Symbiosis
Tatsumi continued to trek through the forest as he followed the map to the Capital, the grand jewel of them nation. He needed to get their soon so he can join the military and earn as much money to help his village. He was pretty skilled with a sword, so there was little doubt they'll acknowledge his skills and give him a major bonus, maybe even promote him to captain.
"Sayo, Ieyasu, hope you guys are doing alright." Tatsumi said to himself, thinking about his friends that accompanied him, but got separated from him. "Oh well, I'm sure we'll meet up at the Capital sooner or later."
Tatsumi paused when he heard his stomach groaning and held hit in discomfort. "Guess I need to find something to eat really quick."
Figuring he needed to restock his food supply, Tatsumi looked around and spotted a bush full of berries. After making sure they weren't poisonous, he picked a few branches, but knew that berries alone weren't going to be enough. He'll need to set up a trap and hopefully he'll catch some game, hopefully a deer with lots of meet. If he had Sayo with him, she could easily hit a deer a mile away if she wanted to.
"Maybe I should have taken archery with Sayo." Tatsumi said with a sigh, thinking that a bow and arrow would really come in handy right about now. He finished setting up a trap, while also placing a pile of some the berries he's gathered as bait, and hid behind a bush some meters away, waiting for something to show up. "Now, comes the really boring part."
And so it was, as Tatsumi waited patiently for something, anything, to come up and get ensnared in his trap. He even passed the time by having a couple of berries, but he had to be really quiet, or else he'd scare any potential animal away. He honestly would take any animal, with how hungry he felt right now, even if it was a small rabbit.
"Come on, give me something." Tatsumi grumbled, while eating another berry.
However, his head perked up when he heard the wailing of an animal. He lifted his head slightly above the bush and noticed a single deer limping its way towards his trap, but it paused in its stride as it stared at the berries layer up on the ground.
"Come on...just a little closer." Tatsumi whispered as he waited for the deer to take another step. Though he froze when he noticed the deer lift its head up and appeared to stare directly at him. Tatsumi remained perfectly still as he stared directly into the black eyes of the deer, who almost looked like it was boring a deep look into his soul, which kind of unsettled him a bit. 'Okay, this is getting a little freaky.'
All of a sudden, the deer began to spasm and cough up some blood, before it collapsed onto the ground unmoving. Cautiously, Tatsumi took out his sword and slowly walked towards the downed deer, wondering what to do with it.
'If it's sick, probably shouldn't eat it's meat.' Tatsumi thought and he knelt down by the deer and noticed that it was still breathing, but rather faintly. Tatsumi looked at the animal in sympathy as he brought out his sword. "Poor thing, but I can't just leave it suffering like this." Before Tatsumi can put the animal down, the deer gave one final cough before something bizarre happened.
A black liquid ooze, darker than oil, spewed out of the deer's mouth, even its nose. As more and more of the ooze slithered out of the animal, it started to take a more amorphous shape of a small blob, whose liquid body appeared to be in constant motion.
Tatsumi backed away in fear, and slight disgust, as watched the blob slowly lift a portion of its body up, like it was some kind of head. Tatsumi slowly stalked back towards the ooze as he moved in one direction, but the thing seemed to follow his movements, despite it having no eyes.
"What the hell..." Tatsumi whispered curiously.
Just then, the blob launched up and latched on to Tatsumi's chest.
"AH!" Tatsumi screamed as he dropped his sword and tried to pull whatever was on him off. He latched onto the oozy creature with his hands, but instead of him yanking it off him, it just stretched its body out like wet clay. "What the hell is this?!" However, the more he tried to get it off him, the more he noticed that it started to get smaller.
What he didn't noticed, was that it was slowly seeping inside him.
When it finally seemed to disappear, he looked around frantically to make sure it was really gone. "Where...where did it go?" Tatsumi said frantically as he searched for whatever attacked him, but could find no trace of it. "Did it dissipate or something?" Tatsumi turned his attention back towards the now dead deer and cringed. "Yeah, no way in hell am I eating that."
Losing his appetite, Tatsumi decided to just gather up all his belongings and just keep walking towards the Capital. He was still shaken up by what just happened, but he needed to stay focus and try to put it past him.
What he didn't realize, was that the color of his eyes shifted between black and white, before returning to its normal color.
/
Tatsumi groaned as he could still feel his stomach grumble in hunger, even when he finished all of those berries. He really needed to find something to fill in his stomach, cause those berries are not going to last him.
"I've got find something to eat soon." Tatsumi groaned.
"Hungry."
Tatsumi gasped as he heard a deep voice speak up. "Who said that?!" Tatsumi exclaimed as he looked around frantically, but didn't see anyone else with him. "Is someone there?" Again, he received no answer, before he shook his head and palmed his face. "I've been alone in the woods for too long, I'm starting to hear voices."
Tatsumi was taken out of his musings when he noticed a thin pillar of smoke from the distance. The sight of which made Tatsumi smile with elation.
"Finally! Maybe there's a village close by!" Tatsumi said happily as he raced down the direction of where the smoke was. "Hopefully they'll have something to eat!"
Tatsumi continued to ran, but noticed something slightly off as he continued to run. He noticed how everything seemed to pass him by rather fast, and that he was running faster than he's ever gone before. "Whoa! I must not be as tired as I thought!"
With his newfound speed, Tatsumi sprinted faster than he's ever gone before right towards the source of the smoke. When he arrived there, however, his eyes widened in shock and dismay.
The smoke did originate from a town, but the town looked like it was just burned down. The houses and shops were charbroiled black, with a few embers still remaining. Everything looked like it was touched by fire, with nothing escaping the damage, but that wasn't the thing that shocked Tatsumi the most.
All throughout the burnt-up town, spread across the various paths and inside the buildings, laid bodies of the villagers, so burnt up that you couldn't tell if they were men and women. Tatsumi walked throughout the burned down town, with a look of dismay as he gazed upon the various dead bodies lying around the town.
What really broke him was the sight of the charbroiled remains of a child clutching onto its mother.
"What the hell happened here?" Tatsumi whispered in shock as he gazed at all around him. "What kind of monsters would do this?"
"The ones who did this are still here."The mysterious voice said all of a sudden, surprising Tatsumi as he looked around frantically.
"Who's there?!" Tatsumi exclaimed as he swiftly unsheathed his sword. "Show yourself!"
Tatsumi didn't have to wait long for a response, but it didn't come from the voice. Instead, various men who wore bandit clothes, wielding swords, maces, and axes came out of hiding and gave feral smiles towards the lone country boy. Tatsumi was put on edge as he looked around and noticed about twenty of them surrounding him. The largest and most muscular of the group, who was bald, and had an eyepatch stepped forward as he held up a huge double-bladed axe.
"Well, well, look at what we have here boys." The leader of the bandits said with a feral grin as the rest of his crew chuckled. "It's a little lost boy, who wandered into the lions den."
"Who the hell are these guys?"The voice asked in an unimpressed tone.
"Who are you guys?" Tatsumi asked as he held his sword up ready. "Did you do all this?!"
"Yeah, so what if we did?" A different bandit asked nonchalantly.
"Why?! Why would you do something like this?!" Tatsumi exclaimed, trying to find some form of reasoning with these guys.
"Why?" The leader repeated as his grin turned more malicious. "The meat tastes better when it's nice and crispy!"
Tatsumi's eyes widened like dinner plates as his face became disgusted by what he just heard. He gritted his teeth as he grasped his sword even tighter, turning his knuckled white. "How could you do this?! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO INNOCENT PEOPLE! TO CHILDREN!"
The bandits just looked at each other briefly, before barking in laughter, thinking that what he was saying was the most hilarious thing on Earth.
"Why? Because we could, what other kind of answer is there?" The leader said nonchalantly, causing Tatsumi to growl in anger.
"I say we return the favor! Let's eat their heads and pile them up in the corner!"The voice exclaimed in excitement.
"Okay, seriously, where the hell is that coming from!" Tatsumi exclaimed, having been fed up in not knowing where that voice was coming from. The bandits all looked at him in confusion, before thinking that the time for words was over.
One bandit tried to swipe at Tatsumi with his sword, but Tatsumi felt his body react instinctively and ducked under the swing, and swung his sword to disarm the bandit, before kneeing him in the stomach. Another bandit charged at him with a spear, but Tatsumi dodged the spear before slicing it in half, and followed it up with an elbow to the bandit's face. Two more bandits came at him with their swords, but Tatsumi rolled between the two of them to avoid their strikes and sliced across their backs, incapacitating them.
Another bandit tried to swipe at him with an axe, but Tatsumi blocked it with his sword, before twirling it out and swiped it out of the guy's hand. The young country boy sliced the guy in the leg, causing him to scream in pain. Tatsumi then slammed the hilt of his sword on the guy's head, knocking him down and out.
A big guy came at him with a mace, but Tatsumi jumped up to avoid a low swing, but what he didn't expect was that he jumped up so high he soared over the guy and landed farther away from the group of bandits. All of the savage bandits looked on in shock as they've never seen anyone jump like that before.
Tatsumi looked at himself in shock, never doing anything like that before in his life. "Whoa...how did I do that?"
"You mean 'how did we do that.'"The voice said smugly.
"We?" Tatsumi asked as he was still freaking out over the voice that he was hearing.
The leader of the group of bandits growled in anger, as he expected this kid to be dead by now. "What the hell are you idiots doing?! He's just a kid, easy pickings for men like us!" The group of bandits regained their vigor as they prepped their weapons and advanced towards the young man.
"Damn, they just keep coming." Tatsumi said in frustration.
"They wouldn't if you'd just kill them all."The voice said impatiently."I will just have to finish this myself."
"Wait, what?" Tatsumi asked in confusion.
One bandit with a sword came in swinging with his sword, but Tatsumi's arm lashed out on its own will and shot out a black ooze tendril from the hand. The tendril smacked right into the bandit and sent him crashing right into the remains of a burnt down house. The bandits all froze in shock at what they saw, but none were more shocked than Tatsumi himself.
"What the hell is this?!" Tatsumi exclaimed as he looked at the black tendril that retracted back into his arm.
"Not what. Who."The voice said in an eager tone."Let me show you."
All of a sudden, Tatsumi's body became completely engulfed in a mass of black ooze, raising his height close to eight feet tall, and seemed to bulge out his muscles to bigger proportions than the bandit's leader. His body was pure liquid black with grey veins visible across his entire body, and his hands had sharp claws on each of his fingers. His head became coated last, to where one could see large reflective eyes, and a maw filled with razor sharp teeth that seemed to be trapped in a permanent toothy grin.
All of the bandits stepped back in complete shock, having never seen a monster like this before, not even a wild Dangerbeast shook them up like this thing did.
"What the hell is that thing?!"
The creature grinned as it flicked a long serpent-like tongue in the air. "Now, which one should be first?" It asked as it looked at each of the bandits. Whether it was out of bravery, or stupidity, one of the bandits ran forward with his sword and tried to swing at him, but his arm was effortlessly caught in mid swing. The creature grinned as he held the bandit up in the air and leaned in close with a mad grin, causing the bandit to whimper in fear. "Thanks for volunteering."
The creature opened its maw to gaping proportions before it completely engulfed the bandit's head and it bit down hard, completely biting the guy's head clean off. Everyone watched in horror as the creature dropped the headless body on the ground, before turning to look at every last one of them.
The creature roared as it charged at them with a burst of speed they couldn't comprehend, before it shoulder-tackled three of them so hard that they crashed right into one of the burnt down houses. A bandit tried to swing a mace at it, but the creature grabbed him by the arm, before snapping it out of place, causing the bandit to scream in pain. He was soon shut up when the creature housed him up and slammed his spine on his knee, before tossing the lifeless body at more of the bandits.
The monster then slammed his foot into another bandit that knocked him to the ground, but before he could get back up, the creature slammed his massive fist on him so hard that crushed his entire body. Three tendrils sprouted up from it's back, before they lashed out and pierced three bandits that tried to sneak up on him right in the chests, before they retracted back in to him.
The creatures arm seemed to morph into a sword that looked like a larger black duplicate of Tatsumi's sword, before it charged forward and sliced apart any bandit in it's path, staining the ground with their blood. He killed five more bandits, before grabbing another by the head and piercing him right in the chest and then tossing him aside.
All that was left standing was the leader of the bandits as he rushed forward and slammed his axe right into the creature's shoulder blade, imbedding it deep into its ooze-like flesh. The creature looked at the axe imbedded into its flesh, before simply rolling its shoulder, causing the weapon to fall on the ground. The gaping wound where the axe sliced on the creature's shoulder completely healed as if it wasn't even there.
The bandit leader looked on in shock as he backed away slightly, but before he could make a run for it, the creature grabbed him by the neck and hoisted him up till they were at eye level. The bandit leader whimpered in fear as he looked at his own reflection in the creatures, who looked at him with hunger.
"Eyes, lungs, pancreas, so many snack, so little time." The creature mused as its long tongue came out and licked the side of the man's face, leaving behind a smear of its saliva on his face.
The creature attempted to bite the bandit leader's head off, but stopped when he felt three arrows pierce him on the shoulder. He looked in the direction they came from, and noticed the last three bandits with crossbows. The creature simply flexed its muscles, causing the arrows to simply detach off him, before morning it's arm back into its sword form. It then swung it's arm out, and sent the Stowe swinging farther on its tendril, completely decanting all of the remaining bandits' heads, before retracting the bladed tendril back.
"Now, where was I?" The creature said thoughtfully, before looking back the lead bandit and grinned, as he tried in vain to unlatch the clawed hand off his neck. "Oh, that's right. Lunch." The creature finished the leader off by biting his head clean off, dropping the body on the ground and licking the blood off its lips.
With all of its enemies dead, the creatures body dissolved back into the human body beneath, revealing Tatsumi, who stood in place with a completely shocked expression by what he just witnessed.
He could see it all, he could feel it all, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. For a brief moment, he had absolutely no control over over his body, but he was still aware of everything that was going on around.
"What...what the fuck was that." Tatsumi whispered to himself, still trying to comprehend what just happened. Looking towards the headless body of the bandit leader, Tatsumi flashbacked to what he witnessed before the man's death, nearly hacking up whatever lunch was left in his stomach.
Not wanting to look at any of this any longer, Tatsumi took off running as far from the burned down village as he could. After getting a good distance away from the village, Tatsumi leaned back to a tree and slid down, wiping his hands over his face.
"Just what's going on with me." Tatsumi whispered in dismay.
All of a sudden, a lone black tendril extended from Tatsumi's shoulder, with end reforming into the face of the creature that Tatsumi changed into. Tatsumi silently gasped as he started into the eyes of the razor sharped maw grin of the creature.
"What the hell are you?" Tatsumi whispered in shock.
"I am Venom, and you are mine." The creature now known as Venom stated.
"You...it was like I was you...or you were me?" Tatsumi stumbled in fear and confusion.
"Both, actually. We are one now, Tatsumi. Complete symbiosis." Venom said.
"How do you now my name?" Tatsumi asked in shock.
"I know everything about you, Tatsumi, because I can see inside your head. All your memories are now my memories." Venom stated, causing Tatsumi to hold his head, as he can mentally feel the creature prodding his mind.
Tatsumi's form slightly shook as he visibly held a disgusted look on his face. "You ate someone's head off."
"Fuel in the tank." Venom said as he stared hard at the young man. "Listen to me, Tatsumi. Now that we have found each other, we can help each other out."
"Wait, hold on just one sec!" Tatsumi exclaimed angrily. "Just what the hell is going on?! You can't just show up out of nowhere, take over my body, bite someone's head off, and then say that we can help each other, without giving some kind of explanation! What are you?!"
"Just as your memories are now ours to share, our memories are now yours as well." Venom stated, causing Tatsumi to look at him in confusion. "Let it flow naturally, as you can see what we have experienced through our lives."
Tatsumi held his head in pain as he could feel a wave of memories rush through his head, but they weren't his memories, they were the memories of this thing inside him. He saw what appeared to be a planet with an orange sky, with trees as black as the creature inside of him, and all throughout were various other living ooze creature embedded into the vegetation. He saw what appeared to be a meteorite crashing down in the middle of the forest, and then it cracked to reveal the same ooze creature coming out of it like an egg.
As soon as the ooze crawled out of the ground, it was scooped up and trapped in a glass jar, with soldiers looking down at it, watching it as it tried to break free. The next set of images were shown of the same creature being burnt up, cut in various places, as well as being electrocuted nonstop. Even though it did not have a mouth, Tatsumi could tell that it was screaming in agony. There were times where it was forced to assimilate random people, but they later on died from the experience, before being subjected to even more torture.
"What I just saw...that was all you, wasn't it?" Tatsumi asked in surprise, to which Venom nodded. "So then, you're some kind of alien?"
"We are a race known as Klyntar's, symbiotic organisms that cannot survive in an oxygen-rich environment. The only way we can survive is if we bond to a host on the planet in order to live. In exchange, we grant our hosts enhanced speed, strength, stamina, as I'm sure you were made aware." Venom explained.
Tatsumi looked at his hand and clenched it into a fist, as he actually could feel the increase in everything Venom just said. However, that still didn't answer something that really upset him. "If you just need for to survive, then what the hell was that thing back there when you bit someone's head off?!"
"While your body provides us a means of survival, we still need sustenance." Venom answered with his toothy grin widening. "There's a special enzyme that we need to feed upon, and it can only be found in human brains."
"So...does that mean you're going to eat other people's heads?" Tatsumi asked fearfully.
"Most definitely." Venom answered with a grin.
"Oh, God." Tatsumi whispered in dismay, as he could the bile coming up from his throat.
"But there is one person who's brain we are most looking forward to consuming." Venom said in angry tone.
Images flooded Tatsumi's brain again as he saw images of the symbiote, trapped in the jar again, being looked down upon by a large rotund man, wearing a long gray coat with furry frills on the top, and had a long gray beard. The man looked down at the creature with a malicious grin as he chuckled at the various tortures that was inflicted upon Venom.
Tatsumi gasped as the images stopped playing, before looking back at Venom. "Who was that guy."
"Who was that guy?" Tatsumi asked.
"That is the man who ordered our torture, who subjected us to various forms of painful experiments." Venom said with a sneer. "His name is Honest, the prime minister of the Capital."
"The Capital? That's where I was going." Tatsumi said in surprise.
"Exactly, Tatsumi. That is why we think we could help each other." Venom said. "We can grant you the skills and powers needed to help your village, and in return, you help us get our revenge on Honest, when we kill him."
"You want to kill the Prime Minister?" Tatsumi asked in surprise.
"In your mind, you think of the Capital as some kind of grand utopia, when in reality, it is a cesspool of the wicked, twisted, and evil. An all-you-can-eat buffet, don't you think?" Venom asked with his signature grin. "And Honest is the lowest of scum in that city."
"So that's why you need my help. To get to the city so you can kill this honest guy." Tatsumi stated.
"Exactly, and you will most likely need my help when reach the Capital." Venom said. "Cooperate, and you might just survive what is to come."
"Is there some possible way to refuse?" Tatsumi asked in a slight desperate tone.
"No, not really." Venom stated as he retracted back inside Tatsumi."Face it, Tatsumi. We are now stuck with each other, from now until the end."
"Lucky me." Tatsumi groaned as he shakily rose up from his feet, still feeling overwhelmed by what he just went through. "How the hell am I going to explain all this to Sayo and Ieyasu?"
He honestly had no idea how to react overall to this, all that he did know was that nothing in his would ever be normal ever again.
/
Well everyone, here we are with a brand new story for you all.
I gotta say, ever since I saw the first Venom movie, I made it my life's mission to find out everything I could about our favorite symbiote, to the point where I swore to write a story about him one day. I read up on Venom comics of all kinds, watching his appearances in various media's, to discover that the Klyntar species has such a fascinating lore that really brings out the more edgier world building of the marvel universe. This story will touch upon the lore of the symbiote, while also talking about various other aspects that I might be able to fit upon.
I felt that Akame ga Kill was the perfect environment for our favorite Lethal Protector to be a part of, on the count that it is a pretty violent and bloody world. Not to mention Venom would have no shortage of bad guys to feast upon, considering how many despicable people this world has. Keep in mind, I'm going to be mostly following the manga rather than the anime, since I don't want our favorite characters to die like every single episode after.
This story will deviate from both the manga and anime either way as it progresses, since the team of Night Raid will eventually fight things much worse than the Empire.
Now, to answer the obvious question, yes this is a Harem story, and here is the list:
Akame, Leone, Mine, Sheele, Chelsea, and Esdeath
I hope you guys enjoyed the first chapter of this brand new story. I will see you all next time, so have a good day. Stay healthy, and stay safe my friends.