Chapter 14

The explosion from the fire dust bullet shook the entire stadium but not enough to throw people off balance but strong enough to cause there legs to shake a bit.

After the explosion, there was a huge collum of dust in the place of the explosion. Entire arena had gone silent. Which was then broken by Drakes excited scream.

"What a spectacle! Grey Alvey gets caught in a devastating explosion from the dust bullet..!" His expression then changes slightly baffled one. "But how much fire dust was stuffed into that bullet anyway..?"

He muttered quietly as he wondered with a sweatdrop falling from the right side of his forehead.

Crowd cheers as before Ellie grins before taking her fighting stance again getting ready.

Tobaz and Auburn were looking at the arena Tobaz expression was his normal plain expression while Auburn had a quite shocked expression with his right eye wide open and his left eye slightly closed.

"Ohh ouch.. that got to hurt he was caught right in the middle of that..." Tobaz doesn't respond and only turns to look upward quietly.

"I wouldn't be so sure bout that..." Tobaz says getting Auburn's attention. "Huh? What do you mean by that?" His expression turns into a confused look.

In the arena, Ellie had gotten her self ready to her fighting stance with a smirk on her face as she looks at the dust collum.

Then right in the middle of it, a geyser shoots out causing all of the dust burst outward. In response, Ellie gains a surprised expression."Huh?" Then before dust reaches her she covers her mouth with her right forearm and closed his eyes in order to prevent any dust getting to her mouth or eyes.

She opens her eyes to look towards the area of the explosion only for them to widen as the area was completely empty only thing that was on the ground was Shusui sticking from the ground. "Huh?!"

She then starts to look around as Drake announces in an amazed tone. "What's this! Grey Alvey has once again disappeared from sight!" The audience starts looking around the field searching his whereabouts.

Fighters were doing the same thing expect for Tobaz who was scanning the sky while his arms are crossed. While Auburn was looking trough the arena along with most of the others.

Pyrrha's attention was looking at the monitor that showed Greys and Ellie's aura levels Greys had dropped slightly.

Pyrrha looks at the aura levels thoughtfully. "Since his aura level dropped he didn't escape unscathed from the explosion. But by the looks of it, he managed to avoid any serious damage..." She muttered before started looking around.

Auburn was completely flabbergasted."No way! Where did he go!?"He shouts as he thrusts his head outside of the window while having both of his hands balancing him.

While Tobaz gaze was still looking above the arena. "His floating right above the arena..." Tobaz says with a calm tone causing Auburn to turn towards him confused.

"Huh..?Floating..." He then turns towards the same direction where Tobaz is looking at. "How can he possibly be floa..." He stops in mid-sentence as his eyes widen.

Same time Drake also gaze moved from arena to the sky since he couldn't find him from the arena."Ah..." Is the only voice that comes out of his mouth as it hangs open in disbelief as he begins to sweat like crazy...

Right before letting a shout that can be heard outside the arena Auburn eyes were wide as plates with his jaw wide open. "I don't believe it..." he mutters in shock.

Above the screens, Grey was slanting still on places by using Geppo constantly with his left leg.

There are burned marks on his right hand that almost reached his elbow. Same goes to his right leg there are also slight burn marks on his right side.

He is holding his right forearm with his left hand. His face has a painful look as his right hand was trembling along with his left leg.

While the attention of the audience was once again turned towards the speakers. "If all of you would turn your gaze towards the sky..." Drake announces to the mic way too shocked to shout like he usually does.

Everyone turns their head upwards above the hovering screens and the moment they see Grey just floating up there as he kicks the air repeatedly.

While this was causing a small uproar below him. Grey was busy with his own thoughts."Agh! Gods doest that hurt. My right-hand feels like it's on fire..." similar pain was going through his side along with his left leg.

His eyes then turned towards the ground. "In a way suppose I should be somewhat grateful that this pain is all that I have to deal with. If I had received a direct hit from that explosion I probably would be screaming in pain right about now."

His gaze then focuses on the geyser that just blew the dust collum away. After he had split the dust bullet in half causing it to explode slightly earlier.

He took a step back with his right leg intending use soru to avoid the explosion. But he accidentally placed his feet inside the geyser causing him to start to fall backwards but at that moment geyser erupted sending Grey flying upward as it made his body to rotate wildly.

His right hand and left leg were caught in the explosion causing him to let go of Shusui. Even his right side was burned slightly in that racket.

"In an unexpected twist, Grey Alvey is floating in mid-air above the arena by the means of..! kicking the air?" Drake shouts in bafflement as the audience starts shouting in excitement.

Ellie was only staring with wide eyes as she blinks a few times in disbelief even Pyrrha was shocked at this sudden development.

Auburn and Tobaz weren't shocked as the rest of the population of the arena as this wasn't the first time they had seen it. "It's one of those weird techniques he used in the cave and during our match."

Auburn states with a little bit of sweat running down his forehead, he then turns towards Tobaz. "That one could be quite a bit of trouble if you were planning to use your semblance on him..."

Tobaz turns to look at him. "Not really the only thing that will do is prevent me from using it to drag him outside of the ring." He then lets both of his hands to hang to his side before rising his right fist to his throats level.

"And from the beginning, I wasn't going to use it like that in the first place." He looks at his fist for a second before lowering it and looking back towards Grey who is still keeping himself airborne.

"I will defeat him properly..." He says with a cold stare. Auburn turns back to the window as he felt stutter in his back before muttering nervously. "I hate it when you get that look in your eyes. It so damn nerve-wracking..."

Greys eyes move towards Shusui while still having a pained expression on his face. "I even dropped Shusui in that racket..." He then turns back to his injured hand.

"I better keep my self in the air until the pain goes away..." He is then snapped out of his thought as his attention is caught by a red glow from beneath him.

He sees fire dust bullet heading towards him. "Geh!" He makes a shocking sound before moving out of its way just in a nick of time by moving to his right." He looks at the bullet flies past him.

"That was way too close..." He mutters before turning his attention towards the direction where the bullet had come from to see Ellie with her left-hand cannon pointing towards the position where he had been a little while ago while her eyes are looking straight at him.

"Darn I completely forgot about those long-range weapons..." He mutters to himself quietly.

"I don't know how you are doing that!? But I will shoot you down!" Ellie shouts with a serious tone before changing her right-hand cannons image into snowflake before spinning her body towards him before pointing at him and firing it.

Again Grey dodged it along wi the hail of following bullets that Ellie started to fire at him.

After a few seconds, Drake seems to have regained his voice and starts doing his job again. "Wha.. what a spectacle! Ellie has begun to launch a barrage of attacks at now flying Grey who in return avoids them jumping all!"

Soon after that excitement in the arena went through the roof. Crowd cheers can be heard across the city. People who are walking by taking notice of the ruckus.

Grey starts to move back towards the ground. "I have to get out of her line of vision somehow..." Just before ice bullet was about to hit him used Geppo to avoid it by jumping backwards with a backflip and shoots himself towards the ground soon as his legs pointed upward.

Before he reaches the ground he spins his body forward and lands with his right leg he then leans towards Shusui. "Soru..." He shoots towards it just as fire dust bullet hits the place where was standing and explodes when they contact the ground.

"Missed again!" Ellie mutters to herself as her gaze to look at the direction he had leaned towards before vanishing. Only to see Grey holding Shusui with his left hand.

Burn marks that were on his body have disappeared completely. He pulls out his blade from the ground before spinning around in his hand two rounds before pointing it towards her.

Most of his weight is centred to his right leg and his right hand is mostly motionless. Both of them look at each other for a split moment before Ellies right cannons image changes from fire icon to a smoke cloud mark.

She then points her right hand towards Grey before launching smoke shell that flies in an arc and land right in front of him and creates a cloud of smoke when it goes off

Grey only narrowed his eyes and readied his guard. "Trying to blind me so I can't see her attacks..." He thinks to himself before his eyes glow slightly. "Too bad that won't work."

Ellie points her left weapon to the cloud with ice symbol switches to a lightning mark and she shoots three times into the smoke.

Greys eyes move to look upwards to his right just as one of the lightning bullets flies past there his eyes them move back forwards just as the second one was heading towards him he deflects it with Shusui towards his left.

He then steps to the right just as third one flies past him Shusui blade has a little bit of electricity running through it.

Ellie then started to run to her right before starting to fire even more as the second bullet she launched came flying out from the top of the smoke cloud.

In the smoke cloud, Grey starts avoiding and deflecting the bullets. He's really starting to get angry as his right eye begins to twitch his attention is then brought to his dominant hand as he kept up his defence.

Few bullets manage to get through his defence and scratch him a little bit. Grey flinches in pain and manages to keep himself from yelling out in pain.

He lets out an angry growl afterwards as he begins to raise his right arm little bit upward as he keeps avoiding bullets he then switches Shusui back to his right hand.

He then coats his now free left hand with armament haki and uses both Shusui and his hand to block and deflect the bullets.

Ellie stops shooting for a moment as she removes one of the cartridges with a lightning mark on it from the back of his weapon placing it away and replacing it with a new one.

"Ittoryu..." Grey mutters soon after the stream of bullets stop as he takes a step forward with his right foot and the right-hand circle in front of his chest.

Ellie points this time both of her cannons towards the smoke and fires them at the same time while Greys eyes widen right before he swings Shusui.

"Tatsumaki!"He spins his body in a clockwise direction creating a strong tornado that blows away all of the smoke along with Ellie's attack soon as they reached it.

"Wha.!?" Ellie shouts in shock as it is now her turn to hold her ground against the blowing wind as she leans forward and covers her head with her hands her right-hand front of her forehead and the left one front of her mouth.

Grey stops his rotation before looks at Ellie as he pulls his left hand back with one finger out. "Soru." He shoots himself right at her he vanishes from her view for a split second before appearing right in front of her in the exact same position.

"Wha.!?" she shouts in shock as Grey looks directly at her as he begins to throw his left hand forward as he shouts simultaneously. "Shigan Oren!"

He launches a barrage of shigans right at her gut sending her flying backwards. "Gah!" She coughs up a little before she crashes into a dust crystal shattering it and causing her body to do a backflip and roll on the ground.

"Now the roles are once again reversing!" Drake shouts into the mic as the crowd cheers for the fighters. "After a furious attack from his opponent. Grey stops the assault by creating a cyclone to deflect her assault following it with an attack of his own sending Ellie flying. That looks like it hurt!"

Grey then pulls his upper body back as he moves his right hand to his left side so that shusui is now next to his left side and the blade edge points towards the ground. "Ittoryu..."

She stops her roll on the ground with her back on the ground. "Ouch..." She groans in pain as she begins to stand up as she covers the area of her stomach where it was hit while having a pained expression on her face.

"Yakkodori!" Grey says with slightly loud tone before swinging his blade upward while moving his body slightly to the right launching a sharp wind projectile right towards her that is slightly tilted.

"Huh?" Ellie makes a confused sound as she looks at the incoming attack. The lower end of the projectile was hitting the ground leaving a split trail on the ground.

Her eyes widen in shock right before she quickly rolls to her right avoiding the slash just as it was about to hit her.

She turns to look over her right shoulder to see the attack go past her and following it as it leaves the ring and collides with the stadium wall and dispursing upon impact.

"That was a way to close..." She mutters quietly before suddenly hearing a voice coming from her left side.

"Finally I manage to get you to Shusuis range..." She quickly spun her head quickly around to see Grey standing right next to her with him holding Shusui on his right shoulder.

She quickly reacts By standing up and jumping back trying to and was just about to point her left weapon towards him but instead of letting her make the distance between them and dashes forward as he moves Shusui from his shoulder.

"Don't think so." He says right before delivering a punch with his left hook straight to her gut causing Ellie to cough up a bit while she lets go of her right-hand weapon before falling to her knees in coughing fit while her right hand is on the ground and her left hand was covering the place she was hit.

"I studied your fighting style during your previous fights. Even though it wasn't enough to get complete form. I was able to understand what its key factors are and its weaknesses"

Grey states as he raises Shusui above his head before making a heavy swing downward. Ellie manages to place her left hand in front of her to guard the attack while supporting wit her right hand.

Soon as Shusui connects with her guard Ellie is slightly pushed down causing her knees to bend a little. She is struggling to keep herself steady as Grey kept pushing Shusui downward.

"your fighting style highly reliance on agility and quick movements to avoid your opponent's attacks and deal heavy attacks with your weapons."

As he talks Grey adds a little bit of force to his right hand causing Ellie to get crouch even more as Shusui keep moving down.

"I can't move! What is this power?!" Ellie though as she started to think a way to get out of this. "It seems Grey Alvey has managed to corner Ellie who is struggling to try to prevent his attack from getting trough! Can she find a way out of this predicament?!"

Audience cheers as Shusui moved down pressuring Ellie's hand down along with it. Her eyes are narrowed before they widen as she hears cracking sound and her eyes turned towards her weapon.

Her eyes widen even more as she sees her weapon to have cracked and Shusui had sunk into the weapon slightly as it moved down even further into the weapon.

"Wha..! His cutting into my weapon! At this rate, it will cut my hand!" She shouts mentally before her eyes started to look around." I have to think away out of this and fast before that happens..."

As she mentally panics while Grey's expression had changed from smirk into a serious one. "Of course that sort of fighting style tends to be quite risky since there are times you might get caught in your own attacks at times."

He then closes his eyes before continuing to talk. "As long as I can keep you from using those guns and my sword reach." His expression then turns into a cocky smirk as he loosens the pressure he was applying on Ellie's weapon without realizing it.

This didn't go noticed by his opponent who makes a confused glance towards Shusui for split-second slightly surprised as she now could move her arm slightly.

She then makes grin as she realized that a chance to escape had just presented itself to her. Her legs moved slightly away from each other as she leans towards her right.

She focuses her aura into her weapon area where she before she then makes a quick motion with her hand that holds the weapon causing surprising Grey along with removing the dust cartridge from the weapon sending it flying towards the ground two and a half meters away from them.

"What the.!?" Greys eyes widen from the sudden movement she had made before they moved towards the falling cartridge slightly confused.

On the cartridge, cracks started to appear with different colours glowing from them. His eyes widen even more while Ellie's grin became even wider.

Grey moved Shusui away and took a step back from the cartridge. Soon as the pressure that was being

Soon as the cartridge hits the ground it shatters releasing huge explosion mixed with all sorts of dust ice, fire, wind and electricity.

This time the explosion was strong enough to cause some of the audience to fall from their seats as the stadium shook.

Wind dust from the explosion sends Ellie flying away from it while Grey managest hold his ground instinctively and was engulfed by the following explosion.

Ellie rolls backwards on the ground before stopping on her stomach. "Ou.." She mutters quietly before placing her hands on the ground and pushing herself up.

She shakes her head a few times before looking at her weapon. Cut mark that Shusui left behind was quite deep there were few sparks flying from it. "That's not good..."

She mutters with a troubled look before turning her face towards the towering pillar of smoke left behind the from the explosion. On the air, there are floating shattered ice fragments of different sizes that reflect the sunlight causing the air to sparkle as they fall towards the ground.

At the same time, she places her weapon back to her belt behind her back. "Unbelievable! With the risky move from Ellie, she detonated all the dust she had left in her weapon causing once again an explosion. Even bigger than before!"

As Drakes shouts into the mic while a drop of sweat dripping from his forehead. Ellie looks at the smoke only for second before starting to look around in a hurry searching for something.

Smoke started to disappear as all of the audience is staring at the arena as the tension fills the air due to anticipation that was going to happen next.

Ellie was looking around the arena before her eyes found the weapon she had dropped when Grey had punched her in the gut had also been blown away by the wind caused by the explosion.

She begins to run towards it before Grey recovers from the explosion. At the same time, a circular shadow appears inside the pillar.

"Ellie Bailey has started to run off, away from her opponent. Meanwhile, Grey Alvey has still not shown himself!" Drake announces before his gaze moves towards the monitor that shows the aura levels.

Grey aura had just barely survived the impact even one more hit might be reduced to red. "With her risky manoeuvre, Ellie has taken the lead!"

Smoke had finally calmed down and what was reveal orb made of black smoke. It moves away slightly revealing Grey face and right half of his body. His legs were completely covered.

He lets out a relieved sigh. "That was way too close. If I hadn't managed to use Darkness to absorb the part of the explosion that would have hit me." His eyes then move towards Ellie who is running towards her remaining weapon.

"Grey Alvey seems to have protected himself from the explosion with his mysterious semblance!" Drake announcement makes Grey eyes move towards Drake.

"Semblance huh? I guess there is no wonder they would confuse my devil fruit for that..." Soon as he finished his thought his eyes turn back towards Ellie whos head had moved her head to look towards him for a moment before turning her attention back towards her weapon.

Darkness begins to flow upwards and his body is fully revealed from below it. He had clearly annoyed look in his face. "That girl really like explosions..." He mutters with aggravated tone.

He then points his left hand towards her as it begins to turn bitch black. Ellie had reached to her weapon and as she reaches it, her right hand out o take from the ground.

"Kurozu..." Grey mutters as his palm turns black and darkness started once again swirling from it. Ellie's hand touched her weapon her eyes suddenly widened as she was suddenly pulled towards Grey.

"Wha!?" She had managed to grab her weapon before that happened. Her eyes moved towards the direction she was flying towards. "And once again Grey opponent is once again being pulled towards him!"

Grey pulls Shusui back getting ready for a stabbing motion. Ellie quickly turns back towards her right hand she hurriedly started but her weapon back on her hand.

As Grey thrust Shusui forward Ellie spins her body around points her weapon at him and fires at him with lightning dust bullet. Grey narrows his eyes before sidestepping the bullet to his right as he stops using his darkness releasing Ellie from the pull.

Grey only makes annoyed growl as darkness begins to focus back on his right palm creating a black ball size of baseball before it shrinks even smaller, he then closes his hand as he slices at his opponent with a horizontal slash.

Ellie who had started fall on the towards the ground while moving forward slightly slower than before notices the incoming blade.

She places her legs on the ground uses them to avoid the hit by jumping away from Grey who then takes a step forward with his left leg forwards towards her as he pulls his right fist back and throws a punch at her.

"And there we go again two of them have begun a fast-paced exchange of attacks!" Drake shouts into the mic as Ellie attention is turned towards the incoming fist aimed at her face.

She makes eep sound before quickly moving her body back avoiding the punch. The sudden movement of her lost her balance even further as she waved her hand around trying to regain her balance.

Grey looks at her before opening his right hand and before stopping his movement and then jumping backwards away from her just as he swung his now open palm towards the ground beneath her feet and then quickly jumping away from her.

He jumped two more steps away before stopping a few meters away from the edge of the arena. He then straightens himself before relaxing his stance in order to catch his breath.

Ellie manages to catch her balance throwing herself back up before pointing her weapon back at Grey and fires another shot which Grey simply avoids it by stepping aside.

Ellie breathing is also laboured both of them stare at each other before Grey closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before placing his right hand to Shusui scabbard and then re-sheathing his blade.

"I have to admit... I didn't expect you to hold out this long..." He says with a serious tone before moving his left hand away from Shusuis hilt.

She lets out small laughter. "Well... I'm glad I could break your expectations." Grey raises his right hand." Yeah, you broke my expectations alright. I never tough I hand you this against you..."

As he talks his eyes move to look at the darkness that was flowing from it. His eyes then move to look back at her before they narrow. "Unfortunately I'm going to end this match here."

He states with a confident and slightly irritated tone. "Well, how about you come and get me!" She retorts with a grin on her face.

Grey only closes his eyes turns his head down. "There is no need for me to get any closer..." This statement caused Ellie to raise her eyebrow and tilting her head confused. "Huh?"

He then opens his eyes looks at her. "You are already caught on my attack I left earlier during our little exchange earlier." He said as his gaze moved towards the bottom of her right leg.

She looks at him for a minute before her gaze slowly moves to look at direction he was looking at and her eyes widen shock. "Wha... What is this.?!" She shouts in shock as her right foot was standing on a ball of darkness size of a football.

She starts trying to move her leg but no matter how hard she struggles she couldn't make her leg move. "Don't bother. Once you stepped your foot in it you lost all chance you had of getting away from it..."Grey says with a monotone voice.

"What is going on here! Ellie Bailey seems to have stopped moving completely! It seems like her left foot has gotten stuck on something!" Drake announces as tension increases around the arena.

She only looks at the darkness with a worried look before pointing it with his gun. "In that case!" Greys eyes widen as he moves a left hand towards it. "Oy... Don't make your situation any worse." He gives her a warning.

Ignoring his warning and firest at the ball and for her shock soon as it makes contact with darkness nothing happens as lightning dust bullet completely vanishes into it.

"Huh?!" She mutters as her eyes widen in shock as she begins to sweat and fires three more rounds only to the same thing happen. "What's going on?!" She then turns towards Grey.

"What is this?!" Shouts her question at him. Grey only stares at her before moving his left hand on his waist. "Since you are pretty much stuck there I should probably explain what is about to happen and why trying to shoot that is a really bad idea for you..."

He then points it with his right hand. "To put it simply that's what you are standing on is a quite simply a ball of gravity..." Soon as he said that Ellie's face was filled with confusion.

"You should be able to feel a certain amount of pressure on your leg don't you?" He asks as his hand moves back to his side and closes his right eye. After asking that her attention is moved back towards the orb.

"Now that he mentions it...It does feel like my foot is being held down from all of the sides by some sort of force..." She thinks to herself before turning to look back at Grey.

Grey lowers his head slightly. "Let me but this simply so I don't need to go too much detail. Currently, you are locked in place and everything you throw at it no matter what it is it will be dragged in it and are held in place. Just like those dust bullet you fired just now."

"This bit of information shocked her quite a bit. "Wha..?" before she could say anything else Grey continued his explanation. "Of course those bullets and your leg aren't only things that are being held in there right now."

His eyes then narrow. "Earlier when I was caught in the explosion. I prevented taking damage by using to absorb part of the explosion that would have caused me harm."

It took a few seconds for Ellie to realise what he was implying and her gaze moves towards the orb. "Don't tell me..." She mutters with a worried tone

Her reaction caused Grey to make a small smirk. "It seems you realised what I'm saying." He then turns back to serious before raising his right hand ready for it to snap his fingers.

"With a single snap of my fingers I can release that compressed explosion and you who is standing on it can't escape it. It's Checkmate." The only thing she could do to in response was making a nervous sound.

His eyes then turn towards a monitor that shows their aura levels. Both of theirs where almost at red. Ellie who had once again trying to get her feet out of the dark orb.

She then realises that his attention was distracted and at that moment she decided to take one more shot at victory. She pointed her gun at him and fired.

However without moving his gaze Grey steps to the left and avoiding the bullet his eyes then glared at her as he raised his left hand and snapped his fingers.

Ellie's eyes widen as they then move to look at the orb as its stars to erupt she despite her leg was free also she could only stare at it as she was caught in an explosion that was smaller than previous one.

She was pushed back and rolling on the ground as her aura levels go to zero. Those who were watching could only stare in shock and even Drake was left speechless.

Ellie is now laying on her back she opens her right eye. "He really is strong..." She mutters quietly before losing consciousness.

Drake finally seems to regain his voice as his eyes moved towards aura level monitor and then back to the field. "And that's it, folks! At last, the end result has been reached after a sudden explosion Ellie Baileys Aura has been depleted and henceforth leaving Grey Alvey the victor of the first semi-finals match!"

The crowd begins to cheer as heavy breathing Grey looked as Three tournament officials went to Ellie with stretcher placing her on top of it.

Soon as they start to run towards arena infirmary Grey took a deep breath before he started walking back to other contestants.

Back with Pyrrha who was looking at the match and had a gentle smile on her face. "That was a great battle you two." She tough in her mind and started to walk towards the stairs that Grey was currently headed towards.

Soon as she turned around her eyes widen as Tobaz is standing right in front of her. He was looking at her observing her carefully and both of his hand are crossed in front of his chest.

There was a minute of silence between the two before Pyrrha broke it. "Can I help you with anything?" She asks with a polite tone.

Tobaz only closed his for a moment. "Nothing much I simply have few things to say to you before our match begins." Pyrrha gains a serious look as she focuses on listening to what he has to say.

"I originally took part in this tournament solely to have a match against Grey." he then opens his eyes and looks at her. "But after seeing you in those previous fight you have been shown great skill and potential."

He then walks next to her. "That's why I will tell you this before the fight beginsI'm not going to hold anything back so you better not hold back either and disappoint me."

Pyrrha only lowers her head a little with changing her expression. "I see... I will be sure to keep that in mind..." Tobaz only smirks before starting to walk away.

To Be Continued