Chapter 74 The Whitebeard Pirates
The atmosphere of the whole of Marineford was struck with an oppressive silence following the Fleet Admiral's announcement of Ace's lineage. Shock and awe radiated from the assembled army of Marines and even from some of the gathered guests.
A few parties from the Seven Warlords seemed intrigued by the revelation and their anticipation of the coming chaos only deepened.
Rayleigh glanced over at Justice and Goddess of Ice, noticing that they were trying to hide some of the shame they were feeling. They, just like every other Player and man of common sense, were easily able to read between the lines. Would the Marines patiently wait for every pregnant woman to have their kid and do a DNA test to confirm it wasn't his?
It was obvious that the Marines had killed every pregnant woman and newborn child and since they didn't even get the right one, it meant that they had killed numerous innocent lives for literally no reason at all.
After he took a moment for the tension to rise, the Fleet Admiral continued, "Was it two years now? You took your mother's name. As the Captain of the Spade Pirates you ascended through the pirate world with your superior strength and we finally noticed that Roger's blood had survived. But Whitebeard realized it at the same time we did. In order to raise you to be the next Pirate King, he took in his former rival's son onto his own ship!"
Ace shouted in rebuttal, "No! I joined his crew to make Whitebeard the next Pirate King!"
The Fleet Admiral shot down, "You're the only one who thinks that. We couldn't take any rash action against you because you were protected by Whitebeard! If we left you alone, slowly but surely, you would start to gain the qualities to stand at the summit of the Pirate World! That's why there is so much meaning in cutting you down today! Even if it means total war with Whitebeard!"
Rayleigh could not help but ask a certain question in the Chat Room.
[Swordsman: So does anyone plan on saving Ace?]
[Justice: Wait, are you really gonna help the Pirates?]
[Swordsman: I have yet to hear a crime he has committed other than being a pirate. Is that alone worth execution to you?]
[Dragon Chef: He's right. Ace can't inherit Roger's crimes since Roger was already executed for his crimes. And executing him for something he hasn't done yet is even more pointless. I'd get him out of there myself, but Titan got me in our match so it's up to him now.]
[Titan: Don't worry, I'll save him. Whitebeard plans to die today so I'm gonna try and take in as much of his crew as possible.]
[Captain Jack: Don't worry, if he does die, I'll destroy the entirety of Marineford and every Marine in it.]
[Goddess of Ice: You wouldn't dare!]
[Captain Jack: If you don't want to find out, then you'd better make sure Ace successfully escapes. The party is about to start.]
As if on cue, a panicked Marine ran up to the execution platform and shouted to Sengoku, "Fleet Admiral Sengoku! We have a report! The Gates of Justice have begun to open without anybody's orders! We can't contact the control room!"
The Fleet Admiral ordered to the assembled army, "Here they come! All men to your battle stations!"
Rayleigh looked past the open space that led into Marineford's inner harbor and saw dozens of irregular ships, all with a variation of the Jolly Roger on their forward flag.
Every flag was recognizable and many of the gathered Marines started listing off the flags and crews they knew while shouting for orders so they would know what to do. The problem was that Whitebeard's pirate vessel did not seem to be leading the pirate fleet. He definitely had to be there, so where was he? The Marines in charge couldn't decide what to do before they found him.
Luckily, or unluckily depending on how one perceived it, they did not have to look for long as bubbles started surging up from the center of Marineford's inner harbor. With a massive surge of water, three massive ships and a fourth that was even larger rose from beneath the water's surface.
None of the ships looked part-submarine which meant they used a different method to sail beneath the Marine's sight before breaching the water's surface. Rayleigh figured they used bubbles.
Marineford was very close to Sabaody Archipelago, a place that had massive trees which produced a soap bubble-like resin. This resin could be used to coat ships, allowing them to go underwater, but the bubbles popped if you were too far from Sabaody and the resin-saturated water, so this was the only place that such a tactic could be easily used.
The largest of the four ships was carved to look like a massive white whale and appropriately named the Moby Dick. On the sculpted head of the deck, in plain view, was another of the strange humans with impossible body proportions. Standing over three times taller than a normal human adult was the heavily muscular titan known as the world's strongest man, Edward Newgate, also known as Whitebeard.
The man did not shout but his voice carried throughout the venue. "My beloved son had better be unharmed." His eyes locked on Ace's position and he chuckled. "You wait right there Ace."
After announcing himself to Ace, Whitebeard then announced himself to the Marines. With his fists.
Whitebeard smashed the air on both sides of him. The sound of cracking was noticed before the actual cracks in the air became visible. It was like a pane of very thick glass was around the old man and had just been smashed and the spiderweb of cracks just hung in the air, relative to the man's position on the swaying ship.
Rayleigh's expanded senses noticed the invisible shockwaves from the cracks that propagated out and down. Moments later, a dull sound inaudible to humans reverberated beneath their feet. It was something that happened prior to earthquakes, the vibrations of seismic plates shifting against each other. Whitebeard's fists had caused the earth beneath the sea floor some distance from Marineford to crack and shift, causing an earthquake.
From the platform, Ace mumbled a few things before shouting, "Why couldn't you guys have just forgotten about me?! It's my own fault I ended up like this!"
Whitebeard seemed to have no problem lying aloud, "No. As I recall, it was I who told you to go after him, my son."
The large old man ignored Ace pointing out his lies and continued, "I told him to go, right Marco?"
Behind him, one of the few Division Commanders with a normal body shape, Marco the Phoenix, confirmed aloud, "Indeed, I heard it with my own ears. We're sorry for putting you through this trouble, Ace."
He then gave a speech about how they were here to send a message about what happens to those who touch the crew of Whitebeard.
A moment later, the physical reverberations of the earthquake Whitebeard created were felt by all in Marineford. Windows and foundations cracked and hundreds of soldiers toppled over from the intense shaking. Those with a bit of experience knew that the shaking was only a prelude to the true consequence of Whitebeard's previous action.
The water that had been jutted up from the seaquake had flowed toward Marineford and now created two massive tidal waves, both taller than an 80-story skyscraper. If nothing was done, Marineford and everyone within would be underwater in another twenty seconds.
Aokiji moved quickly, using Moonwalk to gain altitude, and froze a line of ice from his hands to both waves. The moment the lines of ice extending from his palms reached the waves, they seemed to instantly freeze. Aokiji then tried sending lances of ice at Whitebeard but the attacks were shattered with a wave of his hand, causing Aokiji to fall toward the water of the inner harbor. The moment he touched the surface, Aokiji flash froze the water, preventing the ships from getting closer and stopping further ships from entering the inner harbor.
The inner harbor of the Marineford had hundreds of defenses and once the ships were rendered immobile, every cannon started opening fire to destroy the ships and kill the pirates within.
Whitebeard's crew had no intention of remaining sitting ducks so many vigorously launched themselves into the fray, leaping off the ships onto the ice to rush into the harbor on foot. Others stayed on the ships and used their own cannons to attack Marineford from within.
The Vice Admirals stood in front of the common cannon-fodder Marines at the head of the harbor to take the first wave and push them back while the Marines used their rifles to fire shot after shot, trying to thin the numbers.
Rayleigh's attention turned to the side when Mihawk took a step forward and gripped his blade. After locking eyes with Whitebeard, Mihawk slashed down, sending a flying slash in Whitebeard's direction.
Rayleigh did not know why, but Mihawk's slash did not contain any Conqueror's Haki. His own flows did not command the flow of the world to move forward. Was he hiding it from the Marines or was he just being lazy?
In either case, the slash was halted before it reached the ship by a man only a little smaller than Whitebeard. The shine that reflected off the man's body was something Rayleigh recognized as the effect of the same Devil Fruit as the Player Glitter, the fruit that allowed a person to turn their body into diamond.
Normal diamond should still have been split, even with Mihawk's lazy slash, but the Diamond-bodied division commander likely used Haki on top of his ability, granting him an invincible level of defense.
Kizaru the Light Logia user tried attacking with rapid fire lasers but those were blocked by Division Commander Marco who turned into a flaming phoenix to take the attack while ignoring damage, something his Mythical Zoan fruit was capable of.
A half dozen Vice-Admirals, all members of the Giant race, were called forward to crush the pirates when the diamond guy performed the Ultimate Tatami Mat Flip.
As in, he reached into the crack that Mihawk's slash made into the ice, grabbed the entire ice chunk between him and the harbor, and tossed it at the execution platform. Those who blinked and missed it realized too late that a massive ice block had been yeeted toward the center of the Marine formation.
Rayleigh turned to ask Justice, "Can you do that?"
All of Rayleigh's Nen-enhanced weights at the same time weighed about 2.56 million kilograms. Though he used it for speed training, not weight lifting training. Without using Nen or the Force, he was confident that he could lift ten to twenty times that pretty well. But that ice block soaring through the air had to weigh at least 300 million kilograms, well over a hundred times what Rayleigh used. And it hadn't been simply lifted, it had been Yeeted at least the length of two football fields in distance and ten stories in height.
Akainu used a Magma fist to block and evaporate the ice into steam. The fist then continued forward and broke into pieces, raining fireballs of magma down on all the pirates and the four pirate ships.
Justice confidently answered, "Of course I can, who do you take me for? I'm definitely the strongest Player."
Justice had stored years worth of Sunlight converted Nen within his body and when used, could likely exhibit more power than any other player than did not walk down a similar path.
Rayleigh started walking forward and Goddess of Ice called out, "Whose side are you on right now?"
Rayleigh answered, "I'm gonna play with the Pirates at the moment. After that, we'll see."
After confirming that he would not be harming the Marines, Justice and Goddess of Ice nodded to each other and jumped into the fight as well.
Rayleigh had to consciously regulate his breathing and heart rate, for both were threatening to go out of control. Never before had he needed to exercise so much self-restraint, but looking at the battle playing out before him, he couldn't help it. This was what he had been looking forward to his entire life. This was what all that murderous training had been for. It was all he could do to not just rush off into the fold.
Oh, he was going to, but certain things had to be done first. He had a checklist and everything.
First, he had to divide the combat zones into regions and determine which was appropriate, how much time would it take to wipe out every pirate within, and how the pirates around that region would react.
Honestly, the main reason he was going after the Pirates rather than the Marine was that the latter wasn't worth it. The Vice Admirals, with one exception, weren't a challenge, the giants among the Marines didn't have decent combat standards, and the Admirals were too busy playing with the Whitebeard Division Commanders.
Before Rayleigh could make a decision, a figure Rayleigh could only think of as a Giant-Giant emerged from the water at the far end of the pirate fleet. When this creature stood upright, the seawater only came up to his knees. Marine ships opened fire on the human-form godzilla but the behemoth grabbed one of the Marine ships, lifted it out of the water, and proceeded to use it as a club to smash the other Marine ships.
As he walked forward, the fleet of pirate ships started lining up behind him as he made a path through the blockade of Marine ships toward the entrance to the inner harbor. At the moment, only pirates from the four ships within the inner harbor were fighting with the Marines, but if the blockade was broken, tens of thousands of other pirates would swarm into the base and the delicate balance would shatter in the pirate's favor.
"HEY SWORDSMAN!" A familiar shout, something Rayleigh figured was meant for him, echoed through the space. The same voice then shouted at the giant-giant, "Have you ever been punched at the speed of light?" The source of the voice then turned into a mass of light that shot from the ground directly at the face of the giant-giant. Justice re-materialized at the last moment as a thud and crack could be heard from on high. Those who turned up to look had their jaws drop as the giant-giant was lifted into the air and backwards. His flying figure sailed over the fleet of Marine ships and all the way back to the pirate ships where he crashed into one of them and made a large wave that disrupted the others.
The giant-giant sunk into the water for a moment before he floated back up, his form unmoving.
Justice had used the rebound from the punch to jump back to the shore and shouted, "Who's next?!" Those capable of seeing Haki would also be able to see the sun-like glow of blinding aura around him.
Rayleigh smirked. The giant-giant was definitely bigger than that ice block and that yeet was much further than the diamond dude's, so that confirmed that Justice wasn't completely filled with hot air.
At least Rayleigh had finished analyzing the combat regions. Besides paying close attention to the Division Commanders, he also needed to pay attention to the Warlords as they had no problem with friendly fire. Boa Hancock even seemed to take out as many Marines as she did Pirates.
Rayleigh vanished from his position and reappeared over a fallen Marine, picking up his sword. He used En, Clairvoyance, and Danger Sense to cover his bases and find where the Marines were being the most overwhelmed and started clashing swords.
Rayleigh was not wearing a Marine Uniform, but he was wearing a black suit with a tie that he requested from a Marine tailor. He had no intention of going into battle bare-chested or wearing samurai robes. Since he wore a clean suit and used a Marine-issued sword, no one questioned which side he was fighting for.
At least at first.
Rayleigh found a pirate and lightly slashed the man's side, shoulder, and forearm, causing him to drop his sword. Before it reached the ground, Rayleigh struck the man's shatterpoint to knock him out, grabbed the pirate, and yeeted him into an open space near one of the pirate ships. Rayleigh then nabbed the pirate's sword and started attacking another pirate.
Seeing a 'Marine' steal a pirate's sword had the other pirate fuming and caused him to viciously fight back.
Said pirate faltered when he realized that his thieving opponent was using the exact sword style of the man he had just taken that sword from.
Once Rayleigh finished digesting the experience of the sword using Psychometry and combat, he quickly sped up, disarmed his opponent, knocked him out, yeeted him where the other one was, and took his sword next.
In three minutes, he had defeated ten pirates and a pile of defeated pirates was already forming where he had been yeeting them all.
Yes, Rayleigh was in a mood to yeet things. It happens to the best of us.
Five sword-using pirates were already surrounding him with two more trying to shoot him but Rayleigh didn't even consider this fair. These were low level guys and Rayleigh was just using them for a warm-up until the real fun started.
The sound of shouting and screaming announced the arrival of new guests.
Over one hundred Sea Kings started attacking the Marine ships outside. The Giant-Giant was still out cold but the path to the inner harbor was being widened by the sea kings.
This meant that the Players who were not already hanging around Marineford had arrived.
While keeping a few Wills on standby to watch for Players, Rayleigh continued adding to his repertoire of combat experience while warming up. Most of the irregularly sized pirates had equally irregular swords, but Rayleigh's physical strength was far above his size. Not as strong as that diamond guy, but none of his opponents were division commanders, so that wasn't a problem and Rayleigh quickly got used to each of the large blades he used and digested each of their experiences in the heat of battle.
Some swords looked like over-sized cutlasses, others like giant cleavers. A few pirates used two swords and Rayleigh would disarm them both, yeet the fellow into the pile, and use both at the same time to digest that pirate's style, adding it to the list.
His Clairvoyance could cover the entirety of Marineford and he witnessed many things. Kizaru was faking an injury near the execution platform but was actually on standby in case it was needed. Akainu was standing near the western residential district of Marineford, killing any pirate who tried to leave the battle area. He also killed a few Marines that tried to run away.
Aokiji seemed to be discussing various things with some captains, likely plotting something.
Several of his Wills then detected a change in the flow of the world. Something was coming. The sound of screaming from above made Rayleigh raise an eyebrow.
A ship was falling from the sky. Well, from the top of the new glacier that stood over Marineford. On it were clearly pirates, prisoners, one pervert with a very large head, and someone Rayleigh recognized from his wanted poster. Monkey D Luffy.
By either coincidence or plot armor, the ship fell into the segment of the inner harbor where the Diamond Guy had yeeted away the ice, meaning that the ship landed into the relatively soft patch of water rather than the hard sheet of ice.
Most of the pirates onboard swam to the nearest shore while others were dragged or thrown from the water. Rayleigh guessed that they were devil fruit users.
Rayleigh got a very good look at Luffy and sighed. He was pretty sure what he was seeing was not normal.
Rayleigh did not know if it was because of the method he used to awaken his Observation Haki or if it was due to the interaction between his Force senses and his Observation Haki, but he was 100% certain that he could feel things using it that others could not. Or maybe they did notice it, but could not define or recognize it.
The flow of the world circled Luffy almost lovingly. Did he eat the Human Human Fruit Model: Main Character? Was that how Plot Armor worked?
Rayleigh only had to wonder what he was doing here for a moment before Luffy shouted, "Ace! I finally found you!"
Rayleigh rolled his eyes. Of course, the soon-to-be executed, son of the pirate king, person who had not actually committed any egregious crimes, was close to the Main Character. This battle would determine the future of the world. Of course, the Main Character should fall from the sky and end up in the heart of it.
Rayleigh also felt some Force presences sneak into the group from the sea, near where the Sea Kings were wreaking havoc. Some entered the fight against the Marines while others snuck deeper into Marineford.
Goddess of Ice stationed herself outside and froze the water surrounding Marineford after getting the Marine vessels to point their cannons at the Pirate ships. This stopped the Pirate ships outside from getting through via ship and sealed the water's surface to block the sea kings from entering combat without breaking the ice.
Like the Pirates inside, the pirates outside thought to jump off the ships and charge forward, but Justice stayed at Goddess of Ice's side and rained rapid-fire light shots faster than the Pirates could charge forward. These two essentially halted the 43 Whitebeard ships outside, preventing the inner fleet from receiving any reinforcements.
Some Giant Marines and one sandy pirate tried to attack Whitebeard but the former were crushed by Whitebeard and the latter was stopped by Luffy who then took a moment to chat with Whitebeard before bouncing off in the direction of the execution platform.
Rayleigh kept a Will using Clairvoyance on Luffy and the world seemed to move to assist his every step. This was worth paying attention to because Rayleigh learned more about the flow of the world and because there was a lot of collateral damage from those attacking Luffy and Rayleigh intended to avoid it.
Like Kizaru shooting a laser at Luffy. Luffy was pushed out of the way by the wink of the large-headed pervert, but the blast from the laser was like that of a hundred grenades. Rayleigh was far enough away to be fine, but he wore his Mandalorian Melee Shield and would activate it if that kind of explosion got too close. His body didn't need the protection, but his new clothes did.
Ace shouted at Luffy to run away and get out of there, but Luffy shouted back, "I'm your brother!"
At this announcement, Fleet Admiral Sengoku got back on the transponder Snail and reported that Luffy, "Is the flesh and blood son of the Revolutionary Dragon."
The pile of defeated pirates had grown quite large at this point and Rayleigh was looking for either a Swordmaster or a Devil Fruit user. Even among the Division Commanders, there weren't a lot of Devil Fruit users.
The problem of who to challenge solved itself though when he noticed the screams of Marines. The pirates in prisoner getups from the fallen ship happily joined the fight and many of them were very strong. They were also very excited to torture and kill Marines so it didn't take long for a new pile to start forming near an open space next to where that weak, red-nosed pirate had been shouting at Whitebeard from.
At one point Mihawk played with Luffy, seemingly intent on testing Luffy's Plot Armor to see if he would survive. One slice that Luffy dodged split the frozen tidal wave horizontally, causing it to slide forward and into the Marine ships outside the walls of Marineford.
What stopped Mihawk's game was the Division Commander named Vista, someone Rayleigh had been wanting to fight after warming up, but it seemed that Mihawk had gotten him first. That wasn't fair.
Seeing his chosen target taken by his teacher, Rayleigh couldn't see another Swordmaster among the Whitebeard Pirates so he decided to fight that Diamond Guy and see if he could cut through his Shatterpoint and break him, something even Mihawk had not done with his less-than-serious slash.
The Diamond guy was fighting a Sand Logia user who also seemed to be a pirate. From the context of their shouting, the sand guy wanted to kill Whitebeard and the Diamond dude was getting in his way. That meant the sand guy would not mind in the slightest if Rayleigh took his dance partner for himself.
Or at least that had been the plan.
Rayleigh waved a hand to the side to send the fired explosives coming toward him back to their senders.
The pair of figures took the impacts point blank without dodging, causing a deafening explosion Rayleigh used a bit of Force Muffle to shield himself from to prevent hearing loss.
Once the smoke cleared, Rayleigh spotted the pair of Players. One he recognized, the other he did not. Neither had the slightest bit of damage from the explosion.
Dyna Might shouted, "I've got a score to settle with you, Swordsman."
Rayleigh ignored the bombastic idiot and addressed the lady at his side, "And why are you here? Have we met?" The pale-skinned Player had short, white hair and wore sunglasses. She was a bit taller than Dyna Might who was stockier.
The lady answered, "No, this is our first meeting, but I'm here on business. You remember Enigma, right?"
"The guy who got in my way during the Chimera Ant thing? Yeah. What about him?"
"Well, he made a new character after Hisoka killed his first one and made a little deal with me. If I kill you, he swore to be my subordinate."
Rayleigh asked, "And is that price worth it? Is the power of a guy who had to start over worth making an enemy of me?"
"Well, it's worth an attempt at least. His potential is quite high."
Rayleigh shook his head. He guessed that this girl was also a 20-Talent Player and knew that Enigma was as well. A 20-Talent Player with another 20-Talent Player as a minion would have an excellent advantage against others when the Players started fighting each other in the future.
Too bad she had to target him. He wondered how she would feel when she figured out how much she lost from this deal.
Rayleigh raised his sword into a defensive posture and said, "Ladies first."
She smiled and raised her hand. From it, her aura expanded faster than a bullet, something Rayleigh detected using Force Danger Sense and calculating the future through the senses he felt using Observation Haki. Rayleigh vanished from his position and reappeared, sword swinging.
Rayleigh didn't intend to cut off her head. Her arm would do just fine as a test to see if this Hunter had the right to hunt him.
The moment Rayleigh's borrowed sword made contact with her aura, the aura started propagating itself, expanding endlessly. Rayleigh pushed his Haki-infused, Nen-coated sword further, but the closer to her skin the sword got, the greater the degree of expansion of her aura, pushing the sword away.
Rayleigh's danger sense went into over-drive and before Rayleigh could remove the sword, her aura expanded out like a battering ram, launching Rayleigh into the hull of one of Whitebeard's ships, neatly planting him into it.
All of Rayleigh's Wills analyzed what happened and arrived at the same conclusion. Gojo Satoru. This girl made a Gojo Satoru build. And she was here to kill him. Rayleigh couldn't help but smile.