Loguetown, Central Plaza
The sky was spotless, not a single cloud in sight. The sun hung high and merciless, roasting the cobblestones until they felt hot enough to burn through a boot sole.
And yet, under that clear, bright weather, the plaza itself felt like it was suffocating.
The air was oppressive, so heavy it seemed on the verge of cracking.
Tens of thousands of civilians, reporters, pirates, and bounty hunters had poured in from across the world, compressing into the square until it was packed beyond reason. Shoulder to shoulder, packed tight enough that not even a drop of water could have slipped through.
It looked like a festival, grand, celebratory… and grotesquely twisted.
Sweat, cheap alcohol, dust, and feverish excitement churned together into a stench that stuck to the throat. People shouted and laughed and screamed as if they'd come to witness history, like it was entertainment.
This was a gala of death, broadcast to the world.
…
Marine Base, Dormitory
Aiden dressed in a brand-new Marine uniform.
No mask.
He stared at his reflection in the windowpane, blurred but clear enough to make out the silhouette of a handsome young man.
Dong. Dong.
Deep inside the base, a heavy bell began to toll.
The time had come.
Aiden stepped out of the dormitory and joined the escort unit, Headquarters elites assembled for this one purpose. He took his place on the left flank, matched on the right by a cold-faced Commander from HQ. Between them, marching a few steps ahead, was the man the world had come to see.
Gol D. Roger.
The moment Aiden passed through the gates and onto the final road toward the plaza, sound hit him like a wall.
A tidal wave of noise, so immense it felt physical, slammed into his senses.
His perception was far sharper than an ordinary person's, and right now that was a curse. Tens of thousands of voices collided into a single violent roar: screams, laughter, sobbing, curses, drunken chants, hysterical cheering. The sheer density of it made his skull vibrate.
It's just like the panels I read in my past life…
The thought rose instinctively.
Then he crushed it immediately.
No. It's not like that at all.
This was too real.
The stench in the air, sweat from countless bodies and sour alcohol, was real.
The faint tremor under his boots, the cobblestones vibrating from the restless shifting of the crowd, was real.
The faces, twisted with fanaticism, greed, fear, excitement, were real.
Aiden's gaze drifted forward, locking onto the tall silhouette walking a few meters ahead.
Roger wasn't a symbol on paper anymore.
Not a legend contained in ink.
Not a character trapped behind a screen.
He was a living man.
Aiden could see the fine wear along the seams of that famous red captain's coat, worn down by years at sea. He could hear the harsh clack, clack, clack of specially forged shackles dragging across stone. He could see black hair lift and flutter in the salty breeze.
Handcuffed.
Smiling.
Walking calmly toward his own death.
And Aiden…
He looked down at his own hands. Soon they would be holding an execution rifle.
He was the one who would personally send this man to the end.
At that moment, a feeling came over him.
He had transmigrated.
He was no longer a "reader," safely criticizing a story from behind glass.
He was a participant in a real world, cruel, vast, overflowing with terrifying possibility.
A world where he was about to kill the "protagonist of the old era."
Absurdity, chill, and a strange, almost morbid thrill churned in his chest all at once.
He watched the man he was about to kill with his own hands, and everything else fell away. The roar of the crowd dulled. The heat disappeared. The only thing left was a cold, ruthless focus that tightened around his mind like a vise.
When Aiden stepped onto the massive wooden execution platform, built specifically for the Pirate King, towering more than ten meters high, it felt as though the world pulled away from him.
Below: an endless sea of humanity. Tens of thousands of faces turned upward, distorted by hunger and awe.
Around him: wind, wood, rope, steel.
Inside him: the steady, controlled rhythm of his own heartbeat.
At the edge of his vision, several enormous single-eyed Video Den Den Mushi stared unblinking, broadcasting every frame of this moment live to the entire world.
Aiden and the HQ Commander took their positions behind Roger, rifles in hand, posted left and right like executioners carved from stone.
On a lower platform in front of the stand, Fleet Admiral Sengoku stood grim-faced, holding a long indictment document.
Farther away, swallowed by the shadows between buildings, Marine Hero Garp, the man who should have stood center-stage basking in cheers, leaned alone against a wall, arms crossed. The brim of his dog-head hat was pulled low, hiding his eyes and whatever they were feeling.
Next to Sengoku, Vice Admiral Tsuru watched with a frown.
This was proceeding too smoothly.
Sengoku stepped forward and began to read the Pirate King's crimes to the world.
"In Sea Calendar 1484, Gol D. Roger led his pirate crew to ravage the seas and defy the World Government…"
His voice was cold, cutting through the air in the square.
Aiden didn't listen.
Instead, he lifted his eyes, eyes far keener than any normal man's, and scanned the crowd.
He found them.
Among the sea of bodies, he saw a red-haired boy, Shanks, wearing a straw hat, crying so hard that his shoulders shook. Next to him, a boy with a red nose, Buggy, cried just as intensely, snot bubbling stupidly as tears fell endlessly.
Nearby, a young swordsman Mihawk stood with a face like ice, eyes sharp enough to carve steel.
Crocodile, cigar clenched between his teeth, wore defiance like armor.
A blond youth, Doflamingo hid behind sunglasses and a provocative smirk.
Gecko Moria, still tall and lean without that future beer belly, grinned with morbid excitement.
And mixed among the Marine ranks, staring up at the platform with a face full of longing and glory, stood a white-haired boy-soldier.
Smoker.
Finally, in the most inconspicuous corner of the square, barely noticeable, hood up, tattoos crawling across his face, watching like a detached bystander, stood Monkey D. Dragon.
So the future monsters are all here…
Aiden watched, not with fear, but with anticipation, as he witnessed a historic moment.
A grand production titled: The New Era.
And he was the one holding the curtain rope.
Finally, Sengoku finished his lengthy indictment. He raised his right arm and brought it down in one decisive motion; his voice echoed across the square.
"Execute!"
In that instant, the entire world went silent.
Aiden moved on reflex, raising his rifle in one clean motion, barrel aligned with the center of Roger's back.
And then…
His mind buzzed.
Went empty.
Wait. Now?
Aiden's heart skipped a beat.
What the hell? The process is wrong. Where are the last words? Where's the part where someone shouts about the treasure, where Roger answers and throws the world into chaos? How did we skip straight to the end?!
They weren't following the script.
Aiden froze.
Still standing at attention, rifle raised, in perfect posture.
Completely motionless.
That single hesitation, unnatural, wrong, unthinkable in a moment like this.
The Commander beside him snapped a look at him, shock flashing across his face.
Below, Captain Stock went pale, looking like his soul had left his body.
Sengoku's brow tightened into a furious knot.
Tsuru's eyes sharpened with alarm, suspicion and calculation flickering behind them.
In the shadows, Garp's crossed arms tightened almost imperceptibly.
The world was waiting for the gunshot that would end an era.
And all that filled the plaza now was wind.
Aiden's heart pounded so hard it felt like it was rattling his ribs. He was in the middle of the most deliberate, insane gamble of his life.
No… not enough.
Right now, Roger is only the "captured Pirate King."
Even if his [Sin Index] isn't low, it hasn't peaked yet.
Starting the Great Pirate Era, dragging visionaries and monsters onto the seas, plunging the world into twenty years of chaos… that is your greatest "sin."
And my greatest fortune.
Speak, Roger.
A man like you wouldn't be satisfied dying like this… would you?
Say it.
As if he could hear the shout of Aiden's soul, Roger, still smiling, still waiting calmly for death, seemed to notice the abnormal stillness around him.
Slowly, he turned his head.
For the first time, those impossibly deep eyes, eyes that had stared into the far end of the world, settled on the youth behind him.
Aiden saw no fear there.
No hatred.
Only a faint curiosity at the unexpected pause, and something else.
A kind of understanding.
A realization, as if Roger had seen through everything.
For an instant, Aiden experienced a strange illusion:
It felt as if Roger wasn't looking at a fifteen-year-old body at all.
It was as if Roger were looking right through him, into the adult soul of another world hidden inside him.
He understood the "stage" Aiden had created with that silence.
And then, drawing on what little strength remained, Roger threw back his head and laughed, bold and unrestrained, like a man who refused to be reduced to a corpse.
He spoke, and his voice carried to the entire world:
"Want my treasure?"
"If you want it, go find it! I left everything in the world… in that place!"
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