Out at sea.
Black clouds shrouded the sky. Lightning ripped and thunder rolled, the air heavy and irritable as if a squall were about to break.
Within the storm bank, a vast serpentine body slid in and out of view. Blue, rhomboid scales caught the electric glare like a thousand polished mirrors.
A moment later, a tyrant's head pushed out of the cloud dragon-mawed and terrible. Amber slit-pupils narrowed.
"A Marine battleship?"
"What are they doing here…?"
The thought flickered then battle-lust surged up and swallowed it whole. A wildfire kindled in those golden eyes.
"I can feel it…"
"Powerful auras!"
Some he knew. Some were new. Either way, Tengetsu Ares's blood galloped through his colossal frame like a flash flood, roaring in his ears.
"Aaooo!"
The dragon's roar hammered the air, jubilant and unmistakably a declaration of war.
The sound knifed across the sky and slammed into the battleship. Elite Marines staggered, hands clapped over ringing ears.
Sengoku frowned, gaze fixed on the horizon. "The Vivre Card points to this island, and yet Ares is coming from the opposite direction. Odd…"
While he pondered, Garp couldn't keep the grin off his face. "It's him. No doubt. That feral, storming aura like a beacon in the night."
"And only he would charge in knowing we've stacked this ship with Marine heavyweights."
Ordinary pirates would've jumped overboard and paddled for their lives at the sight of this lineup.
"We agreed he's mine," Garp said, digging a finger in his nose as he side-eyed Sengoku and Zephyr.
Zephyr crossed his arms. "Take Ares. We'll watch for the rest of Rocks' people."
Before the words had fully left his mouth, Garp had already torn off the cloak of Justice. The black suit beneath couldn't hide the power packed into that frame.
He cupped his hands to the sky and bellowed:
"Ares!"
"Come taste my Iron Fist!"
His heel struck the deck bang and he shot upward like a loosed bolt, a blur screaming into the storm.
"Garp!"
Seeing the Marine Vice Admiral himself, Tengetsu Ares's fighting spirit spiked. He bared his teeth in a savage smile, voice rasping with excitement.
"Finally our second bout. I've been waiting for this!"
"Last time, I swore to myself: the next time we meet…"
"I'll beat you!"
Garp's grin sharpened. "If you can, brat."
"Come try!"
"Let's see if my Iron Fist doesn't knock you clean out of the sky!"
In the span of a heartbeat, Garp had vaulted into the clouds, footfalls drumming on the air geppō's staccato pops until he hung level with the azure dragon.
Two kings measuring each other, lightning stitching the heavens between them. Their auras pressed so hard the sea itself seemed to hold its breath.
"You vanished for a year," Garp called, eyes bright. "Then came back with a bang. Even in that year, the world couldn't stop talking about you. Sometimes I regret not hauling you in when I had the chance."
"And now, after a year, you deck the head of CP0… makes me regret it all over again."
"Today, these fists drag you back in chains."
He'd watched the kid blaze up from a nobody to a top officer under Rocks, a name that made sailors whisper and it had taken only two short years.
"As for your Iron Fist…" Tengetsu Ares sneered, pride cold in his eyes. "My body's been through the forge burned, hammered, hardened. It's tougher than steel."
"When it comes to fists, I fear no one."
His titanic form collapsed in a breath dragon to man. The man was a monument: demonic musculature cut in onyx, steel-cable veins snaking over armor-hard flesh.
Like a black war-god.
Ferocity poured off him in waves.
Garp's heart kicked at the sight. "So," he shot back, "you're not using that Devil Fruit of yours?"
"No. I'm beating your fist with my fist." Tengetsu Ares stamped on thin air, settling into place opposite him.
Their gazes crossed; sparks flew.
That was the signal.
In the same instant, Garp's fists went black metal-dark and dense, Armament Haki tempered to the limit: the Iron Fist.
Opposite him, Ares's forearms flushed a wet, gleaming crimson, as if pulled from a vat of blood: the Blood-Hand.
"Fistbone Meteor Impact!"
"Blood-Hand Armament Great Ape King Fist!"
Black and red; small and huge. The very air rippled as their punches launched.
BOOOOM!
Fists collided. Thunder on thunder. A shock-front tore outward, shearing the air into rolling rings; the sea below reared into smashing walls.
"Garp, your Iron Fist… isn't all that." Ares's tiger eyes flared, hunger rising with the heat in his muscles. The clash lit every nerve his fighting cells multiplying like mad.
Garp's grin widened. "And your punch isn't enough!"
Ares drew back, jaw cocked in a feral challenge. "Then try this!"
His arm ballooned muscle coiling like a prehistoric crimson python then crashed forward on a tide of compressed air.
"Scarlet Armament Red Dragon Smash!"
Garp didn't budge. Haki roared up his right arm, his knuckles a falling anvil.
"Fistbone Falling Meteor!"
Impact. Light. Sound. The world split.
"Still not enough," Garp taunted.
"And your fist is soft," Ares fired back.
"Then let's turn it up!"
Joy blazed across Ares's face. Blood roared; bones crackled like firecrackers.
In a blink, his already-massive physique swelled; metal-hard muscle surged. Power gathered in both arms then he loosed a storm, left-right-left, a mad drumroll of strikes.
Red fist-shadows filled the air.
"Scarlet Armament Myriad Dragons at Play!"
Garp answered in kind, both fists blurring, Armament Haki spilling like a breached dam.
"Fistbone Meteor Shower!"
Bang bang bang
In a single minute, they traded hundreds of blows.
Every collision cracked like sky-hammers, enough to make the heart jump in the chest of anyone listening.
Neither man bothered to dodge. They took the hits flesh and Haki against flesh and Haki.
A duel of pride and blood.
It only escalated.
Their jeers laced the thunder:
"Ares, that all you've got? Forgot breakfast?"
"Garp, 'Iron Fist'? Feels like cotton to me!"
"Ares, is that a punch or a love tap?"
"Garp, are you scratching me? Hit harder!"
"…"
On the sea below, the hundred-meter warship rocked in the gale their fists had called up.
"Ares is probably the most fun opponent Garp's ever had," Zephyr muttered, eyes on the sky, each clash like a war drum in his chest. Part of him itched to leap up there and join them.
Sengoku, by contrast, allowed himself a thin smile. "Good. The brat's arrogant no Devil Fruit, just fists. If he keeps that up, Garp will put him down."
He knew Garp's true weight thirty-nine years old and already beyond most Admirals.
But delight faded to a frown. "Strange. A fight this loud between Garp and Ares, and none of the other Rocks officers have shown themselves."
"Don't tell me… they're not on this island at all?"
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