The heavy heavenly dragon halberd was gripped tight in both hands.
Armament Haki surged out of his body like it cost nothing, climbing and coiling along the blade of the halberd.
At the same instant, a black-red orb of light—like a swelling mass of energy—burst from Carlo and shot toward Garp.
"Huh? Carlo, boy, your Haoshoku's gotten a lot stronger." Garp blinked, instinctively letting his own Haoshoku flare.
"Boom!!"
The next moment a colossal black-red shockwave, laced with countless bolts of black-red lightning that tore the air apart, erupted from Garp and slammed upward into the diving Carlo.
The two Haoshoku clashed, but with such a gap in scale Carlo's lasted barely two seconds before Garp's smashed it aside.
From far away, the airborne Kaido watched as, ten thousand meters above Carlo's head, the thick cloud layer covering the sky was punched outward as though struck by a meteor, leaving a vast crater in the heavens.
In an instant, gales howled and every wisp of cloud was swept clean.
Against that backdrop of sky suddenly bared to bright sunlight,
Carlo, still diving at full speed, raised the heavenly dragon halberd crackling with black lightning high and brought it down toward the gleam-eyed Garp.
"Since you want to test me, take this!"
"Old man Garp!!!"
"Celestial Dragon Star Burst Slash!!!"
"I told you not to call me old! I'm only thirty-four!" Garp's face flushed; his clenched right fist shot upward like a heaven-bearing god king and met the falling halberd.
"Fist Bone – Clash!!"
Black-red fist and jet-black halberd—two meteors flying in opposite directions—collided head-on.
"Boom!!"
Hundreds of meters above the sea, the air for hundreds of meters around detonated.
Carlo's arm muscles bulged; blood roared in his veins as every ounce of strength poured out.
"Raaahhhh!! Fall into the sea, old man!"
Garp's beard and hair bristled, his aura earth-shaking; his right fist, pressing against the halberd, slowly lifted.
"Stop calling me old! You're the one flying!"
After five seconds the brief stalemate ended with Carlo blasted away.
Garp didn't come off unscathed either.
With no power of flight, he could only fight by Moonwalk, and under the halberd's explosion he couldn't stop his own plunge.
Like a meteor he crashed into the ocean below.
Their single exchange,
though it felt long, had taken almost no time at all—
so little that the flung-back Carlo still had breath to catch the tossed Kaido and Old Buck.
The moment he grabbed Kaido, the man started griping.
"Damn it, Carlo! You told me not to fight, then you jump in yourself—take me back, I want a go at him too!"
"Ptoo!"
Kaido's complaint was cut short by the mouthful of blood Carlo spat over him.
Wiping the crimson from his face,
he stared at Carlo's pale visage.
"You—"
Carlo ignored him; his body ballooned, golden feathers sprouting everywhere.
Arms warped into huge avian claws.
In seconds a golden bird with a hundred-meter wingspan filled the sky.
As the Garuda-formed Carlo beat his wings to flee,
a few belly-feathers suddenly dropped.
A gaunt, blood-smeared figure appeared, clutching those feathers for dear life.
Beside him, pinned in a talon, Kaido gawked.
"Wang Zhi?! You still alive, bastard?"
He raised his spiked club to swat the unwanted companion away.
"St-stop!"
"Carlo! Kaido! You can't! Kill me and you'll have to answer to Rocks!"
Toothless, tongue half-severed, Wang Zhi shrieked unintelligibly.
"Who said kill? I'm just kicking you off—whether the Marines catch you or you drown is none of my business," Kaido grinned, pressing the club spikes to Wang Zhi's cheek.
Feeling the prick and sliding downward, Wang Zhi broke into a cold sweat.
"No! We're crewmates!"
"Crewmate? Your stunt said otherwise."
"S-sorry! I was wrong! I'll pay you—money, my Fourth Division Captain post, anything, Carlo! Don't drop me!"
Wang Zhi howled in despair.
He wasn't scared of Carlo or Kaido;
he feared the fiend behind them—
Monkey D. Garp!
That battle-crazy Marine was a nightmare to every pirate.
With Garp around, even standing by Rocks gave no safety;
only distance brought peace.
"Compensation?" Kaido mused, then shouted up at the flying Carlo: "Your call!"
"Do what you want. If you slip and fall, don't expect me to come back."
Carlo drove his vast wings and plunged into the cloud sea ten thousand meters up, vanishing from Garp's sight in an eyeblink.
Bobbing in the waves, Garp shaded his eyes, watching the golden bird speed away, and sighed in open envy.
"Sure would be nice to fly… that Devil Fruit power's something else."
A dog-head warship eased alongside and slowed.
"Not chasing?" Sengoku popped his head over the rail.
Garp burst from the water onto the deck.
"Chase where? All the way to Hachinosu?"
He peeled off his soaked coat and looked aft at a trim woman with a dark-green ponytail.
"Tsuru, what of Elizabeth I?"
The brisk female officer nodded grimly: "Dead. We've sent divers for the body."
"Now we've trouble—a dead World Government king won't be brushed aside," Sengoku sighed, gazing after Carlo.
"Let's hope Carlo's not deep in this. Otherwise our pirate undercover might turn real pirate."