford a single mistake…"
"…But the rest of the family… all gone…"
Each word pierced his fogged mind like a needle.
Then—memories crashed into him.
—Sakazuki? Akainu?!
—This… is the world of One Piece?!
Before he could process it, another memory—sharper, more brutal—overwhelmed him:
A quiet town in the North Blue.
A night that should have been peaceful—now drowned in smoke and screams.
Pirates.
A pack of rabid wolves spilling from the sea.
Flames devoured rooftops.
Cries of the dying echoed through the streets.
His father—the town's proud marine captain—lay gutted in a pool of blood.
His mother, shielding his little brother with her body, vanished in an inferno.
Neighbors. Friends. The butcher, the schoolteacher, the baker—all cut down with laughter.
And the Marines?
They arrived the next morning.
With condolences. With paperwork. With hollow words.
A volcano of rage erupted in his chest.
Pain.
Grief.
Hatred.
Merged with the memory of his past life—where he'd once admired Akainu's doctrine of Absolute Justice—this new trauma forged something unbreakable in his soul.
Pirates are not free men.
They are filth.
And filth must be purged.
Ronan clenched his fists on the hospital sheets, body trembling, teeth grinding until his jaw ached.
His voice, low and iron-hard, cut through the silence:
"This world doesn't need the freedom of scum."
"It needs Absolute Justice."
The moment the words left his lips—
[Ding—]
A cold, mechanical chime echoed in his mind.
[Absolute Justice System: Successfully Bound]
[Initial Protocols Activated]
[Rule: Eliminate pirates to earn Judgment Points. Points may be spent on autonomous enhancements.]
[Available Upgrades: Physical Strength · Armament Haki · Observation Haki · Devil Fruit Mastery]
[Initial Devil Fruit Awakened: Logia-Class — Air-Air Fruit (Kū Kū no Mi)]
The Air-Air Fruit.
Mastery over atmosphere—pressure, wind, vacuum, storm.
The power to tear the sky, crush bodies with invisible force, and claim dominion over the very air itself.
Ronan paused for a moment—slightly taken aback.
Then, like a spark igniting dry tinder, a burning conviction surged within his chest.
This was a gift of fate.
And the iron law of war.
If the world was destined for bloodshed and chaos—
then he would tear it apart, settle every account, and reshape it with absolute power.
Just then—
The hospital door slammed open.
A wave of scorching, oppressive air rushed in, thick enough to choke on—baked by unseen lava, heavy with wrath.
Admiral Sakazuki strode in, clad in his standard Marine uniform, yet radiating an aura that bent the very air around him.
His face was ashen. His shoulders trembled—not from weakness, but from the effort of containing a volcano within.
Instantly, the room's temperature spiked. The floorboards blackened beneath his feet, curling with faint, smoking scorch marks.
Sakazuki halted at the foot of the bed. His iron-blooded eyes locked onto Ronan's.
Their gazes met.
And in those eyes—long hardened by ruthlessness and swift death—Ronan saw something almost imperceptible.
A flicker.
Faint.
Yet piercingly clear.
It was the last remnant of tenderness in a world drowned in filth.
Reserved only for him.
His only family.
Sakazuki said nothing for a long while.
Then, his voice rumbled—low, heavy, like molten rock shifting beneath the earth:
"Ronan."
"From now on… only the two of us will remain in this world."
"Are you ready?"
The words didn't just echo—they shattered the air, severing every lingering thread of the life they once knew.
Slowly, Ronan sat up. Beneath the sheets, his pale fingers curled into fists, knuckles bleaching white with silent resolve.
His eyes—sharp as blades cleaving morning mist—were cold. Unyielding.
"Ready."
"From this day forward, I will enforce absolute justice."
"I will not allow a single pirate in this world… to set foot on land again."
"Slaying them is not enough."
"I will rip out the soil that breeds evil at its roots."
"To forge a new order… with absolute justice!"
Sakazuki gave no reply.
He merely turned his gaze upward—out the window.
Beyond the glass, night pressed down upon the sea, leaving it dark and lifeless, as though the world itself were being scorched by invisible fury.
Far across that black expanse, above the North Blue, the sky still bore the ghost of crimson thunderclouds—lingering scars of judgment.
In the days that followed, whispers would spread:
For three nights and three days, Sakazuki walked alone through the North Blue.
He left no survivors.
Entire pirate fleets—dozens of notorious crews—were erased.
The coastline? Scorched to ash, as if swept by a river of lava.
No orders were given.
No reports filed.
Only reckoning.
Cold. Pure. Final.
That was Sakazuki's elegy.
His last eulogy… to the family he had lost.
Outside the hospital, the wind howled.
Far away, across the sea, Gol D. Roger stood before his end—carrying the seed of an age yet to bloom.
And here, in a forgotten corner of the New World—
a vow was born in silence.
A star—destined to tear through darkness and redefine justice—rose quietly into the sky.
[Justice does not grow on its own.]
[It must be forged in blood… and fire.]