The air between the two 1st Division Commanders—one past, one present—was a vacuum of deadly intent. Debris from other battles littered the ground around them: shattered gingerbread, cracked caramel, and the groaning forms of lesser pirates.
Shiryu of the Rain stood with his cursed nodachi, Raiu, resting on his shoulder. A lit cigar was clenched in his teeth, and a thin, cruel smile played on his lips. He was utterly still, but the air around him felt sharp, like unsheathed steel.
Opposite him, Marco the Phoenix was in his hybrid form. Brilliant blue flames of rebirth wreathed his arms-turned-wings and taloned feet. His expression was calm and analytical, the weary but resolute look of a doctor examining a terminal disease.
"To think the great Whitebeard Pirates would be reduced to cleaning up another crew's leftovers," Shiryu said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. He took a slow drag from his cigar. "You're all museum pieces. Relics of a bygone era."
"And you're a stain that should have been wiped out in Impel Down, yoi," Marco retorted, his voice even. "Some things just don't know when to die."
Shiryu's smile widened. "I could say the same about you."
And then, he vanished.
There was no sound, no shimmer. One moment he was there, the next, he was gone. The Suke Suke no Mi in the hands of a master swordsman was a terrifying thing.
Marco didn't panic. His eyes narrowed, his Kenbunshoku Haki spreading out like a net. He couldn't see Shiryu, but he could feel the faint disturbance in the air, the cold spike of killing intent that was the man's signature. It was like trying to spot a shark in murky water—you couldn't see the creature, only the ripple of its passage.
There.
A flicker of intent to his left. Marco pivoted, his leg, coated in blue flames and hardened with Armament Haki, swinging up in a defensive arc.
SHIIING!
Shiryu materialized for a fraction of a second, his blade meeting Marco's leg with a screech of protesting metal. The clash sent a shockwave of black and blue Haki, followed by a shower of sparks. Shiryu used the recoil to push off, immediately turning invisible again.
"Sharp senses," Shiryu's disembodied voice echoed around Marco. "But for how long? You can't defend forever. You're a doctor. A healer. I'm a killer. Our natures are fundamentally different. Eventually, you will fail to save someone. And that someone will be you."
Marco hovered slightly off the ground, turning slowly, his senses on high alert. "Killing is all you know. It's a blunt instrument. There's no art to it, no purpose beyond your own sick pleasure."
"Purpose?" Shiryu's laugh was a dry rustle of dead leaves. "The purpose is the cut itself! The moment the blade parts the flesh! That's the only truth in this world!"
A flicker of movement in his perception—behind him. Marco spun, wings flaring. But it was a feint. The object that came flying at him was Shiryu's scabbard, a simple distraction. As Marco instinctively moved to swat it away, he felt the true threat. Below and to the right.
Too late to fully block.
Shiryu reappeared, his eyes gleaming with sadistic triumph. He wasn't aiming for a grand, cinematic slash. He was aiming for a vital point, a swordsman's kill shot. His blade lanced forward, aimed directly at Marco's kidney.
Marco twisted his body violently, turning the direct stab into a deep, gouging slash across his torso. The Haki-infused blade cut deep, bypassing his flames for a moment to bite into his flesh.
"Got you," Shiryu hissed.
But even as the blood sprayed, brilliant blue flames erupted from the wound. The flesh sizzled and knit back together at a supernatural rate. In seconds, the gash was gone, leaving only a bloodstain on his clothes and a faint wisp of steam.
Marco grimaced. The regeneration wasn't without cost; it took stamina. He couldn't afford to take many more hits like that.
Shiryu's smile tightened. His killing blow had been negated. This was the problem with fighting a phoenix. "So annoying. You just won't stay cut."
"I told you," Marco said, his calm demeanor now holding a sharper edge. He had the measure of his opponent. Fast, precise, and utterly reliant on deception. It was time to take the game away from him.
He shot forward, not waiting for the next invisible attack. He wouldn't give Shiryu the chance to disappear. He closed the distance in a blur of blue fire.
"Tired of waiting, yoi?" Marco's voice was low and dangerous.
He unleashed a powerful, spinning kick. "Hoo-in! (Phoenix Seal!)"
The kick didn't just carry physical force; it threw a wide, arcing wave of his blue flames across the battlefield. The attack wasn't just aimed at Shiryu, but at the entire area around him.
Shiryu, who had been about to turn invisible, was caught in the azure wave. The flames didn't burn him with heat, but they clung to him, a viscous, ethereal fire that outlined his entire body in shimmering blue. His invisibility was gone, rendered useless by a coat of phoenix fire.
He was forced to become tangible, snarling as he swatted at the clinging flames.
For the first time, a flicker of genuine rage crossed Shiryu's face. His game of cat-and-mouse was over.
"So," Marco said, landing softly a few yards away, his stance ready. "No more hiding. Let's see how good of a killer you are when your prey can see you coming."
The air crackled. The cold, sadistic aura of the killer clashed with the warm, unyielding aura of the guardian. The real fight was about to begin.
Away from the epic clashes of emperors and phoenixes, the chaos of the battlefield condensed into pockets of specialized warfare. Here, the remaining commanders of the Bloodline Pirates met their dark mirrors among the Ten Titanic Captains.
High atop a precariously tilted gingerbread spire, Van Augur, "The Supersonic," peered through the scope of his rifle, Senriku. His gaze swept over the battlefield, a cold, detached god observing the fates of mortals.
"Destiny unfolds," he murmured to himself. "Some are fated to fall, others to rise."
His scope settled on Isshin Ashina, who had just effortlessly dispatched a dozen pirates.
"This one's fate," Augur concluded, "is to end here."
He squeezed the trigger. There was no sound, only the instantaneous disappearance of the bullet from his barrel. It traveled faster than sound, a pinpoint of inevitable death aimed directly at the swordsman's heart.
On the ground, Isshin did not look up. He didn't need to. His entire being was an instrument of combat perception. He felt the needle-sharp killing intent a fraction of a second before the projectile's arrival.
He didn't dodge. He didn't block. He simply shifted his weight, his katana, Kusanagi, moving in a short, precise arc.
Clang.
A sound that should have been impossible. The Haki-infused bullet, traveling at hypersonic speed, was deflected by the flat of Isshin's blade. It ricocheted harmlessly into a nearby candy soldier, blowing its head off.
From his perch, Van Augur's eye widened slightly behind his scope. He had never seen someone parry his shot.
Isshin lowered his blade, finally looking up towards the sniper's nest. His voice, though not loud, carried with unnatural clarity. "A warrior does not wait for fate. He carves it with his own steel."
He sheathed his sword and began to move, not in a straight line, but flowing through the battle like a river around rocks, using the duels of his comrades as moving cover. The hunt was on.
In a clearing slick with spilled liquor and frosting, two distinct duels raged side-by-side.
"Topu topu topu... Have a drink!" Vasco Shot roared, his face flushed with unholy glee. He took a massive swig from his gourd and spewed a torrent of flammable liquor at Blamenco.
Blamenco, the jolly 6th Division commander, laughed. "I'm more of a sake man myself!"
Instead of dodging, he reached into the strange pocket-like dimension on his chin and pulled out... a massive cast-iron cauldron lid. He held it up like a shield, the fiery booze washing over it with a great FWOOSH. The metal glowed red-hot, but held firm.
"Now for the main course!" Blamenco grinned, stuffing the lid back into his chin-pouch and, in the same motion, withdrawing his true weapon: a colossal mallet easily twice his size. He swung it with surprising speed, aiming to flatten the drunken brawler.
"Topu topu... You're no fun!" Vasco slurred, narrowly stumbling out of the way as the hammer pulverized the ground, sending shards of rock candy flying like shrapnel.
A few feet away, a more elegant, sinister battle was taking place.
"Your rhythm is frantic... your mind, full of anger," Laffitte, the "Demon Sheriff," purred, tapping his cane on the ground. His eyes glowed, and a low, hypnotic hum filled the air. "Let me soothe you... let me put you to sleep..."
Rakuyo, the 7th Division commander with the spiked flail, felt a wave of drowsiness wash over him. His movements grew sluggish, his grip on his weapon slackening. But just as his eyes started to droop, he gritted his teeth and swung his flail backwards, deliberately smacking the iron ball against his own armored back. The sharp jolt of pain and the rattle of the chain instantly cleared his head.
"Nice try," Rakuyo growled, his eyes now sharp and clear. "But my partner here keeps me wide awake." He whipped the flail around, the spiked ball a blur of unpredictable motion aimed at Laffitte's head.
Laffitte, with a grace that seemed supernatural, sidestepped the main blow, the wind from the passing flail rustling his coat. "Such a crude method of staying focused. Very well. A dance it is, then." The fight became a deadly ballet of feints and lunges—the hypnotist's cane against the wild, unpredictable arc of the warrior's flail.
The final confrontation was one of fundamental opposition. Namur, the fish-man commander, a warrior brimming with life and vitality, stood before Doc Q, the very embodiment of disease and decay, who slumped weakly atop his equally sickly horse, Stronger.
"Cough... It's not good... for your health... to fight," Doc Q wheezed, his voice thin and frail. He reached into his basket and pulled out a gleaming red apple. With a weak flick of his wrist, he tossed it towards Namur.
Namur, with the explosive speed of his race, saw it for what it was. "A cheap trick!" he yelled. He didn't dodge. He lunged forward and, with an open palm, struck the apple in mid-air.
The apple detonated with surprising force, but Namur's Haki-coated hand dispersed the blast harmlessly. He continued his charge, his fist cocked back for a devastating Fish-Man Karate strike.
"Heh... cough... you touched it," Doc Q rasped, a faint, sickly smile on his face.
Namur faltered. A sudden, unnatural weakness spread through his arm. His muscles, usually taut with power, felt sluggish, heavy. A wave of dizziness washed over him. He looked down at his hand; the skin was pale, a network of faint, dark veins visible where there were none before.
"The Shiku Shiku no Mi... is not so simple," Doc Q explained, tossing another apple, this one a sickly green color. "My diseases can be... contagious. Even through explosions. That one was the 'Muscle Fatigue Fever'."
Namur gritted his teeth, fighting through the sudden wave of infirmity. He was a fish-man, one of the hardiest races in the world, but this was a Devil Fruit power, an attack on his very biology.
He powered through, dodging the second apple and landing a powerful, water-sheathed punch on Stronger's flank, sending both horse and rider tumbling.
But as he stood over them, panting from an effort that should have been trivial, he knew this fight would not be won by strength alone. He had to end it quickly, before the sickness Doc Q had inflicted on him could truly take root.
The zone of conflict occupied by Ace and Kuzan was an elemental war in miniature. The ground was a stark dichotomy: on one side, scorched black and dotted with glowing embers; on the other, a creeping glacier of jagged, frost-white ice. Between them, a constant, swirling fog of steam hissed violently where heat and cold met.
Ace was a living inferno, his body radiating waves of heat. He was pure aggression, constantly moving, constantly attacking. "Get out of my way, Aokiji!" he yelled, thrusting his arm forward. "Hiken! (Fire Fist!)"
A massive fist of concentrated flame, large enough to incinerate a battleship, roared towards the former Admiral.
Kuzan watched it approach with a look of profound boredom. "Ara ra... so noisy." He didn't move from his spot. He simply raised a hand, palm open. A wave of intense cold radiated from him, so potent it was visible as a shimmer in the air.
The Fire Fist didn't explode. It didn't get extinguished. It froze.
The roaring flames solidified in mid-air, turning into a crystalline, orange-and-red sculpture of a fist. The details were perfectly preserved for a fraction of a second before the thermal shock caused it to shatter, falling to the ground in a shower of glittering, ice-bound embers that tinkled like broken glass.
Ace stared, his jaw tight. He'd fought Smoker, whose smoke could be dispersed. He'd never fought someone who could freeze his very element.
"That's a neat trick," Ace growled, forcing a cocky grin. "But I've got plenty more!" He stomped his foot. "Enkai: Hibashira! (Flame Commandment: Fire Pillar!)"
A colossal pillar of fire erupted from the ground beneath Kuzan, aiming to swallow him whole.
"What a pain," Kuzan sighed. This time, he moved. With a lazy flick of his wrist, he sent a wave of ice across the ground. It didn't meet the pillar head-on. Instead, it struck the base, the source. The ground from which Ace was drawing his flame instantly turned to permafrost. The fire pillar, choked off from its fuel, sputtered and died halfway to its full height, collapsing into a cloud of steam.
The frost didn't stop. It continued its relentless crawl towards Ace, turning the blackened earth white. Ace had to constantly channel his own heat into the ground around his feet just to keep from being frozen in place. He was already on the defensive, forced to expend energy just to exist in Kuzan's presence.
"What's wrong, boy?" Kuzan's lazy drawl cut through the steam. "You're Portgas D. Ace. Gunnar's brother. I thought you'd be hotter than this."
The condescension was a lit match to Ace's temper. "SHUT UP!"
He flew forward, both hands ablaze. "Hotarubi! Hidaruma! (Firefly Light: Fiery Doll!)" He unleashed dozens of small, greenish-yellow fireballs that floated towards Kuzan like specters before converging on him in a pincer attack.
Kuzan simply exhaled a breath of cold air. A localized blizzard instantly formed around him, a swirling vortex of ice and snow. The fiery dolls were snuffed out one by one as they entered the storm, their light extinguished with pathetic little hisses.
"Too small. Too scattered," Kuzan critiqued, as if grading a student's work. "Ice Block: Partisan."
From the heart of his blizzard, he launched several spears of jagged, clear ice. They weren't just fast; they were imbued with a chilling cold that seemed to suck the very heat out of the air as they flew.
Ace was forced to create a wall of fire to intercept them, the spears punching through and shattering against the intense heat, but not before chilling his flames, forcing him to pour more and more power into his defense. He was panting now, sweat mixing with the steam on his brow. The constant cold was seeping into him, a deep, cellular chill that his own fire struggled to fight off. He was a furnace fighting against the void of space.
This isn't working, Ace realized, his frustration mounting. I can't beat him with a thousand small attacks. I need one, big one. One that's too hot to freeze.
He landed, planting his feet firmly, channeling all his focus, all his anger, all his will. He raised his hand to the sky. Flames from all around him—the embers on the ground, the heat in the air—began to swirl towards his palm.
"I won't lose to you... I won't let Gunnar down!" he roared, pouring every ounce of his strength into the attack.
A sphere of fire began to form above his hand, growing larger and brighter with every passing second. It condensed, becoming smaller but impossibly dense, glowing with the white-hot intensity of the sun itself. "Dai Enkai... (Great Flame Commandment...)"
For the first time, the lazy look on Kuzan's face vanished. He recognized the sheer power being gathered. This was no longer a game. This was an Emperor's attack.
"Ara ra..." he said, his voice losing its drawl, becoming flat and serious. "You really are your father's son."
He brought his hands together, and the temperature of the entire battlefield plummeted. The steam flash-froze into a fog of ice crystals. The ground groaned and cracked under the strain. He was gathering his own power, a concentration of absolute zero.
Ace roared the final word of his attack, thrusting the miniature sun forward. "...ENTEI! (Flame Emperor!)"
At the exact same moment, Kuzan thrust his own arms forward. "Ice Age."
It wasn't his usual, area-of-effect wave. It was a focused, concentrated beam of pure, world-freezing cold, a river of absolute zero rushing to meet the sun.
The white-hot star of destruction met the unstoppable glacier of absolute cold. For a silent, breathtaking moment, neither gave way.
The cataclysmic collision of Entei and Ice Age did not result in an explosion. It created a paradox.
Where the miniature sun met the beam of absolute zero, a sphere of shimmering, distorted space formed. It was a zone where the laws of thermodynamics broke down. Fire tried to burn, ice tried to freeze, and in their perfect opposition, they annihilated each other, releasing titanic waves of concussive force and dense, boiling-cold fog that rolled across the battlefield.
The strain was immense. Ace poured every fiber of his being into his sun, his muscles screaming, his skin glowing like hot coals. Across from him, Kuzan's arms were coated in a thick, craggy layer of his own ice, a feedback loop from the sheer power he was channeling. His expression was one of grim, focused effort.
This stalemate could not last.
With a final, deafening crack, the sphere of paradox collapsed. The backlash was instantaneous and violent.
Ace was thrown backward like a ragdoll, his flames sputtering. He tumbled through the air, his body screaming in protest, and crashed into the half-melted wall of a gingerbread house, which immediately flash-froze around him from the residual cold.
Kuzan, too, was pushed back, skidding across the ice he had created, a long trail of frost marking his path. He stood panting, his arms still smoking with cold. He had won the exchange, but it had cost him. That attack... it had been worthy of an Emperor.
Ace burst from the frozen gingerbread, roaring in frustration, his body wreathed in uncontrolled flames. "Is that all you've got, you damn popsicle?!" he bellowed, his pride stung raw. He refused to accept the power gap. He was a commander of the Bloodline Pirates. He was Gunnar's brother. He couldn't lose.
He charged.
This time, there were no grand techniques, just raw, Haki-infused brawling. He threw a fiery punch, aiming for Kuzan's jaw.
"You're too emotional," Kuzan stated, his voice now devoid of any laziness. He met the punch not with ice, but with his own Haki-coated fist. The impact sent a shockwave of black lightning through the air.
Ace's eyes widened in pain. It felt like punching a mountain made of frozen steel. The cold seeped through his Haki, through his flames, and into his very bones.
Kuzan didn't give him a moment to recover. His movements were now brutally efficient. He sidestepped a flaming kick and drove an elbow into Ace's ribs. The crack was audible even over the hiss of steam. Ace gasped, his fire flickering.
"Fire is chaos," Kuzan said, his voice a low monotone as he pressed his advantage. He grabbed Ace's outstretched arm. "Ice Block: Capsule."
A thick casing of ice instantly formed around Ace's arm, from his fist to his shoulder. It wasn't just cold; it was unnaturally heavy, imbued with Kuzan's power, and it began to rapidly sap Ace's strength and body heat. The fire on that arm was completely extinguished.
"It lacks discipline," Kuzan continued, delivering a sharp, precise knee strike to Ace's stomach. Ace doubled over, coughing.
"Shut... up!" Ace snarled, trying to swing his free arm, but the weight of the ice on his other side threw his balance off completely. He was clumsy, enraged, and fighting a losing battle.
Kuzan was relentless. He was no longer a lazy admiral; he was a machine of combat, dissecting his opponent with cold precision. He ducked under Ace's wild swing and swept his leg, coating the ground with a layer of slick ice at the same moment.
Ace's feet went out from under him. He hit the ground hard, the impact jarring his entire body.
"And undisciplined chaos..." Kuzan loomed over him, his shadow a promise of defeat. "...loses to focused will. Every time."
He raised his leg, the ice around it sharpening into a brutal, jagged blade. He brought it down not on Ace's head or chest, but on his captured, ice-encased arm.
CRACK!
The sound was sickening. Ace screamed, a raw, guttural cry of agony as the ice casing shattered inward, breaking the bone beneath it. The pain was immense, a white-hot agony that overwhelmed even his Logia nature for a moment.
"Still want to fight?" Kuzan asked, his face an impassive mask.
Ace pushed himself up with his good arm, his entire body trembling with a mixture of pain and incandescent rage. His broken arm hung uselessly at his side. His fire was sputtering, a pale imitation of its former glory. He was beaten, battered, and utterly dominated. But his eyes... his eyes still burned.
"I... will never... stop..." he gasped, spitting a wad of blood onto the ice. "Not while my family... is still fighting!"
He tried to lunge forward one last time, a desperate, final act of defiance.
Kuzan simply sighed, a puff of cold vapor. He caught Ace by the throat, his grip like a vice of absolute zero, and slammed him back down against the frozen ground. The fire around Ace died completely, extinguished by the overwhelming cold and the force of the impact.
Ace's vision swam. The roars of the distant battlefield sounded muted and far away. All he could feel was the crushing, impossible cold, and the unyielding grip of the man standing over him. He had failed. He had lost.
Kuzan looked down at the semi-conscious, broken form of the 0-Division commander.
"Ara ra," he said, his lazy tone finally returning as he looked up towards the larger conflict. "One down. What a pain."