It felt weird coming back to one of his old training grounds.
The forest hadn't changed much since Izuku had last been here, the trees were still the same old immobile greenery they had always been, the small ravine still had the same river, and the broken pieces of logs he had broken so long ago was still lying in it, though now they were rotten and waterlogged.
No, the main thing that had changed was Izuku. Or rather, the fact that he now wasn't alone.
During his training, he had learned to associate the forests with quiet and isolation. Sure, Venom had been with him the entire time, but back then, he hadn't talked at all, and Izuku had for the most part just been talking to himself as he tried to communicate.
Now though, he knew for a fact that no matter what happened, he would never be alone again.
That was both refreshing, and kinda disturbing in a way that Izuku hadn't truly considered before.
Today though, they weren't here to simply jump and run around. They were here too, as Venom put it "Learn the art of war.".
After having made certain no other humans were anywhere near them, it was time to begin.
"So, the first thing you need to know is a bit about Klyntar Biology. Namely how it changes as we go through our life cycle."
"You… You mentioned something about that when you were talking with my mom."
"Indeed. We Klyntar are not like lifeforms based around evolution. We do not age and die from old age. Nor do we die from the lack of nutrition."
"If one were to… Say… Imprison one on a moon in the middle of nowhere space for completely unjustified reasons, and leave that poor guy there for millions and millions of years, said Klyntar would never actually die from hunger or old age. There would always be a chance that it would get free, and could recover completely. "
Izuku very much doubted that whatever it had been that got Venom imprisoned on the moon had been truly unjust. The fact that he had utterly refused to tell him anything about what it was, kinda sold him on that. But he didn't pry either. It was obviously a very sore topic for him, for very obvious reasons.
"However, while we do not age, or die from malnutrition, we do have a life cycle before we reach our mature state. We begin our life after spawning as a relatively weak being, not too dissimilar to how we were when the two of us first bonded, just with a much more active mind."
"After having bonded to our first host for some time, and having absorbed enough energy, we move on to our… Let's call it the Klyntar equivalent of a teenager. Always running around and causing massive problems for the older generations."
There was incredible disgust in his voice as he talked about them like they were the bane of everything good in the world.
"Anyway, their way of acting isn't important here. You're never gonna meet a Klyntar at this stage of their life. What is important, is how they differ from the next stage of development, the adult one."
"At this stage, the Klyntar ability to bond fully to a host isn't nearly as strong and defined as it is for us adults, which also means that they are far less rigid. In other words, their actual strength is Farber below ours, but at the same time they can do things we cannot."
"For example, a younger Klyntar can easily create and crystallize a sharp edge from their mass and hold it without any problem. Thus in battle, they tend to favor stabbing and cutting, while we use power-based attacks."
The image of him forming a giant black katana and cleaving through steel formed inside of Izuku's mind. Then he frowned.
"Wait… Didn't you say that this Ultimate technique of yours was called the scythe? How can that be when we can't form a sharp blade?"
"We'll get to that. Just show some damned patience."
"Anyway, this is not the only thing that separates us from juveniles. They also have a much faster time healing injuries to their host, but also Juveniles aren't able to form teeth. Instead, when they form their head, they instead crystallize jagged pieces of their being into a vague proximation of a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth."
"Okay… That sounds… Even more terrifying than your teeth, but what about it?"
"Well, without teeth, they obviously can't form poison inside their non-existent teeth. Originally we thought that was the only thing that their lack of teeth affected. Well, that and not being able to form additional mouths other places on their host body."
Izuku just sat in silence for a moment, staring in shock before he spoke again.
"Why… Why would anyone ever want to do that? That's horrifying!"
"Oh, don't get your pants in a twist. It's just additional mouths on top of the black suit, not another set from your actual skin."
Izuku relaxed again, the image of body horror of fangled mouths sprouting from his skin leaving his mind.
"As for why, it's pretty good to have if you suddenly get your mouth blocked, and you still need to keep talking."
"But back to the scythe. Long, long ago, there was a Klyntar who thought that our ability to form large, white fangs could be used for other things than simply injecting our enemy with poison."
Down below Izuku's hand, black liquid formed into a long sleek rope of black, then at the end of that rope formed something else, the black taking the form of a long, sleek handle. Then, from the black formed something white, something far more solid than the black mass around it. A long, narrow white tooth, in the form of a scythe blade.
"Thus Luxyrr created this." Venom said with a proud tone in his voice. "The scythe. Sure, it might not have the razor edge of the younger bastards, but when we swing this around with the kind of force we pack in our attacks… Well… Try for yourself."
Izuku stared at the long narrow white blade.
Then, he tried it out, and with a bit of movement, he realized that the whole thing worked kinda like a whip, extended from his arm, just with a sharp tip. Basically, the weapon was like a morning star.
As the weapon flew through the air, Izuku realized that the tip didn't move at random, instead the blade would always turn so that the curved tooth would always point towards where he was swinging it. An advantage of having a weapon that was just another part of him.
He looked around the clearing he was standing in and decided on a massive, thick old tree roughly 9 meters away from him.
Putting his back into it, he made a sideways sweep into the tree with the intention of putting a hole in it.
Instead, the scythe-like weapon slammed into the center of the tree, and with a resounding sound of splintering, it punched into the tree, then just kept going, ripping out the part of the tree that kept it from going.
The end result was that it looked like some big beast had taken a huge bite out of the wood, and with a huge part of the middle of the tree gone, everything above the whole was brought down by gravity.
Izuku stared in shock.
This… was a bit more destructive than he had thought.
"Beautiful isn't it? It's a technique for punching into stone and steel at a range, channeling all of our enormous strength into one breaking point! It's basically like a pickaxe! Sure, it doesn't have an edge, but when using our enormous strength, that doesn't matter! It'll rip the target apart through sheer force!"
He was right. Izuku knew enough about physics to understand the concept of this attack, and the fact he hadn't even put his full strength behind it and still caused such destruction spoke leagues about how dangerous it was.
There was just one single problem.
"Venom… I can't use this in the tournament. At all. If… If I use this against people, they'll die."
"Oh, in the finals? Oh yeah, you can't use this thing in a non-lethal tournament. This is a technique for war. Still, it never hurts to be prepared."
He wasn't wrong, but…
"Do you have any other techniques we can actually use for this battle?"
"Well, we were also planning on figuring out exactly what kind of fighting style best mixes with humans and the powers of a Klyntar."
"Couldn't you… I don't know… Teach me some Alien martial arts?"
Venom actually cackled in laughter.
"Alien martial arts! HAH! Izuku, do you know how many sentient races across the cosmos who has a body structure like humans do?"
He blinked.
"Um… Some… A lot? Most?"
"The answer is bloody few. While yes, two legs, two feet, one head, and no tail is common enough amongst the species of the universe, that is where your similarity to most ends."
"The common body structure of most races who walk on two legs is a hunched over posture, more similar to apes than it is to human beings."
"In fact, the last time we saw a race with a straight spine was a bunch of 3 meter tall lizard-like people with sharp point bits on their arms, head's and legs. And those fucking morons didn't even have the basic concept of warfare in their skull. They were too stupid to wage war at all."
"Okay, but… what does that have to do with martial arts?"
"Everything. It has everything to do with martial arts. Different races across the cosmos have invented countless martial arts, each of them based on their own body structure, mental way of thinking, and natural limits. Just like humans have."
"Let's take the stupid lizards as an example. Let's say they actually invented a martial art. Do you think a race with sharp point bits all over and a tail, would ever invent a martial art that could be used by human beings?"
When he said it like that, it sounded pretty silly.
"Probably not" He admitted.
"Exactly. You, humans, have this insane idea that most aliens are like yourselves. It is a common trait amongst species that has never gone through first contact. It is also completely wrong. There are no Alien species that are built exactly like your kind."
"Point is, that we will have to figure out how to best use your natural build alongside our powers. You seem to have settled nicely into a fighting style relying on jumping around while using our web to pull yourself around. That is not a bad way to fight, but if that is the only way you know how to wage a battle… Well, you remember what happened with Rhino right?"
He did. He did not fancy being cooked alive by steam again.
" Yeah… I remember."
"Let that be a lesson from burned fingers then. Speaking of alternate ways to fight… We don't suppose we are allowed to use any technological inventions of our to fight?"
Izuku went cold.
"Not unless we are in the tech department no. Those in the Heroic department don't even get to use their own tailor-made costumes."
Izuku had initially been interested when Venom had told him that he knew how to create many inventions far beyond anything humanity had ever known. Sure, Venom wasn't a scientist, but that didn't matter as much when he had a photographic memory and had lived a long, long life alongside those machines.
He had actually detailed several blueprints for these things. Then, two hours later, he had ripped the pages with them out of the black book, and thrown them in the toilet. After having ripped them to shreds.
The world was much, much better off without the things Venom knew how to make.
"Pity. This would be so much easier if we could just erase all oxygen in the stadium."
Case in point. The oxygen destroyer, that did exactly what the name implied. A small baseball-sized sphere that obliterated breathable air around it. Izuku shuddered at the thought of what would happen if that kind of thing ended up in the hand of criminals.
"Somehow, we'll just have to do without that."
I
The boulder shattered with a massive "CRASH!", as she put her foot into the kick.
She panted, completely drenched in sweat.
The whole area around her was completely destroyed, with uprooted trees, shattered pieces of stone that had been massive boulders, and with pieces of the earth having been split, so that it looked like it had been cut from above by a giant sword.
Which wasn't that far from what had actually happened.
Uraraka staggered towards a relatively large rock that had been a boulder taller than she was just a few hours ago, and plopped down on it, completely drained. Her hands in particular were shaking like a small boat in a storm.
30%. That was how much she could use now. She should feel ecstatic about that. But despite her amazing leap in power over the months, there was another side of that coin, namely that she still had 70% left to go. She wasn't even at the halfway point yet.
I Am Here.
All Might's words echoed in her head.
She had to show the world she was here, that she was ready. She had to win this tournament. She had to. She had willingly signed up for this position, and she would damn well do what she could to live up to it.
She should have felt confident. She had mastered her powers now. She had even developed a technique of her own, and the days of wrecking her hands were completely behind her. But the fact of the matter was that she didn't feel confident.
There was a huge Boulder in her way. One that was small, and black, and cute with green hair and adorable freckles.
Izuku Midoriya had stood out from the rest from the day he had first stepped foot on Yuei.
He'd saved her life during the entrance exams. Then he had done the best of the entire class during Aizawa's test. Then during Toshinari-san's exercise, he had matched her blow for blow and then defeated her on top of it.
Then, during the invasion, he had defeated Rhino, a villain she wasn't familiar with, but apparently, he was some big shot guy from America.
Either way, he was a villain. A real one, unlike the weak guys she had defeated alongside Tsuyu-Chan.
The fact of the matter was that if she had to pick someone she thought would win, it would be Izuku.
Which would have been perfectly fine if she had just been a spectator. But she wasn't, she was a participant. And if she wanted to win, she had to defeat Izuku Midoriya.
She had to beat Todoroki Shouto, Mina Hardy-Ashido, Katsuki-Bakugou, and the entire rest of the class as well. All 3 were powerhouses that could not be taken lightly.
But it was the thought of fighting Izuku that drove her right now. He was the goal she had to surpass if she wanted to triumph in the tournament.
That would have been hard enough on it's own, to just surpass him. The fact of the matter was that she didn't want to fight Izuku. She LIKED Izuku. He was a great friend, and frankly, she didn't want to think about the reaction he would have if she did win against him.
Would he be crushed? Sad? Not want to be her friend anymore?
She had made a point to dig around regarding the tournament, and she had learned that Yuei's sports festival had a nasty tendency to break friendships. Especially the first one, where students generally weren't as close as they were after a year together.
The thoughts of any of her new friends breaking off their friendship with her over being defeated by her was terrifying. She didn't think any of them would, but thinking and knowing were very different things.
To her side, she heard footsteps and as she turned her head, a towel was offered to her. She took it and began wiping her head.
"You're kinda terrifying Ochako." Tsuyu said in her general blunt manner.
She saw the area around her and the sheer destruction she had caused by going all out.
Yeah… She probably was.
"I don't think Izuku would think so though."
She winced. But it was the truth.
"Probably not. Anyway, you done with training too Tsuyu?"
"No. But we can go to my home anyway. I'm sure you want to clean up. And eat with us too. "
Her mouth watered at the thought. God, she had missed real, home-cooked food. It wasn't that she had starved during her muscle training, but she had exclusively consumed only bland, Uber healthy food and drink during that training, and it had lost all flavor for her as the months of training had gone on.
It had been amazingly good to taste real glorious food again!
As the two went to go pick up Uraraka's bag, they passed the lake Tsuyu used had used for her training over the passing days.
The frog girl had originally been using a public lake in Mustafa, but after being knocked out on separate occasions by both Kaminari and Jirou(Both of whom had though using their powers to knock out the local fishies had been a good training exercise for control) that had lost a lot of appeal.
Thankfully for her, Tsuyu had brought the topic up, and since there was a lake on her training grounds, she had offered to let Tsuyu come along to use it.
The grounds they were on was a relatively large piece of land owned by Toshinori-San, and he had effectively let her use it for training as she saw fit.
It was amazing that he just owned this huge piece of land, that he'd bought along with some property he had apparently never used.
Frankly, him just letting her use it was also another lesson in how she wanted to live her life as a hero. She wanted to help people, but to help people on a truly massive scale, you needed money to be able to be generous with more than just a token speech.
Money made the world go round, and if you wanted to actually do something good on a large scale, you had to have money to burn.
I
For those wondering where the hell the scythe originated, it's based on a move from the Spiderman game Web of Shadows.