Cherreads

Chapter 122 - Marineford-18

In the dust-choked crater where he'd been slammed, Gunnar lay broken. For a long moment, there was only the ringing in his ears and the blinding agony that threatened to tear consciousness from him. Smoke, tinged with the acrid scent of burnt flesh and the bitter chill of shattered ice, rose from his motionless form. The vibrant glow of his dual elements was reduced to pitiful flickers – a dull, ember-like pulse from his right side, a faint, crystalline shimmer from his left, both struggling against encroaching darkness.

A rattling cough tore through him, spewing a mixture of blood and icy vapor onto the cracked earth. Every inch of his body screamed. He could feel the jagged edges of broken ribs, the searing pain of deep burns where Sengoku's golden energy had struck, and a bone-deep, crushing ache from Garp's Haki-infused fist. His vision swam.

Then, through the haze of pain and the swirling dust, a flicker of orange caught his eye.

Ace…

The thought, weak as it was, was a spark in the void. He blinked, trying to clear his vision, his head lolling. High on the remnants of the execution platform, a figure was moving.

Luffy…

With a groan that sounded like mountains grinding together, Gunnar pressed a trembling hand against the blood-slicked rock. His magma side flared weakly, a desperate surge of heat, while his ice side fractured further, shedding shards like brittle glass. He pushed.

Agony. White-hot, black-cold agony.

His arm buckled. He collapsed back, gasping.

No… Not… yet…

He set his jaw, teeth grinding. He could taste blood, ash, and the bitter tang of his own fading power. His golden eyes, though clouded with pain, found the platform again. He had to see. He had to know.

Slowly, agonizingly, inch by agonizing inch, he began to push himself up. One arm, then the other. Muscles screamed in protest, bones grated. The effort was monumental, each movement a fresh wave of torment. Steam hissed from his skin where fire met ice internally, a chaotic, unstable reaction. His breath came in ragged, shallow gasps.

As he finally managed to get to his knees, swaying precariously, his gaze locked onto the platform. And then he saw it.

The eruption of Ace's flames from the heart of the execution platform was a stunning, defiant beacon. He stood beside Luffy, a pillar of incandescent fury, the molten remnants of his Sea Prism shackles dripping from his wrists. Free. Ace was free.

A raw, broken sound, half-sob, half-growl, escaped Gunnar's lips. The sight, blurry as it was, sent a jolt of something fierce and vital through his battered system. It wasn't enough to heal him, not nearly, but it was fuel.

Garp stared from nearby, his face a canvas of heartbreak and disbelief, his fists still clenched from the blow he'd delivered.

But freedom, in Marineford, was a fleeting, dangerous thing.

Admiral Akainu, his brutal duel with Whitebeard momentarily paused by the sheer shock of Gunnar's initial takedown, saw the orange inferno on the scaffold. His face, already a mask of molten rage, contorted further. The son of Roger, free? Unacceptable.

"You will not escape, spawn of the Pirate King!" Akainu bellowed, abandoning his focus on Whitebeard. He launched himself towards the scaffold, his body already transforming into a torrent of seething magma, a living volcano aimed at the newly freed brothers. "RYUSEI KAZAN!" He unleashed a volley of smaller, faster magma fists, not to destroy the platform, but to incinerate its occupants.

"Ace! Luffy!" came a cry. Jinbe, with several other Impel Down escapees, had fought his way to the base of the crumbling scaffold, providing a desperate, if temporary, shield. He used "Fish-Man Karate: Vagabond Drill" to deflect some of the magma fists, but the heat was intense, the barrage relentless.

Ace reacted instantly. "HIKEN!" (Fire Fist!) He launched his own colossal fist of flame, meeting Akainu's magma head-on.

BOOM! FWOOSH! SIZZLE!

Fire and magma collided in a spectacular, devastating explosion of heat and pressure. The air itself seemed to boil. Ace gritted his teeth, his flames struggling against Akainu's superior destructive power, but he held his ground, protecting Luffy who was still regaining his bearings. This was a battle of pure elemental fury, and Akainu was an inferno of hatred.

Meanwhile, Gunnar, swaying but now on his feet, a monstrous figure of ruin and resolve, his breaths ragged and steaming, finally straightened. His golden eyes, now clear and filled with a chilling purpose despite the immense damage he'd sustained, scanned the battlefield. He saw Ace free, a surge of fierce, agonizing pride welling within him. But his attention was immediately drawn by a figure of quiet, immense power who had somehow navigated the disintegrating terrain to stand before him.

Dracule "Hawkeye" Mihawk. The World's Greatest Swordsman stood calmly, Yoru held loosely, his piercing gaze fixed on the heavily damaged Gunnar.

"So," Mihawk said, his voice as cool and sharp as his blade, "the lost son returns, and with quite the destructive tantrum." He glanced at the deep scoring on Gunnar's form.

"I am a Warlord," Mihawk stated simply. "My allegiances are… complex. But your current display threatens to unmake this island entirely. That is an aesthetic I cannot abide." He raised Yoru. "Shall we see if your newfound clarity extends to your swordsmanship? Or are you merely a blunt instrument of quakes and elements, barely holding yourself together?"

Before Gunnar could respond, Charlotte Smoothie glided between them, her impossibly long sword drawn, a condescending smirk on her face. "Now, now, the greatest swordsman. You wouldn't want to interrupt my husband's… re-acclimation, would you? He has so many old friends to catch up with." She parried a probing, lightning-fast slash from Mihawk with a casual, almost bored, movement of her own massive blade. "Why don't you play with me for a while?"

Mihawk's eyebrow twitched. This giantess… "Very well. Let us see if Big Mom's brood possesses any true skill beyond gluttony." The two master sword-wielders engaged, their blades a blur of silver and polished steel, a deadly, elegant dance amidst the surrounding devastation.

While these individual duels erupted, the larger battle raged with renewed, desperate intensity.

Whitebeard, despite the horrific wound in his chest, despite Akainu's earlier relentless assault, was still standing, still fighting. Cannonballs and Marine attacks still rained down on him, each one a fresh torment. He was taking hit after hit, his colossal body a testament to inhuman endurance, but it was clear he was on his last legs.

"POPS!" Marco, his blue flames burning dimmer but still present, desperately tried to reach him, fending off Kizaru's incessant light-beams. Jozu, his diamond form cracked and battered, fought alongside other commanders, trying to shield their captain, but they were being overwhelmed.

Then, Whitebeard's voice, weaker but still carrying the weight of an Emperor, boomed across the battlefield.

"MY SONS! LISTEN TO ME!"

A hush fell over the pirates, their eyes turning to their dying captain.

"ACE IS FREE!" Whitebeard declared, a proud, pained smile on his face. "OUR GOAL HAS BEEN ACHIEVED! THERE IS NO NEED FOR ANY MORE OF YOU TO DIE HERE!"

He took a deep, shuddering breath.

"THIS IS MY FINAL CAPTAIN'S ORDER!" he roared, his voice cracking with emotion and pain. "ALL OF YOU… SURVIVE! RETURN TO THE NEW WORLD! LIVE! DO NOT THROW YOUR LIVES AWAY FOR THIS OLD MAN! GO! NOW!"

A wave of disbelief and anguish swept through the Whitebeard Pirates. Retreat? Leave their Pops behind?

"NO, POPS!"

"WE WON'T LEAVE YOU!"

But Whitebeard's gaze was resolute. "This is an order. Live… and carry on my will."

The Admirals, hearing this, knew this was the critical juncture. If the pirates attempted a full retreat, it could turn into a slaughter, or some could escape.

Aokiji, his ice powers now focused on creating massive, impassable walls and freezing the escape routes, his expression grim. "You're not going anywhere so easily."

Kizaru intensified his barrage, his light beams raining down with even greater speed and precision. "Ooooh, a grand escape? How exciting! Let's see who makes it out~"

Akainu, having been momentarily pushed back by Ace's Fire Fist, now turned his full, molten fury towards the pirates attempting to heed Whitebeard's order, creating rivers of magma to block their paths. "None of you will leave this island alive!"

Even Sengoku, in his Golden Buddha form, descended from the crumbling command platform, his face a mask of cold fury. "THE WHITEBEARD PIRATES WILL BE ANNIHILATED HERE AND NOW! THIS IS THE END OF THEIR ERA!" He began to engage directly, his shockwave punches devastating pirate formations.

Garp, his heart a shattered ruin, found himself in the thick of it, his fists lashing out almost instinctively, a whirlwind of grief and duty, striking down pirates who got too close, his roars of anguish indistinguishable from battle cries.

Whitebeard's final orders to retreat echoed across the war-torn plaza, a signal for his sons to choose life over a futile, glorious death. But for many, the thought of abandoning their Pops was an agony worse than any wound. The Admirals, sensing the shift, redoubled their efforts, turning the attempted retreat into a desperate, bloody flight.

Gunnar, having just witnessed Ace's liberation and felt the surge of his father's last command, was a whirlwind of conflicting emotions. He was about to unleash another devastating quake to cover the pirates' escape when a sound cut through the din – a sound he knew, a sound that resonated with a strange, familial pain even through his fractured memories.

It was a laugh. Not Doflamingo's manic cackle, nor Akainu's sneer. It was the booming, yet utterly heartbroken, laugh of Monkey D. Garp.

Gunnar looked up. The Vice-Admiral, "The Hero," was no longer a stoic figure of conflicted duty. He was a force of pure, unadulterated grief and rage unleashed. Tears streamed down his face, but his eyes blazed with a terrifying light. He had just watched one grandson escape certain death, only to see him plunge back into the inferno, while his other grandson lay unconscious nearby, the price of his own desperate intervention. Whitebeard was dying. His world was crumbling.

"YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST WALTZ IN HERE, BOY," Garp roared, his voice cracking with emotion, his gaze locking onto Gunnar with an intensity that could melt steel. "YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST TEAR THIS PLACE APART, THREATEN JUSTICE, AND WALK AWAY?!" He wasn't making sense, his grief twisting his words, his targets.

Gunnar, son of Whitebeard, now bore the brunt of his pain.

"I SHOULD HAVE DEALT WITH YOUR FATHER PERMANENTLY DECADES AGO! AND I'LL START BY PUTTING YOU DOWN, YOU… YOU ECHO OF HIM!"

Garp launched himself from the Admirals' dais, not with a jump, but with a cannonball-like propulsion, his entire body wreathed in an almost visible aura of Haki so dense it was nearly black. This wasn't the "Fist of Love"; this was the "Fist of Utter Despair and Unfathomable Power."

"GALAXY IMPACT!"

His fist, now seemingly larger than life, imbued with decades of repressed sorrow and the full might of a legend pushed beyond his limits, hurtled towards Gunnar. The air itself shrieked and warped around it.

Gunnar met the attack head-on. There was no time for finesse, no room for elemental tricks. He roared, his own Conqueror's Haki flaring, his fists meeting Garp's in a cataclysmic explosion of pure, Haki-on-Haki violence.

KRA-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

The impact was beyond anything seen before in terms of raw, physical Haki clashing. The ground beneath them didn't just crack; it vaporized. A hemispherical shockwave of pure force erupted outwards, flattening everything in a hundred-meter radius – pirates, Marines, debris, all sent flying like chaff in a hurricane. Even nearby Vice-Admirals were thrown off their feet.

Gunnar was sent skidding back dozens of meters, his arms screaming in protest, blood trickling from his knuckles. Garp, despite his age, stood his ground, though he staggered, his breathing ragged, the sheer emotional and physical exertion immense.

"You… old bastard…" Gunnar panted, a wild grin on his face despite the pain. "Still got some fight in you, eh, Gramps-by-proxy?"

"I'LL SHOW YOU FIGHT!" Garp bellowed, and they charged each other again.

While this intensely personal, devastating duel erupted, the other Admirals went into full berserker mode, their earlier restraint, if any had truly existed, now completely shattered. Whitebeard's order to retreat was a red flag to a bull.

Akainu was a relentless volcano. He no longer bothered with targeted attacks. He unleashed "Ryusei Kazan" after "Ryusei Kazan," turning vast swathes of the plaza into molten lakes, incinerating pirates who were too slow or too wounded to escape. His magma hounds roamed freely, tearing into fleeing groups.

His objective was simple: kill them all. His magma even began to encroach on the main Marineford building, collateral damage be damned.

Aokiji, his face a mask of cold, grim duty, was no less terrifying. He wasn't just freezing escape routes; he was creating blizzards of razor-sharp ice shards – "Ice Age: Partisan Storm!" – that shredded pirates unfortunate enough to be caught in their path. He flash-froze entire groups solid, their desperate expressions immortalized in ice, then shattered them with a casual wave of his hand.

He encased fleeing ships in mountains of ice, trapping them for Akainu's magma or Kizaru's light.

Kizaru was a golden death from above. His "Yasakani Sacred Jewels" became a continuous, inescapable rain of light. He moved with impossible speed, appearing behind retreating pirate commanders, delivering devastating light-speed kicks that shattered bones and ruptured organs before they even knew he was there. His lasers pierced through multiple pirates at once, leaving smoking, cauterized holes. He was a smiling, indifferent executioner, his power absolute and terrifyingly swift.

The Whitebeard commanders, trying to follow their captain's orders and protect their fleeing crewmates, were being systematically, brutally overwhelmed.

Marco, his blue flames sputtering, desperately tried to shield a group of younger pirates from Kizaru's onslaught. He managed to intercept a volley of lasers, but another light-speed kick sent him crashing into a wall, his vision blurring, his regenerative powers pushed to their absolute limit. He could barely stand.

Jozu, his diamond body heavily cracked and chipped, was surrounded by three Vice-Admirals and a Pacifista. He fought like a cornered beast, but a Haki-infused blow shattered a significant portion of his diamond arm, leaving him vulnerable.

Vista, his elegant swordsmanship now a desperate defense, was battling two powerful Vice-Admirals, his top hat lost, his clothes torn, blood seeping from multiple cuts.

Ace and Luffy, having just been reunited, found themselves immediately targeted. Akainu, seeing them as the prime symbols of this rebellion, began to divert some of his molten fury their way. A massive magma fist hurtled towards them.

"Ace! Luffy!" Jinbe yelled, throwing himself in front of them, using his own body as a shield, his Fish-Man Karate barely deflecting the worst of the magma, his skin sizzling.

The situation was beyond dire. It was a massacre. The Admirals, unleashed, were living embodiments of destruction, their powers painting Marineford in hues of fire, ice, and blinding light, each stroke a death knell for the Whitebeard Pirates. Hope was not just lost; it was being systematically, brutally, and efficiently extinguished.

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