Alright before we get into this story, Saint of vice koncor has been a very responsive fan of mine in asking about the world that I made, and due to my nod at the fate series last chapter, he has asked me once again for knowledge. I usually keep things like this for PMs and such, but I thought it needed mention here. I like the characters and plot devices of the Fate series, so I took parts to spread into my world's history. So alternate universe versions of Kiritsugu, the three clans that made the grail system, and Shirou Emiya did occur in this world, but not enough to be more than passing remarks in history. Thank you Saint of vice koncor for your ideas, and please continue to enjoy the world that I'm making. Now to the story!
Izuku was in the winter gear that Anima had thankfully warned him to bring, despite it being summer, and was trudging up the Kunlun mountain range. In front of him was Anima, carrying the teen's mother on his back as he continued his scathing pace. Inko couldn't last on this walk like he could, even as he felt his calves and thighs burning.
"Keep pace with me on the trail, but know that I'm not slowing down or stopping for anything." those were the words the werewolf had said at the mountain base before walking at a constant pace with Inko riding piggyback. True to his word, they hadn't stopped for a breather, water, or a snack. Anima just kept on trucking as Izuku followed behind as he tried to keep pace through the snow they had started to walk through.
They'd been walking for five hours.
Nearing eleven in the morning, Izuku was far past exhausted, but Anima never slowed down even as his student was falling behind. Izuku eventually had the idea to reinforce his stamina with chi and even One for All, but soon, his focus was slipping as the monotonous walk seemed to erode at his mind as much as his endurance. He didn't know how much farther they had to go either, as Anima refused to tell him, making the journey that much more mentally challenging.
He just hoped they reached the hidden city soon.
"Shouldn't we help him?" Inko asked Anima as she saw her son ragged and exhausted.
"Can't." the werewolf answered. "It's supposed to be a trial for anyone going to the city of Kunlun for learning to reach it by your own merit." he heard his disciple's knee hit the snow again before the shuffling of him getting back up.
"At least he's having it easier than I did getting there." the martial artist winced. Inko gave her ride a dubious glance.
"He's falling over exhausted; how could he have it better?"
"He has someone who knows the way he can follow behind." Anima started remembering his first time going to the city of chi. His sixth sense wasn't nearly as good back in his thirties, and he had to essentially play a bad game of 'warmer-colder' to find the city. It took him the better part of a month and a half to finally reach where he'd spend the next year of his life learning the secrets of the life energy that flowed through the universe.
"And the fact that we haven't stopped?" Inko brought him out of his reminiscing.
"A more roundabout way of helping his manipulation of chi." at the woman's glare, he continued. "Basic biology says he should have collapsed by now as his body is needing more oxygen than he's getting, but he's using chi unconsciously to keep going. If he keeps this kind of pace, then he'll reach a stage that he'd be reinforcing himself without thinking better than he currently is."
"What do you mean? Reinforcement, as I remember you putting it, is a way to strengthen something past its natural point by a multiplier." Anima nodded at her basic understanding.
"It is, but that doesn't mean that you have to think about doing it. Izuku's been using chi since the later part of elementary school." Inko looked at her friend with a perplexed expression.
"You didn't even mention chi until he started middle school." she noted.
"But he was using it regardless." Anima calmly intoned. "During his physical training, I was starting to give him tasks that would technically b impossible for his muscle mass, but he did them anyway by unknowingly using chi to strengthen himself. You remember him jumping over my property walls during winter break." Indeed she did. Izuku heard someone get hurt across the Cacciatore estate's walls, and cleared the seven-foot wall in a single jump while landing on the top before jumping down to the other side. They had only slipped on ice, but his physical feat was still impressive for someone his age.
"You mean he shouldn't have been able to clear it?" Anima shook his head.
"Not without doing a wall run, no." he admitted. "give him a couple years and specializing in high jumping and he could do it, but not that young and not without the specialization in that group of muscles." as they continued up the mountain, Izuku started falling down less and less. Anima started to smile as he felt the chi in the area becoming denser, letting him and his student drink in the energy like water in a dessert.
"He's also building his working reserves as he continually uses the energy, giving him more to reinforce, project, and sense with, including any special things he may learn later."
Izuku didn't know when it happened, but his senses at one point had numbed his exhaustion to the point it didn't even register as he took step after step behind his teacher. How long was he walking? Minutes? Hours? Days?
He didn't know and frankly, he couldn't bring himself to care.
He saw the electricity of One for All and felt the warmth of chi dance across his form again and again. He didn't try and keep them active, but it just felt right to keep the power in his body coursing through like it was. Step after step became lighter as he continued trudging behind the inexhaustible werewolf he followed.
"Welcome to the city of Kunlun." Anima's words barely registered as the teen bumped into his mother, who was let down. Seeing her trying not to fall, Izuku held on to her as her legs were getting the feeling of use from all the time on Anima's back. After she was balanced again, Izuku finally realized that they had stopped. He felt his own legs give out under the abuse, but his teacher caught him, allowing him to focus on giving oxygen to his body with heavy, shaking breaths.
"Get some rest now; you've more than earned it." Anima told him gently. Izuku looked to his side and saw the setting sun over the valleys. Knowing that he had quite literally walked from sunrise to sunset, rest sounded really good at that point; so did some food and water, now that he thought some more.
Izuku took all of seven steps before passing out with exhaustion, leaving the world to Morpheus' domain.
When Izuku woke up, he was in a room he didn't recognize. The room was large, and there were a few people still sleeping around him on cots. He realized that he was still in the same clothes he wore under his winter gear as he started to get up. As he walked to the restroom to change into his silk uniform, he felt the presence of someone with power at the entrance of the sleeping quarters.
"Seems you're finally up. I am Xuan Li" the teen opened the door to see a man who looked young wearing a simple robe of yellow. "If you would follow me, breakfast is prepared."
"Where's my mother and Anima-sensei?" Izuku noticed the man's face twitch at Anima's name.
"Your mother is conversing with the other ladies as she acclimated to the mountain's lack of air. As for your, teacher, he's in the arena with several students." again, Izuku noticed the disdain for the werewolf, but he didn't know why.
The two started to walk through the building and into the open air. Izuku, using his chi, felt his body warm as if a fire was burning in his heart and spreading through his veins. Now that he wasn't on autopilot, he felt the chi in the air possess a heavy weight that he could swear tinted the area in a light yellow glow. His soul was taking in as much of the energy as he could while turning the mystic force into his own.
After taking a few turns Izuku and Li had sat upon the balcony, looking over a circular arena which Anima, wearing nothing but a pair of pants, and several martial artists were fighting. As Izuku was eating while watching his mentor dash around, he realized something with the other combatants by their chi and aggression.
"Are they trying to kill him?" he asked himself. He wasn't worried because the werewolf wasn't even taking the fight seriously, so he obviously wasn't in danger. Even in the twenty minutes he'd been awake, Izuku saw again and again how little the people in Kunlun thought about his teacher.
"Yes, they are." Li answered without looking away. "And should one succeed, they would be in favor of many families in the city." Izuku's head span fast enough to make a popping sound at the admission.
"What, why?" the teen couldn't understand the aggression, but Li gave him the reason.
"Several generations ago, the Battle Wolf had risen from an outsider to one of the most talented students of the grandmaster, even winning in the tournament between the Seven capitals as a third party, gaining much recognition. But after five short years, he had announced his departure. It didn't sit well with some of the elder councilmen that he had obtained so much and refused patronage from several families and was taking so many techniques to the 'common folk'; Cao, Chen, Quan, Gao, and even my own ancestors sent their best to try and prevent him from leaving, even against his will. When they became desperate, the fools decided that if they couldn't cage him, they would kill him." Izuku was honestly shocked but waited for Li to continue.
"When the families got word of what happened, it was far too late. Ten of the most promising warriors in decades were torn apart and left in the snow while your teacher ran off. The Cao and Quan families have never recovered to their former glory, as they sent their heirs into that massacre. When the news got out, they gave your teacher a title; Blood-Stained Monster. Later we received word that he gained another title, Battle wolf, making our insult to his name obsolete." Li took a breath.
"It is as much his fault as ours though; we were driven by envy, then greed, and now in wrath the families believe that his death will wash away the black on our reputation. He was simply acting as he is; a beast willing to learn." Izuku chewed on the story for a long while before finding it reasonable in their perspective.
"What about you then?" Izuku turned to his companion. "You said your family was also apart of this, but other than some mild distaste, you aren't going after him." Li laughed at the honest question.
"Because it wouldn't do anything. I could never match him, and even if I was lucky enough to do it, the past can't be erased. As long as there's not a repeat, I'm content to let the past fade." as their talk ended, Anima was done with his fight, leaving him standing in a field of exhausted martial artists. The werewolf strolled over to under the balcony and leaped up to meet with his student.
"That was rather fun, and yes, he was honest with the story; I killed them." Izuku was nonplussed at his teacher's blunt admission. "I was thirty, and not nearly as skilled as I am now." the teen didn't know how to see his teacher at the moment. Anima had always been a model for how to be a hero, much like All Might, but to hear that he had killed several people without even looking guilty was jarring.
"Thank you for looking out for my disciple." Anima bowed to Li. "I'll guide him to the chamber of the Iron will." without another word, the werewolf and hero-in-training walked beside one another.
"Before you ask, no. I don't let their deaths hang over my head; otherwise, my feet wouldn't move. I do, however, let their deaths teach me. It's why I asked you to let me be a mentor; so you don't have to make the worst of my mistakes." it wasn't much, but Izuku let the words sink into how his mind.
'Remember, not human' he told himself before letting the matter drop.
The Chamber of the Iron Will was a simple room, with a rectangular design and no furnishing besides the incense holders in the corners. To Izuku, it looked like Anima's meditation room, just larger.
Spiritually, however, was another matter entirely.
The chi in the room was so dense that Izuku felt like choking as the room was darker than it should be. The swirling energies were making mirages and illusions like a heatwave on asphalt. The scent of power was that of a fire, making the room feel hotter even though the wide stone walls should have done the opposite. Anima took a lotus position while Izuku mimicked him, the two sitting only an arm's length from one another in the center.
"I've explained how chi was the ambient life force of everything in the universe, and I showed you how to use your own for the martial arts. Now, I'm going to tell you about properties." Anima raised his left hand and lit a yellow chi flame on his index finger.
"This is what chi looks like when you unlock it or gather it from the atmosphere. We call this 'pure' chi, as it has nothing in it, like a clear glass pane. It's not that powerful, but it's less tiring to use for beginners and it's easily manipulated since it has no purpose." the flame went out before a red flame with heavy black lacing took its place.
"This is my chi. Going back to the glass analogy, my spirit and soul have 'tinted' the chi, making it take the properties that encompass my persona. Mine is red and black because my very nature is destructive and dark. Not evil, but difficult to use in non-violent ways." Anima then gave Izuku instruction on how to imbue chi with his essence. After a while, a small, green flame was dancing on the teen's fingertip.
"It's like a heartbeat…" the student observed before the flame died.
"Because it might as well be one; your heartbeat, to be accurate. That green flame contains almost everything that makes you, you. Try it with your left hand now." Izuku blinked in confusion at the request but did as he was told. The flame was the same green, but there were flickers of black in it. Looking at Anima, the werewolf explained.
"Your arm healed physically, but the sacrifice you made is still etched in your soul. This shows the darker aspects of you, the parts that want to destroy what endangers those you protect. As time moves on, the darkness may fade, or it may diffuse with the rest of your soul instead of staying only in your arm, or it could even grow more pronounced. No option is worse than the other unless you yourself don't want it, in which case it won't happen." Izuku sighed in relief. He knew intellectually that he influenced his chi and not the other way around, but hearing it from a trusted master was reassuring.
"So what are we going to do?" Izuku asked. Seeing his mentor's sweet smile shouldn't need to be that scary.
"We're going to make a trigger for you and build your reserves in here. Like stretching a balloon, the more chi you strain your body to keep, the more your body can allow later without straining. This will be uncomfortable to say the least, but I'll be with you to make sure you're unharmed." sweat trickled down Izuku's spine, but the other task caught his attention.
"Trigger, like the drug?" Anima shook his head vigorously.
"Like hell I'd let you take that shit." he said with mild disgust. "No, a trigger is a mental image that's used to force you into a warrior persona, or 'battle mode', at will. Depending on what the trigger is, it can let you go from 'Izuku' to 'Deku' in a split second, allowing you to react without freezing up." he explained.
"What trigger do I have?" Izuku questioned. Anima shrugged.
"No clue, that's why we're here." glancing at his student's deadpan look, he explained further. "One person I knew used the image of a gun hammer firing, another used the image of a firework. A whip crack, a hammer and anvil, a snapping bone, a knife going into flesh, a lightning bolt, there are as many triggers as there are those who utilize them. You have to make your own, something that's going to trigger your fight response without your flight response."
"What's yours?" the teen asked. Anima smiled.
"A Flint rod being struck." he answered. "It lets me start the fight out strong enough, but I let the fire build in the back of my mind, sharpening my response over time even further" Izuku nodded in understanding before following his teacher's instruction to let the chi build.
This was the only three day stop for a reason.
That's a wrap! So now we get some more information about Anima's history, Izuku's training once again, and they have one last stop (okay two, but both are in a single chapter)! Next chapter, an intermission! What's going on back in Japan, and how's the rest of class doing? If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, let me know! Till next time!