Mihawk moved like a phantom through the smoke, slashing down pirate lieutenants with calm precision. Each swing of Yoru painted the battlefield with streaks of severed will. Blood sprayed, bodies dropped, and the Hawkeye did not pause.
He'd been instructed to flank any commander who broke through Aokiji's ice corridor. So far, no one had. Not because they hadn't tried, but because none had survived long enough.
A pirate captain lunged at him from behind, haki-infused cutlass gleaming. Without even turning his head, Mihawk adjusted his grip on Yoru and performed a perfect backward thrust. The black blade emerged from the pirate's chest, the man's eyes wide with shock as life fled from them.
"Disappointing," Mihawk muttered, flicking blood from his sword with a casual twist of his wrist. His eyes, sharp as a hawk's, continued scanning the battlefield for worthy opponents. This was not the challenge he had anticipated when agreeing to participate in this war.
Doflamingo laughed madly as his strings lashed through the sky, dancing marionette-style from the eastern tower. Below, helpless pirates jerked and spasmed as he forced them to slaughter their own.
"Dance, puppets! Show the world the truth of chaos!" he shouted, arms raised like a maestro.
A pirate screamed as his friend was ripped apart by former allies. Another pirate threw down his weapon and tried to flee, only to be turned into a walking corpse by Gecko Moria's shadow grab.
"KISHISHISHI!" Moria's laugh echoed across the battlefield as he directed his shadow zombies forward. "Feed the shadows! Let the dead judge the living!"
He manipulated the corpse-puppets with twisted glee, forcing them to attack their former comrades. The psychological impact was devastating, pirates who had come prepared to face Marines now found themselves fighting the reanimated bodies of fallen friends.
From above, Pacifista beams added unrelenting pressure, their mechanical advance filling the battlefield with heat and blinding light.
The pirates were being corralled, not merely pushed back. Broken.
Doflamingo's grin widened as he observed Sengoku's strategy unfolding. The old Buddha had always been clever, but this was different, this was elegant brutality, a symphony of coordinated violence unlike anything the Heavenly Demon had witnessed from the Marines before.
"My, my," he chuckled to himself. "The Buddha's found his claws. How delightfully... unexpected."
On the western approach, Fossa, commander of the Fifteenth Division, found his fire-based offensive completely neutralized. His flaming sword, normally capable of cutting through battleship hulls, sputtered and died as it struck a barrier of concentrated moisture.
Vice Admiral Smoker had positioned his forces strategically, using his logia abilities to saturate the air with densely packed water vapor. The result was a natural fire suppression zone that rendered Fossa's flames impotent.
"Damn Marines," Fossa growled, switching to pure haki attacks. "Since when do they coordinate like this?"
Smoker materialized partially from his smoke form, jitte gleaming with Sea Prism stone. "Since we decided to end the Age of Pirates once and for all."
The two clashed in a burst of haki, the impact sending shockwaves through nearby combatants. But Smoker wasn't fighting alone, his tactical positioning had placed Fossa exactly where Captain Tashigi and her special swordfighting unit could flank him from the rear.
On the execution platform, Portgas D. Ace strained against his Sea Prism shackles, watching in horror as his comrades were systematically dismantled by the Marines' unexpected tactics.
"STOP!" he screamed, blood running down his wrists where the cuffs cut into his skin. "THIS IS BETWEEN ME AND THE GOVERNMENT! LET THEM GO!"
The executioners stood unmoved, their blades gleaming in the harsh sunlight. Behind them, Vice Admiral Garp sat with his arms crossed, face a mask of stone as he watched his adoptive grandson struggle. The conflict within him remained invisible to all but those who knew him best.
Sengoku had ordered him to remain on the platform, not just as a symbolic presence, but as the ultimate contingency. If all else failed, if Whitebeard somehow broke through their defenses, Garp the Hero would be the final barrier between the Yonko and his "son."
A role that tore at Garp's heart even as his sense of duty compelled him to fulfill it.
**************************************
Sengoku gave the word, and hell responded.
The center of the bay boiled.
From beneath the ice, the water frothed and steamed. A column of lava exploded into the sky. Akainu rose from the bay like a wrathful god, magma trailing from his fists in molten ribbons.
He didn't yell.
He simply walked forward, lava dripping from his fists like the blood of condemned men.
A Pirate Captain, recognizable only by the twin sabers on his back, leapt toward him.
Akainu didn't look up.
BOOM.
The man exploded into vapor, his blade melted before it could reach Sakazuki's chest.
That was the cue.
Akainu launched forward like a volcanic missile, carving a straight line through the enemy's center line. Pirate after pirate tried to stop him, none succeeded. Fire met flesh.
He was no longer the restrained tool of a hesitant government.
Now? Now he was the executioner.
Sengoku's command gave him leash. And Akainu had teeth.
"Justice means nothing without fear," Sengoku had told him.
Now the pirates knew that fear.
The magma man's advance was terrifying, each step burning through the ice that Aokiji had created. The contradictory elements, ice and magma, were actually working in perfect tandem. Aokiji's ice funneled pirates into predetermined corridors, while Akainu's magma ensured those corridors became killing fields.
A brave swordsman, bearing the mark of the Decalvan Brothers' crew, charged Akainu with a haki-infused blade. The Admiral didn't even break stride, his fist transformed into a molten hound's head that lunged forward.
"HELLHOUND!"
The pirate's scream was mercifully brief as magma engulfed him, reducing flesh and bone to ash in seconds. Those nearby who witnessed it faltered, their courage wavering in the face of such casual brutality.
Akainu continued his advance, eyes fixed on a single target, the distant figure of Whitebeard himself.
In the chaos, Vista, the Flower Blade, rallied what remained of the third division and its allies. He cut down a Marine captain who lunged too boldly, twirling with signature grace.
"We regroup with Marco! Hold the ice flank!"
Around him, the Whitebeard pirates fought desperately. Morale faltered. They hadn't expected such perfect coordination. The Navy felt like one giant body, with the Admirals as its claws and teeth.
Vista caught glimpse of Boa Hancock, who had not yet moved. She remained seated on the execution platform's fringe, gaze fixed in the direction of the sea.
She's not engaging. Why?
No time to think. Another Pacifista came down from above. Vista roared as he deflected a laser with twin blades, but the impact shook even him. The machine's armored fist followed, slamming into his crossed swords with mechanical precision.
"Flower Sword: Rosen Bonheur!"
A tornado of rose petals and steel erupted from Vista's blades, shredding through the Pacifista's outer shell. But as the machine fell, three more emerged from the smoke behind it.
Vista's eyes narrowed. This wasn't random, they were specifically targeting division commanders, using overwhelming force to isolate them from each other and from Whitebeard himself.