Charlos Saint was dead.
He crumbled into gray ash, and even as Kong and the Marines reeled in shock, the black flames kept spreading, wild and hungry. There was no time to rage over a Celestial Dragon's death. The flagship was already chaos.
"Put it out! Put it out!"
"Water, get water!"
"What use is water? Can't you see even the water's catching fire?"
Kuzan's face tightened. Cold surged from his palms as he tried to smother the flames.
"Ice Block: Pheasant Beak!"
An icy bird burst from his arm and slammed across the deck, freezing everything it touched. Even so, the black flames did not dim. Before stunned eyes, they devoured the ice itself, burning straight through.
"What kind of fire is that?"
"Abandon ship! Abandon ship!"
"Fleet Admiral, it's open ocean below. Nowhere to stand!" a rear admiral shouted, voice breaking.
"Damn it!" Kong snarled, then jerked his chin at Kuzan. "Kuzan, the rest is yours."
"Understood." Kuzan flashed away with Soru, cape snapping as he inverted over the waves. Cold roared out of him in a blizzard.
"Ice Age."
A single low command, and lethal frost exploded from his body. Sea wind carried it far and fast. Where his hands met the water, the ocean seized. Waves that had been surging forward froze mid-crest with a brittle crackle. From chunk to sheet to continent, ice raced outward. In barely ten seconds, a thousand-meter swath of open sea became a single slab, even the foaming crests petrified into sculpture. The ice went down hundreds of meters, a floating plain of blue-white glass.
Not the same scale as Rakuya's falling super-meteor from before, but terrifying all the same.
"Fleet Admiral."
With footing made, Kuzan raised his voice.
"All hands, abandon ship!"
At Kong's order, Marines poured from the burning vessels like dumplings into a pot, dropping to the ice in their tens of thousands.
Behind them, the flagship burned to its ribs. Only when the last mast fell did the black flames gutter, and Rakuya's eyes return to normal.
"Rakuya!"
As the black fire died, Kong's face went iron-dark, veins standing at his temples.
"Attack!"
Murder flashed in his eyes. Killing intent rolled over the ice.
"Armament Hardening."
"Rankyaku."
Kong blurred in with Soru and chopped a heel down. Power detonated on contact, sending a shockwave rippling across the ice.
Garp hurled himself forward as well, springing high with an iron sphere larger than a house clutched overhead. He brought it down like a falling moon.
Rakuya only laughed. His left hand clenched. Before the watching Marines, he drove a single punch into the oncoming iron.
Thoom.
The sphere boomed like a gong and rocketed back the way it had come.
At the same time, twin spears of glistening ice formed in Kuzan's hands.
"Ice Block: Partisan."
With a whisper, the two icy lances streaked in. Rakuya shifted, body slipping past the first at an odd angle, then snapped a kick at the second as it flashed for his ribs.
Boom.
Cold howled up the length of the spear. Frost exploded across his right leg, locking it in an instant.
"Got him!"
Kuzan's eyes flashed. Kong pressed in hard, a Rankyaku already scything down.
"Heh."
Rakuya's smile held no warmth. His right leg twitched once. The hoarfrost shattered like glass.
"The great Marine Headquarters, ganging up on one man. When people talk, will they call it justice or just a joke?"
He met Kong's kick with a straight punch and knocked the Fleet Admiral skidding, then stood where he was, smiling coldly.
"Joke?" Sakazuki rasped, color returning to his face as he planted his boots on the ice. "You are a pirate. Your crimes stain the sea. If we take the many against the few to protect civilians, it is righteousness."
"Sakazuki, who invited your opinion?"
"Hmph."
He stepped out anyway, right arm lifting and liquefying to scarlet magma. A heartbeat later, he drove his fist forward.
"Great Eruption."
A volcano erupted at arm's length. A colossal magma fist thundered across the ice. Steam roared as half a meter of ice turned to vapor in a breath.
Rakuya's gaze sharpened. His left hand flicked. A translucent wall rippled into being before him.
The blast was wide. He had no fear of it, but Tashigi could not withstand such heat.
Thud.
The magma slammed into empty air and stalled, unable to advance an inch, held fast by an unseen shield.
Rakuya's lip curled. He wrapped an arm around Tashigi's waist and took to the sky.
"Artillery!"
Kong's order cracked over the ice. The surviving warships rotated as one, gunports yawning. Barrages screamed up in dense sheets of iron.
Garp ripped up a shell the size of a carriage and pitched it like a pitcher on the mound. It howled as it climbed.
"Fist Bone: Meteor."
Sakazuki raised both arms, eyes like knives.
"Meteor Volcano."
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Shells and magma boulders rose in a storm. Rakuya's left hand swelled in an instant, ten meters from heel to fingertip, blotting the sun. His body beneath looked tiny as an ant.
"All of you, get lost."
The slap fell.
Explosions blossomed midair. Shells burst like fireworks. The rest pinwheeled back down, tangled with the molten meteors and rained upon the fleet.
Kong, Garp, Sengoku, Borsalino, Sakazuki, all of them went white and sprang forward, boots skidding as they tried to kick and swat the worst away.
There were too many. Far too many.
Most of the payload plunged, smashing through decks before erupting. The ice plain shook with rolling detonations.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
The night became day. Fire rolled over the sea. Screams tore the air.
"Help!"
"Ahhh!"
Another blast. Another tower of flame.
Warships vanished in flowers of fire, their ribs shattering into splinters. The sea became a field of burning wrecks.
"Damn it. Kuzan!"
Kong's roar tore his throat.
Kuzan's hands were already white with cold. He flung both forward and drowned the inferno in winter.
In moments, the flames guttered. In the next, they were gone, entombed in miles of new ice. Whole vessels froze solid in the act of breaking apart, becoming lumpy glaciers in a frozen graveyard.
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