The submarine, a sleek obsidian predator, broke the surface with a hushed gasp of displaced water, sliding into the chilling shadow cast by the gargantuan Navy galleon. The sheer white wall of its hull rose like a cliff face, the stern, pink rabbit figurehead staring down with a comically militant glare. The air, previously humming with the sub's engines, was replaced by the creak of seasoned wood, the snap of flags in the wind, and the distant, muffled shouts of sailors high above.
Aokiji, his immense frame leaning against the sub's cold exterior, let his gaze travel up the daunting height of the vessel. He scratched the back of his neck, a gesture of pure, unadulterated laziness. "So," he drawled, his breath misting slightly in the cool sea air. "How do you plan to get onboard? Rappelling lines? A grapnel? Or are we just going to ask nicely?"
A low, rumbling chuckle emanated from Atlas, his rust-red fur bristling with anticipation. Marya's response was a sharp, knowing smirk. "Jelly," she said, her voice calm and level. She unzipped her leather jacket, the Heart Pirates insignia stark against the black material, revealing a large inner pocket. "Pocket. Now."
"Bloop! Cozy time!" the blue gelatinous form chirped, launching himself with a joyful wobble into the offered space. He settled with a contented squish, a single, starry eye peeking out from the jacket's edge.
Marya zipped the jacket most of the way, patting the now-squirming pocket with an almost imperceptible softening of her stoic expression before her focus returned to the task. She jerked her head toward Atlas and Jannali. "I can get them in easily enough. You think you can handle getting yourself onboard?"
Aokiji shrugged, his posture the epitome of nonchalance. "Shouldn't be too difficult. Used to do this sort of thing for a living, you know."
"Good. Meet you on the deck in a few," Marya said, her golden eyes flicking upward.
Just then, a startled shout rang out from the deck railing high above. "Submersible! All hands! We have a—"
Marya's smirk returned. "That's our cue." She placed a hand on the shoulders of Atlas and Jannali. The moment her fingers made contact, their forms dissolved, not into vapor, but into a thick, ethereal mist the color of a stormy twilight. It swirled for a heartbeat, clinging to her form, before condensing and shooting upward like a silent, grey arrow towards the ship's shadowed stern
"—submersible at the stern!" the lookout finally finished his cry. A moment later, a different voice, sharper and laced with authority, yelled down. "Halt! This is a Navy vessel! Identify yourselves!"
A volley of gunfire erupted from the railing, peppering the water around the sub and pinging off its reinforced hull. But they were shooting at empty air. Marya and her two companions were already gone.
Aokiji looked up at the frantic sailors, the panicked shouts now turning to confused yells about "mist" and "disappearances." He let out a long, weary sigh that crystallized into a cloud of frost in front of his face. "Well," he muttered to himself. "Guess I need to get started."
Below, Galit didn't need a signal. The moment the gunfire started, the sub's engines whirred, and it began to sink back into the safety of the depths, leaving Aokiji alone on the surface. With a simple, almost dismissive flick of his wrist, the ocean around the galleon's massive rudder seized. A cacophony of groaning, cracking ice erupted underwater as a glacier spontaneously formed, jamming the ship's steering mechanism and locking it in place. The entire vessel jolted violently to a halt, sending sailors tumbling across the deck.
Using the chaos as his staircase, Aokiji willed the moisture in the air to coalesce into a slick, glistening ramp of ice that spiraled elegantly from the water's surface to the main deck. He ascended with hands in his pockets, as if taking a casual stroll, the panic of the Marines a mere backdrop to his entrance.
He was about to step onto the rain-slicked wooden deck when a new presence stilled the chaos. The air grew heavy, not with cold, but with a dry, intense heat. The crew's panic subsided into a hushed, fearful awe.
Alejandro Fuego strode onto the deck, his modified CP-0 suit with its dark red accents flaring out behind him. His presence was a physical weight. He ignored the saluting Marines, his piercing amber-yellow eyes with their slitted pupils taking in the scene: the frozen sea, the trapped ship, the icy ramp. His gaze followed the ramp down to its origin and found Aokiji, mid-step.
A low, animalistic growl rumbled in Alejandro's chest. He took a deep, controlled breath, his chest expanding, and then he roared. It wasn't just a sound; it was a physical wave of concussive heat and fury. A torrent of fire, white-hot and roaring, erupted from his mouth, not aimed at Aokiji, but at the ocean. It slammed into the ice, not melting it, but instantly flash-vaporizing it into a colossal cloud of superheated steam that rolled across the deck with a sound like a thousand teakettles screaming at once. The ship groaned as its rudder was freed.
A cheer started among the crew but died in their throats as the steam cleared to reveal Aokiji now standing calmly on the deck, hands still buried deep in his pockets.
"Alejandro Ignacio Fuego," Aokiji said, his voice a lazy baritone that cut through the lingering hiss of steam. "Special Operations Commander. Cipher Pol really is pulling out all the stops for a simple escort mission."
Alejandro turned slowly, the deck plates under his boots slightly smoking. His mane-like hair seemed to ripple with an unseen thermal current. "Kuzan," he replied, the name a curse on his lips. "Or do you prefer 'Aokiji' now? It's difficult to keep track of your allegiances, or lack thereof."
"Titles are so… constricting," Aokiji yawned. "I'm just a guy enjoying a cruise. You should try it. Might loosen that permanent knot of anger you've got going on. It can't be good for your blood pressure."
"Your flippancy was always a mask for your inadequacy," Alejandro shot back, his voice tight. He began to pace, a predator circling. "While you pursued your 'Lazy Justice,' napping your way through your duties, true believers were upholding order. We built something. And you… you threw it all away. For what? A philosophical disagreement? A bruised ego after losing a promotion?"
Aokiji's lazy demeanor hardened almost imperceptibly. "Some of us believe justice shouldn't be 'absolute.' Some of us remember Ohara, Alejandro. We stood on the same deck. We followed the same orders. I chose to remember what that felt like. You, it seems, chose to forget."
"Ohara was necessary!" Alejandro's roar was accompanied by a wave of heat that made the nearby Marines stumble back. "It was order! It was the preservation of the whole at the cost of a few! A lesson you never learned! You were always soft, Kuzan. Brilliant, but soft. A weapon that refused its edge." His fingers twitched, and for a second, they seemed to blur, elongating into sharp, black claws before snapping back. "And now you're a weapon without a forge. A traitor."
"And you're a weapon that loves its chain," Aokiji retorted coolly. "Tell me, do the Elders let you choose your own missions these days? Or do they just point you at a target and let your 'righteous fury' do the rest?"
Alejandro's eyes narrowed to fiery slits. "What are you doing here, Kuzan? Slumming with pirates now? Or perhaps you've come to beg for your old job back? The Marines have no place for quitters."
Aokiji chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. "Just helping some new friends with a bit of a family reunion. You know how it is. Complicated."
"Family reunion," Alejandro repeated, the words dripping with scorn. "You are interfering with a World Government operation. The girl is property of the Celestial Dragons. And you… you are a stain on the institution you abandoned. I'm taking you in, Kuzan. You'll be remanded to the Holy Land as an indentured servant. A fitting end for a man who never understood the meaning of service."
Aokiji's entire posture shifted. The laziness vanished, replaced by a chilling, focused stillness. The air around him began to prickle with a cold so intense it felt like needles on the skin. "Well," he said, his voice dropping to a grave timbre. "I cannot allow that."
Alejandro didn't wait. His body seemed to swell, his skin cracking with glowing veins of magma-like energy. A leonine tail tipped with a spade of bone snapped into existence behind him, whipping across the deck and carving grooves in the wood. "Then let's finish what should have been settled at Punk Hazard!" he bellowed, his voice deepening into a multi-tonal growl.
Above them, the sky, which had been clear, suddenly boiled with dark, bruise-colored clouds. Streaks of lightning forked across the heavens, followed by ear-splitting peals of thunder that shook the very masts of the ship. The elements themselves seemed to be choosing sides for the clash of two titans—one a force of glacial, absolute zero, the other a scorching, mythical inferno. The battle between the former comrades had begun, and the deck of the Vice Admiral's flagship was their world-ending arena.
*****
The world solidified around them in a swirl of grey mist that coalesced into the three distinct forms of Marya, Atlas, and Jannali. They stood in a dimly lit corridor deep within the bowels of the massive galleon. The air was thick with the scent of old timber, tar, and the faint, metallic tang of the bilge. Barrels and crates, lashed to the walls with thick rope, lined the narrow passageway. The sudden, violent shudder that rocked the entire vessel nearly sent Jannali stumbling into a stack of salted meat barrels.
"Whoa, nelly!" she exclaimed, catching herself against the damp wooden wall. "Bloke upstairs isn't wastin' any time, is he?"
Marya's golden eyes, already scanning their surroundings, didn't flicker. "Neither should we." Her voice was a low, calm counterpoint to the ship's groaning protests.
Atlas was already moving, his clawed hand pulling the fragile Vivre Card from his pocket. The little piece of paper strained insistently down the corridor to their left. "This way," he grunted, his voice a low rumble.
They had taken only two steps when the shadows at the far end of the passageway deepened, congealing into two figures that stepped into the weak glow of a swinging lantern. One was an androgynous, slender form clad in a light-absorbing bodysuit, a featureless white mask hiding their face. The other was a towering brute in a black-and-gold judicial robe, a terrifying chain-scythe hybrid weapon held loosely in one hand, its links leaking a shadowy, vapor-like essence.
Marya's jaw flexed, a tiny, almost imperceptible tic of annoyance. "Cipher Pol," she stated, the words flat and cold. Her hand went to the obsidian hilt of Eternal Eclipse. Without taking her eyes off the new threats, she spoke to her companions. "You two go. I will handle this."
Atlas didn't need telling twice. With a sharp nod, he was off, a rust-red blur pounding down the corridor. Jannali shot a look at the CP0 agents. "Rather you than me, mate. Don't have too much fun!" she called over her shoulder as she sprinted after Atlas.
Jelly chose that moment to wriggle free from Marya's jacket pocket, landing on the wooden deck with a soft bloop. He bounced twice, his gelatinous body jiggling, and stared up at the intimidating figures.
The masked agent—Aloka—moved first. They didn't run; they simply seemed to glide, their body dissolving at the edges into tendrils of darkness, attempting to slip past Marya like smoke under a door.
They didn't get far. Marya's will solidified the air around her. An invisible, crushing pressure erupted—a wave of Conqueror's Haki so focused it didn't knock the agent out, but instead slammed into them like a physical wall, forcing their form back into solidity with a sound like rustling silk. Aloka stumbled, their head tilting in a gesture of genuine, analytical surprise.
Another tremor, this one accompanied by the distant, muffled roar of fire and the shriek of superheating ice, shook the ship. Dust sifted down from the ceiling beams.
"What is it you are here for?" Aloka asked, their voice a hollow, genderless monotone that seemed to seep from behind the mask. It was a voice devoid of curiosity, only a desire for data.
Marya's smirk was a sharp, fleeting thing. "That is none of your business."
The towering agent, Gereon, answered with action. He lunged, Karma's seastone-laced chain scything through the air with a whisper of impending death. But Jelly, with a happy cry of "Bouncy time!", launched himself like a blue rubber cannonball. He didn't attack; he wrapped his pliable form around Gereon's booted ankles, binding them together in a sticky, azure hug. The massive agent's momentum betrayed him, and he crashed face-first onto the deck with a ground-shaking thud and a muffled curse, his terrifying weapon skittering away from his grip.
Aloka watched their partner fall, their masked head tilting again. "I have heard about the Dracule's Shadow," they mused, ignoring Gereon's struggles. "The daughter who wields the mists of oblivion. I am an expert on shadows. They are… ordinary."
Marya's patience, thin at the best of times, evaporated. She lunged, Eternal Eclipse clearing its sheath without a sound, its obsidian blade ringing through the air in the corridor. Aloka flowed away from the strike, their body becoming insubstantial shadow once more, the blade passing through harmless darkness.
"Would you like for me to demonstrate my expertise?" Aloka's voice echoed from the shadows coalescing behind her.
They raised a hand, and the shadows in the corridor writhed, stretching toward Marya like grasping claws. It was a technique meant to paralyze, to instill dread, to manipulate the very darkness of the soul.
Marya didn't even bother to turn. She rolled her eyes, a gesture of profound boredom. "You talk too much." She flexed her will again, her Armament Haki flaring around her not as a visible aura, but as an absolute, unassailable truth of self. The grasping shadows shattered against her spiritual armor like glass against stone.
Aloka let out a sharp, staticky hiss—their version of a curse. Their focus shifted, the masked head turning toward the comical struggle on the floor where Jelly was now attempting to envelop a furious, grunting Gereon in a full-body hug.
That shift in attention was all Marya needed. Her calm observation snapped into lethal action. In a motion too fast to follow, she closed the distance. The cold, light-devouring edge of Eternal Eclipse came to rest against Aloka's throat. A single, perfect drop of blood welled up and traced a thin path down their neck.
Aloka's free hand twitched, fingers aiming to unleash their Umbra Thorns. But the will behind Marya's blade was a nullifying force. The needles of solidified shadow fizzled into nothingness before they could even fully form.
"I've lost my patience for this," Marya said, her voice low and final.
Aloka tried to maneuver, to become shadow and slip away, but Marya's blade moved with her. It was a fraction of an inch, a single, flawless draw-cut across Aloka's midsection. There was no dramatic spray, only a deep and certain silence. The agent's body stiffened, then all tension left it. They fell forward onto the rough-hewn deckboards with a soft, final thud.
Marya flicked her wrist, clearing a non-existent speck from her blade before sheathing it. She walked over to the squirming pile that was Gereon and Jelly. The massive CP0 agent was thoroughly entangled, his movements growing weaker by the second, Jelly's paralytic venom doing its work. Marya looked down at the scene, a genuine, amused smirk touching her lips.
"Maybe we should just tie him up," she mused.
Jelly wobbled enthusiastically, one mittened hand forming into a thumbs-up. "Lots of knots!" he chirped. "Bloop!"
*****
The air aboard the Vice Admiral's flagship cracked with a sound like a glacier calving. It wasn't just the noise of conflict; it was the scream of two opposing ideologies given physical form. Alejandro Fuego, fully unleashed, was a vision of mythological fury. His body, a monstrous tapestry of snarling bestial traits, seemed defy nature itself. A lion's mane of fire and shadow whipped around a face now etched with leonine rage, his hands were crushing claws, and a massive, spade-tipped serpent's tail lashed behind him, scoring deep gouges in the frozen deck. The air around him shimmered with a dry, oppressive heat that warped vision and made the very wood beneath his feet smolder.
Across from him, Kuzan Aokiji stood as his absolute antithesis. Where Alejandro was a chaos of heat and hybrid fury, Kuzan was a study in glacial focus. His right arm was sheathed in a gauntlet of layered, diamond-hard ice that gleamed with a faint blue internal light—a manifestation of his Armament Haki reinforced by the Hie Hie no Mi's power. The air around him was so cold it felt sharp, each breath a knife in the lungs for any nearby Marine unfortunate enough to still be conscious.
"You abandoned everything for this, Kuzan?" Alejandro's voice was a multi-tonal growl, layered with the rumble of a predator and the hiss of a serpent. "You traded the absolute justice of the Marines for… what? A leisurely stroll with pirates?" He didn't just move; he flowed across the deck, his tail whipping out to smash a frozen cannon into glittering shards, the force of the blow making the entire ship groan.
Kuzan sidestepped the debris, his expression one of profound weariness that didn't reach his eyes, which were sharp and cold. "Still reciting the World Government's handbook, I see. Didn't you ever get tired of the sound of your own voice echoing in that empty chamber they call a mind, Fuego?" His retort was a lazy drawl, but his body was coiled, ready. He thrust his ice-clad fist forward, and a barrage of jagged spears, the Ice Block: Partisan, shot from the deck at his feet, aiming to impale.
Alejandro roared, a blast of concussive fire and sound erupting from his maw, meeting the ice spears head-on. The projectiles didn't melt; they sublimated, vanishing into superheated steam with a violent hiss that blanketed the deck in a thick, scalding fog. Through the mist, Alejandro charged, his clawed feet cracking the timber. "We built order! We were the shield against the chaos you now cavort with!"
"You built a cage," Kuzan shot back, his voice cutting through the fog. He didn't retreat. Instead, he met the charge, his Ice Glove slamming into Alejandro's bestial fist. The impact wasn't a clean sound; it was a catastrophic report of shattering ice and concussive force that sent a visible shockwave through the fog, clearing it for a moment. The deck beneath their feet splintered and collapsed, dropping them both into the gunnery deck below.
Soldiers stationed there barely had time to scream before the wave of cold hit them. Kuzan, landing in a crouch, didn't even look their way. He simply raised a hand, and a wave of frost, Ice Time, flashed out from him. Marines were caught in mid-stride, their faces locked in masks of terror, transformed into frozen statues. The air itself seemed to freeze, leaving glittering motes of ice hanging suspended.
"Always so careless with the pawns, Kuzan!" Alejandro bellowed, shaking ice crystals from his mane. He gestured with a claw at the frozen Marines. "They die for the cause. A sacrifice for a greater good you were too weak to stomach!"
"They die because men like you and Akainu see them as tools, not people," Kuzan's voice was low, but it carried, laced with a frost that bit deeper than the temperature. He kicked off the floor, not at Alejandro, but at the ship's hull. A massive section of the wooden wall instantly flash-froze, turned brittle, and then exploded outward under the force of his kick. The world outside was no longer the open sea.
It was a frozen plain. While they had fought below, Kuzan's power had been active on a macro scale. The ocean for miles around was a solid, jagged sheet of white, the Ice Age technique manifesting on a breathtaking, terrifying scale. The ship was now trapped in a continent of ice, a sudden and silent arctic hell. The cold was a physical weight, a crushing emptiness that sought to stifle the very concept of heat.
Alejandro laughed, the sound echoing strangely across the frozen wasteland. "You think this changes anything? Your ice is a balm compared to the fire of true justice!" His body flared, the heat around him intensifying until the ice at his feet began to boil, not melt, sending up plumes of angry steam. He launched himself through the shattered hull, onto the ice field, and Kuzan followed, the two of them now alone on a stage of the former Admiral's making.
Their battle became a dance of elemental extremes. Alejandro would summon a gout of flame from his leonine maw, so hot it turned the air above it into a writhing lens. Kuzan would respond not by blocking, but by creating a massive wall of ice, dozens of feet thick, which the fire would eat through only to find him gone, having sunk into the ice beneath his feet and reappeared fifty yards away, already summoning a hail of ice shards the size of broadswords.
"You can't run forever!" Alejandro snarled, his tail smashing the hail out of the air. He stomped a clawed foot, and a wave of thermal energy shot through the ice, cracking it for yards around and forcing Kuzan to leap into the air. "You left because you lost! You're not a philosopher, you're a sore loser hiding behind a pirate's flag!"
Kuzan landed, skidding backwards on a path of ice he generated beneath his feet. "And you're an attack dog who thinks his leash is a badge of honor," he retorted, his breath misting in the air. He clapped his hands together, and from the ice field between them, two gigantic, sculpted pheasants made of solid ice erupted, shrieking into the air before diving toward Alejandro—the Ice Block: Pheasant Beak.
Alejandro met them with a raw, bestial scream of his own, a blast of fire and pure Haki that shattered the constructs not into water, but into a fine, glittering dust that fell like diamond rain. "I serve power! Real power! The power that will bring order to this rotting world!"
"The only thing you serve is your own pathetic need for validation!" Kuzan yelled back, the lazy facade finally cracking to reveal the core of steel beneath. The emotional wound was laid bare. This was no longer just a battle of elements; it was the brutal fistfight on Punk Hazard given a new, frozen venue. He surged forward, his Ice Glove meeting Alejandro's fiery claw again and again, each impact a small earthquake that sent new fissures spiderwebbing through the glacial plain. They were no longer using grand techniques; it was raw, close-quarters combat, a brutal exchange of blows fueled by a deep, personal history of betrayal and conflicting dogma.
The landscape itself was their weapon and their victim. One moment Alejandro would be slammed into a newly-formed ice ridge, the ice sizzling and cracking under his heat. The next, Kuzan would be forced to vaporize a section of the ground beneath him as it superheated, threatening to swallow him in a geyser of boiling water. They were perfectly matched, a scorching chimera of government zeal against the glacial, disillusioned force of a man who had once been the Marines' greatest weapon. The sky above, perpetually clouded by the clash of steam and freezing vapor, crackled with the unspoken truth that this was only the beginning, a prologue to a far greater and more devastating conflict. There would be no winner here today, only a statement of intent written in ice and fire.