Arriving drastically late, Monkey D. Luffy, the Straw Hat boy who was entirely focused on rescuing his soon-to-be-executed brother, "Fire Fist" Ace, finally made his appearance at Marineford.
He had only recently broken out of prison and literally plunged from the heavens. But to his absolute bewilderment, there was nothing here except a vast, restless expanse of seawater.
The grand stage chosen for the execution, the very arena where the Marines and the Pirates were supposed to wage a war to the death, appeared to have vanished into thin air.
Luffy clung to a floating log drifting on the ocean surface, tumbling into a deep existential crisis. No matter how immense the opposition, he would never back down, but that rule only applied if he actually had a target to strike.
Had the heavyweights from both sides clashed so fiercely that they blew Marineford off the map?
Impossible!
Splintered remnants of pirate ships drifted across the surface, alongside countless logs bobbing up and down with the rolling waves. These were the only surviving remains of the forty-three allied pirate vessels that Whitebeard had brought to the fray. They had been thoroughly pulverized and torn apart by the apocalyptic tsunami, leaving nothing but broken wreckage behind.
Meanwhile, the other companions who had broken out of prison alongside him came into contact with the seawater one by one, instantly letting out startled shrieks. The water rapidly mutated their bodies, causing them to sprout distinctly non-human features.
"Luffy! Are you alright?" Multiple pairs of eyes turned toward him. Luffy extended his hands, examining his own body.
He had changed too.
Right then, a colossal wave crashed downward, slamming the newly arrived group straight into the ocean depths. Luffy's slightly inflated body, looking much like a puffed-up pufferfish, held its breath as it sank into the deep.
He would find Ace very soon, and he would see his grandfather, Garp. But it would not be with the appearance he once had.
That wave had been casually thrown down by Zoran. As a benevolent elder, he was merely fulfilling Luffy's desperate wish to be reunited with Ace. What a perfectly harmonious conclusion, nobody had to die. They had simply been remolded into a different species. It was a minor detail; surely, everyone would be ecstatic.
The corners of Zoran's mouth curled into a faint smile. He casually gestured to part the waves, drifting toward a coordinate not far from the original site of Marineford.
In front of him, the churning tides obediently parted to carve a path, resembling the mythical parting of the Red Sea as towering walls of water rose on either side of his flank. This path led directly toward a pirate ship that was creeping late into the area.
Zoran glided effortlessly along the newly opened corridor, coming to a halt directly before the vessel.
A flag fluttered from the mast, its canvas bearing the grim design of three skull heads linked by a cross of bones.
The Blackbeard Pirates.
At the bow, Marshall D. Teach stared blankly at the bizarre entity that had suddenly manifested before him. Zoran drifted out from the parted waters, enveloped in an indescribable, ethereal aura. One look was enough to know he was not a being to be trifled with.
Teach had come to reap the spoils.
The Battle of Marineford was supposed to be underway. To rescue Ace, Whitebeard would inevitably lead his entire crew to assault the stronghold. In Teach's calculations, Old Man Whitebeard stood absolutely no chance of survival. The Marine forces were overwhelmingly powerful; even if the entire Whitebeard Pirates mobilized, they could never halt the execution. Furthermore, the three Marine Admirals and the Marine Hero Garp, the legendary figure who had once cornered the Pirate King, Roger, were all stationed at Marineford.
Therefore, Teach had come exclusively for the Tremor-Tremor Fruit.
Simultaneously, it would be ideal if Whitebeard died in the chaos, allowing Teach to smoothly usurp his former captain's vast territories and emerge as the ultimate victor who snatched the prize from the shadows. He had already gathered a crew of terrifying underlings, mostly vile criminals whose very names had been intentionally scrubbed from history. With his current strength, his preparations were flawless.
Yet, his grand designs could not keep pace with the chaotic reality.
Bai Tza's sudden intervention had completely shattered the board. Of course, all credit belonged to the All-Devouring Narwhal, which had chosen a remarkably spectacular landing coordinate.
"Oi! You floating freak in the sky! Out of the way, or we're running you down!"
Shiryu of the Rain, the former Head Jailer of Impel Down and a newly minted member of the Blackbeard Pirates, barked at Zoran. As he shouted, several figures stepped forward beside him, every single one of them exuding a thoroughly vicious, bloodthirsty aura.
"You are welcome... to try," Zoran replied serenely. He tucked his primary arms comfortably into his voluminous sleeves, leaving only his secondary arms resting casually at his sides.
Blackbeard Teach finally sensed that something was fundamentally amiss. He raised a hand, and the ship fell into an immediate, tense silence.
He noticed several anomalies surrounding the floating entity. Near the ruins of Marineford, the gales were incredibly fierce. Yet, before the ocean winds could even approach this individual, they howled and actively diverted around his form. Furthermore, the entity's naked gaze was locked squarely onto him, as if evaluating a piece of merchandise.
Being stared down by a non-human entity floating effortlessly in midair was never a pleasant experience. Within Zoran's gaze, Teach felt entirely stripped of his humanity; he was being looked at as nothing more than an object to be appraised.
What a terrifying monster, Teach thought to himself.
The creature was strictly gunning for him.
While Blackbeard Teach was a meticulously cautious mastermind, that did not mean his bloodthirsty crew possessed the patience to endure Zoran's calm arrogance and blatant contempt.
Avalo Pizarro, the 'Corrupt King,' let out a low snarl, thrusting a finger toward Zoran, opening his mouth to roar.
In the very next instant, Zoran mirrored the gesture across the open air, extending a secondary hand to point back at him. It was a precise replication of the silent, midair finger-pointing standoff between the Darkness Devil and Kobeni in the depths of Hell.
However, the outcome was entirely different.
An invisible Repulsion Slash sheared through the ocean surface, effortlessly cleaving both the ship and flesh as it surged toward the distant horizon.
Before Avalo Pizarro could utter a single syllable, he collapsed abruptly.
The massive pirate ship was silently halved with surgical precision. Aside from the rushing sound of the tides, only the agonizing creak of the fracturing hull echoed in their ears.
Zoran himself, along with the incredibly lethal slash he had unleashed, operated in absolute silence. It was as calm and tranquil as a peaceful summer afternoon, obliterating everything in its path with a terrifying, serene grace.
Standing on the tilting deck, Blackbeard Teach froze, stiffly turning his head to look behind him.
A perfectly smooth, colossal fissure that bridged the heavens and the sea had torn straight through the Corrupt King, extending into the infinite distance. Everything along its trajectory had been cleanly bifurcated; even the ocean itself had been split in two.
"Damn it!" Teach roared in fury.
Billowing black smoke erupted from his arms, rapidly enveloping his entire frame in darkness. As Zoran's gaze remained pinned on him, Teach instinctively unleashed his absolute trump card.
The power of the Dark-Dark Fruit.
It allowed him to manifest a conceptual gravitational pull akin to a localized black hole, dragging everything toward himself while simultaneously possessing the terrifying ability to completely nullify the unique powers of other Fruit users.
He thrust his hand violently toward Zoran, screaming, "Dark Vortex!"
A faint, barely perceptible tug of attraction rippled out from across the gap. Zoran's lips curled upward, and he let out a low, amused chuckle. He remained hovering weightlessly in midair, entirely unmoved. The gravitational attraction of the Dark-Dark Fruit did not sway his form by even a millimeter.
Blackbeard froze in sheer disbelief.
Zoran silently extended a hand toward him, speaking with an elegant smile:
"You too wield gravity. How fitting."
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