"This is the power of our generation's Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist!"
"That old bastard with the Iron Fist should be dead, right?"
"He'd better not! He must stay alive long enough to hear from us, just how powerful our generation of the Seven Blades truly is before he dies!"
…
The seven members led by Juzo gathered, their eyes fixed on the center swallowed by thunderous pillars of lightning and surging torrents of water.
They stood with their ninja blades resting on their shoulders, surrounded by colossal chakra beasts. Each one was more arrogant than the last.
The power left behind by the First Mizukage, Byakuren, fascinated them, and blinded them with arrogance.
Clap... Clap….
But that arrogance, that disdain for the strongest warrior of the shinobi world, froze instantly.
From within the explosion's smoke-covered core, crisp, rhythmic applause echoed, cutting sharply through the chaos.
They all looked toward the source with stiff expressions, only to see Garp emerging through the rolling dust, completely unscathed. Not even his suit was wet or torn.
He walked forward, lightly patting his hands together.
"Tsk, tsk… Byakuren really was something else. Dead for so many years, yet he can still entertain me to such a degree today.
As expected of the First Mizukage who was just six or seven tiers below me back then. Since leaving retirement, nowhere but Kirigakure has offered me this much fun."
Garp praised as he stepped out, a broad smile blooming across his face.
"Bastard!"
"What does this guy take us for?"
"Are we toys meant to amuse him?"
Jinpachi and Raiga were livid, their faces ashen.
The only two who hadn't attacked yet, Fuguki and Chojuro, suddenly stepped on the water's surface and vanished like they'd teleported.
In less than a heartbeat, the two appeared simultaneously at Garp's left and right.
"Hiramekarei: Release!"
Chojuro didn't cast any jutsu. He raised the released Hiramekarei high above his head and smashed it toward Garp.
The instant he swung, the massive chakra beast clinging to him surged into the twin blades, fusing with them completely.
In the blink of an eye, Hiramekarei expanded to several times its previous size.
Its surface erupted with a gigantic ball of concentrated chakra, which came crashing down toward Garp's skull.
"Samehada: Air-Devouring Slash!"
At the same time, Fuguki appeared above Garp's other side and swung Samehada.
Though Samehada didn't grow like Hiramekarei had, the moment he swung, the shark-shaped chakra beast around him opened its rows of razor-sharp chakra fangs and bit down on Garp.
Boom!
Taking the full power of both swordsmen at once, Garp didn't so much as sway.
The ground beneath him shattered with a thunderous crash, collapsing ten meters deep.
The unleashed chakra carved out a crater almost a hundred meters wide, as if a meteorite had slammed into the battlefield.
"Byakuren's parting gift is indeed impressive… but unfortunately, the ones wielding it are far too lacking."
Garp stood calmly at the bottom of the crater, unmoving, having taken the combined full-force strike without budging.
"N–no way!"
Chojuro's eyes bulged. He let out a scream of disbelief,
But before he could finish, Garp's right hand blurred past Hiramekarei.
A single finger pierced through the chakra beast enveloping Chojuro.
With a wet thud, the finger sank straight into Chojuro's heart.
His body stiffened, and a translucent shockwave, sharp as a laser, blasted from his chest through his back, carving a bowl-sized hole through his torso before streaking toward the sky.
The shockwave soared hundreds of meters upward, tearing a perfect cylindrical tunnel through the dense mist that blanketed the battlefield before gradually dissipating.
"Chojuro!"
Fuguki's pupils shrank in horror as he stared at the corpse of his comrade, alive one second, dead the next.
Garp didn't even glance at Fuguki.
He simply lifted a finger and tapped the air in front of him.
Puff….
A crescent-shaped shockwave instantly shot out over a hundred meters.
An empty stretch of water suddenly echoed with the sound of bullets punching through flesh.
The air thickened, then a second Fuguki slowly appeared, his body torn open.
"Obs… Observation Haki…"
Fuguki murmured before collapsing into the rushing waters below.
Blood spread across the surface, only to be swept away before it could stain the lake red.
At the same time, the Fuguki standing before Garp dissolved into water, merging back into the lake.
"You've got to be kidding…"
"Fuguki and Chojuro died just like that?"
"That layer of chakra around them wasn't for show! It should've stopped even an S-rank jutsu!"
The seven swordsmen had been reduced to five.
The remaining five, Juzo and the others, wore expressions uglier than ever.
Garp's strength had utterly exceeded their expectations.
Before leaving Kirigakure, they had considered the possibility of defeat. They'd even believed that losing was more likely than winning.
After all, they were facing the strongest man of the Warring States era, and maybe even the Shinobi Village era.
But no matter how they imagined it, even after using the secret trump card left by the First Mizukage, they never could've foreseen this.
The strongest Seven Ninja Swordsmen in Kirigakure's history…
…killed by Garp with just one strike each.
.........
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