The mothership continued to fall.
Yang Ming stood before the Anywhere Door, blood dripping from the wound on his right hand.
Tony's transmission had cut out.
The New York streets below were being evacuated. Cars collided, and pedestrians crowded into subway entrances.
Some knelt by the roadside to pray, some filmed the sky with their phones, and others rushed into buildings with children in their arms.
Yang Ming watched the mothership draw closer.
It was too far away. The Anywhere Door could not encompass the entire vessel.
Opening the door directly beneath the mothership would only make it crash somewhere else. New York would escape, but another city would take the hit.
Using conqueror's haki to hold down the vessel would do no good. There were still over a thousand Hydra personnel aboard, and the mothership's sheer mass was not something a mental shock could solve.
Destroying the thrusters would only make it fall faster.
Yang Ming raised his right hand, then lowered it again.
He only had one functioning arm now. His chakra was nearly depleted, and he could not activate the Eight Gates again. Forcing open the Anywhere Door would, at best, get him inside the mothership.
Tony was still in there.
"Yang." Tony's voice came through the Communicator.
The signal kept breaking up.
"I can... hold out for another ten seconds. After that, New York gets a very expensive pile of rubble."
"Any last words?"
"Yes. Tell Steve I didn't die because of his secret."
"I'll tell him you died because your armor was shoddy."
"You're a doctor with no sense of humor."
The signal cut out again.
Yang Ming looked up.
At that moment, he remembered someone.
Not in New York, nor in Washington.
Metropolis.
Yang Ming immediately sliced open an Anywhere Door.
Beyond the blue