Chapter 106
[137]
“SPIDER-MAN!” Akechi yelled at the top of his lungs as he charged forward at the figure, no longer caring about the blond boy from earlier.
“Hey big guy! You aren’t still mad about earlier, right?” The masked figure asked as the blond at his feet ran away.
“RRRAAAAUUGGGHHH!” Venom let out an animalistic cry as it tackled him to the ground and roared, sending spittle onto Ren’s mask.
“So I take it, that’s a yes?” Ren joked, the wind knocked out of him.
As Venom was about to bite down on Spider-Man’s head, he didn’t notice the figure in white swinging behind him, landing a heavy kick against his back and sending him flying forward.
‘Dammit!’ Akechi thought, skidding across the ground. ‘I forgot about the girl!’
As Makoto helped Ren to his feet, he commended her. “Nice kick. Could’ve used a quip though.”
Beneath her mask, Makoto rolled her eyes. “Let’s just get this over with. Hopefully Futaba’s done on her end.”
With that, the two heroes charged into combat against their foe, as they got near the large black mass that was Venom, Ren dove between the creature’s legs while Makoto aimed to kick him in the chest. Before he could stop either of them, Akechi felt a shock run through his body, courtesy of the male spider person, right before receiving a powerful kick courtesy of the female.
‘What the hell!? Their teamwork-’ Akechi thought, stumbling back just before tripping on something. Looking down, he saw that it was, in fact, Spider-Man that he’d tripped over. ‘Such a childish tactic...worked!?’
“Hey buddy,” Ren spoke up. “Might want to watch your step.”
Akechi looked down at the ground, but it was too late. At his feet, a small silver disk blinked with a red light just before it detonated. A net of webbing shot around him, binding his arms and legs. Before he could even react, Akechi spotted more blinking lights on the walls around him just before weblines shot from each of them, further restraining him.
As it turned out, one of the new features included in the new webshooters were what Futaba referred to as ‘web mines’, small cylinders that could be stuck to walls and remotely fire webs when something tripped their sensors. Very useful for trapping opponents. When the barrage of web mines finally ended, what stood in front of Ren and Makoto was a large cocoon of webs so thick that the individual beneath them was no longer visible.
“Holy shit! You got him!” Ryuji exclaimed, approaching the two vigilantes. Just as he did so, the cocoon began to thrash, the lines holding it in place quickly beginning to snap one by one. “For real!? He’s still able to move!?” The blond backed away before tripping and falling onto his butt.
“Shit! It looks like it won’t hold him as long as we thought.” Makoto stated, firing more webs onto the cocoon.
“Uh guys? There’s more to the plan than this, right?” Ryuji asked, watching the two spider people attempt to restrain Venom. As they did so, from the middle of the cocoon, a large set of teeth bit their way out and the monster’s head became visible.
“SPIDER-MAN!”
“...Guys?” Ryuji asked, fear in his voice. Suddenly, a loud bang rang out across the park, causing the blond to look up just in time to see a bright light streaking through the sky. Then, just as quickly as it appeared, the light exploded, sending sparks across the sky.
‘Fireworks!?’ Akechi thought, turning his head. As more explosions began to ring out behind him, the symbiote began to wildly lash out, attempting to escape from the noise as quickly as possible.
Venom screeched as tendrils began to shoot out wildly, piercing through the cocoon and attacking the vigilantes as well as their webs. Through his wild fury, Akechi was able to break through the webbing around him faster than they could put it on him.
“Dammit! He’s...breaking free!” Ren exclaimed breathlessly, holding onto the last strings attached to Venom.
“Come...on...Futaba! Hurry...up!” Makoto said through gritted teeth.
The fireworks display grew bigger and bigger, and louder and louder. Soon the display was too bright to even look at, forcing everyone present to look away. Fortunately, despite his lashing out allowing their target to escape faster, the trap was creating the desired effect. It was visible, plain as day, that the symbiote was separating from Akechi in a desperate bid for escape.
Unfortunately however, it seemed that Ren and Makoto were reaching their limit as well. Venom outclassed them in strength, and while they were occupied with trying to hold him back, his tendrils were free to attack them. It seemed that, after everything that had happened, the battle would be one of attrition.
What would happen first? Would the symbiote fully separate from Akechi? Or would Ren and Makoto’s stamina give out?
As the display’s grand finale rang out behind them, Venom threw its arms back and let out one final cry as the symbiote peeled away from its host. The now shapeless black mass made a wet slapping noise as it hit the ground and began to roll forward, away from its host.
“Y-You did it!” Ryuji cheered as he looked up at his friends, only for his smile to quickly fade. In his last moments, Venom had struck his two captors with his massive arms, knocking them away. Now, the two heroes were lying on their backs on the ground, too weak to even pick themselves up. The strain of holding the monster back mixed with the barrage of blows they’d received had rendered them unconscious.
The same could not be said for Akechi however. The former host of the symbiote slowly pushed himself off of the ground, looking exhausted but still able to move. As Ryuji looked back down at the symbiote, he could see the ball of black goo slowly pushing its way toward Akechi, the two of them were approaching each other, slowly but surely.
“NO!” Ryuji cried out, stumbling to his feet before he ran at Akechi, tackling the boy to the ground.
“Gah! Let go of me!” Akechi demanded, pushing against Ryuji. His strength was obviously lacking, but then again so was Ryuji’s. The run from earlier had drained Ryuji of most of his stamina and he still hadn’t had the time to catch his breath since.
“Just...stay...down!”
In response, the boy punched the blond directly in the face, causing his grip to slip, letting Akechi push him aside and get up once more. Before he could run to rejoin the symbiote, he felt a hand grab his leg and hold him in place. Turning around with a scowl, Goro saw the blond staring back at him with determined eyes despite his bleeding and clearly broken nose.
“LET! GO! IDIOT!” Akechi punctuated each word with a kick to the boy’s face. Turning back to the symbiote, he was mere feet away. Just out of reach of salvation. One touch and he could regain all of his strength, kill everyone here and leave without a problem.
Just. One. Touch.
As Ryuji clung to the reporter’s leg as best as he could, he felt his consciousness beginning to slip away from him. One of his eyes was already swollen shut and the repeated blows to the head weren’t helping either. As his one good eye began to close, the blond’s grip began to loosen on Akechi. In the back of his mind, he thought he heard someone calling out to him.
“RYUJI!”
His eye shot open as he heard the voice again, this time much more clearly. Turning his head slightly he spotted several moving figures in the distance running toward him. It was the others! Ann, Yusuke, Morgana, and Haru. They were all coming toward him! If he could just last a little longer…
Ryuji turned his head back toward Akechi and the symbiote, he saw that the two of them had nearly reunited. Akechi’s hand was inches away from the black puddle which was slowly crawling toward him.
‘They won’t make it in time.’ He quickly deduced. ‘Akechi’s seconds away from powering back up. If I don’t do something right now then…’ He didn’t even want to think what would happen. Using up the last of his strength, Ryuji reached out with his free hand, grabbed the back of the reporter’s jacket and began to pull.
“What are you-AH!” Akechi cried out as he felt himself be pulled back, losing his balance and falling over the boy behind him. Now on his back, Akechi looked up just in time to see the blond staring back at him with a look of contempt in his eyes, right before his own hand came in contact with the symbiote, his body immediately being shrouded by the black mass. “NOOOO!”
[138]
When Ryuji opened his eyes again, he found himself floating through a void.
An empty, soundless, sightless void of pure black. The only reason he knew he was awake was because of the pain he was in, still hurting from his battle against Akechi. Speaking of which, what had happened to the reporter turned villain? He turned around, (or at least he thought he did? It was kind of hard to tell when everything was pitch black and there was no ground.) and unsurprisingly found no sign of the man.
“Hello?” Ryuji called out, his voice echoing through the void. When no response came, he decided to try again. “YO! ANYBODY HERE?” He shouted as loud as he could, again only receiving echoes in response.
Finally after a moment of silence, the void began to shake somehow and white lights began worming their way into Ryuji’s line of sight, clustering together into two large masses and a thin line beneath them.
“Ryuji.” A deep, gravelly voice called the boy’s name. A frightening realization later, Ryuji saw that the thing in front of him was a face.
“WHAT THE HELL!?” He cried out, trying to distance himself from the face, only to not move at all. “What are you? No, nevermind that! Stay the hell away!”
“Stay away?” The voice asked. “I am inside of you Ryuji. Under your skin, coursing through your veins, wrapped around your heart. We are one. I hear your thoughts, I feel your emotions, I see your memories.”
“WELL STOP IT!” Ryuji stated, panicked. “Leave me alone you freaky wall face!”
“Hmmm, you are much slower on the uptake than my last host. Probably because you are much dumber. Yet somehow you still have a high compatibility rate. Interesting...”
“Wha-HEY! What the hell man!?” The boy protested angrily. “You don’t know me!”
“Oh but I do know you Ryuji.” The face smiled sadistically. “I know everything about you. More than you even know about yourself. Every thought, every idea, every fear. For instance, I know what you really think about your friends…”
“Shut up.”
“I know that you’re afraid. Afraid that they only keep you around to laugh at you. Afraid that when they finally realize how little you really contribute, they’ll leave you behind. Just like daddy did.”
“SHUT UP!”
“My last host had daddy issues too, but not nearly the amount of self pity. How long until you finally realize everything that’s wrong with your life is your own fault?”
“SHUT THE HELL UP!” Ryuji cried. The voice finally stopped taunting him, but the sadistic grin never left his face. “What do you want from me!? You getting some kind of sick kick out of taunting me ya bastard?”
“I’m merely telling you what you already know. And as for why I’m doing this, I find your rage...delicious. And there is so much rage in you, pent up over the years of abuse. Rage against your father, Kamoshida,” The voice paused before smiling again. “Your friends.”
“Wha-I don’t...I ain’t angry at my friends!”
“Aren’t you?” The voice asked. “Always treated as a fool, always the butt of the joke, nobody has any respect for you. Ann has known you for longer than anyone and thinks the least of you, what does that say? Morgana hates you for merely existing. And Ren, your best friend in the whole world,” The face gave a toothy smirk.
“Stop it!” Ryuji cried, seeing where this was going.
“You were there that day too, weren’t you? When Ren got his powers? In fact, it was your idea to go into that room. If only it had been you instead of him. You think about it constantly. And even when a second chance presented itself, you failed again. Such a failure, Ryuji. Doesn’t it make you angry with them? With him? That it could be you who’s admired by everyone? Loved by everyone?”
“The only one pissing me off is you!” Ryuji responded. As he did so, he could feel rage seeping into him, not from this thing’s childish taunting, but almost as if the floodgates in his mind were opening, releasing years of pent up rage. His bodily pain from earlier quickly began to fade, being pushed away to the back of his mind.
“Good.” The voice replied, seemingly pleased with this. “Then why not let loose? Let it all out.”
While he didn’t want to agree with the voice, all of this anger...He had to let it out somehow. And letting loose was beginning to sound more and more appealing.
“We-I shouldn’t do this...” Ryuji protested, but his conscience was fighting a losing battle. His thoughts were becoming clouded as rage took over.
“We can do whatever we want.” The face smiled. “Because we…”
“Are Venom.”