"ACE!"
"LUFFY!"
Ace and Luffy shouted at each other across the distance, and Sengoku turned his head toward Garp.
"Why is it your grandson again, Garp?!"
Garp froze for a moment too.
Snot even started running from his nose, and he quickly plugged it with his pinky finger before digging at it.
He looked peaceful right now, but the situation was anything but.
The aftermath of the clash between Cain, Yamato, and Garp had knocked down more than half of the Marines whom Kizaru had finally managed to wake up.
At the same time, high above the battlefield, Luffy's group, who had just arrived, were also struck by the residual shockwave from that collision of Conqueror's Haki.
Quite a few pirates lost control of their bodies and fainted in midair.
Fortunately, Luffy, Ivankov, and the others were not affected too badly.
The real problem was Little Oars Jr., who was plummeting rapidly behind them.
If he truly smashed down from that height, it would not just be the pirates who suffered.
A huge number of Marines below would be dragged into it too.
At the critical moment, Admiral Kizaru acted again.
Originally, in this war, all he needed to do was keep a distant standoff with Katakuri until everything ended.
But now, he had somehow become the busiest man on the entire battlefield, even splitting himself into countless light clones and flashing all over the place to rescue people.
After all, between the people falling from the sky, the enormous Little Oars Jr., and the huge iceberg above them, even Kizaru's light-speed movement was not enough to handle both the Marines on the ground and the pirates in the air at the same time.
On the other side, Akainu, who always believed in eliminating threats at the root, had already raised a fist surging with magma. He was clearly about to strike with killing intent.
In that instant, one of Kizaru's clones suddenly flashed into place and kicked Akainu's fist aside.
"Stop making more work for me," Kizaru said lazily, though there was a trace of irritation in his voice.
"If your magma splashes down, it'll kill and injure another huge group. You think I'm not busy enough already?"
Akainu clicked his tongue in disdain, clearly not intending to let it end there.
"Great Eruption!"
"Hey, Sakazuki!"
Seeing Akainu make his move anyway, Kizaru's clone hurriedly looked up, only to realize that Akainu had not scattered the magma, nor had he aimed it at anyone.
Instead, he had struck the enormous iceberg above Luffy's group with perfect accuracy, instantly vaporizing it into a sky full of scalding steam.
Seeing this, Garp quickly pulled his snot-covered finger from his nose and wiped it on Cain.
Then he immediately prepared to rush up.
No matter what, he had to stop Little Oars Jr.'s massive body from crashing down.
But at that moment, something strange happened.
Luffy, Crocodile, Little Oars, and the rest of the escaped prisoners were all mysteriously frozen in midair.
Sengoku looked up solemnly.
He was just about to grab the amplified Den Den Mushi beside him and reorganize the battlefield, only to discover that the Den Den Mushi had already been knocked unconscious by the earlier shock and could not be used for the time being.
But the moment he looked up again, a figure both familiar and unfamiliar entered his sight.
"Jiehahahaha! Sengoku! Garp! Long time no see!"
A bald man with a shiny head and a cigar clenched between his teeth slowly descended from the sky.
He laughed loudly and raised a hand toward them in greeting.
Sengoku's pupils shrank.
He recognized the man instantly, and his whole body tensed as he went on full alert.
Garp, on the other hand, stared blankly for quite a while.
His finger remained paused in his nostril as he looked up at the man, his brows knitting together.
The guy looked a little familiar, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not remember where he had seen him before.
Did he really know this bald bastard?
"GARP, STOP SPACING OUT! THAT MAN IS—SHIKI!"
Sengoku's roar carried disbelief.
"WHAT?!"
Garp shouted, staring hard at the bald man.
Then he clutched his stomach and burst into completely unrestrained laughter.
"Shiki? Bwahahaha! What happened to your head? Losing the ship's wheel is one thing, but how did you lose every last strand of hair too? You're just a shiny bald head now! Don't call yourself the Golden Lion anymore. Just change your name to Golden Braised Egg! Bwahahaha!"
"GARP, YOU BASTARD!"
Golden Lion Shiki's temples bulged with veins, and his face turned green with anger.
His furious roar echoed across the battlefield.
Ever since he had been imprisoned once again in Impel Down, Shiki had been thinking about how he would escape this time.
This version of him was completely different from the one in the original course of events.
In the original story, at least he had grandly laid out his massive plan.
It was only after his defeat that the pride he once carried across the seas was completely worn away.
But this time, everything was different.
His plan had not even had the chance to show the slightest hint of itself before it was smashed apart by a brat who looked like Kaido.
That humiliation and resentment had nearly torn his chest open!
The pride carved into his bones would never allow him to accept defeat in such a vague, pathetic way.
So he had to escape.
He had to regain his freedom and carry out the plan that had died before it could even be born.
(After all, Oda does not like incorporating movie plots into the main storyline. The fact that God Valley allowed Shiki to appear again was already rare. So later on, he will probably have very few appearances. Whether he escaped during Luffy's prison break in the original story, and where he went afterward, has always remained a mystery. In this version, Cain disrupted his plans early, so his pride was never worn away. That is why he is so unwilling to accept it and so determined to escape.)
While in Impel Down, he constantly gathered information about the outside world.
After all, prisoners in Impel Down always managed to obtain bits and pieces of outside news through various channels.
It was during that time that he heard a certain name.
Trafalgar Law, a pirate of the Worst Generation.
And so, Shiki's long-dormant heart began to stir once again.
When Luffy broke into Impel Down and caused a massive uproar, Shiki immediately seized that once-in-a-lifetime chance.
He tricked Luffy, who only wanted to save Ace, into helping him, and used the opportunity to slip out through Impel Down's layers of confinement.
Without stopping for a moment, he rushed straight toward the final island of the first half of the Grand Line.
The Sabaody Archipelago.
He went there to find the man who could help him deal with the problem on his head.
He found Law and, in exchange for one favor from himself, had Law remove the ship's wheel embedded in his skull.
As an added consequence, his signature golden hair did not survive either.
In truth, even before the ship's wheel was removed, he had already been half-bald.
Afterward, he casually found two swords and attached them to his legs.
Having regained his freedom, he immediately headed toward Marineford.
How could he possibly miss a major event involving Whitebeard?
No matter what, the two of them had once been crewmates on the same ship.
Though, admittedly, back in those days, Shiki had not exactly missed many chances to screw Whitebeard over.
On the way, Golden Lion happened to run into Little Oars just after he had thrown Luffy's group away.
So he brought him along too.
But Shiki knew very well that his Float-Float Fruit could only make non-living things float. It could not carry living beings directly.
So he simply swung his swords and cut off a huge iceberg, then used his Devil Fruit ability to lift it.
With Little Oars riding on top, he followed Luffy's group at tremendous speed and arrived at Marineford.
Then he casually dropped Little Oars and the iceberg down as a greeting gift for Whitebeard, Sengoku, and Garp.
As for Shiki himself, he used his Devil Fruit ability to float high in the sky and coldly observe the state of the battlefield.
Before arriving, he had already clearly sensed the earth-shaking collision between Cain and Garp.
But at this moment, his face was full of confidence, as though victory were already in his grasp.
After all, the ship's wheel embedded in his head had finally been removed!
His strength had already recovered by more than half.
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