The moment Koushirou said “Begin,” both of them moved.
Straight at each other.
Clang.
The distance between them was barely ten meters, and within the next second their blades had already met.
Steel rang against steel, sparks scattering as a shockwave rippled outward from the point of impact.
That strength.
The force that traveled through the Wado Ichimonji made Kuina’s eyes sharpen.
Her right arm buckled slightly under the strain.
In this world, without some special physical constitution, women simply could not match men for raw strength.
That was a gap in conditioning, not in willpower.
Years of hard training had put Kuina’s strength far above any ordinary person’s.
But against Rocks, a Mythical Zoan user, she was still at an absolute disadvantage.
Clang.
Kuina didn’t let it rattle her.
If she couldn’t match him in power, she’d win with technique.
Her sword wrist gave a sharp twist.
Using precise angling she bled off the force rather than absorbing it, the friction between the blades throwing off sparks as Rocks’s strength was redirected harmlessly away.
“Isshin Style: Caressing Slash!”
In the same motion as the deflection, Kuina’s right wrist turned, and the Wado Ichimonji came slashing down at an angle no opponent should be able to predict.
The blade seemed to cut the air itself, a faint whisper of parted space trailing in its wake.
The strike went straight for Rocks’s midsection.
Clang.
Rocks reacted instantly.
His eyes flashed red as his Observation Haki caught the attack’s path.
He raised his blade and blocked in the same instant.
The two swords met again, sparks bursting from the collision.
“Good slash.
You’ve gotten a lot stronger.” Rocks grinned and pushed her blade away with a burst of force.
“But so have I.”
He brought his own sword around in a horizontal sweep.
No particular technique behind it.
Just weight and force and speed.
Clang.
Another crash of steel.
Through the eruption of sparks, Kuina felt an even more alarming surge of strength come through the impact.
Her grip on the Wado Ichimonji very nearly gave.
She forced the energy out through footwork, pushing back several meters before the momentum finally died.
Her feet were light and precise even in retreat.
Her right arm hummed with a dull ache.
“Keep going!”
Rocks’s grin spread wider.
He closed the distance in a single stride, the ground barely having time to register his foot before he was already there.
He raised his blade high and brought it down hard.
This wasn’t Sonido.
Just the raw speed his body could produce on its own.
This fight was swordsmanship only, and Rocks intended to keep it that way.
Kuina locked in.
Her eyes tracked the angle of Rocks’s blade as it fell.
This time she didn’t block.
She shifted to the side to dodge, then brought the Wado Ichimonji up in a low-to-high counter, the trajectory awkward and difficult to read.
Against a user with Observation Haki, a tricky angle didn’t help much.
Rocks deflected the counter and swung again.
Clang.
Clang.
Clang.
The two blades rang across the courtyard in a rapid exchange.
Sparks flew with every collision.
Kuina moved beautifully.
Her technique was fluid and purposeful, every slash landing where it was meant to, a dense weave of blade work pressing in from every direction.
Rocks fought like a man swinging a fire poker.
No visible style, no elegance at all.
And yet he blocked everything she threw at him, and he did it without appearing to strain.
From a purely visual standpoint, Rocks had the upper hand.
The fight had drawn an audience.
Word that someone had come to challenge senior student Kuina had spread through the Isshin Dojo, and a number of students had gathered to watch.
They stared at the clash in front of them, expressions caught somewhere between shock and awe.
“That’s incredible.”
“Who is that guy?
His technique is a complete mess, but he’s keeping up with senior Kuina on every exchange.”
“That’s Rocks.
He trained here at the dojo for a while.
Senior Kuina actually lost to him once.”
“Senior Kuina is getting pushed back.”
“It must be some kind of specialized style.
Looks chaotic but there’s clearly a system to it.
That’s serious skill.”
They all knew how strong Kuina was.
Nobody in the Isshin Dojo could match her.
Some of them had quietly wondered whether even Teacher Koushirou would be able to keep up with her anymore.
And here she was, getting dominated.
“Damn it.
His swordsmanship has gotten this good too?
He’s moved past the basics and developed a style completely his own.”
Zoro watched the fight with burning intensity.
The fact that Rocks was pressing Kuina in a sword exchange meant he’d clearly built a style tailored specifically to himself.
The Isshin Dojo only taught foundations.
The road forward was something every student had to walk on their own.
Developing a personal style was the goal every student at this dojo was working toward.
Zoro had his Three-Sword Style.
Kuina had her Isshin Style.
That was what Zoro concluded, watching.
“His swordsmanship still hasn’t improved much at all.”
Only Koushirou saw it clearly, and he let out a quiet, resigned sigh.
“More organized than before, but still just swinging.”
His eye was too sharp to miss it.
Rocks was not winning through swordsmanship.
He was winning through sheer physical dominance.
Body, Haki, speed, reaction time.
In every one of those categories, Rocks outstripped Kuina by a wide margin.
Kuina had the technical edge, without question.
But against someone whose raw fundamentals were this far ahead, technique alone could only do so much.
All she could manage was to hold on.
“Though he is a bit more measured than he used to be.
Less reckless.”
Koushirou was just beginning to think he might offer Rocks a quiet word of genuine praise for that when the next moment shut his mouth entirely.
“Alright.
Warmup’s over.
Time to get serious.”
In the courtyard, Rocks swept his blade upward, forcing Kuina to block and give ground.
His grin turned sharper, brighter.
“Not long ago I grasped the Breath of All Things and reached the iron-cutting threshold.
Let me show you my best.”
“I’ve named this one the Extreme Slash.
The furthest my swordsmanship goes.
Try to take it.”
“Wait.
I concede.”
Before Rocks could finish.
Before the so-called furthest his swordsmanship could go came down on her, Kuina spoke first.
“You win.”
The fight hadn’t lasted long, but sweat had already gathered at Kuina’s temple.
The arm holding the Wado Ichimonji was going quietly numb.
She was genuinely shaken by what she’d felt from him.
What was he?
She had fought at full strength.
He had been warming up.
The gap between them was even wider than it had been years ago.
Her own strikes were no joke.
Every one of them could cleave through solid rock.
She was one step away from grasping the Breath of All Things herself, one trigger away from reaching the iron-cutting threshold.
And Rocks had turned all of that away without visible effort.
What was there left to do?
She also knew how Rocks fought when he was serious.
He had no control over the intensity of his follow-through.
With his hand-to-hand combat, he might be able to pull back at the last moment, but with that unpolished swordsmanship of his, she genuinely wasn’t confident he could stop a blade in time.