"Fuffuffuffu!! And you ask... what's so funny?!"
Doflamingo opened his arms, laughing in front of the Whitebeard Pirates, as if he were in a theater set up exclusively for him.
"It's this feeling...!"
"Wow... this delicious feeling of being right at the turning point of an era!! Fuffuffuffu!!"
Face to face with one of the largest pirate fleets in the world, Doflamingo showed no sign of apprehension. On the contrary, he seemed to genuinely enjoy the chaos that was unfolding.
"At this very moment..." he raised his hand, his fingers moving like invisible strings.
"...this place is truly neutral, Captain of the Thirteenth Division of the Whitebeard Pirates... Atmos, the Water Buffalo!!"
Atmos' body froze.
The captain felt his muscles move on their own, as if they no longer belonged to him. His eyes widened in panic.
"Oh, no...!" he shouted, forcing his voice against his own body.
"Get away from me!! Everyone, get away!!"
It was useless.
Under Doflamingo's precise and cruel control, Atmos turned against his own allies.
Blades tore through the air. Blood spattered. Pirates fell without understanding why.
"Aghh!!"
"Stop it, Doflamingo!!"
"Get away!! Get away from me!! All of you!!"
Each blow was an involuntary betrayal. Each second, torment.
"Captain Atmos!?"
"What's happening to him!?"
The Whitebeard Pirates retreated, confused, too horrified to react immediately.
Doflamingo, satisfied, let his voice echo, drawing the attention not only of the pirates, but also of the nearby marines.
"Are pirates evil?"
"Are the marines justice?"
He laughed, tilting his head slightly.
"Those labels have been used so many times...!!!"
"Children who have never known peace..."
"...and children who have never known war..."
"Their values are completely different!!!"
Doflamingo smiled broadly, almost ecstatically.
"Whoever is at the top..."
"Defines what is right and wrong as they see fit!!!"
"Right now... we are in neutral territory!!!"
"Will justice prevail?"
"Of course it will!"
He snapped his fingers.
"Whoever wins... will bring justice!!!"
Suddenly, his smile faltered.
Doflamingo looked up at the sky and frowned.
A huge block of ice was falling at high speed, cutting through the air like a white meteor.
"What the hell is that...?"
Marines and pirates looked up almost simultaneously.
"What...!?"
"It's ice!?"
"Run!!"
Soldiers scattered, trying to get out of the impact area.
Some heard screams coming from atop the block.
"There are people in there!!"
"Did someone get stuck on top of the tsunami when it froze!?"
Whitebeard looked up.
Ace, chained, widened his eyes.
Sengoku frowned.
Garp clenched his fists.
Everyone watched the block fall, waiting for the inevitable impact.
At the top of the huge chunk of ice, chaos reigned.
Bon Clay shouted.
Ivankov cursed.
Prisoners held on as best they could.
Jason took a deep breath.
Without wasting any time, he altered the block's gravity in relation to Earth.
"Everyone..."
"On three, we jump."
Several stared at him in shock.
He still had that idea.
But no one there had a better alternative.
The block fell directly into the opening created by Jozu in the ice of the bay, a relief, perhaps?
"1..."
"2..."
The wind howled.
"3."
"Jump."
Against instinct, against fear, everyone obeyed.
They jumped with everything they had.
Their eyes widened at the same moment.
The ice did not give way.
On the contrary, it served as support, as if their weight had been canceled out at the exact moment of the jump.
Bodies were thrown forward.
In the next second—
Baaam!
The huge block crashed into the hole, exploding water in all directions.
A liquid wall rose up.
And, almost simultaneously—
Giant screens appeared in the sky above Marineford.
Pirates.
Marines.
Admirals.
Emperors.
Civilians.
They all came to the same conclusion at the same moment.
He had arrived.
"Jason..."
Sengoku clenched his fists and gritted his teeth.
He had finally shown up.
The real war was about to begin.
When the wall of water receded, the battlefield fell silent for a brief moment—and then everyone saw who had fallen from the sky.
The sight made countless marines' knees buckle. Even Garp's eyes widened in disbelief.
At the forefront was Jason D. Winchester—the man who had been driving the world mad, a name that needed no introduction.
But it wasn't just him.
Beside and behind Jason were figures that made both Garp and Sengoku frown, feeling their stomachs sink.
For Garp, the shock came first when his eyes met Luffy's.
The boy was there, standing next to Jason, as if the two were longtime allies.
For Sengoku, the world turned upside down.
More than fifty people...
People who should have been forgotten in Impel Down.
Everything fell into place in an instant.
Jason had used the chaos he himself had created to invade Impel Down and free the prisoners.
'Patrick Redfield. Douglas Bullet. Catarina Devon. Vasco Shot... and dozens of other monsters who should have been rotting in the depths of hell.'
Sengoku's hatred for Jason rose a few more notches.
'Damn... Jason, you bastard.'
Meanwhile, Luffy could no longer see anything around him.
When his eyes found the execution platform, the rest of the world ceased to exist.
"Aaaaaaaaaaceeeeeeee!!"
The scream echoed across the silent bay of Marineford, tearing through the air like a blade.
Ace heard it.
His eyes widened as he recognized that voice, impossible in that place.
"Luffy..."
He tried to shout back.
To try to tell his brother to run away.
To say that this had nothing to do with him.
But the pain, the injuries, and the torture wouldn't let him.
And worse...
Ace knew exactly what would happen if Luffy came closer and touched him.
Jason looked at the platform.
His eyes—able to see the truth behind the world—captured the spikes stuck around Ace's body, positioned a few inches from his skin.
A cruel trap.
One wrong move... and the price would be paid in blood.
"Sommers did this on purpose," he thought.
"He can't move much, Luffy."
Jason's voice was calm but firm as his mind calculated the next steps.
"Hmmm..."
Ivankov looked around, confused, and noticed the absence of someone important.
"Where's crocodile boy?"
No one answered immediately.
The silence was broken by Patrick Redfield, who had already sensed Crocodile's movement but showed no interest whatsoever.
They were not allies.
They were only there for convenience.
"He went towards Whitebeard."
He spoke with complete indifference.
Luffy followed his gaze and saw a sandstorm advancing towards the old pirate.
Without thinking twice, he activated Gear Second.
His body disappeared in a red blur, cracking the ice beneath his feet.
"So..."
One of the Level Six prisoners spoke up, observing the field.
"Is there anything we need to do? Or can we act freely?"
Jason replied without looking back.
"This is neutral territory."
His voice carried absolute authority.
"Do as you please. When the war is over, you are free to leave."
He then turned his gaze toward Whitebeard, Luffy, and Crocodile.
For a moment, his silhouette flickered.
And then it disappeared.
The group of prisoners fell silent.
After a few seconds, one of them spoke up:
"...Let's wait a little while."
No one disagreed.
Everyone wanted to see what Jason would do next. And no one was in a hurry to break that tense pause.
From the whitebeard side, he saw everything from the large chunk of ice falling to the appearance of Jason and some impel down prisoners. He recognized some as Patrick Redfield and Douglas Bullet, and it made him frown at their presence here. If they did what they wanted, it would only delay their side from saving Ace.
Jason D. Winchester.
Whitebeard uttered that name in his mind and realized that he had come to change the world or turn it upside down. As a veteran of war and the era of rocks, Newgate knew the damage Jason was doing to the world.
When Jason did everything he did in that short space of time, this war ceased to be just a rescue mission and became something bigger.
"Ace was never a target, it was never about executing a prisoner."
Now they want to execute two symbols.
Execute the son of the pirate king and the idea of a world without chains.
'Just as Roger was, Jason is also a catalyst.'
He wants to break down the structures of the world, and that makes him more dangerous than any pirate who has ever sailed the seas.
Whitebeard feels that since their interests are colliding at the same point, they can cooperate. Mainly because he knows better than anyone that this is not all the power the world government has at its disposal for this war. There must be one or two tricks up its sleeve that Sengoku has not yet used.
While Whitebeard was in the middle of his monologue, he sensed a murderous intent coming from behind him, targeting his life.
"Die, Whitebeard."
Before the attack could materialize, a red blur appeared out of nowhere and stopped the assassin with a kick that generated an explosion.
Booom~
The assassin, who was Crocodile, looked at Luffy and saw that he was wet with seawater and frowned angrily.
"Why are you defending Whitebeard, Straw Hat? We are no longer allies, so get out of my way or I'll kill you."
Before Crocodile could move again, some pirates appeared around him and pointed swords and rifles at Crocodile.
"So this old man really is Whitebeard. Ace likes this old man, so I won't let you hurt him."
Whitebeard looked at Luffy and saw the hat hanging on his back, remembering who it belonged to.
"What a lively place this is."
A voice rang out before anything else, and when everyone turned in that direction, they saw Jason approaching Moby Dick.
"Jason."
Luffy spoke with a smile on his face, to which Jason nodded and looked at Edward Newgate, remembering something that happened thousands of years ago, the beginning of his journey and his request to a mysterious entity.
"Edward Newgate, Whitebeard, and also the strongest man in the world." Jason said calmly, staring Whitebeard in the eyes. "You're really old."
Jason said, not mocking or despising Whitebeard, just stating a fact.
"Heh."
Whitebeard gave a scornful smile, not caring about Jason's comment, since it was true.
"H-how dare you talk to your father like that, Jason?"
It wasn't the same with some pirates, who looked angrily at Jason and took a few steps to confront him, but stopped shortly after.
Jason ignored them and began to search the body, making Marco, Joshu, Vista, and most of Whitebeard's sons nervous about what he would do next. Whitebeard just looked at Jason calmly, feeling no malice or negative feelings coming from him.
Jason then took a bottle containing a crimson red pill out of his pocket and threw it toward Whitebeard, who caught it with one hand and raised a questioning eyebrow at Jason.
"This war may be your last, so use this now or when you are about to die, you decide."
Jason said indifferently, not caring whether the white-bearded man would take the pill or not.
Although Whitebeard's sons frowned at Jason, saying that this war could be their father's last, Whitebeard knew better than anyone that this was true, since the world government's trump cards had not yet arrived.
Newgate then looked at the pill for a few seconds and saw that it was a normal pill with nothing special about it, and thought it was simply a catalyst that would drain his vitality in exchange for a surge of strength that he could use to save as many of his sons as his worn-out body could handle.
As for the possibility of it being poison? That didn't even cross Newgate's mind. Only cowards or weak people would use such methods, and Jason is neither.
"He's not saving me, he's letting me decide how to die."
Thought Whitebeard as he looked at Jason, who turned his back on him and climbed onto the bow of the Moby Dick.
Jason looked directly at Garp, who was also staring at him with a serious expression, wondering what he had given the whitebeard.
"Garp," Jason didn't shout, but his voice amplified by haki echoed throughout Marineford and made both pirates and marines tremble.
"You took something I let you take."
Garp frowned in confusion at what Jason said. Did he take something from Jason? The only thing he did in their interaction was... Was he talking about Lady Sharlia?
She was now in Mariejois at that moment, probably with an uncertain future about what will happen to her, since she is no longer "pure."
Is Jason going to invade Mariejois just to rescue Lady Sharlia?
When Garp thought this, he saw Jason doing something with his hands, and a soft glow took over the bow of the Moby Dick.
When the glow disappeared, a confused Sharlia appeared sitting on the bow of the Moby Dick, once again wearing the standard clothing of a celestial dragon and a bubble helmet on her head.
When she slowly raised her head, she saw Jason's indifferent blue eyes staring at her, as if mocking her futile attempt to escape him.
Sharlia froze when she saw Jason again and tried to run away in desperation, but Jason's shadow was faster and grabbed her limbs, pulling her into the darkness.
"N-no... Why—"
Sharlia clung to the bow, but the darkness swallowed her and her scream died in her throat.
"..."
The silence in Marineford was now deathly, no one believing what Jason had just done.
Garp clenched his fists, realizing that he had not been able to prevent anything, only delay the inevitable. He had already been suspicious of how easily he had managed to rescue Sharlia from Jason. He had not rescued her; Jason had allowed her to be taken.
"Damn."
Sengoku was also shocked by something he considered a matter of the past and already completely resolved.
He never thought Jason would be able to pull a Lady Sharlia who was in the sacred territory of Mariejois to Marineford. What kind of abilities does he possess?
After recovering what belonged to him, Jason decided to restart the war again, as it had been at a standstill for several minutes.
Stretching out his arm, Jason's golden ring gave off a subtle glow and transformed into an elegant 2-meter-tall golden sword.
Jason then looked at Sengoku and smiled amusedly: "A gift, Sengoku."
Jason then gripped his sword with both hands, injecting conqueror's haki into its blade, and launched a black beam of compressed air toward the execution platform, destroying everything in its path and rapidly approaching Sengoku.
Sengoku was shocked when that burst of compressed energy and haki rushed toward him like an uncontrolled dragon and quickly entered his full Buddha form.
"Damn."
Bam~
The impact threw Sengoku backward and dragged him several meters, destroying buildings and houses throughout Marineford.
"I have to redirect this... Aaaaaaaaaah."
The veins in Sengoku's golden arms bulged, and he and his arms grew in size as he strained his legs to redirect the attack into the sky.
After much struggle and using his own Haoshoku, Sengoku managed to redirect the attack to the sky, but his hands paid a heavy price for trying to hold Jason's attack without first coating them with the Armament and Conqueror, leaving them throbbing and red.
A single attack from Jason demanded so much from the Navy fleet admiral that it caused the Marines to doubt their ability to defend themselves in this war and the pirates to scream in ecstasy at the sight of it and how Jason made a perfect circle in the middle of Marineford.