Marco the Phoenix could not weep anymore.
He stood on the railing of the galleon, his eyes locked entirely on the center of the shattered plaza.
He saw the False Deity being brutally dismantled. He saw the flashes of gold, the eruptions of hyper-dense ice, the blinding streaks of light. The Marines high level forces had completely abandoned their pursuit of the pirate fleet. Their hatred was focused entirely on the man in the black coat.
But Marco wasn't looking at Light Yagami.
Marco was looking at the towering, headless silhouette of Edward Newgate, standing utterly alone amidst the freezing winds and the pooling blood.
'They're going to take him.'
Marco realized, a sickness twisting in his gut.
The very thought felt like a physical knife twisting in his heart. It was a desecration he could not—would not—allow.
This moment was an opportunity.
"I'm going back," Marco rasped, his voice completely raw, devoid of its usual lazy drawl.
"Marco!" 'Flower Sword' Vista yelled, stumbling forward, his elegant clothes ruined and stained.
"Why would you go back?!"
"Pops!"
"I'm not leaving him there to be a trophy for those Marine bastards! They're distracted! All of them! They aren't looking at Pops. I can get him!"
"And I'm going alone! Don't come after me!"
Before Vista or Diamond Jozu could restrain him or cling to him, Marco violently transformed his arms into massive, brilliant wings of blue flame.
FWOOSH.
Marco launched himself from the ship, diving low over the churning, frozen bay. He used the cover of the thick, black smoke and the chaotic, deafening sonic booms of the gang-beating to mask his approach.
Across the abyss, the center of Marineford had become a literal meat grinder.
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!
"EVIL'S DEMISE!"
"FROST SPEAR!!"
Sengoku the Buddha and Admiral Aokiji broke the sound barrier simultaneously. The sheer kinetic displacement of their movement created overlapping, catastrophic sonic booms that vaporized the falling snow and shattered the bedrock beneath their feet.
He had been pummeled mid-air by the three people from the start. They were just pummeling him like a ping-pong ball for the past minute. 14 out of 24 of his ribs were broken already.
'Ah...'
Light Yagami's pristine, sociopathic facade had violently shattered alongside his nose. There was no more cold, calculated acting. There was no more arrogant smiling.
His dark eyes, previously pools of abyssal confidence, were completely wide, entirely consumed by coldness.
'If I stay here... I die.'
His inhuman Life Force flooded his system with a terrifying amount of adrenaline. He didn't think; he reacted. He engaged Soru and his Force Authority to their absolute maximum limits, his body becoming a blurring, pitch-black streak of lightning just to keep up with the wrathful gods of the Navy.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The northern plaza became an incomprehensible vortex of flashing gold, blinding white frost, and pitch-black Haki. They were moving so fast that to the naked eyes of the surviving Marines, there were no longer men fighting—there were just continuous, apocalyptic shockwaves tearing the island to dust.
Aokiji blamed himself in anguish.
'I was lazy', Aokiji's mind screamed, the guilt burning hotter than Akainu's magma.
'It was me!'
'I let him fight alone! I let Sakazuki die!'
So he took it out on the only man he could.
"YAGAMI!" Aokiji roared, his voice distorted by the sheer speed of his movement. Rage, sometimes, evolves people.
It was happening with both Aokiji and Sengoku at this moment.
BAM!
CRINKLE!
Aokiji slammed his hands forward, bypassing his usual freezing limits. He froze the very atmosphere in a fifty-yard radius. The air itself crystallized into Haki-infused needles that tore into Light's flesh like a billion razor blades with every step he took.
"AAAR!"
Bam! Slash! Bam!!!
Light screamed, the sound lost in the roaring vacuum, swinging his obsidian saber to carve a path through the frozen atmosphere.
But Sengoku was already there.
Boom!
The golden Buddha had gone completely, irrevocably mad. He ignored the deep gashes on his own chest and moved at supersonice sound.
"THOUSAND HANDS..."
Moving at supersonic speed, the Fleet Admiral unleashed a barrage of hundreds of golden fists in a fraction of a second.
"...GOD'S DEMISE!
B-B-B-B-B-BOOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Light managed to parry the first ten, his obsidian blade sparking violently against the golden knuckles. But his guard was entirely blown away by the sheer, crushing mass.
CRACK. SNAP!
Sengoku's fists slammed into Light's ribs, his shoulders, his thighs. Light's durability was the only thing keeping him from exploding into red mist, but the bones were fracturing. He was violently ping-ponged between Aokiji's atmospheric ice walls and Sengoku's relentless fists, bleeding profusely, his vision tunneling into dark, agonizing red.
His 20-second Future Sight was worse than useless. It didn't show him a path to victory; it only showed him a kaleidoscope of his own gruesome deaths. It showed him Sengoku crushing his skull. It showed him Aokiji freezing his heart. It showed him the exact, agonizing microsecond his spine would snap.
He was already doing all he could to read the future and dodge fatalities.
It was a do-or-die moment.
Fifty yards away. Thirty yards. Ten yards.
Marco the Phoenix was almost there. He could see the burns on his father's chest. He reached his flaming talons out, tears streaming freely down his face, preparing to gently, respectfully wrap his wings around the massive body and fly away into the sky.
'Just let me take him home. Please. Just let me have this.'
"KIZARU!"
The thunderous, god-like roar erupted from the center of the supersonic melee.
Sengoku, even while consumed by madness and raining blows upon the False Deity, possessed the terrifying battlefield awareness. He had caught the streak of blue flames entering the perimeter out of the corner of his bloodshot eye.
And today, he hated pirates the most.
Sengoku didn't stop punching Light, but he threw his head back, his voice carrying absolute, uncompromising venom.
"WHITEBEARD'S BODY!" Sengoku bellowed, the veins in his golden neck bulging.
"IT STAYS!"
.
.
.
A/N: No comments.