The rumble of the earth had faded, but Whitebeard's will still trembled through the bones of every man who stood on the fractured battlefield. The colossal chasm he had ripped through Marineford was more than a wound on the land — it was a father's final wall. A line drawn with love, blood, and sacrifice.
On one side, the advancing wrath of the World Government.
On the other, his sons — scattered, bloodied, hearts breaking, staring across the gulf at the mountain who refused to fall.
"Pops… He's not serious…"
A young pirate crumpled to his knees, his sword slipping from numb hands, clattering uselessly onto the ice.
"WE GO BACK!" another cried, his voice cracking with fury. "We fight until the end! With him!"
But even as their grief surged, one man landed heavily among them, smoke and blue fire still curling off his wings.
Marco, the Phoenix, stumbled as he touched down beside Jozu and Vista. His flames sputtered, not from exhaustion alone — but from sorrow. He looked once at the lone figure of Whitebeard, standing between death and the future, then back at the faces of his crewmates, twisted with agony.
He didn't speak immediately. His jaw clenched. His hands shook.
Then, finally—
"…He's not asking," Marco whispered.
Vista turned, his twin blades trembling. "What are you saying? We can't leave him! Not like this!"
Marco's voice cracked as he forced himself to speak, to accept what every part of him screamed against.
"He's not dying for nothing, yoi… He's giving us something."
His eyes burned with a grief so deep it seemed eternal. "A future."
Jozu, kneeling on the ruined ice, slammed his shattered diamond fist into the ground, cracking it further. "I won't leave Oyaji to die alone!"
"No one wants to," Marco said, his shoulders slumping beneath the weight of it all. "But if we stay… we die. All of us. His final order wasn't to fight. It wasn't revenge. It was to live. To carry his dream."
A silence descended — not of peace, but of heartbreak.
Then, slowly, Marco turned to face them all. His voice steadied.
"He's standing alone… so we don't have to. He's facing the world so we can walk away from it. We run now, and his name lives on in us. But if we turn back…"
He couldn't finish. His throat closed with grief.
Vista, sword still raised, finally dropped it to his side. His eyes closed. A tear cut down through the blood on his cheek.
Jozu bowed his head. His shoulders shook.
And then, one by one, the pirates nodded — slowly, painfully, like each gesture tore something from inside them. The sons of Whitebeard, warriors of the sea, chose to obey the hardest command their captain had ever given.
They began to move. Carrying the wounded. Watching each other's backs. Still crying, still trembling — but retreating. Living.
And on the other side of the chasm—
Akainu moved.
The Admiral's body now blazed like a living volcano, magma coursing across his skin, the very air distorting around him. His eyes burned with loathing, lips curled into a sneer of absolute contempt.
"So," he growled, stepping toward the edge of the abyss, "you choose to die alone, Whitebeard? How noble."
He lifted his arm — magma dripping in glowing, hellish streams.
"No sons left to save you now. Just a rotting husk pretending to be a king."
He launched himself forward.
"JIGOKU TABI!" — Hell Journey!
His body transformed into a tidal wave of molten fury, a living tsunami of lava crashing across the broken ice, aiming to swallow the Emperor whole in one final, devastating strike.
Marineford – The Rebellion of the Son
Whitebeard tightened his grip around the haft of his bisento, shoulders squared, legs braced against the trembling earth. His breath came in ragged gulps, blood flowing freely down his torso. The magma storm was closing in — Akainu, a walking cataclysm of molten wrath, raced toward him like hell incarnate.
And then—
A voice cracked the tension like a thunderclap.
"Well, that's a damn shame, Pops…"
The voice was broken but unbent. Tired, but defiant.
All heads turned.
There, on the fractured edge of the chasm, stood Gunnar.
Beside him, Smoothie, her sword drawn but held low, watched him not with scorn, but a quiet reverence. On his shoulder, the vibrant Kirin, feathers burned and bent, let out a low, warbling screech — half warning, half battle cry.
"Because I," Gunnar said, his golden eyes glinting with a wild, dangerous light, "respectfully decline that order."
"GUNNAR!!" Whitebeard roared, his voice hoarse, furious, fatherly. "YOU STUBBORN FOOL! I TOLD YOU TO RETREAT!"
Marco whipped around, blue flames trailing from his wings. "Gunnar, don't be insane! He's doing this to protect us!"
But Gunnar only chuckled — the sound dry, feral. "Protect us? From what? A world we already chose to fight?" He glanced over his shoulder at Marco, voice like iron scraping against stone. "He gave us his everything, Marco. And now he's standing there to die while we crawl away?"
His fists clenched. Magma burns still flared across his arm. Ice frost lingered on his jaw. His elemental balance was shattered — and still, he stood.
"I was born to a world of silence, raised by pain, and haunted by blood," Gunnar muttered. "And yet, he called me 'son.' That name gave me something no Devil Fruit ever could. Purpose."
Smoothie's hand tightened on his shoulder. "This will kill you."
He turned to her, eyes briefly softening. "Then I die for the right reason."
Her hand fell away.
He stepped forward.
His boots crunched ice, blood trailing behind him.
He grinned, sharp and unyielding, like a war god reborn. "Besides… someone's gotta teach that walking volcano not to touch my brother again."
Then he moved.
BOOM!
Gunnar's foot slammed into the ground and a crackling shockwave of mixed ice and molten energy burst from his heels, propelling him into the air like a blazing comet. The chasm beneath him trembled, steam exploding in his wake.
From the sky, as he sailed over the chasm, Gunnar roared, "AKAINU!!!"
Akainu's head snapped up, fury etched into every line of his molten body. "You again?! You should've died with that breath!"
"Try harder," Gunnar snarled.
Their collision lit the heavens.
CLAAAAAAANG!
Gunnar's fist, wreathed in a chaotic fusion of lava and frost, met Akainu's magma fist mid-air. The impact exploded into a halo of steam and flame, vaporizing nearby debris and knocking Marines off their feet.
Akainu growled, veins pulsing with heat. "You think you can beat me in that state?"
Gunnar's lips split into a bloody grin. "Not alone."
He drove his elbow, coated in Haki, into Akainu's ribs, and with his other hand unleashed a burst of cryo-magma, a spiraling torrent of lava laced with frost, directly into the Admiral's chest.
Akainu screamed — a sound of both rage and surprise — as the twisted elemental blast cracked his molten armor, sending molten chunks flying.
Whitebeard watched, eyes wide. That reckless bastard…
BOOM!
The two combatants were thrown apart, smoke and flame trailing behind them. Gunnar slammed down beside his father, kneeling briefly, coughing blood. He lifted his axe and rose again, swaying.
"Looks like you're not alone anymore, Pops," Gunnar said, voice strained but proud.
Whitebeard didn't speak. He just looked down at him — at his broken, beautiful disaster of a son — and nodded once.
It was the only blessing Gunnar had ever truly needed.
The crackle of lightning, and the thunder of collapsing pride, Whitebeard stood alone against the Admirals. Gunnar, his broken body defying his father's final command, surged toward the front lines, a living storm forged of flame and frost. Ace cradled his unconscious brother, fleeing across melting ice and collapsing ruin. The tide had not just turned — it had shattered the shore.
But then, the world itself seemed to still — as if reality recoiled from what came next.
A dark presence, coiled and patient, finally slithered into the open.
From the shattered upper battlements of Marineford, smoke and ruin framing their silhouettes like devils ascending from hell, a line of shadowy figures emerged. They had waited. Not out of cowardice — but strategy. Predators sensing their moment.
A voice rose, booming, oily, and utterly mad.
"ZEHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! What a delightfully grotesque performance! So much blood! So much legacy! And yet… so very unfinished."
It was unmistakable.
Blackbeard. Marshall D. Teach.
He stood tall and broad, cloaked in shadows, his black beard spilling over a red-lined coat. His grin split his face in two, gap-toothed and venomous, his eyes gleaming with malice and triumph.
But he wasn't alone.
Behind him towered monsters — the abyss of Impel Down, loosed from Level 6, now personified in human nightmares:
Shiryu of the Rain, calm as a corpse, his invisible blade already unsheathed, blood dripping from its edge. "This chaos…" he murmured, "smells like home."
Sanjuan Wolf, his mountainous frame casting shadows over whole ships. He crouched now, grinning, his breath fogging the air like a creature from myth.
Avalo Pizarro, his golden crown mocking the idea of nobility, cackled. "A kingdom of corpses… I quite like the architecture."
Vasco Shot, drenched in liquor, lifted his jug and slurred, "Heh-heh… I was gettin' thirsty… Time to taste the blood of legends."
Catarina Devon, her tongue tracing her curved lips, giggled like a ghoul. "So many pretty corpses… Which one shall I wear next?"
Their very presence warped the air, casting a pall over both pirate and Marine alike.
Whitebeard's eye flared. Rage — the kind he had not felt in decades — surged like a second youth through his ruined chest.
"TEACH!"
His voice rumbled like tectonic plates grinding.
"You… filth. You murdered my son… betrayed your family… and now you come to feast on the corpse you helped butcher?"
Across the battlefield, Ace stopped. He trembled. The flame at his shoulder flared, and in his chest, something ancient and hateful cracked open.
"BLACKBEARD!!"
His scream split the sky. "You're the reason for all of this! YOU KILLED THATCH!"
On the Marine side, Sengoku's golden Buddha form gleamed in the hell-light, and for once, his voice cracked.
"Teach… You're mad. You've doomed everything."
"Oh no, Buddha," Blackbeard said, his tone venomously silky. "I've saved everything. Saved it from stagnation. From your rules. From your old men."
He looked at Whitebeard now, and the malice in his voice sharpened to a blade.
"I'm your true son, old man. The one who understood the world. The one who took what he wanted. Your dream died the moment you said I couldn't have it."
Behind him, his crew began to move forward.
"Shiryu. Wolf. Devon. Let's carve our names into the corpse of an era."
And then—
A wind exploded across the battlefield, followed by a pulse — like a second heartbeat from the earth.
Gunnar, now standing beside his father, clenched his fists. They steamed. Frost danced along his arms. The air around him shimmered with Conqueror's Haki, black and red lightning coiling around his frame like a serpent stirred from slumber.
He stared across the field at Blackbeard, the magma-cloaked Akainu between them.
"You want to play king, Teach?" Gunnar's voice was low. Calm. Terrifying. "Then come claim your throne… on my ashes."
The ground shattered beneath his feet. A surge of lava laced with ice erupted upward from his fists, crashing into the sky like a volcano split in two.
Smoothie had taken cover behind the rising quake, staring at her husband, eyes wide with something bordering reverence. "He's burning everything he has… just many monster you plan to fight today?"
Blackbeard didn't flinch. "Zehahaha… That so? Then I'll collect the ashes after."
He raised his hand.
The Yami Yami no Mi began to swirl, darkness spreading like a cancer, coiling across the battlefield, pulling in light, flame, even sound. A black hole had opened — and it hungered.
Screams erupted as entire chunks of Marineford were pulled toward it.
And from the other side—
Gunnar roared.
His body shone with a mix of Armament, Observation, and the rarest, most volatile Conqueror's Haki, every vein in his body alight with furious energy. His next step was not a dash — it was a quake. Every Admiral, pirate, and Marine felt it in their bones.
Whitebeard looked at his son.
And, for the first and final time…
He smiled.
"Show him… what a real son of Whitebeard looks like."
As Whitebeard uttered his blessing, the chaotic energy around Gunnar—the swirling nebula of red and blue at his shoulder—exploded outwards. It wasn't a cloud anymore; it was a torrent, a storm of pure, untamed Zoan power, now fully, irrevocably, unleashed.
The horns on his head grew another inch, sharper, more defined, the crimson one burning with an almost solar intensity, the azure one radiating a cold that could shatter steel.
"TEEEEEAAAACH!!!"
Gunnar's roar was no longer just human; it was the bellow of a mythical beast, a sound that resonated with the fury of both a volcano and a glacier. His newly awakened hybrid form pulsed with an almost blinding light – red runic carvings on his right side blazed like brands, blue crystalline patterns on his left shimmered with an inner arctic fire. His elongated hair whipped around him, a maelstrom of stark red and white. The ground beneath him didn't just crack; it disintegrated under the sheer pressure of his awakening.
Blackbeard, his Yami Yami no Mi already drawing in the light and debris, met Gunnar's incandescent gaze. "Zehahahaha! So the runt finally found his fangs! Too little, too late, boy! Your old man's era is OVER!"
"This isn't just about his era, you traitorous scum!" Gunnar snarled, his voice a duet of grinding rock and cracking ice. "This is about THATCH! This is about ACE! This is for every brother you betrayed!"
He didn't charge. He erupted.
The transformation wasn't just physical; it was a fundamental shift in his very being. His speed was no longer just impressive; it was instantaneous. One moment he was beside Whitebeard, the next, he was a streak of clashing red and blue light, bypassing Akainu (who instinctively tried to intercept, only to swat at empty air), and appearing directly before Blackbeard.
BOOM!
The air itself screamed as Gunnar's fist, now less a hand and more a molten-ice cudgel of divine punishment, slammed into Blackbeard's gut. There was no finesse, just pure, awakened Mythical Zoan power fueled by fury.
Blackbeard's eyes bulged. His confident grin vanished, replaced by a mask of shock and agony. The darkness of his Yami Yami no Mi flickered around the point of impact, struggling to absorb the sheer, concentrated elemental force.
"GU-HAAARGH!" Saliva and a dark, viscous substance flew from Blackbeard's mouth. He was launched backwards, not just pushed, but blasted through the air like a cannonball, smashing through several of his own monstrous crewmates who were too slow to react. Sanjuan Wolf grunted as Blackbeard bounced off his massive leg.
"Fast…" Shiryu of the Rain murmured, his eyes narrowing slightly, a flicker of genuine surprise in his usually dead gaze.
Gunnar didn't pause. He was a whirlwind of destruction. His awakened senses were a maelstrom, processing the battlefield in accelerated time. He saw Avalo Pizarro lunging with a clawed gauntlet. With a contemptuous snarl, Gunnar spun, his other fist, the glacial one, connecting with Pizarro's face in a shower of ice shards and broken teeth. Pizarro went down like a felled tree.
"He's… he's a demon!" Vasco Shot slurred, stumbling back, his liquor jug nearly slipping.
"A beautiful, raging demon!" Catarina Devon hissed, a thrilled, predatory light in her eyes.
Gunnar landed, his red and blue horns glinting. His movements were no longer just powerful; they were fluid, predatory, imbued with an almost impossible grace for his immense size. Each step left behind a scorching footprint on one side and a patch of instantly frozen earth on the other.
"This… this vitality!" Smoothie breathed from behind the quake-wall Gunnar had inadvertently created earlier. Her eyes, usually appraising, were wide with an almost fearful reverence. The raw, untamed life force pouring off him was intoxicating, terrifying. "His Zoan… it's fully awakened! The near-death state… it triggered it!"
Whitebeard watched, a grim, painful pride etched on his face. The boy was fighting with a ferocity, a sheer, unadulterated power that even he hadn't fully anticipated. "Gurararara… So you Awakened, my son… Gurararara…"
Blackbeard, coughing and sputtering, struggled to his feet amidst the wreckage of his crewmates, his expression now a mask of absolute fury. "You… damn… BRAT!" he seethed, wiping a mixture of blood and dark sludge from his lips. "You think a little power-up scares ME, the man who will rule the seas?!" He spread his arms wide, the Yami Yami no Mi flaring with renewed, desperate intensity. "BLACK HOLE! I'LL SWALLOW YOU WHOLE AND CRUSH YOUR PATHETIC HOPE!"
The darkness surged, more voracious than before, a tangible void attempting to engulf Gunnar and everything around him. Chunks of ice the size of houses were ripped from the ground, crumbling towers were devoured, and the very air seemed to scream as it was sucked into the abyss.
But Gunnar met it not with trepidation, but with an incandescent rage that burned brighter than any sun.
"Your gluttonous shadow can't stomach the fire of vengeance, Teach!" he roared, his voice resonating with the very power of the Conqueror.
He didn't just charge into the darkness this time; he commanded it. Black and red lightning, the unmistakable mark of advanced Conqueror's Haki, erupted around his transformed frame, coiling around his arms, crackling from his horns. It wasn't just an aura; it was a tangible weapon.
The darkness of the Yami Yami no Mi recoiled slightly, flickering as it met the raw, dominant willpower of Gunnar's Haki. He punched through the edge of the dark vortex, the black lightning on his fist momentarily repelling the encroaching void, and appeared directly in front of a startled, furious Blackbeard once more.
"You speak of ruling?" Gunnar snarled, his golden eyes blazing with contempt. "You, who only know how to take, to betray, to murder from the back? YOU AREN'T FIT TO LICK THE BOOTS OF THE MEN YOU'VE KILLED!"
His right fist, already a terrifying fusion of molten rock and crimson runic carvings, became enveloped in a furious cyclone of black and red Conqueror's Haki. The air crackled, visibly distorting around it.
"THIS IS FOR THATCH!"
KRA-DOOOOOOM!!!
The Haki-infused fist connected with Blackbeard's jaw. The sound was like a mountain splitting. Blackbeard's head snapped back with brutal force, a sickening crack echoing even above the din of battle. Teeth, stained black, flew from his mouth. His eyes rolled back, pupils vanishing. The darkness around him sputtered violently, almost extinguished by the sheer, focused impact of will.
"ARGH-NOOOO!" Blackbeard gurgled, a sound of pure agony.
Gunnar didn't let up. His awakened Zoan form was a relentless engine of destruction. Before Blackbeard could even begin to fall, Gunnar's other fist, the glacial one, now also crackling with Conqueror's Haki that shimmered with an icy blue light, slammed into Teach's ribs.
"THIS IS FOR ACE'S PAIN!"
CRUNCH-THWACK!
The sound of shattering bone was unmistakable. Blackbeard let out a choked, wet scream as he was doubled over, icy Haki burning into his core. The ground beneath them fractured further, spiderwebbing outwards from the force of the blows.
"You wanted power, Teach?" Gunnar roared, grabbing Blackbeard by his bloodied coat, lifting the much larger man off his feet with one hand as if he weighed nothing. The crimson and azure carvings on Gunnar's body pulsed with furious light. "You wanted to stand at the top? THEN LOOK DOWN FROM THE HELL YOU'VE CREATED!"
With a final, cataclysmic roar, Gunnar spun, channeling all his awakened power, all his grief, all his fury into one devastating blow. His fist, now a perfect, terrifying amalgam of molten magma, absolute-zero ice, and the crushing weight of his Conqueror's Haki, aimed straight for Blackbeard's chest.
"AND THIS… THIS IS FOR MY FATHER, WHOM YOU DARED TO CALL 'OLD MAN' IN HIS DYING MOMENTS! DIVINE PUNISHMENT: EMPEROR'S WRATH NOVA!!!"
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!
The impact was beyond sound. It was a physical erasure.
A blinding flash of red, blue, and black light consumed them both. The remaining ice plain around them didn't just crack; it vaporized, instantly turning into a massive, swirling crater of superheated steam and frozen shrapnel. Towers in the distance, already damaged, finally crumbled into dust. The shockwave ripped across Marineford, sending pirates and Marines alike tumbling like leaves in a hurricane. Even the Admirals were forced to brace themselves, their expressions ones of stunned disbelief at the sheer, unadulterated destructive power.
When the light faded, Gunnar stood panting heavily, his transformed body steaming, the elemental carvings glowing with a ferocious, almost painful intensity. His chest heaved, but his stance was unbroken.
Blackbeard was gone from his grip.
Instead, a smoking, broken figure was arcing through the sky, limbs flailing, trailing smoke and dark, viscous blood. "So much power, but it's not over yet,"
A profound, echoing silence fell over the spot where he vanished, broken only by Gunnar's ragged breathing and the distant roar of Whitebeard still holding the line.
Gunnar stared at the chasm, his horns casting long, fearsome shadows.
The tendrils of Yami Yami no Mi's black void slithered across the shattered plaza, Gunnar leapt. He didn't soar — he erupted. A spiraling pillar of ice and lava shot beneath his feet, propelling him skyward, Conqueror's Haki flaring in lightning bolts around him.
"Zehahahaha! Vey good, brat?" Blackbeard grinned, extending both hands, his dark matter pulling even the clouds toward him. "But now It's my turn!"
Gunnar clenched his fists mid-air. A twisted storm of elements swirled around his arms — one burning like the sun, the other cold enough to crack steel with a touch.
He spun — one leg out — and came down like a comet.
"RAIJIN GALE—!"
A devastating arc of magma-laced ice and pure haki blasted downward, aimed straight at Blackbeard.
"KUROZU!"
Teach's arm extended, and the air itself twisted into a spiraling vacuum. Gunnar's attack was caught, crushed inward, and devoured by the void.
But Teach wasn't fast enough.
Gunnar followed the arc, punching straight into the center of the vortex. A shockwave detonated as his Haki-infused fist met Blackbeard's arm, sending both men hurtling backward.
BOOOOOOM!
A crater opened where they clashed. Marines and pirates alike were tossed like leaves. Gunnar hit the ground rolling, lava spilling from his back like blood. Teach stumbled too, his grin gone, replaced by a twitch of pain.
"Heh… not bad," Blackbeard muttered, holding his bruised arm. "But you're still just a spark in the hurricane, boy."
Before Gunnar could rise, a shadow loomed — Akainu.
"I've had enough of this insubordination," the Admiral growled, his fist already transforming into a mountain of magma. "If you won't die for justice, you'll die for treason!"
"RYUUSEI KAZAN!" (Meteor Volcano)
Hundreds of molten fists rained from the sky, targeting both Blackbeard and Gunnar alike.
"DAMN YOU!" Blackbeard snarled. "He's mine!"
But Akainu didn't care.
Gunnar's eyes flashed. He moved, barely, dodging two molten meteors, but one caught his shoulder. The impact crushed him into the ground, leaving a glowing wound across his ribs.
He gasped, blood pooling in his mouth.
From above, Shiryu appeared — suddenly visible, katana already in motion. "Too slow, hero."
CLANG!
Gunnar blocked it with his forearm, hardened by Armament Haki — but the blade bit into his skin, drawing a deep line of blood.
Before he could recover—
Avalo Pizarro struck next. With his massive clawed hand, he slammed down on Gunnar like a judge's gavel. Gunnar raised his hands, forming a wall of volcanic ice, but Pizarro's strength was monstrous — the wall shattered, and Gunnar was flung backward, crashing through a chunk of rubble.
Smoke rose.
Catarina Devon stepped forward, smiling darkly. "Oh dear, is the little warrior bleeding? I'll wear his face next."
"Gunnar!" Marco cried, his wings beating rapidly, but Kizaru's light beams forced him back. "Damn it, I can't reach him—!"
Inside the crater, Gunnar's body trembled. His breath was shallow. He looked up, vision doubled — Teach, Akainu, and the monsters of Level 6 were closing in like a pack of wolves.
He tried to rise — his Haki flared, wild and defiant.
Then—
A shadow fell over him.
Smoothie.
Her hand pressed to his chest, pumping moisture and pressure — using her fruit to stimulate his blood and dull the pain.
"Get up, Gunnar," she said, her voice calm and sharp as a blade. "You're not allowed to die yet. Not until you break them first."
Across the field, Whitebeard saw it all. His grip tightened. He was dying — but his fire hadn't gone out yet.
"They… dared to touch my son…"
And the sky cracked.
The end wasn't over yet.
"TEEEEEEACH!!!"
It was the sound of mountains grinding together, of the seabed splitting apart. The very air, already fractured by his Quake-Quake powers, seemed to atomize. On the far side of the chasm, Marines and pirates alike stumbled, clutching their ears as if the sound itself were a physical blow.
From his perch, Blackbeard grinned, a crescent moon of missing teeth in a tangled forest of a beard. "Zehahahaha! So there's still a fire in the old furnace, eh, Pops? I was worried you'd just tip over before we had a chance to catch up!"
Whitebeard ignored the chasm. He ignored the Admirals, the swarming Vice-Admirals, the very concept of tactics or strategy. There was only the path. He moved, each step a tremor. His colossal bisento, the Murakumogiri, dragged behind him, its blade carving a deep, weeping wound in the blood-slicked ice. He was a glacier of vengeance, unstoppable, inevitable, lumbering toward the man who had been his son.
"The one rule…" Whitebeard's voice was a ruin, thick with blood and gravel. "…the one inviolable law on my ship."
"Ah, that," Blackbeard chuckled, his tone dripping with false sympathy. "Poor Thatch. He just didn't understand, Pops. Some things are a matter of destiny!"
"Destiny?" Whitebeard spat a glob of blood onto the ice. It steamed beside the frozen gore of lesser men. He was closer now, his shadow falling over the plaza. Even the giants of Blackbeard's crew took an involuntary step back. This was not the Emperor they had watched being worn down by an army. This was something else. A primal force. "You murdered your brother. Your family. For a piece of fruit."
"Not just any fruit, Pops!" Blackbeard's grin widened, but a flicker of something—a predator's caution—entered his eyes. "The Yami Yami no Mi! The power I was born to wield! It called to me! And look!" He spread his arms wide, a grand showman. "It brought me a new family! A crew of real men who understand that ideals are for tombstones! This is the new era! An age of freedom! An age where dreams are seized by the strong, not gifted by the sentimental!"
He leaped from the rampart, his massive frame landing with a soft thump as a vortex of shadow bloomed around his feet, sucking in the light and dust. "Your era is over, Whitebeard! That benevolent-father act, that talk of honor—it's what put that hole in your chest! Now, show me! Show me the last gasp of the World's Strongest Man!"
Darkness coiled around Blackbeard's arm like a living serpent. He lunged, not with a fist, but with an open palm. "Kurozu! Black Vortex!"
The pull was immense, an inescapable gravity that wrenched at Whitebeard's very being, nullifying the shimmering aura of his own Devil Fruit. It was the technique that had grounded Ace, the ultimate anti-power. Blackbeard's grin was one of absolute triumph. He had him. He had negated the old man's greatest weapon.
But he had made a fatal miscalculation. He had negated the Devil Fruit, not the man. Not the monster.
Whitebeard didn't resist the pull. He used it, letting the vortex drag his colossal frame forward with shocking speed. Before Blackbeard's triumphant laugh could even fully form, the dying Emperor was upon him.
One massive, scarred hand clamped down on Blackbeard's head, fingers sinking into his scalp like railroad spikes. The other hand seized his shoulder, anchoring him. Teach's eyes widened in sudden, stark terror. He was too close.
"You speak of strength," Whitebeard rasped, his breath hot and foul with blood and rage. His face was inches from Teach's. "Let me show you."
There was no quake. There was no shimmering white aura. There was only a headbutt. The sound was like a cannonball striking a side of beef. Blackbeard's nose exploded in a shower of blood and cartilage. His head snapped back with a sickening crack, his vision swimming in a sea of stars.
Before he could even process the pain, Whitebeard's fist, infused with a lifetime of Haki and raw, paternal fury, slammed into his gut. The air left Teach's lungs in a strangled gasp. He doubled over, but Whitebeard's grip on his head held him fast.
"You are not strong, Teach," Whitebeard growled, yanking him upright again. "You are a parasite. A coward who hides behind powers you didn't earn."
And then, the aura returned.
The air around Whitebeard's free hand shattered like glass. He wasn't aiming for the air, or the ground. He was aiming for Teach. He drove the epicenter of a world-breaking quake directly into Blackbeard's ribs.
There was no grand explosion. It was a focused, contained cataclysm. The sound was swallowed by the sheer force of the impact. Blackbeard's body convulsed violently, his bones screaming under a pressure they were never meant to endure. Blood erupted from his mouth, not in a spray, but in a torrent. He was thrown from Whitebeard's grasp like a discarded rag, skipping across the plaza and crashing into a pile of rubble with the limp finality of a marionette whose strings had been cut.
His crew stared, their boisterous confidence shattered. Their invincible new captain, wielder of the god-like darkness, lay broken and twitching in a heap, moaning in agony.
Whitebeard stood over him, a mountain casting its final, long shadow. He didn't look triumphant. He looked weary, an executioner who had carried out a grim, necessary duty. He raised his bisento, the blade trembling not from weakness, but from the ebbing of his life's fire.
"It is not you, Teach," Whitebeard rumbled, his voice carrying across the silent battlefield. "The man Roger is waiting for… it is most certainly not you."
The silence that followed Blackbeard's broken moaning was heavier than any cannonade. His commanders, a gallery of nightmares given flesh, stared from the ramparts. Their swaggering confidence had evaporated, replaced by a stunned, feral disbelief. Their new god of darkness lay twitching in the dirt, swatted aside like an insect.
Vasco Shot, his face perpetually flushed with drink, was the first to break the spell. He sloshed his gourd, the liquor doing little to quell the tremor in his hand. "Well now… The old man's still got some pop in his cork, eh?" he slurred, but his eyes were sharp and predatory.
"He's on his last legs," hissed Catarina Devon, her lips pulling back into a cruel, predator's smile. Her spear felt slick in her grasp. "Look at him. He's bleeding out. A gift. Let's open him up and see what's inside."
The ground shuddered as Sanjuan Wolf, the Colossal Battleship, took a step forward, his simple mind processing the scene. "Captain… hurt. Old man… bad."
But it was Shiryu of the Rain who moved first. With the silent, fluid grace of a phantom, he was no longer on the rampart but on the plaza floor, his cursed blade, Raiu, already drawn. There was no battle cry, no wasted motion. Only the chilling promise of a fatal cut.
He blurred.
Whitebeard, leaning heavily on his bisento, saw the motion more than the man. He pivoted, the colossal polearm swinging in a defensive arc. Shiryu's blade met the lacquered wood with a high-pitched shriek of tortured metal. Sparks flew. Shiryu was fast, preternaturally so, but he lacked the raw, monstrous power to shove an Emperor aside.
Before the stalemate could break, the others were on him. A pack of hyenas descending on a wounded lion. Vasco Shot lunged, swinging his massive gourd like a club. Whitebeard grunted, turning his shoulder to take the blow. The gourd shattered, drenching him in sake, the shards doing little more than annoying him.
From the other side, Catarina Devon thrust her spear, aiming for the gaping wound in his chest. Whitebeard swiped a hand, not with a quake, but with the simple, brutish strength of a giant. He knocked the spear tip aside, but not before its edge scraped a bloody line across his already ravaged arm.
"Die! Die! Die!" Sanjuan Wolf roared, bringing a fist the size of a small house down upon him.
Whitebeard roared back, a sound of pure defiance. He met the attack not with his fists, but with his will. He slammed the butt of his bisento into the ice, and a focused shockwave, a shield of pure kinetic force, erupted upwards. It didn't stop the fist, but it deflected its trajectory. The blow glanced off his shoulder, staggering him, the impact sending spiderwebs of new cracks through the ice for a hundred yards.
A cut. A scrape. A staggering blow. He was being whittled away.
And in that moment of distraction, Shiryu struck again. He appeared at Whitebeard's back, his blade a silver whisper. It sank into the meat of Whitebeard's uninjured shoulder. A clean, deep wound.
Whitebeard grunted, a sound of pain and fury, and spun, his bisento swinging in a wide, decapitating arc that forced all of them to leap back.
Amidst the chaos, a pathetic scrambling sound went almost unnoticed. Marshall D. Teach, coughing up blood and spittle, was dragging himself away. He used his darkness, not as a weapon, but as a lifeline, black tendrils latching onto rubble and pulling his broken body backward into the shadows.
"Zehahaha… Just you wait…" he gasped, a promise thick with hate and agony. "This power… It's not done yet… you're a dead man, Whitebeard… A dead man!" He slipped behind a ruined wall, vanishing from sight.
His crew pressed their advantage, seeing their target weaken. Shiryu raised his blade for a final, decisive strike. Catarina Devon grinned, her spear pointed at Whitebeard's throat.
And then the sky fell.
A figure descended from across the chasm, a human cannonball silhouetted against the gray sky. He landed between Whitebeard and his assailants with an impact that buckled the ice, a crater forming around his boots.
It was Gunnar. His fists were clenched, and they were no longer flesh and bone. They were coated in a shell of pure, obsidian-black Haki, so dense it seemed to suck in the light, wisps of unseen energy smoking from his knuckles.
Shiryu, committed to his lunge, didn't even have time to change course. Gunnar met the legendary swordsman's thrust not with a weapon, but with his forearm, also sheathed in the invisible armor. The sound was not of blade on flesh, but of two mountains colliding. Raiu screeched, vibrating violently, and Shiryu was thrown back, his wrist numb from the shock.
"Insolent whelp!" Vasco Shot snarled, charging from the side.
Gunnar didn't even look at him. He pivoted, his Haki-laced fist lashing out in a blur. The punch connected with Vasco's jaw with the sickening crunch of breaking bone. The Heavy Drinker's eyes rolled back in his head as he was launched sideways, tumbling through the air like a discarded toy and crashing into a stunned Catarina Devon, sending them both sprawling in a heap.
Sanjuan Wolf blinked, his slow mind trying to process the sudden reversal. He was met with Gunnar's cold, unwavering stare.
Gunnar took a step forward, planting himself firmly. He was a bulwark, a fortress wall standing before his king. His fists smoked. His eyes burned.
Whitebeard leaned on his bisento, a ragged, blood-soaked breath rattling in his massive chest. He looked at the broad, unyielding back of the man standing before him.
"Gunnar… you damn fool…" the Emperor growled, his voice a low, tired thunder. "This… is not your fight to finish."
Gunnar didn't turn. His gaze was locked on the recovering commanders, who now looked at him with a new, venomous caution.
"With all due respect, Pops," Gunnar said, his voice ringing with absolute conviction in the sudden quiet. "Anyone who raises a hand to my father makes it my fight."
[A/N: 6k Words in a single chapter, Hope you enjoyed it.]