The chaotic interventions—Crocodile's sand, Kirin's thunder, Luffy's sheer, bull-headed persistence—had created fleeting openings, moments of perceived hope. But the might of Marineford was a relentless, crushing tide. For every momentary reprieve, the waves of Marine power surged back with greater force.
With Whitebeard locked in a brutal battle with Ragnar, and Akainu now free to unleash his molten fury elsewhere, the strategic situation for the pirates was rapidly deteriorating. The initial breach in the Wall of Siege, once a symbol of their audacious advance, was now a deadly chokepoint. Marine reinforcements, disciplined and seemingly endless, poured in, methodically pushing the pirates back into an ever-shrinking pocket on the blood-soaked ice.
"They're boxing us in!" a Whitebeard commander yelled, his face grim. "We're losing ground!"
The Pacifista units, repaired or replaced, were back in force, their emotionless laser fire cutting swaths through the pirate ranks. Vice-Admirals, no longer scattered, coordinated their attacks. Aokiji's ice continued to creep and ensnare, making every movement treacherous.
The Whitebeard Pirates fought with the courage of lions, but they were outnumbered, outgunned, and slowly, inexorably, being overwhelmed. Cries of pain and despair mingled with defiant war cries. The dream of saving Ace was rapidly becoming a desperate, bloody last stand.
From his vantage point, Whitebeard, even as he battled the strangely familiar Warlord, could see the grim reality unfolding. His sons were being slaughtered. His heart ached with a father's helpless fury.
"PUSH FORWARD, MY SONS!" he roared, his voice cracking with strain and emotion, even as Ragnar's ice-coated fist slammed into his side. "DON'T YOU DARE DIE HERE!"
But even his booming encouragement couldn't turn the tide.
Luffy, meanwhile, was a beacon of desperate, almost manic energy. He had somehow, through sheer luck and the sacrifices of others, managed to get incredibly close to the scaffold. He could see Ace clearly now, could see the anguish in his brother's eyes, the silent pleas for him to escape.
"Just a little more, Ace!" Luffy yelled, panting, his body a canvas of bruises, cuts, and seared flesh.
He was so focused on Ace that he didn't register the golden flash until it was too late.
Admiral Kizaru, having disengaged from the now-weakened Kirin, had spotted Luffy's dangerously close proximity to the scaffold.
"Ooooh, Straw Hat-kun," Kizaru's voice drawled, suddenly appearing directly in front of Luffy, his form shimmering with light. "You've been quite the persistent little gnat, haven't you? But I'm afraid your buzzing is about to stop."
Luffy, startled, reacted instantly, throwing a desperate "Gomu Gomu no Pistol!"
Kizaru didn't even bother to fully materialize. He simply let the rubber fist phase harmlessly through his shimmering, light-form with an infuriating lack of concern. Then, with a speed that defied comprehension, his leg, wreathed in brilliant yellow light, shot out.
It was Kizaru's infamous light-speed kick.
WHIIIIIIRRRR-THWACK!
The sound was sickening, a crack of thunder and a wet, final impact all at once. The kick connected squarely with Luffy's torso with the force of a detonating star. There was no time to react, no time to inflate, no time to even comprehend the incandescent pain. The air was driven from his lungs in a silent, agonizing rush. His rubbery resilience, which had saved him from so much, was utterly overwhelmed by the sheer, focused velocity of an Admiral's signature attack.
He was launched backwards, not just pushed, but hurled through the air like a broken doll. He tumbled end over end, his straw hat, his treasure, torn from his head, fluttering away like a forgotten memory. He crashed through a line of battling Marines and pirates, scattering them, before finally slamming into a jagged outcrop of Aokiji's ice with a sickening CRUNCH.
Luffy lay there, sprawled and unmoving, a thin trickle of blood seeping from the corner of his mouth. His eyes were glazed, his limbs askew. For the first time since he'd landed at Marineford, the indomitable fire in his gaze seemed to have been extinguished.
"LUFFY!" Ace screamed from the scaffold, his voice a raw, broken sound that was more animal than human.
"Straw Hat-boy!" Ivankov cried, his usual flamboyant demeanor shattering into genuine horror.
Jinbe's face was a mask of grim finality. "Luffy-kun…!"
Kizaru stood, his foot still smoking slightly from the exertion of light-speed. He looked down at Luffy's fallen form with a detached, almost bored expression. "Well now," he said, adjusting his sunglasses. "That was rather anticlimactic." He turned his attention back to the broader battlefield, already seeking his next target, Luffy dismissed as a bit of trash to be swept up later.
The sight of Luffy, their last, most reckless hope, being so utterly and effortlessly decimated by an Admiral, sent a fresh wave of despair through the already beleaguered Whitebeard Pirates. The Marines, conversely, roared with triumph. The fragile hope that had flickered in the pirates' hearts was not just extinguished; it was stomped out, ground into the blood-soaked ice. The boot of Marine justice was now pressing firmly on the throat of the rebellion.
The world was a blur of color and noise, a swimming nightmare of pain. Luffy lay crumpled against the jagged ice, a heap of red and blue. Kizaru's kick hadn't felt like an attack; it had felt like a fundamental law of physics had been rewritten inside his chest. He could hear the desperate cries—Ace...—but they were like waves washing over a distant shore, muffled by the cold, dark abyss he was sinking into. No… Ace… I have to…
A shadow fell over him. He blinked, the world struggling to resolve into focus. It was Emporio Ivankov, his usually flamboyant makeup smudged, his expression a rare mixture of frantic worry and grim determination. Beside him, Jinbe fended off encroaching Marines with powerful, bone-shattering strikes.
"Straw Hat-boy! Can you hear me?!" Ivankov knelt, his large hands hovering uncertainly over Luffy's battered form. "That light-speed bastard… he really did a number on you!"
Luffy coughed, a wracking, painful sound. "Iva… on…" he gasped, his voice a ragged whisper. "That… that thing… your fingers…" His eyes, though hazy, locked onto Ivankov's with a desperate, pleading fire.
Ivankov's own eyes widened. "Straw Hat-boy… you can't mean…! The Tension Hormones, after a blow like that?! It could permanently cripple you! It shaves years off your lifespan every time, and you've already had a dose in Impel Down!" His voice was filled with genuine concern. This was Russian Roulette with Luffy's life force.
"Don't… care…" Luffy rasped, grabbing weakly at Ivankov's frilled sleeve. "Ace… is… right there… I have to… I HAVE TO GET UP! Please… Iva-chan!"
The plea, raw and stripped of all bravado, hung in the air. Jinbe, having dispatched the immediate threat, turned, his face etched with worry. "Luffy-kun, Ivankov-san is right. Your body cannot take much more."
But Luffy's eyes were fixed on Ivankov. "Please…"
Ivankov looked from Luffy's desperate face to the execution platform, where Ace was watching, his expression one of utter torment. He saw the encroaching Marine lines, the dwindling numbers of pirates. He hesitated, his flamboyant persona cracking under the weight of the decision. This was Dragon's son. But that look in his eyes… it was the look of a man who would die anyway if he couldn't fight.
With a deep, theatrical sigh that couldn't quite mask his apprehension, Ivankov made his choice.
"VEEERY WELL, STRAW HAT-BOY!" he declared, his voice regaining some of its usual volume, though a tremor ran through it. "If you are truly prepared to burn your very life force… then who am I, the Queen of Miracles, to deny you one last, desperate dance with destiny?!" He extended his long, sharp fingernails, now glinting like surgical needles. "But know this! This will push you to the brink of death itself! There may be no coming back from this one!"
"Do it!" Luffy gasped, his gaze unwavering.
Ivankov nodded grimly and positioned his fingers over Luffy's chest. "EMPORIO… TENSION HORMONES!"
SHINK! SHINK!
He plunged his needle-like fingernails directly into Luffy's battered torso. Luffy arched his back, a silent scream frozen on his lips as liquid fire ignited every nerve ending in his body.
Around them, the Marines' dominance was absolute. A Vice-Admiral sliced through three pirates with a single, powerful sweep of his cutlass. A Pacifista's laser swept across a huddle of wounded pirates, leaving smoking craters where they had stood. Aokiji, with cold, fluid grace, flash-froze a pirate captain mid-charge, his defiant fury preserved for eternity in a tomb of ice.
Akainu, now a walking volcano, slammed a magma-fist into a crack in the ice, boiling a group of Fish-Man Karate experts alive in a gruesome, steaming display before turning to melt a section of the plaza, swallowing a desperate last stand in a fiery, molten grave. Kizaru zipped through the air, picking off fleeing pirates with casual, devastating light-speed kicks, a nearby pirate ship vaporizing under his "Yasakani Sacred Jewels."
The pirates were not just being pushed back; they were being systematically, brutally dismantled. And into this inferno, Luffy, fueled by a desperate, life-burning miracle, was about to try and stand once more.
Luffy lay convulsing on the ice, Ivankov's Tension Hormones a raging inferno in his veins. The world was a blur of agonizing sensation, his body pushed far beyond any conceivable limit. Jinbe stood protectively over them, his Fish-Man Karate a desperate shield against the encroaching Marines, but even his formidable strength was being taxed.
The battlefield around them was a portrait of despair. The initial shock and awe of the pirates' arrival had long since faded, replaced by the grim, attritional reality of war. Marineford was living up to its name as an impenetrable fortress.
High above, Admiral Akainu, his face a mask of molten righteousness, surveyed the dwindling resistance. "The time for games is over, pirates!" he roared, his voice like the rumbling of an active volcano. He leaped high into the air, his arms transforming into colossal pillars of seething magma. "RYUSEI KAZAN!"
But this was no mere shower of magma fists. This was a cataclysm. Hundreds of magma projectiles, each the size of a small boulder, rained down from the sky like a hellish meteor shower, carpeting entire sections of the ice field where the pirates were most densely packed.
BOOM! BOOM! KRA-KOOM!
Explosions rocked Marineford, sending plumes of superheated steam, ice shards, and the screams of incinerated men into the air. Entire groups of Whitebeard Pirates, who had been fighting valiantly moments before, were simply vaporized, their desperate cries cut short.
As if in concert, Admiral Kizaru, zipping through the air like a malevolent firefly, added his own brand of swift, merciless destruction. "Ooooh, Sakazuki-san is certainly fired up," he drawled, raising his hands as light converged. "YASAKANI SACRED JEWELS!"
A torrential downpour of countless golden needles of pure energy rained down, targeting those attempting to regroup. Each beam pierced through flesh and steel with equal ease, riddling ships and men with smoking holes.
The combined assault was devastating. The Whitebeard Pirates, already pushed to their limits, began to break.
Marco the Phoenix, his blue flames flickering with exhaustion, intercepted a magma fist aimed at a group of his retreating crewmates. The sheer heat and force left him panting, his wings heavy. He swerved to avoid a volley of Kizaru's light beams, one of which grazed his leg, leaving a searing, non-regenerating burn. "Hold the line!" he yelled, his voice hoarse, "Don't give up hope!" But even he could see the grim reality unfolding.
Admiral Aokiji, meanwhile, methodically dismantled the pirate command on another front. He engaged two division commanders, his "Ice Time" turning the battlefield into a treacherous maze. He parried a massive katana with a saber of ice, then flash-froze the legs of a speed-focused commander, rendering his greatest asset useless.
On the main front, Isshin Ashina and "Diamond" Jozu were now facing a relentless onslaught from a coordinated group of powerful Vice-Admirals. Jozu's diamond body, though incredibly durable, was beginning to show hairline cracks.
Isshin, despite his breathtaking swordsmanship, was being forced onto the defensive by sheer numbers. Whitebeard himself, his earlier duel with Ragnar having taken its toll, looked increasingly isolated, the tide of Marine power threatening to engulf even him.
Whitebeard's lungs struggled to pump air to his heart, while his heart tried to give up functioning. The internal organs of Whitebeard, destroyed were, nearing their last breathe.
Hope was a dwindling, fragile ember. The air was thick with the stench of blood, burnt flesh, and despair. Every explosion, every scream, every fallen comrade was another nail in the coffin of their desperate rescue mission.
The "absolute justice" of the World Government was a crushing weight, and it was threatening to extinguish the era of Whiteabeard entirely.