120 Finally a conclusion

Back on Whole Cake Island

A dance of steel and fury. That would be too much to describe the ongoing onslaught between Linlin and Jackson. Equally consumed by a maddening battle intent, they simply rushed around striking at each other whenever one saw an opportunity but to bystanders it looked like a bloody storm of destruction.

Their back and forth went on until night fell but none of them seemed to give way. It was one thing for Jackson to maintain his peak condition despite injuries piling up, but a whole other for Big Mom who fought hardly for many hours before, even nearly getting defeated.

Despite her previous injuries and battles, despite new injuries and the amount of stamina and haki she used and still uses in her moves, Big Mom didn't seem to weaken at all.

"Fucking insane! Sabo and Kuina are strong but how did they force a monster like you to awaken?!"

"Die!!!"

He asked, genuinely pleased to have this battle. Truth be told, Jackson believed that with her awakening, Big Mom could be able to defeat Roger. He himself has a 98% synchronization with his father's template, minus all the stuff he mastered on top of it yet Big Mom perfectly kept up with him, which surprised him very pleasantly.

'Her light movement makes her slightly faster than me while using soru but it is too linear making it easy to anticipate. Besides that, for whatever reason she kept growing during our battle and is now 14 meters tall. With so much additional mass, her physical strength likely surpasses mine.'

There wasn't much time for analyzing as a tsunami of pristine flames rose from within Sweet City, before crashing in Jackson's direction for the nth time. Drawing a vertical line with his sword caused the rushing sea of fire to split before reaching him.

But as it moved past Jackson from both sides, it cut off most paths to evade what Zeus had prepared.

With a loud bang, a purple column shot down where Jackson was standing. Heaven and earth seemed connected while this wide pillar of lightning remained, yet once it vanished a floating flower with seven petals was visible. It hovered above Jackson, who had his arm stretched towards the sky, as multiple Barriers surrounded and protected him until Big Mom made her next move.

"Linlin, you are truly unlucky."

Jackson dived straight into what looked like a star shower of infinite lights. His body moved sublime and masterfully agile as he combined his foresight with kami-e to dodge laser shots fired at the speed of light.

"Your devil fruit power equals multiple logia users, and you even surpass me in pure speed and strength, yet it is not enough to beat me."

"You cocky brat shut your mouth! Shut your damn mouth!!"

She shrieked, clearly more than just fed up with his shenanigans. It was understandable cause despite how it looked she was running on fumes and her patience, which was close to zero to begin with, was falling into the negatives faster than Stella's laser shots flew.

Jackson managed to reach Linlin with another strong leap, catapulting him in her face. A shadow seemed to hang on the young captain, only revealing two red dots for eyes and a wide toothy grin.

Both hands grasped [ACE] strong enough for muscles and veins to visibly bulge as the blade itself got covered in a crimson storm of ignited haki. Conqueror's bolts branched out, covering a portion of tonight's sky like a tight net.

"Guess why you can't win? Because I excel at haki."

Divine Arrival.

One of Roger's latest techniques if one can call it that. A decisive strike that instead of guiding and using haki, lets it run rampart, sudden and quickly in one swing. While it sounds easy in theory, recreating it is anything but that, due to physical requirements and an absurd sense of timing which is vital.

The resulting force released a massive shockwave, which blasted Big Mom off to her city's border while all four homies were left paralyzed and in pain.

'Chance! It's best to strike when your opponent is down!'

He thought right before firing a gigantic getsuga tenshou, which threatened to split Sweet city, in her general direction.

But things happened differently from what he envisioned. Zeus and Prometheus both turned in streaks of light, moving way faster than Jackson's last move.

'The fuck what? Are they flying in Big Mom's direction?'

They were indeed as he would feel just right after. Something gave him goosebumps and it came from the direction, those two just vanished into.

Not even half a second later something even more unexpected occurred as, seemingly out of nowhere, a massive energy erupted in the form of a spiraling white beam.

Big enough to match his Getsuga, with a powerful rotation that sucked nearby pebble and rubles into it, that beam met with Jackson's attack.

!

For a moment they clashed, appearing to be on the same level of power but ultimately the beam won and pierced through before engulfing Jackson completely.

This was Big Mom's greatest counterattack, after literally fusing with all her homies in a last-ditch effort to bring out every inch of power.

It worked and changed her appearance to her younger self except for clothes that were now made out of light, her hair that continuously shifted its color through a rainbow's whole spectrum and huge levitating blades that somehow manifested out of air, not to mention how radical it changed her presence, which just surged far and beyond what Jackson thought possible.

Still, such a drastic power spike always came with it's own drawbacks, especially in cases like hers considering that her fruit awakened just hours ago. In this particular case, just maintaining that form, drained all homies of their vitality and life force and Big Mom's haki and stamina to boot.

Meanwhile, Jackson found himself seriously wounded. Conqueror's coating helped negate most damage but a heavy injury to most abdominal organs as well as torn muscles and 5 broken ribs made the young captain wonder, whether to use Tsunade's 1000 healing jutsu.

'Nah, let's not just yet. But what to do now? At this rate I might have to use muscle form and speed form but if I did that, this exciting fight would just end with Linlin getting overpowered and beaten mostly one-sidedly. Not to mention how lame it would be after I bragged about my haki… come to think of it…'

Jackson's well-known trademark, shit eating grin quickly spread across his face as he just so happened to know a haki technique that will most likely end this fight with a grand firework.

'Yeah, that should do.'

Deciding on which move to use next, he forced his battered body up from the pit it created after an involuntary flight at sonic speed.

Just in time as Linlin was closing in incredibly fast, eager to end this fight quickly. One could say that she is lucky in that regard as Jackson, although regretfully, decided to cut his fun here and end their fight, as well.

'Wow, she really looked gorgeous during her younger days unlike now. But then again, one can't expect someone to still look physically attractive after birthing 40+ children and crossing into their 60s.'

Had she known what Jackson thought about in a critical and all deciding moment against her, Linlin would have puked blood out of anger.

She prepared her strongest attack, the white power beam, which she used before, in an attempt to kill Jackson for good but almost messed it up after recognizing what he was about to do next.

Something similar to a second presence started to radiate from [ACE], the young captain's sword.

'That… isn't that what only old captain Xebec could do?!'

Meanwhile, [ACE], who seemed to have suddenly awakened and become semi sentient, started to suck in almost all of Jackson's haki, in form of conqueror's haki causing it's blade to change from solid steel into a semi physical manifestation of pure haki by offering it's blade as host and fusion material.

Instead of a cutlass, Jackson's weapon now resembled alter Saber's dark energy Excalibur from fate heavens feel, which is the reason why he named this move [ACE]-MORGAN. It is what he accidentally discovered 6 years ago before blasting more than half of Sabaody Archipelago to dust.

"That can't be. How can you brat, less than 20 years of age use the same technique as-"

Big Mom had to shut up, after noticing his blade suddenly grew by many folds. The mass and amount of energy spiked sharply, while its edges became firmer and sharper.

So far there were no individuals known to have mastered this technique, except for Rocks D. Xebec, resulting in no one really knowing, why pure haki, physically manifested, acted so volatile nor why it carried such a stupid amount of energy once cut off from a living body.

Yet Big Mom learned that what Xebec used, could be further improved as Jackson painstakingly did for most of the past 6 years.

Though, Linlin couldn't care less about why and how, because all that was important to her is that taking this head on in her current state might kill her. In that sense it should also kill all of Jackson's friends, right?

Yes, it should, if Big Mom's and Jackson's fight hadn't driven out nearly everybody who could get away on their own, one or two hours ago leaving only them in Sweet City's ruins.

It was over.

"Told you, you can't beat me since I excel at haki."

And irritatingly enough that was what she heard last before both sides released their final moves. Split sky, earth turning to lava, an ungodly explosion tearing apart the whole island and tsunamis rising up to 70 meters for many miles all around, turned their fight's conclusion into an unmissable event.

It didn't take 2 full days before newspapers all around the world reported about this battle and it's outcome, effectively marking a huge shift in the existing power equilibrium. No one suspected that this was merely the start of an incoming storm that threatened to sweep the whole new world along.

(AN: Hey! Just saying in case but I did not nerf Jackson for this fight. Many probably hoped for him to one sidedly beat her without going super all out but in my opinion Big Mom was a monster and became even more so after awakening her df, especially after fusing with her homies for a massive boost. Also Jackson didn't really need to go as far as using [ACE]-MORGAN but did so since he refused to simply overpower her (muscle-/speed-/suicide-form) moments after boasting that he she couldn't win with just being stronger because of his haki mastery. He could have won without it, like evading and defending till big mom runs out of energy or haki or finding an effective way to counter but this started to stretch and I wanted to be done with whole cake and big mom. Author out)