The brothers moved as one, desperation lending speed to their battered bodies.
Luffy's rubber fist stretched toward Akainu's face while Ace's flames roared to life around his other hand, both attacks converging on the Admiral from opposite angles. For a moment, it seemed like they might actually land a meaningful blow.
Akainu caught Luffy's fist in his left hand and Ace's burning knuckles in his right, magma flesh hissing where it met rubber and flame. The platform beneath them cracked from the impact of three powerful forces meeting.
"Synchronized," Akainu observed, almost clinical in his assessment. "But coordination cannot overcome the fundamental difference in our power."
He squeezed.
Luffy's scream tore across the execution platform as his hand began to burn, rubber melting against magma heat. Ace's flames sputtered and died, his fire-resistant body still vulnerable to temperatures that exceeded even his devil fruit's protection.
Both brothers dropped to their knees, clutching their seared hands.
**************************************
In the plaza below, Whitebeard's massive form swayed like a tree in a hurricane, each labored breath sending tremors through the cracked stone beneath his feet. Blood flowed from dozens of wounds, painting the ground crimson, yet still he stood.
Sengoku approached with the measured pace, his golden Buddha form radiating authority and finality. The Fleet Admiral's eyes held no malice, only the cold certainty of duty.
"Newgate," Sengoku said, his voice carrying across the battlefield with divine resonance. "You've lost everything. Your crew is scattered, your ship burns, and your son..." He glanced up toward the execution platform. "Your son will die before your eyes. End this with whatever dignity remains to you."
Whitebeard's laugh was wet with blood, but it still carried the terrible joy of a man who had lived exactly as he chose. "Dignity? You want to talk about dignity, you sanctimonious bastard?"
The Gura Gura no Mi began to stir around him, reality itself starting to fracture at the edges. Cracks appeared in the air, spreading outward like a spider's web of destruction.
"I came here to save my son," Whitebeard continued, raising his naginata with hands that should no longer have possessed the strength to lift it. "And if I have to bring down all of Marineford to do it, so be it."
The vibrations emanating from his weapon grew stronger, more chaotic. The plaza beneath them began to buckle and heave as the Tremor-Tremor fruit responded to its user's desperate fury.
Sengoku's Buddha form expanded, golden light blazing as he prepared for what might be Whitebeard's final, most devastating attack. "Then die as the monster you've always been."
**************************************
"Your mistake," Akainu said to the kneeling brothers, releasing their burned hands and stepping back to admire his work, "was believing that bonds could overcome nature."
Luffy tried to stand, his legs shaking with the effort. Blood dripped from his burned palm, but his eyes still blazed with defiance. "Ace... we have to.."
"No, Luffy." Ace's voice was quiet, resigned. He remained on his knees, staring at his own ruined hand. "We can't win this."
The admission hung in the air like smoke.
"Ace, don't give up!" Luffy grabbed his brother's shoulder with his good hand. "We'll find a way! We always do!"
For a moment, Ace's eyes met his brother's, and Luffy saw something there that made his heart stop. Not despair, acceptance. The quiet peace of a man who had made his choice.
"Luffy," Ace said softly, "thank you for loving me."
"What are you.."
Ace exploded into flames, his entire body becoming a raging inferno. But instead of attacking Akainu, instead of making one last desperate assault, he wrapped his burning arms around Luffy's torso.
"No!" Luffy struggled against his brother's embrace, but Ace's grip was iron. "Ace, what are you doing?!"
"What I should have done from the beginning," Ace replied, his body burning brighter, hotter, consuming itself in the process. "Protecting my little brother."
Below, Whitebeard felt his son's desperate flames ignite above them, and something primal roared to life in his chest. The tremors around him intensified, reality beginning to shatter in earnest.
"HHAAAAAA!"
His naginata swung in a wide arc, trailing destruction that could split islands. The technique was beyond anything he had ever attempted, a final expenditure of everything he had left, a father's love transformed into apocalyptic force.
The very air began to tear apart, space itself cracking like glass. The attack built to its crescendo, reality warping around the blade as it descended toward Sengoku with the power to reshape the world.
Sengoku braced himself, golden light flaring as he prepared to meet the assault that could destroy them all.
"I won't let you burn yourself away for nothing," Akainu said, his form beginning to shift, preparing for one final, overwhelming attack. "I'll end this quickly."
"Ace, stop!" Luffy's voice cracked with emotion. "You don't have to do this! We can both get out of here!"
"No, we can't." Ace's voice was growing weaker as his flames consumed more of his life force. "But you can. You have to. You have dreams, Luffy. You're going to be the Pirate King. Don't let my mistakes stop you from reaching that goal."
Tears streamed down Luffy's face, evaporating instantly in the heat of his brother's flames. "I don't want to be the Pirate King without you!"
"Yes, you do." Ace smiled, even as his body began to crumble from within. "You've always known what you wanted, even when the rest of us were lost. Promise me you'll keep going. Promise me you'll find the One Piece. Promise me you'll be free."
"I promise," Luffy whispered, the words torn from his soul. "I promise, but please.."
"ENOUGH!"
Akainu's patience had reached its limit. His entire body became living magma, a humanoid volcano preparing to erupt. The air around him began to shimmer with impossible heat.
"Ryusei Kazan!"
The Admiral's ultimate technique manifested as a rain of magma meteors, each one capable of destroying a warship. They fell toward the brothers like burning stars, beautiful and terrible in their destructive power.
Ace pushed Luffy away with the last of his strength, his flaming body intercepting the magma bombardment. The meteors struck him one after another, each impact tearing away pieces of his burning form.
"LUFFY, RUN!"
**************************************
Whitebeard's world-ending attack was at its peak when he felt it, a sudden, sharp pain in his chest that had nothing to do with his physical wounds. Something was wrong. Something was happening to Ace.
In that moment, Edward Newgate felt his boy's agony as clearly as his own.
His concentration wavered.
The reality-shattering technique that should have obliterated Sengoku began to lose cohesion, the cracks in space sealing themselves as Whitebeard's focus shattered.
"No," he gasped, his naginata trembling in his grip. "Ace... what's happening to you?"
Sengoku recognized the moment of vulnerability immediately. The Fleet Admiral's golden palm struck forward, catching Whitebeard in the chest with enough force to crater mountains.
"BUDDHA'S JUDGMENT!"
The impact sent shockwaves through Whitebeard's massive frame. Ribs shattered, organs ruptured, and the World's Strongest Man was driven to his knees for the final time.
The final magma meteor was different from the others, larger, more concentrated, carrying all of Akainu's resolve and righteous fury. It struck Ace center mass, punching through his chest and emerging from his back in a spray of fire and blood.
For a moment, time seemed frozen. Ace stood there, a gaping hole where his heart should have been, his flames flickering weakly around the edges of the wound. His eyes found Luffy's one last time.
"Thank you," he whispered, "for loving me despite everything."
Then Fire Fist Ace, son of Gol D. Roger, brother to Monkey D. Luffy, fell.
His body hit the platform with a sound like breaking glass, the flames that had defined him guttering out like candles in the wind.
Below, Whitebeard screamed.
The sound that tore from his throat was beyond human, but his body had nothing left to give. Sengoku's attack had shattered him beyond repair.
"My son," he whispered, blood pouring from his mouth.
Sengoku stood over the fallen Emperor, his golden form radiating quiet triumph. "It's over, Edward. Your war, your crew, your family, it all ends here."
Whitebeard tried to rise one final time, his hands clawing at the broken stone. But the effort was too much. The World's Strongest Man collapsed, his massive form finally still.
And Sengoku raised his hands for the final time.
Then.. impact.
The golden palms crushed down on his skull, chest, and spine simultaneously, laced with Haki, amplified by divine force.
The attack was not merely physical, it carried the weight of Sengoku's Haki, his absolute belief in the righteousness of his cause. It struck not just at Whitebeard's body but at the very essence of his being, challenging his spirit at the moment of its departure.
And Edward 'Whitebeard' Newgate died.
**************************************
On the execution platform, Luffy's scream shattered the silence, a sound of pure anguish that carried across the battlefield, reaching every corner of Marineford. It was the cry of a brother losing everything, of dreams dying, of innocence finally breaking under the weight of a cruel world.