As the execution platform collapsed, Sengoku also reverted from his golden Buddha form, while Luffy, due to the aftereffects of Gear Third, shrank down to the size of a small child.
"Luffy, how are you? You're way too reckless!" Ace called out loudly during their fall, his voice filled with concern.
"I'm fine, Ace!" Luffy replied cheerfully. Then, noticing that it was Rayleigh holding onto Ace's arm, his smile grew even brighter. "Thank you, Uncle Rayleigh!"
"No need to thank me—this was my reason for coming here in the first place," Rayleigh chuckled, feeling a sense of relief now that Ace had been successfully rescued.
"Luffy, now's not the time to chat. Since Ace has been saved, we need to hurry and regroup with the Whitebeard Pirates."
As he spoke, Rayleigh casually swung his sword, slicing apart a golden laser beam that had shot toward them from afar.
On the plaza directly in front of the collapsed execution platform, several cannons were being adjusted by marines, their barrels aimed straight at Luffy, Ace, and Rayleigh as they fell.
Aside from these large cannons, a few marines carried smaller shoulder-mounted launchers, all locked onto the trio.
Without giving them much time to react, a barrage of black cannonballs was fired toward them in rapid succession.
But ordinary artillery posed no threat to Rayleigh. The moment he landed, he swung his sword, releasing a blade arc several meters long. The incoming cannonballs were obliterated midair before they could even come close to their targets.
"Whew, that was close! Rayleigh, you're amazing!" Luffy's eyes sparkled with admiration as he looked at Rayleigh.
"Haha, that was nothing," Rayleigh replied with a hearty laugh.
At that moment, Ace suddenly spoke up. "Dark King Rayleigh, why did you come to save me?"
"You are Captain Roger's child. I couldn't just stand by and watch my captain's son die like this."
However, Ace didn't agree with Rayleigh's words. Gritting his teeth, he retorted, "He is not my father. I only have one father, and that's Whitebeard!"
Ace harbored deep resentment toward his biological father.
Still, while he detested Roger, he was genuinely grateful for Rayleigh's intervention.
Rayleigh hadn't just saved him—he had also saved his most important little brother.
Without Rayleigh's help, both he and Luffy would have had no chance of escaping the bombardment.
"Regardless, the fact that you saved both me and Luffy is undeniable. Thank you, Rayleigh."
"Alright, enough talking for now. Let's get those handcuffs off first—the next wave of artillery fire is coming soon."
"Huh? Rayleigh, do you have the key to Seastone handcuffs?" Luffy asked excitedly, his face lighting up with hope.
"No, but who says you need a key to unlock them?" Rayleigh responded with a mysterious smile as he stepped behind Ace and reached for his bound hands.
From Rayleigh's actions at the human auction house in the original story, it was evident that he possessed extraordinary lock-picking skills.
Sure enough, within just a second, a dull clicking sound came from behind Ace. The Seastone handcuffs around his wrists had already been unlocked and fell to the ground.
At this moment, Fire Fist Ace was truly reborn.
Since the pirate faction seemed to be gaining the upper hand, the navy had preemptively cut off the live broadcast. As a result, the citizens and pirates watching from afar were still unaware that Ace had been rescued.
Now freed from the constraints of Seastone, Ace instantly regained his full strength, and he faced the incoming cannon fire without the slightest trace of fear.
"Fire Fist!"
With a loud shout, Ace's arm transformed into a massive wave of scorching flames. He swung his fist toward the distant artillery batteries.
The flames traveled at an incredible speed, reaching the cannons in an instant before erupting into a violent explosion. The artillery was reduced to ashes, and the marines stationed nearby suffered heavy casualties from the inferno.
"Ace!"
Seeing Ace unleash his power on the battlefield, the Whitebeard Pirates and their allied crews erupted into cheers, shouting his name in exhilaration.
The pirates' morale skyrocketed to an unprecedented level.
Beyond just the pirates, the three remaining Reincarnator captains were equally thrilled—Ace had been successfully rescued, which meant their mission was already 90% complete.
As long as Ace safely escaped Marine Headquarters, they could return to the Lord God's Space with a massive haul of Reincarnation Points.
With these points, their strength would reach new heights.
Greater power meant higher survival rates in future Reincarnation Worlds.
Rayleigh, Ace, and the now fully recovered Luffy sprinted toward the pirate ships. At this moment, however, Kizaru reappeared, moving in to intercept them.
"Well, I can't just let you all escape that easily," he remarked.
Evading Rayleigh's attack, Kizaru transformed into light and shot up into the sky, crossing his arms. The tips of his fingers began to flicker with an intense golden glow.
"Yasakani no Magatama!"
With a calm voice, he unleashed a barrage of light bullets from his hands, raining them down in rapid succession toward the fleeing trio.
Faced with the incoming storm of laser projectiles, Ace suddenly skidded to a halt. His arms transformed into blazing streams of fire.
Spinning rapidly on the spot, he leaped into the air, the flames on his arms expanding dozens of times in intensity. A massive, burning pillar of fire spiraled upward, surging toward the falling light bullets.
"Flame Commandment: Fire Pillar!"
The beams of light clashed against the towering inferno, neutralizing each other midair.
At that moment, Sengoku, once again in his golden Buddha form, joined the pursuit.
"Rayleigh, look at the mess you've made. Since you've come all the way to Marine Headquarters, why don't you stay here along with those two brothers?"
Sengoku wasted no time—he swung his massive golden fist straight at Rayleigh, Ace, and Luffy.
Rayleigh, unfazed, coated his own fist with Armament Haki and met Sengoku's strike head-on.
The moment their fists collided—one massive, one small—a tremendous shockwave erupted, shattering the ice around them.
Though Rayleigh's fist looked pitifully small compared to Sengoku's, the clash between the two remained evenly matched.
"Sengoku, after all these years, is this how you greet an 'old friend'?" Rayleigh remarked.
…
Several hundred meters away, Akainu, having just exchanged a blow with Whitebeard, wasted no time and immediately turned to charge toward Ace's location.
Ace's escape had filled him with fury. The only thought in his mind was to eliminate Ace before it was too late—his sense of justice could not tolerate such a failure from the navy.
But Whitebeard was not about to let him have his way. He immediately infused his naginata with powerful Armament Haki and swung it at Akainu.
In a moment of carelessness, Akainu failed to react in time—before he could shift into his magma form, Whitebeard's naginata cleaved through his left arm, severing it completely.
"Gurararara! Magma brat, you dared to take your eyes off me in battle? Consider this arm a lesson for your carelessness!"
"Ah la la la…"
Aokiji, seeing Akainu clutching his severed arm with a darkened expression, immediately withdrew from the battlefield.
There was no way he could withstand the combined assault of both Whitebeard and Marco alone.
With Ace now free, the scattered members of the Whitebeard Pirates began converging toward their captain, preparing to regroup and break out of Marine Headquarters once Ace returned.
The Reincarnators on the pirate side were also doing their best to hunt down as many marines as possible—victory was within reach, and every extra marine they killed meant more Reincarnation Points earned.
Meanwhile, the Reincarnators on the navy's side were falling into despair.
At the start, they had been certain of a navy victory, but the battle had taken a completely unexpected turn.
Not only had all six Admiral-level captains perished, but even the lower-ranked Reincarnators had suffered heavy losses. The remaining ones no longer had the strength to influence the outcome of the war.
In truth, this outcome wasn't solely due to the Reincarnator captains being careless—the bigger issue was that the navy had too many actors in its ranks.
Garp, one of the strongest individuals present, was pretending to be dead out of familial loyalty.
Aokiji and Kizaru were veteran actors, never truly fighting at full strength like Akainu.
Of the four Warlords of the Sea, only Bartholomew Kuma and Gecko Moria had taken the battle seriously.
Dracule Mihawk had spent the entire fight idly sparring with Vista for over an hour without a decisive outcome, while Blackbeard had yet to even make his move.
Even Sengoku himself seemed to have been holding back earlier in the battle—before Luffy arrived at the execution platform, he had merely stood by and watched.
If all those who had been holding back had fought with their full strength from the beginning, this war at Marineford might have already ended long ago.
Even at this stage, however, the remaining Reincarnators had no intention of risking their lives to fight Whitebeard and his commanders.
Ace had yet to escape Marine Headquarters, so they still clung to a final sliver of hope—hoping that either Kizaru or Sengoku would manage to kill him. No one wanted to throw their life away for someone else.
As time passed, all members of the Whitebeard Pirates had gathered around their captain. Those who had previously been holding back completely stopped fighting as well.
Meanwhile, Kizaru's ranged attacks were intercepted entirely by Ace, while the surrounding marines who had attempted to encircle them were effortlessly dealt with by Ace and Luffy.
Rayleigh's battle with Sengoku remained evenly matched, and amidst their running skirmish, Ace, Luffy, and Rayleigh finally managed to reunite with the Whitebeard Pirates.
"Pops!" Ace called out excitedly as he reached Whitebeard.
Whitebeard patted Ace's shoulder and laughed heartily. "Gurararara! Ace, welcome home!"
Then, sweeping his gaze over the gathered members of the Whitebeard Pirates, he lifted his naginata and stomped it forcefully against the icy ground.
With a commanding voice, he roared, "Men! Ace has returned! Begin the retreat! Everyone, get back to the ships—we're heading home to the New World!"
"Oooooh!!!"
Unlike in the original timeline, Whitebeard had not been stabbed by Squard, and his earlier battle had primarily been against Akainu. As a result, he was in far better condition than before.
Moreover, Akainu had already lost an arm, significantly weakening him, while the Whitebeard Pirates had the additional support of a powerhouse like Rayleigh.
Given these circumstances, Whitebeard saw no need to sacrifice himself to cover the retreat as he had in the original events. Instead, they could withdraw from Marineford while fighting off their pursuers as needed.
At Whitebeard's command, all the pirates began retreating toward their ships. Naturally, marines attempted to block their escape, but they were held off by Whitebeard, Rayleigh, and the other commanders.
Then, Whitebeard unleashed the full power of his Devil Fruit—slamming his fist into the air and shaking the entire battlefield. The very foundations of Marineford cracked apart, breaking the ice that had trapped the Moby Dick and two other pirate ships.
However, despite the destructive force of Whitebeard's Airquake, the ice wall where Eriri and her group were stationed remained completely unaffected.
Noticing this, Whitebeard cast a deep glance at Eriri standing at the center of the ice wall. With just this moment, he understood that the rumors about her defeating Kizaru were no exaggeration.
As the ice within the bay shattered, the marines standing on it lost their footing, and a large number of them plunged into the sea.
Some, relying on their exceptional agility, managed to step across the drifting ice fragments and return to the plaza or nearby battleships.
Immediately after, a fleet of marine warships surrounded them from all sides, unleashing a relentless barrage of cannon fire upon the Whitebeard Pirates, as if ammunition were limitless.
Before the Whitebeard Pirates could get far, Eriri finally made her move.
"Are you all done fighting? If so, it's time for me to take care of a little business."
Her voice rang out softly, yet every person present—marine and pirate alike—heard it with absolute clarity, as if there were no distance between them at all.
The moment they heard Eriri's voice, every combatant on the battlefield froze in place, turning their gazes toward the center of the towering ice wall where she stood.
Because Eriri had not intervened throughout the entire battle and had remained high above at a height of over a hundred meters, most of the marines and pirates—exhausted from the relentless conflict—had subconsciously forgotten about her presence.
Now, with just a few words, she reminded everyone that Marineford was not merely a battlefield between the navy and pirates—there was a third party still present.
As if reacting on pure instinct, Kizaru visibly shuddered the moment he heard Eriri's voice. The usual smug, laid-back expression he always wore vanished without a trace.
Clearly, the events that had transpired at the Sabaody Archipelago had left a deep psychological scar on him.
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