Facing Chiyan Magma's furious glare, Sakazuki mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.
This really was not his style.
Tricks. Layered traps. A sword that detonated in a man's chest. If Brook had not forced these methods on him, Sakazuki would have never chosen to fight like this.
And yet…
Looking at the blood soaked, half shattered Magma, Sakazuki's confidence doubled.
This was his chance to take the Magma Fruit for himself. To seize that natural power with his own hands.
Brook's "little help" had been far too effective.
That realization did not calm him, it only made his blood run hotter.
Sakazuki slid the seastone dagger and musket back onto his belt. His fists tightened. Armament Haki flooded over his knuckles, turning them pitch black, heavy with the promise of violence.
He would finish this as a soldier.
With his fists.
"I want your Magma Fruit."
His stance dipped.
"Navy Six Styles: Shave!"
Sakazuki vanished.
One heartbeat later, he was already in front of the wounded candidate for admiral, a black fist the size of a dinner bowl smashing forward with murderous intent.
"Get lost! Despicable traitor!!"
Chiyan Magma roared back. A torrent of magma erupted from his right arm, swelling into a massive lava fist that slammed toward Sakazuki like a falling meteor.
Even injured, even bleeding, he believed he could still crush the commander of a North Sea base in one blow.
He was the Magma Fruit user.
He was supposed to be invincible in the North Sea.
But then something flashed across the battlefield.
A dark shape, fast, low, and sharp, like a winged rat darting through smoke.
Pink, circular ripples burst outward.
The light waves struck Chiyan Magma's body at close range.
His movements slowed, instantly, violently, as if the world itself had grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him backward.
Sakaski did not even have time to react.
His punch was already in motion.
The slowed Magma took the blow cleanly.
His head snapped aside. Teeth and blood flew, drifting through the air in a sickening slow arc.
Another ambush.
Another clean opening.
Chiyan Magma had poured every ounce of his focus and killing intent into Sakazuki and ignored everything else around him.
And the Seraph, carrying green blood copied from the Slow Slow Fruit, had chosen the timing perfectly.
One successful hit was all it needed.
Sakazuki's expression turned complicated as he glanced toward that "little help."
With a boss like Brook, what right did he have to lose?
This was not support anymore, it was someone dragging the Magma Fruit right up to his lips.
It left him conflicted, even irritated.
And strangely… touched.
So this was what it felt like to have a true backer.
He had asked for a little assistance.
Brook had given him a whole damn battlefield built for victory.
"AAAGH!!"
Chiyan Magma's roar snapped Sakazuki back to reality.
The candidate for admiral looked worse than before, blood and magma mixed across his body, rage pushing him right up to the edge of madness.
Sakazuki inhaled once, steady and cold.
Time to end it.
Across the battlefield, Magma's officers felt their stomachs sink.
That feeling.
That disgusting, familiar feeling from past disasters, the moment when you realize the tide has turned and the loss is already written.
Some soldiers who had defected from the Marines to the New Navy felt it too, except this time they were the ones watching victory approach.
"Lord Magma, retreat first!"
A rear admiral forced his way forward and shouted in panic. "This is wrong, we have to pull back!"
"Kill him!!"
Magma either did not hear, or refused to hear.
His eyes were red, his voice cracked, leaking rage through blood.
He lunged again.
The fight resumed, but it was no longer a duel between equals.
One side was a wounded beast, burning itself out in madness.
The other was an iron blooded soldier, calm, rational, and relentless.
Magma's attacks were ferocious, explosive, more violent than ever.
But the longer he raged, the more his moves collapsed into chaos.
He left openings.
He exposed his center.
He swung wide and overcommitted, chasing murder instead of control.
Sakazuki punished every flaw.
Black fists met magma fists again and again, the impacts splashing lava across the ground. Craters multiplied. The battlefield turned into a broken field of molten pits and shattered stone.
As the minutes dragged on, Chiyan Magma's exhaustion finally began to bite deeper than his anger.
His wounds stole his strength. His breathing turned ragged.
The fury faded, and with it came a thin sliver of clarity.
By then, the Seraph had already been intercepted.
A vice admiral threw himself into its path, buying precious time, forcing the Seraph to withdraw and reposition.
Sakazuki did not care.
He refused to draw the seastone dagger. He refused to use the musket.
He wanted this end with his own hands.
He even drove off the Seastone Musketeers, forcing them away from the core fight.
That decision cost people.
Several Marine officers with Devil Fruit abilities were targeted by volleys of seastone bullets, forced to retreat early. Some would survive and be captured.
Others would not be so lucky.
One burst of seastone rounds could turn an officer into a sieve, killing them before anyone could even think about recovering their fruit.
"Lord Magma! We must retreat!"
The vice admiral closest to Magma shouted while struggling to contain the Seraph's pressure. His voice carried desperation now, not advice.
Today's operation had failed.
Magma had been defeated far too quickly. According to Marineford's predictions, he should have crushed Sakazuki and rolled through Northman in a straight line.
Instead, he had been ambushed again and again, then battered into the ground by the former "Marine monster" Sakazuki.
Sakazuki's lips curled into a cold sneer.
"As expected of an Admiral candidate. Your vitality is terrifying."
His eyes sharpened.
"But today, none of you are leaving the North Sea."
Brook had already placed the Magma Fruit within reach. If Sakazuki let this cooked duck fly away, he would have no face left in the New Navy.
And he also knew something else.
If he dragged this out too long, another of Brook's "little helpers" would appear.
The spy hidden in the Marine ranks had not acted yet.
If Sakazuki failed to take Magma now, that spy would be forced to reveal himself.
As if answering that thought, someone far away watched the battle without blinking.
Commodore Vergo.
He had been observing from the beginning, measuring everything, waiting for the moment where Sakazuki might truly need him.
If it came to it, Vergo would strike Magma with seastone from behind under the guise of helping.
And that would end his undercover life immediately.
But Brook's promise was clear.
If Vergo had to act, he would inherit the Magma Fruit and continue serving Brook.
Sakazuki would remain here, a mere base commander.
Brook's plan for the Magma Fruit could not fail.
No one noticed that Sakazuki and Magma had fought for so long without Sakazuki even looking short of breath.
The man once called a monster was the kind of fighter who, in the future, could battle for ten days and ten nights like a blood soaked bull that never ran out of strength.
Even without the Magma Fruit, his current power was already approaching the very best of the second generation of Hell.
Sakazuki stepped in.
Enough.
"Let's end it."
Armament Haki surged.
"Armament Secret Technique: Iron Blooded Warrior!"
A black armored presence wrapped around Sakazuki as he drove forward.
Magma threw another fist, molten and shaking, but it was weaker now. Slower. Desperate.
Sakazuki met it head on.
Black fist and magma fist collided with a thunderous crack.
Then Sakazuki iron fist pierced through the pressure and hammered into Magma's chest.
The impact sank deep.
Chiyan Magma's eyes widened.
His body folded.
And he collapsed at last, dropping hard into the broken ground as the heat around him sputtered and faltered.
From the side, Commodore Vergo watched Sakazuki's armored form and that final punch with a deep, silent shock.
That image burned into him.
Then he turned away.
He had a job now.
To "retreat back" with what remained of the Marine force.
Because the vice admiral and the rear admirals still on the field would soon become targets.
Not of battle.
Of purge.
--------------
With Admiral Candidate Magma's collapse, Commodore Vergo was the first to shout the order to retreat.
The vice admiral who tried to force his way in and rescue Magma was intercepted by the Seraph, while several rear admirals were pinned down by the new North Sea commander, their escape routes cut off cleanly.
Brook's order had been clear.
Anyone below the rank of Vice admiral could be released.
But anyone at vice admiral or above had to be captured.
Sakazuki strode through the smoke with barely contained excitement, grabbed Magma by the collar, and immediately moved to stabilize him. He could not allow this man to die.
Not yet.
He pulled out a pair of seastone handcuffs and personally locked them around the wrists of the Natural Type user, the cuffs clicking shut like a verdict.
In Sakazuki's eyes, the future was already visible.
Once he obtained that Magma Fruit, he would become a true Natural Type powerhouse, a man who would not be inferior to Borsalino or Kuzan.
No.
He would surpass those two lazy admirals.
He would become the strongesto new Navy's strongest admiral.
And this was the first step.
Marineford had never expected the North Sea operation to end in such a catastrophic defeat.
After Vice Admiral Aramaki, the Natural Type Forest Fruit user, yet another Natural Type candidate had fallen at the hands of Wano and the new Government.
How long had Chiyan Magma even been in office?
He had not even had time to build his name, yet like Aramaki, he was swallowed whole and turned into a prize for the enemy.
Two top tier Natural Type powers, delivered straight into Brook's hands.
For free.
The gap in high level combat power would only widen from here.
The defeated Marines' morale shattered. They fled in panic, abandoning even their own. No one spared a glance for the vice admiral deputy or the rear admirals still being battered and restrained behind them.
With the deaths and captures of those officers, Magma's North Sea campaign collapsed completely. His entire command structure was wiped out.
Only Commodore Vergo escaped with the remaining troops, retreating all the way back to Marineford.
…
West Sea Headquarters, Westmarn Island.
The New West Sea Navy, led by Bullet and Fujitora Issho, crushed the fleet of five hawkish vice admirals commanded by MacArthur.
MacArthur had come for revenge.
He wanted to execute Bullet, the orphan from an enemy nation who had taken their family name and killed his cousin, Douglas Grey.
Instead, he learned a brutal truth.
Bullet was only twenty four, yet terrifying enough to overwhelm him head on. Even as a battle tested vice admiral, MacArthur could not withstand him and was defeated in short order.
The so called No. 9 bullet of the Bullet Boys Corps had grown into a devil born enemy, one that made MacArthur's blood run cold.
If another hawkish vice admiral had not thrown himself into the fight to rescue him, MacArthur would have died in the West Sea that day.
Even with his life saved, the damage was irreversible. His injuries were severe enough to end him, even if he survived.
Bullet did not stop at victory.
He hunted the fleeing Marines like prey, driving their fleet out of the West Sea as if chasing stray dogs off his doorstep.
The battle cost the Marines dearly.
One vice admiral was killed.
Another was captured alive.
Only three vice admirals escaped with the remnants and fled back to the Grand Line.
Back at Marineford, Fleet Admiral Kog received the defeat reports from the North Sea and West Sea in rapid succession.
He sat down heavily and remained motionless for a long moment, as if the chair had become the only thing keeping him upright.
A Natural Type Magma Fruit user had been defeated in the North Sea without ever encountering the main force of the Hell Pirates.
Captured alive.
By Sakazuki, a traitor they had wanted dead.
Magma had sworn he would take Sakazuki's head.
So how did the Magma Fruit, praised as possessing unmatched offensive power, lose to a man who fought with nothing but his body and Haki?
Sengoku's face turned grim as he read the reports.
Even Garp, usually so carefree, restrained his expression and fell silent.
It is over.
That thought screamed inside Sengoku's skull.
The Navy's new generation had been snapped at the spine. Their backbone forces were almost erased, leaving only the old guard struggling to keep the structure from collapsing.
Sooner or later, the World Government would fall.
And the Universal Government would take its place.
Another operation, another sacrifice.
Another Natural Type power handed over like tribute.
And not just any ability, the Magma Fruit.
"Trash!! A bunch of trash!!"
Divine Knight Sagon roared, crumpling the intelligence sheet in his fist.
He had personally nurtured Magma, and now the man was gone just like that.
The Magma Fruit was a treasured power of the World Government. It was not some wild Natural Type discovered through mass conscription like Aramaki.
And worse, the hawkish generals led by MacArthur had already tied themselves to Sagon's faction, meant to oppose the dovish camp of Sengoku and Garp.
Yet MacArthur and his people had been routed in the West Sea, fast and humiliating.
Such men were not even fit to serve as lackeys for a former God's Knight.
Kong no longer knew how he was supposed to report this to the Five Elders.
After defeats this severe, even Kong found himself cursing Magma and MacArthur as useless wastes.
Still, duty was duty.
Kong and Sengoku prepared themselves to be torn apart by the Five Elders and activated the special Den Den Mushi with heavy hearts.
…
New World, Doragonzo Island.
The martial arts tournament entered the second day of elimination.
Brook and the others watched from the viewing platform as the second pillar of the Flower Kingdom's navy, Bin, clashed with Kurt Wagner.
But the fight was not thrilling.
Kurt Wagner relied entirely on the Teleport Fruit, flickering around the arena and teasing his opponent, refusing to exchange blows head on.
Brook watched for a while, then felt his interest fade.
Was this really someone worth recruiting?
A slippery loach like this, joining the Seven Impermanences?
At that moment, Antonio hurried up with the latest battle report.
He did not whisper.
He raised his voice and announced it for the entire VIP stand to hear.
"Brother Brook, the battles in the North Sea and West Sea are over! We won a great victory! Admiral Candidate Magma was captured alive by Vice Admiral Akainu Sakazuki! Bullet killed a vice admiral, and Fujitora Issho captured a vice admiral!"
The announcement ripped through the viewing platform like thunder.
Distinguished guests from every faction turned their heads at once.
The underground dark emperors.
The kings of the West Sea and North Sea.
The leaders of powerful nations.
Their reactions came instantly.
Congratulations, spoken with smiles.
Calculations, hidden behind polite eyes.
After this, the World Government might be forced to withdraw completely from the West Sea and North Sea. They might not even dare to send harassment fleets anymore.
If that happened, those seas would enter a period of rapid development, stabilizing, strengthening, and connecting more tightly to the New World than ever before.
Brook laughed, pleased.
"Yo ho ho! Sakazuki is a good man!"
He turned slightly toward Antonio, speaking clearly in front of everyone, making sure every elite on the platform heard the arrangement.
"Pass my order. Sakazuki, Bullet, and Fujitora Issho are promoted to admiral candidates of the New Navy!"
Brook's smile widened, calm and confident, like a king setting pieces on a board.
"After two Admiral is promoted to New Navy Fleet Admiral and Chief of Staff, the three of them will decide on a new admiral."
His gaze swept across the VIP seats.
Then he added, almost casually, as if naming tomorrow's weather.
"And have Vice Admirals Gion and Tokikake prepare themselves. They can compete for the next admiral candidate position later."
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Title:
Jujutsu Kaisen: Starting With Yoriichi's Template
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