The state of the battle was back and forth for both the Marines and Whitebeard. The situation shifted at a dizzying pace.
A fight where the slightest carelessness, a single opening, could tip the scales dramatically continued, neither side able to let their guard down for even a moment.
In the midst of that razor-thin battle, Whitebeard did not miss the tiniest gap, and pressed his advantage hard.
He surfaced a second coated ship that had been hidden, recovering the sailors who had been thrown out onto the sea. Little Oars Jr. then hauled the entire ship up, allowing everyone to reach the plaza all at once.
The naginata strike Whitebeard unleashed upon landing, infused with the power of earthquakes, mowed down and sent dozens, perhaps hundreds of Marines flying. People swatted away like insects. The sight sent a shiver through everyone on the battlefield, pirate and Marine alike, forcing them to confront the undeniable truth that the man standing before them was the "Strongest in the World."
"You bastards! Rescue Ace... and annihilate the Navy!!"
In the midst of the ever-intensifying battle, Luffy, who had been the "eye of the storm" ever since Impel Down, finally hit the limit of what his battered body could take and collapsed. But after receiving Ivankov's Tension Hormones, which tricked his body once more, he was back on his feet. Ignoring the damage and exhaustion that had already reached dangerous levels, he ran toward Ace's rescue with whatever strength he had left.
"Straw Hat Boy! If you collapse one more time, you ain't ever comin' back to this world, you hear me!?"
"I'll be fine, I'm not going down again!"
"That's the spirit, Straw-chan! If we're doin' this, we're goin' all the way! We'll take on as many of the goons along the way as we can, so just focus on saving yer strength and reachin' Big Bro!"
Bon-chan, also known as Mr. 2, leaped forward with gusto as he spoke. His outfit was one that brought back memories even for Luffy: the same garb from when they first met in Arabasta.
It was the battle outfit that Marianne and the others had prepared in advance when they came to rescue Bon-chan, his (or perhaps her) finest fighting attire. The chignon-like or pompom-like hair ornament, white swan decorations on both shoulders, and "Okama Way" written across the back.
It wasn't the actual original clothes, of course, but a replica made to match. Even so, Bon-chan had been so moved that someone had prepared it just for him that on the warship ride over, he'd slipped his arms through the sleeves with tears of joy blurring his vision, and arrived at this battlefield. He had been fighting alongside Luffy ever since.
"Outta the waaay! Straw-chan comin' throoough! 'Bombardier Arabesque'!!"
"""Gyaaaaaah!!"""
Attaching the swan decorations to his feet and concentrating all his power into their Steel Beak, he unleashed a flurry of consecutive attacks. On top of having his own fatigue blown away by the Tension Hormones, what he carried on his back was his friend's future. That resolve made an Okama strong.
"Move it! 'DEATH WINK'!!"
Ivankov, running right alongside, also blew Marines away with that signature blink, protecting Luffy as they ran. Following close behind were dozens of perverts... or rather, Newkama, doing the same.
Luffy, running under their protection, thought aloud:
"...Just running straight there won't work... They'll stop me again right in front of the execution platform!"
He remembered how earlier he'd gotten close to the platform only to be blocked by the Vice Admirals who had been lying in wait on defense. Rather than charging blindly, he was racking his brain as he ran, trying to figure out how to break through their guard.
"Hah, hah... That execution platform's tall, and there's nothing around it, so it's too far to reach with Rocket... But if I get close and try to stretch my arms, they'll just get in the way... I need to run through without stopping, but... If I just had something, even a little, to use as a foothold... A foothold... a foothold..."
At that moment, four people came to mind.
The first was Buggy. With the Chop-Chop Fruit, he should be able to float his body off the ground. Back in Impel Down's Level 1, the Crimson Hell, that ability had let them cross through the hellscape.
The second was "3," Mr. 3 (real name Galdino). The wax he produced from his body was endlessly versatile, capable of creating anything. It had the weakness of being vulnerable to heat, but among the abilities Luffy knew of, it was one of the most useful. Making a foothold should be child's play.
The third was Sue. A Powers user who freely manipulated paper, creating not just footholds but all kinds of animals and soldiers. With that, whipping up a makeshift foothold should be possible, or she could even launch paper animals for him to hop across.
The fourth was Hancock. An ability that transformed the energy from blown kisses and the like into heart-shaped objects of various materials, which she could turn into swords, arrows, and bullets to fight with. Among those was a bouncy foothold like a trampoline. He'd caught a glimpse of her using it earlier to wage an aerial battle with Sue.
Any of these four could definitely solve the problem, he figured.
But Buggy and "3" were unfortunately nowhere to be spotted at the moment.
That left the remaining two: Sue and Hancock.
"I'll be asking for help again, but... sorry, I'll give you guys some of my meat later! ...Come to think of it, those two... they were fighting over there earlier, but they said they were friends, so why were they fighting? Were they fighting over meat 'cause they were hungry? Man, I'm hungry too..."
Still thinking completely off the mark as usual, Luffy glanced back toward where he'd last seen Sue and Hancock. Sure enough, there they were, standing face to face with solemn, or perhaps deadly serious, expressions.
"...There they are! Hancock! Sue!"
"Yes?"
"Huh, what?"
In that instant,
light burst forth.
***
Rewinding slightly, to when Luffy was still running and thinking.
Sue and Hancock had been putting on their show with a Sword Dance that, to any onlooker, was indistinguishable from a real fight, while mowing down large numbers of Marines as "collateral damage," otherwise known as indiscriminate attacks.
But now that Whitebeard had shifted the main battlefield from the bay to the plaza, the soldiers had generally pulled back, and the two could feel the number of Marines getting caught up in their performance gradually dwindling.
"This area's getting pretty deserted... Probably time to wrap it up."
"Indeed... Shall we move and fight while sweeping up more along the way?"
"Nah, that'd look way too deliberate. Besides, I have a feeling there'll be more trouble that needs individual attention from here on out. Up till now, Iva-san's group and Bon-chan's Baroque Works group have been doing a great job covering things, but... the level of what's coming next is going to be rough even for them."
"Sound reasoning. ...Then there's no helping it. Let us see... How about we end with a grand exchange of our biggest attacks as a finale?"
"Love it. Let's do that."
After exchanging those words, the two sprang apart as if repelled, and then both suddenly went still.
Hancock dismissed the sword of light in her hand and thrust both hands forward in front of her chest. Pink energy began converging in her outstretched palms, aimed at Sue, forming into the shape of a heart. Everyone watching could feel the tremendous energy being poured into it and compressed, completely at odds with its adorable appearance.
As if sensing this, Sue lowered the hand holding her sword and began gathering a massive amount of paper into her other hand. It took the shape of a lion's face, but the mane spun at ultra-high speed like a screw, creating enormous undulations of air, drawing in wind from all around.
The heart in Hancock's hands began radiating not just light but a searing, scorching heat. The lion's visage in Sue's hands was generating gale-force winds around it, like a full-scale typhoon.
As an aside, it would be superfluous to mention that upon seeing Hancock's stance, Sue thought to herself, 'Is that a Final Fl*sh?'
The Marines watching from a distance realized that an amount of energy beyond what words like "extraordinary" could describe was converging in both sets of hands. If those two collided and exploded, the destructive power, the devastation, would be beyond imagination. Given how many people had already been caught up in the pair's battle so far, that much was self-evident.
Feeling a genuine, no-joke threat to their lives and unable to feel safe even at a distance, the vast majority of Marines fled in terror.
"...Here we go."
"...Yeah!"
In that instant, Hancock pulled her arms back to her sides as if drawing a bow, and
Sue wound up the hand holding the lion into a full pitching motion, and
"'El Passion'"
"'Lion Hurricane'"
***
At that very same moment...
"Ugh... grrgh... Dammit...!!"
"...! Old age catches up with everyone, Whitebeard...!"
Whitebeard, unable to endure the agony of illness attacking from within his body, showed a fatal opening before Akainu, who stood opposing him.
"Pops... urgh!?"
"Victory and defeat hinge on a single moment of carelessness, don't they?"
"Grk!? M-my arm..."
"Ye looked away just now, didn't ye...!"
Marco and Jozu, shaken upon noticing Whitebeard's opening, each took devastating blows from Kizaru and Aokiji respectively, whom they had been facing. A Laser pierced Marco's body, and freezing cold encased one of Jozu's arms.
Aokiji pressed on, trying to encase Jozu's entire body in ice. Unable to move to escape, Jozu transformed his body into diamond and clad himself in Haki to resist, but even that was gradually being pushed back, the area of freezing spreading further.
Marco tried to regenerate immediately, but failed to notice the footsteps of death approaching from behind...
From just a single moment's opening, the crisis of a total collapse of the Whitebeard Pirates was creeping ever closer...
...However...
***
And then,
"'El Passion'"
"'Lion Hurricane'"
The Pirate Empress and the Pirate Literary Master. Two remarkable women who had made their names known in different ways during the Great Pirate Era.
Their finishing blows, which had made their presence felt so prominently even in this Summit War, now detonated.
"'Ultimate Big Bang'!!"
"'Scramble'!!"
"Hancock! Sue!"
"Yes?"
"Huh, what?"
At that moment, both of them reflexively turned their whole bodies toward the sound of Luffy's voice, and the heart and the lion were launched in that direction.
""Ah.""
"Hm?"
As Luffy blinked in confusion at something flying toward him, the heart and the lion's visage screamed past on either side of him with a tremendous whoosh, and sailed on behind him...
That is to say, they flew straight into the spot where a massive number of Marines had formed a wall to prevent anyone from reaching the execution platform.
KA-BOOOOM!!
They exploded.
The heart detonated. Shockwaves and explosive flames scattered everywhere. The plaza erupted in fire.
The lion's visage detonated. Blast winds and wind scythes scattered everywhere. A tornado erupted.
To make matters worse, the two merged, becoming a scorching tornado laden with shockwaves and wind scythes that spread outward, engulfing the Marines who had been standing there, likely without any idea what was happening, and transformed into a pillar of fire so enormous it seemed to reach the heavens. The resulting blast wave reached nearly the entire battlefield, knocking down or blowing away the many who hadn't been able to brace themselves.
In the face of this absurd turn of events, nearly everyone who witnessed the spectacle stood with their mouths hanging open in utter shock. Luffy's allies included. Ivankov, Bon-chan, all of them.
"Ah... ah, ah, ah..."
Luffy, gazing at the ground zero before him, now a field of casualties with a crater blown into it, let out a voice that was somewhere between impressed and exasperated, utterly devoid of tension.
""...""
The two perpetrators, Sue and Hancock, looked at their now-empty hands. Looked in the direction where what had been in those hands had flown. Looked at the devastation it had caused. Looked at their hands one more time. And finally, looked at each other.
And then,
""Sorry!!""
"""Don't screw with uuuus!!"""
As it happened, the blast wave had blown away enemies or sent certain individuals flying, incidentally saving some lives in the process. Or so the story goes.
Specifically, Jozu, who had been near ground zero: Aokiji had been hit by the blast and sent flying with a yelp of "Whoooa!?", sparing Jozu from being fully frozen and shattered (Jozu himself survived thanks to having turned his body to diamond).
And Marco: Vice Admiral Onigumo, who had been closing in from directly behind with Seastone handcuffs, was knocked off his feet by the blast wave. Marco noticed just in time and managed to fly clear by a hair's breadth.
To be continued...