"Huh?"
"Nani?"
"Forced update?"
Rakuya's face went dark. Back on the Sabaody Archipelago there had been a forced upgrade too. The system had given him zero warning, so he blacked out in the middle of a fight with Sakazuki and Borsalino.
In that mess the two had actually assumed he had fallen asleep and nearly jumped out of their skins in rage.
Fortunately, his repulsion field barrier back then was solid. A few minutes passed and neither of them managed to break through.
Who would have thought that after only a few months it would pull this stunt again.
Last time the sudden upgrade knocked him out, and in the aftermath he took the system for a proper shakedown. This time the system had learned, tossing him a warning three seconds ahead.
Like that helps.
Rakuya's mind raced. Even with Amaterasu, there was no way to burn every battleship and kill all of Marine Headquarters in three seconds.
Count yourselves lucky.
He looked down over the Marines, unwilling to let it go, and barked, "Tell your superiors this. I have the bald old ghost. Prepare fifty Devil Fruits. When I have time, I will come to collect."
He left those words hanging, then flickered with Kamui and vanished.
He emerged inside a pocket space. There was a stone bed. He reached for the bedframe and, as the third second ticked, he collapsed into sleep.
On the sea where the battle had raged so hot moments ago, countless eyes stared blankly at the place where Rakuya had stood, minds still catching up.
One instant he was about to erase Marine Headquarters, the next he was gone without a trace.
No one had the faintest idea what he was thinking, or what he wanted.
While they stood stunned, the black flames of Amaterasu roared higher. Hulls turned pitch black. Fire rolled and devoured.
Vice admirals and admirals who had just been cowed by Rakuya jolted at the sight.
"Abandon ship, all hands, abandon ship!"
"The remaining vessels, make for open water at full speed. Away from that black fire. It even burns ice," Steel Bone Kong shouted, issuing orders in a rapid cascade.
"Damn it. He leaves and still sticks us with this mess," Sakazuki snarled, face gone iron. He still could not pin down what Rakuya was.
Not only did he command thunder, he could control Sea Kings. Just now a single word from him had dismissed the swarm.
It was terrifying.
On the sea he was invincible.
In the sky he was invincible.
On land they had no answer either.
He held the storm in hand and conjured hellfire.
That was only what Sakazuki had witnessed. If he had seen the duel with the bald Elder to the end, his fear would have run deeper.
"Fall back."
"Ice Age."
Kuzan gritted his teeth and froze swathes of ocean to aid the retreat. Marines poured over rails, abandoning ships and leaping to the ice before scrambling onto any vessel that could still move.
In minutes, decks that had been packed shoulder to shoulder stood empty, then disappeared into the maw of black flame.
"Make way. Get us out of here."
Kong's orders came low and hard.
"Impact Wave."
Sengoku swelled into his Great Buddha form and hammered the air. The backlash shoved their ships by the dozens of meters at a time.
"Ice Pillar."
Kuzan blasted apart ice already stained by black fire, clearing paths as their ships clawed free.
Sakazuki hurled gouts of magma into the sea to gain more push. A favorable wind took the sails and the battered warships surged, one after another, out of Amaterasu's grasp.
A kilometer away, more than a dozen ruined hulls drifted. Marines on the decks stared at the wall of black fire with dread.
"Fleet Admiral, that flame burns anything. If it keeps going like this, it could consume the ocean."
"What element is that? It ignites anything it touches."
"It is no ordinary fire. Lord Saint Charlos died to those black flames. Rakuya killed him right before Marine Headquarters."
The sailors on every deck stood with heads bowed, shame heavy in their eyes.
To have the most critical person slain before all of Marine Headquarters, their operation had failed utterly.
They had tried to salvage Sakazuki, Zephyr, Sengoku and the others, yet the cost was staggering in the end.
A Celestial Dragon, one of the Five Elders, and five or six dozen battleships besides.
Even Steel Bone Kong felt his scalp prickle at the loss.
Barely a dozen ships remained. The grand armada was a handful of wrecks, little more.
"We will make this right," Kong said through clenched teeth, voice like ice.
No one else spoke. Heads lowered. The hush that fell was the quiet of defeat, and the guilt that trails it.
A sagging weariness crept over many shoulders. Some Marines' hearts had been crushed outright.
"Rakuya. I will surpass you. I will seize you with my own hands and prove that the Marines are justice, that we are unbreakable," Sakazuki said, cold as winter, as if carving the vow into himself.
By contrast Kuzan sat on the deck in silence, replaying every exchange with Rakuya in his mind.
Borsalino, too, kept his head down, massaging his chest. Rakuya's arrow had punched straight through him. The fact that he could still stand was stubbornness alone.
Garp's face was dark one second, then he pulled out a senbei and bit down the next, the crunch loud as a slap.
On the dying warship, the sheer oddity of Garp's presence brought a sliver of life back.
"Hey, want some?"
Far off, the Whitebeard Pirates had already cleared Fruit Island. When the Marines arrived, Whitebeard withdrew quickly, but the Moby Dick did not flee at once. From a distance they watched the entire fight between Rakuya and Marine Headquarters, even the moment when one of the Five Elders appeared.
When the battle ended, Whitebeard gave a single order.
Investigate Rakuya to the root.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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