The sky over the island of Fullalead was no longer a sky; it was a swirling, bruised tapestry of obsidian shadows and incinerating heat. The final battle for the soul of the New World had raged for twelve gruelling hours, and the cost was written in the blood and scorched earth that stretched across the island's jagged coastline. Marshall D. Teach was a monster of a man, a walking void that devoured everything in his path. But he was facing a fire that had been tempered in the fires of hell and a woman who had walked back from the grave to claim her vengeance. Maye's midnight-brown hair was matted with sweat and grime, her breathing ragged as she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Ace. Her arms were stained crimson, not just from the wounds of her enemies, but from the sheer volume of blood she was manipulating to keep the Blackbeard Pirates at bay. "He's slowing down!" Ace roared, his voice hoarse from shouting orders. His orange hat was long gone, his bare chest crisscrossed with fresh burns from Teach's Dark-Dark fruit, but his spirit was a blazing sun. "Maye! Now!" With a guttural cry, Maye thrust her hands forward. The ruby on her chest pulsed a violent, blinding red. She didn't just manifest blood; she commanded the very atmosphere, drawing every stray drop from the battlefield into a singular, rotating spire of crystalline crimson. At the same moment, Ace leapt into the air, his entire body becoming a spiralling vortex of white-hot flame. "Sanguine Solar Flare!" they cried in unison. The collision was cataclysmic. The spear of blood pierced through Teach's darkness like a needle through silk, followed instantly by Ace's incinerating heat. The resulting explosion levelled the town square, sending a shock wave that rattled the Moby's Will in the harbour. When the dust finally settled, the Great Traitor lay unmoving in a crater of black glass, his reign of terror silenced by the children of the man he had betrayed. Ace slumped to his knees, gasping for air, his hands shaking with exhaustion. Maye stumbled toward him, her legs feeling like lead, and collapsed against his side. They were broken, bleeding, and utterly spent, but they were alive. Around them, the crew let out a ragged cheer. Marco, his blue flames dim and flickering, sat heavily on a crate, tending to a gash on Izo's shoulder. They had won. The debt was paid.
But the victory lasted only as long as it took for the wind to shift. A sudden, unnatural heat began to bake the air—a heat that was different from Ace's fire. It was heavy, suffocating, and smelled of sulfur and the absolute, cold end of a life. Ace's blood ran cold. He knew that smell. He knew that weight. From the shifting smoke of the crater, a silhouette began to form. It was massive, draped in a white coat that should have signified justice but felt like a shroud.
In an instant, the world fractured in Ace's mind. The ruins of Fullalead flickered, overlapping with the ash-choked execution platform of Marineford. It was a sensory onslaught of his own trauma, flashing between the nightmare he lived and the nightmare he was entering. The past and Present overlapping in flashes, he has lived before.
Past - [Marineford]: Ace is on his knees, his back to the Admiral, watching in horror as Akainu lunges toward a defenseless Luffy.
Present - [Fullalead]: Ace is on his knees, his body drained of Haki, watching in horror as a shadow looms over a kneeling, exhausted Maye.
Past - [Marineford]: Akainu's fist, a bubbling, hissing mass of molten magma, thrusts forward with the intent to kill.
Present - [Fullalead]: Akainu's hand, wreathed in the same terrifying, liquid heat, reaches down, not to strike, but to seize.
Past - [Marineford]: Ace watches Maye's midnight-brown hair whip in the wind as she throws herself between him and the magma. He sees her eyes, wide and filled with a terrifying peace, just before the impact.
Present - [Fullalead]: Ace watches Maye's midnight-brown hair whip in the wind as she tries to turn, her hand reaching for the ruby pendant. He sees her eyes, wide and filled with sudden, sharp realization.
Past - [Marineford]: The sound of searing flesh. The silence of a heart stopping. The sight of a magma fist erupting through the center of Maye's chest.
Present - [Fullalead]: The sound of hissing steam. The silence of an ambush. The sight of a magma-clawed hand wrapping around Maye's throat, hoisting her off the ground like a broken doll.
"NO!"
The scream that ripped from Ace's throat was primal, a sound of pure, unadulterated agony that silenced the entire island. He tried to stand, his legs buckling beneath him. His fire sputtered, a weak orange spark that couldn't catch. Akainu stood in the center of the ruins, his face a mask of Absolute Justice. He held Maye by the throat, her feet dangling inches off the ground. The heat coming off his body was so intense it was singeing her hair. "You were a mistake I failed to erase three years ago," Akainu rumbled, his voice like the grinding of tectonic plates. He didn't look at the defeated Blackbeard; his eyes were fixed solely on the 'anomalies' before him. "The law of this world states that the dead do not return. You are a breach in the order, woman. A ghost wearing the skin of a Newgate." "Let... her... go..." Ace gasped, dragging himself across the dirt, his fingernails clawing into the stone. "Ace!" Maye choked out, her fingers scratching at the magma-coated arm that held her. The ruby on her chest began to pulse a frantic, jagged violet—the warning of a deity whose seal was being threatened by a heat it wasn't designed to withstand. "The Whitebeard era ended with her death," Akainu said, his gaze shifting to Ace with a cold, murderous disdain. "By bringing her back, you have insulted the very nature of Justice. I will not kill her here, Portgas D. Ace. Death is too simple a fate for a breach of reality." His thumb, a glowing coal of magma, pressed against the surface of the Sanguine Anchor. "DON'T TOUCH IT!" Ace shrieked, a burst of white-hot desperation finally igniting his Haki. He launched himself forward, a human comet of dying embers. But Akainu was faster. He didn't strike; he retreated. A massive wall of volcanic rock erupted from the ground between them, shielding the Admiral. "The Sea wants its debt repaid," Akainu's voice echoed through the sulfurous fog. "I am merely the hand that will deliver her to the tide. If you want to see her one last time, come to the Gates of Justice. Come and watch as the ocean erases the mistake you made." "MAYE!" Ace slammed into the volcanic wall, his fists bloody and charred. He tore at the rock, his fire howling in a frantic, useless rage. By the time he broke through, the square was empty. Akainu was gone. The Admiral had used the distraction of the meteoric Ryusei Kazan raining down on the rest of the crew to slip into a Marine transport ship waiting in the steam. The silence that followed was worse than the explosion. Ace stood in the center of the clearing, his chest heaving, his eyes wild and unfocused. He looked down at the spot where Maye had been. There, lying in the grey ash, was the small, hand-carved wooden sun he had given her when they were fourteen. It was scorched, the edges blackened by magma. The parallel was complete. At Marineford, he had lost her to the fire. Here, he had lost her to the law. "Captain..." Marco's voice was soft, heavy with a grief that felt too familiar. He walked over, his own body trembling with exhaustion, and placed a hand on Ace's shoulder. Ace didn't move. He didn't cry. He picked up the wooden sun, his fingers closing around it until the wood bit into his palm. When he looked up, the fire in his eyes wasn't orange. It wasn't red. It was a cold, terrifying blue. "Get everyone on the ship," Ace said, his voice a low, vibrating growl that made the hair on Marco's neck stand up. "Ace, we're depleted. We need to heal-yoi—" "I said get on the ship!" Ace roared, the ground beneath him cracking as his conqueror's Haki flared in a violent, uncontrollable wave. "We aren't going to a doctor. We aren't going to a safe harbor. We are going to the heart of the Navy. We're going to kill an Admiral." He looked toward the horizon, where the storm was already beginning to gather, the Great Storm Sabo had warned them about. The Sea was coming for its Anchor, and Akainu was holding the key. "The New World is over," Ace whispered to the scorched wooden sun. "Now, we burn the World Government to the ground."