Before anyone could recover from that cataclysmic clash, they witnessed something even more absurd.
Cain, Garp, and everyone else in the plaza all looked up at once.
Luffy was leading a group of escaped prisoners from Impel Down, all of them dropping straight out of the sky like dumplings being tossed into a pot.
Cain nodded, then shook his head.
The scene did look exactly like what had happened in the original course of events.
But there was one problem.
The frozen tsunami glaciers on both sides of Marineford had already been cut apart by him and Mihawk, so where the hell had these people flown in from?
And besides…
'Luffy.... fine.'
'You came to save Ace. That made sense.'
'But what was that enormous thing falling down behind you?'
'Why had Little Oars Jr. gotten involved too?!'
'And what was with that huge chunk of iceberg?'
'Also, Little Oars, don't aim your ass at the battlefield!'
…
Flashback.
On the Sabaody Archipelago, before the war had begun, Trafalgar Law had not left in a hurry.
Like Kid, he was still observing the situation at Marine Headquarters, Marineford.
It was then that a man came to him and offered a price he simply could not refuse.
…
At that time, Luffy had just escaped Impel Down with a group of prisoners.
Although he had failed to find Ace there, he had met the shark fish-man Jinbe.
The two immediately hit it off and decided to rescue Ace together, conveniently hijacking a Marine warship in the process.
Among those traveling with them were old enemies like Crocodile and his group, Emporio Ivankov and his followers from Level 5.5 of Impel Down, and, of course, their old friend Buggy, surrounded by a swarm of underlings and putting on quite the grand display.
Although Garp had never told Luffy this time that his father was Dragon, someone had already contacted Ivankov in advance and invited "him?" to join the rescue operation.
Without the misunderstanding that Ace was Dragon's son, Luffy naturally had not blurted out Ace's true identity in a fit of recklessness.
Of course, even if he had said it now, it would no longer matter.
The Den Den Mushi aboard the warship was chattering away, reporting the results of the investigation into Buggy's background.
The title of "former crewmate of the Pirate King" immediately sent his group of fanboys into wild cheers.
They nearly stomped holes through the deck of the warship!
But as soon as the voice from the Den Den Mushi finished speaking, the other side fell into dead silence, followed by a burst of chaos.
From the messy background noise, Luffy and the others caught the news that the war had already begun.
There was no way they could sit still after that.
They immediately shouted and rushed toward Marineford.
But before they had gone far, an enormous iron gate blocked their path.
It was the Gate of Justice.
At the critical moment, Bon Clay, who had remained behind in Impel Down and hidden among the prison guards, seized his chance.
While no one was paying attention, he transformed into Magellan, the prison warden, and somehow managed to open the Gate of Justice.
But unlike the original course of events, their timing was both too early and too late.
Not long after passing through the Gate of Justice, they ran into a half-frozen stretch of sea.
One side was roaring seawater, while the other was a slick sheet of ice.
The Marine warship could not pass through at all.
Luffy did not care about any of that.
With a yell, he leaped off the ship and began charging across the ice.
Crocodile's target was Whitebeard, so naturally he refused to fall behind. With a cold snort, he followed after Luffy.
His former subordinate Mr. 1, Daz Bones, came along behind him.
Immediately after that, Ivankov, Inazuma, and Buggy, who was still being surrounded by his underlings, also rushed after them in a noisy swarm. The rest of the escapees followed close behind.
After they had run for some time—
Boom. Boom. Boom!
A series of heavy, muffled impacts suddenly came from beneath the ice, making the frozen surface under their feet hum and tremble.
Luffy and the others instantly came to a stop and looked down.
Under the thick layer of ice, Little Oars Jr. was gripping his massive blade and hacking at it with all his strength, desperately trying to carve out an opening so he could escape.
His mouth was moving too, shouting something indistinct.
"Earwax! Earwax!"
As it turned out, Whitebeard and his crew had never intended to bring Little Oars with them.
His body was simply too enormous!
The moment he stood on the battlefield, he would become a living target.
But Whitebeard and the others had never expected that Little Oars had secretly followed behind them.
He wanted to save Ace himself.
Unfortunately, the fleet suddenly sped up, clearly after receiving word that fighting had broken out at Marineford, around the time Cain had been exposed.
Little Oars was heavy and slow, with only a round bubble coating wrapped around his body. He could not keep up with them.
Before long, he was frozen inside the ice by Aokiji's Ice Age.
Fortunately, the bubble protected him and left him with some space to move.
Even so, all he could do was hack at the ice from below while shouting Ace's name at the top of his lungs. Unfortunately, after passing through the ice, his voice became completely distorted.
"Huh? Earwax?!"
Luffy pressed himself against the ice and widened his eyes as he stared down.
Beneath the ice, nearly dozens of meters deep, that familiar massive figure stood out clearly.
"Hey, isn't that Oars? You came back to life! But why are you shouting about earwax? Are your ears itchy?"
After all, Oars' size made him impossible to hide, even from far away.
Although the one before them had a different size and color from the giant Oars they had seen on Moria's Thriller Bark, given Luffy's way of thinking, simply recognizing that they were the same kind was already pretty reliable.
He had no intention of worrying about whether they were actually the same person.
"That's Little Oars Jr."
Ivankov pressed his enormous head against the ice and recognized him at a glance.
"He's the captain of the Little Pirates and one of Whitebeard's subordinates. Could this huge boy have come to save Ace too?"
When Luffy heard that, his eyes immediately widened.
Without another word, he drew back his fist and smashed it into the ice.
"If he's here to save Ace too, then we've got to get him out! Gum-Gum—Red Hawk!"
Luffy's attack was wrapped in Haki and flame.
The surface of the ice instantly exploded with spiderweb cracks several meters wide, and shattered ice fragments flew everywhere.
The force was genuinely terrifying.
But the ice was dozens of meters thick. His strike only broke part of it.
If they wanted to rescue Little Oars, it would still take time.
Seeing this, Ivankov quickly stepped forward to help, and Inazuma also revealed the power of the Snip-Snip Fruit.
After all, it was seawater that affected Devil Fruit users, not ice.
They were hated by the sea, not by frozen water, so cutting through it could at least have some effect.
But even with the three of them working together, trying to carve through such absurdly thick ice in a short time was almost impossible.
And Marineford's war had already begun.
They could not afford to waste time here.
Just as everyone was growing frantic, a deafening explosion suddenly went off.
Everyone instinctively covered their ears.
A bright flash followed immediately after, forcing them to squint.
When the light faded, a huge pit filled with seawater appeared before them, roughly the same size as Little Oars.
The ice had been completely melted through.
With a splash, Little Oars emerged from the water. He wiped the water from his face and thanked Luffy and the others repeatedly.
Luffy had no idea what that explosion had been, nor did he understand why such ridiculously thick ice had suddenly melted.
But seeing that Little Oars had finally gotten out, he burst into laughter and began talking with him.
Once they confirmed that everyone had the same goal, Little Oars gave a simple, honest smile and crouched down, letting everyone stand on his palm.
Buggy was immediately overjoyed.
He thought he could finally save some energy and enjoy a comfortable ride all the way to Marineford.
Who would have thought that Little Oars already had an even more "energy-saving" method in mind?
He aimed in the direction of Marineford, then swung his arm hard.
Amid a wave of overlapping screams, he threw everyone out like cannonballs.
Still flailing in midair, Luffy shouted, "We're so high!"
Buggy curled into a ball and wailed at the top of his lungs, "Little Oars, you bastard! My waist is gonna break!"
"Your waist is already broken, ahahaha!"
Luffy laughed and even waved his fist deliberately, answering Buggy, whose body had already split into pieces.
"Captain Buggy! Are you all right?!"
The prisoners who had been thrown along with him fell into chaos, frantically collecting the pieces of Buggy's separated body with incredible seriousness, not daring to miss a single part.
After throwing everyone away, Little Oars scratched his head and was just wondering how he could reach Marineford faster himself.
Then a shiny bald head suddenly appeared in front of him!
The bald man had a cigar in his mouth, showing a mouthful of white teeth as he grinned.
"Big guy, want a ride?"