A Single Exchange of Attacks

"Didn't you say you were going to kill me? I'm missing an arm, and still alive! Why don't you try harder?"

Grim came out of his stupor, and immediately spoke "So, you put away your blade? You will wish you had not done so!" And then, his chest started to glow a dark red color and expand, ballooning in size for a few seconds. And then, that light shrunk down, becoming a brighter shade of red. This process, in the span of a couple seconds, made the light change from a red, to an orange, to a orange-yellow, then it became white, and his whole chest swelled with it. Using observation, it was obvious what he was doing.

He was making fire, and bringing it's temperature to it's limits before becoming plasma.

"Oh? Fire? Is that supposed to do anything? Isn't lightning a bit better as an attack than fire?"

"You are not as open minded as I thought if you think fire cannot beat out lightning." Grim smirked, and exhaling, the white light flowed from his chest, through his neck and out his mouth, and white flames appeared, which Grim then started to turn into a beam. I also sensed him putting Colorless into his beam, making it's power multiply.

'So, what should I do, me? My Haki reserves are lower than I would like, Surya would break if I continued to use it, and my arm is missing, even if it is for reasons.'

I saw Grim repeat what he had done before, this time way faster, I could only estimate about five times faster, bringing the whole process to a close in two seconds before completely repeating what he was doing.

Immediately, my perception sped up to give me more time.

'Why am I still standing here?'

'You're forgetting something, aren't you?'

'Um, weapon, missing limb, Haki, what else could there be?'

I could hear a face palm even if it wasn't real or actually physically happening.

'What?'

'You are ME. What do I have? What do you now have?'

I actually facepalmed, which didn't go well, as my left arm slowly started to move to do such a thing.

'Oh, yeah. I'm an idiot. How could I forget I had a devil fruit, especially one that chops?'

'Yes, how did the almighty idiot forget such an important detail.' this time, I could tell that the thought was monotone, and the sarcasm was evident.

'Oh calm down me, I was busy with swords n'.. stuff. Like Haki. Haki is very important, and my physical training is also very important.'

'Can I just.. not do this right now? We are in the middle of a fight, and Grim is doing something crazy. Take over those thoughts, I APPARENTLY needed to tell you about one of our abilities, so defeat Grim please.'

'Will do, myself. Now, onto what I should do. I have a devil fruit power, chopping things, mainly myself. I could use full on Haki, but Surya will end up breaking if I try to use it. There's also... Hmmm. What about that thing Buggy did in the Stampede movie? Swinging his leg and energy flies out of him becoming an air blade of chop? Or.. was it.. what was it? That Six Powers ability? I don't remember the name. Kaku used it, and did the same thing, so, what if I do that using either way and try to chop this next attack in half without Surya? But, how do I do it? Hmm. Maybe I should try the same method I used for Haki on my own devil fruit ability. I already have heightened senses to slow down everything going on around me besides my own thoughts, so,.I should be able to sense the energy, right?'

Immediately, I realized my arm was still heading to facepalm myself.

I changed what I was doing, my body complying, and stopping, then, extremely slowly splitting apart at the wrist.

I simultaneously did two things. One was realizing just how strong this fire Grim was making was becoming, as it even grew in temperature and started to heat up the surrounding ground, and it even sparked all over, showing that it was at the threshold of becoming lightning, but not.

The other thing I realized was a different energy allowing me to split apart. This energy was weird, and I couldn't pinpoint why, but I had something I could use.

Not thinking anymore about it, I started to attach my hand again, loosening my change in perception, making everything move progressively faster, catching up with the true flow of time.

Using this time, my own body started to speed up as well, as my left hand went upwards, and imagining the weird energy of my devil fruit flowing, I had it all flow to my hand, and used Haki as a catalyst to hold that energy. It was weird to do, but I hadn't gained enough mastery of my underused devil fruit, so I was stuck with a roundabout option. The colorless Haki that became my chop-chop's catalyst combined with the energy, turning into a small blue dot right in front of my pointer finger.

My Haki reserves were getting lower by the second, but I had a need for it, trying to end this as quickly as possible while still developing my own power. And then, it dropped lower. The reason being that since I had a Haki-Chop energy formed, I would push as much Haki as I could in hopes that I could overpower Grim and stop him from killing me. I coated my already flowing Colorless mixed with Chop-Chop energy with Armament, and it started to flow around it, because there was nothing to coat at that moment.

And then, my perception became equal to the flow of normal time, and the white, compressed fireball, which had started to cause short bursts of lightning to fly off of it, was giving off enough heat that some of the ground had started to become liquid.

"BEAM-BEAM: GRAPHEN FIRE TORNADO!"

Without hesitation, the orb of pure heat blew out of the orb it was in, forming a single beam that was aimed directly at me with the intent to kill.

And, of course, I had something ready. What happened next felt like splow motion. Immediately pulling my hand from above me, still pointing up, my finger traced a line going straight down in an arc, ending aimed at the ground. That Haki that I had put into a single small ball of chop energy became long and thin, in the shape of a purple blade.

Once I was done tracing and the blade finished forming, the fire from Grim had gotten exponentially closer, as it was almost directly in front of me. And then, my own attack flew towards Grim, and the two attacks clashed, causing a loud roar to explode outwards, while each of our Haki also went against each other, neither giving up or stopping. What the determining factor of who won this single exchange was the attack that wasn't Haki.

When the attacks clashed, the flames from Grim split in half as my blade of Chop, and they flowed around me, and I could just tell that the ground was melting around me, while I was making sure the attack wouldn't land on me.

Grim's Colorless Haki was as strong as a combination of my own Colorless as well as Armament, and it proved that his strength was not something to scoff at.

'No wonder he could go against Captain, even if he did get whooped, this Haki is incredible. I'm a bit of a weird case, but this guy spent years strengthening himself to become incredibly powerful, I don't know how I'm going to beat him still.'

My eyesight was full of white flames, all flowing around a purple energy. And then, it stopped, both attacks stopped.

I realized my own Haki was low, my observation that was always working subconsciously was slowing down,and I could tell a bit of the new surroundings still. I was behind a split, where the two places the flames were split went off to both sides of me, and then burned the ground, charing some enough that it looked like magma had formed in some cracks that also formed.

I was also panting heavily, and the energy drain from the Haki I put into that one attack was a heavy burden, and I reminded myself of Luffy during Dressrosa after using Gear Fourth for the first time against Doflamingo.

'How did Luffy do this? I mean, would ten minutes really be long enough to gather my own Haki again? I don't have anyone to help me rest and keep Grim at bay, so that wouldn't be an option. I thought I had more in my reserves, but I guess I was wrong. Is Grim really that strong? He was weaker in his story, so just how much did he grow since then?'

I looked at Grim, and he was in perfect condition. A little covered in dirt, but he was still in one piece. It looked like he wasn't aware of the state I was in, as he then started to mock me.

"Aw, is the apprentice of Roger tired already? Maybe you shouldn't have tried to fight me and have accepted death."