The cataclysm Gunnar had unleashed had bought them a moment, a sliver of impossible hope on a sinking island. The world was a fractured ruin, the sea a churning vortex, but Ace and Luffy were gone, submerged in the cold, silent deep, and for now, that was a victory.
Gunnar stood, swaying, his hybrid titan form flickering, the world a blurry, swimming mess before his golden eyes. He could feel his own life force, burned away by Haki, quakes, and raw elemental fury, now guttering like a cheap candle.
He saw the marines regrouping, the Admirals containing the destruction, their gazes now turning back to him, the epicenter. His gaze, however, swept past them, searching, desperate. He saw him. His father. A colossal, broken figure, still standing, but only just.
"Pops… is he… alive?" Gunnar's voice was a ragged whisper, directed at Marco, who had flown over to his father's side, his own blue flames a weak, sputtering flicker.
Marco placed a trembling, soot-stained hand on Whitebeard's massive chest, feeling the faint, shallow rhythm beneath. "He's alive," Marco choked out, his voice thick with a grief so profound it was almost silent. "Barely. The magma… it cauterized as it burned, but the internal damage… it's catastrophic."
"His heart… it's giving out." He looked at Gunnar, his eyes, for the first time, devoid of hope. "Even my flames… they can't regenerate this. It's too much. The likelihood of him surviving… it's near impossible."
The words struck Gunnar harder than any hit he had taken today. He had saved Ace, but he was about to lose his father. No. He refused. His mind, now a chaotic but complete fusion of Ragnar's tactical knowledge and Gunnar's memories, desperately searched for a solution, a miracle. And it found one. A single, insane, long shot.
"The rookie," Gunnar rasped, his voice gaining a sliver of desperate energy. "The surgeon… Trafalgar Law. He has the Ope Ope no Mi."
Marco stared, uncomprehending. "A rookie? What can he—?"
"They call it the Ultimate Devil Fruit for a reason!" Gunnar snapped, a flash of his old fire returning. "It can perform miracles! If anyone can save Pops, it's him! Ace is with him, Follow his Vivre Card! They're on that submarine! We have to follow!"
Marco looked from Gunnar's desperate, blazing eyes to the dying form of his captain. A fool's hope. A one-in-a-billion chance.
"It's a fool's hope…" Marco whispered, echoing Gunnar's thoughts. He then nodded, his expression hardening with a new, terrible resolve. "…but it's the only one we have."
The commanders, what was left of them, managed to get Whitebeard onto the deck of the Moby Dick, which was now more a floating piece of debris than a flagship, precariously balanced on a crumbling piece of the island. The rest of the allied pirate ships were either sunk, burning, or being systematically obliterated by the full, unleashed fury of the Admirals.
"NO ONE ESCAPES!" Admiral Akainu roared, his rage absolute. He leaped into the air, a living volcano. "THIS IS A FINAL BAPTISM OF MAGMA! PURGE THEM ALL!"
"RYUSEI KAZAN!"
A meteor shower of molten rock, larger and more relentless than any before, rained down upon the remaining pirate vessels. Ships exploded in fiery blossoms of wood and steel. Screams were instantly silenced as magma consumed them. It was a merciless, indiscriminate slaughter.
The Moby Dick was the primary target.
"PROTECT THE SHIP! PROTECT POPS!" Marco shrieked.
Jozu, his diamond form cracked and bleeding, created a glittering, imperfect shield. Vista's flower-petal sword techniques became a desperate, swirling defense, trying to slice the magma fists before they impacted. But it was too much. The main mast caught fire. The deck began to melt. The ship groaned, threatening to break apart.
Gunnar watched it all, his body screaming, his vision tunneling. He saw the Moby Dick, his home, burning. He saw his brothers dying to protect their father. He had used all his power, thrown his last punch. He had nothing left. The roar of the world began to fade into a dull, distant hum. His knees buckled.
He didn't hit the ground.
A surprisingly strong, cool hand caught him, propping him up. He looked, his vision blurry, into the condescending, yet strangely concerned, eyes of Charlotte Smoothie.
"You've done enough, my chaotic husband," she said, her voice a low, pragmatic murmur against the roar of destruction. "You look like hell. Look around you. You can't win this. Not today."
Gunnar stared at the burning ship, at the relentless advance of the Admirals, at the sheer, overwhelming might of Marineford. His grand, nihilistic declaration of mutual destruction had failed. He had only succeeded in delaying the inevitable, at the cost of his own strength.
"We need to escape," Smoothie stated, not as a suggestion, but as a fact. "If we stay, we die. Even you."
For the first time since his reawakening, the fire of defiance in Gunnar's eyes guttered, replaced by the cold, hard ash of reality. He had made his stand. He had saved his brother. He had held the line. But now… now it was time to obey his father's last order. To live.
"...I know," Gunnar rasped, his body finally slumping against her, his consciousness fading into a welcome, exhausted darkness.
The escape was a failure.
The Moby Dick, burning and listing, was a floating coffin, and the Marines, under the clear, cold, strategic command of Fleet Admiral Sengoku, were closing in to seal it.
"THIS IS THE END!" Sengoku's voice, no longer just a roar of rage but a commander's decree, thundered across the crumbling island. "DO NOT LET A SINGLE ONE SURVIVE! ADMIRALS, EXECUTE!"
His strategy was simple and devastating.
"AOKIJI!" Sengoku commanded. "THE SEA IS YOURS! CREATE THEIR TOMB! BOX THEM IN!"
Admiral Aokiji, his face a mask of grim finality, responded. "ICE AGE: GLACIAL COFFIN!" From the churning, violent sea, colossal glaciers, jagged and immense, began to rise, not as walls this time, but as a closing, crushing prison, their icy peaks converging on the crippled Moby Dick, threatening to entomb it entirely.
"KIZARU!" Sengoku bellowed. "THEIR COMMAND IS YOURS! NEUTRALIZE THEIR LEADERSHIP!"
Admiral Kizaru, a golden death, became a relentless barrage. He appeared before a wounded Jozu, delivering a light-speed kick to the commander's already cracked diamond form, sending him crashing to the deck. He then rained a torrent of "Yasakani Sacred Jewels" down upon Vista, forcing the swordsman into a desperate, losing defense. He was a smiling, indifferent scalpel, systematically dissecting the pirate leadership.
"AKAINU!" Sengoku's voice was filled with cold fire. "THE SHIP IS YOURS! SINK IT! BURN EVERY SOUL ABOARD!"
Admiral Akainu became a living volcano, his magma fists hammering the deck of the Moby Dick, melting wood and steel, turning the ship into a floating pyre. Pirates screamed as they were consumed by lava or fell into the boiling sea below.
"GARP! WITH ME!" Sengoku roared, his own golden form radiating immense power. "OUR TARGET IS EDWARD GUNNAR! HE MUST DIE TODAY! WE CAN'T LET ANOTHER WHITEBEARD RISE!"
Gunnar, his consciousness a flickering flame, was being held up by Smoothie, who was now desperately trying to drag him towards the relative safety of the ship's interior. He was a giant, dead weight, his earlier power completely spent.
Before they could take more than a few steps, Garp and Sengoku were upon them.
"GALAXY FIST!" Garp roared, his grief channeled into a punch of pure, devastating Haki.
"BUDDHA'S PALM!" Sengoku unleashed a golden shockwave.
Smoothie, her eyes wide with alarm, reacted instantly. "DEHYDRATION BLADE!" She swung her massive sword, a wave of moisture-draining energy meeting Sengoku's shockwave, causing a violent, steaming explosion that threw them back but saved them from the direct hit. Garp's fist, however, was unavoidable. It slammed into Gunnar's already battered torso.
The impact was sickening. Gunnar and Smoothie were both sent flying like ragdolls, crashing through the burning superstructure of the walls of Marineford, landing in a heap amidst the flames and chaos, Gunnar now completely exhausted, as his eyes rolled around, and brain spun in dizziness. Consiousness was leavaing him.
The situation was absolute. The pirates were trapped in a closing coffin of ice, on a burning, sinking ship, their commanders being systematically dismantled, their strongest new hope lying unconscious, and their dying Emperor watching it all, his one good eye filled with a profound, final despair. It was over.
And then, the world grew dark.
It wasn't clouds. It wasn't smoke. It was a shadow, colossal and impossible, that fell from the heavens, blotting out the sun, casting all of Marineford in an oppressive, terrifying gloom.
The fighting, the screaming, the explosions… they all seemed to falter, as every soul, Marine and pirate alike, looked up.
A sound, deep and guttural, echoed from the sky above. It wasn't a roar of rage, nor a cry of pain. It was a laugh. A drunken, booming, almost bored laugh that promised nothing but annihilation.
"Wororororororo…"
Sengoku froze, his golden form flickering, a look of pure, unadulterated horror dawning on his face. He recognized that laugh. Garp, his fist still raised, stared upwards, with a cold, stomach-churning dread.
Akainu, Aokiji, Kizaru… even they stopped their relentless slaughter, their heads tilted towards the sky, their expressions, for the first time, betraying not just surprise, but genuine alarm.
"No… it can't be…" Sengoku whispered, his voice trembling. "Not now… Not him…"
Coiling in the darkened sky above Marineford, a being of myth and nightmare had appeared. A dragon. A colossal Eastern dragon, its body impossibly long, covered in shimmering azure scales, its whiskers like whips, its horns like sharpened obsidian. Its fiery, malevolent eyes, filled with a drunken, nihilistic amusement, gazed down upon the sinking island and the insignificant insects squabbling below.
It was Kaido, Emperor of the Sea, the "World's Strongest Creature."
Why he was here, no one knew. But his presence, at this precise moment, transformed the already catastrophic war into something else entirely. It was no longer a battle for justice or family. It was the potential beginning of a global apocalypse.
The dragon opened its massive maw, and the drunken, booming laugh echoed once more, a promise of the destruction to come.
"Worororororo! What a fun-looking party! Don't mind if I join in!"
The end of one era had arrived. And it seemed the beginning of the next was to be heralded by the fiery breath of a drunken, suicidal dragon.
The drunken, booming laughter from the colossal azure dragon coiling in the sky above was a sound that signified the absolute irrelevance of everything that had happened before. The desperate struggles, the sacrifices, the clash of justice and freedom—it was all now just a party for a bored, suicidal god.
"Wororororo! You all look like you're having so much fun!" Kaido's voice, slurred and echoing, rumbled from the heavens. "Fighting! Dying! It's the best! But this little island… it's sinking! That's no good! A party needs a proper stage!"
He didn't attack. He did something far more terrifying.
He inhaled.
The air itself seemed to bend towards his massive draconic form. And then, from his maw, he unleashed not fire, but something else. Colossal, dark, swirling clouds, shot through with veins of purple energy, billowed downwards. They weren't storm clouds; they were Flame Clouds.
They didn't strike the island quadrants; they flowed beneath them. They enveloped the sinking foundations of Marineford, wrapping around the massive chunks of earth and stone like ghostly, ethereal hands.
And then, Kaido lifted.
The world tilted. But this time, it wasn't the violent, shattering tremor of a quake. It was a smooth, horrifying, unnatural ascent.
The four massive, crumbling quadrants of Marineford—the main fortress where Sengoku and Garp stood, the section where Aokiji and the Blackbeard pirates were, the quadrant where Akainu was, and the floating pyre of the Moby Dick—were lifted out of the churning, violent sea. They rose, slowly, inexorably, into the sky, held aloft by Kaido's impossible Flame Clouds.
Marineford was no longer an island. It was a floating, fragmented tomb, a broken stage suspended in the sky at the whim of a drunken dragon.
On the Moby Dick Quadrant:
Gunnar, his consciousness a flickering ember, was hoisted onto Smoothie's surprisingly strong back. The giant woman, her face a mask of grim determination, secured him, her usual condescending air completely gone, replaced by a primal survival instinct.
"He's insane," she muttered, her eyes wide as she looked down at the churning sea now hundreds of feet below them. "Completely and utterly insane."
The few remaining Whitebeard commanders on the burning deck could only stare in mute, abject horror. They were now trapped, not on a sinking island, but in a floating coffin, with nowhere to run.
Kaido's Descent:
The colossal dragon, with a lazy flap of his immense body, descended, his fiery gaze sweeping over the floating ruins. "Wororororo! Much better! Now… where is he? Where's the main event? I came all this way for a glorious death! And there's only one man in this world who could possibly kill me! Where are you, NEWGATE?!"
His eyes, burning with a drunkard's manic energy, finally found what they were looking for. On the deck of the burning Moby Dick, he saw the colossal, unmoving form of Whitebeard, slumped against the ship's railing, his body a ruin of wounds, unconscious and barely breathing.
Kaido's drunken, boisterous demeanor vanished in an instant. The air around him grew heavy, oppressive. His fiery eyes narrowed, a look of genuine, terrifying rage dawning within them.
"He's… already like this?" Kaido's voice was a low, dangerous growl, the slur completely gone, replaced by a cold, sober fury. He floated closer, his massive head now level with the Moby Dick's deck. He saw the gaping, magma-seared hole in Whitebeard's chest. He saw the countless bullet and sword wounds. He saw the life fading from his greatest rival.
This wasn't the glorious, world-ending battle he had envisioned. This was… a butchering.
"WHO?!" Kaido roared, his voice a shockwave of pure, unadulterated fury that shook the very clouds they floated on. "WHO DID THIS TO HIM?! WHO DARED TO DEFEAT WHITEBEARD BEFORE I COULD?!"
The World's Reaction:
The broadcast Den Den Mushi, miraculously, were still transmitting. And the world, which had been reeling from the sinking of Marineford, was now catatonic with a new, even more profound level of terror.
Sabaody Archipelago:
In the crowded bar, a pirate dropped his mug. It shattered on the floor, the sound unnaturally loud in the dead silence.
"He… he lifted the entire Marineford…" someone whispered.
"That's… Kaido… of the Four Emperors…" another choked out.
"He's angry…" a woman whimpered, clutching her companion. "He's angry that Whitebeard is dying… What is he going to do?"
The one-eyed veteran pirate simply closed his eye. "We're all dead. That's what."
World Economic Journal:
"KUWAAAAHAHAHAHAHA! IT'S KAIDO! KAIDO IS HERE! HE LIFTED THE ISLAND! HE'S GOING TO FIGHT EVERYONE!" "Big News" Morgans was in a state of journalistic ecstasy so pure it was almost religious. "THIS ISN'T THE SCOOP OF THE MILLENNIUM! THIS IS THE SCOOP OF THE APOCALYPSE! PRINT IT! PRINT IT ALL! 'THE DAY THE WORLD FLOATED'! 'THE DRAGON'S RAGE'!"
Revolutionary Army:
Dragon watched the screen, his expression unreadable, a shadow in the darkness. "Kaido… Of all the chaotic elements to enter this fray… He is the most unpredictable. His rage is not for justice, nor for family. It is the rage of a force of nature denied its purpose." He turned to his subordinates. "The world's balance is not just broken. It is being shattered and remade by monsters. We must be ready to move when the pieces fall."
In Shakky's Bar:
Rayleigh finally took a drink of his whiskey. He downed the entire glass in one go, then set it down with a heavy thud. He let out a long, slow breath.
"You always did attract the most troublesome people, Roger," he murmured to the empty room. "But this… Kaido, Blackbeard, two generations of your and Dragon's lineage, all on one floating, stage… Even you would find this absurd." A faint, weary smile touched his lips. "What a glorious, terrifying mess. The age that is coming… it will be one of pure, beautiful chaos."
[A/N: Guys, Today I will upload the rest of the remaining chapters of this Arc. Tomorrow, we start another Arc. I will be dropping AfterMath arc of six capters tomorrow, a whole arc.]