In this war, if you took your eyes off things for even a moment, the situation truly changed by the second.
That remained just as true after the shift from rescuing Ace to a full retreat.
Whitebeard and Akainu's battle began so we could escape, and the result was Whitebeard's victory.
He weathered Akainu's relentless assault, dealt with every attack, then slammed the power of his earthquake into the ground itself, shattering it and dropping Akainu into the fissure.
During that exchange, I thought there was supposed to be a scene where magma claws carved away half of Whitebeard's face, but here it only grazed his cheek slightly.
I mean, even that should normally be fatal, let alone just a burn, but he came away with nothing more than a minor burn. Whitebeard, as expected.
Had he just dodged it skillfully, or was it that... it was starting to take effect?
From there, Whitebeard raged alone, fully intent on sinking the Marine fortress and all of Marineford into the sea.
But before long, an unexpected interloper appeared on the battlefield.
"Blackbeard" Marshall D. Teach.
The very man who'd deserted Whitebeard's ship, defeated Ace, and handed him over to the Marines as a gift. The one directly responsible for causing this entire war appeared, leading his crew.
Around this point, Ace tried to turn back again, so Marco and I managed to stop him. It was hot. (Physically.)
Actually, plenty of others besides Ace were trying to go back too, so everyone was splitting up to hold them back. Blackbeard sure was hated... Well, obviously.
Blackbeard then went on to fight Whitebeard, and Whitebeard showed overwhelming strength, as you'd expect. But midway through, as if he'd finally exhausted the last of his power, he stopped attacking.
There, he took concentrated fire from the Blackbeard Pirates full on his body... and yet, even so, he never fell. He continued standing right where he was.
"The One Piece... is real!!"
With those words left behind... Whitebeard closed the curtain on his life.
Afterward, behind a dark curtain-like black cloth, something was done, and then... mere tens of seconds later, Blackbeard used the power of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit.
How, I had no idea, but he'd stolen that power from the dead Whitebeard. He now harbored two Devil powers within himself, the Dark-Dark Fruit and the Tremor-Tremor Fruit, and he displayed that to the battlefield, to the entire world.
Then, whether he got carried away or simply revealed his true nature, he started saying things like "I'll sink Marineford." That apparently touched a nerve, because Fleet Admiral Sengoku engaged him in battle.
And around this point, one person had finally reached the limit of his patience.
"Marco... Sue..."
"Hm? Ace?"
"?"
"Sorry... I'll get on my hands and knees to apologize later, whatever it takes...!"
In that instant, flames erupted from Ace's body, clearly at a level meant for combat, and blasted Marco and me away.
"Hot!?"
"...! Hey Ace, don't go! Get back here!"
Ignoring Marco's shouts to stop, Ace charged toward Blackbeard in a fury.
But the next moment, the ground exploded right in front of him.
Startled, Ace skidded to a halt, and there before his eyes, rising from underground along with a massive surge of magma, was Akainu, who should have fallen into the fissure just moments ago.
"How admirable of ye... Come back to die on yer own, have ye?"
"Out of my way, Akainu! I've got no business with you right now!"
"Ye may not... but I've got business with ye, ye blithering fool!!"
With a roar like a battle cry, Akainu launched a magma fist.
Ace, blood rushing to his head, tried to block it with flames, but just as before... though he managed to hold out slightly longer this time, the fist punched through.
That's when reinforcements arrived just in time. Like a replay of before, I caught the fist on my sword, and Marco kicked Akainu's arm from the side to knock it away.
Akainu grimaced with undisguised irritation, as if to say "What a nuisance," but then, as though noticing something, his gaze shifted to a spot diagonally behind Ace and the rest of us.
A bad feeling hit me and I glanced over too. ...!!
"...Luffy!?"
Luffy had apparently been running toward us again, but then... his body simply crumpled on the spot. The sight entered my field of vision, and Ace cried out in shock.
It was such a sudden collapse, as if all strength had just drained away in an instant. Like a puppet with its strings cut, or the moment a candle flame gutters out.
He was unconscious. Unable to even break his fall, he crumpled face-first to the ground and didn't move.
He'd finally hit his limit. Of course he had. Ever since Impel Down, he'd been tricking his body with Tension and fighting nonstop. The fact that he'd lasted this long was a miracle in itself.
And then Akainu aimed a magma fist right at the fallen Luffy...!!
"Ggghaaaaahhh!!"
Ace threw himself in the way, unleashing every last bit of flame he had to block the magma. Even so, he couldn't fully stop it, and his body was singed, but he protected Luffy completely.
Close! That was genuinely close!
I'd instinctively lashed out from the side with Lion: Valley Cutter at full Haki, scattering some of the magma and blunting its force, but if my timing had been even slightly off, things might have gone the way they did in the Original Work.
God, this brother and his spinal-reflex need to protect his little brother...!!
"You're not dying while shielding Krillin instead of Gohan, you discount Piccolo!"
"Hah!? Picc... what!? Who's that!? Gohan? You hungry or something?"
"Shut up and let it slide! I'm so desperate my brain isn't working properly anymore!"
Sorry. But I seriously have zero capacity to think and talk at the same time right now!
"That made no sense!? ...I am hungry though!"
"Yeah!? Me too! When this war's over I'm eating cheesecake until I die, dammit!"
Everything that popped into my head just came spilling straight out of my mouth. Zero composure left.
While I was thinking such things, from behind me:
"Ace-san! Luffy-kun!"
"Jinbe, I'm fine! More importantly, take care of Luffy!"
"Straw-chan! Straw-chan!! A-are you all right!?"
"Of course he's not all right! Straw Hat Boy's body was already past its limit ages ago! He tricked it with Tension to get this far, and beyond this point he really will die!!"
"We need to get him medical treatment as soon as possi-!?"
At that exact moment, I'd just been sent flying by Akainu and came tumbling and crashing down right into their midst, cutting off Inazuma mid-sentence.
God... He really is just too strong...!!
"This... damn...! Iva-san, hold on!"
"Huh!? What, Literary Girl!?"
"Sorry to bother you when you're in a rush... Give me Tension too, please!"
"! ...I'm not even gonna ask about yer resolve anymore... Go get 'em!!"
Thud. The sensation of multiple needles plunging into the area around my side.
There was an impact, and I could feel the foreign objects embedded in me, but strangely, there was no pain.
Then, after a few seconds... my fatigue blew away to an almost comical degree, and strength surged up through my entire body. My head cleared completely, and all the noise that exhaustion and pain had layered over my thoughts was wiped clean away.
This was... incredible. Genuinely a "miracle."
Granted, I'd been told there would definitely be terrible aftereffects waiting for me later, but there was no point worrying about that now. If I couldn't get away from this Monster right here and now, there wouldn't be a "later" to speak of.
"I said I won't let ye escape... so give up on living, ye blithering fools!!"
For the third time, a massive magma fist came hurtling in.
On top of that, clearly meant to engulf all of us at once, it came crashing down from above like a meteor, and I...
"Kokujo Tengen Myo-oh!!"
Wrapping the Sword of the Myo-oh I'd created in an instant with Jade Flames, I swept it in a horizontal slash to cleave the attack apart.
To conserve energy, I only created and held the form for a single moment. And since I'd only protected the sword itself, the Wisdom King's body quickly burned away from the scattered volcanic bombs. But in that time, Luffy had been evacuated behind us, and I'd served as a shield for everyone at my back, so that was good enough.
The magma fragments that got through were blocked by Flower Sword Vista and the other division commanders and allies.
Looking more closely, Blume had been shooting them down with gunfire, and Beauty had been swinging nearby rubble around to bat them away.
The smaller pieces were swept away all at once by a sandstorm that had suddenly materialized. Nice one, Sand Crocodile-san!!
'But... a sandstorm, huh... Come to think of it, right now...! That's it, maybe I can use this!?'
Something occurred to me in that moment, a sudden idea, but I shelved it for now and turned back to face Akainu.
He was still raining down magma fists with full killing intent, veins practically bulging with fury, but...
"...!"
I noticed it.
"...Hm...!?"
Marco seemed to have noticed too.
Ace... hadn't noticed. Still too worked up.
But there was no mistake.
Akainu's movements were deteriorating.
The convergence of his enlarged magma was sloppy.
His aim was off.
The heat... the temperature also felt slightly lower.
Granted, every single one of these was at a level where you might think 'Am I imagining things?' Barely more than margin of error. But when you watched for it deliberately, it was definitely happening.
"...!?"
And Akainu himself seemed to be starting to realize he wasn't fighting at full capacity.
It was hard to tell through his rage, but a faint trace of confusion had crept into his expression.
In other words...
'It's finally starting to take effect... the deadly poison Magellan specially brewed, that I hit him with earlier...!'
Several hours ago, when I fought Magellan in Impel Down.
I'd used Enigma to collect and stockpile massive quantities of the poison Magellan had sprayed everywhere.
The toxic fluid of the Hydra, the dissolving liquid that could melt stone, the Erosion poison of the Venom Demon... every single type, without exception.
All so I could use it in this Summit War, in the fight against Akainu.
Magellan was the same way, but against opponents who were clearly above my level, opponents too dangerous to face head-on, my odds of winning in a straightforward clash were... well, you can imagine.
I had to use everything available and play every card I could.
Someone once said "There's no such thing as dirty in a Pirate's fight," and since the Marines were fighting those very Pirates, I wasn't about to let Akainu complain either.
...Come to think of it, that person used poisoned needles too.
Earlier, when I first crossed blades with Akainu, I'd scattered Paper Flakes even though I knew they wouldn't work, and swarmed the wounds I'd cut with Haki. Mixed into all of those was that poison.
Of course, every bit of it was incinerated by the magma's heat the very next instant.
But targeting those tiny gaps, little by little, little by little, I'd been working the poison into his body through the wounds. And making him breathe in the vaporized toxin continuously.
While using the wings on my back to stir up wind and keep it from drifting toward our side.
Most of the poison had probably been sterilized or neutralized by the heat, and honestly, whether it would even work at all had been a complete gamble. But it seemed the bet had paid off.
You're the one who said "I won't let you escape." Well then... I'll just have to beat you down and tear my way through, won't I?
"What did ye do... girl...!?"
"Hmm... who knows...!"
All right... Now the real showdown begins!
That said, honestly, even with this, whether I could actually beat Akainu was... I had to admit it was a bit uncertain.
That's how overwhelmingly powerful the existence known as a Marine Admiral was, and the Powers of the Magma-Magma Fruit were ferociously effective on both offense and defense.
Frankly, for me, the compatibility of our Powers was terrible on top of everything else. Even combining it with Haki, I saw my attacks as still too weak for a decisive blow.
But if I didn't have what it took, I just had to rely on others.
I know I'd been telling him to just run and get out of here earlier, but if he wanted to fight that badly... then I might as well borrow a hand.
"...Ace."
"...?"
"Lend me your ear for a sec... and your hand too. I have a plan."
To be continued...