Mei worked with a speed she hadn't had in years, replacing every single broken and busted component of Flo with a level of precision and certainty that could only have been attained through countless hours of tinkering and building.
The speed at which she worked was something she had only experienced once before in her life. A mad mix of brilliance, insanity, and diligence that had come over her not long after she was first told she had maybe 3-4 years left to live.
She had been utterly desperate back then. Desperate to make some kind of mark on the world before she died. Terrified that she would become nothing more than a footnote in history, not worth being remembered by anyone.
That had been a fruitful period, full of innovations, and discoveries. But it had also been the foolish madness of a child, who had jumped from invention to invention, without fine-tuning every single one to perfection.
She had created a lot of babies she was proud of back then, but she had come a long way in 2 years.
For one, she had been forced to realize that she needed to focus her efforts if she was to achieve her goals. The feverish madness had passed and given way to a more… Methodical direction.
Today, however… That mad brilliance began to sneak back in through the cracks.
He had awoken something in her that she hadn't truly felt in years. Pure, seething hate.
She had never stopped hating him, not for one second through the many years since he had come into her life and obliterated everything. But actually seeing him again… was something else.
She wanted him to Hurt. Hurt as much as she did all the time, anytime she wasn't on painkillers. She wanted him to Suffer. She wanted to strip him of any chance of achieving his dreams and becoming the Victor of this tournament. She wanted him to Scream as he broke, before the eyes of all the world.
Everything had become secondary compared to that, one singular goal.
And she had the perfect weapon for achieving that beautiful goal.
She had Eren.
She would beat him black and blue to maximize the effects, then she would destroy him.
I
Black Cat had been right in a way. The actual fight between Kirishima and Uraraka was very short, not even lasting a minute before Uraraka ended it.
Actually cleaning up the mess left behind by the previous match, however, took a whooping 15 minutes.
That had given him a lot of extra time to think. However, rather than being able to focus on the match, he had instead spent the entire time worrying about Mina.
He had been so worried in fact, that he pretty much had been unable to focus on said match before Kirishima finally went out to fight, then lost in quick succession.
Venom finally reemerged as he finally walked out of the preparation room.
"Time to finally put that bitch down Eh, Izuku?"
He didn't answer. Right now he honestly didn't care that much about the upcoming match. He was way too worried about Mina.
His one attempt to sense her emotions hadn't helped with his worry, given the girl was intensely filled with nausea and pain.
And so, it was as he honestly didn't care much about the match he was walking into, that he walked out into the sunlight once more.
This time to face Someone who hated him more than anything.
As he stepped up unto the arena, Hatsune Mei stepped up at the opposite end of the arena, still wearing that same, eternal smile.
For a moment, they just stood there in silence, looking at each other.
Izuku with nervousness, and the fact he wasn't fully invested in this fight, despite his previous proclamations that if you stepped up into this arena, you should give it your all.
Mei, with a look of true madness in her eyes, hidden by a set of thick Goggles and a fake, eerie smile. Around her hands, she wore the lightning gauntlets, and in her right hand, she held her unlit sword. Up and around her body, her big, tentacle-like arms moved, like snapping snake's, just waiting for the battle to start. If one hadn't seen the previous bout, one would be forgiven for not knowing that
And fastened to her belt on the back, was a small, metal sphere, it's surface covered with lines, and a black, circular button.
Midnight, unlike most of the other fights, did not look eager to see this match start. Her eyes went from Izuku to Mei, and back again.
"So, just so you kids know, if this begins to turn into a bloodbath like the last one, we're ending it early. Just thought I'd let you know that now."
"That's fine." Mei said In a lackadaisical tone. "Midori is pretty durable. Why, you could try and cave his head in with a wrench, and it wouldn't even crack his skull. Maybe give him a horrible, painful concussion sure, but he'd walk it off. As for me, I once walked off being hit by a speeding minivan."
"... You're kinda creepy kid, anyone ever tell you that?"
"263 people so far that I know."
"We cannot imagine why that would be."
Mei didn't answer, instead fixing her hidden eyes at Izuku's, as Present Mic began his pre-battle speech.
"AND NOW, FOR A MATCH BETWEEN THESE TWO, THAT HAS INTRIGUED MOST PEOPLE TODAY AS THEY HAVE CLASHED AND ALLIED UPON THE FIELD TO REACH THIS SUMMIT OF CHAMPIONS!"
"IN ONE CORNER, WE HAVE IZUKU MIDORIYA, THE SPIDERMAN OF 1-A! FRESH OFF HIS VICTORY OVER THE BOY MOST PEOPLE PEGGED AS THE FAVORITE TO BE VICTOR OF THIS YEAR'S TOURNAMENT!"
"AND IN THE OTHER CORNER, WE HAVE HATSUNE MEI, AN UNLIKELY RISING STAR WHO SMASHED WAY UNTO THE SCENE, AND CRUSHED THE HOPES OF ALL THOSE WHO HAS OPPOSED HER TODAY, NOW STANDING READY TO UNLEASH HER MECHANICAL TENDRILS AGAINST THE BOY SHE SO DETESTS! WHO WILL BE VICTORIOUS FOR THIS BATTLE! WHO WILL WIN, AND GO ON TO REACH THE FINAL BOUT! WHICH RIVAL SHALL CONQUER?!"
"3!"
"2!"
"1!"
"GO!"
The moment the g from the word go reached their ears, both contestants began their opening gambit.
Izuku was much, much faster, and with way better reaction time though, so even as Mei brought up her hand to blast him with lighting, Izuku slammed both his hands down into the ground and ripped out chunks of cement the size of grapefruit.
One chunk of that cement was immediately sent flying, straight into the path of the lightning bolt, slamming into it, and taking the entire thing, making the substance explode into chunks.
Izuku had hoped that it would slam into the gauntlet and break it, but he took the opportunity the cement chunk had granted him to make a leap towards Mei to cut their distance short.
Mei, clearly expecting this, brought her tentacles forth, and Izuku barely avoided being grabbed by them, as he slammed into her.
His left hand shot up and closed around the lightsaber, and with a "Crunch" he broke it in his fist. One horrible device down.
His right hand shot out to-
"CRACK!"
Searing hot pain shot through both Izuku's entire body, as well as the black skin that was Venom.
Izuku screamed in pain, and Venom screamed inside his head.
Instinctually, he lashed out, and with his right hand, he brained Mei across the head with the piece of artificial rock, so hard the chunk splintered to pieces upon the impact.
A metal arm shot down and closed around his midsection, then, harshly, threw him across the arena.
For a second, Izuku just lay there, then he forced himself back up, and got into a fighting position.
Over on the other side, Mei was also getting back in her feet, her head having a small, bleeding cut where Izuku had slammed a rock into it.
-Break the gauntlets, NOW!-
Izuku didn't need to be told that, having felt their bite himself just now.
Once more he took the offensive, a webline slamming into Mei's harness, and a mighty pull sending her through the air, in Izuku's direction.
Halfway there, however, one of the arms snapped out a knife, and cut straight through the web, while another slammed into the ground ahead of her.
The other two arms, however, shot forward straight at Izuku, who just barely managed to avoid them by moving sideways.
As the tentacles followed, Izuku danced around them, and once more, he launched himself straight at Mei.
He landed straight in front of her, and this time, both the gauntlets were immediately leveled at him.
He dodged backwards, not by jumping, but instead slamming his upper body backwards, and bending his knees, while keeping them firmly attached to the ground, making him look like the world's best contour artist with how flexible he was.
His hands slammed up and around the gauntlets, and just like he had with the lightsaber, he broke them apart with nothing more than a super-powered grip.
This time though, he had done so with metal gauntlets that had massive amounts of electricity running through them. A very, very bad idea.
He and Mei both screamed as red lightning slammed into and through their bodies.
Around her, the arms immediately went silent and crashed to the ground.
After about 10 seconds of burning seething pain, however, a click was heard from the belt, and the lightning was cut off.
Mei had fallen on top of Izuku as she screamed, and for a second they just lay there panting in pain.
The black suit, that had pulsed and bubbled, and broken apart under the lightning, reknit itself over Izuku's skin once more, and a black hand shot up and around Mei's throat.
"Seems… Your arms aren't built to handle lightning. You should really look into that."
Mei's hands shot up, trying to break apart Izuku's grip, but as she herself had said, she did not possess superhuman strength, so that was a fruitless errand.
"I… Did… Re… Re…boot… 4."
The arms, which were programmed to immediately cut off from the harness at the first sign of foreign electricity, immediately came to Life once more.
"Oh" was all Izuku got out before two arms snapped around him with titanic force.
Then, he was ripped up from the ground into the air, and as Mei was lifted up from the ground by the other two tentacles, he was SLAMMED down into the ground with such force, that he made a crater with his own body.
The blow knocked all the wind out of him, but it wasn't the end.
Instead, he was hoisted into the air again, and his body made another human-shaped crater into the ground.
The tentacles tried to wrench him up again for a third time, but this time he was saved by Venom. The black suit detached from the body at the spots where the tentacles had closed around and the back of his body was kept firmly on the ground.
Thus the arms ripped themselves up while sliding off from Izuku's body, leaving the teenager still in the crater, from which he barely managed to wrench himself out off and move to the side before a tentacle slammed straight down on where his head had just been.
As he put distance between himself and Mei, Izuku groaned, his body really hurting, first from the electrical energy that had burned through it, then by being pummeled into the ground.
Mei for her part seemed similarly beaten up.
She had seemingly shaken off the head blow from earlier, but she had handled the electrical currents way worse than he had, judging by the shaking of her body.
The fact she used the tentacles to keep herself off the ground was a pretty telltale of that.
"Clever. I should have seen that as a way you could escape my metal grasp."
Her face, still keeping that damned smile, twisted again.
"It won't work next time though. I didn't want to risk breaking the claws of my babies hands by slamming them directly into the ground beneath you. This time, I'll crush the grip completely around you."
"Won't that break them?"
"Not if I just pummel you with the other ones instead, no."
Mei prepared herself to launch at him again. Then, with impressive speed, she did just that.
One more Izuku sent a line at her.
But not to wrench her out of the air.
Instead, the line slammed into her Google, coating the glass completely.
Mei's movement immediately suffered, and rather than landing smoothly, one of the arms she was using to land instead went into the ground at an awards angle, making her stumble.
Right into Izuku's fist.
Izuku took her straight in the jaw with an uppercut. But because she was locked to the ground by her own mechanical arms, she wasn't sent flying, but instead, she was lifted off the ground by the punch, then remained there, right in front of Izuku.
The next punch hit her in the left ribs, making a knuckle shaped dent in the metal, as Izuku could feel the impact of the force he had used. And if he couldn't, the spit Mei harked up above him, certainly illustrated the point.
Izuku did land a second liver blow at her, but this time, he managed to really make the punch hit, as he was sent flying by a metal arm slamming into him sideways.
This time though, he didn't land skidding unto the stone, instead rolling around the ground, then stopping into a hunched over position, and then bouncing back unto his feet.
Mei by comparison was hunched over in pain. One arm's claws closed around the gauntlet, and ripped it off, and threw it to the side.
Mei gasped in pain, then with a start, she moved up, her arms slamming into the ground, moving her to face Izuku.
Izuku, who had been fully prepared, flinched at her expression.
The fake, playful smile was gone, leaving something feral, and primal in it's place. Mei's eyes were wild, her pupils had changed, the circle around her pupils having shrunken so much, that now it looked like a perfect, small circle around the tiny dots that were her eyes centers.
And they burned. Burned with hatred, with a loathing that Izuku would have been pretty sure he could actually, physically feel.
As she stood there, her feet barely touching the ground, and just panting from the pain, Izuku was overwhelmed by the feeling of complete, and total hate, that this girl had towards him.
He had asked before, but the question just came out of his lips again without him being able to stop the words.
"Why…? Why do you hate me so much?"
"Because… You took everything from me… You… Pathetic... four-limbed excuse for a Spider!"
Then with massive speed, 3 of the arms ripped themselves up from the ground, and just Izuku had started the match, they threw cement pieces straight at Izuku with such speed, that when he failed to dodge one of them and it hit him in the arm, the piece tuned to a dust cloud as the hit snapped Izuku around in a circle.
He cried in pain, but he forced himself back to face Mei… then he began running to the side as piece after piece of concrete flew through the air, all aiming straight at him.
Mei had taken his opening gambit, and improved upon it, as piece after piece flew as the arms ripped, and then threw them with amazing speed.
It was a testimony of his reflexes and agility that he managed to dodge them.
Finally, though, another line of black shot out.
This time, however, an arm shot up and took the webline instead of it hitting Mei between the eyes.
Then Izuku was wretched off his feet and sent flying straight at Mei.
Was almost hit by one of the arms, but he kicked it with enormous force, such that it was sent flying, the metal dented.
Unfortunately for him, two other arms buried themselves into his sides with force, slamming all the air out of him.
Then, the third he had sent flying hit him strain in the face.
He flew down and sideways, and this time he did indeed skid across the ground, only Venom's grip on the ground preventing him from going out of bounds.
He forced himself to his feet, both his lungs burning.
-Two ribs cracked on the left, 1 on the other side-
Izuku winced as the pain really began to set in. It wasn't anything compared to the pain he'd experienced when Rhino caved in his ribs, but damn it was bad.
He felt like both his lungs were in a fire, on top of a ringing in his ears from that last blow.
On the other side of the arena, Mei was making her way towards him, though this time she went slowly obviously not wanting to put herself into the air again.
Izuku could feel blood on his lips. That could not be a good thing.
For a moment, panic began to set in. Then the adrenaline really began to flow.
The pain began to fade, though not go away completely.
His mind began to kick into overdrive, as Mei continued towards him.
He considered his options, what to do now.
Then, he decided that it was time.
A black line formed from His hand, then, with all his might, he brought it back, then forward like a whip.
One of Mei's arms immediately went to catch it.
Then, in a burst of whining machinery, a white scythe-like blade, punched straight through it.
Mei halted immediately. Then her other arms shot up to disentangle the scythe-like tooth sticking into the busted arm, only for it to disintegrate into nothing.
As Izuku brought his second shy the forward, Mei did not catch it, instead, she forced her arms out of the way, and backed away from him.
Then he brought out a second whip, and with a snap, it also went forward, this time biting at the end of arms, though she barely managed to wrench it out of the way in time.
And so a dance began, as Izuku brought his whips and scythe forward, Mei dance back, to the sides, up and down, battered away the scythe heads, all while constantly trying to move forward and reach him.
Then, finally, he caught her.
One of the still-functioning arms suddenly was impaled with a tooth.
This time, however, rather than let it disintegrate, he wrenched Mei off her feet and straight towards him.
His fist connected HARD straight into her face, and he could feel her nose crunch beneath it.
Then she was flying.
Like Izuku she almost did go straight over the edge, only to be saved, as her arms dug into the ground.
This time, however, Izuku charged, planning to kick her straight out.
Mei was helpless, two arms busted, one holding her locked to the ground, while the other- Izuku stopped immediately, then was in the motions to jump back, as a metal ball sailed through the air straight at him.
Then, as it was still 2 meters away from him, a flash of red.
And he was dead! He had died and gone straight to HELL!
It was PAIN beyond imagination! Beyond anything, the human body and mind was ever meant to comprehend!
His skin was flayed off of his body, and he had been thrown into fire! Hooks dug into every single part of him, and PULLED every sinew apart!
His lungs were dissected, and every single bone in them was wrenched out with plyers!
He screamed, screamed, screamed! Venom screamed too, a horrible, pitying sound in the back of his head, echoing through his brain!
His eyes were wide open and his eyeballs burst apart!
His mind was opened up by the hooks, and daggers were shoved straight into-
The pain ceased.
It took Izuku a moment before his mind comprehended that blessedly the pain was gone.
He was lying on his side in the middle of the arena, a pool of whimpering black liquid pooled around him, giving him the appearance of lying in a pool of black liquid.
At that moment, he didn't want to do anything, other than just lie there, and take in that the pain was mercifully gone.
His body was so, so weak. He just wanted to-
A metal claw snapped around his neck, then wrenched him to his feet, until he was once more face to face with Hatsume Mei. Now the feral face was gone, having settled back to her usual smile. But they eyes… They were still the same.
"How do you like Eren Midori? I got the idea from Darkseid's agony matrix. It directly stimulates every pain receptor in the target's body. All of them at once, times a thousand. I made it JUST for you, on the off chance I one day ran into yo-"
Izuku stomped his right foot into Mei's left side, with as much force as he possibly could muster without a foothold with the other to anchor himself.
Mei immediately dropped Izuku, then fell to her side, her arms floundering.
For a second stood there, having fallen right on his feet. Then the RAGE took him.
He raised his foot, the STOMPED it straight down into the side Mei was cradling. She immediately went completely limp.
But he wasn't done there. He bent down and grabbed the metal harness with such force that the metal bent under his fingers. Then, he threw Mei right out of the Arena with such force that she slammed into the wall of the arena, then fell to the ground unconscious.
At that moment, as he looked at Mei's unconscious body. Izuku felt a level of satisfaction that dwarfed ANY other he had ever felt in his life.
Then the adrenaline high faded, leaving only pain. Venom, finally managed to push himself together again, and the two of them managed to walk, shaking and quivering all the way out of the arena, and on their way to the infirmary.
