"In a few moments, we will proceed with the execution of Portgas D. Ace!"
The Chief Admiral's statement echoed around the bay, eliciting smiles of satisfaction from the Warlords and soldiers. The pirates' faces fell, terrified that they would not be able to save their friend. Ace said nothing. He waited.
Driven by the energy of despair and the motivation of Luffy who kept leading them further, the pirates nevertheless rushed towards the only opening they had left to Ace. The soldiers waited until they were close and bombarded them with cannonballs without stopping. Horrified, Lucia watched helplessly as the violence unfolded below. It's a massacre... a real massacre... Ace then began to stir as well, jingling his sea granite cuffs as he moved his arms as if to free himself. Lucia's hands itched terribly too, she wanted to fight, she wanted to help them. What right did the Navy have to do this? What authority, what justice was worth the sacrifice of all those lives? Soldiers and pirates alike, no one deserved this. No matter how hard she bent her neck, she couldn't make out the expression on Sengoku's face. His eyes were invisible, masked by the reflection of flames and smoke on his glasses.
Once the shooting died down, the silence in Marineford was too oppressive. Ace was at the bottom of the abyss, Lucia was in trouble. All her bravery was gone. Only fear and despondency remained. She could hear nothing. No more screams. No more calls. No more voices from the bay. Only Sengoku's voice managed to find its way into her ears:
"Begin the execution!"
There was a rumbling sound. And another hoarse voice broke the silence:
"Ace... I'm here..."
With a superhuman effort, Little Oars Junior, who had been unconscious for several hours, came to and stood up, trying once again to reach his friend Ace. The shots started again, pounding the monster's body, riddling it with cannonballs and bullets. But Oars did not give up. If his body was weakening, his spirit kept him fighting.
Nevertheless, he ended up collapsing heavily on the ground, panting, exhausted, dying. Kizaru decided that it was time to stop this desolate spectacle and prepared to finish off the giant. He was interrupted by the projection of a gigantic jet of water that rippled through the air and came crashing down heavily at the feet of the three admirals in front of the scaffold. As the water entered the inner part of Marineford, it splashed onto the soldiers present and part of the scaffold. An impressive spray fell on Lucia, who was thrown to the ground by the impact and coughed to catch her breath, her hair dripping down her face, her clothes soaked. Without understanding, she shook her head to clear her face and squinted her eyes to better perceive what was happening below.
With his feet firmly planted in the ground, a piece of the mast from Whitebeard's ship under his arm, and a dark look in his eyes, Luffy stood before the strongest forces in the Navy. Startled, Ace shouted Luffy's name as Lucia tried to process the vision, which seemed surreal. Fear also gripped her as she realised that he didn't stand a chance against those three monsters alone. But she didn't have time to speak as Luffy was already knocked down by the Admirals and Sengoku decided to pick up the execution where he had left off.
"Raise your swords!" he ordered the two executioners.
As they obeyed, Lucia let out a grunt:
"STOP- "
She was interrupted by Sengoku, who put his foot behind her back to hold her down. She looked up, her eyes full of rage.
"Your turn will come soon enough, for now shut up!"
He turned back to the soldiers:
"CUT OFF HIS HEAD!"
As if time was slowing down, Lucia saw the blades moving towards Ace's neck, who said nothing, his eyes closed, waiting to die. She opened her mouth but not a sound could come out.
Then it was all over.
Incredulously, she saw the executioners being thrown backwards, blood seeping through their torsos from a large wound. She looked down to see Crocodile standing before them, his ever-present cigar in his teeth, who had undoubtedly saved their lives. The fighting then resumed with equal fervour in front of the scaffold. The Admirals gave no quarter, the soldiers fired blindly. Then Whitebeard made a last stand by raising a new boat from the sea bed to retrieve all his men who were swimming in the water inside the wall. With a last ditch effort by Little Oars Junior, the boat entered the interior of Marineford, right in front of the pedestal where the condemned siblings were standing. Lucia was speechless - again. The old man... She was truly impressed by the resources and strategies of the pirate. She realised that she really wanted to believe that they would win, that she would make it out alive with Ace. That none of them would die today. After all, who could really defeat Whitebeard?
She believed it all the more when Marco flew up and dominated the whole battlefield to get to the scaffold. But at the last moment, Garp leapt up and knocked the phoenix to the ground without saying a word, before standing in front of the three admirals' seats as a last line of defence. Anyone who wanted to approach Ace or Lucia would have to fight him.
Ace was desperate, counting on his own death to end the violence. He turned in on himself in despair. His gesture, which had not escaped Lucia's notice either, made Sengoku wonder.
"Is there something wrong with you, Fire Fists?"
"Ace?" Lucia asked softly, looking concerned.
"I'm... really out of sorts," he began.
His voice was weak, but it managed to break through the din of screams, bangs and shouts that continued to proliferate from the square. There was also cheering.
"How can I think that at a time like this? My father, my little brother, my companions... they're being slaughtered..."
Lucia's throat tightened, her eyes moistened.
"I'm so happy," Ace continued, tears rolling down his cheeks, "I can't stop crying... After all I've been through... I'm so angry... TO LIVE!"
These words pierced Lucia's heart and she also began to cry silently, clenching her jaw, lowering her eyes. A blast made her raise her head and she was forced to watch as Whitebeard fell to the ground after taking a fiery punch from Admiral Akainu. Then Luffy screamed with all his might. Galvanized by her brother's words and Luffy's energy, she stood up and began to pull on her handcuffs and their seastone chains again. Her clothes stuck to her skin, still wet from the water splash the last time, her feet slipped on the wood of the scaffold and her hair kept falling in front of her eyes. Sengoku let her, thinking it was only the energy of desperation that still gave her any desire to fight. He knew that new guards were preparing to finally execute the prisoners, it was only a matter of time.
Lucia's foot skidded across the floor and she fell heavily to the ground, her chin hitting the floor with a thud. More blood trickled from the corner of her mouth but she paid no attention to it. Everything around her was gone. She could no longer hear the screams and explosions, she could no longer see the corpses and the blood. There was only her body, heavy and weak, and those damn seastone handcuffs. And there was the water. She got up again and again, without stopping.
"Lucia, stop..." Ace begged her.
"It's the last straw..." she muttered... "to be covered in water... AND NOT BE ABLE TO DO ANYTHING!"
She also had this rage in her, this rage to live, to fight. It had been there since the beginning of the fight, since she had arrived at Impel Down itself. She had never stopped having that spark in her, that tiny light that was turning into a fire right now. Come on Luce... come on girl... move... move! No more powerlessness, no more having to endure and watch, it was all over! Her wrists kept banging against the seastone inside the sheaths, her fingers scraping against the walls, her palms sweaty from twisting and clenching in all directions, hoping to get out of their prison. His breath was ragged, his lungs burned, his vision blurred.
Concentrate Lucia, feel the water around you. Feel the moisture in the air, feel the water seeping into the soil, the water diffusing into the plants, feel even the water in you, in your blood, the water filtering through your skin in your sweat... I want you to be aware of every tiny particle of water that exists in this world.
Rayleigh's words ran in a continuous loop in her head, she replayed the hours, weeks, months, years she had spent training with him, learning, improving. She still had so much to understand, there was no way it was going to end here.
Ace was horrified to see streams of blood running from Lucia's arms. The red drops crashed to the floor as the young woman continued to pull at her arms, unaware of the pain.
"Lucia, STOP!" he shouted.
"NO!"
"You're going to tear your arms off, that's enough now!"
"So what," she replied, finally turning her face towards him, "what if I rip my arms off? At least I can finally do something to get us out of here!"
Ace froze at her sharp gaze and determination. Clenching her jaw and pulling harder, she continued:
"I'm not going to be dominated by a pair of gloves with the word 'sea' in their name..."
"Stop getting excited Elementalist, you can't do anything against seastone"
"We'll see about that..." she muttered.
She screamed in frustration as she pulled harder and harder, feeling the drops of sweat slide down her fingers and then fall into the sheaths. As her scream increased in intensity, Sengoku suddenly became alert. He stepped back in amazement as blue streaks began to appear on the Elementalist's body. His veins stood out on his white skin, crisscrossing his skin like a vast network of rivers.
"What exactly are you doing?" he belched.
"I'm breaking the lock!" she replied, her face tense.
"Lucia stop!" Ace said. "Lucia! LUCIA!"
Ace's screams finally drew the attention of the fighters below who looked up to see the spectacle. Luffy met Lucia's eyes.
"No way," she gasped, "I'm not going to stand by and do nothing... while that stubborn head risks his neck for us..."
Jinbei glanced at the water behind them, behind the wall. It almost seemed to him that it had moved, it was the same sensation as last time...
"Oh dear, oh dear, what is she doing to us now?" Kizaru asked in his usual annoyed voice.
"She's killing herself," Akainu answered flatly.
"Don't take it lightly," Aokiji rebuked him, "I have a bad feeling about this..."
Your Haki is intrinsically connected with your devil fruit. I want you to eventually be able to combine the two without having to think. I want you to be able to use your power with your Haki always present to reinforce it.
Lucia continued to scream in rage and despair as the energy slowly began to build inside her. Fortunately for her, Sengoku was so shocked that he didn't even think to react.
"LUCIA STOP!!!"
Ace continued to beg her sister to stop her stunt, fearing for her life.
"YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!"
"It's my choice, just like it's Luffy's, the old man's, Marco's, Oars'... everyone else's who's out there fighting for your life! Remember what I told you, in the circle of your life is us. And we refuse to let you die like this! Did you really think I was going to stand by and do nothing? Especially after what you just told us?"
Tears rolled down Ace's cheeks, his voice breaking as he spoke the last words:
"I REFUSE TO LET YOU DIE BECAUSE OF ME!"
This was the last sentence for Lucia, in a final push she anchored her feet in the ground and pulled with all her strength on the chains, raising her face to the sky to scream:
"AND I REFUSE TO HAVE MY ONLY BROTHER TAKEN AWAY FROM ME IN THIS WAY!"
Then everything happened in an instant. With a metallic noise, the sheaths were sawn off, freeing his handcuffs and his hands, which had finally been out in the open for days. In the same movement, the Haki covered her arms and she firmly grasped the chains still attached to her handcuffs and broke them easily. Then she gave one last push to be able to eject herself out of the scaffold, hoping to find help below, but at the last moment her body gave out completely. An immense weakness overcame her, her muscles failed to respond, her eyes went blank and she collapsed on the platform, her arm, still handcuffed, dangling above the void. Her throat dry, her breath short, the ground danced before her eyes. She barely felt Sengoku grabbing her by one arm and lifting her to the height of her face. With a useful effort, she gave him a hard look, which she accompanied with a sly smile:
"I broke the lock..." she said in a hoarse, weak voice.
"Repeat what you said!" the Chief Admiral ordered her, threatening. "REPEAT!"
In front of his eyes, the Elementalist fell unconscious, dangling miserably in his hand like a rag doll. He ruthlessly threw her to the side of the road and then, still in shock, inspected the fallen sheaths. They were sawed in half, the cut was clean. He noticed that the edges were wet, a few fine drops of water were still falling. He could not believe it:
"She cut the seastone... with water..."
Thousands of questions and misunderstandings mingled in his mind, but above all, a visceral fear took over. She had just done something that was not possible. Any devil fruit user could not use their powers when in contact with seastone. Every user. Without exception. So how had she done it? Then her Haki that had allowed her to break the chains as if they were made of straw. How? And then there was what she had screamed before she could momentarily break free. He turned to Ace, his face contorted with rage:
"What kind of nonsense is that again? Why did she say that? Answer me!"
Horrified and fascinated by what she had just done, Ace merely bowed his head and answered simply:
"It's like Luffy."
The answer did not satisfy Sengoku.
"Either way, it doesn't matter anymore since she'll die soon, after you."