The duel at the heart of the world raged on, a hellscape of steam and shattered rock. Each time Whitebeard's quake-infused bisento met Akainu's magma, Marineford trembled. The old Emperor was bleeding, his breaths coming in ragged bursts, but he fought with the indomitable spirit of a lion defending his pride. Akainu, a relentless engine of molten fury, pressed his assault, determined to break the damn relic.
But even an Admiral could not remain unchallenged indefinitely.
"Diamond" Jozu, having briefly dealt with Kizaru, saw his captain taking heavy blows. With a roar of protective fury, he charged back into the fray, a glittering missile of pure diamond. "POPS!" He aimed a devastating shoulder tackle, infused with Haki strong enough to dent magma, directly at Akainu's flank.
"Your justice is loud, Admiral Sakazuki," Isshin's voice, held that calm authority of Samurai. "Let's see if it can withstand a sharper edge." He flowed around Akainu's other side, his blade a silver blur of lightning-fast thrusts aimed at the Admiral's less-guarded points.
Akainu found himself suddenly besieged by a pincer movement of unstoppable force and untouchable speed. "INSECTS!" he roared, lava erupting around him. He unleashed a "Ryusei Kazan," forcing Jozu and Isshin to momentarily disengage. The brief respite, however, allowed Whitebeard to land a devastating quake-infused blow to Akainu's chest, sending the Admiral staggering back, coughing blood.
While this chaotic battle raged, Admiral Aokiji methodically resealed the breach, his "Ice Time" freezing advancing groups. He was a force of cold, calculated control, yet his gaze kept drifting towards the small, determined figure of Straw Hat Luffy making his agonizingly slow, yet persistent, progress.
Marco the Phoenix, having broken off his frustrating skirmish with the amnesiac Ragnar, saw the opening of a lifetime. With Akainu occupied, the path to Ace, for the first time in hours, seemed clear.
"Now's our chance, yoi!" Marco yelled to the nearby pirates. "Focus everything on the scaffold!"
Wreathed in his blue regenerative flames, he shot towards Ace like an azure comet. He bypassed ranks of Marines, his eyes locked on his captive brother. "ACE! I'M COMING!"
He was almost there. He could see the fear and hope warring in Ace's eyes. He extended a flaming hand—
WHAM!
A single fist, wreathed in black Armament Haki and carrying the weight of a legend, slammed into Marco's side with unimaginable force.
Marco cried out, his flight instantly arrested. His blue flames sputtered violently as he was sent tumbling through the air like a ragdoll, crashing heavily onto the stone steps below the scaffold. He coughed, blood trickling from his lips, his regenerative powers struggling against the sheer, Haki-infused impact.
Standing where Marco had been, his fist still smoking slightly, his face a mask of agony and iron resolve, was Vice-Admiral Monkey D. Garp. "The Hero" of the Marines.
Luffy's grandfather. Ace's adoptive grandfather.
"As long as I stand here, Marco," Garp's voice was low, heavy with a sorrow that was more powerful than any rage. "You will not pass."
He had been watching, torn, tormented, as his grandsons fought and suffered. But when Marco, one of Whitebeard's strongest commanders, was about to reach Ace, something inside Garp snapped.
"Sorry, Marco," Garp growled, his voice thick with unshed tears. "But I won't let you pass."
He then slowly, deliberately, walked up the steps and sat down on one of the empty Admiral seats, directly below the execution platform. He crossed his arms, a silent, imposing barrier of flesh, Haki, and grief. His message was clear: to get to Ace, they would have to go through him. The grandfather had chosen his side, or rather, had been trapped there by his own tortured heart.
The Whitebeard Pirates who witnessed it stared in stunned disbelief. "Commander Marco... in one hit...?" one gasped.
"That's... the Hero of the Marines..." another whispered, his voice filled with a new kind of dread.
But none of that mattered to Luffy.
He ignored the grand clashes of emperors and admirals, the shocking position of his grandpa.
"Get outta my way!" he yelled, using a bewildered Marine's helmet as a springboard. He inflated like a pufferfish—"Gomu Gomu no Balloon!"—to absorb a nearby explosion, the shockwave sending him tumbling. He recovered instantly, launching a "Gomu Gomu no Bazooka" that cleared a path through a tight knot of soldiers.
He was covered in grime, blood, and sweat, his straw hat clinging precariously to his head. Every Marine he encountered tried to stop him.
"It's Straw Hat! Don't let him get any closer!"
Every pirate he passed tried to help him.
"Clear a path! Let Ace-san's brother through!"
"Ace… Ace… Almost there…!" he panted, his lungs burning, his body screaming in protest. But his spirit, his brotherly devotion, was an unquenchable inferno. He was a small boat in a raging tempest, battered and taking on water, yet somehow, miraculously, he kept moving forward.
The sight of Monkey D. Garp swatting aside Marco the Phoenix like an errant fly sent a hush through the surrounding battlefield. The clang of steel and roar of cannons seemed to dim as all eyes fell upon the Marine Hero.
For the pirates, it was the arrival of another insurmountable legend. For the Marines, it was a grim, almost sorrowful, display of their hero's unwavering, yet visibly painful, commitment.
"Garp-san..." a Marine captain whispered, a mixture of awe and fear in his voice. "He's really..." The captain couldn't finish the sentence.
"It's over," a Whitebeard pirate muttered, his sword lowering an inch. "That's Garp the Fist. He cornered the Pirate King... what chance do we have?"
On the Moby Dick's shattered remains, Whitebeard watched Garp's intervention, and he read the truth in the rigid line of his old rival's back. He saw the torment.
"Gurararararara…" A low, dangerous rumble, laced with the bitter familiarity of a bygone era, escaped Whitebeard's lips. "So, the old dog finally decided to show his teeth, eh, Garp?"
Whitebeard's voice, amplified by his sheer presence, carried across the plaza, a deliberate taunt aimed with surgical precision. "Finally decided which family you belong to? Or did you just want a better view for when they kill your boy?"
Garp, seated rigidly on the Admiral's chair, didn't flinch. He didn't even look at Whitebeard. His face was a granite mask of sorrow, his gaze fixed forward. But his fists, resting on his knees, were clenched so tight they trembled, the only sign that the taunt had found its mark.
The battle between Whitebeard and Akainu, momentarily disrupted, resumed with even greater ferocity. Akainu, enraged at being ganged up on, was unleashing a torrent of magma. Whitebeard, ignoring the fresh burns searing his skin, answered with quake-infused blows that cracked the very air around them.
It was into this volatile arena, directly before the clashing Emperor and Admiral, that Ragnar finally moved. The internal static had momentarily subsided, replaced by a cold, hard focus.
He had seen Garp intervene, seen the pirates' despair, and witnessed the raw power of Whitebeard firsthand.
'They're both too loud. Take out the biggest one, and maybe I can get some quiet.'
He didn't make a grand leap. He appeared. A blur of motion that defied his earlier disorientation, landing directly in Whitebeard's path and forcing the Emperor to break off his exchange with Akainu as he dealt with two commanders. Magma still dripped from Akainu's fists as he paused, his brow furrowed at this Warlord's sudden, reckless intervention.
"You," Ragnar said, his voice a deadpan monotone. He gestured vaguely between the two titans. "Can you two keep it down? Some of us are trying to have a miserable wartime experience in peace."
Whitebeard turned his massive head, his gaze falling upon the red-haired Warlord. The sorrow in his eyes deepened, mixed with a profound, weary anger. "You…" he rumbled, his voice a dangerous growl. "The one who wears my lost son's face… who wields his power… yet spouts such nonsense."
"That again?" Ragnar sighed, rubbing his temples. "I swear, you old guys are all the same, hung up on the past. Look, your family drama is really killing the vibe here."
"Step aside, boy," Whitebeard warned, his voice low and dangerous. "This is not your fight. Not unless you've finally remembered who you are."
"I am a Warlord of the Sea," Ragnar stated, his golden eyes becoming sharp and cold, the lazy apathy peeling away to reveal something lethal. "And you are the biggest piece on the board. I take you out, this whole noisy party ends. Simple."
The faint hope in Whitebeard's eyes died, replaced by a storm of fury and grief. "So be it," he said, his voice dropping to a near whisper. "If you insist on standing before me as an enemy… then you will fall as one." He raised his bisento.
Ragnar met his gaze, cracking his knuckles. "Let's see if your era can survive a young blood."
His form didn't shift into a titan. The change was more focused, more terrifyingly intimate. His right arm began to glow, molten rock encasing his fist in a gauntlet of bubbling lava. His left arm shimmered, crystalline blue ice forming a sharp, jagged bracer over his forearm. He was a walking contradiction of fire and frost, a contained cataclysm.
"Alright, old man," Ragnar said, his voice now stripped of all lethargy. "Let's dance."
He lunged.
It wasn't a charge; it was an explosion of speed. He closed the distance in an instant, his lava-coated fist aimed directly at Whitebeard's chest. The Emperor, with decades of battle instinct, reacted instantly, deflecting the blow with the shaft of his bisento. The wood groaned and smoked on impact.
SIZZLE!
"You're fast, boy," Whitebeard grunted, the sheer heat washing over him.
"You're slow, old man," Ragnar retorted.
He spun, his ice-encased arm slashing outwards, aiming to freeze the Emperor's weapon. Whitebeard pulled back, then stomped his foot, a localized quake shattering the ice that had begun to creep up his bisento. Ragnar used that moment, that slight imbalance, to deliver a powerful, Haki-infused kick to Whitebeard's side, forcing the giant back a step.
It was a furious, desperate attacks. Ragnar switched up with contrasting attacks—a searing punch followed by a numbing slash, a feint with fire leading to a trap of ice. He was all speed and deadly power. Whitebeard, though aged and wounded, fought with the raw, overwhelming power of a legend. He met speed with earth-shattering force, ice with unbreakable will. Each of his blows, though sometimes dodged, carried the potential to obliterate.
Akainu watched this unexpected duel with a mixture of fury and tactical calculation. This Warlord was a highly disruptive, unpredictable element.
"So, the brat fights for us after all," Akainu sneered, though his eyes were narrowed. "No matter. It will make my job of cleaning up the ashes that much easier."