Quick question... Would you, dear reader, like for me to adapt the OVA and the movies in this? I've got a general idea for where to put them, but I'm not doing it if no one is interested that.
-Shmity.
The young half-demon listened well to his words, eeking out a simple sentence after a few moments. "Are we starting yet?"
His master nonchallantly snapped his fingers, and summoned a varaity of weapons in front of Izuku. "First, you are going to pick the weapons that you will be training with for the foreseeable future."
Midoriya's mouth was agape. "You can't be serious?" He said, befuddled.
"It's not like you cannot train with the other ones." Said his master, not exactly understanding the question. "Besides, I'll still teach you unarmed combat. The weapons are for when you have such luxury."
Midoriya, exasparated, tried to protest. Giving his pespective. "N-No, I mean why are you giving me a weapon? I just don't understand why that would be nessisar-." His master inturupted him.
"If you wish to be a warrior for the greater good, you must know how to combat an opponent. The profession you wish to follow will have you encounter and eliminate all possible threats to all that is good." His master explained. "What exactly did you think I would teach you?" He said with a wavering patience.
Midoriya sheepishly awnsered. "I-I just kind of figured you would teach me how to use my power is all..."
His master put his hand over his face and told his student. "That would be utterly pointless if the fundamentals go unlearned. Imagine, if you will, a situation where your yokai powers are diminished or outright null. If you have no knowledge of how to handle yourself, you are doomed. This is necessary."
The young man relented, figuring that this is was what he agreed to. Probably should have asked first, but hindsight and all of that. He stared at the weapons with curiosity. He first picked out a single katana and fixed it to his belt. He then went to the paired swords and grabbed the longer one and held it in his left hand, and then put it on his right side. Finally, he grabbed the spear and strapped it on his back. He had a rough idea of how he would fight with these. He then grabbed a bow.
"Interesting selection, mind telling me why?" His master inquired.
"Well, the basic idea is that I would fight with the single sword mostly, but if I'm fighting multiple people the I would draw the second one. The spear is for either when I need distance as well as being a backup when these two are not avalible." He drifted into muttering halfway through explaining, not even really talking to his master anymore. He contined to ramble on and on about why he picked these in particular for quite a while. Until he realized that he had been talking for more than 15 minutes. He stopped his train of thought. "Sorry, sorry."
His master looked slightly confused. "Why do you apologize, young man?"
"It's a bad habit. You know, me muttering on like that... But thank you for being patient for that. I-I promise I won't do it again." He said with a mild shame.
"Do not apologize for your tactical and stratigic mind, my apprentice. Be proud of this. If you must explain aloud, then do so earnestly." His master said with a suprising understanding. This shocked Izuku. No one had really tolerated his muttering before, let alone encouraged it. "Now, a small test before we start." After he said so, he pulled out a paper talisman in a roughly humanoid shape out of his coat, throwing it towards Midoriya.
Nothing could have suprised Izuku more than seeing a paper talisman transform into a full blown, red skinned oni, equipped with an axe. Midoriya realized that he would not have any handicaps for any of this.
The oni's axe crashed down on his shoulder. Pain coursing through the boy's body. He drew his sword and crudely slashed across the demon's chest, cleaving it in two. An illusion.
He noticed that the point of contact for the axe on his shoulder was nonexistant. No injury was even there. However it ached like there was one. His master applauded. "You stood your ground. Good. It would have been quite dissapointing to see you cower before a simple shikigami."
Izuku yelled back with woeful confusion. "You didn't warn me about that! I didn't even know you could do that! I stayed in place out of shock. Besides, weren't you going to show me how to use these in the first place?!"
"It was a mere test of courage. If no bravery was shown then that would be the first thing we worked on. But given that you struck back, we can now start proper." His master's calm demeanor rubbed off a bit. Slightlu irritated, Midoriya followed the yokai's lead. The yokai, sensing this, explained his thoughts. "Crisis does not occur within one's convinence. Danger lurks within each shadow, each corner... The sooner you accept this, the sooner you will understand the very nature of your dreams. Do not be mad at the test for your underprepared nature." He continued. "At this current moment, you are no more powerful than the average human. At least that would be the case, if not for the age you live in. Be that as it may, your power is one to be honed, to be cultivated. Your power IS your potential." It finally started to dawn on Izuku for why this was the way he is going to be trained. He MUST be, he HAS to have this, because no other way would work.
10 months later
Febuary 9th, 2198
Midoriya woke up, again, to get ready. It had been nearly a year (specificly 10 months) since he met his master. As he brushed his teeth, he looked in the mirror and mentally noted how much he looked different physically. He had grown to about 5'9, with lean, well defined, muscles. A few white highlights contrasted his green hair. It was naturally occuring, though the reason was an enigma to him. All in all to say, he grew well.
It was now that he moved away from the mirror that he started to eke out of his home to do some tasks he had to do for the day. One of which was to get a new journal. As he got on the train to buy one, he started to wonder what the purpose of this one was. After all, his master made him get one for teaching purposes. Made it into a combat text for Midoriya to study. Not that he had a problem with it.
Izuku took in his surroundings. He was starting to appriciate the quiet moments in his day. His master had put the villain attacks into another perspective, how... chaotic this age actually was. Where some maniac could just walk up and destroy the nearest block around for no reason other than the fact that they just have a quirk that can do that. All the more reason to be a hero right?
To be honest, Izuku was more keen for the next day than this one. After all, it was the one that would make all this training worthwhile.
Midoriya was kind of working his way through the day autonomusly. He never bought a different brand of journal, so why think that would be different. The train ride and walk to the store was rather boring too, now to think of it. And despite the perspective shift, his hero watching hobby remained, that is to say that the peviously mentioned chaos doesn't really apply to this street from what he can tell. Days like these were ones where he isn't really attentive. Just going through the motions because nothing really happens during these moments... Which is why it shouldn't be suprising that he ran into someone who also wasn't paying attention.
They both fell to the ground, causing Midoriya to get flustered. He looked up to see the equally clumsy victim. It was a brunette girl that had not really recovered from the fall yet. Good instincts overcame others, he helped her up. "Sorry, sorry, I should have known where I was going."
He lended her a hand and dusted her off as she responded. "Thanks. Though I shoild apologize too, I should really know how toget around this place by now." She said in a enduring way. Izuku just smiled and soon enough, they parted ways... Only then did he realize that he talked to a girl who wasn't related to him, and immidiately got flustered again.
Nezu was finishing up some of the last applications he got for the hero course. Quite a few were notable, others... not so much. However there was one that he couldn't intuit easily, even with Nurarihyon looking over his shoulder. Though the octopuslike spirit had theories that rivaled his own. They had both looked it over for the last 10 months, occasionally going back to it to try to figure out one part of the application that lined up with his government file.
It was the application of one Midoriya Izuku. From research into the kid, both of them summurised that the kid was mostly unremarkable. Average grades, less than average physicality, although that was changing on the most recent snoop. Fairly average child with big dreams. However, in the quirk registery, he had filled it with [N/A]...
Now, all quirkless people have always registeted with [None]. So that was a wrench that he had not anticipated. Frankly, he wanted to see what that means. Because while the underwhelming and realistic conclusion is that the kid was just quirkless and filled it out wrong. Not that there was anything wrong with that, he would still probably be welcome in the other courses.
But in the unlikely situation that it ment something else entirely... That the kid had powers outside of quirks, thus technically not having one, that is exciting. He and Nurarihyon discussed a lot of possibilites. Going from simply a Amrita user, like an alchemist. To an improbable outcome, a Shifling... Personally, that was the one that Nezu would be the most interested in. This was the outcome the spirit had insisted was most probable, interestingly enough.
The yokai spoke to Nezu as he poured over the application again. "Looking at that boy's papers again? The enterance is tomorrow. We will see whether or not our ideas are on the mark or not." The old yokai said in a silky, regal voice. Not unlike the nobelest of gentlemen.
"Ahh, of course. But there is no harm in speculation. After all, it could be the one Mr Saito warned me about. And if that were the case, well... His tuition would be a nice change in perspective, world will be turned on it's head soon anyway. I might be getting ahead of myself here, but if all speculaton to THAT possibility is true, then well... Things are going to get quite interesting for the foreseeable future." The ambiguous chimera mused.
Izuku finally got his last errand finished. The last task, of course being his comissioned bow. The draw of which was custom, specificly for him. As he drew it to make sure that the bow was to his liking, he paid the blacksmith her due. "Like it? It was a bit challenging due to the fact you kept asking for a more difficult draw. But this one has probably met your exact specifications." The blacksmith said in earnest. Midoriya couldn't tell because of the eyepatch, but he swore she winked at him.
Senji Tōse... She was remarkable for the fact that she was one of the few people on the younger side that paid any attention to the pre quirk era. Izuku and her had some good conversation in that regard. Though he never asked about why she wore the eyepatch. Probably for the better because if he did, she might ask him about the scar on the left side of his face. Despite That happening nearly ten years ago, he still wasn't ready to talk about with someone else that wasn't his mom just yet.
"Anyway, those swords and spear should be done in about a month." The one eyed blacksmith in yellow said bluntly. "But until then, use this!" She tossed him a sword with a black wolf pelt wrapped around half of the sheath. Midoriya caught it with minimal effort, and unsheathed it. A reflective, nine scarred blade met his eyes. He recognized it immediately.
"Bizen style sword? Isn't this kind of rare and old?" Midoriya asked, worried that the blacksmith lended him a antiqe for a test run.
Senji dismissed his worries. "No, silly. I just replicated the crafting technique and gave it character. But it is made to be more durable. Just use it on those enterance bots and tell me how it went." She said, very nonchalontly. Flicking her short hair to the eyepatched side.
Midoriya was caught off guard at the last part. "What? How did you know I was going tomorrow?"
Senji shrugged and leaned on the counter. "Intuition? It would be much like the kind of person you are to apply to that sort of thing. And it's not like that the physical of the enterance exam is much of a secret. Because if it is, well they did a poor job of guarding it." She chuckled and patted Izuku on the head. "Besides. You promised that you would test out these bad boys on some tough targets for renfinement. Our discount, remember?"
Midoriya remembered. "Oh, right." He then felt kind of dumb for not considering that robots would apply to field testing.
"Besides." Senji said, not noticing Midoriya's personal grief. "I've got a friend applying to U.A. for the support class. I'd be bound to find out either way." She shrugged.
Now that was some information that caught his attention. "Really? Who is it?"
She nonchallontly said. "Oh, you'll find out soon enough here. Though I will warn you, she is a bit... Let's say eccentric." Sheturned to the right to look at the clock on the wall and informed the boy. "Looks like it's time for me to close up shop. I'll call ya when the other ones are done."
"Ah, ok." Midoriya made his way out the door with the sword and bow wrapped in cloth on his back. The grip of the sword was uncovered, just in case. He looked at the sun, decending down the horizon. "42 minutes of light left. Train in 12 will get me back before sundown... No need to rush." He said to no one in particular as he raised a cloth mask over his nose.
He started a leisurely stroll down the streets, left alone with his thoughts. Noting that most superhero shenannigens enended for the day... Shame. Sundown is when heroes are needed the most. All monsters peek their heads out when night falls. Seasoned criminals think no differently. Not to discredit the heroes that work in the daytime, but merely a aspect that should be worked on. A flaw of how people think.
His thoughts were based on small things that his master said while training. One thing that stood out was when he asked how to be a better hero. His response? "Do what comes naturally." Vague, yet inspiring.
In Izuku's mind he sees all of the training that was set out for him so far and internally thanked his master for it. Pain, anguish and exaustion aside, he learned valuable lessons from it all the same. One step closer to closure from that day. Soon enough, he saw the bus coming. Soon enough, he was home. Soon enough he would see what this last trial before the enterance exams that his master has prepared for him.
Soon enough, he would re-enter the Interim.
He found himself in his room 10 minutes past dusk and he found a scroll on his desk with a note with the words. "Fall asleep with the scroll in your hands to face your final task." His master's writing. He stopped questioning how these things got to him without notice months ago. However he noticed that the scroll itself had a title that was on the cover that he read. "Enki."
A night parade scroll? This was not uncommon of his master to leave something that confused him in his room, but why would he leave a story scroll on his desk? To ask of him to sleep with it on his person as well.
Izuku was used to this kind of mystery. So he figured it had something to do with his trial. So he got in his covers, scroll in hand, and made himself sleep.
He opened his eyes to a place unfamilliar. The first thing that he looked up at was a medium sized shinto shrine, tended to by the little green spirits that he sees most days. Kōdama, he learned they were called. They greeted him eagerly. As he approched him, a few of them went behind the shrine and dragged out weapons. A pair of katanas, a spear, a bow, and a repeating rifle. The weapons that Izuku familiarised himself with during his training. He accepted the gifts with respect. Beings of their size would have some trouble with the propotional weight.
The awful stench of rot permiated in the air. Climbing up th stairs, he saw up the hill on the clifside a massive, scarred cherry blossom tree in full bloom. But there was a courtyard with another, smaller tree before the final stretch. The corpses of eight tailless maquaques littered the ground in front of him, brutalized... Five dead samurai with their weapons hapazardly lodged in their bellies were also found, fresher than the dead monkeys. Izuku drew the longer sword and assumed a defencive stance.
His eyes peeled for any movement in this strange place. Waiting for a battle that he was halfway prepared for. Looking for any movement, be it human or yokai. His attention diverted to the shuffling of leaves. Looking to the bushes for any kind of disturbance, only to hear another shuffle across the courtyard. Turning on a dime to the source, yet again there was no disturbance. He put his back to the tree in the middle to prevent a ambush.
One final shuffle occured. One right above him. A moment of realization hit Izuku like a truck as he jumped away from the tree as a large, one horned, gorrilalike yokai wearing robes slammed down with a large, twisted spear into lodged in the ground where he once stood.
Izuku had his sword raised eye level, pointed at the yokai. Although he was expecting an ambush, the creature that did was horrifing. Standing hunched over with its own two feet. Both hands clenched furiously, though only one of which was carrying the malformed polearm. It's left shoulder was visible through. Revealing it was scarred and hairless, down to its forearm. Both shoulders were adorned with crystalized spines. The face of the demon was no ease to his mind either. Twisted into the most wrathful expression imaginable, aided with its softly glowing red eyes. Hard to imagine with its maquaqe-like face. Bloodstained silver fur reflecting the moonlight above.
Izuku realized that the title of the scroll was this creature's name. Enki. Snarling viciously at him, Enki pulled out its spear with a grunt. Then, It charged at him.
Lunging its spear at him, Midoriya got low to the ground and slashed the arm from below, to little notable effect. In retaliation, Enki raised its left arm and slammed it down on Izuku's shoulder, knocking him down with extreme force. It then picked him up by said shoulder with one hand and headbutted him.
Staggering back, blade in hand. Izuku was barely able to dodge the oncoming swipe of the spear. Seeing the folly of close quarters combat at his skill level, he made distance and pulled out his bow... Only to realize that the Kodama forgot to give him arrows. Attention fully at Enki, it lodged the butt its spear into the ground, it climbed up until it got to the tip of the spear.
Enki then did a movement only describable as pogoing itself into the air with the shaft of the spear. Enki then shifted the spear to be holding it by the neck, and threw it like a javlin at great speeds. A deadly throw if it hit by it, to be sure. Izuku rolled out of the way in the nick of time.
The terror of the situation was not lost on Izuku, but he put on a brave face nonetheless. When Enki touched ground, it rolled forward to close some distance. When it stood again, they locked eyes. While Midoriya was trying to look stern and fierce... Unfortunately, Enki wasn't buying it. Actually, it found it quite amusing because it stopped snarling and was now laughing at him, mocking him by wiping its finger at where his own scar was on its own face and then closed its hands and made a crybaby guesture. Doubling over with its hands on its abdomen on its back kicking and mocking him.
Mockery... Midoriya had do deal with that enough in the human world. Now he was having some damn monkey have its own cruel joy at his own expense and trauma. Fury entered Izuku's heart for but a moment, enough so that if there were a witness, they would be certain that they could see a red glint in his eye for the next few moments.
He looked at the embedded spear next to him with murderous intent, and dislodged it. He quickly ran to the Enki before it got its bearings back, and he jumped above Enki and slamed it into its chest where it heart could be, if it had one. Pinned to the ground, it struggled but could not resist, because Izuku wasn't done yet.
Stomping on its Amrita horn, disorienting it for a mere moment, he drew his sword while Enki was writhing in pain, he brought his blade down... Along with Enki's head. Black and white, viscous ichor sprayed the young Hannyō. Enki struggled to fight back after its decapitation, but after a moment, it stopped thereshing around, and its body dissipated into a thin, black mist. All that was left of its very existance was the mangled demon's pelt, and its spear, clanging on the ground as it fell.
A calm washed over Izuku after his violent act. As well as a disturbing realization of what he did in response to basic mockery in combat, yet he coulden't hide his shame as well as his deep satisfaction at letting loose. Both feelings left when Okami joined his side and calmed his weary heart.
He started to question the very nature of both this test as well as his own being. This was the first time he really prosecced the fact that he was not human. Not fully anyway. Would he have done that if he were fully human? Or was it the yokai blood flowing through him? His master taught him to fight well, but not how to be undaunted. Was he supposed to kill Enki? Or simply defeat it?
He never even knew he felt that resentful of his life. Never knew someone like him could even come close to being as angry as he was. Was it this the test? To see if he had it in him?
He then thought about where this could have come from. Where did it stem from? Bakugo turning his back on him for so long? To be mocked by his peers for roughly the same amount of time? Or was it the loss he suffered so long ago?
What if this test didn't happen? Would if the same thing happen if a villian mocked him the same way? Killed for the crime of being insensitive? Midoriya snapped himself out of these thoughts. What's done is done. He had some choice words when he saw his master again.
However, when things looked like they were settling down, a heartlike core wrapped in exorsist talismans appeared in front of him. Hesitantly, he reached out to it. When he assimilated it with his own being, a internal brawl occured. The wild spirit of Enki was not yet broken. Threshing around violently and discontent. A inner, distorted voice that he had never heard before rang out. And then it went quiet as he was waking back up. Ringing in his ears, yet he did not understand the inner yokai's yell to dominate Enki... He did not like this feeling. Drifting back to consiousness, he started to understand what the yell was.
Ỳ̵̭͉͚͑͆͜O̵̦͈̓̇̽Ǘ̴͎̺͕̝̯̝́́̈́ ̴̝̹͉̳̔̄W̴͓̐̈͆̔͌̊I̶̻̅̌Ĺ̸̥͎L̶̫̺̞̄̔̄̚ ̵͖̲̏̎͌͒̕͝ͅǪ̷͐͛͘͝B̸̧̢̫͖͚̿̌͊̿̊E̶̮̋͝Ȳ̷̟̙̩̈́̽̌͂!̴̮͈͔͆̌
These thoughts faded as the sunlight hit his eyes for the day that he prepared for so long had finally arrived.
In the northern reaches in Japan, there is a motionless body. Not alive, yet not dead.
A contingency of a man so scorned by Japan, yet not enough to remember his name.
Completly hairless, pale as snow, and with tattos of lands far from here, heretical markings of alchemy.
A voice, a promise rang in the man's body.
"I am the hollow man, I am the hollow man..."
"Many times I've died..."
"Many times..."
"Rose Again!"
The man opened his eyes. Ready to continue his reasearch.
Thank you for reading, sorry for late upload. Writer's block and three different drafts for what Yokai Midoriya would encounter.
Please rate and review!
-Shmity
released it before editing, sorry.