Face-to-Face Flight! Garp: And You Still Say You Didn't Eat a Devil Fruit?

That old man Garp was impatient.

If he was going to lecture them, he lectured them—never dragging things out.

At the edge of a cliff on Mount Colubo.

A fierce wind howled. Hundreds of meters below lay a field of jagged rocks, while waves crashed against the stone and kicked up spray like piled snow.

Garp stood at the cliff's edge, his coat snapping loudly in the wind.

"Listen up, brats."

"The Navy Six Powers are physical techniques that surpass the limits of human strength."

"Shave, Iron Body, Paper Arts, Moonwalk, Tempest Kick, Finger Pistol."

Garp held out a finger and waved it before Ace's face.

"Once you learn these, you'll have what it takes to stay alive on the seas."

Ace lay prone at the cliff's edge and glanced down, swallowing hard.

From that height, he would definitely be reduced to pulp if he fell.

Kahn, however, remained perfectly calm.

What interested him more was the principle behind them.

When he watched anime in his previous life, it had seemed mysterious. Now that he was experiencing it firsthand, he wanted to know whether it was really just muscle movement.

"Today, I'll teach you the one used for escaping."

Garp grinned, showing off a mouthful of gleaming white teeth.

"Moonwalk."

Before his words had even faded.

Garp suddenly vanished.

Boom!

An explosive crack rang through the air.

Kahn looked up.

Garp was standing in midair.

He stood as steadily as if he were on solid ground.

"Did you see that?"

Garp took two steps through the air, each accompanied by the explosive crack of compressed air.

"Kick the air dozens of times in an instant to generate powerful reactive force, allowing you to move through the air."

"That is Moonwalk."

Garp landed back on the ground, cracking several fissures into the earth.

"The principle is simple. As long as your legs are strong enough and your bursts are fast enough, even a pig can fly."

Ace curled his lip.

"You old bastard, who are you calling a pig?"

Garp slammed a fist onto Ace's head.

"Enough nonsense. Train!"

"Jump from here and learn to step on the air before you hit the ground."

"If you can't learn it, then just fall to your death."

Ace's eyes widened.

"Are you a demon?!"

Garp ignored him and turned to Kahn.

"Kahn, you go first."

Kahn walked to the cliff's edge.

The sunlight was blazing.

Every cell in his body greedily absorbed solar energy.

That feeling of power filling him left him utterly fearless.

"Kicking the air?"

Kahn murmured.

Then he leaped.

His body dropped rapidly in free fall.

The wind in his ears turned into a shriek.

The sensation of weightlessness hit him.

Ace leaned over the cliff and shouted, "Kahn! Are you insane? You really jumped?!"

Kahn adjusted his posture in midair.

After falling roughly fifty meters.

He took a deep breath, and the muscles in his thighs instantly tightened.

He exploded into motion.

His right leg kicked out repeatedly at a speed too fast for the naked eye to follow.

Bang bang bang bang!

The air was compressed to the limit, becoming as hard as steel.

A solid resistance came from beneath his foot.

Kahn's body abruptly halted in midair.

His descent stopped.

He had done it.

This was Moonwalk.

It was not as difficult as he had imagined.

As long as one's physical abilities met the requirements, it was merely a simple physics problem.

Kahn stepped on the air and walked upward one step at a time.

The feeling was strange, like climbing invisible stairs.

When he returned to the cliff.

Garp raised an eyebrow.

"You learned it in one try?"

Though he had long known the kid was a monster, Kahn's comprehension still dealt Garp a blow.

Back in the day, Garp had spent a full half month in the training camp before grasping the trick.

"More or less."

Kahn dusted off his pant legs.

"It takes a lot of effort."

"This method of movement is too crude."

Garp stared at him.

"Crude? This is the essence distilled by the Navy over hundreds of years!"

Kahn did not argue.

He was thinking.

The essence of Moonwalk was reactive force.

It required constant physical exertion to counter gravity.

The movements were large, the noise was loud, and it could not hover.

That did not match his definition of "flying."

He possessed Kryptonian Physiology.

How did Superman fly?

Not by kicking the air.

Through a biological field.

Since basking in the sun could make him stronger, could he awaken that ability as well?

Over the next few days.

Ace was battered black and blue from falling off the cliff.

Although Garp pulled him back up at critical moments every time, the terror of nearly dying still made Ace scream his head off.

But the kid's resilience was indeed remarkable.

Three days later, Ace could barely produce two air-stepping blasts in midair. Though he still fell afterward, he could at least slow his descent.

Kahn, on the other hand, was completely different.

He stopped practicing Moonwalk.

Every day, he ran to the highest peak of Mount Colubo.

There stood a protruding massive rock that pierced the clouds.

It was closest to the sun.

Kahn sat cross-legged atop the giant rock.

He closed his eyes and felt the currents of heat flowing through his body.

He was trying to control that energy.

Before, it had only passively strengthened his body.

Now, he wanted to guide it actively.

To resist the planet's gravity.

It was not easy.

At first, he could only feel his body becoming a little lighter.

As if he were in water.

But that was far from enough.

A week passed.

Garp began to grow restless.

"What's with Kahn lately? Why has that kid started slacking off again?"

Garp stood on a tree branch, watching the motionless figure at the mountaintop from afar.

"He may have learned Moonwalk, but it still needs to be honed."

"What can he train by just sitting there?"

Just as Garp was preparing to go over and give Kahn a Love Fist.

A sudden change occurred.

On the enormous rock at the mountaintop.

The pebbles around Kahn suddenly began to tremble.

Then, defying all common sense, they floated into the air.

There was no wind at all.

They simply floated.

Kahn opened his eyes.

A flash of golden light seemed to pass through the depths of his pupils.

He had found it.

That switch.

The biological magnetic field within his body repelled the planet's magnetic field.

Or rather, he had forcibly warped the surrounding laws of gravity through sheer willpower.

Kahn slowly rose to his feet.

This time, he did not push off the ground.

His feet naturally left the rock's surface.

One centimeter.

Ten centimeters.

One meter.

He simply floated stiffly in midair.

There were no bang bang explosions from the air.

No violent muscle movements.

He was as quiet as a feather.

Yet his speed was astonishing.

Whoosh!

At a thought from Kahn.

His entire body turned into an afterimage and shot into the sky, instantly rising a hundred meters.

The wind howled past his ears.

The clouds were within reach.

This freedom.

This feeling of having everything under his control.

This was true flight.

Kahn darted freely through the sky.

He stopped sharply, turned, and dove.

There was no need to borrow force.

As long as he wanted to, he could go anywhere.

Up on the branch, the rice cracker in Garp's mouth fell to the ground.

His eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

"This..."

"What the hell is that?!"

Garp had lived for over seventy years and seen all manner of things.

"Hey, brat."

Garp called out, his voice drifting a little.

"Did you eat a Devil Fruit?"

Other than that explanation, his blockheaded brain couldn't think of any other reason.

The Float-Float Fruit?

Wasn't that thing with that lunatic Golden Lion Shiki?

Could Shiki have died, and the fruit reincarnated on Mount Colubo?