Chapter 151

The clash between Gaku and Nagumo intensifies as the pair crash through a wall and onto an elevated walkway. After a flurry of exchanges, Nagumo privately admits Gaku may be the toughest fighter he has ever met, and Gaku voices the same about him as they circle for an opening. Gaku leaps into an overhead strike that wrecks the walkway and drops them both, but Nagumo bends his weapon into a scythe to hook onto a suspended plane exhibit below.

Hauling himself onto the aircraft's wing, Nagumo readies a strike as Gaku plummets toward him. Gaku parries with his own weapon and answers using a one-inch punch aimed at the chest that blasts Nagumo clean through the fuselage. The cables holding the plane snap, sending it and both fighters falling. Undaunted, Nagumo reshapes it into a flat hammer-axe, cracks the wing on his side, and rides the aircraft's spin to slam Gaku into the floor.

Rattled by how unpredictable Nagumo's weapon is, Gaku decides to close the fight fast and begins picturing the duel as a video game. He rushes in, deliberately taking Nagumo's blade in the forearm so he can twist his arm and snap the weapon. He then hammers at Nagumo, meaning to shatter whatever he raises to block, but Nagumo turns his own weapon invisible and drives that unseen edge into Gaku.

Nagumo and Gaku each privately rate the other as their strongest opponent. Their fight destroys a walkway and moves onto a hanging plane display. Gaku lands a one-inch punch that sends Nagumo through the aircraft, but Nagumo reshapes his weapon to strike back using the falling plane's rotation. Gaku breaks Nagumo's blade by taking it in his forearm, and Nagumo counters by turning his weapon invisible and stabbing Gaku.

This Volume 17 chapter of the Assassin Exhibition of the Century Arc is titled Nagumo Buiesu Gaku, literally Nagumo vs. Gaku. The one-inch punch Gaku uses is a Chinese martial-arts technique delivered from extremely close range with almost no windup, famously popularized by Bruce Lee. The chapter highlights the shapeshifting versatility of Nagumo's weapon.