The East Blue's winter was a fickle bitch. One moment, a clear moon lit the sky like polished steel. The next, snow came slicing sideways, biting through the dark like invisible blades.
Jin exhaled. His breath steamed. His coat hung in tatters, shirt blood-streaked and clinging to a chest rising like a war drum. Across from him, Garp stood half-covered in dirt and blood, grinning like the stubborn old bastard he was.
The fight had raged for five hours.
Jin rolled his shoulder, gauging the lingering tension in his joints. He'd mapped his limits now. Raw strength-wise—without drawing on the full breath force inside him—he was hovering near the lower tiers of the Seven Warlords. Not bad for a kid who hadn't hit twelve.
Not bad at all.
"You held back, Garp-san," Jin muttered. Not a complaint. Just fact.
The old man snorted, wiping a line of blood from his chin. "So did you."
Jin gave him a nod. "Still. Now I know where I stand. Thanks for that."
Garp let out a rough chuckle. "Didn't think I'd end up enjoying this trip. Came to dump my grandson off… instead I get a message from your old man and a battle I'll feel in my ribs for a week."
He clapped his stomach. "Your father would've been proud."
Jin didn't answer. He reached for his waist, unfastening the cloth-wrapped object slung beside him. The fabric whispered free, revealing a long, matte-black blade—slightly curved, around 1.4 meters long, thick-backed but slender like a predator's fang. The metal shimmered with faint veins of crimson—like dried blood soaked into obsidian.
He held it up, eyes sharp as the blade itself.
"This is my sword," he said quietly. "Forged it myself. Tempered it with every fuck-up, every failure. Tried to create the weapon I saw in my head, but... it's not there yet."
He exhaled slowly.
"So I haven't given it a name."
He looked up, meeting Garp's eyes across the storm-torn clearing. "But I want you to take one slash from it. That alright with you?"
Garp blinked. For a second, he looked more confused than anything. "You use a blade?"
"Guess you'll find out," Jin said, smile razor-thin.
The air dropped five degrees.
Garp squinted, watching the way Jin's fingers wrapped around the hilt—comfortable, disciplined, as if blade and boy were born from the same furnace. His gaze hardened.
"Alright. Let's see what your so-called swordsmanship looks like."
The moon disappeared behind clouds.
Snow fell again—slow, silent, as if the world itself held its breath.
Jin raised the sword.
For a moment, everything went still. Then—
"Bakutō: Tenkū Kōshiki!"
(Exploding Blade: Heaven Cleave Form!)
His roar cracked the sky. He brought the blade down in a two-handed arc, and from its edge erupted a monstrous blade of blackened energy—forty meters long, jagged at the edges, humming like a banshee on fire. The ground beneath his boots split just from the pressure.
The slash screamed toward Garp like a judgment.
Garp's pupils shrank. "What the hell—?!"
He didn't hesitate. Fists darkened, coated in armament force. He roared and met the descending cleave with both hands clenched tight.
BOOM.
The impact flattened trees for fifty meters in every direction. The ground split like rotten skin, gouging a trench over a hundred meters long and twenty wide. Garp held his ground—barely. Boots dug trenches, body trembling. The force of the blade screamed through his arms, punching into his gut.
Then came the second wave.
Jin's feet dug in. He forced everything—every drop of breath-force, muscle, weight, and raw will—into that descending strike. The black cleave thickened, pulsed, then crashed down like a falling star.
Garp grunted. His feet slid. His shoulder cracked.
CRACK.
The sword's edge exploded against Garp's guard, forcing him back into a crater of stone and ice. A beat later, the entire island trembled.
Silence.
Smoke and snow curled in the air. A trench now carved the island in half.
Jin stood at its edge, blade low, chest heaving. Blood ran down his forearm, dripping off the sword's edge like ink.
He didn't need confirmation. His senses told him—Garp lived. But that strike hit.
"I'm not strong enough to beat him yet," Jin muttered. "But if I can force that reaction… I'm not far off."
A silhouette leapt from the rubble. Garp landed hard, dust spiraling off his shoulders. His coat was shredded, left arm hanging a little too loosely, shirt torn and streaked with blood.
He was grinning.
"You little freak," Garp rasped. "You trying to kill me?"
Jin chuckled through clenched teeth. "You blocked it, didn't you?"
"You damn near cracked my shoulder!" Garp barked. "What the hell kind of blade is that?!"
Jin glanced at the sword in his hands. "One I haven't named yet."
The old man rubbed his chest, grimacing as internal bruising screamed with every breath. "If I hadn't hardened my arm in time, that might've gone through me. Damn thing hits like a marine destroyer shell."
His eyes sparkled with grudging respect.
"You're twelve?"
"Not yet."
"Then you're already stronger than most Vice Admirals. And if you keep climbing…"
He didn't finish.
Jin did. "Then I'll shatter this world."
The snow swirled around them again.
Garp nodded once.
"Name your sword soon," he said. "Something like that deserves more than silence."
Jin looked down at the blade, smile barely there.
"Yeah," he whispered. "Soon."
This story is inspired from various fanfics i have read from around the world so if you find any similarities please dont mind . Thank you
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T/N :
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