When the dust cleared...
Whitebeard was on his knees.
His body was a ruin, carved open by divine strikes and the cost of wielding the Gura Gura no Mi at its limits. Blood poured from countless wounds, some so deep they exposed shifting muscle and bone. His legendary captain's coat hung in tatters, flapping weakly in the scorched wind. One arm dangled at an unnatural angle, bone gleaming through torn flesh.
But his eyes, those eyes still burned with the light of defiance, of a will that had once dared challenge the world itself.
No longer in his Buddha form, but still imposing in presence. The transformation had dissipated, but not collapsed. He had shed it with control. His uniform was torn but largely intact. Blood matted his side and shoulder where the bisento had struck true, but already his skin shimmered faintly, the wounds knitting slowly beneath it.
From the outside, he looked mortal again, weathered, bloodied, and bruised, but his aura remained radiant, like the afterglow of an eclipse. Light still clung to his form like the sun's echo.
They stared at one another, two legends of another age, one kneeling in his twilight, the other ascending into myth.
"You…" Whitebeard rasped, blood trailing down his lips, "you could have… been so much more."
Sengoku wiped blood from his mouth. "As could you," he said. His voice carried no mockery. Just weariness, and judgment. "In another life, perhaps."
He didn't gloat.
He didn't speak further.
He simply raised one hand, signaling to the Marines who had begun to regroup.
"Advance," he commanded, though his voice lacked its earlier strength.
Across the ruins of the plaza, Marines began to surge forward once more. The Admirals took point, moving like executioners toward the trembling remnants of the Whitebeard Pirates. Behind them came the Vice-Admirals, the Pacifistas, and a wall of steel and resolve that had not broken through the entire war.
Whitebeard's men screamed, rallied, tried to surge toward their fallen captain. Commanders shouted orders, desperate to maintain some semblance of their formation.
They tried to regroup, to rally. But the sight of Whitebeard, broken and kneeling, had pierced their hearts more deeply than any blade. For decades, his strength had been absolute. He had been the anchor. Now he was falling.
It felt final.
Sengoku stood in the silence that followed, blood and light dripping from his fists. He swayed slightly, the toll of the battle evident in his posture. He turned slightly, clutching his side as golden ichor turned slowly back to red. The regeneration had held long enough to outlast the storm, but now it slowed.
"Begin containment protocols," he told the Den Den Mushi, his voice ragged. "Target remaining commanders. Secure the stage perimeter. Reinforce with Pacifista units."
From across the plaza, Garp stared at his old friend with an unreadable expression. The Hero of the Marines had witnessed the entire exchange, had seen what it had cost both men.
Tsuru watched with calculating eyes, already assessing the aftermath. "This will change everything," she murmured.
And on the edge of the world,
A red ship changed course.
Too late.
Far too late.
**************************************
The morning light that once crowned Marineford never returned.
Its golden warmth had been swallowed, first by smoke, then by storm. And now, by ice. The battle had raged for hours, transforming day into an eerie twilight where flames and frost competed for dominance across the ruined landscape. The once-proud fortress of justice now resembled the aftermath of a natural disaster, or perhaps, more accurately, the wrath of gods made flesh.
Aokiji's domain had spread like a god's breath across the bay. His power, normally contained and precise, had been unleashed with uncharacteristic totality. From the docks to the far reaches of the horizon, waves had been stilled and frozen into jagged monuments, as if time itself had been caught mid-tide. The surface gleamed with an unnatural blue sheen, crackling occasionally as new layers formed. Ships, half-risen on the interrupted current, were anchored in glacial tombs, their hulls splintering under the relentless pressure. Escape routes had become corridors of death, beautiful, crystalline passages that promised only hypothermia and slow suffocation.
The pirates hadn't noticed at first. Their attention was on the craters, the collapsing plaza, the trail of blood marking where Whitebeard had fallen. They were focused on the immediate threat, the advancing Marine lines, the mechanical precision of the Pacifista units, the looming presence of the remaining Admirals. But now, with panic rising as commanders fell and formations collapsed, they turned, and found the sea itself had turned traitor.
In the center of it all stood Kuzan, Admiral Aokiji, arms crossed, steam rising from his shoulders. Ice crystals formed and melted continuously around his tall frame, creating a perpetual mist that shrouded him like a specter of winter. His face, normally relaxed in an expression of lazy indifference, had hardened into something colder than the element he commanded.
He didn't look pleased.
"Man… Sengoku really wants this clean," he muttered, lowering his palm with a slight grimace. "Total containment. No survivors. No witnesses except the ones we choose." He sighed, the sound hanging in the frigid air. "What a drag."
The ice cracked outward like a growing web, spreading in all directions with a sound like breaking glass. Pirates who had waded into the shallows found their legs suddenly encased, their screams cut short as the cold climbed their bodies with merciless efficiency. Water turned to crystal turned to tomb in the space of heartbeats.
"Ice Age," Aokiji murmured, his voice carrying across the frozen expanse despite its softness. "Complete."
The Marines were winning.
And the world would remember this day as the moment the last great pirate king fell—not to chaos, but to Justice incarnate.
**************************************
The moment Whitebeard collapsed to his knees, something in Ace broke.
He didn't scream.
He didn't cry.
He just... stopped.
Everything else—blood, war, gunfire, the thunderous crack of haki and explosions—faded into a distant echo.
There, surrounded by frozen sea and dying men, his father knelt. The strongest man in the world. The one who never fell.
"Pops…" Ace whispered, his voice cracking.
Even bound in sea prism cuffs, he strained forward. His wrists burned, his muscles screamed, but he didn't care. He had to reach him. He had to do something.
But there was nothing to do.
Whitebeard hadn't died instantly, hadn't been defeated by cowardice or numbers. He had fought to a standstill, and lost. And yet… his eyes still burned.
That should have been enough.
But it wasn't.
Because now, the Marines were advancing. Cold and mechanical. The line of death had begun to sweep forward, and the pirates, his family, were being swallowed.
And he couldn't stop it.
Not anymore.
"Ace!"
The voice cut through the haze like lightning.
**************************************
He hit the edge of the ruined plaza in a blur of rubber and rage. The air still crackled with the residue of titanic forces, but he didn't care.
Nothing else mattered.
Ace.
He spotted him on the platform, still chained.
Still alive.
Luffy surged forward..
And then stopped dead.
His eyes landed on the center of the battlefield.
On Whitebeard.
The old man knelt, still breathing, still alive, but it was clear.
He was done.
His body was a map of ruin. A thousand wounds. A thousand stories of defiance.
And standing before him, high above the battlefield like some golden executioner…
Sengoku.
Human again. Calm. Radiating control. Blood on his uniform. Blood not his own.
The air trembled around him.
This wasn't the Sengoku of stories. This wasn't the Buddha from old Marine recruitment posters. This was something colder.
Something final.
Luffy had faced monsters. He had faced tyrants, Warlords, even Gods.
But this,
This was what it felt like to face a man who had already won.
"Whitebeard…" he choked.
He remembered the massive man's smile at the war's start. The way he had stood for his crew, for Ace, for freedom.
Gone.
Luffy's chest heaved.
"Ace… I'm here!"
"I know!" Ace shouted, twisting toward him. "But stay back! It's, Luffy, it's over!"
"NO!" Luffy screamed, and the force of it cracked the air. His Conqueror's Haki rippled outward unintentionally, slamming into Marines and pirates alike. A few buckled. Others fell unconscious.
But Sengoku didn't even flinch.
He turned, slowly, gaze locking with Luffy's.
For a heartbeat, time froze.
No words were spoken.
But the message in Sengoku's eyes was clear.
You're too late.
Luffy gritted his teeth. His fingers clenched into trembling fists.
"I don't care what you've done," he snarled. "I'm taking my brother back."
Sengoku tilted his head ever so slightly. "You still don't understand," he said calmly. "This isn't a rescue. It's a containment."
He raised his hand.
In response, the Pacifistas pivoted.
Dozens of glowing laser sights lit up on Luffy.
"Fire," came the command.
**************************************
"LUFFY!!!"
Ace screamed as the world exploded in light.
The execution platform shook under the assault. Debris flew, smoke surged. Marines shouted orders, scrambling to tighten ranks. The ice cracked violently beneath the strain, shrapnel flying in all directions.
Then the smoke cleared,
and Luffy still stood.
Panting. Bloodied. Arm raised, smoking from deflecting a beam.
But unbroken.
Behind him, a monstrous figure of flame and darkness erupted.
Sabo.
No. Not Sabo.
It was Jinbe.
Still carrying Luffy's half-fainted form in one arm and shielding him with a tidal wall of seawater in the other. His body was scorched, his jaw tight.
"You'll have to do more than that," Jinbe growled.
He dropped Luffy gently and raised his hands in a stance of fish-man karate. "The brothers will not fall here."
Ace blinked back tears. His heart slammed in his chest.
Hope.
Fragile, but still alive.