Gunnar's body lay sprawled atop a jagged slab of shattered castle stone, a grotesque centerpiece in the fresh crater his fall had created. A massive, smoking gash ran diagonally across his midsection, blood pooling beneath him, staining the grey rock crimson. Yet, even in unconsciousness, his Devil Fruit fought for him. Thin, almost invisible tendrils of frost were slowly, painstakingly trying to weave across the horrific wound, a desperate, instinctual act of self-preservation, like icy stitches on a colossal tear.
Byrnndi World, still cackling, noticed the subtle shimmer of ice. "Hah! Still twitching, are we? Persistent bugger! Let's fix that!" He spotted a long, thick metal pipe, sharpened to a wicked point from being sheared in the earlier destruction. With a grunt, he hefted it. "MOA MOA – JUUBAI VELOCITY! PIERCE THIS!"
The pipe became a silver blur, screaming through the air directly at Gunnar's exposed head, a guaranteed kill shot.
Ace, locked in a desperate, losing battle against Weevil's relentless onslaught, saw the projectile out of the corner of his eye. "GUNNAR! NO!" He tried to intercept, but Weevil, sensing his distraction, slammed his bisento down, forcing Ace into a desperate defensive flame burst.
The pipe was inches from Gunnar's temple.
Then, impossibly, Gunnar's head, still resting on the stone, shifted. Not a conscious movement, but a fractional, almost imperceptible tilt, a mere inch to the side.
SHINK!
The pipe slammed into the stone where his head had been a millisecond before, burying itself deep with a violent clang, sparks flying. It had missed by the breadth of a hair.
Gunnar's eyelids fluttered. His breath hitched. Slowly, agonizingly, he pushed himself up onto one elbow, his eyes unfocused, yet… different. A strange serenity amidst the agony. The world around him, the shouts, the impacts, the killing intent – it wasn't just noise and chaos anymore. It was a tapestry of sensations, of presences, of imminent actions laid bare before his mind's eye, even with his physical vision blurred. He could feel World's surprise, Ace's desperate struggle, Isshin's contained fury.
I… I can see… without seeing… he thought, a slow dawning of understanding. This is… Observation…
"What?!" Byrnndi World stared, his jaw slack. "He… he dodged it? While unconscious?! These brats… they're not just growing, they're blooming like corpse flowers in a hurricane! What ARE these kids?!" His surprise quickly morphed back into frustrated rage.
Isshin, meanwhile, was a whirlwind of youthful fury against World. "You'll pay for that, you twisted fiend!" His slashes were faster, more desperate, fueled by the sight of Gunnar's near-death. But World, despite his injuries, was a fortress of amplified resilience, trading blows, the sheer destructive scale of his Moa Moa powers keeping Isshin at bay, slowly wearing down the young swordmaster. Every time Isshin tried to break away to help Gunnar, World would intercept with a devastating, amplified attack, forcing him back. "You're not going anywhere, pretty boy! Your friend is mine!"
Ace was in hell. Weevil was a relentless engine of destruction. Every flame attack Ace launched was met with a Haki-infused swing that dispersed it. Every attempt to gain distance was met with a surprisingly fast charge. Ace's Observation Haki screamed constant warnings, allowing him to barely survive, but he was taking a beating. His ribs felt cracked, his flames were burning weaker, fueled by sheer willpower more than stamina.
"Damn it… damn it all!" Ace grunted, narrowly dodging a downward chop from Weevil's bisento that cracked the ground, sending fissures racing towards the downed Gunnar. "He's… too strong… too relentless!"
Byrnndi World saw his chance. Isshin was occupied, Ace was on the ropes. Gunnar was still vulnerable. "TIME TO END THE BIG ONE FOR GOOD!" He grabbed a massive, jagged chunk of the castle wall, easily ten tons. "MOA MOA – HUNDRED TIMES CRUSHING WEIGHT! FINAL CURTAIN!" He hurled it not just at Gunnar, but in an arc that would also catch the struggling Ace.
Simultaneously, Weevil, sensing an opportunity from World's attack, raised his bisento, preparing a devastating overhead smash aimed directly at Isshin, who was momentarily off-balance from World's sudden shift in targets.
"ACE! ISSHIN!" Gunnar, now more lucid, roared, seeing the dual, overwhelming attacks. His newly honed Observation Haki showed him the trajectories, the lethal intent, the impossibility of his friends dodging both.
Desperation, fury, and a surge of raw, untamed power, the echo of his Titan form, surged through Gunnar. The icy stitches on his wound pulsed with a faint, internal light. He didn't have the strength to go Titan again.
He slammed his one good fist – the one not mangled from his earlier Haki clashes – onto the stone beneath him. Black Armament Haki, crackling with an unnatural, pale blue energy, engulfed it.
"YOU WANT DESTRUCTION?!" Gunnar bellowed, his voice cracking with raw power. "I'LL GIVE YOU DESTRUCTION! GURA GURA… RAGNAROK BLAST!"
The air didn't just fracture. It shattered.
An orb of pure, concussive, world-breaking force, shot upwards from Gunnar's fist, meeting World's descending mega-boulder and Weevil's bisento-strike simultaneously.
KRAKA-THOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!
The sound was beyond deafening. It was a physical entity that ripped through the battlefield. The sky above Ashina Castle seemed to split in two, as if torn asunder by an invisible god. A colossal shockwave, visible as a dome of distorted air, erupted outwards, vaporizing everything in its immediate vicinity. World's boulder disintegrated into subatomic particles. Weevil's bisento was violently knocked skyward, ripped from his grasp. Both Byrnndi World and Weevil were sent tumbling, ragdolled through the air like discarded toys, their roars of surprise and pain swallowed by the cataclysm.
Isshin and Ace, caught on the periphery, were blasted backwards, shielded only by Gunnar's desperate, last-ditch intervention. The entire remaining structure of Ashina Castle groaned and began to collapse in earnest.
When the immediate blast subsided, Gunnar was on his hands and knees, panting, his vision swimming. The effort had been monumental. He looked over at Ace, who was staring, utterly dumbfounded, at the sky-splitting devastation.
Gunnar managed a bloody grin. "See, Acey-boy? Still got a few tricks… even when I'm half-dead. Try… topping that."
Ace, shaking his head in disbelief and a grudging admiration, coughed. "You… you absolute madman! Don't think for a second I'm gonna be less than you, you crazy bastard!"
But the fight wasn't over.
Weevil, roaring in incoherent rage, landed heavily, already charging back towards Gunnar, his eyes blazing with mindless fury, completely ignoring his lost weapon and relying on his Haki-coated fists.
"Still… coming?!" Gunnar groaned. He tried to push himself up, to meet the charge, but the massive gash in his midsection, aggravated by his last attack, tore open further. A fresh wave of agony and bloodloss hit him, and he collapsed onto his knees, strength failing him. Weevil's monstrous, Haki-blackened fist was descending. This was it.
Damn… not… enough…
Suddenly, a blur of orange and black.
CLANG-BOOM!
Ace stood before Gunnar, his right arm, wreathed in brilliant orange flames that burned with an intensity not seen before, met Weevil's Haki fist. But Ace's flames were different now – veins of pure, obsidian Armament Haki visibly interlaced with the fire, creating a devastating fusion of elemental power and hardened will. Sparks and embers flew as flame-Haki clashed against raw Haki.
Ace's arm trembled violently from the impact, his teeth gritted, but he held.
"I told you, didn't I?" Ace snarled, his voice strained but resolute, looking back at Gunnar with a fierce, protective glare, then fixing Weevil with eyes that burned with defiance.
I. WON'T. BE. LESS! And you… you overgrown WHISKER-FREAK… will not touch my brother!"