Tooth Thrust (Tuesday Data PK Recommendation Slot, Please Keep Reading!!!)

Bang!

The Jitte slammed into the ground, shattering the floor and sending dust swirling into the air.

But Smoker's brow was tightly furrowed.

An attack that should have been a sure thing had missed, and he had even lost track of his opponent. This was more than merely having his move seen through.

More importantly, how had he achieved that sudden, vanishing speed?

"Soru?!"

"Or a Devil Fruit ability!"

"Neither!"

Gawain's voice came from beside his ear. Smoker broke out in a cold sweat and turned, only to see a phantom-like blur rushing at him from afar.

"Shave—Tooth Thrust!"

A savage, lightning-fast thrust pierced straight through Smoker's body in an instant.

Even though he had turned elemental in advance and avoided Gawain's attack, he lost sight of his target in the next moment.

The white smoke that had originally been meant to obstruct Gawain's vision had instead become a restriction on himself. When Smoker came to his senses, he looked around in alarm.

"That speed—is it a Devil Fruit?!"

"No, he's doing it with his body alone. But for a human body to reach this level—!"

Smoker had only gotten halfway through his sentence when another furious shout rang out in the distance.

"Tooth Thrust!"

An even faster and fiercer thrust swept in from beyond the dust, directly dispersing Smoker's newly reformed body once more.

"Attacks like this can't hurt me at all. Other than stalling for time, what can you possibly—!"

"You're stalling for time?"

The realization inexplicably filled Smoker with urgency. But the moment he tried to move, all that awaited him was Gawain's nearly endless barrage of thrusts...

"Tooth Thrust!"

"Tooth Thrust!"

"Tooth Thrust!"

His body reformed time and again, only to be scattered again in the next instant.

Within just a few breaths, the relentless attacks had completely suppressed Smoker.

If not for the Logia ability to ignore physical attacks, he would have died countless times already. Realizing this filled Smoker with incomparable humiliation.

His opponent was simply too fast.

Even with his eyesight, he could only barely make out a vague black shadow. He had no way to counterattack at all.

"Tch. If I had mastered Observation Haki, I definitely wouldn't be this passive!"

Thinking back to Zephyr's instructions before he had left Headquarters, Smoker could not help feeling a trace of regret. Yet his grip on the Jitte silently tightened.

Amid the increasingly fierce assault, Gawain felt his movements growing smoother and smoother.

Shave was a move that demanded exceptional physical ability to begin with. Gawain's physical abilities happened to far surpass Kuro's, and he also possessed the lightning-fast neural reflexes Kuro lacked.

Naturally, his mastery of Shave was greater, and his speed far exceeded Kuro's!

Combined with the famed blade Kansei Masamune he had just acquired, even the simplest thrust could unleash unimaginable power. The crisscrossing slash marks throughout the harbor were the best proof.

With the two combined, Gawain grew increasingly adept at this tactic of using Godspeed to suppress his opponent.

If his opponent had not been a Logia Devil Fruit User, Smoker would have had virtually no means of resisting Gawain's unending thrusts.

And this was Gawain's own move, developed from Kuro's indiscriminate Shave attacks—a technique that relied on speed to suppress his opponents!

Tooth Thrust!

A thrusting attack driven by Godspeed.

From that moment onward, the battle became a one-sided beating.

The captain of the guards, who had come to the harbor on Gaza's orders to assess the battle, was dumbstruck by what he saw.

All he could see was endless white smoke and a white-haired man formed from smoke, continuously scattered and reassembled. The white smoke gathered in the harbor seemed to be completely torn apart by some invisible creature!

"What exactly is happening?!"

"A Kamaitachi from Wano Country's legends? The evil wind that reaps lives?!"

"I..."

Although the scene in the harbor was utterly absurd, the captain of the guards faithfully recorded it and relayed the intelligence from the harbor to Gaza through a Den Den Mushi.

"Captain of the guards..."

Gaza raised a hand to her forehead.

"I told you to watch Major Gawain. Why are you telling me about a Marine and white smoke?!"

"No."

Standing beside Gaza, Kuro reached out and patted her shoulder.

"That invisible thing he mentioned should be Gawain."

"Major Gawain is a Kamaitachi?"

Gaza was even more confused.

Expressionless, Kuro said, "You can think of it as a type of Swordsmanship with incredible speed."

"Is that so?"

Gaza relaxed.

"Then it seems Gawain has the upper hand for now?"

"The upper hand? Of course he has the upper hand!"

Kuro's mouth twitched. From the captain's description, how could he not understand that Gawain's control over Shave had improved again? He was even better at it than Kuro himself.

Isn't it a little absurd for a knockoff to be stronger than the original?

Still, thinking of the Observation Haki he had awakened, Kuro remained confident in himself.

Only those who had experienced Observation Haki understood the enormous gulf between having it and not having it. Calling the difference a dimensional crushing blow would not be an exaggeration.

"Gawain, the day I surpass you isn't far off."

"Mr. Locke?"

Gaza looked at Kuro in confusion. He immediately wiped the expression from his face and asked, "Are there any ships left that can leave the harbor? Our identities are sensitive, so we can't come into direct contact with the Navy."

After a brief pause, Gaza shook her head.

"There were backup ships, but I just received a report that all of them were taken away by people fleeing the disaster. And..."

Seeing Kuro's brow gradually furrow, Gaza understood his concern.

"If you're worried about a later Navy search, I can offer assistance."

"Without a search warrant, even the Navy can't do anything to the lord's manor."

Kuro's expression softened as he said to Gaza, "Then we'll trouble you."

"It's what I should do. After all, we'll still need your strength to maintain order around Raven Port."

"Mm."

Night gradually deepened.

A sea breeze slowly rose in the harbor, blowing away the boundless white smoke.

After fighting fiercely for several hours, the two gradually ran out of strength. They tacitly stopped and faced each other from afar.

Gawain was drenched in sweat, panting heavily.

Honestly.

He really had no way to deal with a Logia right now. In this era, Logias were simply a dimensional crushing blow.

Even using a move like Tooth Thrust, he could at most keep Smoker occupied.

It was not as if he had not tried to seize the Seastone Jitte from Smoker's hand. That thing was the natural bane of Devil Fruit Users; if Gawain got hold of it, the fight would be over immediately.

But Smoker had long been prepared. The moment Gawain showed an unusual interest in the Seastone Jitte, the bastard promptly tossed it into the sea.

His reaction was terrifyingly fast!

Little did Gawain know that Smoker felt even worse, as though he had eaten shit.

What the hell?!

This brat even knows that the tip of my weapon is made of Seastone?!

There's a spy in the Navy!

If I hadn't thrown it away quickly, that thing really would have become a blade pointed at me!

At that moment, a whistle sounded from the distant sea, and an enormous Warship cut through the wind and waves as it entered the harbor.

Gawain turned his head. Even beneath the night sky, his eyesight made it easy to see the figure standing on the deck.

With short blue hair and somewhat stiff square-framed glasses, it was Tashigi, holding a long sword in her arms.

Behind her stood a group of fully armed Marines.

"It's time to go."