Chapter 149: Fate of the World (3)

"..."

Mars, in his full Zoan form, stared ahead at the Momoiro island as he flapped his wings.

Then, after seeing that not single one of the Revolutionary Army attempted to escape from the island, he dove down before morphing back into his human form and landed by the side of Saturn, who was present after finishing his deed with the World Economy Newspaper.

"Has White Hunter been located?"

Mars asked the rest of the Five Elders, and it was Saturn who replied by taking out a slip of paper from the suit that he wore.

"This is what I managed to find from Morgans."

Mars took hold of the paper that Saturn passed onto him and read it. He raised his eyebrow,

"...Wano? Kaidou's defeat?"

With widened eyes, he raised his head and gazed at Saturn, asking for an explanation.

"Is this true?"

"Indeed, it is."

Saturn frowned.

"The defeat of man known as the 'Strongest Creature in the World'... I hope you know what this means."

...It meant that Smoker's strength had reached an uncharted level—one that may surpass even that of Garp, Dragon, and Sengoku whom they faced just previously.

"But no matter."

Sharpening his Shodai Kitetsu was Nusjuro, who spoke as he did so.

"Even if White Hunter himself were to come to us, as long as he isn't aware of our secret, it will be impossible for him to win."

"...I suppose so."

Mars nodded before glancing at the island once more.

They have completed all the preparations required for the final strike on the Revolutionary Army.

In silence, they patiently waited for the order to arrive from above.

__________

[Marineford]

Marineford. Unlike its usual bustling self, there existed silence in its current state.

The civilians hid themselves and cowered as the thunderous noises boomed repeatedly on the outside.

Oh, just how much have marines fallen? The base which was supposed to speak of might and glory was now reduced to a mere shell of it.

The marines were all sent to the Momoiro island upon the order from the World Government. As a result, the Marineford was left completely exposed to the outside threats, and the only remaining marines, being 'Fleet Admiral' Sakazuki and 'Admiral Kizaru' Borsalino, were fighting themselves in the middle of the Marineford.

BOOOM!

Even if they were trying to keep the fight controlled, the destructiveness of two Logia-type Devil Fruits wasn't something that they could control.

The buildings cracked and crumbled. The civilians shrieked in horror and ran away from the sight of the battlefield.

"Fucking..."

And Maynard, who came to sight this, cursed at his utmost rage.

Bastille too had veins popping out of his exposed parts of the face as he gritted his teeth.

"Who the hell leaves their own base unguarded?!!"

Smoker, walking in silence, inspected the surroundings as he did so.

"H-Hey! Isn't that..."

And some civilians seemed to have noticed their arrival as they peaked through the windows. Widening their eyes in realization, they stared at Smoker and his group in shock, for they never expected to see them again.

"V-Vice Admiral Smoker!!"

Smoker stopped walking. His eyes shook for a moment, and unconsciously, he let out a dry chuckle.

"...It's been a while since I heard that title on me."

Turning around, Smoker and his group came to see one old-aged man—presumably the father of one of the marines.

"Indeed, it is you, Vice Admiral."

The man whispered.

And at the same time, many others revealed themselves from their hideouts.

"It isn't just Vice Admiral Smoker. The renowned ones of his generation—Hina, Bastille, Aramaki, Maynard, Rosinante—all of them are present!"

"Just what can they be here for?"

"We know that you're innocent. We've long realized that it is the World Government that is in the wrong."

The man in front of Smoker said while smiling shakily.

"Say, Vice Admiral, if the World Government were to go down, will this world become a better place to live?"

Smoker found his face getting stoic.

"What do you want from me."

As if he was waiting for Smoker to say that, the man's face lit up in delight.

"You must become the Fleet Admiral!! You are the only one who can save Marine from this... path of damnation! The justice which brilliantly shone is no longer existent, and marines, neglecting their duties as the protectors of the sea, now turn a blind eye to the sights of pirates and instead oppress the harmless ones!! Ridiculous!!"

That's when Smoker realized.

This man wasn't the father of anyone. Rather, he was a marine himself in the past.

"..."

Hina stared at Smoker, eyeing him that they didn't have much time to spare.

Feeling Hina's gaze from the side, Smoker asked,

"Define justice."

The man paused upon Smoker's question. Then, his smile crumbled down and he timidly said,

"...I don't know."

Clenching his face with his hands, the man spoke with a vivid horror.

"I no longer remember... the true definition of justice!! It is gone, and the belief that I followed for so long... when I try to recall why it was shining so brightly, I can't think of it anymore...!"

"Then, the justice which you believed, wasn't as important to you as you believed it to be."

Turning away from the man, Smoker resumed his walk. There existed no emotion on his face, and his group noticed that Smoker was containing a burst of emotion in him.

"What...? No! There is no way—"

Unknown to himself, a sliver of Conqueror's Haki emanated out of Smoker, resonating with a rage in him. 

Smoker said in the end,

"I can't be your Fleet Admiral. I'm not some god for you to worship."

Without turning around and showing his face to the man, Smoker spoke. However, those who stood by his sides knew,

"Can't remember what you believed in? Quit lying to yourself,"

that he was enraged.

"you fucking hypocrite."

Smoker couldn't help but think that perhaps, the Marine was already corrupt from its very start.

...

"What are you doing, Borsalino?!"

Staring down at the man whom he considered his friend and at the same time, a foe, Sakazuki muttered with a cigar bitten by his teeth.

"You don't even harbour a will to fight me. Hell, you haven't even been trying for this few days...!!"

Sakazuki angrily growled at the fallen man who wasn't attempting to stand back up. With his arm covering his eyes, the man, Borsalino, didn't reply to Sakazuki.

"STAND UP!! If you truly want me to stop... prove it with your full strength!!"

"I..."

Borsalino mumbled.

"...I don't want to do this anymore..."

It was a teary one, one that contained sorrow.

"I've done enough. I just want to rest. Free of all these thoughts, all this pain in my heart..."

Sakazuki's right arm bubbled in red-hot magma. He glared at Borsalino, before said gaze wavered. The enraged expression, as if forced, faltered, and Sakazuki found the magma on his arm dying down.

"...Why now?"

Dully, Sakazuki remarked.

"You know it's too late to turn around. By the time we realized..."

His eyes, although looking at Borsalino, weren't looking at him. Instead, they wandered over the past, the days which Sakazuki used to consider them to be glorious.

"...We were already trapped in this dog house, forever bound to be their pawns—no, it was meant to be this way the moment I was given the code name of Akainu."

Sakazuki grimaced.

"I... I just don't. I don't care anymore. Whatever it is that happens from now on..."

Lowering his arm from his eyes, Borsalino, with his sunglasses lost, stared hollowly at the bright sun.

"...I don't want to think."

It no longer mattered to him if his eyes were to be scorched to their blindness—not that it was possible, for he himself was the light.

"..."

Sakazuki stared at Borsalino with a complex emotion present on his face.

Then, he seemed to have gathered his resolve. Biting onto the cigar so tightly that it broke, Sakazuki lowered his cap as the magma began to bubble once more from his right arm.

"Then, as a friend, I will grant you what you so desire."

Desolateness would be the word to summarize Sakazuki's current state of mind.

He himself didn't know what he was doing as he lifted his arm, ready to kill Borsalino.

"As the Fleet Admiral—"

Sakazuki froze in the middle of his words.

The smoke blew from the back, even though the fire on his fallen cigar had long died down.

"..."

There stood the white-haired man, Smoker, right behind Sakazuki, with his hands in his pockets.

Gazing at Borsalino before shifting his eyes toward Sakazuki, Smoker asked impassively,

"And so, what is this?"

Smoker himself didn't know why he intervened. Yet, here he was, intercepting the supposed execution of Borsalino—one whom he recently fought against.

Sakazuki frowned. The rage in him became re-lit as he turned his head back and met Smoker's eyes with his own.

"We came here, expecting a number of marines to stop us, and yet, the only thing I see now, are you two, fighting one another out of all the possibilities."

"...Smoker."

Borsalino moved his eyes from the sun and stared at Smoker through the corner of his eyes.

"If you remained in Marine, would things... have changed?"

"No."

Though sudden, Smoker instantly replied with his eyes twitching in anger, knowing full well what Borsalino was asking him.

"White Hunter..."

Sakazuki, whispering out Smoker's name as he glared at the latter, sharpened his eyes as he operated the Observation Haki.

"I feel several presences around, apart from you."

"My friends, you mean."

Smoker remained unfazed by Sakazuki's hostility.

"We came here to steal some information. No surprise that they'd do that."

"As if I'd let that happen under my watch!!!"

"...Yes, you would."

Sakazuki roared, and Smoker coldly claimed,

"Under my watch, you won't be doing anything."

Who knew the series of events, all the way from when Smoker first joined the Marine, would lead to this?

No, perhaps it was bound to happen the moment Smoker and Sakazuki first met each other years ago in one of Marineford's restaurants.

Their ideologies were completely opposite. One believed that nothing is absolute, while the other believed in the absoluteness itself.

Funnily enough, even the elements that they harnessed differed to quite an extent.

Smoke—the gas that was common and vague in many ways. Easily seen around, and hard to make it lethal unless present at a high volume.

On the other hand, magma was extremely lethal—such that even a tiny amount of it was sufficient enough to inflict a painful burn on its targets.

Now that Smoker was no longer a marine, there were no restraints for them to keep their hostilities with one another contained.

"...Years ago, I recall when you were just a Marine Captain."

Sakazuki spoke dully.

"An aspiring prodigy, bound to be an Admiral to lead the future generation..."

Raising his arm, Sakazuki stared at his palm.

"I too was like you long before that. Me, together with Borsalino, Kuzan, and... Dragon. Our dreams burned brighter than ever, and we vowed to make a better future..."

His arm then dropped loose to the side.

"That dream had long been crushed in me. The only thing that now remains in me is the 'Thorough Justice'. If I were to let go of this as well..."

Sakazuki's eyes—it was as if they blazed up. Glaring at Smoker heatedly, Sakazuki whispered,

"...there would be no point in my existence."

"If that is the point of your existence,"

Smoker growled.

"it's for the better that you cease to exist."

Thus, Sakazuki, gritting his teeth, blasted a full-powered magma at Smoker, with nothing but a will to kill—regardless of whether his action was right or wrong.

"GREAT ERUPTION!!!"

It was a powerful blast at point-blank range, one that would've killed even the Vice Admirals immediately.

However,

The magma met the resistance called smoke. So dense and concentrated, the white smoke relentlessly poured out and successfully and miraculously repelled the magma—which was supposed to be a thousandfold more dense than the smoke.

Watching as the clash between magma and smoke went beyond his comprehension, Sakazuki's eyes expressed a subtle disbelief in them.

Watching the clash from the back, Borsalino weakly mumbled something, but no one was able to hear what he said.

And by the time the clash met its end, the entire surroundings of Sakazuki were now flooded with an endless volume of white smoke.

"Transmutation,"

Sakazuki, at the loss of his words, stared ahead at the smoke—where Smoker's voice was heard. He opened his mouth, trying to say something, but nothing came out of it.

What did he even want to say? Sakazuki himself didn't know.

"Blue."

All of a sudden, the white smoke... condensed into loads of water that crashed down on Sakazuki.

Sakazuki hurriedly blasted magma from his entire body, generating an explosion to fend off against the water. They successfully evaporated the water and generated steam—

'...Steam?'

Sakazuki's eyes widened.

Then, for the second time, a huge volume of steam condensed into water and crashed down onto Sakazuki's magma before evaporating yet again.

And Sakazuki found that upon the second crash, the volume of water was more than the first.

Upon witnessing the conversion of the steam into the water for the third time, Sakazuki realized.

The moment he was surrounded by the smoke, he should've escaped from it right away. It was an endless loop where Smoker would convert the white smoke and steam into water and he would convert them back into the steam.

Now, he was trapped without an escape, and the more he attempted to fend off the incoming surge of water, the greater it became due to the additional production of steam.

"METEOR—"

However, that didn't mean Sakazuki would yield.

"—VOLCANO!!!"

Bombarding the incoming water with countless punches imbued with magma, Sakazuki brazenly repelled the water.

As if burning everything that was left in him, he punched and moved forward, step by step, attempting to reach Smoker.

"UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE WILL I YIELD!!! ANYONE BUT YOU, SMOKER—"

Unable to fight against the wave that crashed down on him, Sakazuki became immersed in the water and was pushed all the way back to the edge of the Marineford Plaza.

"...I don't have a hobby of beating up a broken man."

The steam that was covering up the entire Marineford, all of a sudden, disappeared into the thin air.

Smoker, found on his original spot, not having moved a single step, gazed at the fallen Sakazuki before turning elsewhere.

Looking around the surroundings, Sakazuki learned that apart from how the entire Marineford was drenched in water, no damage was dealt to the facilities.

Before he knew, Smoker was already very far ahead of him. Sakazuki... he didn't even manage to touch Smoker within this short-lasted battle.

Though his body was fine, his will had already accepted the defeat.

Dazed, Sakazuki couldn't do anything but watch as Smoker's figure became smaller and smaller in his sight, with his friends having completed their information search.

"Thorough Justice... I..."

Is that really the only thing that was left in him?

Strangely, the only thing that he could think of at this moment was,

"...Hibari. My one and only daughter."

Sakazuki felt something crack within him.