The Souls Beneath the Magma

The golden lettering on the sky screen fully emerged.

[Top ten war criminals, fifth place]

[Marine Admiral, Akainu Sakazuki]

No one in the Marine plaza was surprised, but everyone's heart sank.

Akainu had been named for the second time.

The first time, he had been exposed as the one who carried out the Ohara Incident. This time, he was formally placed on the list of war criminals for his part in the Paramount War.

He would be punished for both crimes.

The question on the sky screen was shorter than any before it, and crueler than any before it, too.

[Question: During the Paramount War, which specific actions demonstrated Akainu Sakazuki's "Absolute Justice"?]

[A. Hunting down pirates who could no longer fight and leaving no survivors]

[B. Provoking Fire Fist Ace with words to make him stop, then taking the opportunity to launch a fatal attack on Monkey D. Luffy, ultimately causing Ace to die protecting Luffy]

[C. Attempting to kill Koby and other members of his own Marine forces who had suffered mental breakdowns near the end of the war]

[D. All of the above]

Akainu looked at the choices without the slightest change in expression.

There was no one within ten meters of him. Dark red flame marks flowed slowly across his arms, giving off a terrifying aura that made everyone instinctively keep their distance.

"Heh."

He uttered a single syllable. It was unclear whether he was mocking the livestream or the world that was judging him.

The sky screen did not wait for the countdown to end.

This time, the whole world gave its answer almost in unison.

"D, all of them."

"It has to be D. What wouldn't a man like that do?"

In countless pirate taverns across the New World, pirates smashed their glasses and cursed. Many of them had friends or crewmates who had died at the hands of a Marine Admiral.

On the streets of the Four Seas, the tearstains in the eyes of the civilians who had just watched Ohara's refugee ship sink had yet to dry.

And aboard the Moby Dick, the Whitebeard Pirates' reaction was even more direct.

Marco looked at the description in option B of how Akainu had provoked Ace with words, leading to his death. The blue phoenix flames on his body burned more fiercely than ever.

"That's the man who killed Ace."

His voice sounded as though it had been forced out from the depths of his soul.

Whitebeard sat on his throne, Murakumogiri gripped in his right hand. The force of his grip had turned his knuckles a dreadful color.

"Marco, remember that man's face."

"When we get to Marineford."

Whitebeard's eyes were half closed, but the gaze that escaped through the narrow slits was darker than the abyss beneath the sea.

"I'm going to break his spine with my own hands."

The answer appeared on the sky screen.

[Correct answer: D]

The footage began to play.

This time, the explanatory footage was longer than all the previous clips combined, and harder to endure than all of them put together.

The first segment showed Akainu hunting down pirates on the battlefield.

His magma fists came down again and again, each blow taking several lives, sometimes more than a dozen.

Some pirates had already fallen to the ground and could no longer move. Others raised their hands to surrender, but Akainu did not stop for a single second.

"Pirates are pirates. There's no such thing as surrender."

His voice echoed through the footage.

Magma swallowed everything.

Those who surrendered, those who begged for mercy, and those who had already lost consciousness were all reduced to ash.

The second segment was the scene that left no one able to remain calm.

Ace was retreating with Luffy on his back when Akainu appeared before them.

"Whitebeard is nothing more than a loser from the previous era."

Akainu spoke each word deliberately.

In the footage, Ace stopped.

Luffy shouted desperately from his back.

"Ace, don't stop! Let's go!"

But Ace's expression had already changed.

"What did you say? Say it again."

Flames blazed from his fist.

The corner of Akainu's mouth moved almost imperceptibly.

"I said Whitebeard is a loser, an old piece of trash destined to be left behind by the times."

Ace threw a punch.

The moment fire and magma collided, the outcome was decided.

Akainu's magma fist pierced Ace's flame defense, its overwhelming heat warping the air.

But the fist was not aimed at Ace.

It was aimed at Luffy.

In that moment, Ace's body made a choice.

He threw himself in front of Luffy.

The magma pierced his chest.

The sky screen paused on the image of blood spraying for three seconds before continuing.

Ace's body fell forward, and Luffy caught him.

"Luffy, thank you for loving me."

Ace's voice was faint. He spoke with a smile, with acceptance, and with irretrievable regret.

Then the warmth left his body.

This scene had appeared once before, in an edited clip during the first question, but that time it had been a rapidly cut montage focused on explaining the chain of cause and effect.

This time, it showed the entire sequence, complete and uncut, filmed from a first-person perspective.

Every breath, every bead of sweat, every heartbeat was presented in full.

Luffy held Ace's body and let out a heart-rending howl.

The howl passed through the sky screen and spread across the world.

In Foosha Village in the East Blue, the tavern owner Makino was wiping a glass. When she heard the howl, it slipped from her hand.

She recognized that voice.

It belonged to the boy she had watched grow up.

"Luffy."

Her lips trembled, and tears spilled from her eyes.

At the next table, Mayor Woop Slap took off his hat, murky tears streaming down his wrinkled face.

"Didn't that boy say he was going to become the Pirate King? How could he... how could something like this happen to him?"

In a small tavern in the East Blue, Lin Qi watched the scene on the screen, his beer can frozen halfway to his mouth.

He did not laugh.

He had thought he was only watching a game's CG animation, but the emotional impact of the footage was so powerful that even he, a bystander, felt a heaviness in his chest.

"Did this game have to go that far? It's like the real thing."

He put down his beer can and rubbed the aching corners of his eyes.

"Screenwriter, are you even human? Why make it so heartbreaking?"

But his fingers did not stop, because a new notification had appeared on the system interface.

[Global emotional value detected at maximum threshold: sadness]

[Recommendation: the question setter should add a compensatory reward to the judgment to balance the emotional curve]

"A compensatory reward?"

Lin Qi thought for a moment and nodded.

"True. If it's all suffering and no payoff, the readers will leave."

He began working on the system panel.

The footage on the sky screen ended, and the system's voice rang out.

[Answer explanation complete]

[Now issuing a second punishment judgment against Marine Admiral Akainu Sakazuki]

Akainu stood in the corridor outside the Fleet Admiral's office. The dark red flame marks on his arms glowed brighter than before, and fine cracks began to appear in the corridor walls under the intense heat.

He did not avoid it or offer a defense.

He simply stood there, waiting for the light to descend.

[Punishment: In addition to the first punishment, the permanent cognitive effect "Voices of the Dead" will be imposed. For the rest of his life, Akainu will hear the calls of those he personally killed aboard the Ohara refugee ship and during the Paramount War. Only he can hear these voices; they cannot be blocked or eliminated]

A darker, deeper red pillar of light descended from the sky screen and entered Akainu's body.

Akainu's body trembled.

Then he heard them.

Countless voices surged in from every direction, from Ohara twenty-two years ago, and from the Paramount War that had yet to happen.

There were the pleas of the elderly.

The cries of children.

The screams of soldiers.

And Ace's final words: "Thank you for loving me."

Every life his magma had swallowed whispered in his ears.

Akainu clenched his fists.

Magma seeped between his fingers, burning two deep pits into the floor.

But his lips remained tightly shut, and he did not say a word.

He would not speak.

Because according to his creed, admitting pain was the same as admitting fault.

And he would never admit that he was wrong.

The final lines appeared on the sky screen, concluding the judgment.

[At the same time, the system will grant a compensatory reward to the central victim of this incident]

[Reward recipient: Portgas D. Ace (current timeline, in which he has not yet died)]

[Reward: The Undying Flame Seed will be implanted in his body. When Ace's life is under mortal threat, the seed will activate automatically, granting him one chance to resist death]

The instant those words appeared, the whole world erupted once again.

Deep in a cell in Impel Down, Ace, bound by Seastone, felt a warm presence pulsing in his chest.

He lowered his head and saw a tiny, flame-shaped point of light flickering over his chest through his prison clothes.

"What is this?"

His voice was hoarse and weary.

But the tiny flame pulsed at his heart like a promise, a promise about the future from an unknown power.

And aboard the Moby Dick, the moment they saw the reward, every member of the Whitebeard Pirates let out an earth-shaking cheer.

"Ace can be saved!"

Marco's eyes reddened.

"Whoever's behind this livestream, god or ghost, thank you. For this."