Luffy could barely stand anymore. But at least he could see that Blackbeard wasn´t doing any better.

He was able to deflect the most of Teach´s earth-quake attacks with the help of his haki,

but not all of them.

And he was able to protect himself so far from the darkness fruit, partly also through the use of defensive haki, partly through simple speed. Luffy had taken a lot of damage, just like his opponent.

A few minutes ago he had hit Blackbeard with a giant fist. For a few seconds he thought it was over. But his opponent had managed to stand up again.

He had managed to protect himself from the attack, at least partly.

It wasn´t over yet. Luffy smiled.

He knew this was his last fight before he was Pirate King. Well, technically he already was. He was the first to find One Piece. But if Blackbeard defeated him now it would not mean so much. If he won everybody would see him as the king.

But he wouldn´t. Luffy punched him again in the gut with his full strength.

He would win today and return to his home island as Pirate King.

"Straw Hat," Blackbeard called out, "you wanted it like that. Now you will see what I am truly capable of."

Teach used the gura gura no mi again, this time it seemed completely unrestrained. The entire island was shaking around them. He had a strange blank expression on his face, as if everything beside defeating his opponent didn´t matter to him anymore.

Luffy saw that the porneglyph that they had found on this island, that was at the same time the One Piece, was starting to break apart under the earth-quake.

Strange, in a few moments he would have reached his live long dream of being the Pirate King. In some ways, he thought, he was nearly sorry that bit was over.

"Blackbeard," Luffy addressed him, "there is something that I wanted to say to you for a long time."

He went into gear 2 and used armament haki at the same time. Through the combination of this his limbs were standing in flames. This was the Red Hawk attack.

Teach was in shock, for a moment it was as if Ace was standing before him.

"This is for Whitebeard," Luffy yelled and hit his opponent in the face, "and this is for Ace." He punched him again, this time even harder.

Blackbeard´s body was slammed with impossible force into the stony ground. His impact actually caused a small crater around him. His mouth was hanging open and his eyes were glassy.

This time, Luffy was sure, he would not be standing up again.

The new Pirate King himself was sinking to his knees. He saw now that his entire crew was in the same bad state as he was,but they had won.

It was over, he thought. He started to laugh.

"It is over", he screamed loud. "We have won."

Then he let himself fall to the ground. He was so tired that he could barely stand. It was by far not the first time that he felt like that, but maybe it would be the last.

Luffy and the entire Straw Hat crew set and lay down to rest.

xxx

They arrived a few minutes later. Finally they had found them.

The Straw Hat pirates were lying all over the place.

Luffy was on his back, breathing heavily and looking completely exhausted. Zoro was laying at a wall of rocks, wounded and tired out. Sanji was lying in some distance. Nami was sitting a few meters from them with her head hanging down.

Chopper was unconscious on the ground. The rest of the crew was in similar positions.

"I see we have finally found you Straw Hats," Vice Admiral Smoker said to them.

"Ah, hello Smoker. How are you?" Luffy greeted him.