oof. I took a while again... I'm sorryy
Disclaimer: I do not own Hunter x Hunter or My Hero Academia. But you all already knew that.
Edited: 23/03/2020
"You'll be paying me back for the trip fare with the money you earn here. Equivalent exchange." Aizawa-sensei announced as we stood waiting in the line full of a variety of people, mostly adult men. It was a reasonable exchange.
Once we were inside, there in the middle were 16 squares for fighting, surrounded by seats for viewers. The three of us sat down, waiting for one of our numbers to be called out.
"#2734, #2998, please go to ring C."
"Kacchan that's you!"
"Bakugo! You too Midoriya. Don't use nen yet. This is floor 1 - a testing ground, not only will competition likely be easy, you also don't want to lay all your cards onto the table yet. But make sure you prove your strength. You have one week yes? Floor 200 is when everyone uses nen, but I doubt you'll get there in a week. If you want to progress quickly, take your opponent out in one move."
As Kacchan stepped forward to the ring, I heard disdain and mockery in the crowd. As to be expected - his opponent was a large man resembling a sumo wrestler in weight and he was a kid half his size. But I also heard something else:
"Another kid? Didn't you hear of the two kids who were here recently and destroyed their competition?"
'Two kids?'
"Begin!" Not a second too soon, Kacchan immediately went in for a right punch without giving his opponent time to react. Predictably, the large man flew out of the ring and it was an immediate victory for Kacchan.
"See! This kid too! What's up with all these strong children?"
'Strong...?'
Kacchan was given a ticket to the 50th floor and returned to sit next to me, waiting for my turn.
"Heh. Fucking overweight didn't stand a chance." He scoffed as the next match was rapidly announced.
"#2733, #3014, please go to ring G." I stepped onto the square and saw my opponent, a tall man, but not as large as Kacchan's opposition. I could see him shaking, as I heard him mumble to himself, "D-don't tell me this kid is also a powerhouse... I heard rumours of those 2 children from before, and now there's another 2? H-hopefully he's like a regular kid..."
'... I almost feel bad... but I can't be left behind! And we only have a week to reach the 200th floor. Sorry, but you have to prepare for things like this.'
I too threw a kick and the man flew out of the ring, granting me my ticket to the 50th floor.
/
As we sat in the waiting room, I eyed the competition. At floor 50, there wasn't a huge difference between the first floor, but I could discern that there were less women, and everyone looked stronger and larger. The two of us certainly stood out, being at most half the age of the rest of the people.
"#2733, Izuku-sama and #1987 Bob-sama, please go to Arena C, floor 256."
"Oi, De - Izuku, meet me up ahead. You better win you nerd."
"Y-yeah!"
Instead of multiple rings, there was now one larger ring in the middle for the fight. The referee showed a replay of both our fights and then there was a betting system. Of course the man was in favour, but I had more votes than I would expect. In my opponents fight, the muscly man delivered a fair amount of hits, and received a few, but managed to win without so much a scratch. I hoped for the best as I sent a kick towards his waist. One hit and he was down.
/
We both managed to reach the 130th floor within 3 days, but it still felt too slow. "4 more days! But the problem isn't our matches, it's the amount we are given. There must be a way to speed up the process. Maybe skip a few floors? Could we persua-"
"Shut up De - Izuku. We can't do anything about it anyway."
It was much easier waiting after the 100th floor anyway with our own private rooms. Aizawa-sensei had now left us alone, though (after we had paid him back for the blimp ride), trusting that we would not use nen until the 200th floor, as he had some jobs to do. We still did not use nen, saving it for the 200th floor and above, but our physical training with Aizawa-sensei had proved useful, as we both proceeded in winning all our matches with one hit. Rumours were floating around:
"Another pair of monster children..."
"Do you think they're related to the other two? I mean one of them has the same hair colour..."
"Same hair colour? Hey Kacchan, go you think the two other kids could've been Gon and Killua?"
"Duh."
"Hey! Your Izuku and Katsuki aren't you!" A shorter brown haired boy who I had noticed fighting on the screens came up to us, a man with an untucked shirt walking up behind him.
"H-huh? Oh y-yeah! I... I've seen you on the screen fighting! You're quite strong," I commented.
"Ah... I... It took me a while to get to this floor... I'm not near your level. It's strange, because about a month ago there was another pair of kids here who took out their opponents with one hit."
I shot a look at Kacchan, who seemed to be uncaring. "D-do you know who they were?"
"Yeah. Gon and Killua!"
I once again glanced at Kacchan, eyes wide, but this time he was making eye contact back mouthing 'I told you so'.
"We weren't expecting there to be any other children here, let alone four others. The four of you took the hunter exam this year. Am I correct?" The man wearing glasses stepped forward, speaking up.
"Y-yeah. How did you know?" This time, there was shock in Kacchan's face too.
"I was the teacher for Gon and Killua to make sure they passed the secret hunter exam. I believe the two of you have already passed it, yes?"
"Yes we have. I-in that case, do you know about the other hunter examinees? Have they passed the secret hunter exam?"
"I taught nen to Gon and Killua myself, Hanzo and Kurapika have both passed with different teachers, Pokkle is struggling with nen, Leorio has his medical studies and Illumi and Hisoka already knew nen."
"Ah! Thank you..."
"Wing. Nice to meet you."
"Thank you, wing-san!"
/
We had one day left before we had to leave for Yorknew. One day, and we had reached floor 200, the floor we could finally use nen Aizawa-sensei had explained to us beforehand that at floor 200, it was a self-service system and we had 90 days to register for a fight, and we had to win 10 battles to advance. He had also touched on the floor master system, but we only had one day. With one day, it was irrelevant.
We stepped through the corridor, noticing a man, with malicious aura being sent our way. It was weak, however so we were both able to easily walk past.
"Is this like what happened with Hisoka during the Hunter exam? It must be - Kacchan said they used nen. So why would there be someone sitting there, like they're waiting for new arrivals-" *Ahem*. I heard an irritated cough next to me and halted my mumbling.
"So they can use it huh?" Coming from behind us, I presumed the man from before was muttering to himself. His tone was smug and overflowed with contempt.
"W-would it be possible to register for a fight t-today?"
"Uh... Well if someone else registers and is willing to, I think you can! You need to fill out this form."
"Give me one to, I also want to fight today."
As we both filled out our forms, I felt 2 unfriendly presences behind us.
There was a huge gap between floor 190 and 200. On floor 190, it was mainly large, muscly men, fighting physically with no use of nen. Their appearance was relatively generic of muscular men, however here their looks differed. No more did these two look like strong large men, at least physically. The shorter of the two wore a white mask covering his face, chestnut brown hair pulled back into a tight man bun. The mask had a permanent smug etched into it, and his eyes seemed to be dark empty holes through the plain mask. He wore full green with a jacket and baggy trousers. The second man reminded me of a lion, with his yellow-orange hair and beard, mimicking a mane. Strangely, his blue top hung over his arms, almost as if he didn't have any. 'That's going to limit movement, maybe he takes it off during battle?'
"What do you extras want." Kacchan uttered, exasperated.
"Nothing. We just want to register for a fight." Their (or rather the lion dude's, as the other's face was covered) lips were curled at the edges, and their voice was smug. They were obviously going to fight us, targeting us as we are new, but this proved great for our timing.
"Great! I can't wait to destroy you. Hey Izuku, I'll take shitty-lion, you take faceless."
"Uh... o-okay..." I timidly responded. I hoped his arrogance wouldn't mess up our fights.
We were all eager to fight, and so at 7:00 pm today, 31st August, I would fight, and an hour later Kacchan would. Perfect timing, as it left us enough time to catch the train to Yorknew overnight.
/
The two of us simultaneously entered the ring as the announcer declared our arrivals.
There was a plethora of spectators, making me feel slightly queasy. Sure, the previous fights had spectators, but those weren't serious - there was no nen.
"So far a 2-0 win streak... I can't tell what his nen ability is just by looking, but he must have a hatsu. I don't have a hatsu so the faster I figure it out, the faster I can take him down. Is there something to his mask? Perhaps if I can take that off I'll-"
"Heh, you saying your last prayers kid? You can back out now if you want."
His gruff voice sounded out behind the mask, I merely ignored.
"Then begin!" The voice of the referee filled the room and I instantly sprung into action. Jumping right by his feet, I threw a nen infused punch. Of course he jumped back, but my intention was not to hit him. A cloud of debris rose into the air as my fist made contact with the floor. I bolted behind him before he could catch on that it was a distraction and threw another nen infused punch.
It hit its mark.
"Clean hi- Ah! Nevermind."
'Huh? Why did the refe-'
My thoughts were interrupted by a punch from behind me.
I flew forward from the impact, but managed to roll into a landing.
"Clean hit!"
"And there it is! Madhu's cloning technique! He conjures up his mask and clothing in a puppet to confuse his opponent!" The commentator explained.
The opponent answered my questions as I realised what I thought was Madhu, as the commentator said, was merely a conjuration of a puppet clothed to look like him. That meant the punch from earlier was from the real thing. 'But this puppet is almost his spitting image... I'll only be able to tell if it's a puppet once I make contact but that'll be tricky... There must be a way to discern the real one from the puppets. Think!" I punched at the floor again, lifting a thin cloud of debris.
I saw a flash of green and jumped at it immediately, but a repeat of last time happened.
Listening to the commentator gave no hints. Of course they wouldn't give up the weaknesses of one of the combatants.
'Think! How can I discern the real from the fake? Maybe if I remove the mask? There must be something to his mask... When I hit the puppet, it was much lighter... Maybe because the puppets are lighter they'll move differently?' My thoughts scrambled for ideas as I dodged every attack I saw. 'Since the puppet is lighter, their punches won't hit as much, right? So then he'd want to always use his puppet as a decoy... The puppet is lighter... If it's lighter its easier to move...Wind! If I can create a strong enough force of wind, maybe I can blow the puppets away!'
I attempted to conjure something of a large fan with my nen. Being a specialist, conjuration was only one spoke of the nen wheel away, so it was easy enough. As Madhu or his puppet rushed towards me, I swooped my flimsy nen fan, and blew away the puppet. Behind it I saw Madhu, slightly shocked from the current events, and used the opportunity to throw a hit infused with nen.
"Clean hit and down!"
"Izuku gets his first two points against Madhu, reaching 2-2! Using a strange... fan? Is this Izuku's technique?"
Once again, Madhu or a puppet was dashing towards me. But this time there were two of them. I charged up a ball of nen to emit as I swished my fan, blowing the puppet on the left. I tried to emit an attack but to no avail. I missed my opportunity as the ball of nen dissipated.
'Damn! I'm being too ambitious. Emission is too far away...' I dived towards Madhu with my failed attack, but missed. Without missing a beat, I latched onto the edge of the floor tile and swung it towards Madhu. My hole from earlier had helped create a latch.
"Clean hit and knockdown!"
Without allowing him the chance to stand up, I ripped his mask off his face.
Hushed gasps echoed throughout the audience. What lay below the mask was a horribly distorted face. I froze.
The mask was snatched from my hands and placed gingerly back onto his face.
"Heh. Can't even face that? You're pathetic!" His tone drooled with mockery, but I had him pinned to the ground. His actions didn't match up to his words. In anticipation, I punched him a few times, giving me 9 points to 4.
Before my final punch could land, one of his puppets flew from behind and pushed me off.
"Clean hit and down!"
I bounced to my feet and attempted to reconjure my nen fan, but to no avail.
'Then in that case...' Once again, I lifted a cloud of dust from the ground as a distraction. But I kept my eye on the real Madhu. His mask was slightly crooked.
The real Madhu came rushing towards me and I pretended to dodge and aim a punch for the puppet, however it was a feint. My arm swung round and made contact with his face.
"Critical hit and down! Izuku wins by 12-4!"
The fight lasted about 20 minutes, in 40 minutes, it would Kacchan's turn.
How do you like my 2 new OCs? They were the reason this took so long lol, I couldn't think of any ideas for a while. Also, for those who read it before I updated it, I realised I forgot to add Hisashi's nen on the previous chapter so I updated the previous chapter AN and he's there now too.
Thanks for reading, favouriting, following and reviewing!
Replies to reviews:
D3lph0xL0v3r: Thank you again! It's incredibly uplifting having you review every new chapter. Yes me too, especially for Izuku since he deserves much better.
Yeah! In a way it's really useful that Kurapika is after the phantom troupe and has dedicated his nen against them - once he captures Chrollo, that'll provide a great opportunity for Izuku to recover his hatsu. Also, lololololol Hisashi Midoriya is Ging Freecss? That'd definitely be a shocking plot twist but... nah. I guess it could work? Ging/Hisashi met Inko, had a child and left. A year later Ging/Hisashi met Gon's mother and had a child, but changed his name because of personal reasons? Now that's the birth of a new crossover fanfic! Not in this one though.
AutumnNightStars: Thanks for coming back! It was a good, kinda fun thing to do so I did it lol ^_^