The sky was a graveyard of broken stone and shattered hopes, Marineford's ruins held aloft by the whim of a drunken god. Kaido, the azure dragon, his rage now cold and sober, floated before the burning deck of the Moby Dick, his immense shadow falling over the last vestiges of the Whitebeard Pirates.
With a sound of shifting mountains, the colossal dragon began to shrink. Scales receded, his impossibly long body condensing, his form twisting and reforming amidst a swirl of Flame Clouds.
He landed on the floating quadrant where Gunnar and Smoothie stood with a THUD that sent tremors through the rock, not as a dragon, but as a man… of sorts.
He was a giant, easily three times Gunnar's height, his upper body bare and grotesquely muscled, azure scales still visible on his arms and torso. Long, dark hair flowed wildly, and from his head sprouted two massive, dark horns. In one hand, he gripped his monstrous spiked kanabo, "Hassaikai."
This was Kaido's hybrid form, the form of the "World's Strongest Creature."
His fiery, demonic eyes, no longer clouded by drunken amusement but blazing with a predator's fury, fell upon Gunnar.
"You," Kaido grunted, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "Whitebeard's lost whelp. The one with the ice and fire. I remember you."
He took a step closer, the sheer pressure of his presence suffocating.
"He is dying," Kaido stated, not a question, but a cold, hard fact. He gestured with his chin towards the distant, unconscious form of Whitebeard. "Who did it? Who stole my war? Who stole my glorious death?"
Gunnar, leaning heavily on Smoothie, every fiber of his being screaming in agony, met the Emperor's gaze. He was looking at a force of nature, a being perhaps even more destructive than his own unchained power. He coughed, a fleck of blood dotting his lips.
"Him…" Gunnar rasped, lifting a trembling arm and pointing across the chasm to where Blackbeard was just beginning to stir. "The one with the darkness… he started it all." He took another shuddering breath. "And the magma dog… Admiral Akainu… he put the hole in him."
Kaido's gaze followed Gunnar's finger, locking onto Blackbeard. A low growl began to build in his chest.
Across the abyss, Blackbeard pushed himself up from the crater Gunnar's Haki-fist had made. He was bruised, dazed, but his ambition was a fire that couldn't be so easily extinguished. He saw Kaido staring at him.
"ZEHAHAHAHAHA!" Blackbeard's laugh was a little strained, a little forced, but it was still a laugh. "Worororo, Kaido-san! What a surprise! Looking for a drink? Or perhaps… you want to join my crew? I'm taking applications for a new Emperor's fleet!"
He spread his arms wide, the darkness of the Yami Yami no Mi coiling around one hand, like a shimmering phantom-like around the other.
It was the last mistake he would make that day.
In the space of a heartbeat, Kaido vanished.
He didn't run. He didn't leap. He simply moved, his immense hybrid form crossing the hundred-meter chasm in an instant, a blur of azure scales and pure, unadulterated power.
Blackbeard's eyes widened in genuine shock, his arrogant grin freezing on his face. "What—?!"
He instinctively threw up a hand. "KURŌZU!" (Black Vortex!) The swirling darkness erupted, aiming to nullify and absorb whatever was coming.
It wasn't enough.
Kaido's kanabo, "Hassaikai," now wreathed in the violet-black lightning of advanced Conqueror's Haki, didn't slow. It didn't get absorbed. It simply plowed through the darkness as if it were smoke. The raw, indomitable will infused into the weapon was a force the Yami Yami no Mi could not negate.
CRUNCH!
The sound of thick bone shattering echoed across the floating ruin. The Haki-infused kanabo slammed directly into Blackbeard's raised arm, snapping it like a twig. Blackbeard screamed, a genuine, high-pitched shriek of agony.
Before he could even register the pain, Kaido's other hand, a fist the size of a boulder, grabbed him by the throat, lifting his massive, struggling form off the ground.
"You…" Kaido growled, his face inches from Blackbeard's, his eyes burning with the fury of a cheated god. "You are not worthy… of even being on the same battlefield as him."
What followed was not a fight. It was a decimation.
Kaido kneed Blackbeard in the gut, the impact causing Teach to vomit blood. He slammed Blackbeard's head into the stone ground, cracking it. He then hurled his massive form across the quadrant, sending him crashing through what remained of a Marine barracks.
The Blackbeard Pirates, who had been grinning with sadistic glee, were now frozen in abject terror. Shiryu's smirk had vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating sweat.
"Captain!" Avalo Pizarro yelled, making a move to intervene.
Kaido's head snapped towards him, a single glare of pure, murderous intent freezing the Corrupt King in his tracks.
Blackbeard struggled to rise from the rubble, his body broken, his pride shattered. "My… my power… the darkness… …" he stammered, trying to summon his fruits.
"Power?" Kaido was upon him again in an instant, his kanabo raised high. "You rely on tricks and gimmicks. A true king relies on THIS!"
"RAIMEI HAKKE!" (Thunder Bagua!)
He brought the club down. A single, devastating swing imbued with the full, terrifying might of the World's Strongest Creature.
KRA-KOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The entire floating quadrant shuddered. The spot where Blackbeard stood erupted in an explosion of black lightning and shattered stone. When the dust cleared, Marshall D. Teach was gone, blasted clear off the floating island, sent plummeting towards the violent sea below, his monstrous crew staring in mute horror.
Kaido stood, his chest heaving, his kanabo smoking with violet-black Haki. He had single-handedly, effortlessly, annihilated the man who had orchestrated the entire war.
He then turned, his furious, fiery gaze sweeping past Gunnar and Smoothie, past the burning Moby Dick, and settling upon the line of Admirals, and the golden form of Sengoku.
His point had been made. His rage, however, was far from sated.
***
The brutal, effortless decimation of Blackbeard at Kaido's hands sent a fresh wave of terror across the floating, shattered remains of Marineford. If the man who had orchestrated this war could be so easily swatted aside, what hope did anyone else have against the drunken, enraged dragon?
Admiral Kizaru, ever the opportunist, saw a flicker of a chance amidst the chaos. With Kaido's attention fixed on Blackbeard, and the other Admirals still containing the island's collapse, the crippled Moby Dick and its precious cargo were momentarily unguarded.
"Ooooh, while the big monsters are playing…" Kizaru drawled, light coalescing around his foot. "A little cleanup seems to be in order."
He launched himself, a golden arrow of light, streaking towards the burning deck of the Whitebeard flagship, aiming to finish off the unconscious Gunnar, the wounded commanders, and Whitebeard himself.
He was almost there, his light-speed kick about to connect with the ship's railing, when a voice, calm, steady, and utterly authoritative, cut through the air.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Kizaru."
Kizaru froze mid-kick, his form shimmering. He slowly turned his head. Standing on the crumbling edge of a nearby quadrant, his long rifle resting casually on his shoulder, his grey hair tied back, was a man with a scarred face and an aura of unshakable confidence. Ben Beckman, first mate of the Red Hair Pirates.
Kizaru's lazy smile faltered. He looked at the rifle, then at the man holding it. He knew that this wasn't an ordinary weapon, and its wielder was no ordinary man. The implied threat was as clear as a Haki-infused bullet.
With a theatrical sigh, Kizaru slowly lowered his leg, his hands raised in a mock gesture of surrender. "Well now… Ben Beckman… To think the Red Hair Pirates would show up too…"
As if on cue, another figure appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, standing on the very highest point of the main Marineford fortress, his red coat billowing in the wind. He was missing an arm, and three distinct scars ran over his left eye, but his presence, his very aura, was so immense it seemed to calm the chaotic battlefield. "Red-Haired" Shanks, the fourth Emperor, had arrived.
"I've come…" Shanks' voice was calm, yet it carried across the floating ruins with an undeniable authority, silencing the remaining skirmishes. "...to put an end to this war."
Sengoku, in his golden Buddha form, stared up at the newest Emperor to join this insane fray. Garp, beside him, looked on with a weary, almost pained, expression.
"Shanks…!" Sengoku thundered. "You as well?! What business do you have here?"
"I'm here to stop this," Shanks repeated, his gaze sweeping over the devastation, the fallen, the dying. "Too many lives have been lost. This pointless bloodshed has gone on long enough."
"We have not yet achieved our goal!" Sengoku roared back, his sense of duty overriding his shock. "Justice has not been fully served! At the very least, Whitebeard must not leave this place alive! I will not allow it, even if it is you, Shanks!"
Shanks' expression hardened slightly. "Then you'll have to go through us." He gestured, and on the decks of a pristine, powerful-looking ship that had just appeared at the edge of the floating battlefield, his entire crew—Yasopp, Lucky Roux, and the others—stood ready, their weapons drawn.
"And," Shanks added, his gaze flicking towards the furious, horned figure of Kaido, "I doubt he'll just stand by and watch you interrupt his... grieving."
Kaido, who had been glaring at the spot where Blackbeard had fallen, turned his fiery, demonic eyes towards Shanks. "Red-Hair… what are you doing here? This is my party now."
Shanks met his gaze without flinching. "Your party is over, Kaido. You've had your fun."
"I'm not satisfied!" Kaido roared, gripping his kanabo. "I haven't had a proper fight! I haven't died!"
"If it's a fight you want…" Shanks said, his hand slowly going to the hilt of his saber, Gryphon. "...then I will be your opponent."
A tense, suffocating silence fell. The world held its breath as two Emperors faced off.
It was into this standoff that Blackbeard, battered, broken, and enraged, managed to crawl out from the rubble, his darkness flaring weakly. "Shanks… Kaido… this isn't over! The One Piece… My era…!"
Shanks glanced at him with utter contempt. "You're not worthy of this stage, Teach."
He then turned his gaze back to Gunnar, who was still on the deck of the Moby Dick, held up by Smoothie, watching the scene unfold with dazed, golden eyes.
"Gunnar," Shanks' voice was softer, but firm. "You've done more than enough. Go now. Take your father and your family and leave this place. We will handle this mess."
Gunnar stared, confused. Shanks?
Smoothie, wasting no time, nodded sharply. "You heard the man. Let's go." She began to carefully maneuver the barely-conscious Gunnar towards the center of the deck, where Kirin was nervously protecting the bodies of Whitebeard and the others.
But Kaido was not to be denied.
"I SAID I'M NOT SATISFIED!" he bellowed, and with a roar, he launched himself at Shanks, his Haki-wreathed kanabo arcing down.
Shanks drew Gryphon in a blur of motion. "RAIMEI HAKKE!" Kaido screamed.
"DIVINE DEPARTURE!" Shanks met the attack with his own Conqueror's Haki-infused strike.
KRA-KOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
The sky itself split. The Flame Clouds holding up Marineford flickered violently. The clash of two Emperors, a preview of a world-ending battle, sent a shockwave so immense it blasted lesser men off their feet and cracked the very stone of the floating islands.
The two were locked, Haki against Haki, power against power, a stalemate of unimaginable force.
This was the opening.
"NOW!" Marco yelled from the deck.
Gunnar, using the last of his strength, stumbled towards his father. Smoothie helped him, her usual arrogance replaced by a grim urgency. They, along with Jozu, Vista, and the remaining conscious commanders, gathered around their fallen captain.
Kirin, with a determined shriek, transformed back into the colossal Thunderbird, its talons ready.
The escape, the true escape, was finally at hand, under the watchful, powerful gaze of the Red-Haired Emperor.