Journey to One Piece

256. Bow to the King

"Meteor Punch!"

Luffy, who was busy handling other people, didn't even notice when the punch came flying from Akainu, nor was his recently grown haki strong enough to predict Akainu's attack. He only saw a flash of a huge light coming at him at a very fast pace. Before he could even understand what was going on, he saw a shadow covering him.

A man appeared right between Akainu's punch and Luffy, who looked at the person dumbfounded.

"ACE!"

Luffy shouted. It was Ace who had come to shield Luffy from Akainu's punch. Luffy's eyes went wide as he saw Ace, and he already had a very bad premonition in his heart when he saw him. Luffy felt like everything in the surroundings had just stopped for him.

"Damn you!" Ace shouted as he vomited blood from his mouth. Luffy sidestepped a bit to see if Ace had suffered some kind of serious injury from Akainu. But what he saw next made his eyes widen in horror.

Akainu's punch had struck Ace's torso and had burned a part of it, but more than that, the punch had gone straight through the heart of Sabo.

"SABO!"

"No... SABO!"

"Ace... Every damn time your hot-headedness creates situations like these," Sabo said as he vomited almost a bucket of blood while saying so.

"No... Sabo... No... I am sorry..." Ace's tears had started rolling down. He was actually hyperventilating at this point and didn't know what to say. He wanted to save his brother Luffy, but now someone else who was very close to him had come down and saved him instead.

Luffy, meanwhile, was just standing like a wooden log and saw everything transpiring. Jimbei and others who had been on the side looked at the situation with wide eyes and terror. Akainu didn't waste time as he pulled his hand away, and Sabo slowly fell to the ground.

"One Revolutionary down, two pirates to go," Akainu mumbled. Luffy came running to Sabo, who seemed to have already lost consciousness and was lying on the pavement.

"Sabo... No... This is not happening... No." There were no tears in Luffy's eyes, just pure fear and sadness reflected on his face. He was unable to process what was happening.

The others on the battlefield, like Zoro and his crew, cried out for Luffy and were now running towards him. He had almost lost consciousness because of the shock. He wasn't yet out of danger since Akainu was going to take another shot to kill Luffy too.

But at the same moment, Luffy, who had whites in his eyes, seemed to come back to life. But this time, the color of his pupils had changed as he slowly turned and looked at Akainu. Before, his eyes showed fear, sadness, and hatred when Akainu killed Sabo.

But the new eyes that Luffy showed, there were no feelings, not even a tinge of emotion. There was only a single emotion, and that was 'you are an ant.' But his eyes weren't the only thing that had changed. A small white crown slowly formed on his forehead.

The crown forming on his forehead, for some reason, sent chills down his spine. He had never felt this way in his life. He had been in the Marines for a very long time, and his Logia power always gave him an edge. Though he had trained hard, he had forgotten the feeling of fear.

Even when facing Whitebeard, he never got that feeling.

After the crown was formed, clouds started forming overhead, and thunder sounds drowned out the sounds of the people fighting on the battlefield.

"Brat... You think you can scare me?" Akainu was incensed, but for a moment, he felt a bit scared of this guy. Ace, who was trying to stand up, vomited more blood and fell down on his knees. Akainu's attack was still burning him, and he had his organs half burnt by this point.

As the magma punch came down at him, Luffy sidestepped and easily avoided it. It felt like Luffy did this effortlessly. Then his hand suddenly had the Nyobo. Luffy didn't just sit idle and hit Akainu right at his shoulder with extreme force.

There was no Haki in it, but for some reason, Akainu couldn't use his Logia powers, and the force with which Luffy hit him broke his collarbones and shoulder blades into at least a hundred pieces. Akainu instantly fell to the ground with a huge thump and cried out in pain.

Luffy just stood by and watched. He didn't attack further; he waited for Akainu to get up. After a moment, Akainu slowly got up on his knees. He knew he had to get up, or else he would die there. After getting on his knees, he looked at Luffy with terror. He didn't expect a single hit would render his hand useless. He could tell that his hand might be permanently damaged now.

"Brat... You think you've won. You've already lost your brother," Akainu said while blood flowed from his mouth and nose. Luffy didn't answer and just murmured.

"Grow, Nyobo."

What happened next would be etched into the memory of all the people present on the battlefield and those watching the battle live. Luffy's staff grew big and struck Akainu right in the face, but it didn't stop there.

The staff grew bigger and longer at lightning speed. It expanded so rapidly and forcefully that it went straight through the Marineford headquarters building within seconds. The staff was now more than half the size of the Marine HQ in width, and Akainu was still at the edge of the staff, being pummeled by everything in its path.

Nobody could stop the staff and it just went on its way. Few people on the battlefield saw that the staff would even go endless but after a second it stopped. Akainu was now miles away from the battlefield. He had lost consciousness and slowly fell on the open sea along with the other marines that were on the path.