Meanwhile, outside the instance, in the heart of Foosha Village.
On the bustling market street, it felt as though time itself had paused for a moment.
Luffy and Ace, two young boys, could only stare wide-eyed at the empty space before them. Garp, who had been standing there just a second ago, cursing and looking ready to demolish a stall… was gone. He had vanished into thin air, without so much as a puff of smoke to mark his departure.
The world was silent.
Luffy blinked hard, then rubbed his eyes with all his might. The space was still empty. Ace was equally stunned, the look of impatience on his face replaced by one of pure, unadulterated bewilderment.
*Plink.*
A stray rice cracker from the bag Garp had dropped rolled to a stop, breaking into two perfect halves on the ground.
Silence. A dead, unnerving silence.
In the next second, a familiar voice shattered the quiet.
"G-Grandpa—!"
Luffy's signature loud wail, tinged with the beginnings of tears, tore through the tranquility of the entire street. His rubbery neck stretched out abruptly, scanning the area frantically like a searchlight.
"Grandpa's gone!"
"Hey! old man! Stop playing such boring pranks!" Ace also roared at the empty air, but only the gentle sea breeze answered him.
The color drained from both of their faces in an instant. That was their grandfather. Although he used his "Fist of Love" to discipline them daily, forced them to eat questionable wild beasts, and threw them into perilous jungles for training, he was still their grandpa. He was one of their only relatives in this vast world. He was the man they cursed constantly but whose strength they never doubted, a figure as immovable and immense as a towering mountain.
"It was you!"
Luffy suddenly whipped his head around, his wide, tear-filled eyes locking onto the white-haired youth still lounging lazily behind the stall.
"What did you do with Grandpa?!"
His arm shot out, instantly stretching and wrapping around the eaves of a nearby house. Using it as an anchor, he launched himself forward like a cannonball.
"Gum-Gum…"
In a childish roar filled with fury, his small fist tensed, aimed squarely at the youth's relaxed face.
"Pistol!"
"Luffy! Stop!"
A figure moved faster than him. Ace lunged, wrapping his arms tightly around Luffy's waist from behind and pulling him back with all his strength.
*CRACK!*
Luffy's fist missed its target, smashing heavily into the wooden board of the stall and punching a large, splintered hole through it.
"Let go of me, Ace!" Luffy struggled wildly, his limbs turning to pliable rubber, stretching and flailing haphazardly. "I'm going to beat this man! Make him bring Grandpa back!"
"Calm down!" Ace yelled, cold sweat beading on his forehead. His arms ached from the strain of holding back his rampaging brother, but he refused to let go. He stared intently at the white-haired proprietor, who had remained utterly expressionless throughout the entire ordeal, and felt his heart pound in his chest.
"You idiot! Didn't you realize?!" Ace's roar made Luffy's frantic movements suddenly stiffen. "The person who disappeared… was Garp! Someone who can make him vanish without a sound… do you really think that's a man we can handle?!"
That's right. That was their Grandpa. The Grandpa who treated mountain-sized wild boars as a light snack and used warships as punching bags for his daily exercise.
Luffy stopped struggling. He slowly turned his head, looking at Ace's pale, frightened face, and the color in his own cheeks quickly drained away. Fear, belated and chilling, finally gripped his young heart.
Just then, the youth behind the stall finally reacted. He let out a long yawn and stretched languidly, looking as though he had just woken from a pleasant nap.
"So noisy," he commented, glancing at the two boys with an air of indifference. "your grandfather. He's on a trip to another world; he should be back in a few days."
The air froze. Ace's brain struggled to process the completely foreign concept of "another world." Luffy, however, had already processed it. He blinked blankly.
"A trip?"
He loosened his clenched fists. Then, with a look of sudden insight, he slammed his right fist into his open left palm.
"Oh!" Luffy exclaimed, a wave of understanding washing over him. All the fear and anger on his face vanished in an instant, replaced by a refreshed expression of pure comprehension. "So that's what it was!" He even grinned, flashing a big, carefree smile. "You scared me! Honestly, that old man is so selfish, going on a trip without even saying a word!"
Ace stared. "???"
He slowly, inch by agonizing inch, turned his head. He looked at his brother, who was now completely relaxed and had even started picking his nose. An indescribable fury shot up from the soles of his feet and exploded in the top of his head.
"You—absolute, unbelievable moron—!"
Ace's furious scream echoed through the entire street. He stretched out both hands and fiercely pinched Luffy's rubbery cheeks, pulling them hard in opposite directions.
"You believe everything he says?!" he shrieked. "A trip to another world?! You believe such nonsense?! What else is in that brain of yours besides meat?!"
"Mmmf mmmf mmm… It urts! Ace!" Luffy protested indistinctly, tears welling in his eyes from the painful stretching. "But… but what he said sounds true…"
The two boys immediately devolved into a wrestling match on the spot. The instigator of the entire scene merely propped his chin on his hand, watching the spectacle with keen interest, a playful curve on his lips. Jack raised his arm and glanced at the air beside him.
"Hmm…" he spoke slowly, as if to himself. "It's about time. It's also time… to decide the winner."
…
Inside the Cloud Gorge barrier, the sphere of black and purple energy had expanded to a terrifying size. It radiated pure, unadulterated destruction. The suffocating, terrifying aura made the very air in the gorge feel viscous and heavy, making every breath feel like inhaling fire.
A Tailed Beast Bomb.
The wild, boisterous smile on Garp's face vanished completely for the first time. His pupils contracted to pinpricks as he stared intently at the black sphere that was continuously compressing an unimaginable amount of energy.
"Damn it!" he couldn't help but curse. "What kind of joke is this?! If that thing goes off, I'll be in trouble!"
On the other side, the Third Raikage's raging Lightning Release Armor seemed to pause for a moment. The anger and fighting spirit on his face were replaced by an unprecedented solemnity. He knew the power of that attack far better than Garp. More importantly, he knew the cataclysmic consequences of it exploding within the confined space of the "Four Violet Flames Formation."
Mutual destruction? No. It would be complete and utter annihilation, leaving not even a speck of dust behind.
In the next second, two of the strongest individuals from their respective worlds made the exact same decision. They turned sharply, their gazes colliding in mid-air. No words were needed. No communication was necessary. In that single, shared glance, an unspoken understanding passed between the two titans—the kind that only exists between those at the pinnacle of power.
They had to act. Now.
"BWAHAHAHA!" Garp's wild laughter rang out again, this time laced with an unprecedented ferocity. "First, I'm going to take care of you, octopus!"
The ground beneath his feet exploded, and he shot towards the Eight-Tails like a cannonball.
At the exact same moment, the Third Raikage moved. He transformed into an even brighter, even faster bolt of blue lightning, his target also being the giant beast that was charging its ultimate attack.
"Hell Stab: One-Finger Nukite!" The Raikage's roar echoed through the gorge. He gathered all of his chakra into the three fingers of his right hand; those three fingers became harder than diamond, flashing with a dazzling electrical light, transforming into the strongest spear capable of piercing anything in existence.
And on the other side, Garp roared, "Get… down here!" He leaped high into the air, his weathered iron fist now coated with an invisible, overwhelming power.
One from the left, one from the right. One punch, one spear.
In the Eight-Tails' terrified eyes, the two devastating attacks simultaneously struck its massive head.
**BOOM!!!**
Violent, destructive power exploded across the Eight-Tails' body. Its mountain-like form stiffened abruptly. The Tailed Beast Bomb that had already formed in its mouth instantly lost its energy containment, and then, with a soft *puff*, it fizzled out into nothing. The Eight-Tails' massive body fell backward, crashing heavily to the ground and kicking up a colossal cloud of dust. It had been subdued.
The dust began to settle. Garp and the Third Raikage stood at opposite ends of the gorge, facing each other once more. Both were breathing heavily. To stop the Tailed Beast Bomb, they had both expended an immense amount of power, leaving them significantly exhausted. Garp shook his somewhat sore arm. The Lightning Release Armor on the Third Raikage flickered, having dimmed considerably.
For a moment, a strange silence fell over the gorge.
"Well done, old man," the Third Raikage spoke first, his voice hoarse but filled with genuine praise. "However, this is not over."
Garp grinned, revealing his stark white teeth. "BWAHAHAHA! Of course not!" He clenched his fist, his knuckles cracking loudly in the quiet air. "The warm-up is over!"
At this moment, their fighting spirits, which had been temporarily focused on a common enemy, surged once more, climbing back to their absolute peak.
"Let's use this final attack to decide the victor!" the Third Raikage roared, frantically gathering all of his remaining chakra into the tip of his right hand. The light of his Lightning Release Armor rapidly faded as all of its energy was converted into that single, pinpoint of cold, deadly light at his fingertip. The strongest spear, with everything bet on this one attack.
"Just what I was hoping for!" Garp laughed wildly, adopting a stance more serious than any he had shown before. He slowly pulled his right fist back, every muscle in his body tensing to its absolute limit, as an even more terrifying, unfathomable aura rose from him.
"Take this!" he bellowed. "This is my… Fist of Love!"