The Breakdown Of The Body
"No thanks. *Pant* I already accepted death before. *Pant* And then I vowed to.. *Pant* survive to full.. *Pant* .. fulfill my promises. *Pant* I'll take a rain check."
I was glaring at him, as if I was saying 'One of us won't be alive after this, and my will won't allow me to.'
Grim scoffed. "Hmm. Your will is powerful, but I could tell that you only just awakened it. It has taken me years to train my own Haki to this point, and you do not have years. While, I do admit that your other Haki is indeed strong, you can't defeat me."
His eyes gleamed red, and I sensed he was coming, just barely in time to move to dodge,but I only dodged by a hair's width. Grim was in front of me, and using physical force now, and what I dodged was a single punch. The energy emitted off of that fist was enough that the air itself seemed to bend. And then, a cut appeared on the right side of my face.
Not taking any more time, I immediately started to move backwards as fast as I could, dodging as much as I could. The only issue was Grim following me, continuing to throw attack after attack, causing more and more cuts to appear on my body, wether it be my legs, my arm, or anywhere else. Those cuts slowly added up, and I could only keep moving backwards, dodging, since my Observation wasn't as reliable as it was thanks to a shrinking amount of Haki.
As I continuously kept backing up, the amount of cuts appearing on me increased, and the amount of times I dodged slowly shrunk, and after what felt like hundreds of punches, I was hit square in the chest several times, immediately being thrown a hundred feet away. I was just barely able to recover and land, holding myself up with my remaining arm to look at Grim.
And at the same time, my observation gave out.
'I didn't want this to happen, but I still have at least some Haki left, apparently not enough to keep up my observation, sadly. I can try to figure out something, but Grim here would need to majorly fumble for even a slight chance at that.'
The pain from the punches and cuts was being numbed, and I could only think to thank the remaining piece of Buggy for that, and I could tell I was in a state of partial Zen Mode.
Grim, who had just finished punching at me disappeared from my line of sight. The only thing I could do was look around and listen for any kind of movement, until he appeared in front of me. This time, instead of punching, his arms were up towards the sky. Both fists into the air, and then slamming his balled up fists into the ground, creating a circular crack right where I was a moment before.
At first, this did nothing to me, as I just moved backwards to get out of the way. But thanks to no Observation at all, the impact the attack had was more deviating than I originally anticipated. The ground itself started to crack, and while I wasn't in direct range of the impact, the cracking that spread throughout the ground made it completely uneven, and then, the full power came, causing the area around the both of us to bend towards the impact point. It caused the ground itself to rise at the outside edge where the cracks ended, and a crater formed, going several feet down into the ground while simultaneously still being partially above ground level.
Sadly, I was in that newly formed crater, and I immediately slipped from how quickly it formed, sliding down the newly created hill, and straight towards Grim.
'What do I do? I'm heading towards someone who has sentenced me to death, what do I do? I could try to use Geppo and Soru, but that may not work. He could just beam me out of the sky, and I couldn't dodge this time. Could I use the rest of my Haki reserves to try and completely decimate him?'
I watched as I got closer to Grim, speeding up while sliding.
'Time for a little trick, I hope he doesn't have future sight.'
And as soon as I was right in front of him, Grim went to punch me into the ground, but he didn't hit me. Why he didn't hit me was because of what I had done my devil fruit training for: to become like a logia. The punch was aimed for my chest, but I turned almost all of my torso into sand, only because I had lost my observation.
Immediately afterwards z I regretted doing such a thing, because once Grim pulled his fist back from my semi-permeable body, I reformed and was instantly drained of energy. More so than I was before just fighting him. Grim did realize this, and went for another punch, which connected, and sent a shockwave through me and the ground itself. The force from that, since I couldn't be thrown in a direction since I was on the ground, instantaneously broke several of my bones, burst an organ or two, and caused me to spit out blood. My entire body convulsed alongside this attack, and once I was laying flat on the ground again, I thought to myself 'Why did I do that!? I could've.. no, SHOULD'VE just done it normally and split myself in two! Why did I waste so much energy? Didn't I learn when I first got here that while I could do this, that it uses up a lot of energy? And all those times while training, didn't I do almost the same thing, just to get to this point? I ALREADY OVERUSED MY DEVIL FRUIT ABILITY, AND ALREADY NEARLY GOT MYSELF KILLED! What other options do I have right now anyways? I barely have any energy to use my devil fruit, I barely have Haki left too, and Surya is a last resort!'
I was now in a dilemma, and so, with as little energy as I could, I flew away, using Soru and Geppo, only for my ankle to be grabbed by Grim, and then slammed into the ground. And then thrown over to the other side of him. And that repeated, over and over, again and again. I didn't lose consciousness, even though I was dying. I think I was only conscious because of my will to survive that had recently been awakened, and while my will was not dying, my body very much was. Even Zen Mode didn't fully take all of the pain I was experiencing, which is why I was surprised at myself still being conscious.
And then, Grim let go while throwing me at the ground, and causing the already deep crater we were in to widen and deepen further.
He then stood over me, looking with a disgusted, yet twisted expression, with a vile grin on his face, and eyes full of pride.
"Yes! This is what I've wanted to do for so long! You put up way more of a fight than I thought! Heh! It's too bad you aren't closer to Roger in strength and power! I would've loved seeing someone like the Dark King bleeding in front of me! Oh, how wonderful that would have been!" He started to twirl and spin around, moving his arms and body in a dramatic way, which would have reminded me of any play, except that I was trying not to pass out, or die, from all the pain I had taken. Even Zen Mode broke.
Then staring me down, he said "Wow! You're still alive even after all I've done to you? You have cuts everywhere, you have broken bones.. your energy is nearly depleted! And the best part? You're missing a whole limb! Heheheheh!"
I felt my will surge a little, just enough to allow me to stare him down with as much malice I could. He noticed my will to kill him, and spoke "*Sigh* You still want to fight? I have already won! You are going to die, and I have decided how it's going to happen! Good for you! You will be killed by the same way I was almost killed! Bleeding to death! How's that sound?"
He put a hand out while smiling, as if he was offering me the option to give him suggestions, but I was not even close to giving suggestions.
'I have not accepted death this time, and I won't, not until all options are closed off.'
After he didn't get a single answer, Grim's face went to a blank, bored expression. "Fine, I'll do it how I wanted to, but I'll speed it up a little."
Creating a small orb in front of a single finger, Grim then just compressed air, and shot it out at my right side, and I couldn't tell what he was aiming for, but I wasn't going to allow him to just put a hole through me, so I used the maximum amount of Haki I could, and used my own will to deflect it, while still not moving.
When the beam was deflected, Grim stared for a second, before laughing.
"Heh. So you want to bleed out how you are? I would've thought bleeding out faster was a better death, but what do I know?"
He then turned around, and started walking away. With his head turned to the side to address me, he said "Say hi to Roger for me when you do die. I have some hinderances to go and take care of."
'What does he mean hinderances? Does he mean.. Taki? NO! I can't let him just kill her! I need to survive, and make sure she's safe!'
I then tried moving my body, but at one point, enough blood had drained out of my body that I was essentially not able to move, since not enough blood was flowing through my body. I was laying in a pool of my own blood.
'I can't believe I'm just done in like this. I'm in another freaking world, and yet, all I can do now is think, not even move! My own WILL doesn't even help with this, and my Haki is basically gone, and my body has become so tired it wouldn't move without way more willpower! What are my options?'
A robotic voice popped into my head without warning. 'You Have Received "30 Second Full Awakening" From Deity "Lentor". Do You Wish To Use "30 Second Full Awakening" Now?'
'What?'