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----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Sengoku's words, cold and final, were not broadcast across the plaza. They were spoken into a private Den Den Mushi, a direct order to the men on the platform. But Ace, with his senses now honed by a desperate, life-or-death clarity, didn't need to hear them. He saw it in the Fleet Admiral's eyes. The shift from strategic patience to grim finality. He saw it in the way the two guards beside him suddenly stiffened, their expressions hardening as they received the command.
The game had changed. The slow, methodical siege was over. This was now a sprint, a desperate race against the swing of a blade.
So that's the plan, Ace thought, his mind racing, the calm fusion of his two souls working furiously to process the new reality. They were never going to let the battle play out. They just needed an excuse, a moment of chaos to justify what they always intended to do: kill me before Pops or Luffy could ever reach me. They're using Luffy's arrival as the trigger. The cynicism of Kenji and the battlefield instincts of Ace had merged into a sharp, unforgiving analytical tool. He was no longer just the prize; he was the timer. And his time had just run out.
From the back of the platform, two new figures emerged. They were not guards or vice-admirals. They were executioners, clad in simple, functional uniforms, their faces hidden behind hoods that concealed all emotion. They moved with a chilling, practiced efficiency, each carrying a long-handled naginata, its crescent blade polished to a mirror shine. They took their positions, one on each side of Ace, their movements synchronized, their presence a promise of the end.
Down on the battlefield, the change was immediately apparent. Luffy, who had been trying to find a new path forward after Mihawk's withdrawal, saw the executioners take their places. A new, higher level of panic, purer and more primal than anything before, seized him. The playful confidence he often wore in battle evaporated, replaced by the terrified desperation of a child about to watch his brother die.
"ACE!" he screamed, his voice cracking. He ignored the enemies around him, ignored the commanders trying to shield him. He just started running, a straight, suicidal line towards the platform. "STOP! DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH HIM!"
On the Moby Dick, Whitebeard saw it too. His eyes, which had been watching the battle with a king's appraising gaze, widened into fiery orbs of pure fury. The air around him began to distort, to crackle with an invisible, devastating power. He had been patient. He had allowed his sons to wage the war, to test the Marines' defenses. But the enemy had broken the rules of this grand, terrible game.
"SENGOKU... YOU DAMNED COWARD!" Whitebeard roared, his voice a tidal wave of sound that momentarily drowned out the entire war.
He reared back, his massive fist clenched. The air around it shattered like glass, a sphere of pure, destructive potential forming at his knuckles. He wasn't aiming at the soldiers. He wasn't aiming at the ships. He was aiming directly at the execution platform, at the Admirals, at the very heart of Marine Headquarters. He was going to bring the entire fortress down around their ears.
He threw the punch.
The world broke.
The quake that erupted from his fist was not a sound; it was a physical event that tore reality apart. The sea itself split open, great chasms forming in the bay. The frozen tsunami walls began to crack and groan under the strain. The very island of Marineford tilted on its foundations. It was the power to destroy the world, unleashed with the full, unrestrained fury of a Yonko.
Ace watched the wave of destruction hurtle towards him. It was a beautiful and terrifying sight, the ultimate expression of his father's power, coming to save him.
But the Admirals were ready. They had been waiting for this.
Aokiji, Kizaru, and Akainu rose from their chairs in perfect unison. They moved to the very edge of the platform, standing shoulder to shoulder, a living wall against the apocalypse.
"This is getting a little too intense," Kizaru drawled, though his eyes were sharp.
"You can't be allowed to do as you please forever, Whitebeard," Aokiji said, his breath turning to mist.
"The hubris of pirates," Akainu growled, his fists beginning to smolder.
They held up their hands, not to deploy their Devil Fruit powers in a flashy display, but to focus something far more fundamental. A shimmering, invisible barrier materialized in front of them. It was a wall of Armament Haki, the combined will of all three of the Marines' strongest fighters, forged into an unbreakable shield.
Whitebeard's quake wave, the force that could shatter islands, slammed into the Haki barrier.
The impact was silent. There was no explosion, no grand flash of light. It was a contest of pure, overwhelming force. The air for a mile around the platform warped and buckled. The sky seemed to bend. The Haki shield held, but the strain was visible. Cracks of light, like lightning trapped in glass, appeared across its surface. The platform behind them groaned, splinters of wood flying from its base. The three Admirals stood their ground, their feet sinking into the stone, their bodies trembling from the sheer, unimaginable pressure.
Slowly, agonizingly, the quake's power was dispersed. The attack was stopped.
A collective gasp went through both armies. The pirates stared in despair. Their captain, the World's Strongest Man, had unleashed his full power, and it had been stopped cold. The Marines roared in triumph, their morale surging. They had witnessed the absolute power of their leaders.
Ace felt a cold pit of dread open in his stomach. They stopped it. They actually stopped it. Pops' all-out attack... and the three of them just stood there and blocked it. It was a devastating blow, not just to the rescue effort, but to the very myth of Whitebeard's invincibility.
On the platform, the executioners were unfazed. The clash of gods was not their concern. They had their orders. They raised their long-bladed weapons, the steel glinting in the sun. They crossed them over Ace's neck, the cold metal a ghost of a touch against his skin.
This was it.
Luffy screamed, a raw, wordless sound of agony. Whitebeard roared in frustration, preparing for another strike. Garp squeezed his eyes shut, unable to watch.
The blades began their descent.
Suddenly, a swirling tornado of sand erupted from the battlefield below, shooting upwards with impossible speed. It slammed into the platform directly in front of Ace, solidifying into the form of a man with a golden hook for a hand.
Sir Crocodile, the former Warlord of the Sea, stood between Ace and the executioners, a look of pure, arrogant contempt on his face.
The executioners' blades, mere inches from Ace's neck, were stopped, not by a person, but by sand. The blades sunk into Crocodile's body, but he simply reformed around them, unharmed.
"It's been a long time, Sengoku," Crocodile said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. He didn't even look at Ace. His eyes were fixed on the Fleet Admiral, a cruel, mocking smirk playing on his lips. "I have no intention of helping this man. And I certainly have no love for Whitebeard."
He blew a cloud of cigar smoke into the air. "However... I absolutely refuse to see you and the World Government enjoying your victory."
The entire world seemed to fall into a stunned silence for the second time. A pirate. A former Warlord. An avowed enemy of Whitebeard. A man who had tried to take over an entire kingdom. That man had just saved the son of his most hated rival.
Sengoku's face, which had been a mask of grim satisfaction, twisted into a snarl of pure disbelief and rage. "CROCODILE! WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!"
Ace was just as stunned. He stared at the back of the man who had nearly killed his brother in Alabasta. He could feel the fine grains of sand swirling around him, a dry, desert wind in the middle of the ocean. He could not comprehend what was happening. His mind, which had been so clear, so focused, was now a blank slate of shock.
Crocodile just chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. He raised his golden hook, pointing it dismissively at the executioners. "Desert Spada!"
A blade of compressed sand shot from his hand, not at the executioners, but at the platform itself. It sliced through the thick wooden beams and the chains holding Ace's shackles to the scaffold, severing them completely.
He wasn't trying to free Ace from his cuffs. He was trying to bring him down from the platform.
The execution was halted. Not by a friend, not by a brother, not by a father. But by the whim of a bitter, unpredictable enemy. The carefully laid plans of the Marines had just been thrown into absolute chaos, and the war for the summit had just entered a new, terrifyingly unpredictable phase.