Brook vs. Shanks

Brook also slowly rose to his feet, casually resting his right hand on the hilt of "Bright Moon" at his waist.

Fortunately, Shanks was not wearing a black robe patterned with red clouds, nor did he have those iconic Mangekyo eyes...

Otherwise, after that classic line of his—"Let me see the breadth of your spirit"—Brook would have had to find a way to keep him here for good today.

There was no warning, no exchange of glances, not even any obvious surge of momentum.

"Clang—!"

Two clear rings of steel rang out almost simultaneously, tearing through the silence above the sea.

Shanks's "Gryphon" was already drawn.

There was no dazzling opening move, merely a simple, unadorned vertical slash that came down upon Brook from above.

Yet the instant that blade swung, the air around it seemed to be violently forced aside by an invisible power.

Fine ripples of distorted space even appeared before the blade, visible to the naked eye.

Fast! Precise! Heavy!

Even more terrifying was his masterful use of Haki, entirely contained within the blade's edge.

At the same time, Brook's "Bright Moon" had silently appeared in his hand.

Facing that seemingly simple but immensely dangerous overhead strike,

he merely flicked his wrist, drawing "Bright Moon" in a smooth arc as it swept diagonally upward toward the side of "Gryphon's" blade.

"Bang!"

A collision that was not especially loud, yet incomparably heavy and solid, erupted where the two blades met.

Two streams of black-red Haki lightning instantly collided, tearing at and annihilating each other.

Above them, the clouds that had once drifted leisurely through the sky

were forcibly "cut" apart by the invisible force field formed from their clashing blade intent and Haki, leaving a distinctly straight gap between them.

It was as though the sky itself had