On the opposite side of the battlefield, facing the white longsword suspended in the sky, Aokiji looked utterly desperate. No matter how he launched his power, the strange blade seemed to swallow everything he sent toward it.
He slammed his palms into the ground and a cold shiver ran through the air. Moisture congealed, threads of ice forming in an instant.
"Ice Age!" Aokiji shouted.
An immense formation of ice erupted before him, a natural shield rising like a frozen bulwark to stand between him and the sword in the heavens. His face remained grave, the dark sheen of Armament Haki coiling around his body to reinforce the shield.
"This should hold, at least for a moment," he muttered, clenching his jaw as the Armament Haki thickened across his chest.
The white blade above did not hesitate. It plunged down with awe-inspiring force, its aura freezing the air in its path as if death itself slid through the sky. The blade struck the iceberg Aokiji had raised, and the collision sent a shock through the battlefield.
The ice wall shattered with a thunderous crack. Shards exploded outward in every direction, each fragment carrying enough cold to freeze whatever it struck. Marines nearby were caught in the fallout and went rigid, their bodies sheathing in ice.
Aokiji's expression shifted into open alarm.
"That terrifying man, the shield formed by my Ice Age actually couldn't withstand Ashveil's strike," he said, astonishment making his voice thin. He tightened his Haki, bracing his whole body to endure whatever followed, because in that moment it seemed to be the only defense left.
A beam of yellow light cut toward Aokiji, and for a breath he wondered if Kizaru had come to his aid. The idea was absurd, his mind racing to reconcile the impossibility of what he saw: how could Kizaru dodge Ashveil's strike with such ease?
The yellow light slammed into the sword Ashveil had called down. The impact detonated across Marineford, an explosion so fierce that a column of dust and debris rose a hundred meters into the air. Fragments of the great sword scattered, each shard carrying a freezing trace of Conqueror's Haki, and wherever they struck the ground, the earth turned to a glassy rime. Marines were frozen where they stood, statues in a battlefield suddenly grown still.
"Be careful, Aokiji," Sengoku said, looming in his Great Buddha form, concern creasing his features. Kizaru hovered in the sky, his light attacks battering at the sword's echo, but it was clear his beams could not overwhelm what Ashveil had produced. Each of Kizaru's shots dissipated against that Haki, impotent.
Kizaru's face was suddenly streaked in sweat, his composure cracking as the scale of the threat became undeniable. Then a new figure cut through the charged air above the field. He was broad-chested and weathered, tawny skin stretched over a frame that still radiated power. White hair and a beard shaped like the character for "mountain" crowned his head, and a stitched scar rested beneath his left eye. He squinted at the blade, his hand sheathed in Armament Haki.
Before Kizaru could react, the old man drove his fist into the sword. The impact ripped through the air and, to everyone's shock, the white blade shattered beneath the force of his punch. Light bullets erupted in every direction, excavating deep craters across Marineford and sending another cloud of dust towering into the sky.
Kizaru stared, his tea-colored glasses flashing. "You are... Kong," he managed, recognition and relief mixing in his voice. "Commander-in-Chief Kong, you actually came in person."
The name carried weight. Kong's presence on the field shifted the tenor of the battle. When someone who had once been Fleet Admiral, and who now stood as the World Government commander-in-chief, entered the fray, it meant the stakes had just been raised to a different height.
"If I had not arrived," Kong said calm and heavy, "this whole place might have been overrun."
Behind him, specialists arrived in swift succession. Masked agents from Cipher Pol moved into position, and the Marines' Science Unit, strange and formidable, slid into formation. They were few, but each figure radiated lethality.
Across Marineford, the sight of Garp, Sengoku, and Kong together quickened the pulse of every Marine there. Cheers rose, voices trembling with hope and authority.
"Garp! The Marine hero has made his move!"
"Sengoku himself. That pirate is finished this time."
"Look, it's Kong! The former Fleet Admiral, the Commander-in-Chief—he's here!"
Even Whitebeard, standing on the field and gripping Murakumogiri, watched with narrowed eyes. He did not lower his guard, but his tone carried acknowledgment. "Heavy hitters have appeared," he said simply. Douglas Bullet, who had carved a massive pit into the earth with one blow, looked to the sky with a grin. He relished the promise of a real fight, and the news crews above scrambled to capture every angle.
Morgans and his World Economic Journal team were frantically documenting the entrance of Kong and the mysterious units behind him. The event promised headlines that would explode across the seas, and Morgans laughed even as cameras clicked.
Then something in the crowd shifted. The reporters fell silent, and the staff with Morgans, with the exception of his secretary Ally, slumped to the ground as if struck by an invisible hand. Morgans himself froze, then looked back and saw the woman he had trusted now bearing a face that was not the one he knew.
Ally's gentle manner had gone. Her eyes were sharp and cold, her smile gone thin. She moved with impossible speed, a pistol appearing in her grip and then acting like an extension of her finger. "Finger Pistol," she said, and in a flash her weapon pierced Morgans' torso. Blood blossomed, and the owner of the World Economic Journal crumpled, stunned and coughing.
"You don't understand," Morgans gasped. "When did the World Government infiltrate my paper, when did you let them—"
"You only brought this on yourself by showing up," Ally said, voice flat. She produced another pistol and leveled it at his head. "The World Government cannot have certain things known to the public. The mass breakout at Impel-Down, Ace's failed execution on display, this attack on Marineford, things must be kept under control. So you will not live to spread it."
Her gun did not waver. Around them, Marines and pirates alike watched with a mix of horror and numbness, the battlefield's roar momentarily brittle with the shock of the act.
Ashveil stood in the center of that storm, the shattered remnants of his blade still cooling in the air. He did not gloat. He only watched the field with the icy clarity of someone who had chosen the moment and paid the cost. Around him, King, Admiral and pirate alike readied themselves to push forward, and Marineford braced for the next move in a battle that had already become legend.
---