Chapter 84: Ulquiorra VS Garp!
"Damn it! This kid is so fast!"
Garp frowned, forcefully retracting his fist. White steam rose from his knuckles, a testament to the friction generated by his movement. His advanced Observation Haki screamed a warning in his mind, predicting the immediate future with terrifying clarity.
He saw it. A green flash of death.
In the air, fifty meters away, Ulquiorra materialized from a silent Sonido step. His face was impassive, void of any killing intent that could be sensed, but his index finger was raised, aimed directly at Garp's heart.
A terrifying amount of greenish-black light gathered at his fingertip. The air around his hand distorted, vibrating with a high-pitched whine that sounded like a thousand screaming souls being compressed into a single point.
"Cero."
ZVOOOM!
An astonishing beam of concentrated spiritual energy shot out. It wasn't a bullet; it was a column of pure destruction that erased the very atoms of the air in its path. The green light painted the ruins of Grove 9 in a ghastly hue.
Garp reacted the instant the Cero was fired.
BOOM!
He didn't use a technique. He simply pushed off the ground with such raw, unadulterated muscle power that the bedrock beneath him cracked and caved in. A deep crater was left where he had been standing just a microsecond ago.
His figure became a blur, moving faster than the human eye could track.
WHOOSH!
The Cero missed him by mere inches. The heat from the beam singed the edges of his Justice coat.
The beam struck a row of remaining buildings behind where Garp had stood. There was no fire, no debris. The buildings simply vanished, vaporized instantly into green dust.
KA-BOOM!
A massive explosion erupted seconds later, shaking the entire archipelago. The shockwave flattened trees in the neighboring groves, leaving only a huge, molten pit that glowed with residual heat.
"Dangerous," Garp muttered mid-air, his eyes narrowing. "If that hits, even my Haki might not be enough to come out unscathed. His energy density is absurd."
Before the shockwave of the explosion dissipated, Garp used the recoil of the air pressure. He kicked the atmosphere itself—Geppo—and shot higher into the sky, tearing through the black smoke like a missile.
He appeared directly above Ulquiorra, who was suspended in mid-air by his massive black wings.
Garp looked down at the demon. He grinned, a savage expression that revealed his pearly white teeth. The shadow of the Hero fell over the Espada, eclipsing the sun.
"Fist Bone: Impact (Genkotsu Impact)!"
With a roar that drowned out the sirens wailing across the island, ominous crimson arcs of electricity suddenly burst forth from Garp's fist.
It wasn't just Armament Haki. It was the Color of the Supreme King.
Pitch-black Advanced Armament Haki coated his arm, wreathed in red lightning that tore the sky apart. This was the power that had rivaled the Pirate King. This was the fist that had crushed mountains.
This punch, delivered from top to bottom, had no superfluous techniques. It was pure, ultimate destructive power. A meteor carrying divine punishment, crashing down with overwhelming force.
The air pressure alone began to crush the ground below before the punch even connected.
Facing this world-destroying blow, Ulquiorra didn't dodge. The Haki locked him in place, weighing down his spiritual pressure.
He calmly raised his right arm, reinforcing the skin with his densest Hierro.
"Block."
The next second, the black iron fist and the pale arm collided.
BOOOOOM—!!!
Sound died. Light vanished.
Then, destruction erupted.
A visible, circular shockwave spread wildly from the point of impact. It tore a huge hole in the clouds above, revealing the blue sky of the stratosphere. The shockwave flattened the remaining trees of Grove 9, turning them into splinters.
"GUH!"
Ulquiorra's figure was like a black meteor shot down from the heavens.
He was violently blasted toward the ground by the immense kinetic force. The air friction turned him into a fireball as he fell.
CRASH!
He hit the earth. The ground let out a groan of unbearable strain before collapsing downward. A mushroom cloud of dust and debris rose hundreds of meters into the air, swallowing the battlefield.
The island shook violently. The tremors were felt as far away as Grove 1, causing bubbles to burst all over the archipelago.
Such astonishing commotion caused all the warring parties on the island to involuntarily stop their actions. Marines and Giants alike looked in horror at the rising smoke and flames.
"Mr. Ulquiorra!"
Dorry and Brogy's eyes went bloodshot. They roared in extreme anxiety, their voices cracking with concern.
They unleashed their full power, swinging their giant weapons faster and more fiercely, trying to repel the man who had transformed into light so they could check on their comrade.
"Move, sparkles!" Dorry roared, swinging his sword.
"Oh my, oh my... what terrifying power!"
Admiral Kizaru transformed into golden photons, dissolving and reforming around the giant blades. He strolled casually amidst the storm-like attacks, his hands in his pockets, dodging death by millimeters.
"It's not easy to get past me, you know!" Kizaru drawled, his tone lazy but his eyes sharp behind his sunglasses. "After all, I am an Admiral. If I let you pass so easily, my salary might be cut~"
On the other side of the battlefield, Garp landed.
THUD.
He hit the ground heavily. The shockwave generated by his landing was like a strong gust of wind, forcefully dispersing the dense smoke caused by the explosion.
Garp stood tall, his coat flapping in the aftermath. His eyes were fixed on the center of the destruction.
"Did I get him?" Garp wondered, cracking his neck.
As the smoke cleared, the sight before everyone made them gasp in cold air.
A terrifying giant crater, nearly a hundred meters in diameter and fifty meters deep, had replaced the center of Grove 9. Everything around it had been reduced to scorched earth and ruins. The bedrock was exposed, cracked like a spiderweb.
And in the deepest part of that giant crater, a figure was moving.
Ulquiorra.
He was standing.
Step by step, he walked up the slope of the broken ground, ascending from the deep pit. His white robe was torn. His face was covered in dust.
But his expression was still the same unchanging indifference. As if the person who had just endured a nuclear-level punch was not him.
However...
His right arm—the one he used to block Garp's Supreme King punch—was gone.
It had been completely shattered, pulverized from the shoulder down by the sheer force of the Haki impact. Black spiritual blood dripped onto the white dust, sizzling as it evaporated.
"Mr. Ulquiorra! Your arm!" Kashi and Oimo shouted anxiously when they saw this scene, their faces pale.
Seeing the Giants' genuine anxiety and concern, a very subtle ripple—one even he hadn't noticed—flashed in Ulquiorra's emerald eyes.
Concern? For a tool?
Is this… the bond of comrades that Suzaku speaks of? Why does it feel... heavy?
He looked up at Garp, standing at the edge of the crater like a titan.
"Don't worry, I'm fine," Ulquiorra said. His voice was flat, but it carried to the Giants.
He looked at Garp. "I told you. Everything you do is nothing but a meaningless attempt."
"Kid!"
Seeing that the opponent was indeed severely injured, Garp finally breathed a sigh of relief. He grinned, amused by the sheer audacity of the one-armed demon.
"Your arm is gone, and you're still talking tough! You've got guts, I'll give you that! But a one-armed bat can't fly straight!"
"This old man is going to—"
Garp's words stopped abruptly mid-sentence.
The smile on his face instantly froze. His eyes widened in unprecedented shock and bewilderment.
"What the..."
As Ulquiorra walked out of the deep pit, a strange, squelching sound filled the air.
Weave. Knit. Form.
Countless pitch-black spirit particles, like a swarm of living ants or high-speed data, surged from the void at his empty right shoulder.
They rapidly converged, reorganized, and wove together. Bone formed first, white and dense. Muscle layered over bone, dark and strong. Skin covered muscle, pale and flawless.
To everyone's disbelief, in just two or three short seconds...
A brand new, pale, and perfectly intact arm reappeared on his body.
Ulquiorra flexed his new fingers.
"High-Speed Regeneration."
The sight of Ulquiorra's arm regenerating made the anxiously observing Giants breathe a massive sigh of relief.
"He's immortal!" Brogy laughed. "Of course he is! He serves the Boss!"
Then they threw themselves back into their respective battles with even greater vigor, their morale restored.
"No wonder you're so blindly arrogant," Garp muttered, his expression turning serious. "Is this also a power granted by your Devil Fruit? An Awakened Zoan? No... even Awakened Zoans don't heal that fast."
"With such regenerative ability... no wonder you dared to face an Admiral and a Vice Admiral alone!"
Garp cracked his knuckles again. He appeared calm on the surface, but deep down, he knew the truth. Capturing an enemy with super-speed regeneration and high-level durability was the most troublesome task imaginable. It became a battle of stamina.
However, this did not make the Hero retreat. It made him excited.
CLAP!
He clapped his fists together with a loud bang, creating a shockwave. His fighting spirit surged like a rising tide.
"One punch isn't enough? Fine! Then ten punches! A hundred punches! A thousand!"
Garp's Haki flared, turning the air around him red and black.
"This old man wants to see if your recovery is faster, or if my fists are harder! I'll pound you until there's nothing left to regenerate! I'll grind you to dust!"
With an unstoppable momentum, Garp once again strode forward. Each step left cracked footprints in the bedrock. He was a locomotive of pain.
Seeing this, Ulquiorra narrowed his eyes.
This human... his stamina is monstrous. His physical strength is overwhelming. Prolonged combat is inefficient. My regeneration consumes energy. I must escalate.
He decided to hold nothing back. He intended to end the fight quickly.
"I will show you... true despair."
Terrifying spiritual pressure began to condense like a storm around him. The air grew heavy, liquid, suffocating. It felt like being at the bottom of the deep ocean.
His astonishing aura climbed higher and higher, darkening the sky.
He walked towards Garp, clearly intending to unleash his Second Resurrección—a form even his former master Aizen had never seen.
Suddenly.
Both Garp and Ulquiorra froze.
As if pulled by invisible strings, they simultaneously stopped all movements.
Their instincts—Garp's honed Haki and Ulquiorra's sensitive Pesquisa—screamed at them to look in the same direction.
They abruptly turned their heads toward the edge of the ruins.
A clear voice, tinged with a relaxed smile, rang out through the battlefield, cutting through the tension like a knife.
"Oh? It's quite lively here!"
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