The rebirth was quiet. No sudden flash, no memory rush. Bennie simply opened his eyes to a different kind of light. He was born on Oykot, a tiny, sun-drenched island in the East Blue, a place too insignificant to matter to the vast powers of the world.
He was a quiet child, abnormally still. His adoptive mother worried about his silence, but quickly learned Bennie wasn't slow; he was simply processing the world at a frantic, adult speed. His intelligence was startling, yet he kept it hidden behind thoughtful, perpetually serious blue eyes.
The memories of his first life were not clear pictures, but phantom sensations. He recoiled instinctively from anything that restricted movement—belts cinched too tightly, small rooms, high walls. The sight of chains made his heart hammer in his chest, and any command delivered with authority drew a cold, deep-seated aversion that made him physically stiffen. These weren't phobias; they were the scars of his first life etched onto his new soul.
He found a measure of the peace he had once desperately craved, lost in the rhythm of the ocean and the predictable kindness of the islanders. His life was small, but it was free.
And then, the world reminded him of its true, ugly nature.
A massive, battleship-gray Marine cruiser anchored off the eastern coast. Soon after, a gaudy, enormous yacht was towed to the dock. The arrival meant trouble, but the islanders knew better than to resist. It meant the visit of a Celestial Dragon.
The man, clad in the absurd bubble helmet and billowing white robes, was named Saint Jarkel. He wasn't here for goods; he was here for sport.
Bennie was retrieving water near the village square when the commotion began. Saint Jarkel had grown bored of target shooting fruit and had turned his attention to an old, lame pack-dog that belonged to the village elder. The elder, a kindly, frail woman named Nana, wept and pleaded, bowing her head to the dirt.
A cold, familiar dread seized Bennie's chest, a horrible mix of the old fear and a rising new anger. It wasn't the dog, or even the elder; it was the absolute, careless authority on display. The way the Dragon acted as if everything—even the life of a weeping old woman—was merely his plaything.
He didn't think. He simply moved.
In a flash of pure, instinctual defense against the looming threat of tyranny, Bennie darted forward. He wasn't trying to fight, just to obstruct—to place himself between the Dragon and the victim, a silent, defiant wall.
Saint Jarkel didn't even see the child. He only heard the sharp, frantic yell of his Marine escort: "Get that commoner off the ground! He's in the way!"
The Dragon barely paused, waving a lazy, dismissive hand. "Erase him. He's dirtying my view."
Before Bennie could even register the depth of his mistake, the air beside the yacht shimmered. The color of gold. Slow, indifferent, and absolute, Vice Admiral Kizaru materialized in a streak of blinding light.
The power of the World Government had arrived. And Bennie, the boy who just wanted peace, was once again in the wrong place at the wrong time, challenging the wrong kind of monster.