Vice Admiral Draw's twisted declaration hung in the air, so fundamentally warped that for a moment, no one knew how to react.
Isuka, having returned to the battlefield after ensuring the last of the children were safe, stared at him. The roar of the flames, the smell of smoke—it was all too familiar. A horrifying suspicion, a seed of doubt planted years ago, finally sprouted. She trembled, her voice barely a whisper.
"Vice Admiral Draw… that fire… the fire in my hometown, all those years ago… Was that… was that also…?"
Draw glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, his expression one of absolute, unwavering conviction. "That's right," he proclaimed loudly. "It was all for the sake of capturing pirates. It was all for the sake of justice!"
His words struck her with the force of a physical blow. Unwilling to believe it, Isuka shook her head vigorously, her eyes pleading. "But… but you saved me," she said, her voice cracking with desperation. "You pulled me from the fire…"
"A mere coincidence," Draw dismissed flatly. "A calculated risk. Saving one child to maintain a façade is a small price to pay for the eradication of evil."
His words were not just arrows; they were poison-tipped daggers that pierced Isuka's heart, and a chilling cold spread through her limbs.
"So… my hometown… my parents…" The light in her eyes flickered and died, leaving behind a dull, empty void. "They were just… a price to pay?" she murmured in despair.
"Lieutenant Isuka!" Draw's stern, ruthless voice rang out again, his words pouring into her mind like a devil's sermon. "To eliminate the cancer of piracy and uphold absolute justice, the sacrifice of a few civilians is not only acceptable, it is necessary!"
The world began to spin. Isuka felt her legs give out from under her, and she collapsed to the ground, her shoulders shaking with silent, soul-shattering sobs. The man she had revered as her hero, the symbol of the justice she had dedicated her life to, was the monster who had created her life's tragedy. Her faith had not just been broken; it had been a lie from the very beginning.
"Ahem! You're… you're just spouting insane nonsense!"
At that moment, Deuce struggled to sit up, his body aching. After taking a few deep breaths, he glared at Draw and loudly refuted him. "To you, they are just 'a few insignificant civilians,' but they are everything to the people who love them! To hell with you and your damned justice, you bastard!"
"That's right!" Furious beyond words, Ace stopped dodging and rushed forward, unleashing a thunderous blow.
"Hmph! A mayfly trying to shake a tree!" Draw sneered, throwing a punch to counter.
The air cracked as their fists met. A shockwave spread out from the point of impact, and both figures were forced back a step. Draw stared at his fist, then at Ace, his face a mask of grim disbelief.
"Armament Haki? How!?"
Ace's fist had not been wreathed in flame. Just before the moment of impact, it had become coated in a layer of pure, pitch-black power. Draw, who had arrogantly assumed he was invincible against a mere Logia user, was caught completely off guard. If Ace could only use his Devil Fruit, he was no threat. But this… this changed everything.
In truth, Ace had never consciously used Armament Haki before. But after sparring with Jerry for half a year, constantly facing his friend's own Haki, the concept was not foreign to him. Now, fueled by pure, unadulterated rage and his own prodigious talent, he had instinctively awakened it.
"Who knows!" Ace spat, not caring for the answer as he lunged forward again, his fists flying.
His raw combat skills were already formidable, honed through years of daily training and sparring and fighting. That, combined with his Devil Fruit abilities, already made him a powerhouse. Now, with Haki added to his arsenal, he was a different beast entirely.
"So what if you have Haki!?" Draw screamed, the veins on his forehead bulging. "You can never defeat me!" He charged forward, and the two men became locked in a brutal, desperate brawl. Fists and feet flew, neither giving an inch as they exchanged punishing, Haki-infused blows.
At the same time, Jerry's running figure finally appeared on the ruined street. He took one quick glance at the scene—Isuka on the ground, Ace locked in a desperate fight—and immediately flashed toward Deuce.
"Are you okay?" Jerry asked anxiously, helping his friend to his feet. "Can you still run?"
"Ah, don't worry. I'm fine," Deuce said, wincing as he moved his bruised body. During the brief lull, he had managed to take some emergency pain medication. As the crew's most responsible man, he had taken it upon himself to study basic first aid, and always carried a small kit. "Nothing's broken. I'll be fine."
"Good. The Marines have almost certainly called for reinforcements," Jerry said, his mind already processing the tactical situation. "We need to get back to the ship, now."
"Right," Deuce agreed, but his eyes darted to the ongoing battle, then to the collapsed form of Isuka. "Ace looks like he's holding his own… but Isuka, she just…" He quickly recounted everything that had happened.
"This Draw guy…" Jerry said after listening, pointing a finger at his own head. "Is he missing a few screws?"
Deuce managed a bitter smile. "Probably, but even a lunatic with a god complex can be a powerful Marine."
"Never mind that. Get ready to run." Jerry patted Deuce on the shoulder and then began walking calmly toward the fight, a menacing aura rolling off him. He stopped a short distance away, leaned against a crumbling wall, and began watching the brawl with an unnerving calm, making it perfectly clear to Draw that a fresh opponent was waiting in the wings.
The fight had been raging for some time, and both Ace and Draw were nearing their limits. Draw, keenly aware of Jerry standing on the sidelines, radiating pressure, couldn't help but let his attention be divided for a split second.
It was the only opening Ace needed. He condensed flames at his elbows and blasted them backward, using the recoil as a massive propellant. The sudden burst of speed added to his own powerful forward momentum. He roared, his Haki-coated fist aimed like a cannonball, and unleashed an alternative kind of Fire Fist—one powered by jet propulsion and pure, solidified will.
The fist hit Draw square in the face. The Vice Admiral's head snapped back, his features completely distorted by the force of the impact. His heavy body was launched backward like it had been shot from a cannon, crashing to the ground so hard that spiderweb cracks spread out in all directions. He coughed up a mouthful of blood, his face an unrecognizable mess of bruises and broken bones, and after a few feeble struggles, he lay still.
Ace, wounded and utterly exhausted, bent over, supporting his hands on his knees as he gasped for breath. He turned his head, a triumphant, weary smile on his face, about to declare victory to Jerry.
Suddenly, the alarm in Jerry's Observation Haki didn't just ring, it screamed. He reacted instantly, pushing off the wall and rushing forward.
"Ooooh myyyy… how scaryyy," a strange, drawling voice echoed from the sky above. "So this is 'Fire Fist' Ace?"
A beam of brilliant yellow light shot down from the heavens. A tall figure materialized within it, wearing a yellow and white pinstripe suit, a Marine officer's coat draped over his shoulders like a cape. He appeared directly above Ace's head, hanging upside down in the air as if gravity were a mere suggestion.
His right foot, glowing with a terrifying light, swept over. With a whistling sound that tore through the air, he launched an impossibly fast kick straight at Ace's head.
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