Chapter 62: The Storm Arrives
The eerie quiet over Marineford was shattered by the lookout's cry. "There is a lot of fog in the sea ahead!!"
A low murmur rippled through the ranks of a hundred thousand Marines. Nervous hands tightened on rifles. Sweat trickled down temples despite the cool sea breeze. All eyes, from the lowliest recruit to the stone-faced Vice Admirals, turned toward the mouth of the bay.
Levi, seated on the central dais between Admirals Kizaru and Aokiji, slowly raised his head. His eyes, which had been half-lidded in apparent boredom, opened fully. They held no fear, no anticipation of battle, only a profound, analytical depth. He looked past the fifty encircling warships, past the calm waters of the bay, to the thick, unnatural bank of white fog rolling toward them across the open ocean.
So, you chose the frontal approach, he thought. No subterfuge. A declaration of your own invincibility. Predictable, Edward Newgate. But sometimes, predictable power is the most dangerous kind.
He could feel the collective tension of the plaza like a physical vibration in the air. It was a cocktail of dread, determination, and raw adrenaline. The silence had been broken, and now the waiting was over. The storm was here.
On the execution platform, Sengoku stepped forward, a Den Den Mushi amplifying his voice to every corner of the fortress and to the world beyond. "All units, stand ready! This is not a drill! The enemy approaches!"
Admiral Akainu, to Levi's left, grunted, molten rock already dripping from a clenched fist. "Finally. Let's get this over with and purge these scum from the seas."
Kizaru adjusted his glasses, his tone languid. "Ohhhh… so scary~ The strongest man in the world."
Aokiji remained silent, a plume of frost escaping his lips.
Levi said nothing. His mind was elsewhere, part of it reviewing the fragmented, terrifying memories he had excised from the Elder's soul during that handshake. The confirmation of Im's existence, the sheer, ancient power that being radiated… and the Elder's own secret terror of it. The World Government was not a monolith; it was a pyramid with a shadow at its peak that even its architects feared. His refusal to join CP0 and his independent power had marked him. The "threat" Sengoku had warned him about had been thinly veiled: fall in line, or be removed. The message was clear. They saw his utility but distrusted his autonomy.
They think they can leash a hurricane, Levi mused, his internal fury banked into cold, crystalline purpose. They believe this war, this display, will cement their control. They are wrong.
The fog reached the outer ring of warships, swallowing them whole. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the water within the bay itself began to bulge, to churn.
Not from outside. From below.
With a cataclysmic roar, the sea in the very center of the bay erupted. Three massive, dragon-headed warships, coated in protective bubbles, burst from the depths like leviathans breaching. They soared into the air, water cascading from their hulls in thunderous waterfalls, and crashed down onto the bay's surface, now inside the Marines' perfect defensive cordon. The Moby Dick, flanked by two command ships, had arrived not from the front, but from directly beneath the fortress.
A collective gasp, half terror, half awe, swept through the Marines. Their flawless perimeter had been rendered meaningless in an instant.
Pirates swarmed the decks. And standing at the prow of the largest ship, bisecting the air with his iconic naginata, was a giant whose presence seemed to dwarf the very warships around him. Whitebeard, Edward Newgate.
"Gurararara!" His laughter boomed, shaking the air. "It's been a while, Sengoku. You scrawny brat of a Fleet Admiral." He planted his naginata's butt on the deck. "How are you, my beloved son…" His eyes lifted to the high platform where Portgas D. Ace knelt, head bowed. "...are you doing well?"
Ace jerked his head up, anguish and fury warring on his face. "Old man! Everyone! Why did you come?! This is a trap! It's me who ignored everyone's warnings and went after Teach! I—!"
"Shut up, Ace!" Whitebeard's voice cut through his son's despair like a tidal wave. "It is I who told you to go! Am I wrong, Marco?"
The phoenix-winged First Division Commander, Marco the Phoenix, stepped forward, a small, defiant smile on his face. "That's right. We all heard it. On my life, you can blame the old man if you want!"
The simple statement was a bond reforged, a family declaring its unity before the world. The morale of the Whitebeard Pirates solidified into something unbreakable.
On the plaza, the Admirals tensed. The plan had changed. The enemy was no longer at the gates; they were in the courtyard.
Whitebeard's gaze swept across the towering wall of Marines, past the Warlords, and settled on the four figures seated below the execution stand. His eyes, sharp and assessing, lingered for a moment on the unfamiliar, youthful face of the Fourth Admiral. A flicker of something—curiosity, caution—passed through them before he looked back to Sengoku.
"We've come to take back our brother," Whitebeard declared, his voice final. He raised a massive fist, shimmering with the power to reshape the world. "Marines… prepare yourselves!"
He cocked his arm back and, with a titanic grunt of effort, punched the air beside him.
The atmosphere cracked.
A spiderweb of visible force shot out from his fist, racing through the air and striking the very fabric of space around the bay. The air itself screamed. The sea behind the Moby Dick reared up, not as a wave, but as two monstrous, perpendicular walls of water, hundreds of meters high, rising on either side of the Marineford plaza. The ground trembled violently. Marines cried out, losing their footing.
The Tsunami-Tsunami Fruit's power, the power to destroy the world, was no exaggeration. He was turning the fortress's own bay into its tomb.
On the execution platform, Sengoku's face was grim. "He means to sink the entire headquarters along with us!"
Admiral Aokiji stood up. "This won't do." He leapt into the air, arms outstretched. "ICE AGE!"
Twin jets of absolute cold erupted from his hands, lancing across the bay. They struck the base of the two towering tsunamis. Ice crackled and spread with impossible speed, climbing the liquid mountains in seconds. With a deafening groan of frozen water, the two tsunamis were flash-frozen into colossal, glittering sculptures of ice, hanging over the battlefield like Damoclean swords halted mid-fall.
The display of raw power was staggering. An Emperor's world-ending attack nullified by an Admiral's will.
The battle had begun with the first exchange of ultimate abilities.
As the ice crystals shimmered in the sunlight, the Whitebeard Pirates let out a unified roar and began to pour from their ships onto the ice-filled bay, charging toward the plaza.
Sengoku shouted commands. "Open fire! Stop their advance! All hands, engage!"
The air filled with the thunderous roar of cannons from the fortress walls and the remaining warships. The battle was joined in chaos and fury.
Levi remained seated. His orders from Sengoku were clear: he was the final safeguard, the deterrent. For now, he was to observe. His eyes, however, were not on the charging pirates or the flashy Devil Fruit clashes. They were fixed on Whitebeard himself, who remained on the deck of the Moby Dick, a commanding general surveying the field.
He's already sick, Levi noted coldly with his Reiatsu Perception. The soul flickers. Strong, unimaginably strong, but fraying at the edges like old rope. A dying legend. But even a dying legend can burn the world down with his last breath.
He felt the gaze of the Five Elders, watching through the Den Den Mushi feed. He felt the weight of their expectation—to be their ultimate weapon, their controlled anomaly.
A grim, invisible smile touched Levi's lips. You wanted a show. You wanted Whitebeard's era ended by the Government's might. You will get your end. But the narrative… the narrative will be mine.
He closed his eyes for a second, reaching out with his senses. Far away, in the depths of Impel Down, he felt the faint, programmed stirrings in the souls of certain Level 6 prisoners. His work was not yet active, but it was ready. And closer, he felt the simmering, conflicted rage of Boa Hancock, the calculating malice of Doflamingo nursing his injuries, and the deep, paternal agony radiating from Monkey D. Garp, who had finally taken his place on the execution platform beside Ace, his face a mask of stone.
The pieces were all in motion. The world held its breath.
Levi opened his eyes, the dark orbs reflecting the flashes of cannon fire and the glow of Devil Fruit powers clashing on the ice. The storm had arrived. And he would not merely weather it. He would seize its eye.
(End of Chapter)
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