A profound, suffocating silence fell over the pirate fleet. The sounds of battle on their side of the chasm ceased entirely. Men who had willingly charged into the jaws of death lowered their weapons, their eyes widening in terrified realization.
"No..." Diamond Jozu choked out, his massive, crystalline shoulders beginning to shake. "Pops, you can't!"
"PART WAYS WITH ME HERE!" Whitebeard bellowed, the sheer force of his voice echoing against the crumbling walls of Marineford.
"ALL OF YOU... SURVIVE! SURVIVE AND RETURN TO THE NEW WORLD!"
The words struck the Whitebeard Pirates harder than any bullet, harder than any Haki-infused blade.
"WAAAAAA!"
"POPS!"
"No, we can't leave you behind!"
The reaction was chorused. Even the captain of Maelstrom Spider Pirates, Squard, was crying like a baby. Yet his thoughts were vastly different from everyone else's.
'How could I have trusted an enemy more than Pops!'
'I'm such a big fool!!!'
The last bit of respite within him was that his Pops had entered the battlefield quite early, alongside the Dark King. So he, Squard, never had the opportunity to do what he was going to.
It could only be said, such was fate today.
"Pops! What are you saying?!" 'Flower Sword' Vista screamed, dropping his twin sabers onto the ice, tears streaming openly down his mustached face.
"We can't leave you behind! We came here together, and we leave together!"
"We won't abandon you!" a chorus of hundreds of pirates roared, surging toward the edge of the chasm, desperately looking for a way to cross the churning water.
"Let us fight with you!"
SLAM!
Whitebeard slammed the butt of his bisento into the bedrock, the resounding crack silencing their protests.
"HUH?"
"Are you going to disobey your captain's final order?!" Whitebeard growled, though a gentle, fiercely proud smile softened his scarred features.
He looked at the sea of weeping men—the outcasts, the orphans, the strays he had gathered from the corners of the world and given a home.
"Gurararara!"
"I am a remnant of the old era!" Whitebeard stated, his voice carrying the melancholic weight of history. He looked up at the heavy, ash-filled clouds, remembering the days he had sailed along Roger, Shiki, and Sengoku.
"There is no ship in existence that can carry me into the new one."
On the ice, Portgas D. Ace finally managed to push himself up to his knees. The Seastone chains rattled against the permafrost.
Ace stared across the abyss. He looked at the massive, bleeding silhouette of the man who had embraced him when the entire world had called for his death. The man who had taken the demon spawn of Gol D. Roger and called him 'son'.
The crushing, agonizing realization of what his freedom had cost finally broke Ace entirely.
CLINK!
"Pops..." Ace sobbed, his chest heaving as he violently threw himself forward, reaching his shackled hands across the empty air toward the distant cliff.
"POPS! NO! DON'T DO THIS!"
Ace collapsed onto the ice, weeping uncontrollably, his fingers digging into the permafrost until his nails bled. The guilt, the sorrow, the sheer injustice of it all threatened to rip his heart to shreds.
Monkey D. Luffy, bruised, broken, and gasping for air, grabbed Ace by the shoulders.
"Ace! We have to go!" Luffy yelled, his own eyes welling with tears. He didn't know Whitebeard, never had a word exchanged with him, but he understood the sacrifice perfectly.
He understood that staying here would render the old man's death completely meaningless. "He split the island so we could live! We can't waste it!"
"I can't!" Ace screamed, thrashing against Luffy's grip, unable to tear his eyes away from the Emperor.
"I can't leave him!"
A few feet away, Silvers Rayleigh stood perfectly still.
The Dark King had lowered his black blade. The chaotic swarm of Marines that had been trying to flank them had been completely cut off by the chasm. For a brief, suspended moment, Rayleigh had nothing to deflect, nothing to cut.
He stared across the abyss at Edward Newgate.
Rayleigh's chest felt unexpectedly tight.
The memories flooded his mind, vivid and sharp. He remembered the fierce, earth-shattering clashes between the Oro Jackson and the Moby Dick. He remembered the quiet, drunken nights shared on forgotten islands, where Roger and Newgate would trade sake and dreams. They were rivals, yes. But they were also the undisputed kings of a grand, romantic era that was rapidly bleeding out on this very ice.
'So this is where you disembark, Newgate', Rayleigh thought.
The Dark King closed his eyes. A single, heavy tear escaped from beneath his round glasses, tracking slowly down his weathered cheek, mingling with the soot and the freezing rain. He didn't wipe it away.
"Your sons will see the dawn," Rayleigh whispered into the wind, a solemn vow made between kings.
"I promise you that."
Across the chasm, the World Government was recovering from the geographic upheaval.
Admiral Akainu dragged himself up to the edge of the cliff. The Red Dog looked across the fifty-yard gap at the retreating Straw Hats and the weeping Whitebeard Pirates. The sheer, unadulterated fury boiling in his chest caused the magma dripping from his arms to superheat the bedrock beneath him.
"You coward!" Akainu roared at Whitebeard, his voice a demonic rasp.
"You shattered the island just to let the devil's bloodline escape?! What about all the others you killed?! "
"You call yourself a man of the sea, yet you cover their retreat like a cornered rat!"
Akainu prepared to launch himself across the abyss using Geppo, intending to hunt down Ace and Luffy even if he had to cross the ocean itself.
GRIP.
Before the Admiral's boots could leave the stone, a massive, Haki-darkened hand roughly grabbed the back of Akainu's white coat.
BOOM. CRASHHH!
Whitebeard violently hurled the Admiral backward. Akainu crashed heavily onto the plaza, tumbling across the ice.
"I told you, magma brat," Whitebeard growled, turning his massive back to the chasm, entirely cutting himself off from his retreating family. He faced the tens of thousands of enraged Marines, Vice Admiral Doberman, Admiral Akainu, and the reforming Admiral Aokiji.
Whitebeard gripped his bisento with both hands. His broad, scarred back was a towering, immovable monument standing between the World Government and the future.
"NO ONE IS MOVING PAST!"
"GURARARARA!"
On the safe side of the abyss, Marco the Phoenix finally wiped the tears from his eyes. He transformed his arms into brilliant, flaming wings. The First Commander swallowed the agonizing grief in his throat and embraced the heavy burden of command.
"YOU HEARD THE CAPTAIN!" Marco roared, his voice cracking but resolute.
"WE DON'T WASTE THIS! EVERYONE, FALL BACK TO THE SHIPS! WE SURVIVE TODAY!"
The Whitebeard Pirates, sobbing, screaming their grief into the heavens, finally began to turn their backs. They dragged their wounded, they hoisted their flags, and they began the desperate, agonizing retreat toward the bay.
"Let's go, Ace-kun," Rayleigh said, walking over to the brothers. The Dark King's voice was gentle, but completely unyielding. He grabbed Ace by the collar of his shirt, lifting the weeping Fire Fist to his feet.
"Do not let his death be in vain. Do not insult him by refusing to sail it."
'Pops...'
Luffy nodded, his trademark straw hat casting a heavy shadow over his eyes. He threw Ace's arm over his shoulder once again, leaning into Zoro and Sanji for support.
"Yeah," Luffy whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "We're going."
As the Straw Hats and the Dark King turned away from the chasm, leaving the heart of Marineford behind them, the sound of the world ending erupted once again from the opposite cliff.
Edward Newgate, the Strongest Man in the World, let out a final, heaven-shaking battle cry, charging headlong in.
In the next 10 minutes, the war would end.