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91.35% The Reincarnator's Tavern / Chapter 74: Chapter 74 The Whitebeard Pirates

Chapter 74: Chapter 74 The Whitebeard Pirates

Chapter 74 The Whitebeard Pirates

The atmosphere of the whole of Marineford was struck with an oppressive silence following the Fleet Admiral's announcement of Ace's lineage. Shock and awe radiated from the assembled army of Marines and even from some of the gathered guests.

A few parties from the Seven Warlords seemed intrigued by the revelation and their anticipation of the coming chaos only deepened.

Rayleigh glanced over at Justice and Goddess of Ice, noticing that they were trying to hide some of the shame they were feeling. They, just like every other Player and man of common sense, were easily able to read between the lines. Would the Marines patiently wait for every pregnant woman to have their kid and do a DNA test to confirm it wasn't his?

It was obvious that the Marines had killed every pregnant woman and newborn child and since they didn't even get the right one, it meant that they had killed numerous innocent lives for literally no reason at all.

After he took a moment for the tension to rise, the Fleet Admiral continued, "Was it two years now? You took your mother's name. As the Captain of the Spade Pirates you ascended through the pirate world with your superior strength and we finally noticed that Roger's blood had survived. But Whitebeard realized it at the same time we did. In order to raise you to be the next Pirate King, he took in his former rival's son onto his own ship!"

Ace shouted in rebuttal, "No! I joined his crew to make Whitebeard the next Pirate King!"

The Fleet Admiral shot down, "You're the only one who thinks that. We couldn't take any rash action against you because you were protected by Whitebeard! If we left you alone, slowly but surely, you would start to gain the qualities to stand at the summit of the Pirate World! That's why there is so much meaning in cutting you down today! Even if it means total war with Whitebeard!"

Rayleigh could not help but ask a certain question in the Chat Room.

[Swordsman: So does anyone plan on saving Ace?]

[Justice: Wait, are you really gonna help the Pirates?]

[Swordsman: I have yet to hear a crime he has committed other than being a pirate. Is that alone worth execution to you?]

[Dragon Chef: He's right. Ace can't inherit Roger's crimes since Roger was already executed for his crimes. And executing him for something he hasn't done yet is even more pointless. I'd get him out of there myself, but Titan got me in our match so it's up to him now.]

[Titan: Don't worry, I'll save him. Whitebeard plans to die today so I'm gonna try and take in as much of his crew as possible.]

[Captain Jack: Don't worry, if he does die, I'll destroy the entirety of Marineford and every Marine in it.]

[Goddess of Ice: You wouldn't dare!]

[Captain Jack: If you don't want to find out, then you'd better make sure Ace successfully escapes. The party is about to start.]

As if on cue, a panicked Marine ran up to the execution platform and shouted to Sengoku, "Fleet Admiral Sengoku! We have a report! The Gates of Justice have begun to open without anybody's orders! We can't contact the control room!"

The Fleet Admiral ordered to the assembled army, "Here they come! All men to your battle stations!"

Rayleigh looked past the open space that led into Marineford's inner harbor and saw dozens of irregular ships, all with a variation of the Jolly Roger on their forward flag.

Every flag was recognizable and many of the gathered Marines started listing off the flags and crews they knew while shouting for orders so they would know what to do. The problem was that Whitebeard's pirate vessel did not seem to be leading the pirate fleet. He definitely had to be there, so where was he? The Marines in charge couldn't decide what to do before they found him.

Luckily, or unluckily depending on how one perceived it, they did not have to look for long as bubbles started surging up from the center of Marineford's inner harbor. With a massive surge of water, three massive ships and a fourth that was even larger rose from beneath the water's surface.

None of the ships looked part-submarine which meant they used a different method to sail beneath the Marine's sight before breaching the water's surface. Rayleigh figured they used bubbles.

Marineford was very close to Sabaody Archipelago, a place that had massive trees which produced a soap bubble-like resin. This resin could be used to coat ships, allowing them to go underwater, but the bubbles popped if you were too far from Sabaody and the resin-saturated water, so this was the only place that such a tactic could be easily used.

The largest of the four ships was carved to look like a massive white whale and appropriately named the Moby Dick. On the sculpted head of the deck, in plain view, was another of the strange humans with impossible body proportions. Standing over three times taller than a normal human adult was the heavily muscular titan known as the world's strongest man, Edward Newgate, also known as Whitebeard.

The man did not shout but his voice carried throughout the venue. "My beloved son had better be unharmed." His eyes locked on Ace's position and he chuckled. "You wait right there Ace."

After announcing himself to Ace, Whitebeard then announced himself to the Marines. With his fists.

Whitebeard smashed the air on both sides of him. The sound of cracking was noticed before the actual cracks in the air became visible. It was like a pane of very thick glass was around the old man and had just been smashed and the spiderweb of cracks just hung in the air, relative to the man's position on the swaying ship.

Rayleigh's expanded senses noticed the invisible shockwaves from the cracks that propagated out and down. Moments later, a dull sound inaudible to humans reverberated beneath their feet. It was something that happened prior to earthquakes, the vibrations of seismic plates shifting against each other. Whitebeard's fists had caused the earth beneath the sea floor some distance from Marineford to crack and shift, causing an earthquake.

From the platform, Ace mumbled a few things before shouting, "Why couldn't you guys have just forgotten about me?! It's my own fault I ended up like this!"

Whitebeard seemed to have no problem lying aloud, "No. As I recall, it was I who told you to go after him, my son."

The large old man ignored Ace pointing out his lies and continued, "I told him to go, right Marco?"

Behind him, one of the few Division Commanders with a normal body shape, Marco the Phoenix, confirmed aloud, "Indeed, I heard it with my own ears. We're sorry for putting you through this trouble, Ace."

He then gave a speech about how they were here to send a message about what happens to those who touch the crew of Whitebeard.

A moment later, the physical reverberations of the earthquake Whitebeard created were felt by all in Marineford. Windows and foundations cracked and hundreds of soldiers toppled over from the intense shaking. Those with a bit of experience knew that the shaking was only a prelude to the true consequence of Whitebeard's previous action.

The water that had been jutted up from the seaquake had flowed toward Marineford and now created two massive tidal waves, both taller than an 80-story skyscraper. If nothing was done, Marineford and everyone within would be underwater in another twenty seconds.

Aokiji moved quickly, using Moonwalk to gain altitude, and froze a line of ice from his hands to both waves. The moment the lines of ice extending from his palms reached the waves, they seemed to instantly freeze. Aokiji then tried sending lances of ice at Whitebeard but the attacks were shattered with a wave of his hand, causing Aokiji to fall toward the water of the inner harbor. The moment he touched the surface, Aokiji flash froze the water, preventing the ships from getting closer and stopping further ships from entering the inner harbor.

The inner harbor of the Marineford had hundreds of defenses and once the ships were rendered immobile, every cannon started opening fire to destroy the ships and kill the pirates within.

Whitebeard's crew had no intention of remaining sitting ducks so many vigorously launched themselves into the fray, leaping off the ships onto the ice to rush into the harbor on foot. Others stayed on the ships and used their own cannons to attack Marineford from within.

The Vice Admirals stood in front of the common cannon-fodder Marines at the head of the harbor to take the first wave and push them back while the Marines used their rifles to fire shot after shot, trying to thin the numbers.

Rayleigh's attention turned to the side when Mihawk took a step forward and gripped his blade. After locking eyes with Whitebeard, Mihawk slashed down, sending a flying slash in Whitebeard's direction.

Rayleigh did not know why, but Mihawk's slash did not contain any Conqueror's Haki. His own flows did not command the flow of the world to move forward. Was he hiding it from the Marines or was he just being lazy?

In either case, the slash was halted before it reached the ship by a man only a little smaller than Whitebeard. The shine that reflected off the man's body was something Rayleigh recognized as the effect of the same Devil Fruit as the Player Glitter, the fruit that allowed a person to turn their body into diamond.

Normal diamond should still have been split, even with Mihawk's lazy slash, but the Diamond-bodied division commander likely used Haki on top of his ability, granting him an invincible level of defense.

Kizaru the Light Logia user tried attacking with rapid fire lasers but those were blocked by Division Commander Marco who turned into a flaming phoenix to take the attack while ignoring damage, something his Mythical Zoan fruit was capable of.

A half dozen Vice-Admirals, all members of the Giant race, were called forward to crush the pirates when the diamond guy performed the Ultimate Tatami Mat Flip.

As in, he reached into the crack that Mihawk's slash made into the ice, grabbed the entire ice chunk between him and the harbor, and tossed it at the execution platform. Those who blinked and missed it realized too late that a massive ice block had been yeeted toward the center of the Marine formation.

Rayleigh turned to ask Justice, "Can you do that?"

All of Rayleigh's Nen-enhanced weights at the same time weighed about 2.56 million kilograms. Though he used it for speed training, not weight lifting training. Without using Nen or the Force, he was confident that he could lift ten to twenty times that pretty well. But that ice block soaring through the air had to weigh at least 300 million kilograms, well over a hundred times what Rayleigh used. And it hadn't been simply lifted, it had been Yeeted at least the length of two football fields in distance and ten stories in height.

Akainu used a Magma fist to block and evaporate the ice into steam. The fist then continued forward and broke into pieces, raining fireballs of magma down on all the pirates and the four pirate ships.

Justice confidently answered, "Of course I can, who do you take me for? I'm definitely the strongest Player."

Justice had stored years worth of Sunlight converted Nen within his body and when used, could likely exhibit more power than any other player than did not walk down a similar path.

Rayleigh started walking forward and Goddess of Ice called out, "Whose side are you on right now?"

Rayleigh answered, "I'm gonna play with the Pirates at the moment. After that, we'll see."

After confirming that he would not be harming the Marines, Justice and Goddess of Ice nodded to each other and jumped into the fight as well.

Rayleigh had to consciously regulate his breathing and heart rate, for both were threatening to go out of control. Never before had he needed to exercise so much self-restraint, but looking at the battle playing out before him, he couldn't help it. This was what he had been looking forward to his entire life. This was what all that murderous training had been for. It was all he could do to not just rush off into the fold.

Oh, he was going to, but certain things had to be done first. He had a checklist and everything.

First, he had to divide the combat zones into regions and determine which was appropriate, how much time would it take to wipe out every pirate within, and how the pirates around that region would react.

Honestly, the main reason he was going after the Pirates rather than the Marine was that the latter wasn't worth it. The Vice Admirals, with one exception, weren't a challenge, the giants among the Marines didn't have decent combat standards, and the Admirals were too busy playing with the Whitebeard Division Commanders.

Before Rayleigh could make a decision, a figure Rayleigh could only think of as a Giant-Giant emerged from the water at the far end of the pirate fleet. When this creature stood upright, the seawater only came up to his knees. Marine ships opened fire on the human-form godzilla but the behemoth grabbed one of the Marine ships, lifted it out of the water, and proceeded to use it as a club to smash the other Marine ships.

As he walked forward, the fleet of pirate ships started lining up behind him as he made a path through the blockade of Marine ships toward the entrance to the inner harbor. At the moment, only pirates from the four ships within the inner harbor were fighting with the Marines, but if the blockade was broken, tens of thousands of other pirates would swarm into the base and the delicate balance would shatter in the pirate's favor.

"HEY SWORDSMAN!" A familiar shout, something Rayleigh figured was meant for him, echoed through the space. The same voice then shouted at the giant-giant, "Have you ever been punched at the speed of light?" The source of the voice then turned into a mass of light that shot from the ground directly at the face of the giant-giant. Justice re-materialized at the last moment as a thud and crack could be heard from on high. Those who turned up to look had their jaws drop as the giant-giant was lifted into the air and backwards. His flying figure sailed over the fleet of Marine ships and all the way back to the pirate ships where he crashed into one of them and made a large wave that disrupted the others.

The giant-giant sunk into the water for a moment before he floated back up, his form unmoving.

Justice had used the rebound from the punch to jump back to the shore and shouted, "Who's next?!" Those capable of seeing Haki would also be able to see the sun-like glow of blinding aura around him.

Rayleigh smirked. The giant-giant was definitely bigger than that ice block and that yeet was much further than the diamond dude's, so that confirmed that Justice wasn't completely filled with hot air.

At least Rayleigh had finished analyzing the combat regions. Besides paying close attention to the Division Commanders, he also needed to pay attention to the Warlords as they had no problem with friendly fire. Boa Hancock even seemed to take out as many Marines as she did Pirates.

Rayleigh vanished from his position and reappeared over a fallen Marine, picking up his sword. He used En, Clairvoyance, and Danger Sense to cover his bases and find where the Marines were being the most overwhelmed and started clashing swords.

Rayleigh was not wearing a Marine Uniform, but he was wearing a black suit with a tie that he requested from a Marine tailor. He had no intention of going into battle bare-chested or wearing samurai robes. Since he wore a clean suit and used a Marine-issued sword, no one questioned which side he was fighting for.

At least at first.

Rayleigh found a pirate and lightly slashed the man's side, shoulder, and forearm, causing him to drop his sword. Before it reached the ground, Rayleigh struck the man's shatterpoint to knock him out, grabbed the pirate, and yeeted him into an open space near one of the pirate ships. Rayleigh then nabbed the pirate's sword and started attacking another pirate.

Seeing a 'Marine' steal a pirate's sword had the other pirate fuming and caused him to viciously fight back.

Said pirate faltered when he realized that his thieving opponent was using the exact sword style of the man he had just taken that sword from.

Once Rayleigh finished digesting the experience of the sword using Psychometry and combat, he quickly sped up, disarmed his opponent, knocked him out, yeeted him where the other one was, and took his sword next.

In three minutes, he had defeated ten pirates and a pile of defeated pirates was already forming where he had been yeeting them all.

Yes, Rayleigh was in a mood to yeet things. It happens to the best of us.

Five sword-using pirates were already surrounding him with two more trying to shoot him but Rayleigh didn't even consider this fair. These were low level guys and Rayleigh was just using them for a warm-up until the real fun started.

The sound of shouting and screaming announced the arrival of new guests.

Over one hundred Sea Kings started attacking the Marine ships outside. The Giant-Giant was still out cold but the path to the inner harbor was being widened by the sea kings.

This meant that the Players who were not already hanging around Marineford had arrived.

While keeping a few Wills on standby to watch for Players, Rayleigh continued adding to his repertoire of combat experience while warming up. Most of the irregularly sized pirates had equally irregular swords, but Rayleigh's physical strength was far above his size. Not as strong as that diamond guy, but none of his opponents were division commanders, so that wasn't a problem and Rayleigh quickly got used to each of the large blades he used and digested each of their experiences in the heat of battle.

Some swords looked like over-sized cutlasses, others like giant cleavers. A few pirates used two swords and Rayleigh would disarm them both, yeet the fellow into the pile, and use both at the same time to digest that pirate's style, adding it to the list.

His Clairvoyance could cover the entirety of Marineford and he witnessed many things. Kizaru was faking an injury near the execution platform but was actually on standby in case it was needed. Akainu was standing near the western residential district of Marineford, killing any pirate who tried to leave the battle area. He also killed a few Marines that tried to run away.

Aokiji seemed to be discussing various things with some captains, likely plotting something.

Several of his Wills then detected a change in the flow of the world. Something was coming. The sound of screaming from above made Rayleigh raise an eyebrow.

A ship was falling from the sky. Well, from the top of the new glacier that stood over Marineford. On it were clearly pirates, prisoners, one pervert with a very large head, and someone Rayleigh recognized from his wanted poster. Monkey D Luffy.

By either coincidence or plot armor, the ship fell into the segment of the inner harbor where the Diamond Guy had yeeted away the ice, meaning that the ship landed into the relatively soft patch of water rather than the hard sheet of ice.

Most of the pirates onboard swam to the nearest shore while others were dragged or thrown from the water. Rayleigh guessed that they were devil fruit users.

Rayleigh got a very good look at Luffy and sighed. He was pretty sure what he was seeing was not normal.

Rayleigh did not know if it was because of the method he used to awaken his Observation Haki or if it was due to the interaction between his Force senses and his Observation Haki, but he was 100% certain that he could feel things using it that others could not. Or maybe they did notice it, but could not define or recognize it.

The flow of the world circled Luffy almost lovingly. Did he eat the Human Human Fruit Model: Main Character? Was that how Plot Armor worked?

Rayleigh only had to wonder what he was doing here for a moment before Luffy shouted, "Ace! I finally found you!"

Rayleigh rolled his eyes. Of course, the soon-to-be executed, son of the pirate king, person who had not actually committed any egregious crimes, was close to the Main Character. This battle would determine the future of the world. Of course, the Main Character should fall from the sky and end up in the heart of it.

Rayleigh also felt some Force presences sneak into the group from the sea, near where the Sea Kings were wreaking havoc. Some entered the fight against the Marines while others snuck deeper into Marineford.

Goddess of Ice stationed herself outside and froze the water surrounding Marineford after getting the Marine vessels to point their cannons at the Pirate ships. This stopped the Pirate ships outside from getting through via ship and sealed the water's surface to block the sea kings from entering combat without breaking the ice.

Like the Pirates inside, the pirates outside thought to jump off the ships and charge forward, but Justice stayed at Goddess of Ice's side and rained rapid-fire light shots faster than the Pirates could charge forward. These two essentially halted the 43 Whitebeard ships outside, preventing the inner fleet from receiving any reinforcements.

Some Giant Marines and one sandy pirate tried to attack Whitebeard but the former were crushed by Whitebeard and the latter was stopped by Luffy who then took a moment to chat with Whitebeard before bouncing off in the direction of the execution platform.

Rayleigh kept a Will using Clairvoyance on Luffy and the world seemed to move to assist his every step. This was worth paying attention to because Rayleigh learned more about the flow of the world and because there was a lot of collateral damage from those attacking Luffy and Rayleigh intended to avoid it.

Like Kizaru shooting a laser at Luffy. Luffy was pushed out of the way by the wink of the large-headed pervert, but the blast from the laser was like that of a hundred grenades. Rayleigh was far enough away to be fine, but he wore his Mandalorian Melee Shield and would activate it if that kind of explosion got too close. His body didn't need the protection, but his new clothes did.

Ace shouted at Luffy to run away and get out of there, but Luffy shouted back, "I'm your brother!"

At this announcement, Fleet Admiral Sengoku got back on the transponder Snail and reported that Luffy, "Is the flesh and blood son of the Revolutionary Dragon."

The pile of defeated pirates had grown quite large at this point and Rayleigh was looking for either a Swordmaster or a Devil Fruit user. Even among the Division Commanders, there weren't a lot of Devil Fruit users.

The problem of who to challenge solved itself though when he noticed the screams of Marines. The pirates in prisoner getups from the fallen ship happily joined the fight and many of them were very strong. They were also very excited to torture and kill Marines so it didn't take long for a new pile to start forming near an open space next to where that weak, red-nosed pirate had been shouting at Whitebeard from.

At one point Mihawk played with Luffy, seemingly intent on testing Luffy's Plot Armor to see if he would survive. One slice that Luffy dodged split the frozen tidal wave horizontally, causing it to slide forward and into the Marine ships outside the walls of Marineford.

What stopped Mihawk's game was the Division Commander named Vista, someone Rayleigh had been wanting to fight after warming up, but it seemed that Mihawk had gotten him first. That wasn't fair.

Seeing his chosen target taken by his teacher, Rayleigh couldn't see another Swordmaster among the Whitebeard Pirates so he decided to fight that Diamond Guy and see if he could cut through his Shatterpoint and break him, something even Mihawk had not done with his less-than-serious slash.

The Diamond guy was fighting a Sand Logia user who also seemed to be a pirate. From the context of their shouting, the sand guy wanted to kill Whitebeard and the Diamond dude was getting in his way. That meant the sand guy would not mind in the slightest if Rayleigh took his dance partner for himself.

Or at least that had been the plan.

Rayleigh waved a hand to the side to send the fired explosives coming toward him back to their senders.

The pair of figures took the impacts point blank without dodging, causing a deafening explosion Rayleigh used a bit of Force Muffle to shield himself from to prevent hearing loss.

Once the smoke cleared, Rayleigh spotted the pair of Players. One he recognized, the other he did not. Neither had the slightest bit of damage from the explosion.

Dyna Might shouted, "I've got a score to settle with you, Swordsman."

Rayleigh ignored the bombastic idiot and addressed the lady at his side, "And why are you here? Have we met?" The pale-skinned Player had short, white hair and wore sunglasses. She was a bit taller than Dyna Might who was stockier.

The lady answered, "No, this is our first meeting, but I'm here on business. You remember Enigma, right?"

"The guy who got in my way during the Chimera Ant thing? Yeah. What about him?"

"Well, he made a new character after Hisoka killed his first one and made a little deal with me. If I kill you, he swore to be my subordinate."

Rayleigh asked, "And is that price worth it? Is the power of a guy who had to start over worth making an enemy of me?"

"Well, it's worth an attempt at least. His potential is quite high."

Rayleigh shook his head. He guessed that this girl was also a 20-Talent Player and knew that Enigma was as well. A 20-Talent Player with another 20-Talent Player as a minion would have an excellent advantage against others when the Players started fighting each other in the future.

Too bad she had to target him. He wondered how she would feel when she figured out how much she lost from this deal.

Rayleigh raised his sword into a defensive posture and said, "Ladies first."

She smiled and raised her hand. From it, her aura expanded faster than a bullet, something Rayleigh detected using Force Danger Sense and calculating the future through the senses he felt using Observation Haki. Rayleigh vanished from his position and reappeared, sword swinging.

Rayleigh didn't intend to cut off her head. Her arm would do just fine as a test to see if this Hunter had the right to hunt him.

The moment Rayleigh's borrowed sword made contact with her aura, the aura started propagating itself, expanding endlessly. Rayleigh pushed his Haki-infused, Nen-coated sword further, but the closer to her skin the sword got, the greater the degree of expansion of her aura, pushing the sword away.

Rayleigh's danger sense went into over-drive and before Rayleigh could remove the sword, her aura expanded out like a battering ram, launching Rayleigh into the hull of one of Whitebeard's ships, neatly planting him into it.

All of Rayleigh's Wills analyzed what happened and arrived at the same conclusion. Gojo Satoru. This girl made a Gojo Satoru build. And she was here to kill him. Rayleigh couldn't help but smile.


Chapter 75: Chapter 75 The Battle of Marineford

Chapter 75 The Battle of Marineford

Before removing himself from the side of the ship, Rayleigh said aloud, "Open, Babylon."

With that, his En expanded further and seamlessly merged with his other sense-enhancing systems. Thanks to this, he sensed the next attack before it came and removed himself from the ship's hull an instant before the Gojo Player appeared in front of him with a palm-thrusting gesture.

The future he saw of that palm pressing him through the ship and destroying that ship changed the moment he removed himself as she stopped the motion of the attack he would have dodged and readjusted the attack as fast as he moved to dodge it. The aim of her attack updated almost the instant he moved, but there was a tiny delay. He didn't care what her build was, if she could keep up with him, his years of training speed would have been for nothing.

Rayleigh continued dodging future attacks while analyzing the Gojo Player's capabilities. He needed to disrupt her movement so he asked aloud, "What's your name? Honored One? Heaven's Chosen? Number One Under Heaven? Limitless? Untouchable?"

Although Rayleigh used his modified version of Shave to gain distance, the Gojo Player reduced the space between them while expanding the space behind her to catch up almost instantaneously and when he tried going very far from her, she displayed the ability to directly skip the distance and teleport.

To anyone watching the pair, they appeared to flicker in and out of visual range over and over.

Seeing that she didn't answer, Rayleigh taunted, "Are you not confident in your ability to hold a conversation? Are you a Neet or Keyboard Warrior who fears face-to-face conversations?"

Still nothing. He wondered if silence was a requirement for her Hatsu, but that was a rather silly requirement. It was more likely that she knew of many abilities that required conversation to initiate and refrained from speaking to prevent their activation. But didn't that mean she lacked confidence in countering some abilities? If she lacked confidence, she was not invincible, so there were certainly many ways to beat her.

The first and most obvious was to exhaust her. It was clear that her techniques all required more Aura than his own did. Rayleigh used Aura to boost his speed, but she directly used it to move and attack. She had far more aura than he did due to being a 20-Talent Hunter Player, but it should not be inexhaustible. Rayleigh did notice that the expanded aura she emitted could be reabsorbed into her body if she remained in the same location, so he dragged her along the battlefield to ensure she was unable to recycle the used aura.

Still, he didn't know how long it would take her to exhaust her reserves, and fighting like that wasn't exciting. If she was a real threat, he might be forced to fight in such an unsavory way, but she was looking down on him too much and she was not capable of killing him. Not that she knew it yet.

After getting a feel for her style, Rayleigh stopped dodging and went on the attack. The instant the distance between them was shortened, it felt like multiple battering rams were shot in his direction.

Rayleigh used a combination of the Force, Haki, and Kō to strike the battering rams of expanding aura and partially deflect them, allowing him to get closer at the cost of a small injury. His Shū and Haki coated his borrowed sword and sliced at the silent Gojo's shoulder with enough force to split her diagonally, but the expanding force of aura had no problem expanding more and more as his weapon drew closer to her skin. His attack slid off and an unblockable force struck his chest, cracking some ribs and sending him all the way to the wall of the inner harbor.

Before Rayleigh could remove himself from the wall, she reappeared and thrust out with another palm strike. However, the attack was deflected using Rayleigh's telekinesis and only cracked the wall next to him, something that helped him get loose. Another sword swing was deflected by her expanding aura which was followed up by another blast of expanding aura. He tried to dodge it but it was like a wall was thrown at him.

This hit only sent him a few hundred meters though, giving him more information on her attack capabilities. When her attack was concentrated, it did the most damage but was dodgeable. When it was not dodgeable, the attack was more spread out and did not hurt that much.

Although their fight was loud, flashy, and insane to watch, the pirates and Marines had better things to do than observe as the outbound video and radio signal stopped and a dozen more robot bears came out and attacked the ships outside the harbor. The real one was fighting the large-headed pervert but the rest could shoot lasers from their mouths and hands similar to that of Kizaru's laser attack.

Rayleigh continued his attack attempts while further analyzing her aura. It wasn't like he could just cut through it as easily as Bogard had his own. That happened mainly because Rayleigh didn't know it was possible and his aura was very simple. This Player's aura was far from simple. If the aura that Bogard cut through had been like the color red, then this Player's aura was like the entire visible color spectrum while also bouncing back and forth between infrared and ultraviolet. He'd be able to do it eventually, but it would not be simple.

Luckily this ambitious Player seemed to have bitten off more than she could chew with this build. The actual Gojo had a long list of ridiculous abilities. He could create Negative Space. He could inverse the Negative Space to create a Positive Space. He could combine them both to make an Annihilation-like explosion attack and use them to move and teleport. He could observe and calculate everything with precision so high, that his skills were used at 99.99% efficiency and barely cost his energy reserves to use. He could actualize the concept of Infinity around his body, preventing attacks from ever reaching him. And he could attack a target's mind by overloading it with information that someone without a calculation-type ability would be unable to effectively defend against.

This Player could not use any of these abilities but was using Nen to replicate them in a sense. She created an En Field around herself in which she could recycle aura, allowing her to reabsorb the aura she emitted to reuse. She could cause the aura and space between herself and a target to reduce if they were within her En field, allowing her near-instantaneous movement, and when she expanded the aura and space behind her while doing so, allowed for teleportation. The aura near her body had an automatic effect to expand the closer an attack was to her body. And she could directionalize the expansion of her aura from her body in a direction in the form of an attack.

The only thing missing was the Annihilation Attack and the Mental attack. If she had them, was that the reason for her confidence? Or did she think that Dyna Might would prove useful in a fight? The user of the Bomb Fruit had tried to chase the pair and provide assistance, but his explosion punches were practically in slow motion and his explosive projectiles were diverted with telekinesis, rendering him effectively neutered.

Rayleigh figured she had a mental attack. She was wearing sunglasses after all. Maybe the mental attack was a Hatsu that required direct eye contact so she was waiting for the right moment to remove her sunglasses, stare at him, attack his mind, and then finish him.

He could hardly wait.

Their fight continued for a few minutes and Rayleigh received an injury with each exchange. In that period, Rayleigh had to switch swords multiple times as they kept breaking, but he got a feeling for her weakness. She could not attack and defend at the same time and when she attacked, a barely visible shatterpoint momentarily appeared on the opposite side of her body. This led Rayleigh to baiting an attack, moving to her back, and striking her weak spot.

For the first time, she dodged the attack rather than take it head-on. She even spoke up, "Don't you know it's impolite to hit a girl."

Rayleigh attacked three times while calmly replying, "It's also impolite not to introduce yourself. You already know my name but I still don't know yours."

She replied, "You haven't earned my name yet," and went back on the attack. This time instead of pressing her palm against him and expanding her aura, she gathered aura into her hand and then pointed it at him before expanding it. Said expansion had the speed of an explosion and the force of a wrecking ball while also encompassing the area. Several pirates caught up in the attack were practically liquidated. Rayleigh knew he couldn't dodge so had jumped back to soften the blow and use Tutaminis to allow the shockwave to pass through his body, further weakening the physical damage.

Seeing him easily survive the attack that rendered the surrounding pirates to gory mulch, the smile on the Gojo Player's face faltered slightly. It seemed that she had finally realized that Rayleigh was not going to die so easily.

Rayleigh started using Telekinesis to raise some bits of shattered stone and ice around her and then sped forward and to the side, using the levitating pieces as footholds to turn and get around her, circling her faster than she could physically spin around. He attacked, was countered, took her back, and attacked again, forcing her to dodge which made the next attack easier. Slowly but surely, he was forcing her into a corner and soon she would be the one running.

Rayleigh still had a few Wills to spare which kept monitoring the battle. Whitebeard and Sengoku appeared to be playing an insane form of chess as both just stood at their ends of the battle while commanding the movements of their troops to counter the plans of the other party.

Titan, a well-tanned Player that looked of European descent showed up and started wrecking the bear robots outside and leading the Whitebeard pirates into the inner harbor. He took the form of a giant golden Buddha which had Sengoku pissed since he was the original holder of that Devil Fruit and seeing it used on the side of pirates infuriated him.

Justice used his strength to push Titan back, but even if Justice was physically stronger than Titan, the Golden Buddha Player was tougher than the Light Fruit user and could take every hit that Justice dished out.

Wonder Woman and her crew had shown up and were assisting the Whitebeard Pirates with breaking out of the ice created by Goddess of Ice. There had been a time when Goddess of Ice and Wonder Woman were evenly matched, but Goddess of Ice had trained far harder than Wonder Woman did and completely surpassed her in power and skill, allowing her to counter Wonder Woman's entire crew and hold back Whitebeard's remaining fleet.

At one point a really ugly Pirate stabbed Whitebeard through the stomach, something that shocked the Division Commanders, Pirates, and Whitebeard himself. The idiot had apparently been tricked into doing so and ranted about what he had been tricked into thinking to justify the attack. After a quick reality check, he realized he'd been tricked. And what did Whitebeard do? Nothing. Whitebeard appeared to be a, "Don't cry over spilled milk," kind of guy and forgave his idiot crewmate for being an idiot.

Rayleigh honestly could not hold that against him. There was no tangible benefit to harming someone who was tricked into doing something wrong if the person realized their mistake. In fact, there were more benefits to sparing him. The Pirate's morale dropped when Whitebeard was attacked, but seeing Whitebeard forgive his 'son' caused morale to boost once more. A war is not just about individual fights and combat after all. Whitebeard had to keep the mindset of his crew in check and if he killed the idiot right there, the morale would have plummeted further.

Aokiji sent a wave of icy air through the area, but Rayleigh's understanding of the Law of ice combined with his Babylon-enhanced Tutaminis allowed him to ignore the wave of cold air and avoid being flash-frozen. Sengoku had cut off the transmission of the Snails in the area so that his tricks could not be broadcast and the Marine's despicable means would not be displayed, but a pirate had gotten one of the transmission snails and kept the broadcast going. The wave of ice was sent at the area where they confirmed the snail was located, freezing the snail and ending the last outgoing transmission from Marineford. From this point, what happened here would only be known by the victors and survivors.

Whitebeard knew that he had shown weakness and had to hide it, so he was forced to make a move. First, he smashed the air at his side, sending a reverberating force at the ice walls around Marineford, shattering them. Even the ice created by Goddess of Ice shattered, allowing the ships to move freely. Before the Marines could act, Whitebeard himself moved forward.

Rayleigh was tempted to ditch Gojo Girl and exchange swords with the World's Strongest Man, but the fact that Whitebeard hadn't dodged or blocked that stab implied how weak the old man had gotten. Beating up an injured old man would leave a bad taste in his mouth, so he decided to keep his current dance partner.

Much of their fight had damaged the icy stage, but Aokiji's ice wave re-froze it, allowing better footing. Ironically, the ice helped Rayleigh far more than it hurt him. When Rayleigh was creating his first martial style back at the Temple of Martial Arts, he did so in an Ice Rink. Excessive movements in an Ice Rink leads to slipping, and practicing on one shows where to cut out excessive movements.

Although she hid it well, Gojo Girl did not have such a foundation. She had to expand her aura to create the force to move rather than rely on the friction of her shoes against the ice. She could fight off the cold air using her aura but she was not proficient in fighting in below-freezing areas atop the ice. This lack of experience was most obvious when she tried to turn. She seemed to lack a means to turn her body using her aura, so she had to physically turn around when Rayleigh got behind her. Moving physically meant using her shoes against the ice and although it wasn't wet ice, it still lacked the traction of a completely solid surface.

Rayleigh felt very much like Bankai Ichigo circling Byakuya Kuchiki. After Rayleigh figured out the best timing, Gojo Girl was forced to start moving forward or to the side when he attacked her, giving her less room to attack him. Soon she would have to start teleporting and would have to go completely on the defensive and either run away or get cut to pieces.

Whitebeard made the fight even more crazy when he started wrecking the space. At one point a giant tried to attack him and Whitebeard pulled the space in front of him like a curtain. Somehow, this caused the entire island to tilt to the side, causing the top-heavy giant to fall sideways, giving Whitebeard an opening to deliver a space-shattering punch to the giant's gut.

Rayleigh was thrilled to be able to watch this. Although the foundation of his sword style needed darkness to be completed, he also wanted space and time to be added eventually but had to hold back from doing so due to a lack of reference for such abilities. Whitebeard's Devil Fruit allowed him to transmit his strength into vibrations through space that traveled until they reached a certain point and then spread out to the surroundings. It could be right in front of him, or much further away. Now that Rayleigh had a feel for this vibration, Rayleigh could incorporate it into his sword style to touch on the fabric of space. What was even better was that he had such a perfect sparring partner.

Since Whitebeard decided to make a menace of himself, Rayleigh started holding back a bit in his fight to prevent his training dummy/sparring partner from running away. He already had a few ways to beat her. His telekinesis was pushed off by her aura, but it was not ineffective. That was how he could make her miss her attacks. Since he could use multiple instances of telekinesis by using multiple Wills at the same time, he could easily create a multi-directional attack that could strike the weak spot she created when she attacked.

Defeating her with the Force rather than sword skills wasn't what he wanted. Tricks could be overcome. Only by defeating her with superior skill would she know true defeat.

The harbor walls around the inner harbor lifted up, completely encapsulating the pirates. Moments later they fell back into the water. The walls had been lifted with air-filled ballasts, but the sea kings swimming under the water's surface bit and punctured the ballasts, removing the air and causing them to sink. It seemed that Sengoku planned to use Akainu to roast them after surrounding them, but Wild King's presence ended that plan before Akainu could release a single shot of magma.

Sengoku shouted for Aokiji to kill the Sea Kings, forcing the Admiral to freeze solid all the water, but Marco the Phoenix engaged him to grant time for Wild King to order the capable sea kings to enter the harbor on land while the others ran away underwater. They had done their part.

Those walls were supposed to be the Marine's trump cards. They were made with a metal that could withstand the vibrations from Whitebeard's attack and had cannons built in that would have allowed the Marines to turn the siege into a game of shooting fish in a barrel.

Whitebeard said, "Looks like you didn't take a few things into account." His smile widened as the Fleet Admiral's frown deepened.

Sengoku then shouted, "Execute Ace Now!"

Two Marines with long swords reeled their weapons back, edges pointed at Ace's neck.

Even Whitebeard faltered at this move. He had not expected Sengoku to act like a child. He shouted, "DON'T YOU DARE!" while swinging his massive Naginata forward, sending a wave of force that knocked thousands of Marines down.

Before the swords could take off Ace's head, numerous crows divebombed the Marines holding the weapons, aiming their beaks and claws at the men's eyes. Sengoku noticed the crow's abnormalities right away and struck out, causing the flock to move to the side and gather together in the form of a man a few years younger than Ace.

This man, a Player named Crow, stated, "Sorry, but we won't allow you to kill him."

Sengoku gnashed his teeth at the youngster's audacity and asked, "Who is this, 'we'?"

"The Titan pirates of course. We're here to save Ace and protect the Whitebeard Pirates."

Sengoku reeled his fist back, "Just you?" and smashed forward.

The Player didn't bother dodging, his form dispersed back into a dozen crows and started circling the execution platform.

Sengoku looked for Aokiji since freezing such a nuisance was the most effective course of action but the Ice-Empowered Admiral was being fought by the Flaming Marco and the Diamond Dude. Akainu could not be trusted to attack birds without destroying what was left of Marineford so Sengoku motioned for Kizaru to take care of them. The lazy looking Admiral seemed pleased to be given such an easy job, but faltered as the ground started shaking.

At first, the Admirals and Marines thought that Whitebeard was playing with the laws of physics again, but then they realized that the effect was more localized and fluid. The stone beneath them moved around and the execution platform shifted. Vice Admiral Garp grabbed the two Marines while Sengoku grabbed Ace and jumped off the platform before the ground beneath it jutted out and shot the platform into the air. A few who looked down at the ground noticed a massive stone hand-like protrusion emerge and return to the ground.

Crow reformed on a nearby roof and said, "Further attempts to execute Ace will be met with far harsher punishments. The lives of all the Marines here are in our hands, and if you cannot defeat us, then do not think to end Ace's life, lest you learn the true meaning of a pyrrhic victory."

Those Players, Crow and Stoner, were two of the many Players that Rayleigh had taught Nen and were currently a part of Titan's crew. Stoner could merge with and manipulate stone while Crow could become a flock of crows. Their names were not the most imaginative, but Rayleigh felt that he had no room to argue since he had no problem calling himself Swordsman. In any case, it seemed that they were there to protect Ace from being executed. If Sengoku and Garp gave it their all, they might be able to kill Ace anyway, but those two Devil Fruit users were very skilled at escape and survival, so it was not going to be easy.

The world's protagonist got thrown around like a rag-doll as he charged forward. Slashed, smashed, stabbed, clubbed, crushed, pierced, burned, frozen, and slammed. Were he not made of rubber, he would have been electrocuted a few times as well. Rayleigh decided that if this was how the world treated its main character, he feared how the world would treat its enemies.

Every ten steps Luffy took forward was accompanied by a strike, slam, or attack that sent him back eleven steps. Eventually, he just collapsed. He was beaten, bruised, and barely alive, so the big-headed pervert took him to the back, away from the front lines so he would not die a pointless death. The only reason he survived up to that point was pity and luck. Aokiji and Kizaru didn't go for lethal attacks and Mihawk no longer felt like testing the Pirate's Plot Armor.

Marco tried to rescue Ace the moment the platform came down but was smacked away by Garp. Although the grey-haired vice-admiral looked about as old as Whitebeard, he seemed to be in a far better state. Say what you will about the Marines, but their healthcare was actually quite good.

Whitebeard stopped recklessly attacking, so Rayleigh no longer got a show of a good example of the flow of space. Since that was the case, it was about time to finish his fight so he could take on a real challenge. None of the Players would mind if he chopped off Akainu's head, right?

Rayleigh slashed wildly at Gojo girl's defenses. Her attack pattern lacked imagination and several of her defensive stances had openings he could repeatedly make use of. Rayleigh's suit was torn and he occasionally had to cough blood from a punctured lung, but neither affected his combat performance and he'd heal it later.

Gojo Girl twisted to the side, shifted back, teleported, struck out, destroyed the ground they were standing on, moved out of the way, blocked, and ducked under the onslaught of Rayleigh's constant attacks. She did in fact have a Hatsu-Force skill that allowed her to move in whatever way was most efficient and flawless, but it seemed that Rayleigh's skill had surpassed the calculation limits of her ability's understanding of flawless. She was not worried though. Her final attack had never failed her, and she suspected the conditions to release it would soon be met.

One of Rayleigh's Wills which continued to pay attention to the surroundings noticed that the flow of the world had been shifted again. Luffy was back up and charged forward as if on drugs.

Because Luffy had gone down earlier, the Admirals had taken opponents of their own, and said opponents did not allow them to get back in Luffy's way. Whitebeard took on Akainu. Marco took on Kizaru. And Diamond Dude took on Aokiji. Titan had also fought his way in. The Player who had the same Devil Fruit as Ace, Fire Queen, had arrived and started fighting Goddess of Ice, leaving Titan free to make his way to the Execution Platform. Ideally, he wanted to free Ace himself, but seeing Luffy charge forward, he instead elected to keep Sengoku occupied.

Sengoku had fully intended to stay at Ace's side until the execution, but seeing Titan use his own fruit against the Marines enraged the Fleet Admiral enough to make him join the fight.

Because of this, there was a path from Luffy to Ace that only had Vice Admirals defending it.

Seeing this, Sengoku paused his fight with Titan for a moment and shouted, "All Marines, open fire on Ace now! Execute him at once!"

Ace was a user of a Fire Logia fruit, but he was bound by shackles that rendered his devil fruit impotent and his body unable to use Haki. A single bullet he could survive, but Sengoku's command caused hundreds of Marines to point their guns at Ace, an unmoving target.

A dozen Vice Admirals charged Whitebeard, piercing his body with various weapons and giving Akainu a moment to heat the stone around Ace into Magma. Stoner tried to merge with it to turn it into a wall or move Ace, but he couldn't safely merge with such hot stone. He wasn't a logia user after all.

Seeing hundreds of Marines pointing their weapons at his brother, the drug-empowered main character shouted with all his might and willpower, "STOP!"

His emotion-filled voice carried with it a command that held the weight of the world. Over a thousand Marines and a decent number of pirates between Luffy and Ace felt that weight press down on them and immediately passed out.

Only the Players and Mihawk were not surprised at the blatant display of Conqueror's Haki. Everyone else of the tens of thousands of participants of this battle, Pirate and Marine alike, looked at Luffy as if they were looking at a monster.

Whitebeard smashed the Marines that impaled him and pulled the weapons out of his wounds before shouting, "Alright you bastards!" The affection in his voice made it clear that he was referring to his own crew. Loud enough for the entire base to hear, Whitebeard exclaimed, "Use all your strength to support Strawhat Luffy!"

With this declaration, a wave of pirates accompanied Luffy as he rushed toward Ace and the only Marine who remained to defend him, Vice Admiral Garp.

The Warlords tried to get in his way but were blocked by other Warlords in an almost comical manner. Mihawk had to be seen doing something so he attacked Luffy. When the former Warlord Crocodile got in his way, Mihawk didn't bother trying to get past him. As long as it looked like he was trying, no one could say anything. The Robot Bear and several of his copies tried to attack Luffy, but the Pirate Empress Boa Hancock got in their way. Since they apparently had 'Friendly Fire' turned off, they could not attack. The shadow using Gecko guy was stopped by the Shark-looking Fishman's Fishman Karate. That left Doflamingo but he seemed content just attacking small fry and playing around. Unlike Mihawk, he didn't care what he was seen doing.

Luffy charged forward until he met Garp who, for some reason, was sent flying with one punch. A stone wall came up around them which blocked a laser shot by Kizaru. A moment later, Luffy had somehow removed the inhibiting shackles that bound Ace and the son of the Pirate King had been freed.

Seeing that he was going to miss out on the rest of the fun, Rayleigh tripled his attack speed. It used up more Aura, but the battle did not seem like it would last much longer at this point.

That was when it happened. Rayleigh's sword slid off the Player's expanding aura, but it vibrated as it did so. The contact vibration flowed into the aura. Something many didn't think about when it came to vibration was that the denser something was, the faster vibrations moved through it. The aura around Gojo Girl became denser the closer an attack got to her skin due to the increase in the rate of aura expansion, but the vibration simply moved faster in the presence of a denser aura. If Gojo Satoru's Infinity could stop vibrations, then he would be unable to hear anything.

Of course, this wasn't a perfect attack, only the prototype of a possible attack. The slice's vibration was still very weak by the time it passed through her aura and it only made a small cut on her skin.

Rather than panic that her defense had been broken, she got some distance and said, "About time. And by the way." She then took off her sunglasses and continued, "My name is Crystal. You deserve to know the name of the one who is about to kill you."

Her eyes did in fact have a crystal-like sparkle. Rayleigh felt the world shift.

Crystal's trump card had too many activation requirements. First, she had to be injured by the target. But she had to be injured while going all out while using her strongest defense. Her trump card was an ultimate spear that could only be used once the ultimate shield had been breached. Next, she had to fight her opponent within her En for at least five minutes. Rayleigh had been moving around a lot when he figured out that she could recycle her aura within her En, but then he focused on attacking and stopped moving as much. Next, she had to meet the target's eyes after the first two conditions were met. Using her delayed introduction to make eye contact always worked, especially against Players who thought they were the Main Character.

As Rayleigh predicted, Crystal's trump card was a mental attack. It was actually a combination Force-Nen skill. The Force allowed someone to connect to someone else and implant thoughts and emotions into their mind. Crystal used this principle to re-create Gojo Satoru's Domain Expansion, an attack that fried a person's brain by overloading it with an unimaginable amount of information.

One of Crystal's Hatsus basically turned her brain into a super computer and her trump card connected to an opponent and hooked them up to said computer to essentially perform a DDoS attack to freeze them up. Seeing Rayleigh freeze, Crystal had the time to concentrate her aura into her strongest attack. It only took a moment, but against a skilled opponent, she would not have a moment which is where her trump card came in.

She released the aura at Rayleigh and saw him vanish into the wall. She was quite confident that he was dead, since anyone under the effect of her trump card would be 100% unable to defend themselves.

"About time."

The voice wasn't loud, but somehow it carried all the way to her in the hectic environment. Her instincts went into overdrive and sweat started raining down her neck and back. At first, she thought she was imagining it, but when she looked back, the Player who had been struck into the wall had already gotten up and was leisurely walking toward her.

"Come to think of it, although you already knew my name, I should really introduce myself anyway. It's only polite to do so."

Rayleigh looked very injured, but it was almost all surface-level. His mind may not have been a computer, but having 31 Wills meant that mental attacks of a certain type had no effect on him. The reason he took the physical attack was because it was needed if he wanted to go all out. The information she sent him using the Force could either be entirely shunted to one Will or divided among multiple Wills to even the burden and Rayleigh had done the latter.

As Rayleigh stepped forward, a thick, blood-red mist started to form around him and circled him. He had been using In to hide the mist as it formed from his injuries and theatrically released the In to make it look like the mist was only now appearing.

Covered in injuries and surrounded by a flowing, bloody mist as he walked forward seemingly gave Rayleigh the form of a demon, and the 18-year-old girl facing him flinched at his appearance.

Rayleigh raised his hand forward and the mist gathered into it. A moment later, a blood-red sword formed before him, and Rayleigh pressed the Kyber Crystal in his hand into the sword while muttering something hidden under the use of Force Muffle.

He then said aloud, "My name is Swordsman," and grabbed the blade. At the moment of contact, his aura seemed to retract into his body while going completely berserk and strengthening itself many times over.


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