Ken just shook his head and refused to talk about it, meanwhile, Luffy asked the most important question of them all to Sabo.

"Why are you guys here?" Luffy asked. This made Sabo stiffen up a bit and made his happy face more serious. Somehow, the surrounding temperature seemed to have dropped quite a bit. Ken, who was going to talk more with Kuma about the Marines and the government, stopped and looked at Sabo.

"Ace has been caught by Akainu and his former betrayed partner of the Whitebeard Pirates, Blackbeard!"

"What?"

"Are you serious?"

"Impossible."

"No way."

But then an unprecedented thing happened. A burst of intense willpower that rippled through the atmosphere. The air itself seemed to quake in response, as if bowing to Ken's command. Everyone surrounding him felt the shake, but somehow they weren't bothered by it.

The news of Ace being captured still triumphed over the fact that Ken had just awakened his Conqueror's Haki for the first time. Even Ken himself wasn't affected by this fact. When he met Ace last time and gave him the character of Natsu, he thought that even if the Marineford war had happened, at least it wouldn't have been at the cost of Ace being caught.

At least he would be strong enough to take Blackbeard down. But here they were again. Ace was still caught, and it was done by Akainu too.

"How the fuck did he get caught?" Ken roared. He was visibly shaking in anger as Conqueror's Haki started to seep out of him.

"We don't know, but apparently Akainu showed up in the fight between Ace and Blackbeard, and he was going to win, according to the accounts of the nearby villagers who were nearby. But then the Marines showed up, and Akainu came up and joined hands with Blackbeard to take down Ace." Sabo said what the Revolutionary Army was able to collect

Ken clenched his fist in anger. Akainu, that asshole He just poured water on all of these plans for the New World. He wanted the Marineford War to happen, but not like this. He had been slowly building up the strength of the straw hats so that they could face the New World on their own terms and not suffer.

They had been going well, and even Ken was able to rally people behind their banner. Bon Clay and the other Baroque Works had been convinced, and he convinced Bartolomew to come to Grand Line later, essentially bringing him under his fleet.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

And he had given powers to Luffy, Ace, and Sabo just so that they could defend themselves better. But at the end, Ace was still caught.

"Sabo. We need to go and free Ace." Luffy, who had been silent, got up and demanded Sabo looked at his brother with a small smile. He had already expected that Luffy would say that.

"We do, but not like this," Sabo said.

"Not like this? What do you mean?" Luffy was itching to go and save his brother, only to be stopped by Sabo.

"We have got news. He will be executed in Marineford in front of the whole world." Sabo said.

"What?"

"Oh god, one bad news story isn't enough. Now another."

"This is bullshit."

"So we need to go and rescue Ace now." Luffy was shaking a bit when he learned that his brother might be executed.

"He is in Impel Down. We can't infiltrate that place." Sabo said.

"What? We will break through whatever this is and rescue Ace." Luffy shouted.

"Impel Down can't be invaded from outside. It's impossible." Sabo said.

"We will break the doors, walls, and everything in order to rescue Ace." Luffy shouted.

"No. We can only free him during the war in Marineford. The Revolutionary has already gotten information that the Whitebeard Pirates will attack Marineford and capture Ace. We will attack with them." Sabo said, and those words made Luffy calm down a bit.

He thought Sabo wasn't ready to rescue his brother and was a little angry, but he understood that he wanted to take help from others in the rescue.

"So we need to attack the Gorillaford. Okay." Luffy said.

"It's Marineford." Everybody shouted at Luffy.

"Guys.. I am sorry. I will have to go and retrieve my brother." Luffy said as he turned to the Straw Hats.

"Luffy, as a captain, we will follow you anywhere. Ace is our friend too. We will rescue him in Marineford together." Chopper said.

"Of course. Though my legs are shaking, we will attack Marineford together and free Ace. How dare the marines say that they can execute a friend of great Ussop-sama?"

"I will get to meet many swordsmen in Marineford. Need I say more?" Zoro said, as he had a devilish smile on his face.

Luffy was very happy to see that his friends were onboard, and at the end he turned to Ken, who had been silent the entire time.

"Ken.. You have Conqueror's Haki." Luffy said. By this time, he had understood what Haki was and its importance, so he knew how major it was when Ken showed Conqueror's Haki. This was a huge thing for the crew, but sadly, they didn't have time to celebrate it.

"It's fine. It's not a big deal at the moment." Ken said as he spaced out a bit.

"We will go and save our brother together." Luffy said, taking it for granted that his brother would come too.

"We will. But first, we will need to do something. Sabo, Ivankov is in Impel Down, right?" Ken asked.

"Huh?" Kuma was more shocked by this, and his stoic face twitched a bit. How did this guy know so much about the Revolutionary Army? Did they have a spy other than Sabo? Sabo nodded his head.

"Tell Dragon that Ivankov will be coming out for the war, as will many criminals that had been incriminated in Impel Down. The revolutionaries can take the good ones in." Ken said.

"Eh? You want him to break free. That can be done, but Ivankov is there for other purposes." Sabo hesitated a bit. Though he had the same level of authority as Ivankov, he was still older than him, so he just couldn't dish out orders.