The Navy Headquarters Falls! Whitebeard's Unspeakable Wrath!

Ace offers one last smile and slides from Luffy's hold as the final sliver of his Vivre Card burns out. Luffy thinks back to the day Ace struck him for weeping over a false report of death, and to the promise Ace made never to abandon his weak little brother. Kneeling now over the corpse, Luffy tips back his face and lets out a howl of mindless sorrow.

Across the whole battlefield, and throughout Sabaody, the news of Ace's death lands like a hammer. Ivankov calls to a silent Luffy and grasps that the heaped-up trauma has broken his mind. As Akainu darts in to finish him, Marco cuts the admiral off and orders Jinbe to carry Luffy clear. Before Akainu can give chase, Whitebeard looms up behind him and drives him into the dirt.

Akainu hits back, scorching away part of Whitebeard's face and, in this version, running the same blow through his torso. Unmoved, Whitebeard hurls the admiral aside and sets off a quake that flattens the headquarters and rips the plaza apart, stranding himself among the Marines. Sengoku marvels that such power remains in him. While the pirates pull back, a giant shadow looms behind the shattered building: Blackbeard with his crew, freshly bolstered by Level 6 escapees. Recruited from those cells were Catarina Devon, Shiryu, Vasco Shot, plus the towering Sanjuan Wolf and the rotting Avalo Pizarro. Blackbeard cackles that he turned up just in time to watch Whitebeard die.

Reeling from Ace's death, Luffy's mind gives out, and Jinbe spirits him away as the Whitebeard Pirates swear to protect him. Whitebeard slams Akainu down, weathers a burned face and a pierced torso, then triggers a quake that ruins Marine Headquarters and cleaves the plaza in two. The Blackbeard Pirates make their grand entrance, unveiling the Level 6 captives that Teach folded into his crew.

Where the manga has Akainu sear off a chunk of Whitebeard's head, the anime only singes part of his beard and instead drives the Meigo blow through his torso, dulling the gore. Akainu manages to shove Marco aside to pursue Luffy here, while the manga shows him still fighting past Marco when Whitebeard cuts in. The Whitebeard and Akainu duel runs longer than the source, and rather than an instant break, the anime threads in a montage of Luffy reliving flashes of Ace dying before his mind shatters. Four newcomers debut, including the giant Sanjuan Wolf and the zombie-like Avalo Pizarro, alongside Vasco Shot and Catarina Devon. The episode adapts the tail of Chapter 574 and slices of Chapters 575 and 576.