"So, pleasantries aside… have you prepared yourself to die beneath my fist?"
Just as the A-B-C trio were inwardly cursing Garp while exchanging mocking remarks, Garp slowly lowered the arms he had folded across his chest.
"..."
A, Killer B, and C all went deathly pale, their bodies trembling uncontrollably.
Garp hadn't released even the slightest bit of killing intent, yet merely a few casual words were enough to tug violently at their nerves, making them feel as though an overwhelming mountain were crashing down on them.
"Lord Garp…"
C's lips twitched as he desperately searched for an explanation, but Garp's voice cut him off before he could say anything.
"You've read the intelligence report written by the First Raikage about me. In that case, you should know very well what happens when someone breaks their word to me."
Garp stared straight at C, whose skin had been severely corroded by Tailed Beast chakra.
'How does he know I've read the intel Lord First Raikage wrote?'
C's heart jolted violently as his eyes widened in disbelief.
A coincidence? Or…
"There are no such things as coincidences in the ninja world."
A trace of playful amusement appeared on Garp's face.
"..."
C's pupils shrank sharply. The sheer terror made his body sway before he collapsed straight to the ground.
"You can… read our thoughts?"
A glanced at C, then at Garp, his expression filled with shock.
"How else would I know you planned to stay behind alone, gambling your life to hold me back so the brat and the blond kid could escape?
But that aside, what makes you think I'm someone you can hold back just by throwing your life away?
Why is it that every Raikage from the Cloud has this strange, unfounded confidence?"
Garp shook his head and chuckled.
Yet when those words reached A's ears, his body and soul plunged into an icy abyss.
Even with his monstrous physical strength, he still felt his limbs go cold.
Techniques that read memories or thoughts did exist in the ninja world.
But they all required specific conditions.
To read a person's thoughts so freely and brazenly, as Garp was doing now, was something unheard of.
"Brother!"
Killer B and C looked at A with complicated expressions.
Neither of them had expected A to harbor such thoughts.
"So this is what helplessness and despair feel like… No wonder Father completely lost the ferocity he once had when facing you."
A stared at Garp unflinchingly.
Now he finally understood why his father, after barely surviving a battle with Garp, had become a completely different person.
Whenever Garp was mentioned, his father's first reaction was always fear, unease, even convulsions, none of the valor he once possessed remained.
"You mean to say… you'll perform even better than your father did when facing me?"
Garp looked A up and down with clear interest.
"Maybe I'm not my father's match, let alone yours. But there's one thing I know I've surpassed him in.
That is, even in a desperate situation, even when the man standing before me is you… I still dare to stake everything and fight!"
A raised his thumb and pointed at himself.
"B, C, run!"
The moment his words fell, blinding lightning erupted around him. Each strand of hair stood upright like a steel needle.
"Lightning Style: Lariat!"
The instant A cloaked himself in the strongest Lightning Release armor, his body transformed into a streak of blue lightning, vanishing from beside Killer B and C.
Almost simultaneously, he crossed the distance between himself and Garp as if teleporting, his right fist, wrapped in indestructible lightning, slamming straight toward Garp.
"Brother, I'll help… impossible!"
Killer B didn't even manage to finish his shout before the scene before him left him completely stunned.
Facing A's lightning-fast charge, Garp didn't move an inch. He simply raised one finger and calmly stopped A's lightning-wrapped fist.
"Ah!"
A's pupils contracted. Though shock flooded his heart, what surged even more violently was rage and unwillingness.
This speed, this was the result of more than a decade of relentless training, the speed he had always taken pride in!
Yet his speed, his Lariat, had been stopped by Garp with a single finger.
What made it even more infuriating, and horrifying, was that no matter how much power he poured into his punch, no matter how he tried to force it forward, the finger pressed against his fist was like an immovable mountain, not trembling in the slightest.
"..."
"A Lariat that's never once been dodged… blocked by a single finger."
C felt utterly despondent.
That finger hadn't just stopped the Lariat, it had crushed his will to fight, along with any thought of escape.
He knew that unless Garp had no intention of killing them, death was the only fate awaiting their trio.
"Your fist was just about to touch my collar."
Ignoring the ashen faced C, Garp kept his index finger pressed against A's right fist.
All of A's Lightning Release chakra, and the shockwaves from his punch, were ground down and dispersed into the air beneath that finger, failing to cause even the slightest damage to the surroundings.
"Damn it, don't get cocky!
I didn't bet my life just to play around with you!"
A flashed to Garp's side like a teleport, raising his hand and chopping toward Garp's neck in a bolt of lightning.
"Guillotine Drop!"
Unfortunately, before A's hand-blade could even complete half its arc, another finger appeared as if following his shadow, stopping the strike just as effortlessly as before.
The sight drove A nearly mad, while a tidal wave of powerlessness flooded his body, drowning the fighting spirit burning within him little by little.
...
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