Chapter 19 - Shadows Below The Light ● 2 ●

『 Omniscient POV 』

As a nerve cracking silence continue to exist in the battle field that Nami and Usopp was in...

*Boom!!*

... A loud, devastating explosion was suddenly heard throughout the Syrup Village and the other villages nearby.

All of the people who heard the said noise only have one question in their mind, and that was the mixture of fear and curiosity about the source for such a loud explosion.

Well, if they were to go to the southern shore of the Syrup Village, they would have found a crimson glowing man, covered in black clothings, following behind a flying teen that has a small metal serving as a shoulder armor attached on his left shoulder.

"Fuck, shit!!"

Exclaimed the teen before he remove the small metal from his shoulder then brought it up into his mouth, now serving as a mask.

This teen was, of course, Midoriya, who quickly secured the lock of his mask before he made it turn into its helmet form.

He did that to save his eyes from being assualted by the dusts that was now surrounding the battlefield that he found himself in.

After the mask turned into its helmet form, Midoriya continue to dodge the relentless attacks of the glowing man.

Although Midoriya still don't know how he is doing it, he could see and feel that the opponent before him was capable of mixing some unknown energy into the air attacks that he was sending towards him.

And that said energy was the one that was causing those attack destructive, as upon contacting on something tangible, they would explode.

*Boom!!*

Just like right now.

'The previous air attacks that he sent me before had haki in them but they lacked the explosive trait that it has now, that means, there is something else mixed in his attacks.'

Midoriya's mind was running wild, as the best as it could, in an attempt to make some sense out of his opponent's attacks.

And of course, while doing so, the young hero did whatever that comes into his mind to counter the assault of his enemy.

Either by throwing boulder of rocks and debris of destroyed ground towards him or sending an compressed air attacks of his own.

So far, however, almost all of his counter attacks met the same fate; ineffectiveness.

That's right, if those attacks were not punched, tanked, or kicked, they would be predicted by his opponent.

'Another one is coming!!'

Fortunately, his attacks were not fruitless as it appears since thanks to them, Midoriya managed to learn the different patterns of multiple onslaughts that he had seen so far.

'Newton's first Law, inertia!'

Because of that fact and his quick analyzing skills, exactly four seconds before he noticed that his opponent is once again charging his left arm for a destructive blow, Midoriya's mind finally came up with a theoretical counterattack for it.

Earlier, as Midoriya was trying to assess the traits of his opponent's attacks, he tried to counter one of the air attack with his own.

The outcome of that attempt, however, was completely different from the ones that he got compared to when he faced some villians who uses air related Quirks.

Because instead of canceling each other out, the air attack that he sent was completely ignored, or to be specifically, it was destroyed by the one that his opponent had sent.

Upon seeing that, Midoriya quickly run away from his position, at that time, and not even a second after he moved, an explosion with the size of six meters suddenly erupted.

This outcome was the reason why Midoriya had come to the conclusion that, the air attack of his opponent only explodes when it touched something tangible.

But as he was reflecting on the attacks that he had received so far, while he was still dodging them until now, he suddenly remembered what happened at the first punch that he had blocked.

'Maybe touching tangible things was not the answer but instead, it explodes whenever it come in contact with something that... can somehow stop its movement.'

When this thought came into his mind, Midoriya quickly formed a plan.

But the plan that he came out with required quite a lot of strength power.

'[ One For All; Full Crowling X Fa Jin ]!!'

Thankfully, the young multi quirk user had been using another quirk that he had access to, for the pass several minutes and thus, the requirement problem was quickly solved.

As Midoriya began to release the kinetic energy that he had collected, the green electricity dancing in his body suddenly gained a dark red glow in them as they grew in numbers and their viscosity intensifies.

Not paying any mind into that minor change, the young fighter hurriedly yurned his body around, to, once again, face his suitor.

'[ 200% Air Force; Atlantis Smash ]!!'

And with that mental roar, Midoriya finally let his middle finger go and the power that was put inside it followed towards the direction where Midoriya was aiming at.

*Boom!!*

And because of his precise timing, Midoriya successfully carried out his plan.

A simple plan such as to make the explosive attack of his enemy explode as soon as he released the said attack, by simply colliding that explosive attack with something that should stop its momentum.

And the outcome of his actions were something that surprised him, in a very good way.

"Achk!!"

"Finally!!"

Because once Midoriya's air strike collided with his opponent's one, it erupted in a rather large and loud explosion.

An explosion which damaged and pushed his opponent towards the bottom of the cliff of the shore.

But that is not all as that explosion also destroyed quite a portion of ground from their battleground, the shore.

'... Will I have to repair it all by myself later?!'

Nervously thought of the teen to himself as he stares at the destruction that the previous attacks had caused.

Thankfully, after being burried onto a wall by his own attack, Midoriya's ambusher finally stopped following him and just stayed still at his place.

But, of course, this time, Midoriya's focus did not vanished even after seeing the outcome that he had desired but instead, he remained vigilant.

Unaware of the current thoughts of his opponent.

『 ??? POV 』

Ika Ika no Mi.

A Paramecia-type Devil Fruit that allows the user to increase their strength by becoming more and more angry, transforming the user into an Angry Human.

That was the fruit that was bestowed to me.

「 'A suitable power for me, one that could make me the strongest of them all.' 」

And that was my naive thought when I received it.

Not long after that, however, I realized that having this power alone without mastering would not give me the thing that I had long lost and desire the most back.

And because of that, after I realized that, I focus on mastering my devil fruit and my efforts were fruitful as... I awekened it after a lot of hardships.

'But despite all of my efforts, once I tried to get it, I still lack the strength to gain my most desired thing.'

That was when I met despair.

'Ah~ I will not so leave this island alive.'

And now, this certain thought appeared in my mind as I attempt to open my eyes to look towards the cause of my previous sufferings.

How can he be so strong?

If I had continued training, would I be as strong as him?

Or will I still faced the same despair that I met in the past?

Doubts were building up in my mind as I saw how my target was floating meters away from me, staring right back at me behind his mask.

'... Right... those do not matter... because I...'

As I continue to look at how he stares at me, anger once again began to cloud my mind.

And as that happens, my body once again starts to generate heat around me.

This heat was the thing that I gained after I awakened my fruit.

Using the energy of this heat, I could blow up anything that could stop any of my attacks.

'By it my punch itself or my air attacks.'

And after mastering it, I for once, gained control over something.

That's right, I can control how destructive and damaging the explosion that my attack would have.

But after mastering that trait of my fruit, I soon learned that I could not just continuesly attack someone or something at my max power.

Because, in exchange for the explosive attack, my anger would be diminished as I continue to attack.

Of course, I thought that such a drawback would not really affect me as I had yet to face anyone that survived my full powered attack, but seeing my young opponent now...

'That's right, I had yet used it on him... but perhaps...'

Shaking my head off of those thoughts, I finally decided to stand up once again.

And as I do so, my internal injuries also heals up quite rapidly.

Unlike the destructive trait that the heat have outside of my body, this heat actually heals my body up whenever I found myself injured or even just slightly wounded.

"... Allow me to introduce myself, I am Renga... the Head Shadow of Wrath."

Aware of the fact that it is too late for a nice introduction or whatsoever, I still did it as I began to accept the fact that the next act will be my final one.

When he heard my words, my opponent seemed to be shocked and confused.

"... If you are that curious about me, then look for the thing that I left behind in that place."

Faced with the questions that he yelled at me, I just threw a map at him.

And as he was distracted by the map that was headed towards him, I once again vanished into thin air and appeared right above him.

'Let's see if you really are as strong as I thought you are!!'

With that thought in my, I finally let go of my rationality and just decided to use all of the remaining power that I have.

'Let's end this with a bang!!'

I internally roared to myself before I entered the darkest part of my mind.

『 Midoriya's POV 』

As soon as I catched the thing that my opponent, who randomly introduced himself as Renga, I finally realized that he had disappeared from my view once again.

'Whe-!'

And before a word could even form in my mind, I suddenly felt a gut wrenching feeling in my mind.

Looking towards the direction of the cause of this unpleasant feeling, I found Renga free falling from the sky right above my head.

'Oh no!'

With barely enough time to activate my quirk, I was left with no choice but to tank the painful barrage of attacks that he was sending to me.

"Why are you doing this!!"

I exclaimed in anger before I sent him away from me by surprising him with a quick but powerful roundhouse kick on his temple.

"Why else but to kill you?!!"

'He is different from before.'

When I heard his words, that single thought appeared in my mind.

The reason for that thought is simple, although the ferociousness of his attack did not change, his aura from when he spoke to me and now that he is attacking me are completely different from each other.

'It's either he is a battle junkie or he... has a second personality.'

As I come to that conclusion, I once again narrowly dodge an attack from him, which erupted in explosion a second after I dodge another attack from him.

'Damn it, he's not giving me enough time to gather my strength to counter his attacks!!'

Frustration were now coming for my mind as the feeling of dread began to surround me.

'I need to block his eyesight!!'

With that thought in mind, I quickly used my other quirk, [ Smokescreen ], and attempted to hurriedly leave from his range.

"Whawhawha~! Where do you think you are going!?"

But instead of losing him in this, Renga used the time that took me to release the smoke out of my body to decrease the distance between us.

"Why won't you just leave me alone!!"

I exclaimed once again as my frustration is now reaching its limit.

And as I do so, I increased the percentage of [ Full Cowling ] and covered my bones with [ Blackwhip ] before I hurriedly activate [ Gearshift ] and then launched myself up to the top of them cliff, where Renga was previously burried at.

'Finally!!'

That short moment of freedom from his attacks allowed me to relax for a moment before I once again launched myself towards him.

'I can't remain passive anymore, I need to end this soon!!'

The reason for that thought of mine was, although I managed to increase my mastery on some of my quirks, [ Gearshift ] is a quirk that I still have a hard time using.

And thus, although the backlash of using this quirk had been lessened, overusing it will not be optimal as it could potentially put me in a bad spot if there is still an enemy hiding and waiting for the right opportunity to ambush me once again.

"Why won't you just let me kill you!!?"

"As if I'd do that!!"

After launching myself back and forth from my opponent's location towards the top of the cliffs several times, to attack him and dodge his attacks, he finally snapped and yelled at me.

Though, the combination of words that he chose to scream was borderline stupid and funny.

'No, that's not funny at all!!'

While debating if my sense of humor is now broken or if I even have one, I once again punched the murderous bastard in the face before I noticed something.

'He's running low in stamina!!'

And I took that as a sign to end this once and for all.

"You bastard!! Let's see if you can still dodge this!"

But it appears that I'm not the only one that thought of that as Renga, the culprit of almost destroying all of the ground in this shore, began to gather up the heat that danced in his body towards his hands alone.

'[ Full Cowling; 60% X Blackwhip; Bone Armor X Gearshift; 3rd Gear X Fa jin ]!!'

Coincidentally, the amount of time that took me to charge up my own attack is the same as him and so, we ran towards each other at the exact time.

"[ 300 percent; Meteorite Smash ]!!"

"[ Heaven Style; Fist of Fury ]!!"

And in no more than 10 seconds, our fist once again collided with each other, for the final time.

And the result of that action of ours was a blinding light that surrounded us before it was followed by a wave of blast that destroyed the ground below us, as well as, the cliff behind me.

But that is not all as that blast also caused the vanishment of a portion of seawater on the ocean behind him.

And then, as the destruction of this place continue to take place, a deafening loud sound of explosion erupted from our fist.

By the end of this chaos, only one of us remained standing.

And that person was...

[ To be Continued ]