#### Marineford
Five days had carved a jagged wound since Roger's capture clawed through the seas, and Marineford bristled beneath a sky swollen with clouds, gray and oppressive, as if the heavens braced for a dirge. Soldiers patrolled the smooth stone roads, their boots a relentless thud against the stillness, while others wrestled crates of shot and rope onto warships that creaked at the docks, hulls swaying like restless beasts. The air thrummed with steel's clatter and the frayed edge of strained voices, a fortress armoring itself for the gallows in Logue Town, ten days hence. A chill wind snaked through, clawing at white coats, the horizon a restless murmur of shadows.
Then the clouds ripped asunder.
A shadow gashed the gray—a hulking island spilling from the firmament, its flanks raw with gnarled roots and fissured stone, wind howling its descent like a war horn. Soldiers faltered, breath catching as it loomed, and from its core, pirates surged—feral silhouettes with bared fangs and glinting steel, vaulting earthward with guttural cries. At their vanguard, a figure struck the ground, stone fracturing beneath him. Golden Lion Shiki rose, his mane of gold cascading to the dirt, a ship rudder thrust from his skull like a tyrant's diadem. Oto and Kogarashi flashed in his grip, and with one swing, the air shrieked—heads arced skyward, hands spun free, bodies slumped in wet ruin, blood seeping into the earth.
He cut a path through the soldiers—arms sliced off, legs collapsing, a man's chest split open as his scream choked in blood. Shiki climbed onto a pile of dead Marines, their white coats soaked red, and roared, "Garp! Where's Roger?!" His golden eyes burned, swords high. "How can he be captured by your Marine trash? If he's to die, I'll kill him myself!"
He paused, breathing hard, then shouted, "I know how strong he is!! Scum like you could never capture Roger!! Bring him out!! If he is here… kill him, let me!!" His voice shook with fury, the words echoing over the battlefield.
From the courtyard's edge, a shadow loomed—Garp, his coat snatched from a trembling recruit and flung to the dirt, tie loosened as he cracked his knuckles. "Shiki," he barked, a grin splitting his face, "that rudder's made you dumber than a sea slug!" Beside him, Sengoku stepped forward, his own coat shed, sleeves rolled tight over corded arms. "Since you've come here, Shiki," he said, voice cold as steel, "don't expect to leave."
Shiki's laugh jagged through the air, a feral howl. "Then come on—I'll drown this Marineford in blood!" He surged upward, the Fuwa Fuwa no Mi wrenching him skyward, the earth quivering as stone and steel ascended in his thrall. Garp rocketed after, Geppo pulsing beneath his boots, a streak of Moonwalk slicing the wind. Sengoku's form flared golden—the Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Daibutsu—his colossal Buddha silhouette rearing as a shockwave tore from his palm. The blast rived the sky, smashing Shiki's floating island with a crack that deafened—rock and timber burst apart in mid-flight, the mass trembling before Sengoku's gilded strike hurled it down, pulverizing barracks into a shroud of dust and debris. Shiki's swords met Garp's Haki-darkened fists, sparks cascading as their war churned above the wreckage.
On the docks, Vice Admiral Aokiji waded through the pirate tide, ice lancing from his hands—limbs snapped brittle and burst, screams frosting into silence. Other Vice Admirals flanked him, their steel and fury felling the rabble, white coats marred with filth and gore. The clash seethed—a maelstrom of frost and iron against Shiki's aerial wrath—and Marineford groaned beneath the strain.
A day bled into dawn, and Golden Lion Shiki crashed to the ravaged earth, his swords slipping from blood-slick hands to glint useless beside him, a snarl choking on his last breath of defiance. His chest heaved, mane matted with crimson, as sea stone cuffs snapped shut around his wrists. Soldiers hauled him off, his glare a fading ember of rage. Sengoku loomed over the ruins, half of Marineford a sepulcher—towers broken like brittle twigs, docks a snarl of splintered wood reeking of salt and blood, the eastern wing entombed beneath the island's smoking husk. The ground lay a charnel field: arms, legs, half-heads, and skulls strewn amid rivers of red, the air heavy with copper and muffled wails.
"Take the injured to the infirmary," Sengoku rasped, his golden sheen guttered out, eyes scouring the desolation. Unbroken marines lurched forward, dragging the maimed—men with stumps where limbs once hung, faces rived to bone. Garp stood at his side, fist clenched, knuckles bruised and trembling. "Shiki, you madman," he growled, spitting into the dirt with a scowl that veiled a flicker of weariness. Sengoku turned to an officer, voice a low grate. "Count the casualties. I want numbers by dusk."
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A day later, news coos winged forth, their papers raining over a sea still raw from Roger's fall:
**"GOLDEN LION SHIKI ARRESTED BY MONKEY D. GARP AND SENGOKU WHILE MARINEFORD HALF-DESTROYED IN THE FIGHT!"**
Ten days stretched to Roger's execution, yet this second quake eclipsed the first—Shiki, who'd soared beside Roger and Whitebeard, now shackled. In taverns and courts, voices collided: "Three great pirates… is this their end?"
Aboard the Moby Dick, Whitebeard hunched beneath a storm-bruised sky, the paper crushed in his titanic grip. He tilted a sake gourd to his lips, the burn a sharp counterpoint to his sigh. "First Roger, now Shiki," he murmured, voice a low rumble. "The ones who stood with me… thinning out like mist." Marco edged near, brow furrowed. "Pops, ease up on the drink—it's your health." Whitebeard's iconic laugh—*"Gurararara!"*—thundered, rattling the deck. "I'm Whitebeard, brat! This sea won't bury me yet!" His grin widened, unshaken.
In Onigashima's shadowed depths, Kaido lounged, liquor dripping from his chin as he crushed the news in his fist. "That madman Shiki's done?" he rumbled, a grin splitting his face. He turned to King, eyes glinting. "Time to take a bite from his lands—move!" The table cracked under his grip, hunger in his growl.
On Totto Land's candy spires, Big Mom savored a cream-drizzled cake, the paper smoldering at her feet. Her laugh erupted—*"Mama-mama!"*—shaking the room. "Shiki's out? Perfect!" She licked her lips, turning to Katakuri. "Take his territories—now! This sea's mine to feast on!" Her eyes gleamed, a predator scenting blood.
Across the seas, two emperors stirred, their claws reaching for Shiki's fallen empire. But on a nameless isle, shrouded in mist, a man in a black cloak stood alone, the news coo's paper fluttering in his grasp. His visage dissolved into shadow, an enigma carved in dusk, the barest shimmer of steel—a sword slung low at his waist—fracturing the mist's pallid veil. The wind clawed at his hood, a fleeting gasp of cloth, and he melted away—erased as if the world had blinked, a wraith claimed by the fog's hungry shroud.
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