Jozu drew himself up and thundered across the battlefield, his voice carrying far and wide.
"I already told you clearly—if anyone wants to lay a hand on Ron, they'll have to get through me first! And now that you're wounded and defeated, how much strength do you have left to break through this line?"
Kizaru's crushing defeat and grievous injuries struck the Marines who witnessed it like a massive hammer.
The man they had always regarded as one of the Marines' supreme fighting forces had been beaten into such a miserable state before their very eyes. The blow to their confidence was devastating.
As the situation continued deteriorating, the outcome of the war was rapidly becoming harder to deny. A suffocating sense of impending defeat hung over the Marines, as though an irreversible disaster were already closing in around them.
"What a frightening opponent you are~"
Kizaru coughed weakly, blood spilling from his lips as he knelt amid the wreckage.
"Looks like this old man really might be finished here today."
"Haa…"
His aura had weakened to the point where it resembled a candle flickering in the wind.
The instant Jozu saw that, a cold gleam flashed through his eyes.
His battle instincts and years of experience told him exactly what this moment represented.
This was his best—and perhaps only—chance to capture one of the Marines' Admirals outright.
Jozu's enormous diamond body slowly lowered into a crouch.
The ground beneath his feet immediately began cracking under the pressure, tiny fragments of stone rolling away as he gathered strength like a bowstring being drawn to its absolute limit.
"Kizaru, this is where it ends for you!"
Jozu's deep roar shook the air.
Then he exploded forward.
His massive body shot across the battlefield like a cannon shell, carrying enough momentum to flatten anything in his path.
His diamond fist, coated in top-tier Armament Haki, rose high as he closed in on the critically wounded Admiral. Cold light gleamed across its surface as he aimed directly for a vital point.
He had no intention of giving Kizaru another opportunity to fight back.
But at that critical moment, something unexpected appeared on Kizaru's pain-stricken face.
Resolve.
He clenched his teeth and forcibly dragged up the last scraps of strength remaining inside him, ignoring the burning agony inside his chest and the consciousness already threatening to fade.
Every remaining ounce of power was squeezed from his battered body.
Every muscle and nerve strained under the effort as Kizaru prepared one final act of resistance.
"Yasakani Sacred Jewel… Maximum Volley!"
His voice was hoarse, every syllable forced painfully from his throat.
Kizaru threw both arms upward.
But this time, Jozu was not his target.
Instead, Kizaru poured every last trace of his strength into a massive barrage of golden light that erupted toward the sky.
Thousands upon thousands of light bullets streaked upward like meteors before exploding high above the battlefield.
In an instant, dazzling radiance flooded the entire area.
The countless explosions formed an enormous curtain of light and a vast field of chaotic energy that lingered over the battlefield.
The blazing screen temporarily cut off Jozu's pursuit.
More importantly, the violent interference disrupted the vision and perception of the other Divine Kingdom fighters, making it much more difficult for them to accurately target the Marines who were retreating toward the fleet.
Under the brilliant light, the terrified faces of the fleeing Marines were illuminated clearly, every expression filled with fear of death and desperate hope for survival.
Kizaru's final effort had bought them something priceless.
Time.
Only a few dozen seconds—but on a battlefield like this, a few dozen seconds could determine whether thousands lived or died.
The surviving Marines immediately raced toward their ships, using the precious opening to begin boarding and withdrawing.
"Go… quickly…"
Once those words left his mouth, Kizaru's body finally reached its limit.
He dropped heavily onto one knee.
His entire frame trembled as blood continued dripping from the corner of his mouth, staining the debris-covered ground beneath him.
His trademark sunglasses had disappeared somewhere during the battle, leaving his eyes exposed.
They were dull now, drained by overwhelming exhaustion and severe injuries.
The lazy confidence and sharp intelligence usually hidden behind those lenses had vanished, replaced only by crushing fatigue.
Jozu burst through the brilliant curtain of light, anger still burning within him.
When he emerged on the other side, he found Kizaru barely conscious and completely exhausted.
Yet even then, the Admiral stubbornly forced his back straight, refusing to collapse completely.
For just a moment, something complicated flickered through Jozu's eyes.
But his hands did not hesitate.
He reached out with one enormous diamond hand and seized Kizaru firmly before the Admiral could make another move.
Armament Haki surged from Jozu's body and flooded into his grip, completely suppressing Kizaru's remaining strength and preventing him from using his Devil Fruit.
There was no resistance left.
Admiral Kizaru had been captured.
...
The news spread across the battlefield like the tolling of a funeral bell, heavy enough to crush whatever hope the Marines still had left.
Everyone who heard it was shaken.
Amid the smoke and flames covering the sea, countless retreating Marines stumbled toward the warships in disorder, their hurried footsteps splashing through the shallows.
Fear and despair filled their eyes.
Again and again, they looked back at the heartbreaking sight behind them.
The confidence that had once filled their faces was gone.
All that remained was panic.
Between ragged breaths and the chaotic splashing of thousands of fleeing soldiers, desperate cries rose into the sea breeze, sounding almost like the battlefield itself was mocking their defeat.
They could only watch as the Admiral who had always worn that carefree, almost mocking smile was held firmly in the enemy's grasp.
Kizaru was one of the Marines' supreme fighting forces.
Whenever he appeared on a battlefield, his very presence had been enough to reassure the soldiers around him.
Yet now—
He had been captured.
The once-untouchable Admiral looked helpless in Jozu's hands.
With that sight, the last scraps of Marine morale finally collapsed.
Honor and duty no longer mattered.
The surviving soldiers thought only of escaping this place before death caught up with them.
They surged desperately toward the warships, shoving past one another and scrambling up ropes without the slightest concern for appearances, each man desperate to reach what little safety remained.
...
Amid all that chaos, Kizaru lay quietly on the shattered deck.
His battered body rested against the cold wreckage, while Jozu's overwhelming Armament Haki locked down every trace of strength inside him like invisible shackles.
He could barely move.
Jagged fragments of diamond pressed painfully into his back, and even the slightest shift sent fresh agony through his body.
His chest felt as though a fire were burning inside it.
Every breath pulled at his injured ribs and lungs, sending unbearable pain through his torso.
He had lost.
Completely.
As a Marine Admiral, he was supposed to embody the pinnacle of the organization's strength.
Now he was a prisoner.
By any ordinary measure, it was an unbearable humiliation.
Memories of past victories passed through his mind—powerful enemies he had once defeated almost effortlessly, battles where his overwhelming speed and strength had made victory seem inevitable.
Those days suddenly felt very far away.
His pride had been trampled into the dirt.
His dignity shattered along with it.
And yet—
As Kizaru lay there, blood staining the corner of his mouth, his lips slowly began to curl upward.
At first, it was barely noticeable.
A faint, self-mocking smile.
Perhaps he was laughing at his own arrogance.
Perhaps at how easily he had once believed he understood his place in the world.
But the smile gradually changed.
Something long buried beneath years of duty seemed to loosen inside him.
The bitterness faded.
What remained was relief.
For the first time in years, the crushing weight of responsibility seemed to lift from his shoulders.
He no longer had to struggle beneath the burden of protecting an institution he had long since stopped believing in.
A strange light appeared in his tired eyes, completely at odds with the despair surrounding him.
Kizaru slowly turned his head.
Through the shattered hull, his gaze drifted toward the smoke-filled sky.
Then memories came rushing back.
Mary Geoise.
The Celestial Dragons with their grotesque arrogance, looking down upon everyone beneath them as though ordinary people were no more valuable than insects.
The cold orders issued by the highest levels of the World Government, stripped of all humanity and concerned only with preserving their own crumbling system of power.
And the Marines themselves—
Factional struggles.
Compromise after compromise.
Officers forced to choose between conscience and obedience until the very idea of unity became little more than a convenient illusion.
Then there was Kizaru himself.
That phrase he had repeated so often—
"How frightening~"
It had always sounded lazy and mocking.
But somewhere along the way, it had also become a mask.
A way to hide the bitterness of seeing everything clearly while knowing he could do almost nothing to change it.
'So this is how it ends…'
A quiet sense of acceptance settled over him.
'Maybe that's not so bad.'
The thought cut through the final hesitation in his heart.
After all these years in the Marines, the "justice" he had supposedly served now seemed painfully hollow.
Almost absurd.
"Heh…"
A weak breath escaped him.
"It should've ended long ago."
There was mockery in his voice, but it was no longer directed at Jozu.
It was directed at the system he had spent most of his life serving.
Kizaru had grown tired of it years ago.
Tired of an organization forced to bow its head beneath the Celestial Dragons.
Tired of pretending that such a system could still be called justice.
His so-called Ambiguous Justice had never truly been an ideology.
It was survival.
A compromise wedged between ideals and reality, allowing him to continue functioning without looking too closely at how far the Marines had drifted from what they claimed to represent.
On the surface, Kizaru had always seemed indifferent.
Lazy.
Almost detached from everything around him.
But that did not mean he had failed to understand the darkness beneath it all.
If anything, he had understood it too well.
There had once been a time when Marine Headquarters genuinely felt like home.
Something worth believing in.
Something worth protecting.
But year after year, mission after mission, he had been forced to act against his own instincts and swallow compromises he could never truly accept.
That sense of belonging had slowly eroded until almost nothing remained except exhaustion.
And pain.
Now he had been stripped of his position.
The title of Admiral no longer protected or defined him.
The chains that had bound him to the Marines for so many years had finally been broken.
Perhaps becoming a prisoner was not the end of his world after all.
Perhaps, in some strange way…
It was freedom.
Freedom from hypocrisy.
Freedom from duty.
Freedom to finally face what he truly believed without hiding behind a lazy smile and an ambiguous sense of justice.
Kizaru's battered body trembled faintly.
Then, slowly, he closed his eyes.
He no longer watched the Marines fleeing in panic like startled birds.
He no longer cared about the pain stabbing through his body like countless needles.
For the first time in a very long while, Borsalino simply let everything go.