Seeing Seven assume the Soru stances, Vice Admiral Komei's expression hardened. As a veteran who had spent decades training his body to its absolute limits, he knew all too well just how dangerous the Rokushiki techniques were.
"Just mimicking his stance won't make you as fast as lightning, kid. Untrained muscles will simply shatter if forced to withstand Soru's pressure," Komei warned in a heavy voice.
He had no intention of holding back any longer. Komei took a short step, then vanished in an instant.
At the same moment, Seven channeled a small amount of chakra into the soles of his feet to minimize muscle damage, then kicked the stone floor repeatedly in a fraction of a second.
BAM!
Two silhouettes vanished from plain sight, leaving small craters where they had stood.
A moment later, in the air directly above the center of the field, Seven's fist, coated in Weapon Haki, collided violently with the blunt edge of Komei's sword, which had also turned black. A shockwave swept dust in all directions.
For Seven, mimicking that movement was easy with his Sharingan. However, a searing pain immediately shot from his calf up to his thigh. Komei was right; mimicking a purely physical technique without sufficient muscle adaptation was suicide.
"Your reflexes are good, but your body isn't ready yet!" Komei spun his sword quickly, deflecting Seven's fist to the side, then unleashed a straight kick aimed at the young man's chest.
Seven crossed his arms to block, but the old Vice Admiral's physical strength was too great. Seven was sent flying backward, landing hard and skidding several meters across the stone floor.
Before Seven could steady himself, Komei had already leaped into the air. Using Geppo to maintain his position in the void, Komei's right leg swung at high speed.
"Rankyaku!"
A massive, sickle-shaped blade of wind streaked downward, slicing through the air with a deafening whistle.
Realizing that a head-on physical clash was currently to his disadvantage, Seven changed tactics. The three tomoe in his eyes spun with precision, calculating the speed and angle of the wind blade.
Seven took a deep breath, gathering heat in his chest cavity, while his hands moved to form seals at a speed that blurred the vision.
"Katon: Goukakyu no Jutsu!"
Seven spewed a sea of blazing red fire from his mouth. It wasn't merely a ball, but a colossal wave of fire that instantly incinerated the air around it. The temperature on the training ground spiked drastically, causing the air to visibly tremble.
Komei's Rankyaku wind blade collided directly with Seven's fire technique. Instead of splitting the flames, the fierce wind acted as fuel, causing the volume of the Goukakyu to explode to twice its original size.
Komei's eyes narrowed as he endured the scorching heat searing his skin.
'A Logia-type Devil Fruit? No, his actual body hasn't transformed into an element.'
'A Mythical Zoan that controls fire?' Komei was forced to use Geppo repeatedly, retreating from the air now filled with flames.
The old man landed on the other side of the field, his breath slightly labored.
His mind raced, analyzing the opponent before him. This young man had mastered Armament Haki, though he wasn't yet proficient.
'He possesses unnatural physical strength, at least on par with Garp when he first joined the Navy. He's capable of replicating Rokushiki's secret techniques just by watching them. And now, he can manipulate fire like a Logia Devil Fruit user.'
'He's only eighteen years old,' Komei thought, cold sweat trickling down his temples. 'If he were taken to Marineford Headquarters and formally trained… this boy's potential is no longer merely that of an Admiral candidate. In the next ten or twenty years, he's very likely to occupy the seat of Fleet Admiral.'
"Your basic ability test is enough, boy!" Komei shouted, making his stances more aggressive. "Now, show me how you face death!"
Komei gave Seven no time to catch his breath. He tensed every muscle with Tekkai, fusing it with the thrust of Soru, then channeled all his remaining Armament Haki into the blade of his sword.
This was a full-speed attack that the naked eye couldn't dodge.
Seven's Sharingan caught the movement, but his body was too slow to dodge. In the blink of an eye, Komei had appeared right in front of Seven. The black steel sword slashed straight from Seven's left shoulder to his right hip.
SRAAAKKK!
The blade pierced Seven's body without resistance.
However, Komei gasped. No blood spurted out. There was no sensation of flesh being cut. Just as the blade pierced through, the young man in the black cloak's body turned into a thick cloud of white smoke.
White smoke?! Komei's eyes widened.
A distortion in the air occurred right in Vice Admiral Komei's blind spot, behind her back.
Seven's true body appeared silently after using Shunshin no Jutsu combined with a shadow clone.
"Lend me a little of your power, Matatabi," Seven whispered in his mind.
From the palm of Seven's right hand, a dark blue chakra aura surged forth. The essence of Matatabi manifested into the outside world, but Seven did not allow it to form a cat's body. With precise control, he condensed the blue fire chakra—possessing extreme heat—extending it forward, forming an energy blade that emitted a terrifying glow.
Komei felt a heat that seemed capable of burning his very soul from behind. He had no time to turn and attack.
The old man could only twist his body halfway, crossing his steel sword—coated as thickly as possible with Haki—to block Seven's slash.
CLAAANGGG!
Seven's blue flame sword struck Komei's black steel sword.
The collision between Haki and the pure Fire energy blade triggered an unnatural energy explosion. The sky above the Western Navy base flickered. Blue and black shockwaves swept away the remaining flames on the field.
CRAAAT... TRANK!
Komei's Armament Haki was extremely powerful, yet the temperature of Matatabi's flames far exceeded that of normal fire. Slowly but surely, the center of the Vice Admiral's steel sword turned red, melted, and finally snapped in two.
Having lost its grip, the shockwave from the remaining energy hurled the two men in opposite directions.
BOOOOOOMMM!!!
The massive explosion obliterated everything left around them. The half-meter-thick concrete walls surrounding the training ground cracked severely until they collapsed. The stone floor was reduced to rubble, leaving behind a massive, charred crater billowing thick black smoke.
The once-bustling base suddenly fell silent. Hundreds of soldiers outside the training area held their breath, too afraid to approach for fear of being swept away by the heat wave.
Slowly, the sea breeze swept the dust and smoke from the center of the field.
Komei knelt with one foot on the edge of the crater. He planted the broken hilt of his sword into the ground for support. His white uniform was in tatters, and his breathing sounded labored. The old man had exhausted all his stamina in that final attack.
Across the crater, Quentin Seven stood tall.
His condition wasn't much better. The lower part of his black cloak was scorched. His chest rose and fell rapidly, and he clutched his left shoulder, which felt numb from the physical strain of the battle.
His blue flame sword had vanished completely. The three tomoe in his eyes spun slowly before finally fading, returning his irises to a calm, pitch-black hue.
Seven looked at the old Vice Admiral, then took a deep breath, steadying his heartbeat.
"I think the test can be concluded now, Commander," Seven said in a hoarse voice, yet he still sounded calm.
Komei looked up, gazing at the young man who had just destroyed the training ground and shattered his trusty sword. There was no anger in the old man's eyes. Instead, Komei smiled wearily, a smile of satisfaction he rarely showed.
Today, at this small base in the Western Sea, he had just found the pillar that would support the Navy for decades to come.