Kaizen did not feel relieved when the doors closed behind him.
He had expected something, fear, nausea, shaking legs, something—but what followed the meeting with the Five Elders was worse than any of that.
Silence.
Not the peaceful kind
The kind that made thoughts echo too loudly.
He walked the halls of Mariejois alone, his footsteps small against marble far too grand for a child.
He had memorized this place already, its routes, its blind spots, the way servants avoided eye contact and guards pretended he wasn't worth noticing.
But now every detail felt sharpened.
As if the world itself had leaned closer.
That wasn't supposed to happen yet, Kaizen thought.
That was the problem. He knew this world.Or rather, he had known it.
One Piece.
A story he had read, watched, argued about, loved. He knew the broad strokes: the Yonko, the Marines, the Revolutionary Army, the hidden rot beneath the World Government.
He knew names that should not be spoken aloud. He knew about Dressrosa, about Doflamingo, about the lies wrapped in justice.
And yet—
None of that knowledge had helped him in that room.
The Gorosei had not spoken like characters.
They had spoken like men who existed long before the story began.
Kaizen slowed his pace.
They shouldn't know me, he thought.
But they had.
Not his thoughts. Not his memories.
Something deeper.
Something older.
He reached his quarters and shut the door behind him, leaning his back against it for a moment longer than necessary. His chest felt tight— not from fear, exactly, but from a pressure that came with holding too many contradictions at once.
He slid down until he was sitting on the floor.
Eight years old.
That thought alone made his stomach twist.
He had lived a life before this one. Shorter than some, longer than others, but undeniably his.
He remembered the world he came from in fragments—screens, voices, late nights, the feeling of anticipation when a chapter dropped. It was one of his only escapes from the constant bullying and harrassment he faced.
He remembered being human.
And now he was… this.
A child trained by the World Government. An anomaly the Five Elders were watching, a being whose dreams contained things that should not exist.
Kaizen pressed his forehead against his knees. I wasn't supposed to matter, he thought. Transmigrators weren't meant to change the world—at least, not like this.
Most stories gave them cheats, systems, destiny. Kaizen had been handed confusion.
And attention.
Which was worse. He forced himself to stand.
Staying still only made the thoughts spiral.
Training helped.
Training always helped. The yard was already active when Kaizen arrived later that afternoon. The sun was high, the stone warm beneath his feet, the sounds of exertion filling the air—grunts, impacts, shouted instructions.
This part of the world felt familiar. Predictable. Rules existed here. He changed quickly and stepped into the ring when called, facing an opponent older than him, broader, confident in the way children were when they had never been truly threatened.
Kaizen exhaled slowly.
Focus.
The fight began.
He moved on instinct, as he always did— too clean, too precise. He redirected blows instead of meeting them head-on, stepped into blind spots that shouldn't have been obvious, and ended exchanges before they fully began.
He won. Again and again, but something was different today. He wasn't just fighting.
He was watching himself fight. Noting the angles his body chose automatically. The decisions he made without conscious thought. The way his movements felt… remembered.
That disturbed him more than losing ever could have. During one bout, his opponent overextended. Kaizen saw it instantly— the opening, the path to the throat, the amount of force required.
For a split second, his body wanted to finish it. Not out of anger but rather out of efficiency. Kaizen stopped himself, his palm hovered inches from the boy's neck.
The yard fell silent.
Kaizen withdrew his hand and stepped back, bowing. The instructor cleared his throat and dismissed the match.
No praise.
No reprimand.
Just observation.
They're watching for something, Kaizen realized. And I don't know what it is. That frightened him more than any enemy ever could.
That night, Kaizen lay awake staring at the ceiling. He knew how this world should progress. He knew that the Gorosei were monsters behind polite words. He knew that the Void Century hid truths so dangerous they had erased history itself.
He knew that the letter "D" was tied to rebellion, to inherited will, to the enemies of the gods. But none of that explained to him, well, him.
He wasn't supposed to exist here. Not like this. Not with them looking at him like that.
His dreams came again. Ruins, not ancient cities like Skypiea or Shandora these were older.
Broken in ways that didn't suggest time, but judgment. Structures that looked unfinished and final at the same time. And that silence, always that silence.
It didn't scream.
It didn't threaten.
It simply watched.
Kaizen sat up abruptly, breath uneven.
"I'm not part of your story," he muttered into the dark.
The silence did not answer. But something in his chest tightened anyway. He clenched his fists.
'I know how this world works,' he comforted himself.
'I know how stories go.'
But the thought rang hollow. Because stories didn't account for this much uncertainty. Stories didn't make gods hesitate and Saturn had hesitated.
The realization came quietly.
Kaizen wasn't scared of the World Government. No. He was scared of being wrong.
If this world wasn't following the story anymore,if his presence alone had already bent it—then his knowledge wasn't a shield.
It was outdated information.
And outdated information got people killed.
That meant he needed a new approach.
Not domination.
Not rebellion.
Survival through understanding. Kaizen began to plan but not grand schemes or revolutions. Rather, small, careful steps.
He would not reveal how much he knew.
He would not challenge fate.
He would observe, learn, and adapt. And most importantly—He would control himself.
If the elders were afraid of what he might become, then becoming nothing would be the safest option.
Invisible.
Unremarkable.
Necessary— but not threatening. He practiced restraint obsessively. Holding back power. Losing intentionally when eyes lingered too long. Letting others take credit. Becoming forgettable.
It hurt.
Not physically but emotionally. Because a part of him wanted to test the limits. Wanted to confirm whether the things inside him were real.
But he didn't trust them. And he didn't trust himself.
[Weeks passed].
Kaizen grew stronger anyway. That, too, frightened him. No matter how much he restrained himself, improvement came naturally. His body adapted faster than it should.
His mind processed combat scenarios before they fully formed. He remembered reading about prodigies.This felt different. This felt like inevitability.
One evening, standing alone at the edge of the training yard, Kaizen watched the sky darken.
"I just wanted to live," he murmured.
Not rule.
Not conquer.
Just live.
But the world he had entered did not reward neutrality. It punished uncertainty. Kaizen straightened his posture. If the story would not accommodate him—
Then he would write himself between its lines. Carefully. Quietly.
Until he understood what he truly was.
And whether the ending he remembered was still possible at all.