The Summit War of Marineford.
For a time after the opening, this great battle had presented a spectacle of both sides' full forces clashing head-on without restraint. It was the Marine Headquarters' "operation" that set things decisively in motion.
Squard, the "Maelstrom Spider," a pirate under the Whitebeard Pirates' umbrella, was manipulated by the honeyed lies fed to him by Admiral Akainu and ended up stabbing Whitebeard.
Simultaneously, Marine Headquarters shut down every single Den Den Mushi that had been broadcasting footage to Sabaody Archipelago, including the ones seized by the prisoners, cutting off all visibility into what was happening on the battlefield.
Immediately after, Whitebeard's actions revealed that what Squard had been fed was a Marine lie designed to provoke infighting. In other words, part of their operation all along.
Squard, crumbling under despair and guilt.
Whitebeard and his allied pirates, burning with rage.
"Those who would come with me! Be prepared to lay down your lives and follow!!"
"Brace yourselves! The strongest man in the world is about to go wild!!"
And at last, the moment had come for the legendary pirate, the man whom Fleet Admiral Sengoku himself acknowledged as "the strongest in the world," to descend upon the battlefield.
From there, events moved further still. All the Marines deployed in the bay pulled back to the plaza, and just after the pirates were left alone on the ice, massive steel walls surged upward from underground, or perhaps from the seabed, encircling the entire bay in one great loop and trapping the stranded pirates within.
Every wall was fitted with gun emplacements, every cannon aimed squarely at the pirates.
"What the hell!? We're surrounded!"
"So that 'Encircling Wall' they kept talking about... it was this steel defensive wall!?"
"You don't even wanna fight us, Marines!?"
The steel Encircling Wall sealed off the front. Combined with its gun emplacements, the warships deployed within the bay, and the Legion of Pacifistas, the new-model Weapons sent circling around from behind, the pirates would be bombarded from all directions with no escape.
On top of that, Admiral Akainu's attack would melt the ice and strip them of their footing, plunging the pirates into the sea.
Shaken by the belief that Whitebeard had betrayed them, their coordination shattered, the pirates would be wiped out before they could regroup. That was the Marines' original operation.
But the pirates' agitation had subsided almost immediately, and the warships that were supposed to handle the flanking assault had been destroyed under Whitebeard's command, their fighting strength lost.
Even so, Fleet Admiral Sengoku judged that as long as the encirclement was complete, they could still squeeze in from front and back and gradually grind the enemy down. He was about to give the go-ahead when...
"Hey, what's going on!? Get them fully operational!"
The Encircling Wall, which was supposed to completely surround the bay, had gaps like missing teeth. Starting with one section dead ahead and scattered in various other places, walls had failed to activate or hadn't fully risen. Suspicion drove him to bark orders over the communications line.
"The thing is, sir... the Encircling Wall couldn't lift Oars's massive body, and it seems his blood has gotten into the system and caused a power drop! As for the malfunctions in other sections, they're currently under investigation! The on-site personnel have reported they'll relay findings as soon as they have them!"
"Tch... fine. It's incomplete, but as long as it still forms an 'encirclement,' it'll have some effect. A bit of a letdown, but... Begin, Akainu! Melt the ice and strip them of their footing!"
A torrential rain of volcanic bombs unleashed by Akainu poured down across the battlefield.
Melting the ice Aokiji had laid, stripping the pirates of their footing, sending many plunging into the sea... where they were picked off by the Encircling Wall's cannons.
Some pirates attempted to break through the gaps where the wall had failed to deploy, but naturally the Marines concentrated their forces at those points, and savage battles erupted.
Whitebeard punched the atmosphere and sent an earthquake Shockwave hurtling toward the wall in an attempt to destroy it, but...
"The wall... it won't break!?"
"If even Pops's Powers can't get through, this ain't just ordinary steel... n-no, wait!"
The pirates stared in shock at the Encircling Wall, which had deformed dramatically but still stood its ground, refusing to shatter. It hadn't broken, true, but after a brief delay, something changed.
Slowly, the Encircling Wall began to tilt. Maintaining its shape, but gradually leaning.
"I-It's gonna fall!!"
"Pull back, pull back!!"
Creaking, cracking, a deep rumbling groan...
Massive as it was, the wall moved slowly, catastrophic sounds tearing from its base as one section of the Encircling Wall toppled with a tremendous crash and tremor.
Crushing beneath it the many Marines who had been standing by on the other side.
"Yeaaaaaah!! That's Pops for you!"
"You see that, Marines!? That's the power of 'Whitebeard'! Your little tricks don't work on him!!"
The one standing aghast at the sight was Fleet Admiral Sengoku.
"Impossible... it was built with strength calculations to withstand even Whitebeard's attacks...!? Between the system malfunctions and this, what in the world is..."
"F-Fleet Admiral Sengoku, sir! We have a serious problem!"
"What happened? Report."
The report brought by the soldier who came running in a panic was yet another utterly unforeseen development, delivering a fresh shock to Sengoku.
"The Den Den Mushi broadcast to outside locations... it hasn't stopped! This entire situation is still being transmitted!"
"...!? What did you say!? We shut down every Visual Den Den Mushi, including the ones that were seized!"
"The reason is unknown, but... actually, to be precise, only audio is being transmitted. No video seems to be going out. However, it's not just battlefield conditions. Parts of our internal communications are leaking into the broadcast as well... It's as if the Den Den Mushi communications are experiencing a massive crossed signal!"
"That's... impossible...!?"
Meanwhile, at the plaza on Sabaody Archipelago.
The footage of Ace's execution had been streaming partway through before the relay was interrupted due to "equipment trouble," or so everyone had believed. Now the citizens gathered there were in an even greater uproar than before.
"Hey, that audio just now... so the Marines tricked a pirate into attacking Whitebeard!?"
"The story about Whitebeard selling out his own pirates was a Marine operation? A lie?"
"I-isn't that going way too far!? These are people who shared cups of brotherhood, and they just..."
"Don't be stupid. They cleverly used the pirates' own forces to turn them against each other. If anything, they should be commended."
"Besides, this is war. No matter what tricks either side pulls, there's no room for words like 'unfair.'"
"Either way, with just audio, we can't... hm!? Look, the video's coming back!"
"You're right! All three monitors just lit up... but doesn't the scenery look different from before?"
"Yeah, the picture's unstable too, and it keeps switching around. Could this... maybe be a crossed signal?"
That citizen was right on the mark, and the situation was something even the Marines hadn't anticipated.
What was supposed to be a complete blackout of both video and audio had, for a certain reason, swept up the Visual Den Den Mushi deployed across the battlefield that weren't meant for broadcasting at all, as well as ordinary communication Den Den Mushi, Marine and pirate alike, indiscriminately, causing a massive crossed signal.
The result was a chaotic, constantly shifting feed of the entire battlefield being broadcast for all to see.
The viewers might have been grateful, but the Marines on-site, who hadn't been told anything about either this or the earlier "trouble," could only stand there in confusion, having no idea what to do.
And the reason for all of this was...
"Hey, Shizuuu, that Den Den Mushi... it's acting kinda weird. You think it might be causing a crossed signal?"
"...It is. Dr. Indigo did say it was a prototype... Needs improvement, it seems. Can't use it for mass communication like this."
"But, you knoow, we can eavesdrop on communications from all sorts of places. That's pretty useful in its own way, don't you thiink? Helps us know what the enemy's planning. And the audio's way clearer than using a Black Den Den Mushi."
"...That's true. Okay, for communicating with the Lady and the others, we'll use the regular Secure Communication Den Den Mushi."
"Roger thaat. It's a hassle, but it's reliable, so what can you dooo."
The youngest two members of the Maid Squad, working behind the scenes rather than participating directly on the battlefield, handling various tasks: Shizu and Entoma.
The cause was a malfunction in the modified open-call Den Den Mushi they'd been holding for communications, a custom creation by Dr. Indigo.
Citizens must not be given reason to distrust the Marines.
Furthermore, the scenes to come would be far too graphic.
Out of such considerations, Fleet Admiral Sengoku had decided to cut the broadcast. But now that had become impossible, and what's more, one of those very "graphic" elements, the operation to deceive pirates into turning on each other, had already been exposed. He could not hide his agitation.
It wouldn't immediately affect the war itself, but the cleanup afterward was going to be a nightmare; that much he could already foresee.
What made it worst of all was that this was a "crossed signal." Not a matter of one single Den Den Mushi being the culprit. A network-wide problem.
Which meant there was no clear fix, no single point to address that would solve everything, or if there was, it certainly wouldn't be found quickly.
They could hardly shut down every communication Den Den Mushi. Doing so would sever coordination between Marines entirely, throwing the operation into even greater chaos than it already was.
On top of that, the pirates would keep using their Den Den Mushi regardless, meaning the battlefield would continue to be broadcast anyway, and the feed would be entirely one-sided, from the pirates' perspective alone.
'Between the Encircling Wall problems and this, nothing but the unexpected... but I can't just sit here pulling my hair out...'
Then, at that moment:
"Fleet Admiral Sengoku, sir! A report from the investigation team looking into the Encircling Wall anomalies at locations other than the front!"
"Finally... what happened to cause all that!? Can they be repaired quickly?"
"No, sir, that's the thing... every malfunctioning section of the Encircling Wall has suffered damage to its core structural components, and the nature of the damage is that entire parts have simply vanished... Repairs during the operation are absolutely impossible! In fact, there's even a risk of collapse under the wall's own weight! The engineers have warned of potential toppling if that happens and have recommended evacuating Marines from the surrounding areas..."
"Fool! We can't do that! We're in the middle of a war!"
Even as he bellowed that they couldn't afford to open gaps in the encirclement, Sengoku's mind was reeling. If the engineers' fears became reality, the damage would be catastrophic.
A repeat of exactly what Whitebeard had just done. Worse, they would have knowingly endangered their own Marines' lives despite being aware of the risk.
If that ever leaked, it could spread distrust and unrest not just externally but within the Marines' own ranks. Information as troublesome as a ticking bomb of the worst kind.
Sengoku wished he'd been better off not knowing, but since he himself had ordered the immediate investigation and report, he naturally couldn't say a word about it.
"A-and, sir... there's one more piece of concerning information..."
"...What is it now?"
"Scattered throughout the damaged sections... the reason for this is also unknown, but there are large quantities of 'paper.' Completely blank sheets, in amounts far too great for any worker to have simply left behind..."
"...Paper, you say...!? It can't be!"
The person who immediately leaped to Sengoku's mind was a certain female pirate who had been captured by Akainu not long ago and was supposed to be locked away in Impel Down.
Born of a "bloodline" every bit as dangerous as Fire Fist Ace's or Straw Hat Luffy's, and more than that, feared as extremely dangerous by not just the Marines but the Government itself, due to the sheer magnitude of her personal "influence," which had nothing to do with her lineage.
The plan had been to break her spirit through torture and use her as the Government's "poster child" after the war, but the mass breakout that occurred had allowed her to escape Impel Down, and she had appeared on this very battlefield.
And now that he thought about it, from the moment the war began until now, not a single report had reached his ears or his desk about that woman doing anything or causing trouble anywhere.
'The one who caused all this... was it that woman!?'
It was the very next instant.
From one corner of the battlefield, something burst out at tremendous speed, scattering the Marines stationed there.
It came to a stop midair, spread six great wings from its back, and hovered in place, slowly surveying the battlefield from above.
From the ground, the sight of that figure, combined with the papers fluttering around it, looked almost fantastical.
"What is that!? Wings on its back... an angel!?"
"Don't be ridiculous. Must be an Ability User... Zoan-type?"
"No, that's not it. Those Powers... that face, I think..."
Fleet Admiral Sengoku grimaced at the sight of the figure that had taken to the sky, teeth grinding audibly.
This was, of course, because he was certain she was the mastermind behind this entire situation. But perhaps some portion of his reaction was directed at what the now-visible figure was wearing.
That appearance called to mind "that man" of old, the Flying Pirate whom Fleet Admiral Sengoku himself had once chased on the front lines.
A Japanese-style outfit with black as its base, with a haori coat.
The haori's color was white rather than yellow or orange. The legs were fitted with shin guards reminiscent of a ninja outfit, presumably for ease of movement. And the haori was sleeveless, making it more of a surcoat than anything. Small differences, certainly, but even so, it was more than enough to evoke the memory of that man from the past.
Fleet Admiral Sengoku looked up from afar at that beautiful face, the kind that some might even find exotically alluring, with an expression of pure loathing.
"I knew it was you... 'Pirate Literary Master'...!"
***
[Sue's Perspective]
Ahh... the air tastes so good.
I mean, I went through all the trouble of breaking out of prison, and then what? Had to go crawl right back into another cramped underground space. How depressing is that?
Well, I did it because I thought it needed doing, and I'd been busying myself with a little sabotage down there. And it looks like it paid off.
Surveying the bay from the air, the Encircling Wall was malfunctioning in spots all over the place like missing teeth. Some hadn't risen at all, others had stopped partway up. Roughly... a quarter of the total, maybe?
For an improvised act of sabotage, I'd say that's pretty darn good.
"Hey, little girl."
"Hm? Yes, who... whoa!? Wh-Whitebeard-san!?"
I turned around when someone suddenly spoke to me, and there stood one very large old man holding one very large naginata.
That unmistakable crescent-moon-shaped white mustache on his face. Unmistakably "Whitebeard" himself, Edward Newgate.
Nearly scared the life out of me.
"Wh-what is it...?"
"I ain't gonna eat ya, so drop the guard. Just now I heard from my sons that there's paper scattered around the base of those 'walls.' Was that... your doing?"
"Yes, more or less."
"I see. So that means... you knew what Sengoku was gonna pull beforehand?"
"No, I didn't know the specifics exactly... but since they'd be fighting on Home turf, I figured they'd definitely have something up their sleeve. And looking at the terrain, I thought, 'Boy, this sure would be easy to set up an encirclement on, wouldn't it?' So I poked around underground along the inner rim of the bay, and sure enough."
So I'd used my paper body to slip inside the internal structures, then used my Awakening ability to turn key-looking parts into paper one after another, collecting them and creating component failures all over the place.
I couldn't grasp the entire structure or how the systems worked in such a short time, but there were things where I could more or less guess, 'This gear looks important,' so I just plucked those right out.
Of course, this was sabotage informed by my knowledge of the original plot, but here I played it off as:
"I couldn't pinpoint exactly what they'd do, so I scouted around keeping every possibility I could think of in mind. Among what I found, there were traces of several operations that matched my predictions, and this one seemed like the most critical thing to deal with. Though... even as sabotage goes, it's incomplete."
That's the story I was going with.
I mean, it wasn't all lies, you know? I really had been going through various predictions, and there were parts where the actual operations matched up perfectly.
"Gurararara... not bad at all, little girl. No need for modesty. You did more than enough...!"
As he spoke, Whitebeard punched the atmosphere with a tremendous sound, and the Shockwave that rippled out from it flew toward one of the Encircling Walls.
It couldn't destroy the wall itself, just dented it with another tremendous clang, but right after, the wall slowly began tipping backward.
Ooh... results confirmed. Good job, me!
"It's too flawed to work as a defensive wall, and they'll have to divert extra manpower to guard against people targeting the gaps. But they can't ignore it either, since leaving it alone means getting flanked. As a formation, it's been pushed all the way to 'total blunder.' Made things a lot easier for us... thanks."
"Ahaha... I'm honored. Well then, I'll be on my way!"
With that brief farewell, I beat my wings and accelerated hard, flying toward the front lines.
"It's heading this way!? That's... the Pirate Literary Master!?"
"One of the Impel Down escapees... don't let her through! Shoot her down! Giant Squad, watch the skies!"
An insane number of bazookas and whatnot came flying up from the ground, but I dodged them all. Times like these really make this technique handy!
Yep, the usual.
"Paper Razor Blizzard... Thousand Cherry Blossoms!!"
The scattered Paper Flakes sliced through the soldiers wielding weapons of all sizes, sweeping them up in one fell swoop.
Thousands of paper blades that no amount of sword-swinging could deal with. Honestly, so perfectly suited for clearing out small fry over a wide area.
Long-range attacks neutralized. So, time to head for the front lines, I thought, when I spotted a large figure I'd seen before charging straight at me.
"So ye made it out of Impel Down, 'Pirate Literary Master'... but don't ye be thinkin' ye can keep doin' as ye please!"
Brandishing the Shark Cutter, which appeared to have been fully repaired, Vice Admiral Bastille came leaping through the sky using Moonwalk.
With the fury of someone who'd been waiting for this very moment, he poured Haki into the blade and brought it crashing down at me with the full intent of splitting me in two. Couldn't see his expression behind the iron mask, of course.
But I drew the Seven Sacred Swords out from inside my body and...
"This time, you're mine..."
"Hello again."
Not waiting for him to finish, I murmured my words and swung my blade.
Still hovering in midair, I deflected his descending strike sideways with a sharp clang, knocking it off course.
Instantly I transformed my entire body into paper, spreading out in a motion that clung around Bastille's body, startling him and slowing his movements at the same time.
"I don't have time..."
A whisper right by his ear, from behind him.
Reacting on instinct, he yanked his arm back at tremendous speed and swept his blade in a wide arc as he spun around.
"...to play around!"
But I stayed with his rotation, keeping my position behind him, and in the split-second opening created when his forced follow-through threw him off balance:
"One Sword Style... 'Windmill Garb: Mete'!"
Spinning in a great arc like a windmill, I swept around to his front, mirroring the exact same whirling motion of Bastille's own desperate swing, and my Haki-infused blade carved deep into his body.
"Guh, aah...!?"
Even so, sheer willpower kept him conscious as he tried to re-grip his blade. Sorry, but I wasn't about to let that slide. I pressed the attack.
And hey, might as well try this out while I'm at it.
Gently pointing my palm toward the Vice Admiral's chest, I retrieved a certain item I'd been storing inside my body, materializing it in my hand.
And then... okay, ready, set...
"Reject!"
A level of impact that could easily kill even a well-trained warrior slammed into him.
This was the Reject Dial, one of the things I'd pilfered from what was loaded on Enel's ark back on Sky Island.
I'd aimed at his chest, but the Shockwave alone was enough to crack open the iron mask on his face. Vice Admiral Bastille went completely still and plummeted in freefall, crashing right into the middle of the battlefield.
Oh, and since the "impact" is ultimately still physical in nature, there was no recoil on me. My arm did turn to paper and get blown apart, but it reformed in about a second. Powers that don't require you to keep your original form are really clutch for stuff like this.
Tucking the Reject Dial back inside my body so I wouldn't drop it, I could see the Marines on the ground who'd witnessed those few seconds had gone satisfyingly pale.
"No way...!? Vice Admiral Bastille was taken out instantly...!?"
"Is the 'Pirate Literary Master'... really that strong!? Her Bounty's only 76 million!"
Glancing off into the distance, I could see that several people among the pirates and Marines at the front lines were looking this way too, and... ugh, Akainu was there. Staring right at me. Looking at me like he wanted me dead.
And behind him, Fleet Admiral Sengoku had been glaring in my direction with a grimace before picking up the Den Den Mushi at his side. Oh no, was this it? Was it finally happening?
"Do not be shaken! Her Bounty may not reflect it, but that woman is a threat on par with, if not greater than, Fire Fist and Straw Hat! Do not underestimate her!"
Fleet Admiral Sengoku's business announcement boomed across the field. (Not quite the right word, but still.)
Hearing the words "on par with or greater than" the son of the Pirate King and the son of Dragon the Revolutionary, I could feel the level of attention and wariness spike dramatically.
Which meant the next thing to get revealed was going to be, well...
Looking over, I could see Ace up on the execution platform and Luffy charging through the front lines, along with the people from Impel Down who'd come with them, all wearing confused expressions, when...
"Her bloodline traces back to a survivor of the era of the Pirate King, Gold Roger! An arch-rival who clashed with Roger time and again, just as Whitebeard did!"
"And the sole being to ever escape the Great Prison, Impel Down, twenty years ago: the Flying Pirate!"
"She is the biological daughter of Shiki the Golden Lion!!"
"""Whaaaaaaat!?"""
Ah well, the secret's out!
To be continued...