Everything was fine up until I beat Akainu, but... after that, the pirates got way more fired up than I expected. What was supposed to be a fighting retreat nearly turned into an all-out offensive, the whole mood shifting to "You're gonna pay for this, Marines!"
On top of that, Blackbeard kept egging people on, which sent Ace right back over the edge. This combustion-type boy's resistance to provocation is way too low.
If this actually turned into a full-scale battle, like Marco and Vista had been saying, things could spiral past the point of no return.
But the entire battlefield had heated up so fast that words alone couldn't possibly stop it anymore. And if we didn't force it to stop, things were going to get truly dire.
Left with no choice, I steeled myself, thinking I might have to resort to that final, worst possible measure to forcibly end the war. That was the moment Coby let out his roar.
Oh right, I'd completely forgotten about this development. My brain just wasn't working well enough to think that far ahead anymore.
Unlike the Original Work, Ace was alive and Akainu was out of commission, so circumstances differed in various ways, but the gist was roughly the same: "Let's stop fighting already!" "Lives are being moindered!" he pleaded through tears (not a typo).
In the Original Work, Akainu had been about to execute him on the spot, but I wondered what would happen in this world. As I watched, a large Marine walked right up to Coby with heavy, deliberate steps.
Crack!
"Aghk?!"
"Don't spout that soft nonsense! After letting the pirates get this far out of hand, you want us to stop fighting? Are you trying to humiliate the Marines?!"
Barking those words, the one-eyed Marine, Vice Admiral Doberman, berated Coby and knocked him to the ground.
Apparently classified among the hawks, the hardliners within the Marines much like Akainu, Coby's desperate cry must have sounded like nothing more than spineless whimpering to him. Doberman looked ready to carry out a summary execution right then and there, but Kizaru, stepping forward at the same time, gently put a stop to that.
Not that he was accepting what Coby had said, and he didn't help the boy up either. He simply walked right past, and as he passed Coby sprawled on the ground, he tossed him a few words without breaking stride.
"You're the kid Vice Admiral Garp looks after, aren't ya? Mm-hmm, you really are a kind, good kid, just like I heard. But this isn't the time for talk like that, soo... if you can't fight, just stay back, okaay?"
And then Kizaru, still heading our way, got into position to fire a beam at us. Following his lead, Vice Admiral Doberman and the Marines under him readied their weapons too, prepared to launch an all-out attack at any moment.
We braced ourselves, thinking the clash was truly unavoidable now.
But it was immediately after that.
Slash!!
A tremendous sound rang out, and a single fissure split across the plaza. It cut right through, precisely positioned to divide us from Kizaru.
And then... at last, he appeared.
"I've come... to put an end to this war!"
***
The arrival of one of the Four Emperors, Red-Haired Shanks, was enough to make even the fighting pirates and Marines freeze in place, watching to see what he would do. Naturally, they ended up listening to what he had to say.
As the killing intent and everything else saturating the area subsided (somewhat), I felt, quietly, without letting it show on my face, a wave of relief.
Thank goodness. Regardless of how we got here, they stopped. We were saved. I didn't have to use that worst-case measure.
...Though there was one thing that surprised me. This was another point where things differed from the Original Work.
In the Original Work, Vice-Captain Benn Beckman had said "Don't move, Kizaru" while pressing a gun to Kizaru's forehead, but instead...
"Don't move. Crocodile."
That was one surprise. And the other:
"Whoa there, same goes for you... 'Pirate Literary Master.'"
'...Wait, me too?'
It was Usopp's papa, Yasopp, and he had a gun pressed right between my eyes.
Why so suddenly... oh, right. He noticed 'that' and got wary. He moved to suppress me so there'd be zero chance of me going through with it. That made sense.
He must have realized, from the bewildered look on my face, that I had no hostile intent. Yasopp-san broke into a grin.
"Just sit tight and wait like a good girl, Missy. Hey, don't worry. Leave it to our Boss and... things won't go badly for ya."
And so, this Missy (age 34) decided to do exactly as he said.
Yeah, that's perfectly fine by me. I know I keep saying this, but... this "last resort" is something best left unused.
***
[Third-person perspective]
"Further fighting will only needlessly expand casualties on both sides. Both sides should call it here... and withdraw."
Shanks's words began with that single proposal.
"For the Marines... the death of Whitebeard in this war should have been significant enough. The execution of Portgas D. Ace may not have been achieved, but this can be called a resolution of sorts. If you pursue more than this, then even considering he is the son of the Pirate King... a tragedy disproportionate to that will occur."
In essence: "You've taken Whitebeard's head, so be satisfied with that and let Ace and the rest of the pirates go."
Naturally, the hardline officers led by Vice Admiral Doberman pushed back, and Kizaru and others who judged that ending things here would damage the Marines' reputation showed reluctance.
But the Marines' Supreme Commander, the one Shanks directed his gaze toward, Fleet Admiral Sengoku, upon hearing this... wore a face as though he'd bitten down on ten bitter bugs at once.
"This might be a somewhat unfair way to put it, but... Fleet Admiral Sengoku."
"!"
"You should understand the 'meaning' behind what I'm saying right now, shouldn't you...?"
"...Tch... yes, you're right..."
***
"...'Fire Whirl'? What the blazes is that?"
"Don't say it so loud, Garp."
A short distance from Fleet Admiral Sengoku, Vice Admiral Garp and his contemporary, Vice Admiral Tsuru, known as the "Great Advisor," were conversing in hushed tones.
Keeping her voice low so that those around them, particularly the hot-blooded pirates, wouldn't overhear, Tsuru explained.
"A 'Fire Whirl' is... well, it's exactly what it sounds like. A whirlwind accompanied by flames. And not the kind caused by a Devil Fruit power, mind you. A genuine natural phenomenon. A disaster."
Even in modern Japan, the mechanism behind its occurrence hasn't been fully explained, but it's a disaster observed during large-scale, widespread fires in urban areas and the like. Just as Tsuru described, a "whirlwind accompanied by flames" forms, and because it seeks out the large quantities of oxygen needed for combustion, moving toward wherever oxygen exists, it ultimately becomes a disaster that evenly incinerates the entire affected area. The fact that evacuees tend to gather in such locations only compounds the devastation.
Furthermore, when conditions are right, such as dry air that makes fires grow easily or circumstances prone to spontaneous combustion, the damage naturally becomes even greater.
Conditions exactly like the current state of Marineford. Repeated use of "Magma" and "Flame," plus "sandstorms," and now Ace's ultimate technique "Flame Emperor" had heated the air, creating conditions far drier than any seaside town should be. On top of that, the heat built up during the fighting was causing spontaneous fires to break out everywhere.
Even so, without fuel, a fire of that scale wouldn't easily occur, and the risk of a Fire Whirl would remain small. But on this battlefield, there was one Ability User who could instantly scatter massive quantities of fuel across a wide area.
Needless to say: Sue.
As a Paper-Paper Fruit Ability User with the power to manipulate paper, and with Awakening on top of that, she could transform the ground to produce enormous quantities of paper, which is to say combustible material, all at once. If all of that were scattered across Marineford, caught fire, and developed into a conflagration, the devastation would be beyond imagination.
"...Specifically?"
"Even by a conservative estimate, eighty percent of Marineford would be swallowed by a sea of fire. And I don't just mean this battlefield. That 'eighty percent' includes the residential areas, everything. And with conditions this hot and dry that spontaneous fires are already breaking out... extinguishing them won't be easy. You put one out and flames spring up somewhere else. You'd have to flood all of Marineford just to manage it."
"A feat like that... nobody could pull off unless they were Whitebeard. Or what about Kuzan's cold?"
"I think it's possible. If he froze all of Marineford, buildings, soldiers, everything. But in that case, instead of people burning to death, you'd just have more people freezing to death. There wouldn't even be time to evacuate."
"...So those scoundrels were aiming for this all along."
"No... their movements were too sloppy for that. Most likely, these conditions arose by coincidence. But it seems they did notice and were trying to exploit the situation."
Hearing this, Garp understood why Sengoku had that bitter expression and was struggling to respond.
The current situation was the worst in every sense.
As just described, one wrong move and a Fire Whirl could be triggered. Scatter combustible material across the entire town, and Marineford would become Rengoku.
Many Marines would perish in the flames, and Marineford itself would face certain destruction. Houses would burn to the ground, supplies would be lost, and the Marine Headquarters fortress, already half-destroyed by the look of it, would literally burn and crumble away to nothing.
Attempting to deal with it would require the full strength of every Marine on the field, and even that might not be enough. In the meantime, the pirates would escape anyway.
On the other hand, continuing to attack the pirates would bring the tragedy just described down upon them as an inevitability. At worst, Marine Headquarters itself could sustain damage beyond recovery. Beyond the loss of facilities and other assets, there would be the loss of personnel. And the soldiers gathered here weren't only from Headquarters; they included elite troops assembled from branch offices across the world. Losing large numbers of them could cripple the Marines' very ability to function as protectors of the seas.
To avoid both tragedies, there was no choice but to sheathe their blades here, just as Red Hair said.
But even that was not an easy decision. It meant ending the war as things stood and letting the pirates escape.
Whitebeard was dead. The pirate side had suffered enormous casualties too.
But Ace, the "son of the Pirate King," was alive. The "Daughter of the Golden Lion" as well.
Thanks to the rescue that had arrived moments ago by submarine, "Dragon's son" had most likely escaped too. Aokiji's attempt to freeze the sea and capture him, and Kizaru's attempt to shoot through the submerged submarine, had both been blocked by the division commanders and the Pirate Literary Master.
On top of that, the Marines had lost one of their greatest military assets, Admiral Akainu. Taken down, no less, by the enemy's two key figures, Ace and Sue: the "son of the Pirate King" and the "Daughter of the Golden Lion." This fact was by no means insignificant.
...Though there was one silver lining to accepting this proposal: if they rescued Akainu immediately, there was a chance he could be saved.
And Whitebeard hadn't even been killed by the Marines. His death had been stolen by Blackbeard and his crew, who crashed in from the sidelines.
On top of that, Blackbeard had somehow stolen Whitebeard's Tremor-Tremor Fruit power, demonstrating that the threat of earthquake power was far from over.
And to cap it all off, everything up to this point had been broadcast to the public through the crossed signal of the Den Den Mushi.
If they ended things here, it would mean accepting all of the Marines' blunders, which outweighed the "achievement" of Whitebeard's death, and forfeiting any chance to recover. That was surely another concern shared by Kizaru, Vice Admiral Doberman, and the others.
Sacrifice many times more soldiers, abandon the future, and destroy Marineford to preserve honor?
Or abandon honor to protect the soldiers, Marineford, and the future?
What Fleet Admiral Sengoku faced was the ultimate choice between two options.
...And there was one more thing.
Fleet Admiral Sengoku noticed something and looked upward. His expression turned to shock. Many of the Marines and pirates, wondering what it could be, looked up at the sky as well, and found an unbelievable sight spread before them.
Not just Sengoku, but Tsuru, Garp, Aokiji, Kizaru,
Ace, Marco, Hancock and the other Shichibukai, Blackbeard,
And Sue.
"Wh-what is that?!"
"...Hey, hey, this is..."
"...That's insane...!"
"I only know one man... who could pull off something like this...!"
There, hovering in midair above Marineford, were more than ten Marine ships, floating gently in the sky. Directly above Marineford. In empty air, with nothing supporting them.
As Garp murmured, there was only one man in this world who could do such a thing.
"This is... a warning."
"...So you came, Golden Lion...!"
'Ahh... it's Papa.'
"Those must be the ships we had patrolling the vicinity as a precaution. I'd heard we lost contact with them partway through, but..."
"That man... did he come to pick up and drop off his daughter?"
The man himself did not show his face.
But it was all too easy to imagine that with a single signal, a single act of will from that man, those ships would instantly lose the support of his Powers and come plummeting down. Along with the massive quantities of combustible materials surely stored within them, gunpowder, cannonballs, and the like, as well as all the Marines aboard.
"...Everyone here, I'll ask you to do me this favor. And leave Whitebeard's funeral to us. The battle has been broadcast to the world. I won't allow his death to be put on display any further!"
Fleet Admiral Sengoku was forced to make his decision.
"...Issue a notice to all troops. Order them to... cease all combat operations immediately."
"Fleet Admiral?! But that's..."
Vice Admiral Doberman asked back in astonishment. But Fleet Admiral Sengoku's words did not change.
"I will take full responsibility. Continuing any further is impossible. The battle... ends here...!"
He said it clearly, then directed his gaze toward Shanks. Receiving it, Shanks nodded quietly. "Sorry."
At the same time, looking upward, Shanks raised his voice:
"The war is over! No more destruction, no more sacrifice is needed!"
As if in answer, the floating warships began to descend. Not in freefall, but slowly, gently settling onto the surface of the sea. The ships landed without damage, and the Marines aboard appeared to be safe.
As if to say, "I've heard your answer." Slow. Deliberate. Putting on a show.
Watching it through to the end, Fleet Admiral Sengoku raised his voice.
"Get the wounded evacuated, now! The war... is over!!"
To be continued...