The sky wept the night he was born.
Not with gentle rain or soft whispers of wind. No, the heavens howled. Thunder ripped through the clouds like swords, and lightning carved open the horizon with fury. Somewhere in the heart of a storm-wrapped island, where no maps dared mark, a woman gave birth amidst roars from the sky and sea alike.
And as if the world itself knew—he had returned.
Allen D. Walker came into this life not screaming, but breathing. Deep, controlled, eerily aware. His tiny body trembled not from fragility, but from the pressure of a memory too massive to be held by such small hands.
> I'm alive... again.
He remembered everything. His past life—a boy forgotten by the world, abandoned by parents who never loved him, consumed by loneliness so deep it felt eternal. He'd died without a single soul calling out his name.
But now, reborn in a world he'd only read about? In the arms of someone warm?
Everything hurt, but it was a new kind of pain. A fresh slate bleeding beneath old scars.
"He's beautiful," a voice whispered.
Allen blinked up slowly.
His mother—Serena D. Walker.
Her hair was dark as obsidian, matted with sweat and rain, eyes glowing faintly like moonlight behind stormclouds. Her arms held him like he was something fragile, yet sacred. Even through his newborn haze, Allen sensed it: power radiated from her. Not raw, but ancient. Sharp. Like the sea wrapped in silk.
"You see that?" came another voice—low, rumbling like earth shifting.
His father.
Hades D. Walker.
The man was a fortress of a figure, draped in a coat made from black dragon-scale leather, soaked in blood and seawater. A greatsword rested against the wall behind him, still steaming. One eye glowed faintly red. The other held grief.
He stepped closer, crouched beside Serena, and looked at the boy.
"He didn't cry," Hades said.
Serena smiled. "He doesn't need to."
Lightning flashed. In that moment, Allen saw it. Just for a second. A symbol on their wall—an old, forbidden flag, worn and faded, the skull etched with wings behind it.
> A pirate flag... but not one I've seen before.
---
Time passed strangely in babyhood.
To Allen, days blurred like mist over the sea. He couldn't walk, couldn't talk, but his mind raced. He studied everything. The guards that bowed to his parents. The giant beasts roaming the cliffs, tame and protective. The way maps were burned in the fire if outsiders got too close.
They were hiding.
But not from fear. From the world.
> My parents are dangerous... but I don't know how dangerous.
He heard whispers.
"Serena the Storm-Eater... she sank three ships with a glance."
"Hades the Dreadborn... they say he walked out of the Holy Land with the blood of a Celestial Dragon on his sword."
Allen didn't understand the full meaning.
Yet.
But his instincts stirred. These two weren't just pirates. They weren't warlords. They were something older. Something whispered about but never written.
And they were his.
---
One year passed.
Allen could walk now, though clumsily. He babbled in words he didn't need. But at night, he dreamed in voices. Memories leaked in, heavy and thick like fog:
His past life. The empty birthdays. The sharp words of a father who called him weak. The cold silence of a mother who saw him as a mistake. The suicide attempt. The aching loneliness of a soul that never had a place.
Sometimes he woke up crying. Sometimes screaming.
But one night… he didn't wake up at all.
---
Serena entered Allen's room just past midnight. A quiet wind brushed through the open window. The storm outside had calmed, but inside the room? Something felt wrong.
Allen was lying still, eyes wide open—but unfocused. His small body trembled, barely.
"Allen?" she whispered.
No response.
Then it hit her.
A surge.
Not Haki. Not exactly.
Something older. Deeper.
A projection.
Suddenly Serena felt it—saw it.
A room. Cold. Sterile. Too clean.
A boy—not even ten—sitting alone at a dinner table, wearing clothes too big for him. A cake in front of him. No candles. No one there.
"Happy birthday," he whispered to himself.
The scene shifted.
A man yelling, calling him a failure. A woman turning her face away, pretending she didn't hear. The boy crying in a bathtub, holding his chest where his heart should've felt something. Anything.
Then darkness.
A pill bottle. A chair. A single text message unsent.
Serena gasped. She staggered back from her son like she'd been stabbed. Her knees hit the floor. Hands shaking.
Tears.
Actual, uncontrollable tears.
She was a warrior, a pirate, a killer. She hadn't cried in twenty years. But this? This was her child.
And he had lived through a hell no one should've survived.
"Allen…" she choked out. She crawled to him, lifted his limp body gently, cradling his head against her chest.
His eyes fluttered. He wasn't crying. He just looked… tired.
Like he was still waiting for someone to say, "I love you."
She held him tighter.
> "No child of mine will ever feel that pain again. Not while I breathe."
And in that moment, something changed.
Not in him. In her.
---
After that night, Serena trained him herself. No more hiding him in the manor. No more sheltered walks and soft lullabies. She took him to the edge of the cliffs. Showed him the sea kings. Taught him how to feel the air, to listen to the silence.
And Hades? He never said it aloud. But he stood in the shadows more often. Watching. Guarding. Like he knew something was coming.
Something holy. Something hellish.
Their son… was not normal.
He was a soul stitched from broken stars. A child forged not just by blood—but by pain.
And whether the world was ready or not, Allen D. Walker would rise.
Not as a savior. Not as a monster.
But as a storm the heavens themselves would have to answer for.
---
End of Chapter 1