After a night had passed.
Garp's dog-headed warship anchored near an uninhabited island covered in dense forest.
At the center rose a towering mountain, its slopes swallowed by thick vegetation.
Just to be sure, Guts used the Voice of All Things to probe the island. He confirmed, no human presence lurked anywhere nearby.
"Oi! Boys, take the ship further out. Who knows what might happen here in a bit," Garp ordered loudly to the navy under him.
"Yes, Vice Admiral Garp!"
The Marine soldiers snapped to attention, saluted, and obeyed.
Without hesitation, Garp leapt from the deck to the coast.
But calling it "a leap" hardly did it justice, it was more like instant movement.
To someone like Nami, whose eyes couldn't keep up with such power, Garp seemed to vanish from the ship and reappear on the beach in the blink of an eye.
"Next, be honored to witness the heroic display of your captain," Guts said coolly, hands in his pockets as he stepped forward.
Before Nami could react, he ruffled her short orange hair roughly twice. And before she could even complain, he too "flashed" to the shore just like Garp.
"W-Wait… was his speed the same as Garp's?"
Nami smoothed her hair with her fingers, eyes wide with disbelief as she stared at the coast.
Meanwhile, under Garp's orders, the warship steadily sailed farther and farther out to sea.
In less than ten minutes, from Nami's point of view, the massive island had shrunk to something no bigger than a sesame seed.
"Do we really need to be this far away…?" she muttered, puzzled.
She turned to Garp's adjutant.
Although she knew Garp was hailed as a "Marine Hero," she had no concept of the power wielded by someone at that level.
Surely, no matter how fierce the battle, it couldn't possibly spread this far… right?
Her naïve thought mirrored Zoro's back when he had yet to cross blades with Dracule Mihawk.
The adjutant, however, only gave the girl still seeing the world like a frog at the bottom of a well... a silent glance.
There was no need for words.
Soon enough, the battlefield of monsters above even an Admiral's level would make everything clear.
---
On the other hand, Garp and Guts locked eyes.
In the next moment, Garp's fist crackled with red lightning... the unmistakable sign of Advanced Haki.
He grinned at Guts insolent expression. "Be ready, brat. Here I come!"
In a blur, he vanished from his spot and reappeared right in front of Guts, his massive fist swinging down.
But Guts only smirked. His hand too was suddenly wrapped in a crimson aura — the unmistakable force of Advanced Conqueror's Haki. He drove his fist forward without hesitation.
The two fists met.
Or rather — they didn't.
To Garp's shock, their knuckles never touched. Yet the sky itself split open, clouds tearing apart in two from the invisible collision.
"C-Conqueror's Haki?!" Garp's eyes nearly popped out of his skull as he stared at the boy meeting his strike head-on.
"Hahahaha! Seems I've been underestimating you!"
He roared with laughter, pouring even more force into his fist. But to his surprise, Guts simply grinned wider and pushed back harder.
The very air cracked apart as shockwaves erupted, pulverizing the land around them.
BOOM!!
Boom! Boom! Boom-boom!!
Centered on the island, colossal waves erupted outward.
Even though the warship had already retreated a great distance, twenty-meter walls of water still rose from the ocean, ready to swallow it whole.
"This is insane!!"
Nami's pupils shrank in horror as she clutched her head and screamed.
Several nautical miles away… and the shockwaves are still reaching us? Is this really the power of monsters at the top of the world?!
The adjutant's eyes sharpened. With a hiss of steel, he drew the sword at his waist and slashed downward, cleaving the incoming wave apart.
"Still not safe! Pull back further!" he shouted.
The warship heaved like a roller coaster in the raging sea. Nami clung desperately to the mast, her chest squashed against the wood as she trembled, whispering in disbelief:
"This is… this is too much… That rude guy, Guts… is he really this strong…?"
Back on the island.
As the echoes of their first clash faded, Garp's eyes gleamed... surprise, respect, and a spark of excitement.
"I truly underestimated you. You're not just as strong as an Admiral… right now, aside from me, no one in the Marines could stand against you in a fistfight!"
"Hahahaha!"
His booming laugh shook the air, but his gaze burned hotter with battle lust.
It had been too long. Too long since he'd met someone who could match him blow for blow with nothing but fists.
Even Roger, his eternal rival, couldn't give him that satisfaction because Roger's strength was bound to his sword.
"Oh, come on, old man!"
Guts couldn't hide his excitement. In a way, this fight thrilled him more than any other.
He didn't plan on going all-out... instead, he wanted to face Garp directly, in the purest form of combat.
Seeing Guts lower his stance, Garp froze for a brief moment.
That posture—!
He clenched his fist and mirrored it exactly.
The two stood opposite each other, like reflections in a mirror.
Then, without warning, Guts vanished.
In the blink of an eye, he reappeared midair, two meters above the ground in front of Garp, fist blazing with crimson Conqueror's Haki as he drove an uppercut downward.
"Good power!"
A grin spread across Garp's face. His left palm shot up to block.
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!!!
The moment his palm caught Guts fist, the earth beneath his feet shattered like glass. The ground caved in as though a meteorite had struck, splitting open to reveal jets of seawater surging upward from the cracks.
The force of the blow had penetrated straight through the island's crust.
Water sprayed high into the air, drenching Garp's uniform. His single arm trembled under the weight of the strike, until finally he locked his second hand around Guts fist as well.
What monstrous strength…! he thought, his hands shaking despite the grip. Yet his grin only widened.
With a sudden sidestep, he released the fist and lunged forward, hand snapping up toward Guts' face.
But Guts brow twitched in anticipation... he tilted his head, dodging.
Only for Garp's massive hand to seize his shoulder instead.
"Tch—!"
That caught him off guard. Even while restraining his power to match Garp's level, he hadn't expected the old man to snatch him so cleanly.
The movement was unmistakably similar to Guts own Blue Hole technique, though Garp's execution was subtly different.
"Blue Hole Throw!" Garp roared, his arms flaring with Advanced Haki.
With a brutal heave, he smashed Guts downward.
BANG!!!!
The coastal ground exploded like a fragile eggshell, collapsing under the force.
The scene looked as if Whitebeard himself had struck Marineford with the Tremor-Tremor Fruit… except neither of them had used a Devil Fruit.
This was pure muscle and Haki alone.
"…Hm?"
Garp suddenly raised a brow, staring at the massive crater he had just created.
He lifted a hand above his eyes in a comically casual gesture, squinting into the hole as though shading himself from the sun.
Guts suddenly reappeared. His foot, wrapped in a dangerous layer of Conqueror's Haki, slammed into Garp's shoulder.
"Ghh—!!"
Pain lanced through him as his body was launched away like a cannonball, smashing straight through a mountain with a thunderous crash.
A moment later, Garp emerged from the rubble. Blood trickled from his forehead, and his hand bore fresh cuts. He lifted his gaze toward Guts, eyes filled with astonishment.
And yet—
Guts stood there, completely unscathed. Not a single mark from the earlier Blue Hole Throw.
"Brat… your level of Haki really is terrifying," Garp admitted, a rare note of admiration in his voice before breaking into a laugh.
To withstand his technique without injury, such a thing required Haki even stronger than his own.
At this level, there were only a handful of people alive who could manage it.
"If that was you going all out just now, I'd be sorely disappointed."
"Try not to be, then."
Guts grinned, both hands wrapped in a crimson haze, the aura around him bursting with menace.
"Hahahaha! Damn kid! Your words hit me harder than your fists!"
Garp's grin widened, his own hands once again glowing with advanced Haki.
How many years has it been… since I've felt the thrill of fighting all-out like this? he thought as he shifted into a stance.
In the anime, the only time Garp ever showed real seriousness was against Aokiji in the future and even then, he had held back, because Kuzan was his student.
But now
This time, Garp vanished.
In the next heartbeat, he reappeared in the night sky, his fist blazing with red lightning and infused with overwhelming Conqueror's Haki. The darkness itself was drowned in scarlet light.
Below, Guts' smile never wavered. His combat instincts, sharper than his age suggested, guided him as he clenched his fist, wrapping it in a deadly crimson aura.
"Galaxy Impact!!!"
Garp roared as he brought his fist down.
A strike capable of obliterating an entire nation descended upon Guts.
Their eyes locked in the instant before impact.
Then Guts grinned wider and roared back:
"Galaxy Impact!!!"
Two galaxies collided.
The force wasn't just doubled — it multiplied, becoming something far beyond the sum of two powers. Like twin nuclear bombs colliding, the destructive force defied imagination.
For a heartbeat, the world fell silent. Space itself trembled, collapsing into a vacuum, swallowing all sound.
And then
BOOOOOOM!!!!
A deafening roar shattered the silence, tearing at the eardrums of anyone within range.
The heavens split. Above the uninhabited island, a gaping hole was carved into the sky itself, as if the world had been pierced through.
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