You're Accusing Me of Slander

Kahn picked his ear and casually flicked out a lump of earwax.

"I do push-ups under the Sun every day, eat well, sleep well, so isn't it reasonable for me to grow sturdy? Besides, whose grandson am I? The grandson of a Marine hero! If I'm not strong, who is?"

That bit of flattery caught Garp completely off guard.

The old man choked, the bellyful of roars he had prepared forcibly lodged in his throat.

But he quickly came to his senses.

Something was wrong.

This wasn't right at all!

"Quit putting a high hat on this old man!"

Garp pulled a crumpled sheet of paper from his pocket and slapped it onto the remaining plank in front of Kahn.

It was a new wanted poster.

There was no photograph.

Only a blurry red silhouette, with the area around its eyes deliberately colored red, like two burning ghost flames.

Code name: [Calamity].

Bounty: 1.5 billion Beli.

The line of fine print below was especially startling: Dead or alive.

"Look at this!"

Garp roared, spraying Kahn's face with spittle.

"The fire at Mary Geoise! Attacking the Celestial Dragons! Beating that monkey Borsalino so badly that he's still lying in the Marine hospital questioning his life! You can fly! Your eyes can shoot light! Your body is impervious to blades and bullets!"

With every sentence Garp spoke, he stepped closer.

"Though that bastard Kizaru usually looks unreliable, he had no reason to lie about something like this! He said that monster's body was as hard as Seastone and could eat photons like snacks!"

"Now look at you!"

Garp grabbed Kahn's arm and squeezed the absurdly hard muscle.

"That punch just now felt like I'd struck the rock layers of the Red Line! Explain this to me—who else in this world could possess this kind of monstrous strength at nine years old?"

Faced with those ironclad accusations,

Kahn merely glanced at the wanted poster.

"This portrait is really ugly."

That was his assessment.

"And how does this make it me? Can I fly? Can my eyes shoot light?"

As Kahn spoke, he deliberately opened his eyes wide, leaned close to Garp, and blinked.

Garp's furious old face was reflected in those golden pupils.

Clear.

Innocent.

Even a little adorably daft.

"See? No light, right? If I could shoot lasers, would I still need to start a fire whenever I grilled meat?"

The veins on Garp's forehead nearly exploded with rage.

The brat was treating him like an idiot!

"That's because you didn't use it! Borsalino said that guy glowed gold all over, like a little Sun! You've been sunbathing on the roof every day lately—don't think this old man doesn't know what you're up to!"

"Sunbathing gives you calcium. Helps you grow taller."

Kahn stood and gestured at the difference in their heights.

Although he was only nine, he was already nearly as tall as Garp's shoulder.

"Old man, this is where you're wrong. Admiral Kizaru got beaten because he wasn't skilled enough. How can you pin that crap on your own grandson? If I had that kind of ability, would I still be stuck on this lousy island?"

"I'd have gone to the New World long ago, dragged out that loach Kaido, and deep-fried him."

Kahn spread his hands, utterly unfazed.

"Besides, do you have any evidence?"

"If you do, put Seastone cuffs on me and take me away right now. If not, quit blocking my sunlight."

Garp was completely speechless.

Evidence?

That was the most troublesome part.

That [Calamity] had never shown his face from beginning to end, relying entirely on monstrous strength and basic attacks.

And Kizaru's report had been written far too mystically—something about a biological force field distorting light, something about absorbing energy until overload.

If Garp insisted now that [Calamity] was Kahn,

then he would have to explain why Roger's son possessed such superhuman powers.

Worse still,

once it was confirmed that Kahn was [Calamity],

those mad dogs in the World Government would absolutely turn the East Blue upside down.

By then, it wouldn't just be Kahn.

Ace's identity.

Luffy's identity.

Even that rebellious son Dragon's connection to this place.

It would all be exposed.

It was like a gigantic bomb. Garp himself was holding it—did he dare set it off?

He didn't.

Kahn had him figured out perfectly.

Watching Garp's face turn from red to black, then from black to purple, Kahn felt incredibly satisfied.

This was called an open scheme.

I know you know it was me.

And you know I know you know it was me.

But there's nothing you can do about it.

"You..."

Garp held it in for a long while before finally stamping his foot viciously.

Boom!

That single stomp completely collapsed Dadan's home.

The remaining half of the roof was gone too, and the supporting pillars snapped into three pieces.

Dadan, who had just managed to crawl back up, looked at her home reduced to rubble, rolled her eyes back, and fainted on the spot.

The surrounding underlings, along with Magura and Dogra, all hunched their shoulders. They wanted to save her, but none dared move.

Who would dare?

On one side stood the Marine hero who could flatten mountains.

On the other was the "monster" child rumored to be able to kick a Marine admiral around like a ball.

Standing together, this grandfather-grandson pair had an aura more terrifying than the oppressive air before a storm.

Kahn ignored the mountain bandits as well.

He brushed the dust from his pants, looked at the broken boards scattered across the ground, and clicked his tongue.

"I'm telling you, old man, you really don't understand how expensive life is until you run a household."

Kahn pointed at the pile of ruins.

"Where are we sleeping tonight? Out in the open, feeding mosquitoes? Ace has thick skin, so forget him, but Luffy's so delicate. Can you really bear to let that happen?"

Garp had been about to roar a few more times.

Hearing that, his old face, flushed red from rage, eased ever so slightly.

He snorted and pulled a bag of senbei from the pocket of his tattered suit.

Who knew what material that bag was made of.

After a fist clash of that caliber, the senbei inside somehow had not been crushed to powder.

"Crunch."

Garp stuffed a piece of senbei into his mouth and chewed with loud cracks.

As though he were chewing someone's bones.

"Quit talking nonsense to this old man."

Garp tucked the bag of senbei under his arm, ignored me, and turned toward the depths of the forest.

After taking two steps, he stopped.

He turned half his face, and the usual carefree grin was gone from his eyes.

"Follow me."

Just two words.

Yet they weighed as heavily as two blocks of lead.

Kahn didn't waste words. He waved at the three Ace brothers, who were pretending to be dead nearby, signaling for them to go play on their own.

Then, with his hands in his pockets, he followed the old man's footsteps.

At the cliffside of Mount Colubo.

It was a good place.

The wind was strong, and the waves were fierce.

Looking down from the edge, the Goa Kingdom's so-called high walls looked like a laughable line of toy building blocks.

Garp dropped his butt onto a reef.

The stone, weathered by sea winds for countless years, let out a groan under the unbearable weight.

Kahn didn't stand on ceremony either and found a clean spot beside him to sit.

Neither of them spoke.

There was only the sound of Garp chewing senbei and the thunderous roar of waves crashing against the rocks below.

The silence lasted for around five minutes.

Only after Garp swallowed the last piece of senbei in the bag did he let out a long breath.

That breath carried an exhaustion that would not disperse.

"Did you really do it, brat?"