Next Bonus, 100!!
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BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The deafening roar of artillery fire echoed endlessly across Marineford. The indiscriminate bombardment dealt a devastating, crushing blow to the island's infrastructure.
Marines broke and ran in absolute panic.
But the physical devastation paled in comparison to the psychological trauma.
To be bombarded by a Buster Call initiated by their own masters, while fighting and dying to defend Marine Headquarters... it was a profound, agonizing betrayal.
Many of them had participated in Buster Calls before. But back then, they were the ones raining hellfire down on others.
Now...
They were the ones burning.
The realization was a bitter, complex pill to swallow.
Marine morale utterly collapsed. Their will to fight evaporated.
Sengoku, his body already broken, watched the carnage unfold, coughing up fresh blood in sheer fury.
Ignoring his critical injuries, he snatched a Den Den Mushi, his voice a ragged, furious roar. "Connect me to the Five Elders! Now!"
The moment the connection clicked open...
"What the hell is the meaning of this??"
"Why are you bombarding Marineford??"
"Do you have any idea the catastrophic impact this will have??"
Sengoku screamed into the receiver, venting his absolute rage.
Only when he paused for breath did the Five Elders finally respond.
"This is a necessary sacrifice."
"Sengoku, you have failed!"
"The damage to our global standing has already been done. All we can do now is mitigate the fallout."
"To ensure the complete eradication of the traitor King Jin, the Revolutionary Army high command, the remnants of the Whitebeard Pirates..."
"And the escaped convicts from Impel Down... all in one decisive stroke!"
"We convened a summit."
"And unanimously concluded that initiating a Buster Call is the most efficient, most absolute solution!"
The Five Elder's voice was chillingly calm.
That absolute, apathetic indifference sent a cold shiver down Sengoku's spine, instantly followed by an incandescent surge of hatred.
"Do you know how many Marines will die in this bombardment??" he roared.
"Fleet Admiral Sengoku. Remember your place and mind your tone," the Elder replied, completely devoid of emotion.
"In war, sacrifices are unavoidable."
"If it means annihilating these existential threats, no sacrifice is too great!"
"If Marine Headquarters is destroyed, we will simply build a new one."
"If a hundred thousand elite soldiers die today, we will simply conscript a hundred thousand more. The world is full of men eager to act as the dogs of the Celestial Dragons."
"As long as the World Government emerges victorious from this war, all other issues become entirely irrelevant."
Sengoku was absolutely livid.
He was fiercely loyal to the World Government. He truly believed that their order was the only thing standing between the world and absolute anarchy.
That was why he had dedicated his life to maintaining that order, even when he witnessed the horrific darkness of the Celestial Dragons firsthand.
He rationalized it to himself.
To maintain global stability...
Sometimes, terrible sacrifices had to be made.
But...
When the sacrifice required was the entirety of Marine Headquarters and its loyal soldiers... even his legendary rationality shattered.
"And Marineford itself??" Sengoku screamed. "Is the island a necessary sacrifice too??"
"Correct."
"For the sake of Justice, for the sake of world peace, the loss of a single island is entirely acceptable," the Elder stated coldly.
"Sengoku. Do not forget the sole purpose of the Marines' existence: to maintain the absolute rule of the World Government and the Celestial Dragons!"
Sengoku's face went completely black. He slammed the receiver down, cutting the connection.
He coughed violently, vomiting a massive spray of blood.
"Fleet Admiral!"
The surrounding Marines cried out in alarm.
Sengoku slowly raised his head, his vision blurring as he looked out over the pulverized ruins of Marineford.
It was true.
The island was currently packed with a massive concentration of high-value targets: the pirates, the revolutionaries, and the Winter Blossom forces. Nearly fifty thousand hostiles in total.
But they were outnumbered by the Marines!
The World Government's Buster Call...
Was ruthlessly reaping the lives of the pirates, yes, but it was butchering the Marines with equal, unfeeling efficiency!
Even if this bombardment miraculously wiped out every single enemy combatant, what would be the cost in Marine lives?
Every single soldier stationed here today...
Had been hand-picked from branches across the globe. They were the most loyal, the most elite soldiers the organization possessed.
They were the absolute backbone of the Marines.
If they were slaughtered here today, the Marines would be fundamentally, perhaps irreparably, crippled.
"Damn them!"
Sengoku slammed his remaining fist into a nearby rock, shattering it into fragments.
"Hey, Sengoku."
A voice called out.
Sengoku looked up. Jin was strolling toward him, a faint smile on his face.
"What do you want?" Sengoku growled, his face dark.
"It doesn't feel very good, does it? Being thrown away like garbage?"
Jin chuckled softly.
Despite having a massive hole blown through his chest, suffering a catastrophic strategic defeat, and watching his hair turn white from the sheer stress...
Sengoku still stubbornly clung to life. His eyes narrowed. "This is all because of you."
He glared at Jin with pure hatred. "You are the architect of this nightmare!"
"And?"
Jin shrugged casually. "What are you going to do about it? You can barely stand."
His gaze swept over the broken, demoralized Marines scattered across the battlefield. He shook his head slowly. "Abandoned dogs."
"It's truly pathetic."
He locked eyes with Sengoku.
"A pack of fiercely loyal hounds, ruthlessly put down by their own masters. It's almost funny, isn't it?"
Hounds?
Put down?
The ceaseless, deafening roar of the Buster Call bombardment!
And the absolute, chilling apathy of the Five Elders.
Jin's mocking words echoed relentlessly in Sengoku's mind.
Deep within his chest...
It felt as though a thousand knives were twisting into his heart. The agony was unbearable.
"GAAAAAH!"
He let out a strangled cry of pure agony, vomiting another massive gout of blood, before collapsing backward into the rubble.
"FLEET ADMIRAL!!!"
"SENGOKU!!!"
The Marines panicked.
The medics scrambled desperately to resuscitate him. But perhaps Jin's words had cut too deep. They had shattered the very core of Sengoku's belief system.
Stripped of his faith, his iron will finally broke. The final thread tethering him to life snapped.
The head medic let out a wail of absolute despair.
"Fleet Admiral Sengoku... is dead!!!"
"What??"
"Fleet Admiral!"
A wave of profound grief washed over the Marines, and the devastating news spread across the battlefield like a plague.
"The Fleet Admiral is dead!"
"Sengoku? Dead?? How??"
"Sengoku has fallen!"
Cries of shock, disbelief, and raw anguish erupted from the Marine ranks. Everyone was paralyzed by the revelation.
If Roger was the symbol that inspired the Great Pirate Era...
Then Sengoku and Garp were the twin pillars that the entire Marine organization revered. They were living symbols.
As long as those two stood tall, "Justice" remained absolute. They were the physical embodiment of the Marines' faith.
And now, Sengoku was dead. The Marines, their morale already hanging by a thread, were completely decapitated. They descended into absolute, directionless despair.
Even the hardened Vice Admirals and the three Admirals paused, instinctively recoiling in shock.
"SENGOKU!!!"
Garp roared.
He threw a devastating punch, blasting Bullet away, and sprinted toward Sengoku's fallen body.
"DID YOU DO THIS?? JIN!!!"
Garp's assault was blindingly fast, fueled by absolute, unmitigated rage.
His fists glowed with incandescent heat, his Haki boiling off him in waves. He launched himself forward like a falling meteor, his strike carrying catastrophic, world-ending power.
"Whoa, hold on a second. Don't blame me. I was just making an observation. I didn't think he'd actually drop dead..."
Jin sighed internally.
His intention had been to provoke Sengoku, to see if he could finally break the man's conditioning and convince him to turn on the World Government.
If Sengoku had switched sides...
They could have marched on Mary Geoise tomorrow.
He hadn't anticipated that the compounding stress, the physical trauma, and the ultimate betrayal of the World Government would completely shatter the man's psyche and literally kill him with rage.
Talk about bad luck.
But the enraged Garp wasn't exactly in a listening mood.
Jin sighed again.
He met Garp's charge, throwing a punch of his own. His fist was wreathed in blinding, crackling lightning, the sheer luminosity of the strike rivaling the sun.
BOOM!
The two legendary fists collided. The sky above them seemed to cave in. A terrifying, apocalyptic surge of Haki erupted between them, violently tearing the very bedrock apart.
Every Marine in the vicinity was violently blasted away by the shockwave.
An enraged Garp... was a truly terrifying force of nature.
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