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

Reality cracked — not with sound, but with silence.

In the wake of his battle with the gods, Raizen descended from the celestial realm not as a man, but as something altered. His eyes shimmered with starlight, his heartbeat echoed like distant thunder, and his reflection no longer matched his memory.

But as the world bent around him, something far worse began to unravel:the truth.

Raizen's dreams turned violent. He saw faces he'd never met, heard voices calling him by a different name. His memories — once clear — now flickered like broken film.

He stood alone on a mirror-flat plain of obsidian, surrounded by phantoms of his past:

His father, holding a blade that never existed.

A younger version of himself, reaching for the Crown long before he ever found it.

Flameheart Drax, smiling, not with hatred — but pity.

"You still don't see it, do you?" the phantom Drax whispered."You were never chosen. You were made."

A hooded figure stepped forward — neither god nor mortal.

She called herself Myra, the Echokeeper.

She claimed to guard a forbidden truth: that Raizen's life had been shaped by the Crown since birth. The visions, the battles, even his enemies — many had been fabricated echoes, projections shaped to mold him into a weapon.

"Your rebellion, your pain, your triumph — curated," she said."You weren't meant to wield the Crown. You were meant to become it."

In a final trial of perception, Myra offered him a key — not of metal, but of memory.With it, Raizen unlocked a hidden vault in his mind:

He saw the original bearers of the Crown.

He saw his own birth — not as the son of a pirate, but as a construct, a convergence of divine will and human ambition.

He saw the face of the first lie: the Crown did not bind the Endbringer. It fed it.

Every use of the Crown's power had accelerated its awakening.

Raizen screamed — and the world around him shattered into glass.

When he awoke, he was alone, bleeding from the nose, surrounded by fragments of himself, whispering truths in a hundred broken voices.

He looked at his hands — glowing faintly — and whispered:

"If I'm not real… then neither are my chains."

He stood, not as a pawn, not even as a king — but as Raizen, ready to rewrite the rules of gods and monsters alike.

But the Endbringer was listening.And it was hungry.

Chapter 11: Shattered Illusions