One Piece Chapter 576: The Great Pirate Edward Newgate

The Blackbeard Pirates' arrival shocks Marineford. Blackbeard laughs, "Zehahaha-hahaha!!!" while the Marines identify the giant beside headquarters: "It's the giant battleship, Sanjuan Wolf!!!" They realize the newcomers are the death row inmates from Impel Down's Level Six and ask, "Why are they here!?" The Marines panic that these criminals have committed such heinous crimes that their very existences were erased, and warn, "We can't let even a single one of them escape!!"

The escaped Level Six prisoners are named in succession. The page introduces "The Crescent Moon Hunter, Catarina Devon!!!"; "The Evil King, Avalo Pizarro!!!"; "The Drinker, Vasco Shot!!!" who asks, "Can I kill these guys?"; and "Shiryu of the Rain, the head guard from Impel Down!!!" Pizarro says, "It's been a while since I've been out..." Devon purrs, "Murun fufuru, I like you guys," while Shiryu looks on and someone demands, "What's going on here!?"

Sengoku demands answers from Shiryu: "Shiryu, you...!! What happened to Magellan!? What happened at Impel Down!? How did you all get here!?" Shiryu says Sengoku can figure it out later and that he is sticking with these guys now. A Marine reports that shortly after the Gates of Justice opened again, an unidentified battleship passed through. Lafitte explains cheerfully that before they departed, he hypnotized the control room Marines and instructed them to let all battleships through the gates, though it seems other people benefited from it too.

Blackbeard reveals his plan to Sengoku and Whitebeard. He says that if the Government had seen him as an enemy while he was only a pirate, he could not have opened the gates and infiltrated Impel Down, so he only sought the Shichibukai title for this and does not need it anymore. Sengoku realizes, "You were planning on freeing them all along!?" Teach laughs, "Zehahahaha! Yes, everything was about this from the start!! Now you understand!" Whitebeard, furious, calls "Teach!!!" and strikes with his quake power as Blackbeard's crew shouts, "Captain, look out!!"

Blackbeard answers Whitebeard with the darkness of the Yami Yami no Mi, yelling "Black Hole!!!" and taunting, "Sacchi is dead... and so is Ace, old man!!" He claims he respected and admired Whitebeard, but says Whitebeard grew old and could not save even one of his men. Marco tries to intervene, but Whitebeard orders, "Don't interfere, Marco!!!" He tells Teach, "I won't call you my son anymore, Teach!! You killed one of your comrades... breaking the only ironclad rule on my ship!" Teach laughs that by killing this idiot, Fourth Squad Commander Satch can rest in peace, saying, "That's just what I want!!"

Blackbeard pulls Whitebeard in with "Black Whirlpool!!!" and boasts, "Zehahaha, how's that!? You can't make any more earthquakes..." Whitebeard suddenly attacks with his weapon and cuts him down, making Teach scream, "Gyubohh!!" Whitebeard points out his fatal weakness: "Your weakness... is that you overestimate yourself and get careless..." Teach reels in pain, crying, "Damn it...! That hurts!!!" and then panics as Whitebeard looms over him, shouting, "Hey, stop! I... eh!?"

Whitebeard grabs Blackbeard by the throat and unleashes his quake power directly into him while Teach screams, "Gyaaaah!!" Teach begs, "Stop!!! Old man!!! I'm your son, you can't kill--" but Whitebeard smashes him into the ground. Teach collapses, bleeding and terrified, while his crew shouts that Whitebeard is half dead already and yells, "Just shut up and die!" and "Get him!!!" The page shows Whitebeard still towering over Teach even while surrounded and grievously wounded.

The Blackbeard Pirates open fire and attack Whitebeard all at once. Bullets, blades, and cannon fire tear into him while his sons scream, "Boss!!" Blackbeard laughs, "Zehahaha!! Get him!!! Turn him into Swiss cheese!!!" His crew surrounds Whitebeard from every direction, stabbing and shooting as the battlefield watches in horror. The assault is brutal and collective, but Whitebeard remains upright through it, a huge unmoving figure under the barrage.

As Whitebeard stands under fire, he remembers Roger. In the flashback, Roger says, "Yeah, I don't have long," and asks, "Wanna know how to get to Raftel, Whitebeard?" Whitebeard answers that even if Roger told him, he would not go because he is not interested in that. Roger tells him the Government has been calling him "Gold Roger," but that is wrong: "My name's Gol D. Roger!!!" Whitebeard asks what the "D" means, and Roger smiles, "Oh, you wanna know? Then I'll tell you..."

Back in the present, Whitebeard tells Teach, "It's not you..." Teach is stunned: "...You're still alive!?" Whitebeard says, "The man Roger is waiting for... is definitely not you, Teach." He explains that there are those who inherited Roger's will, and someday someone will inherit Ace's will as well. As long as that bloodline survives, their flames will never die. Whitebeard says that will has been passed down from long ago, and that in the future someone will appear carrying centuries of history on his shoulders to challenge the world. He tells Sengoku the World Government fears the great war that will engulf the world, and that although he was not interested, when someone finds the treasure, "The world will be shaken to its core!!"

Whitebeard declares to the world, "One Piece is real!!!" The broadcast and battlefield explode in shock, while Sengoku and the Marines stare in horror. Whitebeard's thoughts turn to what he wanted since childhood. When asked how a pirate could not be interested in treasure and what he wanted, he answered simply, "A family." In the present he says, "You have my thanks. Farewell, my sons!!!" and asks forgiveness for leaving behind this huge fool. The battlefield announces, "Whitebeard has died!!!" and others gasp that he is dead but still standing.

The narration honors Whitebeard's final standing death. Even after he died, with half his face gone, his body would not yield; cutting his enemies down, he was the very image of a monster. In this battle he suffered two hundred sixty-seven sword wounds, one hundred fifty-two bullet wounds, and forty-six cannon wounds. Yet on his proud back, and indeed in his life as a pirate, he did not suffer a single coward's injury. The page shows his body standing upright, scarred and pierced, with the Whitebeard mark still displayed on his back.

A nearly blank page isolates Whitebeard's standing corpse in the lower right, leaving the rest of the page empty. There is no dialogue, only the visual silence after the narration of his wounds and his refusal to fall. The small full-body image shows Edward Newgate still upright with his cape and bisento, a final quiet punctuation after his declaration that One Piece is real and after the battlefield confirms that Whitebeard has died standing.

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