Eyes cold, his newly ascended twenty-second Future Sight had long processed the Fleet Admiral's counter-attack.
Zoop!
Light smoothly released his left hand from the hilt, dropping his center of gravity mid-air.
BAM!
He caught the incoming golden knee with an open Haki's palm.
The impact cracked the air, but Light's Mythical Zoan-tier durability absorbed the blow.
"Hyaaa!"
Using Sengoku's own momentum, Light flipped backward, ripping his saber free, and immediately launched a rapid-fire barrage of flying slashes.
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
Massive, crescent-shaped blades of compressed, black Haki tore through the sky.
"Be gone!"
Sengoku threw his arms wide, his Buddha form emitting a blinding pulse of golden light.
"BUDDHA'S STANCE!"
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The golden energy collided with the black slashes, creating a series of deafening explosions that painted the heavens in flashes of gold and crimson.
RUN!
Sengoku pushed through the smoke of his own explosions, charging the False Deity.
"IF I DON'T GO TO HELL, WHO WILL!"
BOOOM!!!
"HAND OF BUDDHA!!!"
He threw a colossal, open-palmed thrust.
"MEET YOUR GOD!"
Light screamed and met it with a thrust of his saber.
"GOD'S SABER!"
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
Both figures did not wait for the explosion to settle or to even complete.
"TA TA TA TA TA!!! DIE!!!"
"ORRRYAAAAAAAA!!"
They immediately rushed through the blast radius and attacked the other!
They traded blows with terrifying ferocity.
HACK!
BAM!
SLASH!!
BOOOOM!!!!
One burdened by his insanity, the other burdened by his sanity-
Wishing for a peaceful world-
The God and The Buddha fought in the heavens.
....
Sengoku was a mountain of divine power, using his sheer mass and Devil Fruit endurance to tank the glancing cuts, while Light was a phantom of hyper-lethal precision and kill-strikes.
"Grnnn..."
Sengoku watched the boy's eyes as they fought.
The Fleet Admiral's tactical mind was constantly analyzing, constantly trying to read his opponent's intent.
He noted the frantic, almost rabid intensity in Light's attacks. Every strike was aimed at a vital organ. Every maneuver was designed to keep Sengoku entirely occupied.
The boy wasn't trying to slip past him. He wasn't looking down at the escaping Straw Hats or the dying Emperor.
Light Yagami was looking only at him.
'He's fixated.' Sengoku deduced, a grim realization settling into his mind.
'He truly believes he is going to 'judge' me.'
'He came to this war to execute the head of the Navy. He wants my head as his ultimate trophy.'
The boy's arrogance was his driving force.
It made perfect sense to the Fleet Admiral.
A megalomaniac who had assassinated a Celestial Dragon would naturally seek to crown his anarchy by killing the Commander-in-Chief.
BAM!
"AH!"
"Damn you!"
Sengoku thought, blocking another devastating overhead cleave that carved a shallow groove into his golden forearm.
It looks like he won't leave or interfere with Sakazuki or Kuzan.
He is completely, utterly obsessed with killing me!
This...
This was very good!
As long as he can contain this chaos-stirrer who derailed so many of his plans!
This fight!
It was worth it!
This miscalculation—born of Sengoku's own logical reasoning and Light's flawless acting—was exactly what the False Deity had engineered.
"You cannot save this rotting world, Sengoku!" Light yelled to keep Sengoku hooked, his voice carrying over the clash of their Haki.
He unleashed a flurry of thrusts, his obsidian blade moving so fast it looked like a solid wall of black steel.
"Your justice is built on the bones of the innocent! I am the cleansing fire!"
As long as Sengoku was kept replying his trash talk, he won't have the time to analyse and think!
"Your fire is nothing but mindless destruction!" Sengoku bellowed back, absorbing three shallow cuts to his chest to land a glancing, golden backhand against Light's shoulder.
'These old fools!'
'So easy!'
Light internally smiled while he was knocked back a dozen yards, spitting a drop of blood, but he immediately recovered, his Life Force shrugging off the damage.
"SHUT UP!!"
He re-engaged with even more ferocity, his Conqueror's lightning whipping wildly.
"HA... HA..."
Sengoku breathed heavily, using Geppo to continuously shift his position, keeping himself directly between Light and the rest of the battlefield.
Sengoku decided, his golden eyes narrowing.
'I'll let him exhaust his newfound strength against my armor. I am Navy's Golden Buddha. I am the ultimate shield!'
Sengoku knew he was taking heavy damage. His internal organs ached, and his Haki reserves were depleting. But he didn't need to win. He just needed to stall.
He stole another microsecond glance at the ice below.
'Just a little more now!'
Whitebeard was swaying. The Emperor's massive chest was a ruined landscape of burns and frostbite. Aokiji was darting around him, a relentless storm of ice spears and freezing mist, refusing to give the old man a single moment to catch his breath.
And there, rising from the shattered abyss, was the bubbling, terrifying form of Admiral Akainu. The Red Dog had breached the surface, his magma body glowing with an apocalyptic intensity.
'Sakazuki is ready' Sengoku realized, his heart hammering with anticipation.
'The final blow is imminent. Whitebeard will fall!'
Once Whitebeard was dead, the morale of the pirates would shatter completely. The remnants would be hunted down. Akainu and Aokiji would be free to turn their combined, devastating power toward the sky. If Sengoku could just hold this False Deity here for another minute, the three highest powers of the Navy would surround him.
Even a supposed god could not survive the combined wrath of the Fleet Admiral and two Logia Admirals.
"You are out of time, Yagami!" Sengoku roared, projecting his absolute confidence. He raised both of his massive golden hands above his head, interlacing his fingers.
He drew upon the very core of his Devil Fruit, compressing every remaining ounce of his golden light into a single, devastating focal point. The sky around him darkened as the light was sucked into his palms.
Sengoku was preparing his ultimate, most defensive counter-attack. He intended to create a localized shockwave so massive it would act as an inescapable cage, pinning Light in the air and completely draining his momentum.
"I WILL BURY YOUR ANARCHY IN THE CLOUDS!"
Light floated fifty meters away. The False Deity had stopped his frantic assault.
He hung in the air, his obsidian blade lowered slightly. The dark, vicious smile on his face widened, entirely devoid of the frantic desperation he had been projecting just moments before.
Sengoku's eyes narrowed.
'Smiling?'
Through his twenty-second Future Sight, Light watched the exact sequence of the world playing out.
He saw the ice.
The magma.
The execution of Whitebeard.
The timer in his head was perfectly synchronized.
'Nineteen... eighteen... seventeen...'
Light raised his pitch-black saber, pointing the tip directly at the glowing, golden sun Sengoku was forming. The red and black lightning of Light's Conqueror's Haki surged, not in a chaotic storm, but condensing into a single, terrifyingly sharp point on the edge of his blade.
"You think you're holding me here, Sengoku?" Light asked, his voice entirely calm, sending a sudden, inexplicable chill down the Fleet Admiral's golden spine.
"I am the Commander-in-Chief!" Sengoku bellowed, refusing to be intimidated.
"I am your end!"
Ten... nine... eight...
Light's smile turned into a predatory grin. He gripped his saber with both hands, his muscles coiling like a supernatural spring.
"You're not my end, Sengoku," Light whispered, the words carrying across the sky.
Sengoku didn't understand the words, but his combat instincts screamed at him to release his attack. The Fleet Admiral violently thrust his interlaced hands forward, unleashing the mother of all shockwaves—a golden tsunami of kinetic force meant to obliterate everything in its path.
Light Yagami's eyes flashed with abyssal darkness.
He surged directly into the blinding light.
.
.
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