The sudden appearance of the submarine was a bizarre, almost comical punctuation mark in the ongoing symphony of destruction.
"Get them in here!" Trafalgar Law repeated, his voice calm and clinical, a stark contrast to the surrounding pandemonium. Bepo and his other crewmates were already reaching out, their faces a mixture of anxiety and determination.
Ace, holding his unconscious little brother, hesitated. This man, the "Surgeon of Death," was another rookie, another rival. Trusting him with Luffy's life felt like an impossible gamble.
"Who… who are you?" Ace rasped, his back screaming in agony. "Why are you helping us?"
"We are enemies, to be sure," Law stated, his gaze unflinching. "But you can trust me. And… well, it would be too boring if he died here." A faint, enigmatic smirk touched his lips.
It was an answer that was no answer at all. Ace's grip on Luffy tightened. He couldn't.
"He can be trusted."
The voice came from the shore, low and ragged, yet filled with an undeniable certainty. Gunnar, still in his hybrid titan form, had turned his head, his golden eyes locking onto Ace's. "Leave Ace, He can be trusted!"
There was no time for explanations, no room for doubt.
That was enough. Ace looked from Gunnar's resolute face to Law's calm one. He had no other choice. With a final, choked sob, he carefully handed Luffy's limp body to Bepo.
"Take care of him," Ace pleaded, his voice cracking.
He then, with Jinbe's help, scrambled aboard the submarine, collapsing onto the deck, the adrenaline that had sustained him finally beginning to fade.
The moment the hatch began to close, the Admirals responded.
"THEY ARE ESCAPING!"
Admiral Kizaru, a golden meteor, shot into the sky. "Yasakani Sacred Jewels!" A torrential rain of light beams hammered the water around the submerging submarine, each impact a brilliant, deadly explosion, turning the sea surface into a churning, incandescent minefield.
From the ground, Admiral Aokiji (Kuzan), his face grim, slammed both hands onto the ice. "ICE AGE!"
A wave of absolute-zero cold radiated outwards, the churning sea around the submarine's last known position freezing solid with astonishing speed, creating a massive, thick sheet of ice, intending to trap the vessel beneath it, to crush it in a frozen tomb.
Gunnar, watching from the shore, knew he had only one card left to play. He roared, a sound of pure, final exertion. He ignored Sengoku and Garp, who were now regrouping and charging towards him. He focused all his remaining power, all the wild, untamed energy of the Gura Gura no Mi, into one, focused attack.He didn't punch the air. He punched the newly frozen sea.
"SHIMA YURASHI!" (Island Rocker!) concentrated, focused quake, not designed to sink the island, but to shatter its surface, erupted from his fist.
The colossal sheet of ice Aokiji had just created didn't just crack; it exploded upwards in a cataclysmic shower of icy shrapnel and freezing mist.
The shockwave tore a violent, temporary channel through the frozen ocean, a chaotic path for the submarine to escape through. It was a monumental effort, an act that drained the very dregs of his strength. And it left him completely, utterly exposed.
Fleet Admiral Sengoku saw it. Gunnar, his body steaming, his hybird-titan form flickering, was completely committed to his attack, his defenses down."NOW, GARP!" Sengoku, in his colossal Golden Buddha form, unleashed his ultimate attack. "KARMA IMPACT PALM!"
A massive, Haki-infused golden shockwave, radiating pure, annihilating force, shot towards Gunnar.
BOOM echoed from above, so powerful it shook the submarine even deep beneath the waves, a sound like a god striking an anvil.
On the surface, Gunnar had been struck. Sengoku's golden palm of judgment had hit him square in the back while he was still recovering from his own quake.
The hybrid titan form shattered completely. He was sent flying, crashing onto the ravaged plaza, his human form a broken, bleeding mess.
The escape of the Polar Tang, a tiny yellow vessel carrying the future, was a fact confirmed by the frantic shouts of Marine lookouts. For the pirates left behind, it was a sliver of victory in a sea of absolute defeat. For Whitebeard, it was everything.
He stood, a mountain of flesh and legend, leaning heavily on his bisento, his lifeblood turning the ice around him a slushy, grim crimson. He was alone, a king on a ruined throne, surrounded by vultures.
Blackbeard and his monstrous crew of Level 6 escapees now circled him, their grins wide, their eyes gleaming with avarice. There was no honor here, no warrior's respect.
"Zehahaha! Look at you, Pops," Blackbeard taunted, the dark aura of the Yami Yami no Mi coiling around him. "All alone. Your sons have run away. Your era is a smoking ruin. All that's left is to put you out of your misery and take what's rightfully mine!"
Whitebeard's one good eye glared, filled with a hatred so pure it was almost a physical force. "Teach…" he rasped.
"No more talk!" Blackbeard bellowed. "FIRE, YOU FOOLS! FINISH THE LEGEND!"
In a sudden, deafening, and utterly dishonorable fusillade, the entire Blackbeard crew—Shiryu, Pizarro, Vasco Shot, Devon, and the others—drew their pistols and rifles and unloaded. A storm of bullets ripped through Whitebeard's already ravaged body. They tore through his shoulders, his legs, his chest, each impact a fresh, brutal agony.
Whitebeard didn't even flinch. He absorbed the cowardly assault, his body trembling with the effort of simply remaining upright, his gaze never leaving his betrayer.
From across the plaza, where he had been slammed to the ground, Gunnar witnessed it. He pushed himself to his knees, his body a screaming symphony of pain. He watched as the cowards riddled his father with bullets, and a helplessness so profound it felt like drowning washed over him.
He saw the glee on Blackbeard's face, the sadistic amusement of his crew.
He saw his Pops, the strongest man in the world, being pecked to death by carrion birds.
A tear, mixing with the blood from the gash on his forehead, traced a crimson path down his cheek. He was too far. Too weak. His final gambit had left him drained. He could only watch.
"Is that all you've got?" Blackbeard mocked, seeing Whitebeard still standing. "Still so stubborn! Tell me, old man! Before you die! Does the One Piece… even exist?!"
Whitebeard, his body a ruin, slowly, shakily, raised his head. A faint, bloody smile touched his lips, and a low chuckle rumbled in his ruined chest. He took one final, shuddering breath, and his voice, imbued with the last vestiges of his Conqueror's Haki, boomed across Marineford, across the world, through every broadcast Den Den Mushi.
"It is not you, Teach…" Whitebeard declared, his voice filled with an unshakeable certainty. "The man Roger is waiting for… is not you…"
He looked past Blackbeard, as if seeing a distant future. "Just as there are those who carry Roger's will… someone will appear to carry on my will someday… Even if you extinguish our bloodline, the flame will never die…"
He took a final, defiant breath, his voice rising to a thunderous roar that would echo through history.
"THE ONE PIECE… IS REAL!!!"
The declaration hung in the air, a stunning, world-shaking final testament.
Blackbeard's face contorted in a mask of pure, unadulterated excitment. "YOU OLD FOOL!" he screamed. "MEN! FINISH HIM! I WANT HIM DEAD! NOW!"
He lunged, his darkness coiling, ready to deliver the final, killing blow.
And Gunnar, watching, finally broke.
The bloody tear was followed by another. The helplessness, the grief, the rage—it all combusted into something new, something apocalyptic.
He rose to his feet, not with a struggle, but with a terrifying, fluid grace. His golden eyes, no longer holding any light of reason or restraint, blazed like twin dying suns.
He didn't roar. He didn't speak.
He slammed his open palms onto the ground.
GURA GURA GURA GURA…
The world ended.
Not with a tremor, but with a silent, absolute SPLIT.
A chasm, deeper and wider than any before, tore through the very bedrock of Marineford. It raced across the plaza with impossible speed, a line of absolute annihilation. It didn't stop. It ran directly through the charging Blackbeard crew, separating them, forcing them to leap back in terror.
It passed through the spot where Blackbeard stood, forcing him to jump aside with a startled curse.
It ripped marineford in two, and when it was done, Gunnar now stood on the same side of the abyss as his father. He had become a living, breathing shield.
The remaining commanders, Ace, Marco, and the others, watched from their retreating ships, their faces masks of stunned, horrified awe.
But Gunnar wasn't finished. He looked up at the sky, his hands still on the ground, and he pulled.
The ocean answered.
A wall of water, so colossal it beggared belief, began to rise from the surrounding sea. It wasn't a wave; it was the ocean itself, being drawn upwards into a single, island-dwarfing, sky-blotting TSUNAMI. It hung there, a suspended apocalypse, casting all of Marineford in a deep, terrifying shadow.
Then, with a final, guttural roar that seemed to tear from his very soul, Gunnar slammed his palms down again.
CRACK. KRA-BOOM. KRA-KOOM.
The island of Marineford, already bisected, groaned. New fissures, just as massive, tore through the land at perpendicular angles. The island, the fortress, the symbol of absolute justice, broke apart. Not into rubble, but into four distinct, massive, crumbling quadrants, separated by deep, dark chasms of churning seawater.
Gunnar stood on one quadrant, with his dying father behind him. The Admirals were on another.
The Blackbeard Pirates on a third. And the fourth was a sinking ruin of shattered buildings and fleeing Marines.