If they had, they might have guessed his purpose for coming to this city. Worse, they might have decided to try and help him in what he had to do.
But, this was his fight, not theirs.
...
"Usually, I'm just waiting around for a call to come in while out patrolling. But lately… Everyone's been in kinda a panic around here."
"Because the number of patrolmen has been downsized?"
It was a rather callous way to put what had been happening around here, but Tenya wasn't able to put it in a more diplomatic and kindhearted way. Not without betraying exactly how he felt about all of it.
Manuel didn't seem to mind though.
"Yeah, that's right." He said in a kinda forced calm and carefree manner like they weren't talking about a serial killer roaming the streets.
"Sure is nice to have Ingenium's little brother with me though."
Normally, that line might have brought pride and a sense that he had something to live up to.
At that moment though, he was simply reminded of why he was here.
There was a very dangerous man roaming the streets of Hosu. A phantom that not even the modern law enforcement had not been able to catch.
A phantom he had come here to catch.
This whole trip might be completely in vain. It might turn out to have been a gigantic waste of time.
The chances of him running into the one he sought were extremely minuscule, solely from a mathematical point of view. The city was not small.
But still, he had to try. He had to make the attempt to catch the man, whose actions he could NEVER forgive.
---
Izuku was getting the distinct impression that Black Cat was not particularly fond of him.
And yet… Her brutal, brutal training regiment was proving itself REMARKABLY effective.
In one day of training, he had achieved more mastery over throwing the cannonballs, than the weeks of training in the forest had produced, using simple punching the arm the way Venom did.
He wasn't there yet, where every single shot he made was a strong, solid cannonball, but he had reached the point where his black balls more often than not held their mass as they collided with cars and trucks and all the rest of the broken and obsolete things you found in a junkyard.
The simple fact was that Black was right. This was the way to train it. Punching again, and again, and again while adding black mass to every punch, until doing so became second nature.
Of course, there was one downside to this kind of training…
Pain. His arms were nothing, but pain and agony.
Black cat had very early on learned of his adrenaline, and how it allowed him to shake off pain and such at the moment, once it got going.
She had promptly decided to use that, while cheerfully telling him that his healing factor would handle the aftermath.
So he had trained. And trained. And trained. He had trained in two-hour shifts, then had a 15-minute break before starting training again. 5 times.
He had begun to feel really beaten up after his first round of training. The second break had been agony. The third had been pain, where he longed for the damn break to end already so he could get back to the adrenaline. After the third break, the adrenaline didn't help as much anymore. The fourth break had been hell, and the adrenaline hadn't done ANYTHING other than make it easier to grit his teeth and keep going.
Now, his poor, poor arms were hanging limply, and covered in black liquid, having begun the process of healing every single sore, and pulled muscle he had.
Which was all of them.
"I must say Izuku, I was rather pleased with your performance." Black Cat said in a tone that wasn't quite warm but wasn't quite antagonistic either.
"T-thanks…"
"You picked up the flicker jab really well. To be honest, I had fully expected you to be working on it all day, not getting the technique down in a couple of hours."
Izuku felt a pang of pride in his chest like this he had had earlier in the day. Addmitingly, it was horribly dampened by the pain in his arms, but it was there.
As much as his arms hurt, Izuku couldn't help but feel that he had been right to want this.
It was hard, and so, so painful, but the progress from only day one had been amazing.
"I'm very interested in seeing how you do for the rest of the week. For tomorrow, we'll keep on training as we have today.
Izuku involuntary winched at that, while Mina groaned.
The pink Girl was not nearly as obviously sore as Izuku was, but the deep layer of sweat that coated her body(A problem Izuku didn't have thanks to his black suit) was the result of a training exercise that had lasted just as long As Izuku's training, only with way more lulls.
She and black cat had been sparring, and sparring at a tempo WAY beyond his and Black Cat's little skirmish.
Izuku hadn't actually ever gotten to see Mina just cut loose against someone who was just as fast as and more skilled than her, before.
The closest was when she fought against the lizard girl from the tournament, who had just completely powered through her blows, and speed.
Her dances with Black Cat however revealed a level of skill that once more out Izuku's lack of real combat experience in sharp contrast.
It had also made Izuku realized that Black Cat had been going Way, way easy on him because the way the two catgirls danced across the scrapyard, always making sure to keep out of his space was a real spectacle.
However, for all the massive tempo, it was still just sparring, and Izuku could tell that Black Cat was for the most part controlling the entire thing.
Mina had however managed to sock her across the face, which had left black cat with a black eye, but neither Mina nor her mother was currently commenting on that fact. It was more than Izuku had achieved. He wondered if that was exclusively because of the difference in speed between the two of them, or more experience on Mina's part.
"So… We're free for the rest of the day?"
"Sure. So long as you guys take it easy so you'll heal up properly for tomorrow, go do whatever you want after we're done eating dinner."
The three stepped up to a pretty luxurious hotel, which made Izuku make a double-take. Then reality hit him, and he just felt silly. Black cat was rich, of course, they were staying at someplace fancy and comfortable. Why would anyone WANT, to stay at a more standard place if you didn't have to?
The receptionist immediately recognized Black Cat, and almost immediately handed over two key cards.
Number 42, and 43.
She immediately handed them off to the two teenagers(In Izuku's case, a black tentacle shot out of his school uniform, and grabbed it, before retreating back into it.), then said:
"You Kiddo's go shower up, and be at room 42 in 40 minutes, and I'll be back with some food."
At that she waved goodbye, leaving the two teenagers to begin the trip to the elevator.
"Finallllyyyy…. Damn, I'm starved. What about you Midori?"
"Yeah, I'm a bit hungry. Do you guys… Always only eat after training?" Izuku said as they waited for the elevator.
"Ugh… Only when we're training. It helps build muscle. Of course, you end up being hungry as hell by the time it's all over."
Finally, the elevator came and they'd stepped in.
"Also… Sorry about mom."
"You guys don't usually train like this do you?"
"What the entire day, almost no breaks? No, we don't. I mean, sometimes we do but… Not for just regular training… I don't know… I was kinda hoping this would be a less boot camp-like."
"I guess…" His hand brushed the elevator door as he stepped in. " Nngghhh … She's taking the whole internship thing really, really seriously."
"No, I don't think so. Mostly, it's you I guess."
He turned to look at her as the doors closed behind them.
"Right… So, she wants to make up for me not being actually trained."
She motioned with her hand, as she leaned up against the elevator wall.
"No, I mean, she's been acting, really, really intensely ever since I got home from the day we chose our names. Hell, she spent 2 hours that day, just asking me all sorts of things about you."
He stiffened.
"Don't worry. I didn't mention anything about… What you told me at home."
For a moment, his body was as stiff as steel, the pain for a momentarily forgotten. Then he relaxed, tension going out of him.
"Thank you…"
She grinned.
"Don't worry about it. You told me that in confidence, and I'm not the sort of person who spreads that kinda stuff around."
...
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