Garp and Kurokamu leaped straight out of the palace grounds. If they had started fighting inside the palace, the whole place would have collapsed for sure.
Shirakawa and the others followed right behind. They wanted to see just how strong the Marine hero Garp really was—whether he was as powerful as their captain had said.
The group slipped out of the royal capital entirely. With their level of strength, being spotted by anyone here was nearly impossible, so their movements didn't alert a single soul in the palace.
In an open area not far from the capital, Garp and Kurokamu came to a halt. There wasn't a living soul for dozens of kilometers around—plenty of space for them to cut loose.
"Boy, you make the first move. If I swing first, you won't get a chance at all."
Garp folded his arms, looking down on Kurokamu with open contempt. Right now, Garp was at the absolute peak of his power, and Shirakawa felt that calling him the strongest man in the world at this moment wouldn't be an exaggeration.
So Garp's dismissiveness toward Kurokamu was not without reason. Among all the formidable opponents Garp had faced, Kurokamu's strength probably sat right at the bottom tier.
But Kurokamu didn't get angry at the contempt. He could clearly sense the terrifying power hidden within Garp's muscular frame.
"The pressure Kurokamu must be feeling right now is immense, isn't it?" Yuristin commented from the sidelines. The cigarette he was usually always puffing on had gone out, which showed just how tense he was at this moment.
"I suddenly feel like having Observation Haki that's too strong isn't always a good thing," Yuristin sighed. If his Observation Haki were weaker and couldn't sense Garp's true strength, maybe he wouldn't be under such immense pressure right now.
"Relax." Shirakawa patted Yuristin on the shoulder. For some reason, that single pat from Shirakawa suddenly put Yuristin much more at ease.
"Captain." Yuristin glanced at Shirakawa. He realized then that Shirakawa seemed to possess some kind of magic—whenever Shirakawa was at his side, his heart rarely grew flustered anymore.
"I'm here. This is just a spar. Garp won't just randomly go all out against us," Shirakawa said. True, Garp was stronger than all of them, but so what? They weren't soft persimmons for him to squeeze as he pleased.
"Understood, Captain."
After that, they turned their attention back to the battlefield.
"Berserk." Kurokamu whispered the word, activating his strongest state right from the start.
"A red blood aura? Berserk, huh. Looks like you must be Jabba's apprentice," Garp said, observing Kurokamu in this state. As a longtime adversary of the Roger Pirates, Garp was intimately familiar with their top fighters.
"Something like that," Kurokamu replied flatly. Then he drew his twin hammers from behind his back and charged at Garp.
"It's starting." The thought echoed in every spectator's mind, and they all focused intently on the two combatants' every move. They didn't want to miss a single second of a fight like this.
Facing Kurokamu in his Berserk state, Garp's eyes grew a touch more serious. He pulled his right arm back, building up power—a readying punch.
Then they collided in an instant. A thunderous BOOM rang out, and a powerful shockwave exploded outward from the pair, sweeping in all directions.
Shirakawa immediately activated Sanctuary to keep the flying dust and sand out of their noses.
He had seen the exchange clearly: Kurokamu brought his two hammers together, gripped them with both hands, and struck. Garp responded with nothing more than a simple, ordinary, power-packed punch.
"This guy just keeps getting more and more terrifying," Shirakawa thought. This time, Garp seemed even stronger than when they'd last met.
"Not bad, boy." Garp flashed a wide grin, showing off a row of perfect white teeth.
"Not good." The alarm went off in Kurokamu's mind, but it was already too late.
The muscles in Garp's arm suddenly bulged with veins, and then—as if unleashing a shockwave—he blasted Kurokamu flying backward. Kurokamu hurtled through the air for dozens of meters without stopping.
"Whoa, that old man's strength is insane!" Jora exclaimed, his eyes popping wide. Garp was already in his fifties, so calling him an old man wasn't too much of a stretch. But what was too much was the fact that he'd just sent Kurokamu—in that state—flying like that.
"That's not even his full power. Right now, he's basically just playing around," Shirakawa told Jora. Otherwise, Kurokamu would've been sent far more than just flying.
"My god, this old man…" Shirakawa suddenly felt that letting his crew watch this match might have been a mistake. They seemed to be developing a psychological shadow when it came to Garp.
"Captain, do all the top-tier people in the world have strength like this?" Jora swallowed hard. The shock Garp's power had given him was just too much.
"Of course not. There's only one Garp. A person with that level of strength—he's one of a kind."
"That's good." Jora breathed a sigh of relief.
What Shirakawa didn't say was that there were a few others whose strength was comparable to Garp's. But he figured they probably wouldn't be running into them for a while.
After being sent flying, Kurokamu felt dazed for a split second, then immediately charged at Garp again.
Once Berserk was active, it came with a weakness: the mind became simpler, the body more powerful. All that filled his head now was fighting.
This time, Kurokamu didn't try to meet Garp head-on. Instead, he aimed to win with speed, flashing around Garp in constant flickers, hoping to land a surprise blow.
But his idea was rich while reality was stark.
Garp's flash step was even faster than his.
"What?!" In Kurokamu's vision, Garp's figure had vanished completely. He could barely make out a few faint traces of movement.
"Boy, trying to match speed with me? You're still too green." Garp's voice suddenly sounded right beside his ear. When Kurokamu spun around, Garp was gone again.
While brute strength was Garp's strongest suit, that didn't mean anyone could underestimate his speed.
"Let's wrap this up." Garp appeared behind Kurokamu without warning, clasped both hands together, and drove them down like a hammer.
A deafening BOOM followed. A massive crater appeared beneath Garp, and Kurokamu's body had reverted to its normal state. He lay sprawled inside the crater.
"Damn it… if you're this strong, then Whitebeard's strength must be even more monstrous," Kurokamu said, his voice dripping with unwillingness.
"What did you say? Are you saying that old bastard Whitebeard is stronger than me?" Hearing Kurokamu's words, Garp's temper flared. Although… calling Whitebeard old at your age, is that really appropriate?
"The captain told me," Kurokamu said, and seeing Garp about to get angry, he hastily slung the blame straight at Shirakawa.
Shirakawa felt his heart drop the moment he heard that. I never said that! Kurokamu, doesn't your conscience hurt doing this to me?
/-\
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