The two stepped out of the diner, the night air was cold and carried the scent of rain from earlier. The streets were quiet, other than a car every now and again. Dante stretched, feeling beyond satisfied and full for the first time in a while.
Kazuya walked beside him, hands in his pockets and a cigarette in his mouth. "Alright, I've got one more question."
Dante glanced up at him. "Mhm?"
"You said you're self taught and learnt from a book yes? But the way you move isn't just street brawling or anything like that. You fight like you have experience, but you can't get fighting experience like that from a book from what I know."
Dante smirked. "So?"
Kazuya eyed him. "Where'd you find a book that taught you how to fight that well?"
Dante shrugged. "Found it in the back of a convenience store."
Kazuya stopped walking. "You're telling me you read a random book from the back of a convenience store and taught yourself how to fight from that?"
"Yup." Dante kept walking.
Kazuya scoffed before catching up. "What the hell kinda book even was it?"
"It was called [An Introduction To Combat]"
Kazuya just blinked. "You serious? It wasn't a book focusing on just Krav Maga or Muay Thai? They were just snippets?"
Dante nodded. "Yeah. It had different martial arts listed too, but I just picked what looked best suited for me."
Kazuya chuckled, shaking his head. "You're nuts. Most people just read books like that and think nothing of it. You actually learnt something from it?"
Dante smirked. "Well, I doubt there's anyone else in this world like me."
Kazuya laughed. "Wow, you've got one hell of an ego!"
They walked in silence for a bit before Kazuya asked another question, "So, what's next for you?"
Dante looked at his hand. "Probably training. Gotta get better y'know? If I wanna be the strongest I've gotta face some heavy hitters."
Kazuya raised his eyebrows and smirked approvingly. "Pretty good answer."
Eventually they reached an intersection. Kazuya stopped and nodded toward another street. "I'm heading this way. You?"
Dante pointed his thumb in the opposite direction. "I should probably go check on my stuff."
Kazuya gave him a two finger salute. "Alright then, kid. See you around."
Dante nodded. "Yeah."
Then, they split off.
'That was definitely the little devil they were talking about on the news, surprisingly he's not a bad kid. I'm sure his circumstances lead him to act like that.' Kazuya looked back at Dante's retreating figure with a somber smile, "I'm looking forward to seeing you grow, kid." He muttered before continuing his walk.
…
…
Dante made his way back to the park. Thankfully, everything was exactly as he had left it, his bag was okay and his things untouched.
He sat on the floor with a deep exhale and pulled out his notebook, flipping to a new page.
Then he started writing about his day.
Fight 1, Street Thigs
- It was only in hand to hand combat but the opponents were super sloppy, so they didn't even use any techniques I could copy. My new martial art worked well, I wasted no movements at all! I efficiently took them all down, lost barely any calories.
Fight 2, Kazuya
- Kazuya was way stronger, he was actually skilled unlike the thugs. I couldn't really just on my martial art, I had to push my limits. Thankfully, my quirk came into play. I used sludge to increase the range of my limbs, claws for damage and my newly discovered technique of sensory antenna to detect any movements in my surroundings.
New discoveries :
- I can apparently sense/feel movement through my sludge. This could lead to some crazy applications for hand to hand combat.
- Also, I discovered that I lost way less calories than I had anticipated during the fight despite using my quirk loads. Could my quirk usage be improving?
- Martial arts + Quirk = Maximum effectiveness.
Dante leaned back, looking at the page. Was his quirk getting stronger? Like a muscle? The more he used it would it get stronger?
His quirk was definitely evolving.
And so was he.
Closing his notebook, he tucked it away back into his bag, then he stretched for a moment and finally let exhaustion take over.
Within minutes of getting comfortable, he fell fast asleep.
…
…
Dante was woken up by the morning sun shining on him through the trees.
He sat up, stretching, but his body still felt sluggish and heavy from yesterday.
He tried shadow boxing, throwing a few jabs and kicks to get his blood pumping. But it all felt wrong, his movements were slower and less controlled. He clenched his fists in frustration, he was still tired.
"Tch, what a waste of time!"
Instead of forcing himself to practice martial arts, he just shifted his focus to his quirk.
He spent the whole day simply training his quirk and trying to push it, shifting his sludge into different forms, increasing the range he can stretch, refining his sensory ability. The antenna trick from last night had been a game changer so he had kept it on this whole time. If he could refine it, it could be the perfect counter to faster opponents.
By the time the sun started to dip below the skyline, Dante had made a bit of progress, but now he was just sitting there all bored. He was sitting on a bench, just tapping his fingers against his knee.
"I'm so bored, there's nothing to do."
Then his eyes flicked to the card that Kazuya had given to him.
The card read "Kazuya's Underground Gym!" And Dante could just imagine Kazuya writing that thinking he was sooooo cool.
"Oh well, he bought me a meal, I might as well go check it out."
…
The adress on the card led him to a narrow alleyway deep inside the city, the kind of place where the streetlights barely worked and flickered non stop, the type of place where people didn't walk through unless they absolutely had to.
Dante stopped at the entrance, taking it all in.
A group of thugs lounged near a dumpster, smoking and laughing, their loud and gruff voices echoed through the alley. Some even glanced at Dante as he passed by, but none made a move on him.
So Dante just ignored them all.
At the end of the alley, a heavy metal door stood beneath a flickering neon sign.
[KAIJIN GYM]
Dante scoffed, "Kazuya's Underground Gym my ass. Did he really just make up a fake name?"
Then he pushed the heavy metal door open and stepped inside.
The smell of sweat and blood hit him straight away, invading his nostrils. The gym was packed, there was so many men all way bigger than Kazuya, scarred faces and extremely dangerous looking, they were all either sparring in the ring, pounding away at punching bags or weightlifting with their potential fellow gang members. The air was buzzing with pure testosterone and energy so much that even Dante was getting pumped up to start training despite his earlier sluggishness, the sound of fists smashing into pads and the occasional shout of arguments echoed throughout the large gym.
Dante felt tiny compared to everything else.
And then—
"YO! KID!"
Kazuya's voice boomed above all the noise. Dante barely had time to react before Kazuya practically teleported right next to him, clasping a hand on his head, ruffling his hair and antennae.
"Ha! I knew you'd come!" Kazuya grinned, he was practically bouncing with joy. "Man, I knew you were going to show up! Everyone, listen up!"
Heads turned. Dante felt like he was being watched by numerous dangerous criminals all at once.
"This is the kid I told you all about!" Kazuya announced. "The one who beat my ass in the alley yesterday!"
Murmurs spread all throughout the gym. Some guys raised their eyebrows in surprise while others burst out laughing.
"You?! You, the Great Golden Lion Kazuya, got taken down by a kid?!" One of the larger guys couldn't stop laughing while wiping a tear from his eye.
"Hey. Shut it," Kazuya huffed. "You weren't there to see it. This kid is the real deal! He's smart enough to pick up on my movement patterns and adapt to my fighting style, fast enough to actually react to my blows and be able to counterattack and extremely creative with his quirk to the point he developed a whole new technique in the middle of our fight! Give him some time, and he'll become one hell of a monster."
Dante felt the stares intensify, even more began to look his way after Kazuya's bold statement. Some were amused. Some looked interested and a few even looked like they wanted to fight him!
Kazuya turned back to him, still grinning ear to ear. "So? What do you think of my gym, kid?"
Dante glanced around.
Buff, scarred, dangerous men trained in every corner of the gym. It stunk of blood and sweat. And everyone here could probably kill him at any moment.
Dante couldn't help but smirking.
"I… think I might fit right in, I think you really could make me stronger."