Flevance, North Blue
As the battle raged, the air around Admiral Hazard pulsed with an intense, suffocating heat.
"Infernal Wrath…" he intoned, and a massive wave of molten plasma surged from his outstretched arms, glowing with a white-hot intensity that melted, vaporized, and disintegrated everything in its path.
The ground cracked and hissed beneath the weight of his power as the searing plasma advanced, leaving only scorched earth and thick, acrid smoke in its wake. The very air warped with the heat of his onslaught, and the once-grand capital of Flevance trembled under his assault, its remnants now reduced to a molten wasteland.
Issho, unflinching, responded with a deep, resonant voice that cut through the roar of destruction.
"Endless Tiger…" he roared, his willpower manifesting as the earth itself trembled in response. Under the swordsman's assault, the ground lifted and shifted, rumbling as massive earthen walls surged from the ground, towering high and reinforced with an intense gravitational pull.
Issho's powers held firm against the molten wave, his gravitational mastery bending the natural world to his will. The clash of earth and plasma sent an explosion of molten rock and raw energy into the air, the collision painting the sky in a surreal, apocalyptic glow that turned night into day, each impact sending shockwaves that rattled the remains of the capital city.
Hazard, visibly straining, tossed aside his battered Marine vest, exposing wounds that still bled despite his Logia powers. His once-pristine appearance now matched the destruction around him, and his molten aura flickered slightly, betraying the toll the battle had taken on him.
Though he commanded the powers of a Logia with an awakened Plasma-Plasma Fruit, Issho's unrelenting power was proving more formidable than he had ever anticipated.
He forced himself to smirk, perhaps to mask his caution. "I've always wondered against which great pirate I'd unleash my awakened abilities," he said, his voice edged with an attempt at bravado.
"Never thought it'd be a blind man." But despite his words, there was no mockery in his tone; only a deep, unyielding respect masked beneath a hardened exterior.
Issho stood resolute, his blind gaze impassive as his hand rested on the hilt of his sword, his posture relaxed but with lethal intent simmering below the surface. His mind was set—his goal clear: the life of King Asbestos, the tyrant responsible for so much death and suffering.
In contrast, Admiral Hazard was hell-bent on ensuring the king's protection, his orders clear from the World Government to preserve the king's life at all costs.
Hazard knew Issho's grievances with the king—knew of the suffering Asbestos had wrought on his people in pursuit of wealth and status, but for Hazard, duty and justice were two separate things.
Issho's voice was calm, his tone deceptively gentle, but there was a simmering rage in his words. "Stand down, Marine. I bear no grudge against you or the government. All I want is that man's head."
Hazard's brow furrowed, his voice hardening as he held his ground. "You pirates always believe the world owes you justice. But assassinating a king—one under the protection of the World Government—that's not something I can allow. Leave, and I'll let you live. Persist, and I'll burn you down where you stand."
Issho's expression hardened, his blind gaze seeming to pierce through Hazard despite his unseeing eyes. With a quiet resolve, he raised his sword, the air around him pulsing with the rising intensity of his power. In a low, almost reverent voice, he whispered, "Hell's Journey…"
Hazard glanced up at the skies, his arrogance melting into horror as he saw the heavens darken above him. A massive meteor, the size of a small island, began descending toward the earth, the air around it crackling with an ominous, otherworldly energy.
Its fiery glow cast a monstrous shadow over the ruins below, and as it approached, even Hazard's molten aura dimmed in comparison to the sheer magnitude of the celestial assault.
His voice wavered as he took in the full scale of Issho's technique. "You're insane… you'd destroy everything here—him included!" Hazard's eyes darted to the crumpled form of King Asbestos, who lay barely conscious, his face pale with terror.
The king had been stripped of his earlier bravado, reduced to a trembling coward as the battle around him leveled his once-grand capital.
But Issho's focus never wavered. "A tyrant's kingdom means nothing if built on the suffering of the innocent. You think you're protecting him, Marine, but justice doesn't serve a despot." Issho raised his blade, and with a flourish, directed the meteor's descent faster, its fiery form growing larger with each passing second as it approached the earth.
His Haki pulsed like a heartbeat, echoing out with a commanding pressure that washed over the battlefield, pressing down on Hazard with a force that seemed to shake the very soul.
Hazard gritted his teeth, pushing against the pressure of Issho's Haki, feeling its weight crash against him like a tidal wave.
"You think I'll stand by and let you destroy us all?" With a furious roar, he summoned every ounce of his power, his plasma aura flaring to life with renewed intensity as he raised his hands to intercept the massive meteor. "I'll burn this world to ash before I let a pirate like you take it!"
He released his own attack in response, his hands pulsing with condensed plasma.
"Star Annihilation!" A colossal pillar of white-hot plasma surged upward, blazing with such heat that the air warped and split. The two attacks collided in midair, unleashing a blinding explosion that illuminated the sky, turning night into day for an instant as the shockwave tore through the battlefield.
As the explosion dissipated, Hazard staggered, his body trembling from the strain, his skin scorched despite his Logia powers. But he stood, a fierce determination in his eyes.
Issho stood opposite him, undeterred, his grip tightening on his blade. His gaze remained steady, his Haki radiating a deadly calm. In that moment, as the remnants of the explosion faded and the two adversaries faced each other once more, it was clear—neither of them intended to yield.
Hazard's mocking laughter echoed as he stood tall amidst the wreckage, his plasma aura simmering around him like an inferno. "If that's all you've got, you better give up, old man! You'll never take him down! I'll drag him off this cursed island myself!"
But Issho remained composed, his unseeing gaze turning skyward, calm yet ominous. Hazard's smirk faded as he realized too late that Issho was not finished. The dark skies above parted again, and with a deep rumble, half a dozen more meteors tore through the clouds, each as large as the last and blazing a fiery path directly toward Hazard and the unconscious King Asbestos.
"You bastard!" Hazard roared, unleashing his full power as plasma erupted from the ground, forming massive pillars that tried to intercept the descending meteors. His focus intensified, sweat beading down his face as he strained to redirect their destructive force.
But his earlier exertions had drained him, and even with his might, two of the meteors broke through, slamming into the ground with a thunderous explosion. The force was tremendous, sending shockwaves that fractured the landscape, creating an enormous crater of molten earth.
Hazard barely managed to shield Asbestos from the blast, his own form flickering as his plasma regeneration struggled to keep up.
Hazard staggered, panting as he reformed, his body patching together under the scorching heat. Issho's cold voice cut through the chaos, laced with an unyielding, quiet fury. "He doesn't deserve to live. Give him up, Marine. Leave, and you'll walk away alive."
"You damn… pirate scum," Hazard sneered, his voice carrying an edge of desperation. "Why go against the World Government for a few nobodies?" But as he looked at Issho, he realized something was deeply wrong.
The blind swordsman seemed unresponsive, lost to some inner darkness, a rising rage that made his form almost tremble. No words reached him. Issho's expression was etched with grief and anger, his face turned slightly upward as if he could hear the haunting pleas and cries that filled the air. And in that moment, Hazard sensed that this was no longer a battle of duty for Issho, but a path of vengeance and sorrow.
Issho's fists clenched around his blade, his Haki surging with an intensity that was almost unbearable. Memories—faces of those he had met, stories of suffering he had heard, voices crying out for justice—filled his mind, each one a burning ember that fanned the inferno of his wrath. The earth below him trembled, echoing his rage.
He could feel it—he could hear them—the cries of the innocents, the wails of the dying, the desperation of the forgotten. His own resolve, once tempered and balanced, became a force he could no longer contain.
The air thickened as a dark, swirling energy surrounded him, gravity itself distorting as if the universe bent to the weight of his grief. He held his sword in front of him, letting his full fury pour into it. Gravity waves rippled out from his form, warping the very fabric of the battlefield and pressing down on the land so fiercely that even Hazard struggled to remain standing.
Issho's power surged, no longer restrained, as he whispered into the trembling silence:
"For every life, for every tear, for every voice silenced by men like him…"
Hazard's defiance crumbled, terror taking root as he stumbled back, looking around at the shifting landscape. The entire island of Flevance seemed to tilt as Issho's power expanded, gravity distorting the horizon as fissures split open and the ground fractured.
The whole island quaked, as if caught in the grip of some primordial force. Massive rocks floated from the earth, hovering in the air as they spun around Issho, suspended in his fury. The island, once regal and full of life, was now a shattered, desolate wasteland under his wrath.
Issho raised his blade high, his voice a low growl laced with grief. "Hell's Descent."
The very earth heaved beneath his words. The gravity around him condensed into his blade, intensifying until the blade shone with a dark aura, an all-encompassing void that seemed to absorb even the light around it.
With a single swing, he unleashed the full weight of his newly awakened devil fruit power, his gravity erupting with such force that the sky itself seemed to darken. The island shuddered as a seismic wave radiated outward, a monstrous force that tore through everything in its path.
Hazard staggered, his body caught in the overwhelming gravity as it crushed him down, the plasma around him flickering weakly under the assault. The earth itself split and cracked, sinking under the immense pressure.
All around, rocks rose into the sky, only to be dragged back down by Issho's gravity, slamming into the ground with explosive force, further pulverizing the land.
The battlefield lay shrouded in darkness, torn by devastation and scarred by the relentless clashes of power. Amidst the smoldering ruins, the air grew heavy as Issho, the blind swordsman, stood alone at the heart of Flevance's capital.
His hands trembled as he gripped his Shikomizue with a newfound intensity, feeling the weight of his own rage—no, something deeper than rage, something ancient and overwhelming. A symphony of grief and fury welled up inside him, ignited by the cries of innocents lost to cruelty and greed. He had come to bring justice, but the suffering around him screamed for something far more primal.
And then, as if the land itself sensed the resolve in Issho's heart, the very atmosphere seemed to buckle under his will. Gravity itself began to pulse and distort around him as a dense wave of pressure spread out like the ripples from a single, powerful heartbeat.
His Conqueror's Haki began to awaken in earnest, a surge of energy that was not merely an extension of his will but the raw essence of his soul's defiance. Those nearby fell to their knees under the sheer weight of his spirit, their minds overwhelmed by the depth of his wrath and pain.
The ground began to quake as Issho took a slow, determined step forward, and then another.
Each footfall resonated like the tolling of a great, celestial bell, echoing across the desolate ruins of the kingdom. His Conqueror's Haki, infused with his profound sense of justice, poured forth in a violent storm of dark, swirling energy.
The very air grew dense and oppressive, making it impossible to draw breath as waves of purple lightning crackled and danced around him, splitting the sky in jagged arcs.
Issho's blind eyes stared unseeing into the heavens as if he could pierce the veil of injustice that cloaked the world. "No more," he whispered, his voice barely audible, yet filled with an unyielding resolve. "No more suffering… no more corruption. Today, the heavens themselves will bear witness."
Suddenly, his energy erupted outward in a tremendous surge, a tsunami of Conqueror's Haki that swept across the battlefield, leveling anything that dared to remain standing. Buildings cracked and crumbled, trees snapped and withered, and even the earth itself buckled under the relentless force of his will.
The sheer power of his spirit split the sky open, casting streaks of purple lightning across the heavens as if the cosmos were bearing witness to his righteous fury.
As his Haki continued to expand, reaching the very edges of the capital, people could feel the weight of his anguish and anger pressing down upon them, relentless and unyielding.
Some among the Marines and even Hazard himself felt as though they were drowning beneath an ocean of grief, struggling to breathe as Issho's emotions bled into his Conqueror's Haki, threatening to crush everything within its grasp.
Those with keen senses felt the shape of Issho's awakening power as if it were a dark tide rising from the depths of his soul. His grief and compassion had always defined him, but now they transformed into something terrible and beautiful—a wrath so profound it bordered on divine retribution.
His awakening was a rare, transcendent moment, the sort of awakening that belonged only to those who walked a path forged by the weight of their convictions, tempered by endless pain and sacrifice.
As his Haki spiraled higher, the gravitational field around Issho warped further, dragging loose stones, rubble, and shards of metal into a spinning orbit around him. The heavens above swirled in response, drawn into the black vortex forming at his feet, where gravity itself seemed to collapse under the sheer force of his will. A
nd then, with a deep, resonant hum, he raised his Shikomizue. The staff-sword glowed with a radiant purple aura as Issho channeled his power through it, becoming an extension of his soul, and the battlefield held its breath.
"What… what are you?" Hazard gasped, terror etched in his face. But Issho did not respond. His mind was focused on one thing alone—obliterating the kingdom that had been built on the suffering of innocents. He saw nothing but justice in its purest, most destructive form.
For a moment, silence fell over the battlefield. Then, with a single, final surge, Issho released the pent-up force into the ground. The very foundation of Flevance seemed to rupture, and the island sank as though crushed by the hand of an angry god, a mass grave for the horrors it had harbored.
Hazard's voice cut through the air, desperate and almost pleading. "Are you going to bury all these innocent people along with this country, Issho?" He stared, wide-eyed, at the blind swordsman who once showed compassion even to Marines, even to enemies.
Flevance was beyond saving, a land cursed, but hundreds of thousands of innocent lives still remained. As the entire landmass itself trembled and began to rise under Issho's influence, Hazard could hardly comprehend the scope of destruction that was about to unfold.
Issho, his face contorted with grief and rage, held his sword aloft, hands clenched tight around its hilt as gravity itself bowed to his will.
The ground shook, rocks tore into the air, and the weight of his Conqueror's Haki crushed the air, saturating it with sorrow and purpose. He spoke with a voice that seemed to resonate with the land itself.
"If this is what it takes to release them from their suffering… then I will carry that burden as well!" Issho's voice, filled with wrath and despair, echoed across the heavens as a purple beam of light erupted from his blade, surging upward into the sky like a vengeful comet. With a mighty roar, he swung down.
"World's End!"
The heavens cracked as Issho's blade descended, ready to consume the land, the people, and even himself in one final act of absolute judgment.
But before his attack could strike, a surge of black lightning cut through the sky, colliding with Issho's blade in an explosion of force that ripped apart the clouds and lit up the darkened heavens.
My muscles strained, veins bulging as I held the blade infused with all my Haki against Issho's overwhelming power. My feet dug into the fractured earth, barely holding ground beneath the weight of Issho's grief-driven wrath.
The collision of our powers froze the world in a silent, tense suspension before unleashing a shockwave so powerful it sent fissures tearing through the battlefield and cast debris high into the air.
"Rosinante…" Hazard whispered, watching with disbelief as Donquixote Rosinante—the man known as one of the most brutal pirates in the sea—held his ground against Issho's fury, stopping the attack poised to annihilate the country.
My voice broke through the chaos, steady but strained, as I pushed my blade against Issho's with all my strength. "Issho-san, wake up! This isn't you! Since when did you believe it was just to punish the innocent with the guilty? Stand down before this madness consumes you!"
I could see the torment in his face, the anguish that had driven him into this state, his awakened power amplifying a rage he couldn't control. I knew if he carried this through, he would be left with regret that could break even his spirit.
"LIghtning Nova…..!"
As our blades locked, the meteors plummeting toward Flevance were torn apart in a blaze of black and purple lightning, erupting across the night sky and illuminating the ruins below.
The suspended landmass shuddered, unable to withstand the weight of our clash, and came crashing back to earth, shaking the entire island. Even the surrounding seas roared in response, as waves the size of mountains surged outward, a tsunami of apocalyptic proportions.
"Issho! Come back to yourself!" I roared, stepping forward against the crushing force of his Haki, pressing Shusui against his Shikomizue, step by step forcing him back as my Haki flared, a beacon of resilience cutting through his grief.
For a moment, something flickered in Issho's eyes, and the raging waves of his Conqueror's Haki began to weaken.
But Hazard saw his chance. Regaining his footing, he turned his attention back to King Asbestos, still sprawled unconscious and vulnerable on the ground. Hazard's eyes narrowed, his resolve returning as he used Soru to close the distance, grabbing Asbestos by the shoulder in preparation for an escape.
This was his one chance to save the king, the man under his protection. With Issho distracted and Rosinante fully occupied, Hazard was confident he could make it to safety before either could stop him.
Just as Hazard prepared to leap away, his Observation Haki flared, warning him of an incoming attack. He instinctively dodged, feeling a gust of wind as a streak of glinting silver sliced past him. He turned, startled, to see a figure casually sheathing his blade in the distance—a lone samurai, standing tall in the moonlight, his expression calm, resolute.
Confusion turned to dread as Hazard looked down. His hands felt wet. He glanced at King Asbestos—and froze. He had been dragging a lifeless body. Blood seeped from a clean, precise cut, and the king's head lay yards away, severed in an instant.
The shock rippled through Hazard, who could barely believe his eyes. That single, perfect slash had ended King Asbestos before he even had a chance to awaken. The samurai's precision had been so immaculate that Hazard hadn't even felt the blow.
Miyamoto raised his voice, calm but powerful enough to carry across the battlefield. "For too long, this land has suffered under unjust rule. You defend a man who brought his people nothing but suffering." He cast a glance toward Issho, then Rosinante, acknowledging their presence.
"This kingdom's fate has already been sealed."
Hazard, trembling with rage and disbelief, screamed, his plasma erupting in a desperate fury. But he knew he was outmatched, outmaneuvered, and now, without a purpose. The king he had sworn to protect lay dead at his feet.
Issho's eyes had cleared, his anger tempered by Rosinante's words and the realization of what had almost transpired. He lowered his blade, his stance loosening as he let out a shuddering breath, the full weight of his grief catching up to him. "What… have I done?" he whispered, his voice heavy with regret.