The lazy grin that had long defined Kizaru's face twisted—warped into something narrow and razor-edged. The single thread hanging loose from his pristine suit fluttered like a warning flag in the wind. An insult. One that could not be forgiven.
"The performance was admirable," he said—no longer in that languid, mocking tone, but with a voice stripped clean, reduced to a weapon. "But the mission takes precedence."
His body ignited, radiating light so intense that it scorched the world into stark black and white, like an ancient photograph exposed to the sun for too long. Shadows curled and danced around him.
"That child… will not be born."
He didn't target Ace. He didn't target Isshin. He targeted _everything_.
"Yata no Kagami."
A beam of light screamed into the heavens, struck the cracked main mast, bounced—once, twice—then angled downward like a blade from the gods, streaking toward the two commanders. It wasn't a beam. It was a path.
"He's not aiming for us—!" Ace shouted, already moving.
But it was too late.
Kizaru became the light.
He reappeared mid-kick, his foot glowing with divine fury as it dropped like a guillotine toward the deck beneath them.
"Have you ever been kicked… at the speed of light?"
The answer never mattered.
BOOOOM.
The upper deck of the Moby Dick didn't just collapse—it detonated. Light and pressure tore it apart like paper soaked in fire. The infirmary entrance was vaporized in an instant. Wood, glass, steel—gone. Ace and Isshin were thrown like rag dolls, their stand obliterated in the shockwave.
And then, silence.
Smoke coiled upward, churning with the scent of ozone and burning timber. A ragged hole had been punched through the mighty ship, revealing the battle-scarred sky beyond. Kizaru stood at the heart of the destruction, untouched. Serene. His suit—somehow—mended by the light itself.
His way was clear.
Inside the torn remains of the infirmary, Marco lay over Smoothie like a human shield, his blue flames flickering weakly. His wings had absorbed most of the blast, but the effort had left him drained, blood trailing from his mouth. Smoothie lay curled around her belly, the fragile spark of unborn life pulsing inside her. She was unconscious and in pain.
Kizaru took a step forward, each footfall a final verdict. He saw her. He saw the child. He saw the flames of life that needed to be snuffed out.
And then the light dimmed.
A shadow rose before him—not cast by sun or flame, but by rage.
Gunnar stood. His silence cracked open like the earth before a quake. He stepped away from Smoothie, eyes locked on Kizaru. His presence warped the air. His gaze wasn't just defiant—it was on full rage.
Then the world shifted.
A deep, tectonic groan rumbled through the remains of the deck. Gunnar's skin split—not torn, but transformed—and glowing fissures ran from his right arm across his shoulder and up the side of his face. Lava, thick and slow, bled from him.
His right eye was no longer gold.
It was a sun.
"You knocked," Gunnar said, his voice a bass note that trembled in the marrow. "But you didn't wait for an answer."
Kizaru halted mid-step. He was taken aback for a moment.
And he wasn't alone.
From the chaos of the shattered battlefield, more figures emerged.
Furious, Perospero dragged himself back onto the deck, candy melting from his staff.
Vista, bloodied and battered, stood again. His blades, chipped and stained, were still steady.
Marco rose beside Smoothie, battered wings unfurling with a defiant glow.
Ace landed to Gunnar's right, fire wreathing his fists once more. Isshin joined him, his katana lowered, his presence honed to a single, lethal thread.
A wall formed—of the commanders of Whitebeard pirates.
Gunnar stood at the center: half-man, half-volcano* an avatar of Titan.
To his left—Marco and Vista, the legends who had seen wars.
To his right—Ace and Isshin, the promise of the future.
And just beyond—Perospero, vengeance burning in his veins.
Between them and Kizaru stood a woman, a mother, and the next heartbeat of a legacy.
The admiral looked at them all—this absurd, broken wall of rebellion. The freak of lava. The bird that wouldn't fall. The old sword. The burning son. The blade-child. The traitorous candy prince.
And Kizaru… laughed.
A true laugh. Quiet. Genuine. The kind that escaped before it could be swallowed by politics or orders.
"Ooooh," he breathed, a crooked smile rising once more. "Now _this_… this is a party."
He didn't wait. He vanished.
Gunnar's volcanic eye saw not a man moving, but a path of light being drawn. "HE'S AFTER ME!" he roared, his voice a molten growl.
Too late. Kizaru reformed, his leg a glowing scythe aimed at Gunnar's head. But he was met not with lava, but with a wall of incandescent blue flame. Marco intercepted the blow, his talons clashing with Kizaru's heel in an explosion of light and fire.
"Your opponent is me, Kizaru!" Marco snarled, gritting his teeth against the immense force.
"So persistent, you phoenix," Kizaru drawled, pressing his attack.
This was the opening. While the strongest of the Whitebeard crew were focused on the impossible task of pinning down light itself, a new shadow fell over the infirmary ruins. Katakuri, his face a mask of cold pragmatism, stood beside a recovering Perospero.
"The mission," Katakuri said, his voice low and toneless. "Kizaru is an obstacle."
"He tried to kill me!" Perospero spat, clutching his wounded chest.
"He is an obstacle," Katakuri repeated, his crimson eyes glowing. He saw a flicker of the future—a brief, chaotic window of opportunity. He acted on it instantly.
From the ruined deck, a dozen thick, sticky tendrils of mochi shot out. They weren't aimed at the fighters; they snaked around the debris, past Marco's legs, and wrapped around the unconscious form of Smoothie. With a powerful tug, he began to pull her toward him.
"SMOOTHIE!" Gunnar's head snapped around. The sight of his wife being dragged away like a prize ignited the volcano within him. He abandoned the line, his body becoming a blur of motion. He launched himself toward Katakuri, his right fist glowing, ready to melt the mochi and the man attached to it.
But Katakuri's eyes were already glowing brighter. He had seen this future.
As Gunnar leapt, Katakuri didn't even look. He simply stomped his foot. A massive, Haki-infused mochi fist erupted from the deck directly in Gunnar's path. It was an attack he couldn't dodge mid-air.
Gunnar slammed into the mochi fist with the force of a cannonball. The air cracked. He was driven back, a grunt of pain escaping his lips as he tumbled through the air, crashing hard against the broken mast.
"Gunnar!" Ace screamed, turning from his own skirmish with a group of Big Mom's homies.
Katakuri reeled Smoothie in, his expression unchanging. He was a machine executing a command. "It's over. We are leaving."
Gunnar pushed himself up from the wreckage, blood trickling from his lip. His volcanic eye blazed with an apocalyptic fury. He looked at Katakuri, at the mochi holding his wife, and then at the shattered deck around them.
"You can see the future…" Gunnar growled, planting his feet wide. He clenched his fists, not with lava this time, but with something far more terrifying. The air itself began to crackle and fracture around him. "…but you can only dodge if there's a ground to dodge on."
He threw his arms out wide. "WORLD QUAKE!"
He didn't punch the air. He grabbed it. He seized the very fabric of space and shattered it. It wasn't a focused quake; it was an indiscriminate, cataclysmic annihilation of his immediate surroundings. The entire central deck of the Moby Dick imploded. The wood didn't just splinter; it was pulverized. The air buckled. The sea beneath the ship was punched downward, creating a massive, swirling crater.
Katakuri's eyes widened in genuine shock. His future sight had shown him a punch, a kick, a blast of lava. It had not shown him this. There was no path to dodge, no stable future to jump to. There was only pure, unadulterated destruction.
The shockwave hit him full-force. The mochi tendrils disintegrated. Katakuri was thrown violently through the air, before he slammed into the ship's railing, groaning in pain.
Gunnar was already moving, ignoring the chaos he'd wrought. He leapt across the chasm he'd created, catching Smoothie's falling form with a grace that defied his raw power. He landed on a stable piece of deck, holding her gently in his arms, princess-style. Her head rested against his chest, her face pale but peaceful. For a single second, in the heart of the war, there was only the two of them.
Then the light returned.
"Such a destructive power," Kizaru's voice drawled from directly in front of him. He had materialized in an instant, his hand already transformed into the Ama no Murakumo, a sword of pure, solidified light. It was aimed directly at Smoothie's throat. "It's a shame She is dying before you."
The sword descended, a killing blow meant to end two lives and a bloodline.
Gunnar, holding Smoothie, couldn't dodge. He could only brace for impact.
But a shadow moved faster than light.
A flash of crimson and black. Katakuri, bruised and bleeding, had seen this one, final future. A future where his sister, the child, and the man who fought for them were erased. He didn't know why he did it, but he acted.
He appeared between Kizaru and Gunnar, taking the full force of the light sword directly into his own chest.
SHIIINNNK!
The sound was sickening. The light sword pierced through Katakuri's body, erupting from his back in a blinding spray of golden light and dark blood. His eyes went wide, not with pain, but with grim satisfaction. He had changed the future.
"KATAKURI!" Perospero screamed from his ship, his face a mask of horror.
Katakuri coughed, blood staining his scarf. But he wasn't done yet. With his lstrength, he slammed his mochi-coated hand, now glowing with the dark sheen of Armament Haki, onto Gunnar's back.
"Go…" he rasped, his voice a strained whisper.
The mochi gripped Gunnar and Smoothie, then stretched, becoming a living slingshot. With a final, convulsive effort, Katakuri hurled them backward, sending them flying over the battlefield toward the relative safety of the rear of the ship where the other commanders were fighting.
The Whitebeard Pirates, seeing Katakuri's, reacted with a roar of confusion and rage.
"He saved them! What the hell is going on?!" Thatch yelled, parrying a blow from Daifuku's genie.
"Don't think! Just fight!" Jozu bellowed, slamming into a group of chess soldiers.
Katakuri's grip on Kizaru's sword loosened. He began to fall. But Kizaru was relentless. "A noble but foolish gesture."
He ripped his sword free and fired a volley of light beams at Gunnar's airborne form. At the same time, Shiki, cackling madly from above, sent a volley of levitating cannonballs after them.
Gunnar, still holding Smoothie, twisted in mid-air. His lava arm flared, melting the cannonballs before they could hit. He landed hard on the deck, shielding Smoothie with his body. He was surrounded.
He looked up, his volcanic eye meeting Kizaru's cold, glowing glasses.
"You will not touch her," Gunnar snarled, his horns growing red and blue in fury.