Garp: This Brat Nearly Talked Me into Limping

Garp was dumbstruck.

His mouth hung wide open.

Half a rice cracker fell from his mouth onto the ground, and he did not even notice.

In his lifetime, he had been to the New World, fought Roger, and chased Rocks.

He had thought he had seen every sight the world had to offer.

But now.

Listening to Kahn's description.

He suddenly felt like a frog at the bottom of a well.

A blue ball?

Red earthworms?

And that was it?

The justice they had defended with their lives, the battlefield where they had bled and wept.

In this kid's eyes.

Were just earthworms on a ball?

"Old man."

Kahn walked to the edge of the cliff.

His toes hung over empty air.

The sea breeze stirred his black hair.

That silhouette.

Carried a hint of loneliness.

"Do you know what that feels like?"

"When you stand amid that endless starry sky."

"When you look at stars that have burned for hundreds of millions of years."

"You realize."

"That the so-called power on this land, the so-called throne."

"The so-called foundation of eight hundred years."

"Are laughably childish."

"Like a group of ants fighting over a moldy breadcrumb."

"And that Imu."

"Was, at best, just a slightly stronger ant leader."

Kahn turned around.

Light flowed through his golden eyes.

"My journey is the stars and the sea."

"My power comes from the blessings of the stars."

"And you want me to fear an ant?"

"You want me to worry whether that little dirt mound might collapse?"

"Don't make me laugh."

"I only need to bask in the Sun for a few more years."

"Then sneeze a little."

"And this planet will tremble three times over."

"So..."

Kahn sighed.

His hands clasped behind his back.

He looked like someone too lofty to endure the cold.

"Don't try to apply your frog-in-a-well logic to me."

"My vision."

"You wouldn't understand."

After saying that.

Kahn tilted his head up slightly.

He gazed at the sky at a forty-five-degree angle.

At that moment.

He felt ridiculously cool.

This was what they called a higher realm.

This was what they called style.

This was called a dimensionality-reduction strike.

If those words got out, even Whitebeard would be stunned for three seconds.

Just look at old Garp.

He had already been so intimidated that he could not speak, right?

He had to be deeply reflecting on his own insignificance.

He had to be trembling with awe at having a grandson as godlike as this.

Kahn closed his eyes.

Waiting for Garp's astonishment.

Or his admiration.

However.

One second passed.

Then two seconds passed.

The expected gasp of amazement never came.

Instead, a familiar, scalp-numbing sense of danger suddenly rose from behind him.

That was Haki.

And an extremely concentrated Armament Haki at that.

"Hmm?"

Kahn had just been about to open his eyes.

Bang!

A dull thud.

Like knocking on a watermelon.

"Ow, fuck!"

Kahn was sent flying straight off the cliff.

He spun seven hundred and twenty degrees in midair.

Then landed face-first.

He smashed hard into a boulder.

The rock shattered.

Kahn pulled his head out of the rubble.

His skull buzzed.

A huge lump visibly swelled atop his head.

Steam rose from it.

It was bright red.

It hurt.

It really hurt.

Only he could have taken that.

If it had been anyone else, their brains would have been mashed smooth.

"You old bastard! Are you crazy?!"

Kahn clutched his head and roared furiously.

"So you hit me because you couldn't argue back, huh? This is domestic abuse! I'm reporting you to Headquarters!"

"Pah!"

Garp stood where he was.

He blew on his smoking fist.

His face was full of displeasure.

There was none of that dumbstruck look from before.

"Keep pretending! Go on, keep pretending for me!"

Garp pointed at Kahn's nose and cursed him out.

"The stars and the sea?"

"Red earthworms?"

"Ant leader?"

"You little brat, your feathers haven't even grown in yet, and you still piss into the wind and soak your own shoes, yet you're here talking cosmic philosophy with me?"

"You flew up there once and forgot your own name, huh?"

"Vision?"

"This punch of mine is vision too!"

"Do you understand?!"

The more Garp spoke, the angrier he became.

He walked over and kicked Kahn in the ass again.

"You little bastard!"

"I was over there worrying whether the World Government would kill you."

"And you were reciting poetry to me?"

"Do you know I almost got talked into limping by you just now?"

"If you keep this up, are you going to shit on my head tomorrow and call it heavenly nectar?"

Kahn rubbed his butt.

His face was full of grievance.

This old man had no martial honor.

He had clearly been stunned just now.

How had he suddenly come to his senses?

"But I was telling the truth..."

Kahn muttered.

"Truth, my ass!"

Garp glared.

"Even if it is the truth, that's something for the future!"

"Right now, you're still living on this ball!"

"As long as you still need to eat and sleep, you have to follow the rules on this ball!"

"Stop floating around in the sky all day!"

"Keep your feet on the ground!"

After Garp finished roaring.

He seemed like a deflated balloon.

He dropped onto the ground.

Panting heavily.

That Fist of Love from earlier had contained his anger, his worry, and the tiny shred of dignity he possessed as a grandfather.

He was the Marine Hero Garp.

How could he let his nine-year-old grandson look down on him as if he were trash?

Even if what Kahn said was right.

That still would not do!

A grandpa was a grandpa.

A grandson was a grandson.

This was a matter of principle.

Kahn looked at the panting Garp.

That lump still throbbed faintly.

That was the broken part of the Fist of Love.

It ignored defense.

It struck straight at the soul.

Even with a body of steel, before that punch, he was only a somewhat harder iron plate.

"Fine, fine, fine."

Kahn sighed helplessly.

He walked over.

He sat beside Garp.

"You're the grandpa. You call the shots."

"Can't I stop putting on an act already?"

Garp shot him a sidelong glance.

He snorted through his nose.

Then he pulled another rice cracker from his clothes, seemingly out of nowhere.

And handed it to Kahn.

"Want one?"

Kahn took it.

Crunch. He bit into it.

"It's a little stale."

"You're lucky there's anything to eat at all."

Garp stuffed one into his own mouth as well.

Chewing with loud crunches.

The sea breeze continued to blow.

The tense, drawn-sword atmosphere from earlier, the weight of discussing the world's ultimate secret, had all been punched into nothingness.

That was Garp.

A fool who was wise beneath the surface.

Perhaps he knew nothing about the cosmos or the stars.

But he knew how to drag a kite floating in the sky back down to earth.

Because there was a home on the ground.

"Don't say that kind of crazy stuff in front of Luffy and Ace anymore."

Garp said indistinctly.

"Their brains barely work as it is."

"If you fool them into wanting to fly into the sky every day, this old man will really die of a headache."

Kahn smiled.

He thought of Luffy, who wanted to strap himself to balloons and fly.

"Don't worry."

"They won't be able to fly up there."

"That kind of view..."

Kahn raised his head.

And looked at the vast blue sky.

Though he had just taken a beating.

That pride still lingered in his eyes.

"Only I can see it."

"And only I can take you there to see it."

Garp did not argue.

He merely continued chewing his rice cracker in silence.

His gaze softened somewhat.

Since he could not keep him under control.

Then he would just watch.

Watch how high this grandson of his, who wanted to punch a hole through the sky, could fly.

As long as he did not fly away and get lost.

"Let's go."

Garp patted his backside and stood up.

"We're heading back."

"If we don't go back soon, that idiot woman Dadan will probably think the two of us died together."

"What are we having tonight?"

Kahn stood up as well.

"Barbecue?"

"All you know is how to eat meat! Just like that bastard father of yours!"

"You say that like you don't eat it."

"This old man eats to replenish his strength! It's righteous eating!"

"Tch."

One large and one small figure.

Slowly made their way down the mountain path.

The sunlight stretched their shadows long.

One broad as a mountain.

One straight as a pine.

Though the topic they had discussed moments ago was enough to destroy the world.

Right now, they were merely

A hot-tempered grandfather.

And a rebellious grandson.

Nothing more.