Aokiji's eyes widened.
He had expected the blow to be debilitating, but Blackbeard was just... grinning... his teeth stained red.
"You're amazing, Teach," Aokiji said, his voice a low, dangerous growl. "You took that hit head-on."
"Zehahaha!" Blackbeard sneered, his voice a wet gurgle. "My power is far more terrifying than you can imagine, Kuzan. You should have aimed for the head!"
As he spoke, the gaping, bloody wound in his shoulder began to pulse.
A foul, dark energy, the very power of death, surged from the injury, wrapping around him like a shroud.
Instead of weakening him, the pain was making him stronger.
Aokiji's expression turned grim.
"It seems I underestimated the nature of your new power," Aokiji said, his voice cold. "In that case, let's see how long you can last."
He stomped his foot, and his ice blade re-formed, colder and sharper than before.
"Death Scythe... CUT!" Blackbeard roared, condensing a new, even more terrifying scythe of pure darkness and decay.
The two forces of nature clashed again.
BOOM!
The factory shook, but this time, Aokiji's ice blade began to crack under the scythe's corrupting power.
Blackbeard was thrown back by the impact, but he landed on his feet, a bloodthirsty light in his eyes.
"Zehahaha! I can feel it, Kuzan! Your strength is fading! You're exhausted, aren't you?!" Blackbeard taunted, though his own strength was clearly less than half of what it was.
"I, on the other hand, am just getting started! You're going to die here!"
He raised the scythe for a final, brutal blow. Aokiji, his expression grim, instantly formed a thick, multi-layered ice shield in front of him.
CLANG!
The scythe shattered it, the impact sending Aokiji flying, a spray of blood erupting from his mouth.
"So what?" Aokiji snarled, landing on one knee.
He charged again, unleashing a flurry of frosty sword-energy.
Blackbeard, unconcerned, simply raised his other fist, the white light of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit gathering.
He punched the air, and a quake shattered all of Aokiji's ice defenses in an instant.
With Aokiji's defenses broken, Blackbeard swung the Death Scythe with all his might.
The attack was so powerful it seemed to tear a rip in the very fabric of space, and Blackbeard's figure stepped through the turbulence, appearing right in front of the Admiral.
"Damn it!" Aokiji cursed, his mood worsening. His most powerful attacks were being blocked.
He took a deep breath, and a terrifying chill, far colder than anything before, enveloped the entire factory.
He clenched his fists.
"Ice Age!"
An impossibly bright, condensed blade of pure, absolute-zero ice roared from his hand, striking the Death Scythe dead-on.
BOOM!
A terrifying cracking sound echoed, and the entire world seemed to shake.
The Death Scythe, struck by the ultimate ice, was covered in spider-web cracks... and then shattered into a thousand pieces.
But as the weapon broke, Aokiji's face showed no relief, only a new wave of horror.
The shattering of the scythe didn't disperse the energy; it unleashed it.
The deathly power in the room instantly soared to a suffocating, terrifying new level.
"ZEHAHAHAHA! NOW, IT'S MY TURN!" Blackbeard laughed, looking absolutely manic as the unleashed death energy swirled around him, drawn to his body like a magnet.
He thrust his palm, now overflowing with darkness, toward Aokiji.
"Damn it!" Aokiji cursed, dodging the malicious blow, but as he did, Blackbeard's other hand was already moving, unleashing a new, unseen attack.
"Zehahaha!" Blackbeard laughed, seeing the anger in Aokiji's eyes. "Killing you, for me, is just a matter of waving my hand!"
He shot forward like a lightning bolt, the Death Scythe, now a swirling vortex of darkness and decay, slashing for Aokiji's neck.
But Aokiji, his face an unprecedented mask of calm, didn't move.
He's given up! Blackbeard thought, a cold, triumphant arc forming on his lips.
"Since you're so eager to die, I'll send you to hell right now!"
SHINK!
The scythe tore through its target... but the target was just an afterimage of ice.
The real Aokiji had vanished.
Blackbeard's eyes widened in shock.
'He dodged? Impossible! Not in his condition!'
"Ara ra, Teach," a cold voice echoed from behind him.
"You seem surprised."
A spear made of pure, absolute-zero ice was already pressing against the back of Blackbeard's neck.
"Damn you!" Blackbeard snarled, twisting and swinging his fist backward, the white light of a quake shattering the air.
BAM!
The ice spear and the quake-fist collided in a deafening explosion.
But the spear was just a diversion.
As Blackbeard's arm was repelled, Aokiji's other hand, now shaped into a long, sharp ice dagger, drove forward with all his might, plunging it deep into Blackbeard's chest.
"AGHHHHH!"
A shrill, agonizing scream tore from Blackbeard's throat.
But he didn't fall.
He staggered back, a look of pained confusion on his face, staring at the Admiral.
Aokiji's expression was grim.
The man was a monster.
A stab wound that should have been fatal was just... an inconvenience.
And Aokiji's own body was failing.
The deathly energy from the first scythe wound was still corroding his flesh.
Just as Blackbeard was about to counter-attack, Aokiji did something strange.
He bit down on something he had hidden in his cheek.
"Zehahaha! What, is that poison?!" Blackbeard mocked.
But in the next instant, his jaw dropped.
A surge of steam and pure, unadulterated vitality erupted from Aokiji's body.
The festering, necrotic wound on his chest healed in a flash.
The exhaustion vanished. In the blink of an eye, Admiral Aokiji was back at his absolute peak.
It was the "Senzu Bean," the emergency restoration pill invented by Dr. Leon.
"That treasure..." Blackbeard's eyes, which had been full of malice, were now lit with a burning, insatiable greed.
"You... your strength is... completely restored! That item... IT'S MINE!"
He charged, not caring about the ice blade still embedded in his chest.
Aokiji met him head-on.
CLANG!
The sound of ice and darkness colliding resounded through the sky.
The ensuing battle was on a different level.
Blackbeard, though in agony, was burning his stolen life force for power.
Aokiji, restored to his prime, was a force of nature.
"BOOM!"
A quake-infused kick sent Aokiji flying, but he landed on his feet, his armor of ice instantly reforming.
'This guy is... unkillable!' Blackbeard thought, a flicker of panic entering his mind.
He watched as Aokiji's power flared, the temperature of the entire factory dropping to an impossible, world-ending low.
"He's going all out!" Blackbeard realized. He had to end this now.
With a final, desperate roar, Blackbeard lunged forward, swinging his scythe in a wide, decapitating arc.
At the same instant, Aokiji shot forward, his ice-skate blade aimed not at the scythe, but at Blackbeard himself.
They collided.
In a final, brutal exchange, both men found their mark.
Blackbeard's Death Scythe plunged deep into Aokiji's heart.
Aokiji's hand, frozen solid and sharp as a blade, closed around Blackbeard's neck.
The forces of death and ice flooded into each other.
Aokiji could feel the necrotic energy corroding his body from the inside out.
Blackbeard's face began to change, his skin turning blue, then pale, as Aokiji's ultimate freezing power surged into him.
"No..." Blackbeard choked, feeling his very blood turn to slush.
"If this continues... we'll both..."
But as he looked at the Admiral he had just fatally wounded, he saw something that made his blood run even colder.
Aokiji was smiling.
And then, from the wound in Aokiji's chest, where the Death Scythe was still embedded, a cluster of brilliant, shimmering crystals suddenly erupted, pushing the scythe back out.