The smile Kizaru had been suppressing finally spread fully across his face and remained there.
There was something strangely final about it.
A touch of weary bitterness from all the years he had endured.
A trace of mockery toward the absurdity of the world and the whims of fate.
And beneath it all, unmistakable relief—the ease of someone who had finally set down a burden he had carried for far too long.
"This really is… wonderful…"
Kizaru murmured so quietly that only he could hear it, the words little more than a sigh escaping from the depths of his soul.
His voice disappeared beneath the lingering noise of the battlefield.
Yet in a way, those few words marked the end of something.
Borsalino, one of the Marines' greatest fighting forces, had undergone a fundamental change within his heart.
And the man he had been until now had, in some sense, finally come to an end.
...
Jozu's enormous diamond hand held Kizaru firmly in its grasp, leaving him no possibility of escape.
The wounded Admiral was raised like a captured trophy for everyone to see.
That sight struck the remaining Marine Admirals like a bolt of lightning tearing through the darkness.
"Borsalino…!"
Kuzan, still locked in a fierce clash of ice and magma with Bullet, caught sight of it from the corner of his eye.
For an instant, disbelief overwhelmed his normally cold expression.
His pupils contracted sharply.
A Marine Admiral—one of the men who stood beside him as the very symbol of the organization's highest combat power—
had actually been captured.
The impact of that fact was greater than any insult or provocation could ever have been.
It proved beyond any doubt that the war had slipped completely out of the Marines' control.
Their supposedly impregnable line of top-tier fighters had been broken head-on.
One of its pillars had already fallen.
A deep chill crept through Kuzan, part unease for a fellow Admiral and part brutally clear recognition of just how disastrous the situation had become.
For the briefest moment, alarm flickered in his eyes.
Then resolve replaced it.
'I can't keep wasting time here.'
The thought struck him like lightning.
Every second he remained locked in this fight increased the chances of something irreversible happening.
He needed to act immediately.
"Ice Block: Partisan!"
Kuzan thrust out his arms.
Freezing air erupted from his body and gathered rapidly in front of him, condensing into several enormous spears of ice.
Each one gleamed with a deadly cold.
They shot toward Bullet in rapid succession, forcing the relentlessly attacking pirate back several steps.
Kuzan did not waste the opening.
He knew it would last only a moment.
If Bullet managed to close the distance again, escaping would become far more difficult.
Kuzan drew a deep breath and concentrated his Haki into his right leg.
A bitter cold wrapped around it, dense enough to resemble armor.
Then he stomped down hard.
"Ice Age: Expansion!"
Extreme cold exploded outward from the point beneath his foot.
Like a gigantic ice flower blooming across the sea, freezing power spread forward in a vast fan.
Crack—crack—crack!
The sound of rapidly forming ice thundered across the battlefield.
A massive wall several meters thick surged upward from the frozen sea, stretching across Bullet's path like a colossal dragon.
It completely blocked the pursuit route.
At the same time, the surrounding ocean froze solid beneath the spreading cold, transforming into a vast sheet of ice.
The frozen sea became a natural barrier that severely restricted the Divine Kingdom alliance's mobility.
Kuzan seized the opportunity immediately.
He did not even spare Bullet another glance.
His body dissolved into a stream of freezing air and ice as he retreated at maximum speed toward the main Marine fleet.
There was no hesitation in his movements.
No wasted motion.
Kuzan executed the retreat with clean, decisive efficiency.
At least, from his perspective, it was a perfectly reasonable strategic withdrawal.
"KUZAN! YOU BASTARD, DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT RUNNING!"
Bullet's face turned red with fury.
Veins bulged across his forehead as his eyes widened, blazing with anger.
His roar shook the battlefield.
He raised his enormous magma-covered fist high.
Scorching heat rolled outward around him as he smashed it into the massive ice wall with all his strength.
BOOM!
The barrier trembled violently.
Countless fragments of ice exploded outward like snow beneath the sunlight.
But although Bullet's punch carried tremendous power, even that blow was not enough to destroy Kuzan's hastily constructed wall in a single strike.
Bullet glared through the frozen barrier, frustration flashing across his face as Kuzan rapidly disappeared into the distance.
"Damn it!"
...
Bullet could only watch as Kuzan's tall, agile figure rapidly retreated into the distance, moving across the frozen battlefield with effortless speed until he gradually vanished into the smoke and dust.
The Admiral's decision to withdraw was like a signal flare announcing the direction this war was heading.
Across the brutal battlefield, countless Marines instinctively turned toward Kuzan's retreating figure.
Even an Admiral was running.
For soldiers whose morale had already been devastated by Kizaru's capture, the sight was the final blow.
Whatever remained of their fighting spirit collapsed completely.
Weapons drooped in trembling hands. The determination that had once filled their eyes disappeared, replaced by fear, confusion, and helplessness.
The entire Marine formation descended into chaos.
The rout could no longer be stopped.
Soldiers fled in every direction. Some threw away their weapons and thought of nothing except saving their own lives, while others shoved past their comrades as they desperately searched for a safe route back to the fleet.
The disciplined army that had marched onto the battlefield was gone.
All that remained was panic and disorder.
Yet as Kuzan transformed into a stream of freezing cold and shot backward like a silver dragon, Bullet's fury only grew.
How could he possibly allow such a rare and satisfying opponent to escape so easily?
Bullet threw back his head and unleashed a roar that seemed powerful enough to tear apart the sky.
At the same moment, the magma surging through his body erupted like a volcano awakening after a thousand years of slumber.
Scorching waves of heat rolled outward, distorting the surrounding air.
His right arm, enhanced by the Clank-Clank Fruit, suddenly began swelling at a visible rate until it became enormous.
Dark-red magma flowed across the massive limb like boiling blood, radiating terrifying heat.
"GET BACK HERE! Magma: Colossus Fist!"
Bullet gritted his teeth and poured every ounce of strength into his enlarged right arm.
Then—
The gigantic magma fist separated from him.
Like a blazing meteor breaking free of its orbit, it shot toward Kuzan at tremendous speed, trailing a long tail of flame behind it.
The projectile tore through the air with a piercing scream, carrying enough destructive power to obliterate anything in its path as it raced toward Kuzan's back.
Kuzan had already committed himself fully to retreat.
His priority was to preserve what remained of the Marine forces and survive long enough to deal with what came next.
But the Observation Haki of a fighter at his level would never allow him to ignore such an obvious threat.
Even while fleeing at full speed, Kuzan clearly sensed the terrifying attack rapidly closing in from behind.
His expression changed immediately.
He knew perfectly well that if he turned around and stopped to block it properly, Bullet would catch up again.
And once that happened, escaping another prolonged battle would become extremely difficult.
He might not leave the battlefield alive at all.
In the fraction of a second available to him, Kuzan made a painful but decisive choice.
He would take the hit.
There was no time to hesitate.
He immediately drew upon the remaining cold inside his body and concentrated all of it across his back.
Streams of freezing air that had previously been spread throughout his body converged toward a single point.
Within moments, an exceptionally thick layer of crystalline ice armor formed across his back.
The armor shone with a deep blue glow and radiated a bone-chilling cold.
That was not all.
Kuzan pushed his Armament Haki to its limit and layered it tightly over the ice, creating a second line of defense against the incoming attack.
Then the magma fist arrived.
BOOOOM!!!
The massive projectile slammed directly into Kuzan's back.
Extreme heat and overwhelming physical force erupted simultaneously.
The thick ice armor, which had seemed almost impenetrable, failed to survive even half a second.
HISSSSS—!
The ice violently evaporated beneath the magma's heat before exploding apart into countless crystalline fragments.
But destroying the armor barely slowed the remaining force.
The impact tore through Kuzan's defenses and drove straight into his body.
"Guh—!"
Kuzan's upper body snapped forward.
A huge mouthful of hot blood burst from his lips and scattered through the air as a crimson mist.
His face turned deathly pale.
The strength of his aura visibly collapsed.
Agonizing heat burned across his back, as though countless red-hot blades had been driven deep into his bones. His entire spine felt as if it were being torn apart beneath the impact.
And yet—
That same devastating blow gave Kuzan exactly what he needed.
The tremendous force hurled him forward.
Combined with the full speed of his own desperate retreat, the impact actually accelerated him even farther away from Bullet.
Kuzan became a streak racing across the frozen sea like a meteor through the darkness.
His body was in agony.
Pain tore through every nerve so violently that he nearly lost consciousness.
His internal injuries were even worse. His organs felt as though they had been thrown into chaos, waves of pain crashing through him without pause.
But he kept moving.
Whatever it cost him now, Kuzan had only one objective left—
Get away.