The air was thick with the stench of blood and betrayal. Whitebeard's bisento swung in a heavy, desperate arc, no longer with the world-shattering force of an Emperor, but with the grim, grinding persistence of a dying star. Each blow left him weaker, a fresh tremor of pain rattling his monumental frame.
Marshall D. Teach danced around him, a fat, giggling spider in a web of his own making. He didn't meet the blows head-on. He let his darkness swallow them, the swirling vortex of the Yami Yami no Mi drinking the Quake-Quake power like fine wine.
"Zehahaha! Feel that, Pops?" Blackbeard taunted, his voice a garbage disposal full of broken glass. "That's your era slipping away! That's the sound of the grave calling your name!"
A silver glint flickered at Whitebeard's periphery. Shiryu, silent as the rain for which he was named, materialized for a killing strike at his master's exposed back. Before the cursed blade could find its home, a pillar of flame erupted between them. Ace, his own skin a patchwork of raw burns and blisters, stood as a human shield, his teeth gritted in a pained snarl. "You'll go through me first, you bastard!"
Shiryu simply vanished back into the chaos, awaiting another, better moment. The pack was circling.
Blackbeard's laughter cut off abruptly. He choked on it, a strangled gurgle. The air had changed. A pressure, immense and absolute, slammed down on Marineford, a weight so profound it felt like the sky itself was collapsing. Low-level Marines stared blankly for a second before their eyes rolled back and they collapsed, foam bubbling on their lips. Vice-Admirals gritted their teeth, sweat beading on their brows as if fighting a physical force.
Teach looked up. His eyes, usually alight with cunning greed, widened into perfect circles of terror.
A figure was falling from the sky. Not plummeting, but descending with the controlled, terrifying purpose of a divine judgment. A corona of bruised-violet and black lightning crackled around him—the untamed, incandescent fury of a Supreme King. His hair, a mane of crimson and snow, streamed behind him like a comet's tail. His golden eyes were not human; they were twin suns of incandescent rage.
It was Gunnar.
His fist was cocked back, sheathed in an obsidian shell of Haki so dense it seemed to warp the very light around it.
His roar was not a word, but a sentence of death.
"TEEEEEAAAAACH!"
Blackbeard tried to throw up a shield of darkness, a panicked swirl of his ultimate defense. It was like trying to stop a tidal wave with a bucket. Gunnar's fist connected.
There was no sound. For a single, terrifying heartbeat, all noise on the battlefield ceased, sucked into the point of impact. Then, a delayed, soul-shattering THOOM erupted, a blow that felt directed not at the body, but at the very ambition that fueled the man.
Blackbeard didn't just scream. It was a shriek of pure, spiritual violation, as if his very soul had been struck. The darkness around him didn't just disperse; it shattered like black glass. He was launched, not backward, but downward, a cannonball fired into the earth. The plaza floor exploded, hurling ice and stone skyward as a new, deeper crater was gouged into Marineford's heart.
Gunnar landed beside his father with the impossible lightness of a falling leaf. The violet aura receded into his skin, leaving only the sight of a son breathing hard, his knuckles smoking. He looked at Whitebeard. The old man's one good eye, which had been clouded with the acceptance of death, now held a flicker of stunned, fierce pride.
"Didn't… think I'd let you have all the fun… Pops," Gunnar rasped, a ghost of a smile touching his lips.
The opportunity was perfect. A predator's dream. Akainu saw it with absolute clarity. Whitebeard, the great obstacle, was wavering, his strength spent on the traitor Teach. Gunnar, the new, terrifying variable, was focused elsewhere.
Absolute Justice demanded action.
Akainu's arm bulged, the skin cracking away to reveal the incandescent magma core within. "The age of pirates ends now!" he bellowed, his voice a volcanic rumble as he lunged forward, ready to drive his molten fist through the old man's back.
He froze.
His arm, a weapon that could melt steel and boil seas, sputtered. The intense heat flickered. Standing before Whitebeard, Gunnar's head had snapped around. His golden eyes, devoid of fear, devoid of respect, locked onto the Admiral. They held no fire, no lightning.
He moved to his father. He saw the gnarled, blood-caked hands trembling, struggling to hold the colossal weight of the Murakumogiri. With a gentleness that was a stark contradiction to the violence of his being, Gunnar placed his strong, steady hands over his father's.
For the first time in fifty years, Whitebeard's grip loosened. The legendary polearm, a weapon that had carved an era, settled into Gunnar's grasp.
"Rest, Pops," Gunnar's voice was a soft rumble, meant only for the dying king. "I'll handle this."
He turned, and with a roar that was part his, part the echo of his father's, he launched himself toward the crater where a broken, groaning traitor was struggling to rise.
But the hyenas were loyal to their pack leader.
"Not so fast!" A drunken bellow erupted as Vasco Shot swung a shattered bottle, aiming to gut the charging son.
A sibilant hiss followed. "We'll make a pretty coat from your skin, boy!" Catarina Devon cackled, her nails elongating into black, vicious talons as she lunged from the other side.
And between them, a silver flicker. Shiryu of the Rain, his face a mask of sadistic placidity, blurred into existence, his cursed blade aimed directly for Gunnar's heart.
They were about to converge, a tide of filth meant to drown him, when the world shimmered.
"KAGERŌ!"
A wall of pure, blinding heat erupted in front of Gunnar, distorting the air into a wavering mirage. Shiryu's blade passed through nothing but empty, superheated space. Vasco and Catarina recoiled, shielding their eyes from the sudden glare.
Ace landed beside his brother, flames licking from his shoulders, his own body blistering from the effort. "I'm with you, Gunnar!" he yelled, his voice strained but unbreakable.
Gunnar stopped. The bisento in his hands felt impossibly heavy. He glanced at Ace, burning himself out as a living shield. He saw his father, slumping further, his one good eye dimming. He saw the unconscious form of Luffy being dragged away by Jinbe. He saw the endless tide of Marines, reforming, their fear being overwritten by the bellowed orders of their superiors.
This wasn't a battle they could win. It was a grave they were digging for themselves.
"ACE!"
Gunnar's voice cracked through the din like a whip. It wasn't a suggestion; it was an order forged in the fire of a Supreme King. "NO! We are done dying here! You heard Pops! Everyone retreats! Get him! Get Dad on the ship! Take Luffy! Get out of here!"
He pivoted, turning his back on the Blackbeard pirates. With a grunt of effort, he planted the butt of the massive bisento into the ravaged ice.
THUD.
The sound was an anchor. A full stop. He spread his arms wide, a living shield between his family and the entire world. His gaze swept over the retreating commanders, then settled, cold and hard, on the advancing forces of the World Government.
"I WILL HOLD THE LINE!"
His voice was his own, yet it carried the weight of the man behind him. He took a deep, shuddering breath, his chest swelling. Then, he unleashed his soul.
The air itself warped, shimmering like heat haze before shattering into a visible shockwave of obsidian lightning.
The ground groaned under the pressure. Low-level Marines clutched their heads and collapsed, their minds broken. The ground troops were thrown from their feet as if struck by an invisible fist. Even the monstrous commanders of Blackbeard's crew, even Shiryu, took an involuntary step back, their instincts screaming at them in the face of such overwhelming spiritual dominance.
Gunnar stood alone, a colossus in his own right, the borrowed weapon of a king planted before him. His red and white hair whipped in the hurricane of his own power.
"GO!" he roared, his voice raw with desperation and love, a command aimed at the backs of his fleeing family.
"LIVE!"
A tremor that had nothing to do with the Quake-Quake fruit ran through Whitebeard's monumental frame. With an effort that seemed to drain the last dregs of his life force, he pushed himself upright. Blood, thick and dark as tar, wept from the holes in his chest, but his one good eye blazed with a fire that refused to be extinguished—the exasperated, unyielding fire of a father.
A massive, trembling hand reached out, not in aggression, but in a silent command. A hand that had once parted seas and leveled islands now struggled to reclaim its soul. He took the Murakumogiri back from Gunnar. The familiar weight of the bisento settled in his grasp, a final, cold comfort.
"Foolish… stubborn… son…"
The voice was a ruin, a whisper of gravel and blood, yet it boomed across the plaza with the undeniable authority of a king. Whitebeard's gaze, a complex storm of love and stern command, pinned Gunnar in place.
"My sunset… is here," he wheezed, each word a monumental effort. "Yours is a dawn you will not waste. This burden is mine. Your duty… is to live. To lead them."
Gunnar's fists clenched at his sides, the knuckles white. He met his father's gaze, and in his own golden eyes was a pain as deep and vast as the ocean. "And what is a son who watches his father die alone?" he asked, his voice low and raw. "What family remains if we turn our backs on our king? I refuse." He shook his head, crimson and white strands of hair falling across his blood-streaked face. "This is my choice. My stand."
Across the chasm, the machinery of the World Government was grinding back into motion. From his vantage point on the execution platform, Fleet Admiral Sengoku surveyed the scene.
Beside him, Garp stood as a statue of profound sorrow, his fists clenched so tight his knuckles strained, a silent war raging behind his eyes.
The lines had been drawn. Now, they converged.
Down on the plaza floor, the three Admirals reformed, a terrifying trinity of elemental destruction.
Akainu's body seethed, magma dripping from his fingertips. His gaze was a brand, burning with a personal hatred for the defiance before him. "So, the fossil still has breath," he snarled, "and the whelp plays at being a god. It changes nothing. Justice will be absolute."
"This has gone on long enough," Aokiji murmured, his breath fogging in the air as ice crystals crept across the ground around him. He looked weary, a man tired of burying the world in ice. "It's time to bring the curtain down."
Kizaru's lazy, half-lidded amusement was gone, replaced by the sharp, lethal focus of a weapon being aimed. His body shimmered with a dangerous light. "Ooooh," he drawled, the sound stripped of its usual mockery. "A three-way standoff? How… climactic. Let's make sure it's a brilliant finale, shall we?"
And then, from the crater Gunnar had carved, a laugh erupted. An obnoxious, grating, world-devouring laugh.
"ZEHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Marshall D. Teach pushed himself up from the rubble, spitting out a tooth and a gob of blood. His massive frame was bruised, but his grin was wider and more malevolent than ever. His monstrous crew, a collection of nightmares, gathered at his back, their eyes gleaming with avarice.
He spread his arms wide, a grand showman presenting his masterpiece. "Look at this magnificent mess! The mighty Whitebeard, clinging to a ghost's throne! His pet monster, trying to hold back the sea with his bare hands! And the Marines, all puffed up and ready to serve their tepid justice!"
The darkness of the Yami Yami no Mi coiled around him like a living cloak. His hungry gaze flickered between the dying Emperor and his defiant son. "This is it! The turning point of history! From these ashes, I will build my kingdom!"
Three sides of a triangle of destruction, poised on the brink.
In one corner, the Dying King and the Avenging Son—the fading glory of an old era and the unpredictable, chaotic fury of the new, bound by a love as fierce as any storm.
In another, the Gaping Maw of Ambition—the betrayer Blackbeard and his crew of monsters, ready to feast on the corpse of the world and crown themselves in its viscera.
And facing them both, the Unblinking Eye of the Machine—the full might of the World Government, embodied by its Admirals, determined to crush all chaos and reimpose its iron order.
Whitebeard, his life bleeding out onto the ice, looked upon the scene. He saw his defiant son. He saw the sneering traitor. He saw the implacable Admirals. A faint, knowing smile touched his lips. He could feel it in the very air—the violent shifting of the world's currents. Roger had been waiting for this. For a storm like this.
The new age was not rising. It was erupting.