Attention is a very fickle thing. Someone shouted, and barely any could pay attention to the lost Light Yagami anymore.
"I-Is that-?!"
"No way!"
"Why is he here! We've already won the war!"
"WHY ARE YOU HERE?!"
"EMPEROR!"
"RED HAIRED SHANKS!
...
ZUP!
The descent of Sengoku's golden boot on Light Yagami's neck was not stopped by a physical parry.
The pressure was not loud. It was entirely silent. Yet, it carried the suffocating, inescapable weight of an ocean collapsing upon a single island.
The colossal, golden form of the Fleet Admiral froze.
Aokiji's ice spear halted a mere inch from Light's eyes. The freezing mist escaping the Admiral's lips hitched.
The heavy, ash-choked clouds that had blanketed Marineford since Whitebeard's tectonic strikes were violently, cleanly parted. The sky ripped open, revealing a perfectly clear, pale blue canvas above the slaughter.
And indeed.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Red-Haired Shanks stepped onto the battlefield of the Summit War.
He walked past the frozen, terrified Marines who were still conscious. He walked past the massive, jagged glaciers.
He walked past the towering, headless corpse of Edward Newgate.
He stopped ten yards away from the edge of the smoldering crater.
He looked at Sengoku. He looked at Aokiji.
And he looked at the thousands, tens of thousands of dead bodies, marines and pirates indistinguishable, lying all over Marineford.
Some in the sea, never to be found.
Some in the abyss crevices of the split island below.
Some dying in collateral by Aokiji's temperature fall.
Some dying in collateral by Akainu's mad attacks.
And then, his sharp, piercing gaze fell into the pit.
He looked at Light Yagami.
And most surprisingly, although he was not here, he battle instincts and Observation said the least 'collateral' damage kills were of Light Yagami's.
Shanks said nothing.
There was a reason why he didn't come to save him earlier.
Light Yagami, fundamentally, was a balance breaker the world did not need right now.
Ultimately, he was not Luffy.
He would never be the savior.
If anything... this variable that even he couldn't predict was better off snuffed before he reached the peak of his power.
But...
Light, lying in the dirt, missing an arm, his body broken and bleeding, stared back. Through the hazy, blood-stained curtain of his vision, Light felt a strange, detached sense of triumph.
'I did it', Light thought, his mind flickering through the final stages of his calculation.
'The Navy cannot kill me while an Emperor stands between us.'
Light's heart, though erratic, began to beat with a renewed rhythm. He had bet everything on this moment.
He didn't know Red Hair. \But he knew Red Hair was an Emperor.
He had gambled that the Navy's obsession with their own "Justice" would be superseded by their wariness of the Red Hair.
After all, after all this fighting, they couldn't afford to fight against another Emperor.
Because victory was not sure!
Shanks stood at the precipice of the crater.
"I have come..."
Shanks' voice was not loud. It was not a scream or a roar. But it carried effortlessly across the entire island, cutting through the silence like a physical blade.
"...to end this war."
The declaration hung in the air.
ZOOM!
Sengoku's golden aura flared. The Fleet Admiral did not power down. His eyes, still completely bloodshot, locked onto the Emperor. The muscles in his massive jaw visibly bunched as he ground his teeth together.
"Red Hair," Sengoku rumbled, his voice vibrating with barely contained, tectonic fury.
"Whitebeard is no more. We have won this war."
"You have no place here."
"If your objective is complete, Sengoku," Shanks replied evenly. He didn't draw his sword, but his thumb brushed against the brass guard of Gryphon.
"Look around."
"Tens of thousands of people, dead."
"This war has already gone way beyond it was ever expected to."
"There is no need to shed any more blood."
Shanks took a single, deliberate step forward, his Conqueror's Haki pulsing, a silent warning.
"I will ask you to save my face," Shanks declared.
BOOM!
Suddenly, the "Iron Wall" crew appeared in full behind the Emperor. The aura alone showed they weren't afraid of anything the world had to offer.
"If anyone still wants to fight... then come. We will be your opponents."
The Vice Admirals tensed. The Marine grunts who were still conscious took terrified steps backward. Facing the remnants of the Whitebeard Pirates was one thing. Facing a completely fresh, uninjured Emperor crew was a death sentence.
"Furthermore," Shanks continued, his voice dropping an octave, losing its diplomatic smoothness and replacing it with the hard, unyielding edge of an Emperor.
"I will be taking Whitebeard's remains. The war is over. I will not allow his death to be paraded around."
"Let's not desecrate the dead, Sengoku."
A suffocating tension gripped the plaza.
Sengoku stared at Shanks. The Fleet Admiral's jaw was clenched so tight the golden muscles trembled. He looked at the ruined island. He looked at the terrified faces of his surviving men.
And he looked at the navy's forces reduced by at least ten thousand.
'I have failed.'
'He's right'.
Sengoku's tactical mind calculated, battling the raging, grieving human within him.
Sengoku closed his eyes.
He prepared to swallow his pride.
"Ha...."
When suddenly-
"...No."
The word was quiet, but it echoed like a gunshot.
It didn't come from Sengoku.
STEP.
A hundred yards away, stepping out from the shadows of a shattered pillar, Admiral Kizaru slowly raised his head.
The yellow-tinted glasses caught the sunlight, obscuring his eyes, but the terrifying, incandescent radiance beginning to bleed from his pinstripe suit illuminated the ruins.
"I said, no." Kizaru repeated.
The Admiral's voice was flat, cold, and utterly, terrifyingly uncompromising.
Kizaru began to walk forward, his black shoes crunching on the ice. He walked directly toward the edge of the crater, stopping beside Aokiji.
"You can have the old man's body, Red Hair," Kizaru stated, stepping forward, his body beginning to emit an incandescent, blinding radiance.
"You can have the ceasefire. You can take the remnants and sail away."
Kizaru slowly raised a glowing finger, pointing it directly into the smoldering pit. He aimed it at the bleeding, one-armed man coughing in the dirt.
"But that boy," Kizaru's voice cracked slightly, a terrifying display of raw, unfiltered emotion from the man made of light.
"That boy murdered Sakazuki in cold blood. He orchestrated the assassination of an Admiral from behind while the world was watching."
"He stays."
.
.
.
A/N: No comments.
{Read 30-40+ chapters on patreon(dot)com/Glivaria}