The clash of three titans—Gunnar, Garp, and Sengoku—was a battle of living legends that tore the very fabric of Marineford. Gunnar, in his Ymir form, fought with the raw, untamed power of a cataclysm, while Garp and Sengoku attacked with the devastating, Haki-infused precision of an era's strongest heroes.
Garp, his face a mask of furious grief, saw an opening. Gunnar, in repelling Sengoku's golden shockwave, momentarily exposed his colossal head. This was it. The Vice-Admiral poured every ounce of his sorrow, his rage, his love for his grandsons, into one, definitive strike.
"GALAXY METEOR!" Garp roared, his fist, now wreathed in Haki so dense it seemed to absorb the light around it, becoming a sphere of pure, crushing force. He launched himself forward, a human cannonball aimed with terrible, heartbreaking precision.
The Haki fist didn't just punch the titan; it struck with a piercing, focused power designed to bypass physical durability and rattle the very internals within.
KRA-THOOM!
A sickening, almost wet, cracking sound echoed across the plaza, different from the shattering of ice or stone. The Ymir titan's golden eyes widened in shock, then flickered, the elemental light within them dimming.
The colossal form shuddered violently, the lava and ice armor cracking and flaking away. With a groan like a dying mountain, the 219-foot titan swayed, then crashed backwards onto the ground with a final, earth-shaking CRASH, reverting to Gunnar's human form amidst a cloud of steam and debris.
He lay still, a deep gash on his forehead.
High above, Whitebeard, clutched in Kirin's talons, witnessed it. He saw his newly returned son, his last shield, struck down by his oldest rival. He saw Garp, chest heaving, raise his fist again, aiming to deliver a final, definitive blow to Gunnar's unconscious form.
Something within the dying Emperor, a final reserve of paternal fury, snapped.
With a roar that was pure, unadulterated rage, Whitebeard, with a surge of his remaining colossal strength, tore himself free from Kirin's grasp. The Thunderbird shrieked in surprise, its talons scraping uselessly as the Emperor plummeted.
He wasn't just falling. He was a meteor of vengeance.
Garp, his vision blurred by tears, his mind clouded by grief, saw the descending shadow too late.
"GARP!"
Whitebeard bellowed, his voice the wrath of a god. He intercepted Garp's descending punch with his own, the clash of two legends' Haki sending a shockwave that vaporized the ice for fifty meters in every direction.
Garp staggered back, his arm numb, his eyes wide with shock. "Newgate…!"
Whitebeard didn't give him a chance to recover. The air around his free fist shimmered and cracked with the last dregs of his Gura Gura power. He thrust it forward, directly into Garp's chest.
Garp was launched backwards like a stone from a catapult, smashing through the remnants of the plaza wall and deep into the side of the main Marineford fortress, buried under tons of rubble, out of the fight.
"You dare… lay a hand… on my SON?!" Whitebeard wheezed, his own body protesting, blood now pouring freely from his mouth and the hole in his chest. He collapsed to one knee, his strength finally, truly, spent.
In the sky, Kirin, now free, cried out in alarm. Admiral Akainu, seeing his chance with all the major players down or engaged, launched another magma fist at the Thunderbird. The attack connected with Kirin's wing. The mythical bird shrieked in pain, its electrical form sputtering as magma seared its feathers. It lost its balance, dropping Ace and the others from a still-frightening height.
They landed hard on the ice, scattering.
"Ace-san!" Jinbe cried, scrambling to his feet.
Akainu advanced, a merciless predator. "The sons of legends die today!"
But Gunnar was stirring. He pushed himself to his feet, his head throbbing, blood streaming down his face. He wasn't the full titan, but he wasn't fully human either. He stood at a solid 30 feet, a hybrid form, his skin a patchwork of cooled magma plates and jagged ice armor, his red and white hair whipping around him. His golden eyes held a cold, deadly focus.
He saw Akainu closing in on Ace.
The Admiral was met by a wall of desperate commanders.
Ace, his flames roaring, clashed with Akainu's magma again, gritting his teeth against the searing pain. Marco, his blue flames weak but present, launched fiery kicks.
Jozu, his diamond form heavily damaged, still threw himself forward as a shield. Vista and Isshin Ashina attacked with a flurry of elegant, Haki-infused sword strikes, seeking any weakness.
They were a wall of legends, but Akainu was an unstoppable volcano, his magma overwhelming them, pushing them back, burning and battering them with relentless fury.
From the ruins of the fortress wing, a golden light flickered. Kizaru zipped out, brushing dust from his suit. "Ooooh my, that was quite the tumble. Now, where were we?"On the other side of the battlefield, the giant ice wall created by Aokiji groaned and cracked, the insidious darkness of Blackbeard's Yami Yami no Mi beginning to seep through.
The pirates were scattered, their escape route a chaotic mess. Their captain was dying. Their strongest commanders were being overwhelmed. Gunnar, having just woken, was facing a battlefield of impossible odds. The embers of hope were all but extinguished, smothered under the crushing, absolute justice of the Admirals.
The retreat was a desperate, chaotic flight into the jaws of hell. Akainu, a walking volcano of absolute justice, was relentlessly closing in on the newly freed brothers, his presence an inferno of murderous intent.
"You will not escape!" Akainu roared, his magma fists lashing out.
The remaining Whitebeard commanders, battered and bleeding, formed a desperate, living shield around Ace and Luffy.
"Protect them!" Marco cried, his blue flames sputtering as he deflected a glob of magma.
"Don't let him pass!" Jozu bellowed, his cracked diamond form absorbing another blow that sent tremors through his body.
Vista and Isshin Ashina, their blades a flurry of Haki-infused steel, desperately tried to parry and redirect the Admiral's relentless assault. But they were being overwhelmed. Akainu blasted them aside with a ferocious "Meigo," his magma hound attack clearing a path directly to his primary targets.
His burning gaze fell upon Luffy, the catalyst, the son of Dragon. This was his chance to extinguish two cursed bloodlines at once. He lunged, his magma fist aimed for a final, killing blow.
"I won't let you!" Gunnar roared. He moved with a speed that defied his injuries, positioning himself directly in the path of Akainu's attack. He didn't raise a weapon. He didn't summon lava or ice. He crossed his arms before his chest, his fists clenched, and met the Admiral's molten fist head-on.
He poured every ounce of his reawakened spirit, every drop of his kingly will, into his Busoshoku and Haoshoku Haki, creating an invisible, violet-black armor of pure willpower.
KRA-BOOM!
Magma met Haki. The impact was deafening. Gunnar skidded back ten feet, his boots carving deep trenches in the ravaged stone, his arms screaming in protest, the skin blistering and cracking under the sheer, unholy heat. But he held. He had stopped Akainu's killing blow, protecting his brothers behind him.
"You…!" Akainu snarled, genuinely shocked by the sheer defensive power of Gunnar's Haki.
"Ace!" Gunnar yelled, not looking back, his arms still locked against Akainu's molten fist. "Get Luffy! Get everyone and GO! That's an order!"
"Gunnar, I won't—!" Ace started, his face a mask of horror.
"YOU WILL!" Gunnar roared, his voice cracking with desperation. "You are the primary target! If you die, Pops' sacrifice, Oars' sacrifice, everyone's sacrifice is for nothing! Your survival is our victory! Now GO!"
The absolute command in his voice, the logic of his words, finally broke through Ace's grief-stricken defiance. He looked at Luffy, at the retreating pirates, at his brother holding back an Admiral through sheer will. With a sob, he made his choice. He scooped up Luffy, and with Jinbe and the others providing cover, they made a final, desperate dash for the coast.
Just as they reached the edge of the shattered ice, the water before them churned, and a bizarre, yellow submarine erupted from the depths. The hatch popped open, and a figure in a spotted cap, wielding a long nodachi, stood there, his expression calm and analytical.
"I am a doctor," Trafalgar D. Water Law, the "Surgeon of Death," announced. "I will take responsibility for them. Get them in here, now!"
Bepo and the other Heart Pirates were already helping pull the wounded aboard.
Akainu, seeing his targets about to escape, roared in fury. He disengaged from Gunnar with a massive explosive blast, sending Gunnar staggering back, his arms horrifically burned.
"YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE!" Akainu bellowed. He launched himself towards the submarine, magma already gathering for an attack that would melt the vessel and everyone inside.
Gunnar, seeing this, his heart pounding with terror, felt something snap. His vow to his father, his promise to protect his family—it was all about to be rendered meaningless.
"NOOOOOOO!"
He was a force of pure, instinctual, protective rage. His body erupted in a chaotic, uncontrolled maelstrom of fire and ice.
He threw his head back, his mouth gaping wide, and from his throat, a concentrated beam of intertwined, incandescent lava and absolute-zero ice shot out with impossible speed.
FWOOOOOOSH-KRA-BOOOOM!
The elemental breath attack, a desperate, life-burning gamble, slammed into Akainu mid-lunge. The Admiral had no time to react. The beam struck him square in the torso.
The clash of elements was cataclysmic. Lava met lava, but the super-cooled ice caused a thermal shock of unimaginable violence. A massive explosion of steam, ash, and obsidian shards erupted from Akainu's midsection.
The Admiral cried out, a sound of genuine shock and pain, as his Logia form was physically, brutally, blasted in half. His upper torso was sent flying one way, his legs another, separated by a cloud of vaporized magma.
For a horrifying instant, one of the World Government's strongest powers was bisected, his body torn apart by the raw, elemental fury of Gunnar's berserk attack.
The submarine door slammed shut and the vessel submerged, disappearing into the chaotic seas.
Gunnar stood, swaying, smoke and frost pouring from his lips, his hybrid form flickering. He watched as Akainu's bisected Logia body began to bubble and churn, molten rock slowly, agonizingly, beginning to flow and reconnect, mending the impossible wound.
He had stopped him. For now. But now, his powers were reaching it's limits.