"Hey, hey, isn't this a bit too much?" Cavendish stood on a sand dune three kilometers away, sweat beading on his forehead.
The two men in the desert center were merely standing off, yet thunderclaps and lightning flickered around them, warping the very space.
"Fall back. Everyone, fall back beyond ten kilometers," Ace ordered decisively.
"Ace-sama, is that really necessary? We won't be able to see the fight from that far," Some pirates questioned, but they began moving anyway.
Ace said gravely, "You haven't truly seen Captain fight. You don't know how terrifying monsters like them can be when they go all out. Honestly, ten kilometers might still be too close."
"Huh? But we saw the Captain fight on Little Garden..." A pirate argued quietly.
"That level of fight on Little Garden, except for the final blow, wasn't even a warm-up for Captain."
Before the words finished, a visible shockwave swept over them.
The sand dune beneath their feet instantly collapsed. Several slower pirates were sent tumbling.
"What's happening? They haven't even started fighting!" The pirates panicked.
"No, they already have," Ace brushed sand off his clothes. "It was a clash of Conqueror's Haki."
A scorching storm whirled at the desert's center. The two figures faced each other.
"Setsuna brat, your Conqueror's Haki is quite fierce."
"My fists are even fiercer!" Setsuna leapt into the air, a fist cloaked in Armament Haki crashing down.
Garp narrowed his eyes, studying the black-haired young man. The Armament Haki flowing over Chiaki's body, while skilled, was far from the level he'd expected from someone who killed Golden Lion.
'It seems that guy Shiki really did get old...' Garp sighed inwardly, unconsciously holding back thirty percent of his strength.
Boom!
In the deafening blast, Garp's body flew backward like a cannonball, plowing a trench over ten kilometers long through the desert.
The distant spectators fell silent. Everyone stared, wide-eyed, unable to believe what they saw.
"I-It's a joke, right?" A pirate muttered, his telescope dropping to the sand. "That's Marine Hero Garp!"
As the sandstorm settled, Garp returned using Geppo. His white cape was long gone, but he still wore his trademark hearty grin. "Hahahaha! Setsuna brat, it seems I underestimated you."
Setsuna shook his wrist, battle intent burning brighter. "If you hold back again, I'll bury you in this desert."
"Hah, quite the braggart." Garp laughed, his right fist suddenly wrapping in two colors of Haki. Dark red lightning crackled between his knuckles. "Let me show you what a real [Iron Fist] is!"
The moment their fists collided, heaven and earth seemed to lose color.
Kaboom!
In the world-shaking roar, a visible ring-shaped shockwave exploded outward from the two, crushing everything in its path.
Those ten kilometers away felt the sand beneath them shake violently before being swallowed by the rising sandstorm.
As the dust slowly cleared, they saw with horror that an enormous crater over five kilometers in diameter now dominated the previously endless desert.
Sand still slid from the edges of the seemingly bottomless pit.
"Is... is this really something humans can do?" Cavendish's golden hair was matted with sand, his usually elegant expression utterly shattered.
At the crater's bottom, Garp spat out a mouthful of blood. "Hah, it's been a long time since I've fought so freely."
Setsuna on the other side was worse off. His right arm was twisted unnaturally, blood constantly trickling from his mouth. But his eyes shone terrifyingly bright. This was the first time he'd lost a fist clash.
"Again!"
Setsuna laughed, and this time, dark red lightning, not Armament Haki, wrapped around his fist.
Garp's eyes widened in disbelief. "That's..."
Before he could finish his shock, Setsuna was upon him.
Another violent collision. Space itself seemed to tremble. The clouds were swept clean from the sky, leaving a strange, circular void.
This time, Setsuna was sent flying hundreds of meters away.
But Garp was left speechless, utterly stunned. It took him a moment to recover. "You... you grasped Conqueror's Haki Infusion in one try?"
"Not one try. Three," Setsuna said with a smile. "Both Golden Lion and Gaban used it on me."
Garp was confused. "Golden Lion I know, but when did you meet Gaban?"
Setsuna didn't answer, continuing, "Even though it was the third time, if you hadn't fought me fist-to-fist, old man, I wouldn't have grasped it so easily."
Hearing this, Garp laughed. "You're right! Our way of fighting is the most satisfying!"
"Then let's continue!" Setsuna's right fist, trailing a sonic boom, aimed for Garp's face.
Garp didn't dodge, meeting it with a straight punch of his own.
Setsuna's fist connected with Garp's face at the same moment Garp's fist landed squarely on Setsuna's abdomen.
Both flew backward. Setsuna's body plowed a trench hundreds of meters through the sand, while Garp crashed through three sand dunes before stabilizing.
"Now that's a punch!" Garp wiped blood from his mouth. His left eye was swollen shut, but his smile grew even wilder. "Haven't had this much fun since Roger died!"
Setsuna struggled up from the sand pit. His bones groaned in protest, but his eyes burned with even greater fighting spirit. "Again!"
An unending series of fist clashes made the entire desert tremble. Each collision birthed a new sandstorm. The once-flat desert now resembled the moon's surface, covered in craters.
The scorching sun gradually sank westward, dyeing the desert blood-red.
The fight had lasted a full ten hours, but the two men's conditions were vastly different.
After another Conqueror's Haki-infused clash, Setsuna staggered back.
His clothes were long since tattered. His bare torso was covered in terrible bruises. His chest was sunken in one spot. His right arm hung at an unnatural angle.
In contrast, Garp merely had a badly swollen face, mostly superficial injuries.
"Setsuna brat," Garp shook his numb fist. "You fight even more recklessly than I did in my youth."
He could tell that Setsuna could have dodged many of those blows.
In a normal fight, Setsuna wouldn't have been this injured even after three days. But Setsuna insisted on clashing head-on.
Setsuna breathed heavily. "I wanted to use this chance to also master internal destruction with Armament Haki."
Garp was taken aback, then laughed heartily. "You grasped Conqueror's Haki Infusion because your Conqueror's Haki is strong enough. But your Armament Haki is far behind. It's not sufficient for you to project it externally."
"What you need now is to improve the quality and quantity of your Armament Haki. With your talent, grasping those techniques will be as easy as using your own body."
Garp laughed again. "Haha! To be honest, seeing someone who's mastered Conqueror's Haki Infusion but whose Armament Haki is just beginner-level... I've never seen that before."
"I understand," Setsuna nodded. "Then I'll continue. Fighting is the best way to improve Armament Haki."
Garp shook his head. "Let's stop for today. If you keep going, you'll collapse."
"It's still early. The second phase is just beginning." Setsuna took a deep breath and activated Food Honor. As if time reversed, his body returned to its initial, pristine state.
Garp's jaw nearly hit the sand. "Life Return? You know that technique too?"
Setsuna didn't explain the difference between Life Return and Food Honor. He simply, bursting with energy, charged forward again.
"Haha! If a kid like you had been born ten years earlier, I wouldn't have had to use scrapped warships as punching bags!" Garp's fighting spirit soared equally high. A free, high-quality punching bag was just what he wanted.