The sky above Marineford was no longer a canopy of clouds; it was a ceiling of death.
Three colossal shadows, perfectly synchronized, expanded rapidly over the frozen bay. The deafening, mechanical screech of displaced air multiplied threefold, a terrifying chord of destruction that vibrated in the teeth of every man standing on the ice.
Down in the vanguard, Petty Officer Coby dropped entirely to his knees. The cutlass he had dropped lay forgotten. He couldn't scream anymore; his throat was completely raw. He just stared up at the three plummeting Marine galleons, his mind snapping under the sheer, impossible absurdity of it all.
We're going to die, Coby thought numbly, his vision blurring with tears. All of us. Marines, pirates... the whole world is just going to end right here on this ice.
High on the execution scaffold, Fleet Admiral Sengoku's tactical mind raced at a million miles an hour. He tracked the trajectories of the three incoming behemoths. They were falling in a tight V-formation at nearly a hundred kilometers per hour, but at the last possible second, the invisible force guiding them violently shifted their paths.
One was screaming directly toward the towering, majestic Marine Headquarters building—the absolute symbol of global justice. One was hurtling straight toward the Moby Dick, the legendary flagship of the Whitebeard Pirates anchored in the bay. And the third was diving dead center into the plaza, aimed perfectly at the densest cluster of fighting Marines and pirates.
There were only seconds left.
"SENGOKU!" Whitebeard's voice roared from across the bay, echoing with the desperate, raw authority of a father.
Sengoku didn't need to hear the rest of the sentence. The Fleet Admiral and the Emperor of the Sea, mortal enemies separated by a frozen battlefield, arrived at the exact same agonizing conclusion in the exact same microsecond.
Buildings could be rebuilt. Ships could be replaced. Lives could not.
"ABANDON THE FORTRESS!" Sengoku bellowed, his voice amplified by his Golden Buddha form, carrying over the screeching wind. "ALL VICE ADMIRALS! SHIELD THE PLAZA! PROTECT THE MEN!"
"FORGET THE SHIP!" Whitebeard roared to his commanders, his eyes wide with a painful, reluctant sacrifice. He leaped from the prow of his beloved flagship, landing heavily on the ice among his crew. "JOZU! MARCO! SHIELD YOUR BROTHERS!"
The strongest fighters in the world entirely abandoned their defensive perches, throwing themselves desperately into the path of the third ship aimed at the plaza.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
The impact of the first ship was an apocalyptic event.
The hundred-ton galleon slammed directly into the pristine, towering white facade of the Marine Headquarters. The majestic stone columns, which had stood for generations as a beacon of safety for civilians across the world, shattered like cheap glass. The deafening explosion drowned out every other sound on the island. Entire floors of the fortress violently pancaked inward, collapsing under the sheer kinetic devastation of the warship. A massive, choking cloud of pulverized marble, iron, and dust erupted into the sky, completely obscuring the back half of the island.
Marines watched in absolute, paralyzed horror as the physical embodiment of their pride and justice crumbled into a mountain of rubble.
A fraction of a second later, the second ship struck.
It crashed down vertically directly onto the deck of the Moby Dick. The sickening, heart-wrenching sound of snapping timber echoed across the ice. The legendary whale figurehead, which had sailed the New World for decades and survived the worst storms of the Grand Line, was completely obliterated. The main mast snapped like a twig, and the grand deck was entirely crushed down to the waterline under the crushing weight of the intruding warship.
"POPS! NO!" several pirates screamed, openly weeping as they watched their home, the only sanctuary many of them had ever known, reduced to floating splinters.
Whitebeard didn't look back at his ship. He gritted his teeth, his massive chest heaving as he stared up at the sky, his hands glowing with the blinding white light of the Gura Gura no Mi.
The third ship reached the plaza.
It was met by a desperate, fragmented canopy of absolute, godly power.
Whitebeard unleashed a shockwave that cracked the air directly beneath the galleon, while Sengoku fired a golden blast of pure energy. Admiral Akainu launched a barrage of magma fists, melting the iron cannons before they could become shrapnel.
The combined, frantic efforts of the top tiers shattered the third battleship into thousands of pieces before it could crush the army below.
A tidal wave of jagged wood, freezing water, and molten slag rained down over the combatants.
Coby squeezed his eyes shut, curling into a tight ball. A massive, burning plank of wood smashed into the ice just inches from his head, showering him in freezing slush. Above him, a Marine Vice Admiral was actively slicing through falling debris with his sword, desperately keeping the younger soldiers alive.
Then, the raining debris stopped.
The deafening roar of the impacts slowly faded, replaced by the ominous, crackling sound of burning wood and shifting rubble.
Coby slowly opened his eyes, trembling violently. He was alive. He looked around the plaza. Men were coughing, covered in dust and soot. Some were bleeding from stray splinters, and medics were already rushing to the injured, but the utter, absolute annihilation of the hundred-thousand-strong army had been successfully averted. The leaders had chosen the men.
But as the dust began to settle, the true psychological toll of the attack settled over the battlefield like a suffocating shroud.
The Marines turned their heads, staring at the half-destroyed, smoking ruins of Marine Headquarters. The symbol of the World Government had been humiliated and broken.
The Whitebeard Pirates looked at the crushed, sinking remains of the Moby Dick. Their home was gone, violently ripped away from them before they had even engaged the main Marine forces.
The disrespect was absolute. It wasn't just an attack; it was a profound, calculated insult designed to strip both sides of their pride. It was a declaration of war against the entire world.
A vein bulged dangerously on Whitebeard's forehead. His grip on his bisento tightened until the wood groaned.
On the execution scaffold, Sengoku's golden form reverted back to flesh, his chest heaving with exertion. His eyes were entirely bloodshot, burning with a wrath that eclipsed anything he had felt in decades.
"WHICH BASTARD IS DOING THIS?!"
The furious, overlapping roars of Edward Newgate and Fleet Admiral Sengoku shook the very bedrock of the island. The voices of the two greatest living legends echoed in perfect, wrathful unison, tearing through the smoke and dust.
The sky answered with an eerie, terrifying silence.
The heavy, grey clouds slowly parted one final time.
A seventh Marine battleship appeared on the horizon.
Coby whimpered, his heart completely giving out. But this one was different. Unlike the first six, it wasn't a hypersonic missile. It wasn't screaming through the air, burning with friction.
It was descending at a normal, steady speed. It floated downward with a terrifying, deliberate arrogance, completely defying gravity.
The entire war ground to a stunned, absolute halt. Over a hundred thousand men—Admirals, Warlords, New World veterans, and terrified chore boys—watched in breathless silence as the flying galleon drifted over the frozen bay.
With a heavy, resonant thud, the seventh battleship landed directly in the dead center of the frozen plaza. It settled perfectly into the no-man's-land separating the elite Marine forces from the pirate vanguard.
The silence that followed was so profound it felt loud. The smoke from the ruined Marine HQ drifted over the ship, casting it in an ominous, hellish light.
Then, the heavy wooden doors of the battleship's cabin were slowly kicked open.
The brutal, freezing wind of Marineford immediately caught a pristine, sweeping black coat.
A single figure stepped out of the shadows of the cabin, walking slowly to the railing of the ship. He looked down at the assembled might of the world. He didn't look intimidated. He looked entirely, terrifyingly bored.
Light Yagami rested his hand casually on the hilt of his pitch-black saber. His newly maxed-out Life Force radiated from him in an invisible, crushing pressure that made the air feel thick and heavy.
"Criminals," Light's voice echoed cleanly across the silent battlefield. He didn't need a Den Den Mushi; the sheer, absolute confidence of his Conqueror's Haki carried his words to every single ear on the island. A completely arrogant, unhinged smile spread slowly across his face. "Time to die."
The collective breath of the Marines caught in their throats.
"That's..." Vice Admiral Momonga gasped, his eyes widening in sheer disbelief. "The Celestial Dragon Killer... The False Diety!"
Admiral Akainu's remaining ear twitched. The magma completely covering his right side violently boiled over, dripping onto the ice and hissing furiously. He recognized the black coat. He recognized the cold, uncaring eyes.
"YAGAMI!" Akainu snarled, his voice a low, terrifying rumble of molten hatred.
A moment later, the cabin doors opened wider. The true shock was yet to come.
Stepping up to the railing, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the Reaper, was Monkey D. Luffy. The rubber boy was covered in bandages, steam violently hissing from his flushed skin as his eyes locked onto the execution platform.
To Luffy's left stepped Roronoa Zoro, drawing Wado Ichimonji from its scabbard, his lone eye glaring down at the Warlords. To Luffy's right stepped Sanji, taking a slow drag of his cigarette, his leg already smoldering with hellfire.
Behind them, Emporio Ivankov popped up with a loud, echoing "HEE-HAW!", followed by Inazuma and the rest of the surviving Impel Down vanguard.
Down on the execution platform, Portgas D. Ace stared up at the ship, his jaw dropping in absolute, unadulterated disbelief. He strained violently against his Seastone cuffs, his chains rattling loudly in the quiet plaza.
"Luffy...?" Ace choked out, tears instantly pooling in his eyes. "LUFFY! YOU IDIOT! WHY ARE YOU HERE?!"
Sengoku stared at the bizarre, impossible alliance. The man who had just destroyed Marine Headquarters and the Moby Dick was standing calmly next to the son of Dragon the Revolutionary.
The world was officially broken.
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A/N: Uwah! I'm getting excited!!!
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