Mouad_ML

Five years before Monkey D. Luffy sets sail to become the King of the Pirates, another name stirs the seas with fear and ambition.

Born on the brutal Noctis Island, Raizen D. Crow witnessed firsthand the cruelty of a lawless world. While others dreamed of freedom, Raizen dreamed of domination. Armed with the forbidden Kuro Kuro no Mi — granting him the power to control living darkness — he vowed to unite the seas under a single iron rule.

Gathering a fleet of the most dangerous outcasts, assassins, and fallen marines, Raizen wages a silent war against the corrupt forces of the world. His mission is clear: seize the ancient weapons, crush the chaotic pirate era, and forge an empire where peace is enforced by absolute power.

As he clashes with rising heroes, secret government agents, and even future legends like a young Crocodile, Raizen’s ambition casts a long shadow across the seas — one that even the World Government cannot ignore.

But far away, a boy with a straw hat is preparing to set sail… and the age of dreams is about to challenge the age of control.

Before the dawn of a new era... there was a storm.

One Piece: Shadows Before Dawn

The battlefield burned with the colors of dusk and ash.

Crimson skies wept embers onto scorched soil as Raizen stood amidst the wreckage of what had once been hope. The war against the remnants of the Celestial Court, the loyalists of the Null Star, and the ancient horrors awakened by the Crown had reached its blood-soaked crescendo.

But victory, if it had come at all, came with no triumph — only silence.

His blade was heavy. Not with fatigue, but with grief.

Scattered across the broken earth were the fallen: warriors, rebels, kings, and thieves who had stood by him from the beginning. Zuri, her twin blades shattered beside her lifeless body. Kaelen, the strategist who had once outwitted fleets, now pinned beneath a ruined colossus. Anara, the healer who never held a sword, her final breath spent shielding a child from a god's fury.

But they were still dead.

Raizen walked through the ruins like a ghost. The cheers of survivors rang in the distance — muffled, meaningless. In his hand, the Crown of Shadows pulsed dimly, its power flickering like a dying flame. It had given him strength. It had led him to victory.

And it had cost him everything.

He reached the center of the battlefield — the last throne of the Celestial Court, now crumbled. There, etched into the stone in blood and fire, were the words spoken by his enemies with their final breath:

"You think you've won, Crownbearer. But every crown carves a curse."

Visions plagued his thoughts — not of battles or prophecies, but of the moments in between: laughter around dying campfires, drunken promises under alien stars, quiet conversations with people who now only existed in memory.

Now he wasn't sure it was worth the price.

That night, he didn't sleep. No one did. The crew sat in silence aboard the ship as it drifted through starless waters, each of them nursing their wounds — physical, emotional, or otherwise.

Some began to whisper that Raizen was losing himself.

Others questioned whether they should continue following him.

Or had the line between savior and destroyer vanished somewhere back in the smoke and screams?

In the captain's quarters, Raizen stared at his reflection. The shadows beneath his eyes were not just from lack of sleep. The veins beneath his skin shimmered faintly — not with life, but with the mark of the Crown. Power had changed him. Maybe corrupted him. Maybe saved him.

He pressed a trembling hand to his chest, where the sigil of the Hollow Throne now pulsed faintly beneath his skin.

"If this is the cost of peace…""…then how many more must I bury?"

But in the silence, a voice spoke — not from the Crown, but from memory.

"Don't become what we fought against."

Raizen turned from the mirror, eyes no longer flickering with doubt — but with weary resolve. The war had taken his friends, his innocence, and the world he once knew.

"Set course for the Null Horizon," he said."We end this… before the cost becomes everything."

And the ship sailed on — toward the storm that awaited at the edge of existence. Toward the reckoning that would demand not just courage, but clarity.

For in the final hour, only one truth would remain:

Power always has a price.And Raizen was still paying.

Chapter 5: Wages of War