The transition was not a tunnel of light; it was the sensation of being crushed by a tectonic plate. When the consciousness of the man who would be Theron slammed into the wet, cold reality of a newborn's body, he didn't cry because of the cold. He cried because the very gravity of this world felt like an insult. The air was thick with Lineage Factors and the spiritual residue of a world governed by Will.
He lay in a wicker basket in a shack that smelled of rotting cedar and salt. His mother, a woman named Mara whose face was a map of North Blue hardships, looked down at him with a mix of terror and exhaustion.
"The rhythm," she whispered, her voice trembling. "His heart... why are there three?"
Theron, trapped in a body that couldn't even lift its own head, listened. Inside his chest, his heart didn't beat with the steady thump-thump of a normal human. It was a staggered, triple-beat syncopation a biological engine designed for a power his soul wasn't yet ready to pilot. He realized then that the "Atypical Body" of Teach wasn't just a fan theory; it was a physical anomaly that demanded massive amounts of energy.
'I am a blank slate,' Theron thought, his infant eyes struggling to focus on the flickering candlelight. 'I have the knowledge of the future, but the vessel of a peasant. If I don't build the foundation now, the Darkness will consume me before I can ever wield it.'
[Status: Marshall D. Theron | Haki: 0.1 | Physicality: 0.01]