Marineford was a field of dead echoes.
The cold chilled the bones, but the heat of war burned the hearts. The torn clouds left the sky as a pale backdrop for the end of an era.
At the center of the plaza, where every breath seemed to claw at fate itself, Riser Phenex stood.
His black coat floated with cruel indifference.
The Sharingan spun with hypnotic precision in his left eye.
Garp knelt nearby, his chest heaving like a punctured barrel.
Blood trickled from his split lips.
His smile… bitter.
Between them, the ground trembled.
A new weight descended.
The air vibrated with the sound of silent thunder.
THOOM.
THOOM.
THOOM.
Sengoku, in his Buddha form, advanced.
Each step of the golden giant made the ice crack in nervous fissures.
Bursts of golden light illuminated ruins, corpses, and embers, as if justice itself, enraged, took human form.
His eyes blazed with uncontained fury.
His right hand clenched, carrying the weight of eras refusing to die.
"Riser Phenex."
His voice rang like a crushed bell.
"You've turned this place… into an altar for criminals!"
Riser slid his golden eyes over the golden titan.
His smile was as thin as a freshly forged blade.
"No, old man."
His voice cut the air like a scalpel.
"I merely tore the veil off the farce you call order."
THOOM.
THOOM.
Sengoku took another step.
The Buddha glowed, an aura of power warping the air around him.
"JUSTICE is what holds this world together!"
His right fist rose.
The impact tore the air.
BOOOOM!
A golden wave surged toward Riser, grinding the ground in its path.
Riser shifted his shoulder slightly.
Armament Haki cloaked his arms in a glossy black mantle.
His right fist met the impact head-on.
BOOM!
The clash shattered the ice around them, sending fragments skyward.
Riser's coat fluttered in hundreds of dancing threads.
He slid back, his feet scraping the frozen stone.
His smile widened.
'It's been a while since someone forced me to use this.'
His left eye spun, the Mangekyō pulsing with hunger.
Sengoku roared.
The golden mantle around him stretched like liquid flames.
His fist came down again.
WHAM!
The earth cracked under divine force.
But Riser was no longer there.
FWOOSH.
The space around him warped.
No need for full Kamui, just pure speed and Observation Haki's foresight.
He appeared beside the colossal hand.
His fist, wrapped in black Haki, struck the back of the golden hand.
CRAACK!
Tiny cracks of golden energy vibrated across the Buddha's surface.
Sengoku roared, swinging his arm in a devastating arc.
The wind cut like blades.
Riser leaned, sliding under the blow.
His boots glided on the frozen water.
His shadow merged with the cracked ice.
"Is this the best your justice can do?"
The taunt was poison, poured slowly.
"Let me guess…"
The Sharingan glowed a deeper shade.
"Garp didn't fight for real, did he?"
Sengoku faltered for a microsecond.
His heart tightened under tons of crushed pride.
He knew.
Knew Garp held back.
Knew the fist that should've crushed Riser hesitated… because at the heart of the war, there was still love.
But Sengoku would never admit it.
Never before the world.
"A criminal's lies won't break the Marines!"
The shout erupted in a golden sonic wave.
The distant ice wall trembled.
Pirates and marines shielded their faces.
The plaza's ground exploded into craters under the divine voice's pressure.
Riser tilted his head, dodging a stone shard flying like a bullet.
His smile never faded.
'Old fool.'
'Even the sky has accepted your defeat.'
Sengoku's golden body rose higher, his hands glowing with energy dense as solar lava.
"Prepare yourself!"
The sky darkened, as if fearing the explosion.
Riser cracked his knuckles.
Armament Haki danced across his skin like silent lightning.
"Finally."
His voice was low, almost intimate.
"Something worth my time."
THOOM.
THOOM.
The Buddha descended.
Both hands together in a blow that could crush a city.
Riser didn't retreat.
He advanced.
The space wavered.
He slid beneath the divine palms.
His left fist — cloaked in absolute Haki — rose.
SMASH!
It struck the Buddha's chin.
The golden giant faltered.
Its aura flickered.
The runes of light around Sengoku's body cracked like shattered glass.
The impact reverberated.
Vice-admirals staggered.
Pacifistas froze.
Even Marco and Whitebeard — amidst the chaos — turned their eyes to the thunder splitting the sky.
Sengoku stepped back.
His chest heaved.
The world… seemed smaller.
Riser landed, flexing his knees.
His boots slid in a lazy arc.
His smile now deeper.
Almost reverent.
'Thank you, old man.'
'It's been a while since I felt… alive.'
But the thrill wouldn't last.
Because Marineford was already broken.
And Riser… had bigger plans.
The Sharingan blinked.
The Kamui activated with a silent roar.
His body began to dissolve in black distortions.
First his legs.
Then his torso.
Then the golden eyes, still gleaming, mocking, beneath the shell of reality.
Sengoku shouted.
His golden hands reached out.
But grasped only emptiness.
Riser vanished into the fold of space.
The spot where he stood still trembled with invisible echoes.
Boa Hancock, in the midst of the shattered plaza, clutched her chest with both hands.
Her golden eyes reflected the fading distortion in the sky.
No tears fell, but her heart burned with acute absence.
'I wanted… to go with him.'
Her slender heel dug into the shattered marble.
The world could crumble around her.
Blood could paint the ground.
But she would honor the plan.
Because above the war, above pride, above fear — there was only him.
The breeze stirred her black hair like a final whisper.
Boa Hancock raised her face, her gaze lost in the trail where Riser had vanished.
"I… will wait."
The wind carried the promise away, but the oath was already etched in the Empress's heart.
---
High above, Sengoku watched.
His golden fist still trembled, suspended in empty air.
His clenched teeth ground together.
His chest heaved like a weary drum.
Hatred boiled like magma in his brittle bones.
But beneath it all…
A breath of relief.
Dark.
Cowardly.
But real.
'If he had stayed…'
The words tore like invisible blades in his mind.
'Marineford would've been reduced to dust.'
His golden gaze hardened, his jaw locked with rage and humiliation.
Sengoku would never say it aloud.
Would never admit, even in thought, that a single man — a single monster — made him grateful to see his shadow vanish.
The golden mantle swayed in the icy wind.
And even among the survivors…
Marineford's wound would never heal.
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