Chapter 1: The Storm's Heart
The world was pain. A symphony of it, conducted by the sky and played upon his nerves.
Arata huddled deeper into the crevice he called a home, his hands clamped over his ears. It was a futile gesture. The thunder didn't just sound; it felt. It was a physical force that vibrated through the black rock, shook the marrow in his bones, and stole the air from his lungs. For two years, this had been his life on Raijin Island—a relentless, screaming hell of lightning and noise.
'I was a historian,' he thought, the memory a fragile, precious thing amidst the chaos. 'I studied myths. I loved a story about a woman named Nico Robin... How did I end up here?'
A flash of blinding white—a bolt struck the peak above his cave, and for a terrifying second, the entire world was silent, save for the high-pitched ringing in his ears. Then, the sound came. A CRACK-BOOM that was less a sound and more a demolition of reality. The ground lurched. Dust and shards of rock rained down on him.
This was different. The storm was… intensifying. It had been building for hours, the clouds churning from a gloomy grey to a bruised, violent purple. He risked a glance outside. The air itself crackled, his hair standing on end. In the center of the small, barren valley, the ancient, petrified tree that had stood for centuries was glowing.
Driven by a curiosity that had outlived his sense of self-preservation, Arata scrambled out. The wind tried to tear him from the ground. Rain, when it fell, was a horizontal barrage of needles.
There, nestled within the roots of the glowing tree, was a fruit.
It was unlike anything he had ever seen. It was the size of a pomegranate, its skin a deep, royal purple, studded with golden, spiral patterns that pulsed with a soft, inner light. Tiny, silent arcs of lightning danced across its surface. The stem was a perfect, miniature hammer.
His breath hitched.
'No... It can't be.'
He knew this world. He knew the stories. The strange swirls, the unnatural appearance. This was a Devil Fruit.
His stomach, perpetually empty, clenched. His throat was sandpaper. He had been surviving on bitter roots and the occasional luck-finding a fish washed up in a tidal pool. This fruit, bizarre as it was, was food. And it was hope.
Another cataclysmic thunderclap directly overhead decided for him. This storm would kill him. It was a certainty.
With a final, desperate lunge, he snatched the fruit. It was warm to the touch, vibrating with a low hum. He didn't hesitate. He bit down.
The tales were true. It was the most revolting thing he had ever tasted, a mixture of rotten sewage and chemical ash. He forced himself to swallow the first mouthful, his body convulsing. Then another. He ate until only the stem remained.
For a moment, nothing. Then, the world dissolved into white-hot agony.
It wasn't a simple stomach ache. It was as if every cell in his body was being torn apart and rewired with live wires. Lightning, real lightning, erupted from his skin. He screamed, but the sound was lost in the storm. His vision blurred, filled with static. He felt his form flicker—solid one second, a being of pure, crackling energy the next.
He was the storm, and the storm was him.
The Mythical Zoan, the Jishin Jishin no Mi, was claiming its host. The power of Zeus, Thor, Indra, and Raijin—the combined might of every thunder god from every story he had ever studied—flooded into him, a tsunami of divine power threatening to erase the young man he once was.
As his consciousness faded into the maelstrom, one last, coherent thought echoed in his mind, a name carried on a thunderclap:
'Robin...'
The storm on the island raged on, but now, for the first time, it had a heart. And it was beating.