The retreat had turned into slaughter. Whitebeard's final command — "Escape! Live!" — now rang out like a cruel joke, buried beneath the cacophony of chaos. The battlefield had become a twisted symphony, a masterpiece of annihilation painted in ice, magma, and light.
Explosions carved the sky. Screams tore through the smoke. And through it all, three divine juggernauts — Akainu, Aokiji, Kizaru — moved like avatars of destruction, wiping away the last hopes of the dying era.
But it was Akainu who moved with purpose — not as a soldier, but as a beast seeking to drive the final nail into the soul of a legend.
He emerged from the firestorm, his face carved from stone and rage, molten heat rising in waves around him. The magma in his fist dripped like blood.
Whitebeard.
The old Emperor, his mighty frame trembling. His grip on the bisento wavered, his white mustache soaked in his own blood. His eyes, however, still burned — not with hatred, but sorrow. Watching his sons fall. Watching the dream unravel.
Akainu sneered.
"Edward Newgate, the great Whitebeard… reduced to this."
He stepped forward, his voice raised, booming through the battlefield like a drum of doom.
"You sacrificed everything… and for what? For children who now flee like rats? For Ace — Gold Roger's bastard? Look at your sons die! That's your legacy — a graveyard!"
He turned, voice cruel and sharp as blades:
"And Ace… Ace is no son of yours. He's a coward, running while his father bleeds!"
The insult was poison.
It reached Ace, running beside Luffy, Jinbe, and a handful of survivors. The world seemed to stop.
Luffy was limping, barely conscious, clutching his side, and leaning on Jinbe. The others were screaming to move. But Ace stood still, as if rooted to the burning earth.
His fists clenched. His breath slowed. The flames around him stopped flickering — then suddenly blazed into white-hot fury, dancing around him like vengeful spirits.
"...You can insult me," Ace murmured, his voice low, but trembling with power. "But don't you ever speak about Pops again."
Luffy wheezed, trying to grab his brother's arm. "Ace… don't… Please—"
Jinbe, voice stern, barked, "This is not the time! He wants to provoke you—!"
But it was far too late.
Ace turned.
Eyes locked with Akainu's. The fires burst outward like a supernova.
"YOU DARE SPEAK HIS NAME WITH THAT FILTHY MOUTH?!!"
He launched himself forward, no hesitation, no plan, just rage, grief, and loyalty given form.
"HIKEN!!!"
The Fire Fist — now larger, faster, deadlier — exploded from his arm like the wrath of a god. It roared toward Akainu, heat bending the very air.
Akainu raised his own arm, magma boiling and twisting like the claws of a demon.
"DAI FUNKA."
Their fists collided.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The ground shattered.
Shockwaves ripped through the ice.
Fire and magma consumed each other — but fire is fleeting, and magma is forever.
Ace's scream tore through the smoke as his flame was devoured, his arm charred, the searing pain sending him crashing backward, slamming into the ice with a broken cry.
"ACE!!" Luffy screamed, crawling to his brother.
Ace's eyes were wide, face pale, body trembling from the pain. But worse than pain was the failure — the knowledge he couldn't even defend Pops.
Akainu marched forward, relentless.
"Fire burns out, Ace. But magma reshapes the earth." He stepped past Ace's broken form — and locked eyes on Luffy.
"The son of Dragon."
His voice was cold and calm — murder disguised as justice. "Let's end this chapter of rebellion."
He raised his fist. The heat turned unbearable. The lava hissed, casting shadows of death over Luffy's face.
And then —
"NO!"
The fish-man surged forward, ignoring his own pain, throwing himself in front of Luffy like a wall of flesh and will.
"YOU WILL NOT TOUCH HIM!"
CRACK!! HIIIIISSSSSSSSSHHHH!!!
Magma met Jinbe's back — and seared through him.
The sound was inhuman.
Burning flesh. Bone cracking. Jinbe's scream tore through the battlefield, raw and animal.
He fell — smoke rising from the gaping hole punched through his body — but he had protected Luffy.
"JINBE!!" Luffy shrieked, crawling to his fallen friend.
Akainu did not flinch. He stepped over Jinbe's body.
And now — He stood above Luffy, face unreadable. The magma dripped from his hand like blood from a sword.
"This is the justice of the world."
The fist rose.
Luffy stared up, helpless.
Akainu loomed.
Jinbe's body, steaming and broken, lay crumpled on the shattered ice. Luffy, trembling, bloodied, stared up helplessly, the heat of death reflecting in his wide, horrified eyes.
Above him, the Admiral's magma fist glowed like a miniature sun, a judgment made of molten hate.
"This is the end, Straw Hat," Akainu declared coldly, his voice the voice of a world that had long since forgotten mercy.
Time fractured.
In that moment — stretched, suspended like the final heartbeat before a deathblow — Ace saw everything. Jinbe's sacrifice. Luffy's terror. The fist. The flame. The end.
And something deeper stirred.
Love.
Not just a brother's love. Not just a comrade's.
A fire that burned brighter than magma — hotter than the pain blistering his own skin.
He moved as a brother.
His body was broken. His arm hung useless. His side was raw agony. And still —
He moved.
"LUFFY!!" It wasn't a cry.
He dove forward — not to strike, not to fight — but to shield.
No flame, no haki, no plan.
Only himself.
Only his life.
He wrapped his arms around Luffy and turned his back to the coming fist.
Akainu's magma descended like divine punishment.
But from across the hellscape of Marineford, where fire and fists had shattered mountains of ice and pride, another heart stirred.
Gunnar.
But now—
He saw Ace.
He saw Luffy.
He saw death.
"...No," he whispered, golden eyes going wide.
He had made a promise. Not again.
He could not move fast enough. His body was slowly giving up. And power stirred within his body.
It wasn't just the power of quakes. It was the chaos of the elementals — fire and ice, life and destruction, colliding in perfect, unnatural union.
He let go.
Head thrown back, his red-and-white hair lashed like wild flame in a storm.
And then—
He screamed.
No — he unleashed.
FWOOOOOOOSH—KRAAAAAAAAAAAAA—KABOOOOOOOOOM!!!
From Gunnar's throat tore a breath.
A beam of magma infused with polar frost, swirling like a spiral of Armageddon. It crossed the battlefield in the blink of a thought — not heat, not cold, but both — lashing out like the final breath.
It slammed into Akainu's fist a millisecond before it struck Ace.
BOOOOOOOM!!!
A sound like a volcanic eruption buried in an avalanche tore through Marineford.
Steam exploded outward.
Flame met flame.
Magma screamed against magma.
Ice clashed against heat, birthing a cyclone of boiling mist and falling snow.
Akainu staggered back, his attack thrown off course by the sudden detonation. His magma fist veered just left — enough to avoid punching through Ace's spine. The magma splattered, searing across Ace's back.
The scream that left Ace's lips was inhuman.
Raw.
Agonizing. The cry of a man burning alive — but still alive.
His flesh blistered, his back warped and blackened — but there was no hole. No fatal wound. His body had taken the blow — and lived.
The battlefield stopped. Even the Admirals paused.
Gunnar who was one knee, dropped face first on the ice.
Steam and frost poured from his lips, smoke coiling from his shoulders. His chest heaved. His heart pounded like a war drum caught between worlds.
He had done it.
By an inch, he had saved them.
"...Still breathing," he whispered, blinking through the blur in his eyes. "Not losing them... not again…"
The battlefield was still reeling from the elemental explosion, the steam not yet cleared, when a thunderous crack split the air.
Garp moved.
The Hero of the Marines — bloodied, breathing hard, his fists clenched like warheads — launched forward with terrifying speed. His coat was in tatters, muscles bulging, eyes filled not with duty… but with rage.
"You interfered," Garp growled. "Thank you for saving my grandson."
BOOM!
He was on Gunnar in an instant.
Gunnar barely had time to raise his head. Trying to kneel, drained from his attack, his vision blurred. His eyes widened as Garp's massive fist, coated in jet-black Armament Haki, drew back with enough force to make the very ice beneath them crack apart.
"DON'T YOU DARE PLAY GOD!!"
CRAAAAACK!!!
The punch landed.
A mountain-shattering blow, pure Haki-infused fury, driven by heartbreak and raw, soldier's will.
Gunnar's body bent with the impact—
—and then flew.
BOOOOOOM!!!
He was launched into the ice like a cannonball, trailing smoke and blood, his massive frame slicing through Icy sea, vanishing into the depths of Hell.
The ice cratered beneath where he had been. The shockwave blasted nearby marines and pirates off their feet. Even Whitebeard's crew looked up, stunned.
Garp stood alone, his fist still trembling.
Chest heaving.
Tears in his eyes.
"...Damn you," he whispered, "for making me choose."
Gunnar as his body tore through into the deep Raven of ice, 'The old Man has gone senile, He is speaking non-sense!'
Ace's body trembled with pain as he slowly pulled himself upright. His back, a grotesque canvas of burned flesh, screamed with every movement, but his focus never wavered. His arms, shaking and unsteady, cradled Luffy, whose body lay limp, still unconscious but alive. Ace's heart beat in erratic rhythm, but his resolve was absolute. His brother was alive. That was all that mattered.
Beside him, the remnants of his crew staggered forward — Vista, bloodied from the recent clash, his swords still held firmly in hand. Jozu, battered, his diamond arm shattered, his body bruised and broken. Marco, his wings tattered but still alight with the fire of determination.
But above them all, standing on the edge of the world, was Whitebeard.
The old Emperor's gaze swept over his sons — those still standing, those who had sacrificed everything — but there was no joy in his eyes. His was the gaze of a man who had seen his end and accepted it.
He had fought for them.
And now, he would give them the gift of life.
His bisento, a weapon of unparalleled might, was gripped tightly in his hands, the shaft slick with blood. The weight of his injuries was evident, but in that moment, there was no weakness in him — only purpose.
With a single, earth-shattering motion, he swung his weapon down.
KRA-KOOOOOOOM!
The ground trembled, the sky seemed to fracture. A massive fissure tore through the ice, splitting Marineford as if the island itself was being cleaved in two. A chasm opened wide between the pirates and the advancing Marines, a barrier that would give his sons the chance to escape. The quake was more than just an attack — it was a declaration, a final cry of defiance.
"MY SONS!" Whitebeard's voice rang out across the battlefield, a booming command that resonated deep within the hearts of all who heard it. "FLEE! LIVE! I WILL HOLD THE LINE!"
The words fell like thunder.
But as his sons hesitated, struggling to tear themselves away, the weight of the moment threatened to pull them back.
"Pops…!" Marco cried, tears streaking down his face. "We can't leave you!"
"We fight with you!" Jozu shouted, his voice cracking with anguish.
Even Vista, bloodied and broken, could only stand in stunned silence, the weight of the decision too heavy to bear.
Ace, carrying Luffy, looked back. His heart twisted in two, a raw ache ripping through his chest. The image of Whitebeard, standing alone, facing the Marines, was too much to bear. "Pops…" His voice cracked, but his feet didn't stop moving. He had to carry Luffy to safety, had to keep running. That was his command. Whitebeard's final act of love was to let them go.
With a last, painful look at the man who had been his father, Ace turned, carrying Luffy in his arms, and began to retreat with the others. His heart was being torn in two, but he understood — this was Whitebeard's gift. To ensure their survival, to make sure the flame of their legacy would not die with him.
And then, Whitebeard stood alone.
His back to the fleeing sons he had raised, his arms wide, as if embracing the very end that awaited him. His bisento planted firmly before him, his colossal form unwavering.
Before him, the Marines advanced — the full might of the World Government closing in. Akainu, his magma fist blazing with infernal heat. Aokiji, his icy aura like a death knell. Kizaru, his light flickering with deadly focus. Behind them, Sengoku, Garp, and the countless soldiers of the Marines.
But Whitebeard did not flinch.
He did not yield.
His voice rang out once more, weaker now, but still unbreakable.
"I am Whitebeard! NONE SHALL PASS!"
He planted his bisento firmly into the ground, the very earth trembling beneath his feet. A final act of defiance.
The Marines paused. For just a moment, they hesitated. They saw the man who had ruled the seas, the man who had carved his name into history with blood and fire, standing alone before them.
He was dying.
But in that moment, he was still immortal.
Whitebeard — Edward Newgate — stood as the last symbol of the old era.
***
The jagged, dark crevice where Gunnar had vanished hissed with an unnatural cold. For a moment, the chaotic battlefield seemed to hold its breath.
"GUNNNAAAAAARRRRRR!!!"
The scream ripped through the air, raw and laced with a sudden, primal terror. It wasn't a battle cry; it was the sound of something precious being violently torn away. Charlotte Smoothie, her earlier confidence shattered from witnessing the sheer brutality of Garp's blow, whirled around, her eyes wide with disbelief and fury. Mihawk himself paused his advance, his piercing gaze flickering towards the new abyss.
Smoothie didn't hesitate. Her towering form blurred. "YOU OLD MARINE BASTARD!" she shrieked at Garp, but her immediate concern was singular. With a desperate leap, she plunged headfirst into the gaping, icy raven in Marineford's heart, disappearing into the freezing darkness after Gunnar. Kirin, letting out a panicked, trilling cry, dove in right after her, a streak of iridescent feathers against the grim backdrop. "You attack him while he protects your Grand-kids, dropping his Guard!"
The crevice was a nightmarish chasm, far deeper than it appeared. Jagged ice walls plunged into an inky blackness, the cold so intense it bit through Smoothie's Haki-reinforced skin. Debris from shattered ice and stone rained down. She extended her senses, her Haki desperately searching through the gloom.
"Gunnar! Where are you, you infuriating man?!"
Then, a faint, sputtering glow deep below – a pathetic flicker of magma, almost extinguished, and a dull, fractured shimmer of frost. He was there, wedged between two colossal ice spurs, half-submerged in frigid, churning seawater that was already trying to freeze solid around him.
With a surge of her immense strength, Smoothie kicked off an ice wall, descending like a torpedo. She reached him, her long fingers brushing against skin that was dangerously cold on one side and alarmingly cool on the other, where magma should have been blazing.
His eyes were closed, his face slack, streaked with blood and grime. The sheer devastation wrought upon his body was horrifying; the deep, crushing indentation from Garp's fist was fresh and terrible, laid atop older burns, rents from the Admirals, and the tell-tale signs of internal elemental backlash from his last desperate attack. He was a wreck, barely clinging to life.
"No… no, no, no," she whispered, her voice tight with a fear she rarely allowed herself to feel. Carefully, yet with urgent strength, she wrapped her powerful arms around his torso, mindful of his myriad injuries. He was a dead weight, his massive frame utterly limp. "Don't you dare die on me, Edward Gunnar! Not after all this! Not now!"
The crevice was a nightmarish chasm. Debris rained down. She extended her Haki, desperately searching.
Then, a faint, sputtering glow deep below – a pathetic flicker of magma, almost extinguished, and a dull, fractured shimmer of frost. He was there, wedged between two colossal ice spurs, half-submerged in frigid, churning seawater that was already trying to freeze solid around him.
With a surge of her immense strength, Smoothie kicked off an ice wall, descending like a torpedo. She reached him. His eyes were closed, his face slack, streaked with blood and grime.
The sheer devastation wrought upon his body was horrifying: the triple Admiral assault had left him battered and burnt; Sengoku's divine shockwave had internally bruised him; Garp's first blow had cracked ribs and ruptured something vital; the desperate elemental beam to save Ace had drained his core; and Garp's final, brutal punch had been a near-killing blow, leaving a horrifying indentation on his chest.
He was a wreck.
She hauled him upwards, Kirin circling. As she dragged him onto the jagged edge of the ice, just as Ace was steadying himself with Luffy, she laid Gunnar down.
His chest wasn't moving.
His skin, even on the magma side, was terrifyingly cold.
The faint elemental glow that always clung to him was gone. Utterly.
"No…" Smoothie whispered, her voice cracking. She pressed two fingers to his neck. Nothing. Her eyes widened in sheer panic. "NO! Gunnar! Don't you dare!"
Kirin landed beside them, nuzzling Gunnar's still face, letting out a distressed, high-pitched keen.
"His heart… it's stopped!" Smoothie exclaimed, raw terror replacing her usual composure. There was no time for grief, only desperate action. "Kirin, get ready!"
She tilted Gunnar's head back, pinched his nose, and sealed her lips over his, forcing air into his lungs. Then, placing her powerful hands over the center of his chest, right over the devastating impact Garp had left, she began to pump. Hard. Fast.
"One, two, three, four…" she counted, her voice strained, each compression a prayer, a demand. She could feel the sickening give of broken ribs beneath her palms, but she didn't stop. "Come on, Gunnar! BREATHE, damn you!"
After a cycle, she gave him more breaths, then resumed compressions. Kirin watched, feathers puffed, eyes wide with distress, its body crackling with a faint, almost imperceptible energy.
"It's not working!" Smoothie cried out after several frantic minutes, tears of frustration and despair now openly streaming down her face, mixing with the grime and blood. "He's… he's too damaged!"
Kirin let out a sharp, decisive shriek. Its iridescent feathers suddenly blazed with a brilliant, violet-white light. The air around it crackled.
"Kirin, what are you—?"
The mythical bird didn't wait. It pressed its feathery chest against Gunnar's, directly over his heart.
"KREEEEEEE-THOOOM!"
A controlled, but potent, shockwave of pure, vital energy pulsed from Kirin directly into Gunnar's chest. It wasn't an attack; it was a jolt, a desperate infusion of life force. Gunnar's body arched violently off the ice, then slammed back down.
Silence.
Smoothie held her breath.
Then, a small, choked gasp.
Gunnar's chest hitched. Once. Twice. Then, a ragged, shuddering inhale.
His eyelids fluttered. A sliver of dull gold, unfocused, appeared.
"...hnnngggh…" A pained groan, but a sound nonetheless.
The elemental glow, so faint it was almost invisible, flickered back into existence around him – a dying ember of magma, a fragile shard of ice.
"He's breathing!" Smoothie sobbed, relief washing over her in a dizzying wave. "He's breathing! Oh, thank the seas, Kirin, you did it!"
Kirin trilled weakly, its own light dimming, the effort clearly having cost it.
"Pops…? Ace… Luffy…?" Gunnar's voice was a barely audible rasp, laced with confusion and agony. The world was a blur of pain.
"They're… Whitebeard is making his stand," Smoothie said, her voice softer now, her gaze flicking towards the distant, towering figure of the Emperor who was now cleaving Marineford. "He's buying them time. Your brothers… they're trying to retreat."
Gunnar's fingers twitched. He tried to push himself up, a spasm of effort rippling through his broken body. The agony was indescribable.
"Have to… help…"
"Help?" Smoothie almost shrieked, pressing a hand gently but firmly to his shoulder. "You can barely stand! Your heart literally just stopped, you colossal idiot! You try to fight now, and you'll die for real! For good!"
Despite her words, despite the agony that contorted his features, Gunnar pushed again. His muscles screamed, bones grated, and the faint elemental glow around him sputtered like a dying candle. Slowly, shakily, with Smoothie instinctively supporting him, he managed to get to his knees, then, after a Herculean effort that left him gasping and trembling violently, to his feet.
He stood, but it was a horrifying sight. He was hunched, swaying, blood dripping freely onto the ice. One eye was swollen shut, the other a dull, pain-filled gold. His magma side was little more than cooling rock, cracked and seeping steam; his ice side was a fractured, unstable mass.
He looked like a man held together by sheer willpower and Smoothie's supporting arm. He leaned heavily on her, his breathing a harsh, painful rattle. His gaze, however, was fixed on the distant figure of Whitebeard.
The Emperor's voice rang out across the battlefield: "MY SONS! FLEE! LIVE! I WILL HOLD THE LINE!"
Then, something shifted.
A small, almost imperceptible cloud, not of steam or frost, but of swirling, chaotic energy – a miniature nebula of clashing red and blue – began to coalesce around his left shoulder, where Kirin often perched. It pulsed, faintly at first, then with growing intensity.
Smoothie, her arm still around his waist to keep him upright, felt it first – a subtle vibration, a thrumming power emanating from him that was different from his usual power. "Gunnar…?"
His one good eye, previously dull with pain, flickered. A low groan escaped him, but it wasn't just pain this time.
Smoothie stared in horrified awe as Gunnar's slumped shoulders began to straighten. His broken bones, the ones she'd felt grating under her hands during CPR, were audibly, visibly, snapping back into place. Not healing in the slow, phoenix-fire way Marco might, but forcibly, violently, reforming.
"What…?" Gunnar rasped, his own voice sounding distant to him. His head tilted back.
From his brow, just above his temples, two protrusions began to emerge. On his right, a thick, crimson horn, like sharpened volcanic rock, began to spiral upwards, glowing faintly with internal heat, small rivulets of molten energy tracing its length. On his left, an equally sized horn of jagged, translucent blue ice pushed through, frost instantly forming around its base, an arctic chill emanating from it.
His red-and-white hair, matted with blood and grime, suddenly seemed to writhe with a life of its own, lengthening, cascading past his shoulders, stark white on one side, blood-red on the other, each strand crackling with energy.
"This… power…" Gunnar grunted, his voice deepening, taking on a resonant, almost bestial timbre. His eyes snapped open fully, no longer dull, but blazing gold, pupils slitted like a predator's, an Animal.
The skin on his right side, where magma pulsed, began to shift. The glowing veins she knew so well deepened, becoming intricate, raised carvings that resembled ancient runes or the exposed, superheated sinew of some mythical beast, pulsing with a furious crimson light. His very flesh seemed to harden, taking on the texture of igneous rock.
Simultaneously, his left side underwent a similar, yet opposite, transformation. The frost shimmering there coalesced into crystalline patterns, veins of pure, glacial blue light etching themselves across his skin, forming sharp, geometric carvings that looked like the facets of a colossal diamond, or the frozen heart of a blizzard. His skin took on an almost translucent, unbreakable icy sheen.
His entire frame seemed to swell, not just in muscle. Steam and frost billowed from him in greater, more controlled plumes.
"This is…" Smoothie breathed, her hand falling away from him, not in rejection, but in awe. The air around him thrummed with an almost unbearable vitality, that screamed of a Mythical Zoan awakening in its most terrifying, glorious form. "Gunnar… you're… Awakening!"
Gunnar clenched his fists. The sound was like boulders grinding together. He looked down at his hands – one wreathed in roaring magma, the other encased in razor-sharp ice, both looking more animalistic, more potent.
He looked towards Whitebeard, standing defiant. "My body was giving up. But my will… my blood… it refuses to yield! And body managed to catch up to it."
He threw his head back, the red and blue horns stark against the ash-gray sky.
"THIS ISN'T JUST AWAKENING!" he bellowed, a wave of palpable power, a fusion of Conqueror's Haki and raw, untamed Zoan energy, exploding outwards, forcing Smoothie to brace herself. "THIS IS REBIRTH!"
The cloud around his shoulder danced violently across his body, like a blizzard of snow.