Dracule Mihawk, the World's Strongest Swordsman, had elevated the contest beyond the realm of mere physical technique.
The ambient temperature around the Warlord had plummeted.
THRASH. CRACK!
The air itself began to vibrate, emitting a low, suffocating hum that made the ice beneath his boots instantly crack and spider-web outward for hundreds of yards.
KA-BOOOM!
A terrifying, crushing density of energy erupted from Mihawk's body. The Black Blade, Yoru, already forged of the darkest steel in the world, seemed to absorb the very light around it.
CRACKLE. THRASH!
And then came the lightning.
A jagged, violent surge of thick crimson and black electricity violently exploded from the massive blade.
The dark lightning whipped wildly through the air, tearing deep, smoking gashes into the ice without the sword even moving. It arched into the sky, crackling with the undeniable, apocalyptic signature of the Supreme King.
Conqueror's Haki on Yoru's tip.
The atmospheric pressure in the plaza became physically crushing. Weaker men on both sides of the chasm—Marine lieutenants and seasoned pirate raiders alike—instantly foamed at the mouth. Their eyes rolled back into their skulls as they collapsed into the freezing slush, entirely overwhelmed and stripped of their consciousness by the Mihawk's unleashed Will.
Mihawk opened his golden eyes. They glowed with an absolute, terrifying predatory light that had been dormant for over a decade. He looked across the chasm at the False Deity.
A mile away, on the eastern flank of the frozen bay, the war had devolved into an entirely different kind of nightmare.
Silvers Rayleigh, the Dark King, exhaled a ragged, heavy breath. A thin sheen of sweat coated his forehead, freezing almost instantly in the frigid air, only to be immediately vaporized by the blistering heat radiating from his opponent.
Admiral Kizaru was no longer relying on a single blade of light. After all, Silvers Rayleigh was not an easy opponent.
"Ama no Iwato" (Cave of Heaven).
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM!
The air around Rayleigh was entirely saturated with blinding, incandescent yellow light. Two identical, perfect clones of Admiral Kizaru hovered in the air, completely encircling the former right hand of the Pirate King. Each clone wielded an Ama no Murakumo sword, their faces utterly devoid of emotion, their movements synchronized with the terrifying perfection of a machine.
"You are slowing down, Rayleigh-san," the clones drawled simultaneously, their voices overlapping in an eerie, echoing chorus that vibrated through the ice.
"But you should have stayed on Sabaody to drink it away right~"
BOOM!
The clones descended. It was a literal rain of light-speed slashes.
Rayleigh's eyes narrowed behind his round glasses. His Observation Haki flared. He gripped his simple, straight sword with both hands, channeling a massive surge of Advanced Armament Haki—Internal Destruction—into the steel until the blade turned as black as the abyss.
KRA-BOOOM!
The stone beneath Rayleigh's feet exploaded and he became a blur of silver and black.
He slid with the fluid, devastatation of a dancing phantom. He deflected a thrust from a clone on his left, the impact sending a shockwave that shattered the ice below, and instantly used the recoil to spin, slicing the second clone cleanly in half.
Boom! The severed light-clone exploded into a blinding flash of harmless photons.
But for every clone Rayleigh destroyed, Kizaru simply materialized another.
Clang! Boom! Clang!
Rayleigh deflected three overhead strikes simultaneously, the sheer force driving his boots deep into the permafrost. The heat from the colliding light blades scorched the edges of his long cloak.
He was holding the line. He was protecting the backs of the Whitebeard vanguard attempting to push toward the scaffold. But the stamina required to maintain this level of high-speed, high-density Haki output was draining his reserves faster than he could replenish them.
"You rely entirely too much on your Devil Fruit, Borsalino!"
BOOM! Rayleigh grunted, forcing the three clones backward with a massive burst of Conqueror's Haki.
The spiritual pressure violently erased another clone in his immediate vicinity, giving the Dark King a fraction of a second to breathe.
"Good eyesight nee~" the real Kizaru materialized a hundred yards away, floating just above the ice, his fingers already crossed to form a mirror.
'Yata no Kagami' (Eight Span Mirror).
PEW- PEW- PEW!
A beam of light shot from Kizaru's hands, reflecting off the shattered ice formations, creating a zig-zagging path of light that bypassed Rayleigh's guard entirely.
VRRRNM!
Suddenly, Kizaru instantly traveled through the beam, materializing directly behind the Dark King, his leg raised and glowing with the mass of a dying star.
"Speed is weight" Kizaru whispered.
"Have you ever been kic-"
KRA-KOOOOOOOOOM!
Before Kizaru could deliver the light-speed kick, the entire eastern flank violently shook.
It wasn't an explosion. It was the screaming of the atmosphere being torn to shreds.
A colossal, compressed horizontal vacuum slash—Light Yagami's Ittoryu: Shinkuu—screamed past their battlefield. It was followed a microsecond later by the blinding green vertical arc of Dracule Mihawk's Yoru.
The two apex slashes didn't hit Rayleigh or Kizaru, but the sheer atmospheric displacement of their passing was catastrophic. The shockwave ripped through the eastern flank like a localized hurricane.
Boom!
Kizaru's light-kick was physically blown off trajectory by the wind pressure. The Admiral was forced to abort the attack, dematerializing into photons and reforming fifty yards away just to avoid being sucked into the vacuum wake.
Clang!
Rayleigh stabbed his sword directly into the ice, anchoring himself as the hurricane-force winds whipped his hair and cloak wildly.
When the screaming air finally settled, both legends turned their heads toward the center of the plaza.
Kizaru's yellow-tinted glasses slid slightly down his nose. The Admiral's eyes widened, a genuine, unmasked expression of profound shock breaking through his usual lethargy.
He stared at the massive cross-shaped crater. He stared at the red and black lightning violently tearing through the sky above Dracule Mihawk.
"Oooooh~" Kizaru breathed, his voice entirely lacking its trademark sarcasm.
"Now that... is something you don't see every day."
"Hawk-Eye is using his King's Haki. How unexpected ne~"
Rayleigh pulled his sword from the ice, a weary but fierce smile touching his lips as he looked at the distant black lightning.
"Ha..."
"It seems the bored King of the Swordsmen has finally found a challenger who woke him from his slumber," Rayleigh murmured, his chest heaving.
"The False Deity... to push Mihawk to bare his fangs like that. The sea is truly churning, Borsalino."
Kizaru didn't reply immediately. His tactical mind was racing. If Dracule Mihawk was going all out, the collateral damage to Marineford would be incalculable. The Warlord cared absolutely nothing for Marine lives; if a Vice Admiral stepped into the path of that black lightning, they would be vaporized.
"This is becoming entirely too complicated" Kizaru muttered, his body beginning to glow blindingly bright once again.
"I suppose I need to finish our dance quickly, Dark King."
"Yeah, can't let youngsters show me up. " Rayliegh grinned.
⬛ ⬛ ⬛
On the northern front, closest to the towering, half-destroyed Marine Headquarters, the battle was not a duel of swordsmen.
Edward Newgate, the Strongest Man in the World, stood bleeding but entirely unbowed. His massive chest was covered in deep, searing burns and frostbite scars, the physical toll of engaging two Marine Admirals simultaneously.
Admiral Akainu and Admiral Aokiji had formed an impenetrable, apocalyptic wall between the Whitebeard Pirates and the execution scaffold.
BUBBLE. BUBBLE.
"You are a relic, Whitebeard!" Admiral Akainu roared, his entire right half transforming into a bubbling, churning mass of dark red magma.
TSSSSS.
The sheer heat radiating from him was actively melting the frozen bay, turning the ice into a scalding pool of water.
"Your era ended the day Roger died! Lay down and turn to ash!"
"YAAAAA!"
"DAI...FUNKA!" (Great Eruption!)
Boom!
Akainu lunged forward, throwing a colossal fist of magma that rivaled the size of a Marine galleon directly at the Emperor's chest.
"Gurarararara!"
Whitebeard didn't flinch. He dropped his bisento, clenching his massive, scarred fist. A blinding white orb of vibrational energy gathered around his knuckles, humming with the frequency of an earthquake.
"My era," Whitebeard bellowed, his voice echoing with absolute, fatherly wrath, "IS RIGHT NOW!"
Whitebeard punched the magma meteor directly.
KRA-KOOM!
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A/N: This is indeed, the Summit War. And it hasn't stopped for anybody.