Miki Yūya's figure left a blue-white afterimage high in the sky.
He charged so fast that the air had no time to move aside, compressing behind him into rings of bursting sonic booms.
Armament Haki spread from his fingertips over his entire arm, its jet-black sheen like flowing armor. It intertwined with the lightning of Conqueror's Haki coiling around it, and every punch carried a muffled boom that tore through space.
Gaara did not retreat.
Shukaku's enormous body loomed amid the sandstorm. He spread his arms, and countless grains of sand condensed into dense volleys of bullets faster than the eye could follow, firing at Miki Yūya from every direction.
At the same time, Wind Release carried blades of sand toward him from all sides, each wind blade sharp enough to shred steel.
Miki Yūya twisted sideways and smashed his fist through the oncoming sand bullets.
The instant his Armament Haki-hardened fist struck them, the bullets shattered like glass, their fragments crushed to dust by the pressure of his Conqueror's Haki lightning.
He did not slow down. He threaded through gaps in the sandstorm like a bolt of lightning plunging into the eye of the tempest.
"Too slow."
His voice came from Gaara's left.
He threw a punch, condensing Armament Haki over his fist into a jet-black shock wave that pierced straight through Shukaku's left shoulder.
The enormous Tailed Beast shuddered violently. Sand gushed from the wound, only for Shukaku's chakra to repair it in an instant.
Gaara made Shukaku turn, and his arms snapped together, bringing his enormous sandy palms down on Miki Yūya.
Miki Yūya flipped in midair, pushed off the edge of a sandy palm, and slashed his right hand through the air-
His Armament Haki became a jet-black cutting wave, cleaving the palm in two.
**"Sand