Next Bonus, 100!!
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First, a massive fleet of allied pirate ships from the New World materialized just outside the harbor, immediately opening fire.
However, the flagship—the Moby Dick—was conspicuously absent.
A tense standoff ensued.
Whitebeard's failure to immediately reveal himself set the Marines on edge.
"Do we engage??"
"Hold your fire!"
"Whitebeard has to be close!"
"He's plotting something! Keep your eyes on the horizon!"
But while the Marines frantically scanned the distance, Whitebeard's main fleet was executing a maneuver no one had anticipated.
They emerged from the depths, breaching the surface right in the center of the harbor.
SPLASH!
The Moby Dick erupted from the water like a breaching leviathan, casting off torrents of seawater as it settled into the very heart of the crescent bay, dangerously close to the shore.
"What??"
"It's Whitebeard!"
"He came from underwater...!"
Sengoku scowled. "Whitebeard!"
It was a brilliant tactical strike. By bypassing the outer defenses, Whitebeard had effectively severed the tactical link between the Marine land forces and their naval blockade.
With the forty-three allied ships tying down the outer perimeter, Sengoku's grand plan to crush the invaders at sea was instantly rendered obsolete.
Whitebeard stood at the prow of the Moby Dick, his massive naginata, Murakumogiri, resting easily in his hand. He threw his head back and let out a booming laugh.
His sudden, impossible arrival had sown widespread panic among the Marine ranks.
"Gurarararara..."
The legendary veteran didn't waste a second.
He activated the power of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit, triggering a localized seaquake.
His objective: to completely shatter the Marine naval formations outside the harbor and ride the resulting tsunamis straight into Marineford.
RUMBLE!
The ocean violently convulsed.
The island of Marineford shuddered under the strain.
The clear blue sky was instantly blotted out by unnatural, swirling storm clouds.
The sea surged, rising with terrifying speed!
Wave after wave swelled, merging and climbing until they towered over the headquarters building itself.
It was an apocalyptic sight, striking absolute terror into the hearts of everyone watching.
"What unimaginable power... he really is the monster from the legends!" the Marines gasped, awestruck.
Far out at sea, Luffy, Jinbe, and Ivankov felt the violent churning of the ocean.
Their hijacked warship, steaming toward Marineford, was violently battered backward by the sudden squall.
"What's going on??"
"A tsunami??"
"Are you kidding me?? We're in the Tarai Current!"
The route connecting Impel Down, Enies Lobby, and Marineford was a massive, closed-loop whirlpool.
The only way to navigate it was to open the Gates of Justice and ride the correct current to the destination.
Because of this unique geography, a naturally occurring tsunami in these waters was an absolute impossibility.
Which made this sudden, towering wave all the more terrifying.
On the Grand Line, danger rarely came solely from enemy fire. The unpredictable weather, unknown diseases, and monstrous Sea Kings were equally lethal.
And a tsunami was universally recognized as one of the deadliest maritime disasters.
When a massive wave hits, it doesn't matter if you're the Pirate King—if your ship isn't built to withstand it, you're going down with it.
"Don't panic!" Inazuma commanded sharply. "Reef the sails! Secure the helm! Move, now!"
The crew sprang into action. Most were seasoned veterans of the New World—they knew exactly how to handle a crisis.
Suddenly, a colossal wall of water, rising like a sheer cliff face, bore down on the warship.
"It's huge!" they cried out in despair.
Jinbe stepped up to the bow, facing the incoming leviathan. He drew his fist back and threw a powerful punch into the empty air.
BOOM!
A muffled detonation echoed. A visible shockwave blasted outward from his fist, carrying the devastating force of Fish-Man Karate.
CRASH!
The tsunami, still a hundred meters out, violently exploded!
Jinbe's punch punched a massive, gaping hole straight through the wall of water, creating a critical breach in the wave's structure.
"Hold on tight! We're punching through!"
Ivankov seized the helm. Having served as a helmsman for the Revolutionary Army, his skills were impeccable.
A hundred meters was nothing to a surging wave.
The towering crest, high above the mast, crashed down around them.
Faced with the sheer, overwhelming power of nature, the feeling of absolute insignificance was unavoidable.
"Ah! The gap is closing!" a pirate screamed.
Water isn't stone. When a wall breaks, it stays broken. When water breaks, it immediately rushes in to fill the void.
BOOM!
Jinbe threw another devastating punch, blasting a crater into the collapsing wave.
The warship shot through the breach, only to be immediately confronted by a second, equally massive wave.
Jinbe didn't falter, unleashing a rapid-fire barrage of shockwaves.
He stood at the bow like a lone warrior challenging a hurricane, earning looks of profound awe from the hardened pirates on board.
With Jinbe clearing the path, the warship miraculously survived the tsunami.
The sea gradually calmed, though the unnatural storm clouds remained.
"Thank god!"
"We survived... I thought we were dead for sure!"
The crew let out a collective sigh of relief, wiping the cold sweat from their brows.
"That was amazing!" Luffy, whose stamina was slowly returning thanks to Ivankov's hormone injections, stared at Jinbe with undisguised admiration.
But Jinbe couldn't share in the relief. He knew Whitebeard intimately. He knew exactly what had caused that tsunami.
In the end... he hadn't been able to stop it.
Whitebeard had walked right into the Marines' trap.
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Marineford!
The tsunamis triggered by Whitebeard's Tremor-Tremor Fruit were sweeping toward the island from both flanks.
This was a different beast entirely from what Luffy's group had faced.
When Whitebeard channeled his power through the sea and the ocean floor, the unique geography of the whirlpool current caused the energy to split, forming two distinct tidal waves moving in opposite directions.
One surged toward Marineford. The other rushed outward into the surrounding waters.
Luffy's ship had been hit by the outward surge.
Marineford was facing the primary impact, and the danger was exponentially greater.
The towering waves were moments away from crashing down on the fortress.
But Sengoku, Whitebeard's oldest rival, knew exactly what the man was capable of. He had prepared for this.
The moment Whitebeard unleashed the seaquake, Admiral Kuzan—Aokiji—leaped high into the air.
"ICE AGE!"
Two long, crystalline spears of ice shot from Kuzan's hands, plunging directly into the heart of the surging tsunamis.
Instantly, a wave of absolute, sub-zero cold blasted outward. The terrifying, island-dwarfing waves were frozen solid in the blink of an eye.
In mere seconds, the sea for miles around Marineford was transformed into a frozen, arctic wasteland.
The water, the waves, the ships... everything was locked in ice.
Only the bay and a small patch of open water remained untouched.
The chilling cold seeped into their bones, leaving everyone in awe.
Admiral Kuzan had single-handedly neutralized Whitebeard's opening salvo.
Sengoku surveyed the frozen battlefield. Freezing the harbor presented a tactical dilemma.
The advantage: it completely sealed off any potential escape route for Whitebeard's main fleet, while simultaneously neutralizing the immediate threat of the tsunamis.
The disadvantage: it provided a stable, solid surface for the Whitebeard Pirates to disembark and engage the Marines in brutal, close-quarters combat on the ice.
It was a difficult trade-off, but a necessary one.
Whitebeard's unexpected submarine infiltration had forced his hand.
"Aokiji, you brat!" Whitebeard bellowed, clearly displeased that his devastating opening move had been thwarted.
If those waves had hit, rescuing Ace would have been a walk in the park.
"Partisan!"
Kuzan answered with an attack of his own. This exchange officially marked the beginning of the Summit War!
A barrage of razor-sharp ice spears materialized in the air, rocketing toward Whitebeard.
Whitebeard simply raised his fist and punched the empty air.
Cracks, like shattering glass, appeared in the very fabric of space.
The shockwave from the Tremor-Tremor Fruit pulverized the incoming ice spears into dust.
The lingering force of the impact even shattered the ice clinging to Kuzan's face.
Kuzan fell back toward the bay. The moment he hit the water, the splash instantly froze solid.
The ice rapidly spread outward from his point of impact.
Until the entire bay was completely frozen over.
Including the water surrounding the Whitebeard Pirates' ships. The fleet was now locked firmly in the ice.
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