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“..with the power of my heart’s thundering determination…” Raizenshadou, hit protagonist of the anime ‘Raizenshadou: Darkest Fate of the Heart’ cried, raising his believing blade, “...I will strike you down, villain!”
“You fool! You are nothing! You hear me, nothing!” Lord Void Skull Lord cackled, black lightning manifesting in his bony claws.
“That’s what you are, villain! Willpower blade arts: Rising Thunder!” Raizenshadou lifted his sword, which glimmered with a sparkle for each time he believed in himself, and watched as it grew to encompass half the planet - it was a feat nobody but his mother, the ancient sword-mistress of the sakura petals, had ever achieved, all the way back in episode 33’s flashback sequence.
Lord Void Skull Lord cowered, falling back as his dark sorcery failed. “No! NOOO! Your sword… it’s so big!”
"That's because I believe in myself…” Raizenshadou let the guillotine drop. “.....LOTS!”
Cut to credits.
“NOO!” Ippan cried, accidentally splashing the soup from her cup noodles all over her shirt. “Oh, crumbs… is Raizenshadou gonna beat Lord Void Skull Lord or not!? Or is he going to pull another dark minion summon out like the last six episodes? I need to know!” Sulking, her mouse cursor hovered over the next episode button.
“Well.. maybe just one more…”
…before she glanced right below it and noticed the time on her laptop. 8:46AM.
“I’M LATE FOR MY TRAIN!”
Stuffing her proverbial toast in her mouth - actually a solid brick of instant ramen she hadn’t boiled like the first cup, because she liked the crunch - Ippan stumbled around her room, not even stopping to pick up her knocked-over chair. Her studio apartment felt like a small closet despite the fact it was meant to accommodate heteromorphs of her size. At 335 centimetres, just shy of 11 feet tall, and weighing a not insignificant 300 kilos, few places could even accept her in the first place. She was just lucky the rates were affordable!
Yes, Josei Ippan was every bit the poor beleaguered college student and proud! Well, not proud. Admittedly, there wasn’t much to write home about her besides her unique looks and stature. From head to toe she was covered in teal fur with cream patches. Her ears sat atop her head, nestled in wavy locks of shoulder length blonde hair, with a smooth fox snouth bearing sharp canines. From birth it was pretty obvious to her that she wasn’t like anybody else, and while some abnormalities were cool and seemingly destined for heroism, Ippan was more of a recluse, sporting a generally timid and meek disposition unbefitting of her size.
She wasn’t sporty, so she sat in the corner and doodled. She wasn’t sociable, so she reread the textbooks she could barely understand. She wasn't particularly smart, and took extra time studying. It was a cruel joke that her parents branded her with a name that meant ‘Ordinary Woman’, for it ended up being a self-fulfilling prophecy in every sense of the word.
Yes, at the tender age of twenty-one, when most were partying or watching hero fights or making money, Ippan was mired in student debt that the sociology degree she was working on was unlikely to pay off quickly; doubly so if she kept missing classes to watch anime on her laptop.
Throwing on a new top, she rushed out the door, carefully navigating down the open stairwell and dashing down ten stairs in a stride, hitting the streets and pivoting on her heel to make a beeline for the train station. Her ramen brick slipped from her mouth and cracked on the floor, pedestrians stepping around it without care, and she abandoned her sad treat. ‘The next train’s at… 8:51! I have to hurry!’
Picking up the pace, she began to jog, clearing the distance fast, which was more a testament to having legs longer than the average person’s whole body rather than any innate athletic talent. In fact, the fifteen-second jog had her gasping and wheezing, face so red the colour bled out through her teal fur, and she crammed herself into the accessible train car for heteromorphs.
“Huff…huff…huff… At least I’ll only be twenty minutes late…” she puffed, checking her phone. ‘12%. I forgot to charge last night.’ She sniffed the air, which reeked. ‘And I stink like sweat…’ She inched away from everybody else as well as she could manage, raising a finger to pick at her shirt. ‘...And my shirt’s on inside out.’
She ended up being twenty-six minutes late to class.
‘Oh geez, I probably smell really bad, don’t I?’ Ippan catastrophized, sitting in the lecture hall, waiting for the next professor from one of her cross-program courses to arrive. It was just her and a few others, a pair of hero fanatics. Her ears swiveled over to listen in on their conversation, the extent of an average day’s socialization.
“Did you see Hawks swoop in and clean the entire bank out? Forty guys! Total dreamcake.”
“Is dreamcake even a word?”
“I’m making it a word. Hey, did you see Mirko’s last villain, though? Barely recognizable! I think she debuted a new move too!”
Ippan was envious of them - a couple of girls with nice hair and makeup making casual conversation felt like a world away. In stark contrast, she could barely even make small talk! And that wasn’t just a pun about her size, talking to people was just uniquely mortifying. She tended to take up all the space in a room, so it was better to try and shrink into the background, as much as an eleven-foot fox-shark woman could. It’s not like she didn’t know what people thought of her, anyway.
When nobody talks to you, you tend to wonder if they talk about you. Ippan had a keen hearing. She never had to wonder what people were saying about her.
“Dude, look, she’s fucking huge.”
“Josei? Oh, the tall one? Fox lady?”
“Greenish fur, taller than All Might? Yeah, that’s her.”
That’s… it. That’s the takeaway. Ippan was the tall one. And that was the long and short of it - again, pun not intended. It wasn’t like they were mean! Or wrong! They just didn’t know her.
But if they did? What would be their takeaways? Josei Ippan wasn’t a paragon of academic excellence or fitness or determination or charisma or anything else. Heck, she struggled to even pull herself out of bed or stop doomscrolling social media. The last thing she ate that wasn’t ramen was last week. It was currently Thursday.
Sociology, why sociology? Simply put, it was an interesting and accessible degree that she qualified for out of high school. There was no inclination she had towards it specifically apart from a chance curiosity, and while her classes were interesting, they weren’t gripping like they were for her cohort; they didn’t evoke passion. Just another invisible barrier between herself and potential friends. Ippan’s solution to this was to pop in her earbuds and pull out her specially-enlarged phone (in fact a slightly modified miniature tablet) to watch anime clips. She could drown out the silence around her with the warm buzz of noise, ignore her lack of… anything with the abundance on her screen. There were thousands of anime to watch apart from her favourites, and while her favourite was undoubtedly an emotional and thought-provoking masterpiece… she wasn’t feeling it right now. Perhaps it was better to put on some background noise and stop thinking for a while.
‘I Became a Beloved hero in Another World!’ was put on, and Ippan felt her mind be soothed. The world was scary, full of people who she couldn’t talk to and things she couldn’t understand. Paradoxically, the familiar world on the other side of her screen, codified and stratified with well-worn tropes and conventions, was like coming home. An hour passed. When her lecturer walked in, Ippan realized she didn't remember what the episode was about.
‘I can make it up later.’
‘It’s 1:53. When it’s 2:00 I’ll start.’
‘Just one more video, and then I’ll do my work.’
Ippan left campus having done much less work than she’d liked. The motivation just hadn’t struck her, and when she put her fingers on her keyboard and stared at it no words came to mind. Everything that could be done would take too long to do, take too much effort than she had the time for. Two hours passed with her picking away at her assignments before she decided to pack it up and go home to prepare dinner.
“You’re listening to Keep Your Hands Up Radio! YEAH! And we’re going over this week’s top hero highlights - from Endeavour’s takedown of the strange cryptic weirdo Starservant to Mirko busting her hundredth CRC cell, to the breakout hit takedown of A-Class Villain ‘Pilgrim’ by D-rank hero Native! Talk about a trio of triumphs over evil!”
Ippan hummed with interest, pushing her earbud back into her fox ears from where it’d been beginning to slip out. She’d never been too keyed into hero culture - the violence was too much to handle, and the idea of fighting frankly gave her the jitters. It was best enjoyed, in Ippan’s opinion, through the screen of her phone or laptop, partaken in exclusively by animated characters and the occasional actor if she was feeling daring. Still, it was hard not to know a thing or two, especially after listening to Present Mic’s radio show/podcast. And the music was nice.
She stopped in front of the local konbini to grab a yakisoba bun as a treat, scarfing it down in no time. Food tended to be too small to really affect her, and she was graced with a good metabolism, so why bother strictly sticking to health foods? Cooking took too long anyway.
Wiping her lips, she turned a corner to find a bin, which took quite a while, but she eventually ducked into a second konbini. In retrospect, she could’ve disposed of it in the first. These were the kinds of issues that tended to come up in Ippan’s exciting life. Now, what was Present Mic saying?
“Hits that- sorry for the interruption, but we’ve just received word that a major villain attack is happening near Ketsubusu Academy and moving at a rapid pace through the area. If you are in central Osaka nearby please take shelter immediately. To all our listeners in Osaka, stay safe out there.”
“Ketsubusu…” Ippan startled, looking around. “Isn’t that-”
BLAM!
The building next to her collapsed, and Ippan yelped as she jumped out of the way. From the wreckage and billowing smoke came two figures, both intimidating in their own right - the first, a menacing man in a brown coat, his fingers metal pipes that looked the part of a sawn-off shotgun, still smoking from the blast they’d fired that caused the mess around him.
The second, however, was the Rabbit hero: Mirko, number 11 and rising. Built like a marble statue painted ebony, the only thing larger than her takedown count and her musculature was her personality; in her own words, she liked nothing more than a good fight to get her blood pumping. Most of Japan had a minor celebrity crush on the heroine for very obvious reasons, and a decent chunk had major enough ones that they warranted restraining orders. With any other hero, they’d file them, but Mirko backed up her fight with a public attitude thorny and contentious enough that there’d be legitimate fear from any wannabe stalker that she’d just up and kill them. So if Mirko was here, it would mean things would be alright.
“Miwko! At last, my gweatest pwey, we meet!” the man laughed, pointing his gun-fingers at her.
“Prey? You’re full of shit, Fudd Huntsman, fifteen seconds ago you were gettin’ your kicks shootin’ up shopfronts, ands now you’re running like a bitch!” Mirko spat, her characteristically foul mouth in full motion.
“Ah-ah-ah!” the villain laughed, and his fingers swiveled around to face Ippan, who’d been caught staring. She froze instantly, and Mirko’s eyes darted to her. In an instant, she’d been caught in a hostage situation.
‘I should’ve just kept the wrapper in my pocket!’ Ippan cried internally.
“Yeah, that’ll hold ya alwight,” Fudd mocked her. “One little step fowwad’ and the tall lady gets it! You may be fast, Miwko, but awe ya fasta’ than a speedin’ bullet?”
“Hey, shithead,” Mirko grit, looking unusually stressed, “you point that gun at me instead, and you’ll might just prove you’ve got a brain under that ugly fuckin’ hat, because if I think you’re about to kill a civilian your head goes flying faster than you can pull that trigger.”
Ippans shuddered, the hero and villain standing off, both their postures tense. She, and the crowd beside her, didn’t dare move a single muscle in case her head got the same treatment of the building he’d eviscerated. Her life flashed before her eyes, and for the most part it was really boring, but more than anything Ippan wished for, it was for Mirko to pull through here. Mirko had never lost a fight against a villain. She was a hero, one of the best in the whole country, and this was her speciality! Ippan should’ve been feeling safe, but with the gun of guns pointed at you a girl had to worry anyway, hoping the villain wouldn’t mistake one of her quakes or jitters for an escape attempt and end her prematurely.
Finally, his posture relaxed.“Nah, yew wight, I wouldn’tna shoot at helpless pwey,” the huntsman drawled. “See, I like a good hunt. Now, as for enviwonmental factas….”
Fudd’s gun jerked upwards and tore through the support beam of the overhand above her, instantly collapsing the roof atop her. With the crumbling of bricks and dust she knew even more was coming.
“WATCH OUT!” Somebody shouted. Unable to get away in time, Ippan ducked and held her arms out, bracing for impact. “G-Get under me!
CRASH!
Rubble collapsed in every direction around her, streaming down like rivers of broken stone and dust and rebar that tore at her skin. Despite it all, despite the tremendous strain, her frame held.
You see, Josei Ippan’s quirk, and its resultant size, came with a few necessary internal mutations to allow her to function normally, functions such as standing and walking around. These included incredibly dense bones, able to take massive helpings of damage, and a very high body mass, which let her absorb impacts just like these. Additionally, her bone structure could ‘lock’ into place much more effectively than most, allowing her to keep stability and hold frame.
Effectively, Ippan was one big meat shield, and when the brunt of the damage hit her, it parted like a wave, cascading over her back.She grunted and screamed, but did not budge. For what felt like an entire minute the whole building shattered against her, debris spilling out and smothering everyone in dust and detritus, an umbrella of safety beneath her outstretched arms with a huge chunk of cement above her. It was pitch-black in the alcove.
A phone light turned on. “H-Holy shit… you saved us!” a woman exclaimed. “Are you okay?”
‘No.’ “Yes…” she wheezed. “Just… can’t lift this…” Indeed, while her durability was at superhuman levels, her strength was not. She was effectively locked in place, a loadbearing column keeping the rubble aloft.
“Rgghhh-FUCK, there we go!” a gargantuan chunk of reinforced concrete was pushed aside, natural light steaming back in. Mirko glanced up at Ippan, taking stock of the scene - scuffed but unhurt civilians, and a hurt (but not severely) Ippan with an unknowable amount of collapsed building on her back. She had that look in her eyes most everyone did when they passed her in the street, and it made her look not too different from the others huddled around her, despite the… very tight spandex. Ippan blushed and broke her gaze first, trying not to be caught ogling. She valued her health.
“Well… shit. Good work, you,” Mirko huffed. “Now everyone out!” Quickly, the people vacated, thanking Ippan quickly before scurrying through the person-sized hole the hero had carved out. Unfortunately, Ippan wasn’t person-sized; she was people-sized, specifically two of them, both tall, with a bit of change. “Can you drop down and get through, or need more room?” Mirko asked.
“I…can’t really… quirk lets m’ bones lock in place,” Ippan wheezed out.
“Damn. Alright, here I go!” With a mighty pound to the pavement and a blur Mirko was gone, and the next second Ippan felt the weight upon her back shatter into dust, breaking apart into pebbles that rained down . Shakily, she shrugged off the last loadbearing chunk of the roof and stood up straight again, surveying the damage.
“H-H-How much b-building fell on me?” she questioned.
“Like four fucking stories,” Mirko responded, a strange tone in her voice. “You hurt? ‘Cause usually you weakling types need an ambulance when four fucking stories fall straight onto your head. To ferry ‘em to the morgue. There’s a med tent over there,” she pointed.
“I-I’m… I’m good, thanks, Miss Mirko!” Ippan stammered. “T-Thank you for saving me!”
“Nah, this was a fuckup for me. Guy shouldn't've been there in the first place,” Mirko snarled, glaring over at the prone form of the huntsman, who was cuffed with a bruise so large it could be seen through his clothing. “And don’t call me ‘Miss Mirko’. That’s stupid, I’m nowhere near old enough. Hell, you’re probably older than me!”
“I-I’m twenty.”
“Fuck, I’m twenty-five,” Mirko cursed. “Thought you’d be older, given the, uh… y’know.”
“Mm,” Ippan sighed. “A-Are you okay, Mirko? I don’t know how you could’ve avoided that villain’s quirk, it looked r-really dangerous!”
“The hell you asking me that for, of course I’m okay!” Mirko scoffed, as if the question itself was an affront to her entire career. ‘Wait, it kind of was. Shoot!’ “You think a chump like that could be the first one to end my winning streak? In his dreams! Just couldn’t risk a civilian life, that’s all.”
“W-Well thank you again, Miss- I mean, Mirko!” Ippan stumbled, tripping over a tiny piece of rock that she realistically could've stepped right over. “I-I should be going then, I won’t take up any more of your time.” If her mother had given her anything, it was good manners. “It was lovely meeting you! Good luck with, um, with hero work, and-”
“Wait,” Mirko ordered, a strange look in her eyes, like a wolf cataloging a steak’s juiciness. The steak in question, Ippan, froze on command. “Meet me the park with the big poles in it nearby,
at, like… seven. Don’t disappoint me.”
‘Seven!?!’ As in seven o’ clock? PM? At night? JST??? That was ridiculous, unbelievable, impossible! Ippan had other things to do, like shower, and eat! She couldn’t stand waiting in the park for three hours! She had to summon her courage and refuse this audacious request!
“Y-Yes, M-Miss Mirko, whatever you say!”
“Great! And don’t call me Miss!” With a pound to the ground, Mirko was off with the villain clutched under one arm like a duffel bag.
And so, that was how Ippan found herself standing in the middle of an empty field for the next three hours. With her stomach grumbling for something to eat. There was a convenience store nearby, five minutes’ walk, but if Mirko showed up unexpectedly early when she was going to get a snack, what then? Ippan warred with herself in this mental loop and got nothing done.
Mirko landed like a meteor, seven on the dot. Ippan cursed her past self for not getting a second Yakisoba bun. “M-M-Mirko!”
Mirko sighed. “There’s that stutter, off to a great start,” she muttered beneath her breath frustratedly. Perhaps she wasn’t aware Ippan had sensitive hearing from her heteromorph traits, but considering Mirko had very similar ears with similarly precise hearing, it was possible she just didn’t care. Either way, Ippan shrunk.
“W-What’s this about?” she squeaked, clutching her hands in front of her chest, a learned habit to try appearing a little smaller.
“You, and how you held up that building. I’m gonna cut the shit: I wanna fight you.”
Ippan blinked. “Um, perhaps I didn't hear you right, did you-”
“-Wanna fight you, yeah, I know you heard me right, you got ears like mine.” Ah, so she did know.
Ippan suppressed the sheer existential panic at knowing that having the gun pointed at her wasn’t going to be her only near-death experience of the day. She gulped a dry breath that felt larger than it was. “A-A-And w-why do you want to fight me? I’m n-not really a fighter, Mirko. You’re the hero.”
Mirko raised an immaculate eyebrow. Ippan felt a little gayer. It just wasn’t fair! Even when she was basically threatening to end her life, she was attractive! Few got to see Mirko and fewer still got to talk to her more than once without being heroes themselves, and here she was, gracing Ippan’s presence! Though gracing felt like the wrong term for someone who may well have been the grim reaper.
“Look, I know this is the long shot, but I don’t really give a shit,” she snapped. “You know how many years I’ve been a pro hero for? Four! You know how many years I’ve been fightin’ for? Three times that! Know how many good fights I’ve had? I can count them on one hand! And none of them were after I graduated! You know what kind of jokers try to keep up with me and ask me to give ‘em my time and patience for nothing? My life’s too damn exciting to carry useless fuckers like that on my back! I need a good goddamn fight, dammit! And you look like you can give me one!”
“W-Wha- how do I look like that!?” Ippan was genuinely baffled, shrinking in on herself.
Mirko gave her a deadpan look. “Are you fucking serious?”
“Is it the-”
“Yes, it’s the height! And the breadth! You’re massive, and massive guys tend to be stronger than tiny ones, and even if you suck ass I’m willing to bet on like, the point point point one percent chance you don’t if it means scratchin’ this fucking itch!”
Ippan raised a finger. “That’s not how decimals work.”
“That’s not how yes or no works,” Mirko countered, grossing her arms and thumping her foot on the ground. Each impact sent a tremors up Ippan’s spine. “So, what’ll it be? I won’t kill ya, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Well, that left just about every other possibility on the table. Surely, in the face of her own health, for her own self-preservation, Ippan could summon the-
“Okay!”
‘WHY DID I SAY THAT!!!!!!! OH, CRUMBS!’
“Fuck yeah,” Mirko growled. And oh fiddlesticks, it’s genuinely a proper growl, like the rumble of a sports car’s engine. “No point wasting daylight then! HERE I COME!”
Hands flying up to cover her face, Ippan braced for impact. Before her hands had even reached her collar Mirko first ten kicks had already landed, pain flaring in each spot she’d kicked before quickly dulling. Surprised she hadn’t been laid flat on the ground yet, she cracked open an eye to see Mirjo grinning savagely metres away, analyzing Ippan’s lack of injuries.
‘I’m… surviving?’
“Oh, you can take a fucking hit! No more pussying around then!” She launched herself back forward. Blow after blow rained down on Ippan as she stumbled back slightly, letting her dense arms and legs absorb the blows as Mirko blurred around her like a spinning top. Layers of fur, thick skin, fat and muscle, and dense bone protected her as hit after hit rained down, as if she were born to tank the abuse. Were it anyone else they’d be dust and splatter, but not Ippan. And, sensing what blocked her kicks was not budging, Mirko didn’t let up, the speed and strength and sheer unfettered ferocity of her kicks rising to a tempest. In the eye of the storm Ippan couldn’t believe what she was seeing - each blow hurt, no doubt, but they didn’t penetrate deep. They were painful, to be sure, but apart from bruising… she might make it through relatively fine.
The sun crawled down the horizon as the moon began to take its place. For four hours straight she contented herself at the idea that, even if she wasn’t a good fight, she could at least be Mirko’s glorified punching bag, and let her vent the stress that she definitely carried through her day. Did Mirko have a way to destress apart from fighting? Maybe that was why she was so desperate for a good matchup. ‘Maybe I could recommend her some anime’, Ippan thought.
Mirko’s blows began to slow, and desperation seeped in through each succeeding hit. The dirt around Ippan was carved away into a crater as her last reserves were thrown into trying to move the immovable object, but Mirko was an unstoppable force. Nobody had ever even seen her tired out, a veritable wellspring of infinite stamina. For all Ippan knew, the sun could rise, she could fall asleep standing up, and Mirko would still be raining blows upon her.
But slowly, Mirko’s eyes unclouded, the seething rage and frustration bleeding out of her movements. Clarity returned begrudgingly as her kicks slowed, and with one final shock across the jaw that sent Ippan’s neck whipping aside in a slightly painful way, she dropped to the ground to survey the damage; or, rather, the lack of it.
“You’re… not hurt,” she observed.
“N-No, I am hurt!” Ippan insisted, not wanting to make her feel inadequate. She lifted a forearm, showing a small collection of bruises. “Look,y- you hit me all over here, see?”
“How are you… that's never happened before,” she replied, with a thoughtful tone. As Ippan looked down at the top of her head, the hero less than half her height looked… smaller. Her presence had receded, and that unimpressed, cocky, brash attitude with it. Mirko’s eyes trailed over her body with curiosity that made her skin prickle and her heart thump.
“If I… if I went on for another hour, I wouldn’t beat you, would I?”
“I-I… I don’t think so?” Ippan offered. She didn’t want to sound like a braggart, but… it was the only honest answer she could give. “I-I’m sorry… I hope it helped you feel better though?”
The corner of Mirko’s mouth quirked up almost unconsciously as she goggled at her with unabashed flabbergastment. “Hope I…” she breathed. “You’re fucking serious. I… I hitting you with everything I had and… I can shatter buildings with that power…”
Ippan remembered the building that crumbled over her back. ‘Was I really this durable?’
“You… you… I’ve got nothin’.” Mirko’s arms flopped down to her sides, an ear twitching erratically. “I… there’s nothing I can do to beat you. You win.”
“I-I-I’m sorry!” Ippan apologized again. “You’re really strong, Mirko! I hurt everywhere, I swear!” But if she expected consternation or mockery, she only received more of that strange blank stare. Thoughts indiscernible to Ippan were racing through the hero’s mind, connections being made and thought processes firing off. They weren’t perceptible to Ippan, nor were they even fully understandable to Mirko - civilian name, Usagiyama Rumi.
Rumi surveyed the woman. She was more than twice her height, so solidly built she barely budged at the strongest kicks in her arsenal. So unfathomably durable she could tank every blow and still look at her with wide, kind eyes, as if she was worried about her. The epitome of a gentle giant, an unclimbable mountain, a great aweing monolith that conquered her gaze and impressed upon her its vast, towering, yet caring presence, who kept apologizing just for her sake.
She barely had control over her emotions, that she was infamous for. Rumi was a woman of action and impulse, not careful consideration, and that was biting her in the ass now, because she had no way to reconcile the cocktail of awe, disbelief, confusion, blankness… but, noticeably, her frustration was gone. And a strange sense of relief, of catharsis, settled over her brain like a warm duvet she’d never noticed wasn’t there. She’d found the one.
Her heart began to thud, her foot felt the itch to kick, and she realized another thing about Ippan: from her pointed ears that sat atop her head and swiveled at the slightest motion to the fangs in her mouth built for tearing meat apart, her front-facing eyes and fingers that concealed claws, subtly-slitted pupils, her foxlike snout and keen sense of smell… this woman was never an easy mark for Mirko. That unsteady, niggling feeling in her gut bubbled over.
This woman was a predator. And Rumi, a rabbit caught in this fox’s snare, was a deer in her headlights. Prey.
It was well-known that Mirko’s ‘type’, when she was asked, was someone stronger than her. The pickings were slim: Endeavour was a formerly-married man with no interest of re-entering the market, Hawks was an enigma, Jeanist was very obviously gay, Edgeshot remained private, and of course All Might had absolutely no civilian-facing presence or professed interest in romance.
For a wild rabbit like her, the lack of options was frustrating. Rumi searched for someone - or rather, braggadociously professed the challenge for potential suitors - without ever considering it would be a standard somebody could possibly meet. Rumi never found a fight she couldn’t win, nor a suitor to win her arm… until now. All that pent-up frustration, yearning for a good fight and anybody who could catch her eye, coalesced into a blazing inferno within her red eyes. And now, her flame was burning for Ippan - the awe-inspiring unstoppable force that ginned up fear and admiration alike, like the roaring wildfire that burnt the prairies of old to cinders and doomed rabbits to their deaths. She could not beat Ippan, but Ippan wasn’t some uppity hero who’d hold it over her head that they’d ‘conquered the mighty Mirko’, nor a villain who’d press the advantage to slit her throat and parade her corpse - she was just… a sweet, kind woman who’d patiently waited for her and put up with her shit. Every excuse she had to avoid what she knew she wanted, what she’d waited for for so long… crumbled to dust.
Rumi never knew how blissful it could be to lose until now.
Meanwhile, Ippan was panicking. “M-Miss Mirko? Are you okay? You’re not reacting. Should I… call your agency or something?” The rabbit hero just stepped towards her unsettlingly slowly, ears occasionally twitching, with an uncanny focus, a million thoughts a second running through her crimson eyes. Ippan tried to meet them and caused Mirko to flinch back, but before she could extricate herself from being caught in a staring contest, the hero melted into her grasp. Holding Mirko seemed to be the right thing to do, so she kept doing it, even if holding a squat like this was hellish. How could Mirko run around in spandex every day when Ippan couldn’t even hold a squat for a few minutes? It wasn’t even a deep squat! She was perched on her toes!
“M-Miss Mirko? I-I’m sorry for taking up your time, and for… whatever happened here, but I really do need to get a start on my assignments. I have a paper due next week, and… t-this is boring to you, forget it, just… will you be fine if I leave you here? I don’t really know how to d-deal with… this….”
Finally, the hero broke her silence, thumping into her leg face-first. She didn’t move, just pressed her cheek against its gormless innocence, continuing to gaze up at her. “You’re…” Mirko sighed breathily, leaning the crown of her head against the middle of Ippan’s thigh, the highest she could reach. “...the most beautiful fuckin’ woman I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“W-What?” She had to get her ears checked. But there Mirko was, pupils blown out, her voice dripping with awe. “M-M-Mirko, what do you- I’m- huh!?”
With a shake of her head - that sent her surprisingly floppy ears dancing around adorably, and gave Ippan the urge to scoop the pro hero up in her arms - Mirko seemed to grab a hold of herself, more clarity in her eyes. “I, uh… got… carried away.”
“I… see.” Ippan didn’t see, but by now she was just desperate to remove herself from this awkward situation. “I’ll… be… seeing you?”
She removed herself from the embrace, pulling her arms back. To Rumi, the motion felt more like unsheathing a weapon. Ippan picked up her bookbag, glancing back at the hero to see her gawking at her arms, her legs, her… the back of her body. Was Mirko… weirded out? It’d make sense as long as she disregarded that one earlier comment, and she did have very pronounced heteromorphic features. Mirko was technically a heteromorph too, but she could easily be mistaken for a ‘base’ person who threw on a pair of cute ears and a cotton tail and donned interesting footwear, a luxury Ippan would never have.
“Wait!” Mirko exclaimed, and Ippan felt a light tug on one of her hands, the hero standing on her tiptoes just to clasp her fingers. “Where the hell do you think you’re going? Give me your number first!”
Ah, now there was the familiar Mirko from TV- ‘waithwhatdidshesay?’
“Aweh-huh now? W-What for?” Ippan stumbled over her own words, and Mirko looked less than amused.
“So we can talk, dumbass!” the hero scowled, flipping her hair around and turning away as if she’d asked the dumbest question in the world. “I want to trade workout tips and shit. You’re seriously strong, so I must be doing something wrong.”
Ippan wanted to laugh. Her? Strong? Strong people worked out and went to the gym and ate more than buckets of cup ramen and convenience store food! Strong people probably blended raw eggs and ate steaks and ran on treadmills for fun! Ippan couldn’t hold a sprint for thirty seconds, or plank for fifteen without her body trembling like a dead leaf in autumn wind! Ippan was lanky for her frame, with a pouch of belly from doing nothing but assignments, watching anime, and sleeping! Ippan wasn’t sculpted from marble like every inch of Mirko’s tantalizing, greek goddess-like body, she was fucking skinny fat!
She opened her mouth to correct the hero’s assumption, that she was nothing more than a middling college student mired in debt and bad habits who’d happened to be caught in a villain attack she was able to weather, that she’d achieved nothing besides having the good fortune of being born with a quirk that let her block blows from Japan’s finest through sheer happenstance.
And the words died in her mouth. Maybe it was the adrenaline still coursing through her system at getting to meet such a famous hero and blocking their blows. Maybe it was those lingering words that she was utterly convinced Mirko didn’t mean to say.
Maybe it was that Mirko, the amazing hero, the badass, the justice-bringer who kicked the stuffing out of villains on live TV and laughed about it before challenging other heroes to get on her level, was the first person to ever look up at her with admiration like that. Like she was anything more than a passing curiosity to be gaped at on the crosswalk and shared like a factoid at the dinner table before being summarily forgotten about. Maybe, for the first time, Ippan was somebody to someone other than an utterly unremarkable ordinary woman.
For whichever reason - maybe all of them - she couldn’t muster up the courage to tell Mirko that she was wrong. That she was a fraud. That she was nothing.
‘I can’t seriously be doing this!’
“R-Right!” she stammered. ‘Oh my god, I’m seriously doing this!’ “I, um… I can send you s-some workout stuff t-this weekend? Maybe? Um, when I hit the gym and do the… barbells?”
She cracked an awkward grin as she handed her phone over, which Mirko met with ferocious perfection. “Hell yeah! I knew you’d be someone who pumps iron! I’m not gonna accept anyone but the best, you hear me?”
“Y-Yeah, that’s… t-that’s me!” Ippan squeaked out, quieter than a mouse.
“Great! I’ll talk to you then!” Mirko responded with gusto, throwing her phone back as Ippan flailed to catch it, then warming up her legs before hopping onto a nearby building’s edge, and thereby getting her first glimpse of Ippan from above. “See me on TV, toots! Gotta hop!”
And with a single, powerful, ground-shaking bound that sent topsoil flying, Mirko was up in the sky and into the city, a disappearing silhouette against the sunset, Ippan staring dumbly after her form. “T-Toots..?”
If the sight of Mirko squaring up was enough to make Ippan crave the sight of her bed again, the sight of the gym was that times seven. Maybe eight.
‘Breathe, Ippan,’ she reminded herself. ‘You can do this. It’s just a gym. You can start small and work your way up, like it’s a training arc. You’ve seen gyms in sports anime, they aren’t that intimidating! You can do this! Yeah!’
Summoning all her strength, she took a deep breath of exertion, letting her mind clear, focusing completely on the task at hand. A bead of sweat rolled down her brow, sinking into her fur. She tensed the muscles in her legs, pushing herself forward despite the insurmountable weight of the ordeal, and with no further fanfare… she reached forward to open the door.
The door retracted with a chime, being a sliding door. ‘Kill me now.’
The first thing that hit her sensitive nose was not the stench of sweat, as expected, but rather the frigid air of the AC. Ducking under the doorway, which was just a little too low (a pleasant consideration as most were lots too low), she stepped into the gym proper, glancing around. It clearly wasn’t peak hours, populated with a smattering of what looked to be casuals. An old woman jogged on a treadmill at a moderate pace, a middle-aged man sat on one of the rowing machines, and two kids who looked like they wanted to be heroes were perusing the weights on a rack nearby.
Clad in a jumpsuit, one of the workers managed to sneak up on her. “Welcome!”
“Eek!” she flinched, turning down to him. “O-Oh! Sorry, sir, I was distracted!”
“It’s no worry at all!” the kind man replied. “I think I’d remember seeing somebody like you around. You’re not a regular, are you?”
“Y-Yes!” She nodded politely.
“That’s great! This must be your first time with us, then! We offer a discount for your first month if you sign up for a membership with us, but if you want to give things a go first I can sign you up for a short tour to get your bearings, no charge!”
Relief spread across her body, palpable against the cold sweat she’d accumulated from the sheer stress. “T-Thanks a lot, can we do that?”
“Sure!” he beamed, leading her through the gym. Everyone she passed turned to stare at her, which was… understandable, but still uncomfortable. Such was Ippan’s life. They passed lots of… machines, some of them with wheels, some with seats. One looked like it had a bike handle attached, and some were completely nonsensical, like a bench that looked like a broken seesaw. What kind of exercise could a person do on that? Across the gym were equipments of various sizes, including a more limited selection for people of Ippan’s… breadth. They seemed to be collecting dust, and the trainer wiped it off with a quick squirt of sanitizer and a tissue.
“What’s this?”
“This is a barbell bench, where we do bench presses using barbells!” he replied, walking over to pick up a… long metal pole. ‘Like a bo staff,’ her anime-rotted mind supplied.
“Is that a barbell?”
“No, this is a pole,” he explained patiently. “We take weights and put them on the pole, which makes it a barbell.”
“Okay! I get it!” she nodded. “So what’s a bench press?”
The man paused for a moment, before seeming to regain his bearings. “Right… A… a bench press is when you lie down on the bench and lift the barbell above your chest before lowering it a few times, that’s the ‘press’, and then you ‘rack’ it for a short break, then repeat. It’s great for your pecs, tri… it’s good for your chest, back, and shoulders.”
He was so helpful! Ippan smiled along with his explanation. “But what if I drop the weight and crush myself?”
“That’s why we practice caution in this gym, so you don’t lift more than you can handle, and ideally you have someone to spot… to stand there and make sure there’s no chance it falls on you.”
“Oh! That’s a huge relief,” Ippan giggled. “I thought you have to go all out and push your limits!”
“That’s a common misconception, but exercise is about pushing your limits in a healthy way, yet also respecting them. Where’d you hear that?”
Ippan brightened up. Finally, a topic she actually knew anything about. “So, there’s this anime…”
She stopped herself two sentences in when she saw the man’s smile had dropped into a look of utter despair. “...I’m not really good at this gym stuff, am I?”
“You… are just a beginner!” the trainer countered. “And we just need to catch you up to speed! Why don’t you lie down, and we’ll start with something easy!”
“S-Sounds good!” Ippan lay down on the seat, shifting around to get properly comfortable. A moment later, the bar appeared in her sightline, and she raised her arms to take hold of it. “Keep your arms evenly spaced… that’s it. And make sure your shoulders aren’t wobbly. That’s good posture, keep it like that! There you go! Now, why don’t we give it a practice lift?”
“O-Okay!” she stammered, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath; at least she knew to do that, as she lifted the barbell from the rack, bracing against the weight of it pushing down on her muscles enough to ache. Carefully, she pushed her shoulders forward and her arms up until they almost locked, as instructed, with a grunt of exertion. Bringing it back as close to her ample chest as she could manage, she repeated the motion four more times, each making her more sore and achy than the last. By the end, rivulets of sweat were streaming through her blonde hair, making it stink.
“F-F-Five!” she groaned, re-racking the bar with a loud clink and dropping her arms to her sides, opening her eyes dazedly and focusing on nothing in particular. “That was… huff… that was a lot! How much weight was that?”
“That was the pole, Ippan.”
Ippan left the gym with her pockets one recurring membership lighter and her muscles screaming at her to never return to the wretched place. Unfortunately for her muscles, a louder part of her was screaming that Mirko would never look at her twice if she stopped. Her stomach was grumbling louder than some washing machine she'd heard, churning around and demanding sustenance that she couldn’t quite provide.
‘Mental stock check, what do we have at home to eat?’ Ippan asked herself… ‘Three extra-large cups of instant ramen, one of them’s spicy… and…’ she slowed from her determined stride to an unenthusiastic grimace of a trudge. ‘...I should go shopping.’
One trip to the grocery store was just what the doctor ordered. Ippan bought a bulk pack of ramen, as was habit, alongside a big bag of rice and the cheapest meat the store had in stock - the internet said it was good to have plenty of carbs and protein when exercising, and if every day was going to be as much of a workout, Ippan was sure she’d need it. But the price of buying meat was almost too much to stomach. ‘I’ll have to pick up more shifts,’ Ippan mused, her ears drooping as she scanned her items through the self-checkout, frowning at the unfortunately large number. After deliberating too long whether to grab a reusable bag or a disposable one, she packed it all up together and departed, the hole in her wallet matching the one in her stomach; and she still stunk of sweat.
At the very least eating after a workout and a brisk cold shower would be satisfying! Ippan spent fifteen minutes under boiling-hot water instead, sluggishly extracting herself from the only pleasant part of the evening thus far and heading over to her grocery bags.
“Time to eat!” she smiled, taking the rice and meat out, before grimacing. She’d actually have to cook these first.
The internet came to her resume; with a tutorial on how to boil rice, she was left with the one-star minced pork she had… and the rice was boiling in her single and only pot. She probably should’ve bought a rice cooker, but at least she had an unopened bottle of vegetable oil she’d been given when first moving in to this apartment!
She emptied the pot of the rice and quickly set about frying the pork, watching intently as it turned from red to grey to golden-brown on the edges, stirring it occasionally as it seemed wise to do. The smell was… meaty and oily, no doubt due to the meat and oil.
Ten minutes later, the beef was done, and she reheated her rice in the microwave before putting the pork on top. Brandishing her chopsticks, she scooped up some of her creation and took a huge bite, absolutely famished.
The flavour hit her tongue. ‘It’s missing… salt. Or flavour.’ Ippan wasn’t expecting her first homemade meal in eons to be a culinary masterpiece but looking at it from above, it was a rather pitiful sight, unseasoned ground pork on a bed of plain rice that she’d overcooked for fear of undercooking it. Scrounging around, she found a small dish of unused ramen flavour packets, and decided to sprinkle some of it over the meat. That made it a lot more tolerable. Small mercies.
Reaching for her phone now that the food finally resembled something edible, she checked the time. 8:03 PM. “And I have to do this every night…?” she mumbled under her breath. Exhausted, dissatisfied, annoyed… how did people live like this every day? How did they even find the time? Despite her misery, as she shoveled her meat and rice down her mouth and drowned out the rest of the night scrolling through her social feeds, there was a small glimmer of pride that she’d managed to get this far at all.
Day two of going to the gym: now that Ippan had made it through the doors the first time, and left with a membership, she’d come back a braver woman… as much as it counted for her. With no classes nor work, she’d arrived with a mission: try out the dumbbells and the treadmill, two other classic ‘gym’-type exercises that they thankfully had in her size.
First, lifting weights! Many characters in many animes lifted weights casually while doing other things, so it shouldn’t have taken that much concentration. Ippan popped in her earbuds, put her towel around her neck (and felt like a poser doing it), and selected the second-lightest set of 5 kilogram ones, because even she could feel shame. Surely a woman clocking in at 300 kilograms could lift ten?
And as it turned out, she could!... for about ten reps or so. Three sets of fifteen reps seemed like a taller order than initially expected when after the first five she started to feel the strain in her elbows and shoulders, which began to lightly shake.
Somebody tapped the small of her back, and she jumped a foot in the air. “AIEE!”
“Whoa! Sorry, Miss, I just saw you across the gym and your form was wrong. You’ll hurt yourself if you keep going like that,” the good samaritan stated. Plucking out her earbuds, she listened intently as the much more muscular woman grabbed her dumbbells like their weighed nothing and demonstrated correct form. “...keep your shoulders like this and don’t let them travel all over the place, you hear?” Shame crashed over her, a familiar sensation in this gym, but she decided to take this stranger’s advice as just that, rather than the public humiliation it felt like.
She nodded along and copied their motions, the tears threatening to crawl down her cheeks slowly drying up as she got into the rhythm of things. One set of fifteen reps was finished, then a short break where she made a beeline for the water fountain, and she completed the other two in quick succession. It was only when the burn in her muscles began to feel warm that she realized she’d forgotten to put her buds back in. ‘When did I get so into this?’
The exertion was hellish, sure, but the short rush afterwards made her core thrum. Strangely, Ippan was excited to do some more - the treadmill came next, the only one her size in the whole facility. At least she couldn’t mess up a simple jog!
As it turned out, there was a proper form to jogging too, as the good samaritan reappeared. She took the advice in stride much more easily the second time, and for twenty minutes it was just Ippan, her music, and a jog so slow it felt more like a jumped-up speedwalk where half the effort was keeping herself in the air. When the treadmill slowed, she let her towel roam all over her head, neck, down her t-shirt’s back, and everywhere else, irritated by the fabric sticking to her fur. She’d have to invest in a tank top.
Stepping out into the brisk evening cool, Ippan heard her stomach gurgle once more. What a cruel existence, to work out just to eat, and to eat just to work out! It was pork on rice for her. On the trip back home she picked up a second pot and some salt and pepper.
MIRKO
yo you’re the tall chick right?
Ippan squeaked, fumbling with her phone and nearly dropping it into her rice before placing it beside her laptop and continuing to take notes during one of her lectures, on crime and how different versions of heroics affect it in different ways. Her mind was already swimming with statistics and multiple lines of reasoning and everything else she was hastily hammering out into her keyboard, and the last thing she needed was another distraction. She’s been on a roll too, with her attendance and her work. Reluctantly, she picked up the phone again; the allure of talking to Mirko, the hero somehow interested in her, was too strong to ignore. Plus, she had promised to talk again.
IPPAN
Yes, that’s me! Sorry, I’m in the middle of an online class right now. I can respond, but it might be slow, so sorry if I don’t reply immediately!
MIRKO
you write so formal
MIRKO
no wonder youre doin uni for some fancy degree
MIRKO
never went for any of that smart shit myself unless you count hero boot camp. Im on patrol right now so here and there suits me
MIRKO
whaddya studying?
Privately, Ippan envied Mirko’s self-confidence, that she’d sent out four texts in a row without worrying about annoying anyone. Glancing back up at the projector and sighing in relief that they were reviewing some things they’d covered before, she turned back to her phone.
IPPAN
Currently we’re studying public safety factors related to local heroics activity like agencies, patrols, outreach, rescues, captures, etc. The unit I’m on is about how some heroes neglect the aspects of their jobs that are more community service-oriented in favour of disciplinarian styles of public engagement that, while contributing to villain takedowns, don’t positively affect peoples’ communities and perceptions in the long run.
Getting that all out there was more fun than Ippan had thought it would be - here was a topic she could at least say she could best Mirko on. Mirko, the hero!
MIRKO is typing.
MIRKO is typing..
MIRKO is typing…
MIRKO
…So heroes like me?
Ippan almost dropped her phone a second time. Rereading her message, it did come off like that, didn’t it? The implication was there!!! Fingers firing on all cylinders she hurriedly tried to set things right, to reassure Mirko that no, she was doing great, that she was one of the top heroes of the country, but… the words just didn’t come to her.
IPPAN is typing…
MIRKO
I get it. All I really do is bustin’ up skulls, huh? Can’t blame you for thinking that. It’s all I’m really good at.
MIRKO
But I’m damn fucking amazing at it. I can leave the sappy shit to someone else who’s actually good at that.
IPPAN
I really didn’t mean to come off that way. I’m so sorry! It sounded so insulting, and I barely understand the material at all! You’re a fantastic hero! I don’t follow the news too much but I know you’re super active, taking down the Creature Rejection Clan, and that’s incredible to me! I could never hope to make as much of a difference as you!
MIRKO
save the flattery
Ippan could practically hear the arrogant scoff in that text, the roll of the eyes as Mirko turns her head away dismissively.
MIRKO
But… thanks. It’s some of my finest work too. Bastards got just enough time to know what hit em before they kissed the ground
IPPAN
What else do you do on the job? You must have a lot of interesting stories.
MIRKO
ehh not really. Kick the shit outta villains if theres a villain and kick the shit outta rubble if there’s a rescue thing nearby, get the civvies outta there for both, and show up to awards or whatever and sign the papers my manager gibveds me to approve using my handsome mug to sell mugs and toys and whatever the fuck else
MIRKO
Ever eaten Mirko carrot cake from the konbini? It tastes like ass
IPPAN
Oh my! I’ll be sure to stay away from it then, if it’s really that bad! I haven’t had it but I think I might have a Mirko something in the house. Hold on…
MIRKO
?
Phone in hand, Ippan shuffled over to the desk in her bedroom she vaguely remembered stored something featuring the hero in question, and rifled through her drawer until she found the item.
IPPAN attached a picture - img.0945
IPPAN
Mirko novelty pen! I think I’ve had this one for a long time, ever since they did a hero fair last year of High School. I like the little ears on the top, they’re a nice touch.
MIRKO
Damn, I make that pen look sweet.
The fox-shark girl giggled, rolling her eyes affectionately. Even through text, Mirko’s infamous ego came through. It was endearing, and she couldn’t blame her. The hero was the most interesting thing in Ippan’s life - who could blame someone for being self-centred when Ippan’s life was starting to revolve around her too?
MIRKO
anyway, when im not patrolling im eating or sleeping and when im done with that i get bsck to it
MIRKO is typing…
MIRKO
wait hang on. mugger
‘Take your time!’ Ippan moved to write, about to set her phone down when it chimed again.
MIRKO
Taken care of.Boring as hell fodder
MIRKO
speakin of, I wanted to ask about your workout routine, remembember? You don’t become a brick wall like that without serious work.
Ah. That. the entire reason Mirko had asked for her number in the first place. The entire basis of why Mirko wanted to talk to her. Was talking to her right now. Currently, Ippan was up to, oh… what was it? Twenty kilos on the barbells? Meanwhile, Mirko eviscerated buildings with a kick.
Ippan decided it would pay to be vague instead and constructed a response that was practically aerodynamic, the way it weaved through any relevant information and tried to get Mirko off her back before she discovered that Ippan was one debt hike away from becoming a dropout.
IPPAN
For my routine I go as many sets of fifteen reps for the dumbbells as high a weight as I can go, or the barbells sometimes for ten reps, until I really start to feel the strain, and then I go for a run to cool off. It’s pretty basic, your routine is definitely better suited to what you’re doing, with your hero work and all!
MIRKO
Ok but you just told me basically nothing. Is it a secre t or something?
MIRKO
Come on, what’s your ethos? Everyone worth a damn’s got something driving them forward, what’s yours?
And therein lay the million-yen question. Ipan doesn’t have an answer - ‘impressing you’ was her most obvious choice, but it wasn’t likely to satisfy the hardened hero, a passionate burning star where Ippan was a mere whisper in the sky. Closing her eyes, she tried to dredge up some brilliance. What came to mind is nothing but the message of her favourite anime.
…It’s my favourite for a reason.
IPPAN
…You can overcome any hurdle if you have enough determination in your heart?
MIRKO is typing.
MIRKO is typing..
MIRKO is typing…
MIRKO
An oldie but a goodie.
MIRKO
Gettin a call from my manager avout some dumb contract crap dso you slipped out of it tis time. Catch ya on the flipside.
Ippan closed her messenger app, breathing a sigh of relief. She’d just bought herself some time! She’d been on the ropes the entire conversation, trying to dodge the questions that would destroy her standing with the rabbit hero, and now she could decompress.
Well… maybe not the entire conversation. Really, only the latter part of it. The rest…
Ippan clutched her phone to her chest. The rest was actually really nice.
Nonetheless, she was still slightly shaky, still jittery and high-strung at the near miss. And she only knew of one way to work off the excess energy.
Why do I feel tired all the time?
As the internet resoundingly responded, Ippan was not really eating enough greens, an answer that made sense considering they barely ate any, unless stir fry from konbini boxes counted, or the incidental ‘salads’ they put on the side dishes to accompany dense amounts of meat and rice included specifically to make people like Ippan feel a little less insecure about their eating habits. This wasn’t so much of a problem when her life was sedentary, but throw one new energy intensive habit into the mix and all of a sudden the lack of energy and motivation was hitting her hard.
The solution? Make meals that had more colours than white and brown. And that’s exactly what she found herself doing, in line at the supermarket at 9PM with a shopping basket full of the easiest ones to cook - bok choy, broccoli, snow peas, and cucumbers. The best part was, they were cheap!
She crunched on a cucumber on the way home, enjoying the crisp taste of it. It was the perfect size, too! Most people would probably take a while eating a cucumber, but a few short bites and that was it! Quick, tasty, and nutritious! It took the edge off the burn in her muscles she was trying to ignore, having just been to the gym. The cool night air was heaven on her fur, and despite the grueling workout she’d just undertaken, she couldn’t help but feel pleasant, like she was walking on air - anything was easy after a gym evening.
Mentally refreshing herself, she checked over her to-do list before sleeping. Food was done, exercise was done, assignments were up to date… she could watch anime guilt-free! That only increased her pace of return, but as she sped up… wow, that night air really did feel nice.
Her workout had skimped on the treadmill this time around in favour of dumbbells and the barbell. That left her legs nice and strain-free… so what was the harm in a short jog? And it would get her home faster, too! Ippan switched her music to the peppier, more energetic exercise mix she’d been compiling and raised her arms up, jogging through the night.
It was more fun to watch anime without the nagging guilt of responsibilities she’d shirked, she reflected. For the first time in a long while, life felt… good. It was strange - her grades still weren’t the best, she was probably the least fit person in the gym, her eating habits were undoubtedly poor, and her social life was nonexistent. When her peers were partying, she was at home staring at her laptop. But despite that…
But despite that…
She couldn’t put a name to the feeling. But when she went to bed, it didn’t feel like another day wasted.
MIRKO
Hey
MIRKO
So i was sitting around in my crappy hotel eating crappy dinner and i realized that you probably have a way bigger place cuz you’re huge
MIRKO
can i crash?
IPPAN is typing.
IPPAN is typing..
IPPAN is typing…
IPPAN
Oh! Don’t worry, it’s really not all that impressive! Honestly, you’d probably still find it small, especially with how much stuff there is everywhere! Your hotel room must be much nicer!
MIRKO
Hotel’s not a house.
IPPAN
My place is pretty dirty, I really don’t think you’d want to see it.
MIRKO is typing.
MIRKO is typing..
MIRKO
Do you want to maybe meet someplace else then? Like a cafe, or…?
MIRKO
I can pay.
IPPAN
I’ve got some assignments coming up…
MIRKO
I get the message, sure
MIRKO
another time then?
IPPAN
Sure!
MIRKO is typing…
MIRKO
ok
Recipes for fitness
Food that lets you burn fat and build muscle
Protein
Best food protein
Best cheap protein foods
How good is protein powder
Quick cheap high protein food meals
How to make food taste better
This is what Ippan’s search history looked like. She was no connoisseur of the finest gourmet cuisine, but one could only take so many plates of ground pork and rice and fried vegetables before they wanted to try something new. Ippan’s breaking point was somewhere around bowl 60, and while this food gave her a lot more energy than instant noodles ever did, the stagnant monotony of the palette was its own kind of psychological torture.
And so she ventured out onto the world wide web to put serious thought into cooking for the first time - apparently, there were more colours of rice than one! And more ways to cook other than frying, steaming, and boiling! Staring at the picture of a grilled miso salmon fillet that taunted her from behind her screen, she couldn’t help but feel a little amped up. Cooking a masterpiece was easier said than done, and would take up more time and money, but she was willing to undertake the journey anyway. Why? Two reasons.
The first was that exercise was taking less time out of her schedule. At the start, she scrutinized each machine, took long breaks between reps, and generally bumbled around, adding a whole hour to a half hour workout. It took a substantial time investment to figure it out and now that she was well-acquanted with the barbells, dumbbells, treadmill, lifts and presses, and everything else, she had that free time back.
The second was that while she was eating healthier than before, it still didn’t count for much. And every guide online mentioned a balanced, varied, and nutritional diet as a key part of exercising, which had now been firmly ingrained in her daily routine. It wasn’t a frivolous matter of taste but of necessity that spurred her to seriously look into cooking good meals. A person who was muscular and fit had at least one part of their life in order, or at least that’s how they’d seem, and an unfit slob would always bear that judgement regardless of how well-to-do they actually were. And the fact of the matter was that if Mirko realized what a failure she was before she started to get her life on track, she would probably give up on starting at all… that was why she couldn’t come over and see her pitiful apartment, or eat a meal seasoned only with salt and pepper, or meet her until she had some serious muscle on her frame. Ippan had blown her off because she’d had no choice.
…Actually, there was a third reason. The idea of cooking a hearty meal for Mirko was oddly tantalizing. She’d lay out a huge plate and watch her begin to devour it with gusto, before slowing down to appreciate the flavour she’d put in, something that looked just like the recipe books, and Mirko would stare up at her and give her that awed look that would say ‘you did this, Ippan, you made me this happy!’... But that was just a fantasy.
Yet Ippan was feeling more motivated than ever to make that fantasy a reality! And that started with buying a pre-cleaned fish (her fingers were too large to not destroy the small thing, and she also didn’t know how), picking up a few seasonings from the supermarket, and a new steamer on the way home. She followed the instructions rigorously, having made a night where she could spend more time on the ingredients she’d purchased for a single dish, just to prove she could! Slitting holes into the fish to insert spring onions and ginger, chopping and washing the broccoli and adding garlic, placing the fish into the large steamer and setting the heat. Then rice went in the cooker and she began to cut vegetables, which took much less time to steam, and threw them in as well.
It took an hour and half for the 45-minute simple recipe, all the time she’d spent cautiously taking it step by step so she didn’t ruin things leading to… an actual, proper meal! The fish’s delectable white meat slipped off the bone, and when she dipped it in soy sauce and scooped it into her mouth together with rice and steamed broccoli she actually wept with joy.
Ippan’s heavy footfalls resounded into the night, shoes colliding with the grass as she ran another round around the course. No lights, no aircon, just the brisk night wind and her legs moving beneath her, her earbuds blasting in stereo into her ears. She felt wild. She felt alive! The act of running was thrilling, viscerally, and she couldn’t help but be swept up. ‘Keep going! Don’t give up!’ she yelled at herself in her head, huffing and panting. ‘You’re almost there! You can keep going, you still have a bit of energy! Pass the fencepost, and then one more lap!’
She’d come back from a rather light core workout day, and the night air was cool and refreshing. Ippan had wanted to stay out a little longer and felt this odd urge to… do some jogging. It was like nothing she’d felt before. She… wanted to exercise. For the sake of it. Because she knew it’d be gratifying, feel great in the end. The footpath around one section of the dark park was three hundred and fifty metres - her usual slow jog on the gym treadmill averaged about three kilometers maximum, meaning it would only be around nine or ten laps or so for her to beat her usual best. And, still in her gymwear and feeling a swelling urge to run… she ran.
Ippan passed the fencepost, clearing it with a burst of speed as her buds started playing a new song. The sweat in her hair was blown off by the wind in her face, endorphins swimming and fanning a warm heat under her skin as she truly felt the burn in her legs. Her feet thumped in time with the song, as she finished one quarter of the extra lap, then half, then three quarters. At any time she could’ve stopped where she was ahead, been proud of where she was at, but she could push just a little further! She had it in her!
The post demarking her lap finish drew closer. ‘I… can keep going! One more lap! Just one more and I’m done!’ It was almost easier to keep running than to stop, to keep feeling this rush!
The extra lap flew by. “Haha!” she screamed, laughter spilling out her sore throat, still fighting for chilling breaths that stabbed her lungs like freezing knives. Just one more quarter, just halfway, just three-quarters, just a little more, just a little further! ‘Ten! Ten laps! That’s a new record!’
Could she try for eleven? She kept going, her legs more sore than ever, her chest beginning to ache, a stabbing pain in her overheated temple that forced her to come to a stop. Ten laps and almost a quarter more, compared to eight last time. She kept walking, hands on her head, each breath of cold air hitting her like a blow to the chest before the high of a good workout hit her even harder. She could barely feel the building cramp she’d managed to avoid for the giddy laughter bubbling from her throat. “Hahaha! Hah! Hahh!” she screamed to the heavens in an empty field at night, finally stopping and dropping her hands to her knees, doubling over, panting and sweating, and feeling the blood rush hotly beneath her skin that was charged with electricity.
As it began to wear off, giddiness turning to a lethargic pride and satisfaction, she did her cooldown stretches and picked up her things, heading home with legs made of jelly, knowing she wouldn’t need to cook. When she got home, she took a brisk shower and enjoyed every second, before collapsing on the dinner table in front of her phone. Her assignments were up to date, her workout was done, and she had no more obligations. Now, she could vegetate for the rest of the night guilt-free. Picking her pre-cooked meal out of the microwave, she took a large bite and tiredly smiled. ‘I definitely put too much paprika in there.’
She couldn’t bring herself to frown.
“Welcome back to Put Your Hands Up, we’ve got a special guest here tonight! Drumroll please, give a special welcome to Kizuki Chitose! YEAH! She’s here to give us a little talk about quirk counseling.”
“Thanks for having me, Mic. You know, I always knew the counseling system was broken, but it wasn’t until I first met my now-adopted daughter that I-”
“Josei!”
Ippan stopped in her tracks, pulling out her earbuds. She doubted her ears, yet… she couldn’t mistake the sound of her own name. Turning around, she recognized one of her classmates, though shamefully couldn’t recall her name; she’d never talked to any of them enough to know it. This one, though, was certainly one of the fashionable ones, always laughing and gossiping between lectures and moving in a pack with the other girls.
“A-Ah, hi, um… did you need me for something?” she asked instead, shrinking back.
“I’m Mai!” she helpfully introduced herself, puffing a bit as she caught up to Ippan’s long strides, staring up at her. “I just wanted to ask if you could help me with my notes? I wasn’t really paying attention in class… eheh,” she picked at one of her piercings. “You looked, like, totally locked in. How do you do it?”
“O-Oh, I just used one of those app blocker apps, and I read it’s b-better to take notes on paper for memory, so…” she raised her trusty notebook. “If I spend too much time on my phone I end up sitting there all day and then I can’t motivate myself to do exercise.”
“Ooh, yeah, I noticed, you were totes building muscle!” She pointed at her arms, which were bare - Ippan had hurriedly thrown on one of her tank tops for the gym since the rest of hers were in the wash. Indeed, a hint of bicep was showing through her fur. Ippan hadn’t noticed this herself, and raised her arm to squeeze the muscle. Pleasantly firm, and when she brushed the teal fur down she could feel where it raised, the subtle outline of the meat on her bones. Physical evidence of her hard work. From the depths of her heart she hadn’t realized existed came a wave of pride and accomplishment. That was her effort. Every night at the gym, every weight lifted, every bit of meal prep, the results were laid bare on her skin.
“I… guess I have been!” she chirped, unusually giddy.
“Hell yeah! Pump that iron!” Mai cheered with zero regard for how she looked. How did she do it? Ippan would’ve been horrified at the idea of saying something that blase in a classroom while pumping her fist in the air. ‘This must be that power that extroverts have!’
Mai tilted her head at Ippan, perhaps smelling an introvert’s weakness. “Hey, why are you wearing gymwear anyway? I mean, I get you wanna show the guns off but there’s gotta be better fits for that.
“Oh, g-guns? Psh, these, there aren’t really.. .I wouldn’t really call them ‘guns’,” Ippan blushed, scratching the back of her head as she avoided Mai’s gaze. “Plus, I was just behind on the washing and this was the nicest clean thing I had…”
“For real? What do you normally wear?”
“Um… just, like, sweatpants mostly… I have a pair of jeans, a few hoodies, some t-shirts…” Ippan tapped her fingers together. Mai, who was definitely a ‘fashion girlie’, was probably judging her behind those eyes. How could Ippan leave this conversation?
Wait.
Mai was a fashionista. She would probably know how to match outfits and dress stylish and other fashion things, right?
“...W-What would you suggest?”
Mai’s eyes shone like the sun. “O-M-G. I am so glad you asked, you would definitely suit a tight-fit pair of slacks, jeans deffo work on you, maybe a red button-up, or orange, something to work with the teal…” she squinted her eyes, holding her hands up like a picture frame. “Not sure about makeup but you could do something to bring out those totally gorg thick ‘lashes, which I would kill and die to have by the way, the headphones are kinda a cute look but you could… actually, why don’t we go clothes shopping?”
“H-Huh?” Ippan recoiled. Just what was this power? ‘How did we get to this so quickly?’
“Yeah, we could go shopping together, I love dressing up my besties and this would be, like, a challenge to find stuff that suits you and fits your size, it’s gonna be sooo fun! How about the weekend, you free? Actually, gimme your number so we can plan this!”
One Mai-nado later, Ippan’s phone was a number heavier and her heart a good deal lighter now that she didn’t have to solve the clothes situation by herself. ‘Besties? She called me- I barely even know her.’
But still, she hadn’t fumbled that conversation - in fact, she’d held a totally normal conversation with a classmate! That was a huge success! ‘When was the last time I was able to navigate a normal conversation with a popular girl…?’ she wondered, moving to leave the classroom and committing to text Mai later so they could sort out a shopping date.
Ippan froze. ‘Wait… Does that make me an extrovert now?’
In fact, it didn’t.
Ippan finished taking the last of her notes and snapped her book shut. The lecture had ended some thirty minutes ago, but Ippan had been on a roll with her motivation and didn’t want to stop.
Life was weird now. Ippan was staying attentive, doing meal prep, exercising regularly, and felt healthier and better than she ever had in her life. Each good meal meant a good workout, each good workout meant being able to focus more on her courses; unlike the spiral of boredom, apathy, and inertia her life had been before, she was reinvigorated!
Twenty kilos became forty, and that became eighty, then one-sixty, and then even more. Ippan had progressed methodically with her lifting - her house had been transformed. She now kept a diary of each day’s progress, filling it with delicious meals she’d cooked that she jotted down the recipes of, of new checkpoints reached on her workout journey. It was a little like the quest systems in some of the mobile games she used to play, except the rewards weren’t dependent on a gacha system.
Months passed and yes, life was weird now, but it was a better kind of weird - the kind of high-functioning it seemed like only people in movies could achieve, yet now that she was in it it was as natural as a shark’s glide through water. Feeling good felt good. She was practically addicted to that feeling. How had she ever lived without it?
There was one dark spot, though, and that was… strangely enough, the entire impetus for this whole upheaval, the rabbit hero herself. Every once in a while Ippan and Mirko traded texts, mostly consisting of lazy chatter or coming up with excuses to delay the other woman’s visit so she could get her life more in order. Sure, Ippan was a lot more presentable than before, but there was no way in heck she was good enough for Mirko yet. It seemed like an insurmountable obstacle, and all she could hope was that time would be the remedy.
This particular day was a shopping day. Mai had recommended a good in-store deal for a frugal orange bomber jacket that was on sale in the Osaka city centre, one that could breathe well and suit a tank top during the winter. Ippan’s fur breathed well enough to let the sweat from her human biology through, but as a result it lacked the wholly insulatory properties of a regular animal’s, and though she did generally run warm, it could get nippy at times.
She strolled through the streets with her jacket in her bag, taking some time to live in the moment before she caught the train home. Present Mic’s voice in her ears and the smells of the slowing-down city in her nose, she was almost caught off-guard by the sudden mention of Mirko.
“...ko and her incident in Shibuya this afternoon, one that HeroDaily called a potentially ‘career-ending’ injury. Now, listeners, I’ve talked to Mirko once or twice and I know she’s a tough enough cookie that doesn’t crumble under the heat, but some of y’all are still worried, yeah? So I invited a medical professional - she’s worked as the head of hero related care at Tokyo General Hospital for thirty years so she knows her stuff - on this podcast today to tell us a little bit about what we might expect. Please shout YEAH for… Dr. Tofu!”
“Thanks, Mic. Now, the injuries really are overblown. If you take a look about 4 minutes into the viral video…”
Ippan winced. Mirko, hurt? She’d caught wind of something big in the hero world happening but it’d been resolved much earlier in the day. Mirko certainly hadn’t texted her about it, and if she’d been injured, even lightly, it would’ve been something much more interesting than the bald spot she’d seen from above a three-storey building in Nagoya three days prior. She checked her texts again.
MIRKO
saw this guy
MIRKO attached a picture - img.267
IPPAN came online!
IPPAN
Oh my, that’s quite unlucky!
MIRKO
Right? Wanted to throw something and see if it bounced.
MIRKO
Hey, how was your day?
Ippan skipped through the short conversation that ensued and to the most recent text, which was… three days ago. She flicked her thumb up, refreshing the chat log.
Nothing new. Mirko was offline.
Sighing, she fired off a text asking if Mirko was alright and continued her walk, letting her own feet guide her, switching to a cool-down playlist for when she just wanted to be calm. It was the perfect blend of activity and vegetating for when she was feeling more morose, to walk aimlessly and listen to content instead of lying listlessly in bed doomscrolling like she used to.
Eventually, her feet took her back to a familiar fence - the border of the park she’d waited in months ago, the konbini on the corner that she’d never dared to step into. This was where she’d met Mirko - perhaps nostalgia had gently taken her hand and led the way, for she’d come back of her own accord.
And she wasn’t the only one. Sitting in the middle of the empty field, no spectators or fans or civilians or anybody around her was the familiar river of bone-white hair thar flowed down Mirko’s muscular back. She stood in the middle of the field, shoulders strangely slumped and arms at her side, her hero costume beaten and torn but still loosely functional. Indeed, the supposedly fallen hero looked no worse for wear besides a stitched gash on the side of her leg.
Hesitantly, Ippan stepped towards her, nerves tying knots in her gut at the anxiety she was feeling seeing the imposing, brash hero for the first time in months. When she was close to the field. Mirko’s ear flicked up. It wasn’t a pleased motion.
“Thought I’d find you here,” Mirko scoffed. “Gettin’ sentimental?”
Ippan flinched. “It just… came to mind. … heard how you got hurt. I wasn’t expecting to see you,” Ippan replied truthfully. She’d never expected it, but she had hoped.
“Stupid dickhead got a lucky shot with a sharp quirk,” Mirko dismissed her concerns with a flick of the hand. “Rags will forget about it in a week. I don’t read the news.”
“Good. That’s- that’s good.”
This… uncomfortable, awkward energy permeated between them. Ippan wanted to step closer, but her spine was a live wire, and she was rooted to the spot. What if Mirko wanted space?
“It’s been half a year.” Mirko turned around. Her face was kept carefully neutral. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
“We text,” the taller woman tried weakly.
The hero crossed her arms, subtly flexing her own biceps, squaring her shoulders, as if she were trying to project power and confidence to fill the very slight crack of that exact attitude that was in her voice. “Barely.”
“I’m a different person now,” Ippan replied.
“You’re dressed nicer,” Mirko noted, sizing her up as she approached. “Standing straighter, too. Fuck, and I thought you couldn’t get any- whatever.” Huffing, she leveled her inquisitive gaze into a glare.
Ippan blushed. “I’ve… a friend helped me with that. And I’ve been eating better, it made my fur more lustrous. I’ve really picked up cooking, actually.”
“Must be a lucky fucking gal.” Ippan froze at the implication, but Mirko continued to talk, a hint of edge in her voice. “No wonder you did the disappearing act on me. You’ve got more muscles, too. Good food. Good looks, good school, a good fuck? What more could a girl want, eh? You think you’re too good for motherfucking Mirko the hero?”
“N-No! And I don’t have a girlfriend, I don’t even know how you got that idea!” Ippan protested, throwing her hands up to defend herself from the verbal jab. “A-And why do you care?”
“Why the hell do you think, toots? You think I give any old bitch my number and my presence and hours of kicks in the middle of an empty field!?” Mirko demanded, stepping forward. Ippan flinched, but she didn’t step back. “I thought at least we’d- I dunno, chat or something! What the hell am I meant to do between ass-kicking, watch paint dry?”
“I-I don’t know,” Ippan cringed at how agitated the hero was getting. “I didn’t even know why you gave me your number, I thought it was just a passing whim, or… but I’m glad you did, because it really helped me get my life in gear. I… I have you to thank for that. That wasn’t for some other imaginary girlfriend, that was for you. I-I mean, you’re Mirko!” she laughed, brushing a hand through her blonde locks. “How was I meant to just up and text you? If I said something wrong, or did something, you’d be gone in a flash. You said it yourself; your life’s too exciting to carry useless people on your back.”
“I… I didn’t mean you,” Mirko bit out. Her ears drooped; she just looked defeated, if such a thing was even possible for her. “I just wanted to… I finally met a person who could keep up, who I couldn’t beat straight-up and… I don’t know. Guess I was a dumbass for seein’ things where they weren’t there.”
“What… did you see?”
“Finally, someone I can trust to back my shit up without being an ass who just wants to do it for the clout,” Mirko laughed roughly. “You weren’t just an easy score or a leech. I wanted… fuck, I dunno, something more outta that.”
“You were… really serious about wanting to… y’know?” Ippan winced, closing her eyes. Months ago she wouldn’t have bothered asking, but with a non-zero measure of social confidence, she couldn’t help but yearn and hope that her imagination hadn’t been tricking her, and put those thoughts to words.
Mirko looked offended at the insinuation. “I’m fucking Mirko. I never lie!” she yelled, stomping a food down and sending cracks through dirt.
“I… oh,” Ippan breathed. She still didn’t get it, truthfully. Why would Mirko… want her? What did she see? They’d only met each other once! She didn’t know anything about the hero, nor the hero her?
But then… wasn’t that the point?
She glanced back down at the hero, less than half her height, and suddenly she seemed… so small. Were those eyes always so emotive? There was something hidden deep in the hero’s heart she couldn’t coax out just through a chance meeting in a field, and she knew it. But she wanted to.
And maybe, just maybe, that was what Mirko saw in her in the first place. Ippan was never an exceptional person, but if she could simply keep up, lend her an ear… simple things didn’t have to be momentous to be meaningful.
Determination coursed through her veins. “Then give me one month,” she decided aloud. She’d give herself only a little while more to get her mind, her life, her gains, get everything on track. No more dawdling. Ippan was happier, healthier, and better than she’d ever been before, and she was continuing down that road every day. If she wasn’t good enough for Mirko then, she’d never be good enough. They could be friends, or text, or something. It wouldn’t be the end of the world… but she didn’t want to lose this thing she could have.
That cloying call of the void to do nothing, fueled by the idea that she couldn’t amount to more, had held her down for so long already. What Ippan hadn’t considered was that it hurt the people around her as well, and in her heart she could tell that this sincerely meant more to Mirko than she’d realized.
“One month, that’s all, just to finish some assignments and get everything else in order. Then… come over to mine? I can make dinner,” she offered, worried even that would be too tall an ask. But an emotion uncomfortably similar to hope flashed in Mirko’s crimson eyes. She seemed taken aback, unbelieving but not willing to burst the bubble and reveal an illusion. “Really?” she asked. “No… no take-backs. We’re doing this?”
In Ippan’s eyes, meeting the shorter hero’s from above, she could almost imagine she looked almost desperate, like the ground she was standing on was liable to crumble.
“I’m doing this. I got stuck in my own head and that… that hurt you, right?” Ippan tried. “I want to do right by you this time.”
“I don’t get hurt,” Mirko scoffed, breaking eye contact.
Ippan dared to move towards her, each step feeling like an earthquake. Mirko’s steely gaze remained steadfast, but she made no move away from her. Approaching felt like cornering a frightened rabbit to Ippan - Mirko wasn’t clamouring to flee nor panicking, but she did feel unease and discomfort radiating off her. She’d prodded a thorn stuck in the proverbial lion’s paw, one that reached deep beneath her hide.
Gently crouching down, Ippan held out her arms and pulled Mirko into a soft, firm hug, giving her reassuring squeezes with her strong arms and rubbing one of her hands, which almost encircled Mirko’s entire waist, across the woman’s back in soothing circles.
“I’m really sorry, Mirko. I was a flake, wasn’t I? You didn’t deserve that,” she whispered in her gentlest voice. Mirko bristled. She didn’t lean into the contact nor let it take her fully, but made no motion to pull away. She didn’t trust Ippan fully yet - and why would she, with no good reason to?
Hopefully, in a month, that would change. Ippan made the conscious effort not to linger too long even when she enjoyed the feeling of the small rabbit hero secure in her arms far too much for her own peace of mind, and detangled to stand at full height again. “See you in a month, Mirko!” she smiled, turning to leave. It’d been a hard thing to confront, a difficult decision to make… but she felt in her heart that it was the right one.
“Don’t… fuckin’ call me that,” Mirko sighed.
Ippan stopped in her tracks, whipping back around. “O-Oh, sorry, I don’t… I don’t even know your name!”
Standing there so strong yet so small, Mirko raised her head back from where it’d been shamefully bowed. “...It’s Rumi.”
“Then I’ll see you in a month, Rumi!” Ippan smiled. She'd received a gift. Despite herself, she managed to convince her brain that the blush she saw on the woman’s face was real.
CONTACT NAME CHANGED FROM “MIRKO” TO “RUMI”
CLANG! Ippan racked the three-hundred kilo barbell above her head and stood up to stretch her arms and her back, enjoying the burn of her muscles’ exertion. Sweat practically slicked down her ponytail and her face felt like a miniature sun, blood rushing to her cheeks. Stretching forwards, then backwards, she admired her pride and joy, the thick biceps she was sporting - a testament to all her hard work. Right now they ached like heck, but it was all in service of pushing even further past her limits.
Three hundred kilos was a new record, being her own body weight! The next milestone would be four hundred and fifty, then six hundred! Ippan wasn’t sure how much muscle mass her body would actually be able to accrue before hitting her physical peak - the last physician she’d consulted had broken down into hysterics, mumbling something about the square cube law, before giving her a quick checkover and determining she could likely pack on an incredibly dense musculature onto her large frame due to her heteromorphic traits.
Wiping down and sanitizing her barbell bench, she squeezed a spray of ice-cold water down her throat and made for the door - her arm day was done, and she had assignments to work on and a new recipe to try. Head swimming with a cocktail of good thoughts and endorphins.
Sadly, it wasn’t fated to be. On the way out, before she could scan her keycard, Ippan spotted a teenage boy lying on the bench press with his back misaligned, struggling to push a light barbell back onto the rack. Sensing trouble, she scooted over and grabbed it with a hand and re-racking it.
“T-T-Thanks!” he wheezed, collapsing against the bench. “I was about to be a total goner… I can see it now. Boy, eighteen, crushed to death. Didn’t even write a will…”
“Well, you’re fine enough to make jokes about it,” Ippan sighed, kneeling down so she could actually face him properly. “What’s your name?”
“K-K-Kirishima Eijirou!” he stammered, averting his bright red eyes that reminded her of Rumi’s. They didn’t fit his countenance, more akin to her own; he was a reedy little thing, with shakes and nerves and a mop of black hair that got in his eyes when he lay down. The adrenaline-infused haze left his eyes and he suddenly seemed to notice the eleven-foot woman above him. “Woah, you’re huge!” he shouted suddenly,
“I get that a lot,” Ippan giggled, retying her mane of blonde.
“Oh, yeah, I mean height too, but…” Kirishima gestured at her musculature broadly. Broad being the operative term. “I mean, look at those gains! Man, I’m so jealous… How’d you get so good?”
“All it takes is time and persistence? Do you plan on coming back to exercise?”
“Hell yeah I do! I gotta get into UA!” he cried.
“Well then, Kirishima, you might want to gel or tie your hair so it doesn’t go all over your face in the future. And bring a towel so you can wipe yourself down,” she advised. “In the meantime, you’re making a great effort! H-However, could I just correct your posture? You’ll get a lot more out of it, and you won’t hurt yourself.”
“O-Of course!” he nodded fervently, taking all the information in.
“If you’ve got a buddy to spot you it’s always more fun to exercise together, but once you get the hang of it a podcast or something works too,” she continued. “I can spot you today!”
“Are you sure? Weren’t you just heading out?” Kirishima asked, suddenly timid.
“I’ve got some time. I’m pretty sure this is a rite of passage for people at the gym,” she chuckled, ushering him back onto the bench and kneeling down behind it so her hands could reach beneath and catch the barbell if he happened to drop it.
“Let’s go for… ten,” she decided, taking it easy on the kid. “I’ll count them out. One!”
“O-O-One!” he grunted, pushing the barbell up, a slight tremour in his arms. Wrapping a large palm around his wrist, she gently positioned it sideways slightly, above his shoulders.
“And back down.” Kirishima sucked in a breath as he let the bar drop, Ippan guiding him so he didn’t do it too quickly, until it was just barely above his chest. ‘And back up. Two!”
“Two!” This continued, each repetition making minor micro-adjustments until he didn’t need them anymore. Ippan got the feeling this was a rite of passage in the gym, watching the kid learn how to use the barbells properly and pushing through his sweat as his face turned red with exertion. Each time took longer, and she kept an eye out for signs he was overexerting himself, but he displayed an impressive degree of patience.
“Ten!” the boy roared, re-racking it without even needing her assistance. “Whoof! That was hard! My arms hurt like hell!”
“You’ll get used to it. I enjoy the feeling, actually,” Ippan giggled, guiding him over the sanitizers to show him how to clean the bench properly. “There’s no more gratifying feeling than that burn in my arms. It’s how I know I’m making progress! Just make sure it isn’t a strain or cramp.”
“That’s so manly…” Kirishima gasped. “One day I wanna have muscles like yours!” Ippan flushed, slightly embarrassed but mostly just proud that she’d somehow become an inspiration for a little hero kid like this. Humbleness was overtaken by the foreign need to show off a bit, and she raised her arms and flexed a bit more to show off her traps and delts. She swore little stars shimmered in his eyes.
“All you have to do is keep working hard!” she advised, dropping her arms back into a stretch. “And bring some water, or you’ll blame yourself all day next time!”
“I will!” he nodded enthusiastically, trying to throw his head off his neck. “Hey, how much do you bench anyways? You look like you could lift a ton!”
“Oh, I’m not at a ton yet, but I just hit three hundred kilos!” Ippan smiled.
Kirishima’s jaw dropped. “For real? THAT’S AMAZING!”
“No, no, it’s really not, I-”
Record scratch.
‘I’m up to lifting three hundred kilograms. Thats three hundreds. That’s like four people. I can lift four people.’
For a while now, Ippan had been progressing at a steady rate, not really thinking. Each milestone was just that: a milestone. Her muscles grew, and became her primary indicator of progress. She cherished and prided herself in her body now, a far cry from the neglect she'd had for her health before. Every day she looked in the mirror, did a flex or two for motivation, and practically rubbed it in her face that she was becoming stronger and stronger, more and more fit. And yet… until now, she hadn’t really considered the numerical side. The numbers were abstract, and muscles were not.
But… ‘I can lift three hundred kilograms’, she realized. Would the her of half a year ago believe where she’d be now? No, she wouldn’t.
Where to go from here?
She glanced down at her own hands, turning them over, trailing her eyes from her wrists to her forearms, up to her impressive biceps and wide shoulders. What now?
Well, why not do what kept working?
‘Three hundred’s nothing compared to four hundred and fifty.’
There were twenty-five days left until Rumi came over.
“Hm?” Ippan hummed, pulling her old t-shirt back off and inspecting it. “I could’ve sworn this used to fit…”
Turning around and inspecting herself in the two body-length mirrors she’d tacked onto each other, a haphazard thing from her early days of living alone she still hadn’t bothered to replace, she checked her shoulders. They were definitely broader, and when she squeezed her shoulderblades her thick back muscles rippled beneath her fur.
“Guess I need to buy new clothes,” she sighed, pulling out her phone. And while she was at it, why not choose something to impress Rumi? “Mai knows what’s trendy, right?”
There were fifteen days left until Rumi came over.
“...I was looking for clothes that weren’t too tight,” Ippan remarked.
Mai scoffed. “Uh, that’s because you don’t know fashion like I do, sweetie.”
“Sweetie?”
“What you want is something that has a nice fit and a nice cut, so it’s sized properly to give your body a nice silhouette and follow the contours! If your sleeves are too baggy or too tight your arms are gonna look just as bad! But if you wear sleeves that are tight just right, you get to show off all your best assets.”
Ippan blinked and turned back to the garb in her hands. “...this doesn’t have sleeves.”
Indeed, it did not. The item of clothing Mai had selected was a dusky orange-red high-collared sweater without sleeves… nor most of the back, the large empty space converging back around her waist near the bottom. It would be a veritable public window into all of her back muscles, not to mention her arms. She turned the tag over.
“W-Why is this called a v-v-virgin killer?”
“Because people who wear it kill other peoples’ virginity.”
Ippan blinked again. “Mai, I’m inviting Mirko over. I hardly think she’s a virgin.”
“Yeah, and while I’m so happy for you I want to scream, I can’t do that in public. Going out with Mirko means you need to pull out the big guns,” Mai countered. “You can wear it with… these jeans are tight but not too tight, y’know? This should work.” She handed over a pair of black ones on a hanger, shooing Ippan away to the resizing desk. Ippan shuffled over, waving for an attendant. Mai had introduced her to this chain of stores precisely because of her sizing requirements, and one of the men at the counter took the clothes in hand as she rattled out her measurements. With a glow of his hand, they were now Ippan-sized.
“Are you sure about this? It feels a little… extreme,” Ippan murmured, back at Mai’s side.
“Extreme like… Mirko?” Mai teased, wagging her eyebrows with a shit-eating grin like the good friend she was. “C’mon, she will eat you up and when she’s done you can thank me afterwards. And if it doesn’t work out, her loss! But, um, if that does happen you can totally forward me her number, ‘kay?”
Ippan snorted. “I thought you were straight.”
Her friend shrugged, the picture of innocence. “Hey, everyone’s a little gay for Mirko.”
She nodded absently, breaking off and stepping over to the checkout. Before she could reach it, however, something caught her eye - it was a rather nice hairband, and while she had plenty for exercise, she hadn’t considered tying her hair back for fashion, unless one counted her headphone-hairband combo. But that style was a remnant of when she had no idea of what to do with her appearance, when she had no identity. If asked for a label then, she would’ve said loser. Now, Ippan would answer gymrat.
She took the tie, pulling it back over her waves of poofy blonde hair and letting it puff out, wild and loose. The single hair lick that always escaped and dawdled over her forehead was joined by more, forming a solid, light tuft.
A fresh new style for a fresh new Ippan. She smiled into the mirror above the rack and untied her hair, thumbing the price tag and moving to the counter.
There were five days left until Rumi came over.
RUMI is typing.
RUMI is typing..
RUMI is typing…
RUMI
we still up for tomorrow?
IPPAN
Of course! You have my address, right?
RUMI
Yup. I’ll be over at five-thirty sharp.
IPPAN
You’ve got it! See you soon!
IPPAN is typing…
IPPAN
<3
RUMI
See you, toots.
RIIIIIING! RIIIING! RII-
“Eek!” Ippan screamed, throwing herself across the kitchenette to switch the egg timer she’d bought in a 500-yen store and moving the simmering onions to a lower fire, scrambling to chop the rest of the vegetables and throw them in, switching gears and grabbing her other pan to check if the carrots were done. Another time went off, and she ran over to deactivate the rice cooker before it got all clumpy - and the table wasn’t even set yet! She chanced a look at the time, and was punched in the face by 5:23 PM. ‘I HAVE SEVEN MINUTES!?’ she screamed internally. ‘FIVE O’CLOCK WAS FIVE MINUTES AGO!’
Another alarm. She whipped open the mini-oven she’d primed at twelve - the dinky little thing was bought at the yen store as well, and though the recipe said three hours, the kindly old man running the shop advised her it would probably take five due to the thing’s inefficiency. That wasn’t even the earliest she’d begun preparing for this fateful night, for even the night before Ippan was already panicking about the state of her little flat. It’d been swept, mopped, and vacuumed, dusted and redusted, the bathroom cleaned and clothes folded and crammed away into her shelves. She’d even wiped the windows! Some cheap candles adorned the table, which was covered with a nice-looking patterned cloth to hide that it was built from a box and had a slip of cardboard beneath one leg to stop it from wobbling. The sum total of her endeavours, all in all, was so dogged that she even forewent half-watching her favourite anime while doing the cooking, scared to death of her split attention ruining somer crucial detail. After a few near-misses, her fears were vindicated, but now that it was almost time she could rest easy knowing she hadn’t slipped yet.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.
Ippan jumped so high her head hit the ceiling. It wasn’t a very impressive feat. “ONE SECOND!” she cried, running over to her room and throwing off her clothes before quickly donning the vir- the virg- the v-v- the backless sweater she hadn’t dared to get dirty during cooking, as well as the jeans, and ran right back to the door, sliding on the floorboards before skidding to a stop and flinging the door open to see an apprehensive-looking Rumi, her fist still raised.
“Looks like I got the right room number first try,” Rumi quipped.
Ippan tilted her head. “Didn’t I send that with the address?”
“Nope,” the dark-skinned woman popped the p. “But I guessed it was this one, what with the…” she gestured vaguely up at the oversized doorframe. “...that. So are ya gonna invite me in, toots?”
“O-Of course! Come in, come in, w-welcome!” Ippan sputtered, kicking herself for having to be spurred to action. Admittedly, she was taken a little aback by Rumi’s choice of dress - a simple pair of high-ankle jeans showing off her impressive calves and a t-shirt cut the sinfully right amount of low. They weren’t ‘date’ clothes, but then again neither were Ippan’s.
Ippan looked over her shoulder to see Rumi still standing in the doorway, her slack jaw wide open and a slight blush on her face. “Rumi?”
“Yeah?” the hero perked up, standing straighter and trying to pass off her expression with a nonchalant walk forwards, joining Ippan by her side as she was guided on the very short walk to the kitchenette and dining room. “Sorry, just… your sweater, uh, doesn’t have a… back.”
“Oh, yeah, a friend recommended it to me!” Ippan perked up. “She said you might like it. So… do you?” she twirled back around to show her back in its entirety, rippling muscle over strong shoulderblades, and gave the woman she was wooing a show. The action was embarrassing, and the fur on her back still felt too cool, but also… gratifying. Heat blossomed in her cheeks as she giggled awkwardly and took Rumi’s hand, bringing her over and seating her at the table.
“I-I do!” Rumi replied after substantial delay. Taking pity on the woman, who seemed almost overwhelmed, Ippan did the last-minute work of plating all the dishes she’d cooked in short order and served them out.
“I know you’re a vegetarian, and your favourite is carrots, so I tried something new! I’m still getting used to cooking, but I know you must need a lot to eat as a hero, right? I made a carrot, celery, and tomato stew in the oven, which was really super simple but it took five hours to slow-cook it,” she explained, setting the first dish down. Rumi goggled at it, already salivating, and an upsurge of pride manifested in Ippan’s heart. Her first time cooking for someone else, and they were clearly liking what they saw! She wanted to see that expression more often.
“...and the main dish is sweet braised carrots glazed with maple syrup and miso!” she continued, laying out a plate of the savoury orange vegetables, a sweet-umami aroma wafting out. Rumi’s salivating doubled. Finally, Ippan set down two bowls of white rice, the ‘base’ to moderate the taste of the main dishes.
Wiping her chin unsubtly, Rumi looked at her cook with astonishment. “How did you… know my favourite food was carrots?” she asked hesitantly, like she didn’t believe what she was seeing.
Ippan blushed beneath her fur. “I mean… I would’ve guessed. And it was on your herowiki page. I checked to see if there would be any useful tips for what to make. Did you know Endeavour’s favourite is Rhubarb?”
“Huh. Wouldn’t have guessed, and I work with the guy,” Rumi blinked. Ippan passed her a cup of water, fresh from the tap, and she tapped her fingers on the rim. Her mouth opened. And then it closed. “Well, shit, anyway this looks delicious… how much time did you put into this?”
“Oh, something like… five hours in total,” Ippan responded, grabbing a few carrots and putting them on her plate, picking up her knife and fork to cut them. Rumi copied her, staring at the food like it was an alien entity that she didn’t want to even risk dropping or damaging. She held the food like priceless pottery, and Ippan’s heart swelled.
“Five hours? That’s insane,” Rumi mumbled stuffing a piece of carrot into her mouth. Her eyes went wide, and she started to chew with gusto, picking up her bowl and stuffing rice down her throat before loading it up with stew as well. Her host took the opportunity to elaborate.
“Most of that was slow-cooking though! Really, it was two hours of actual work, mostly prep! I wanted to make something light and simple but I ended up making something heavy… and extravagant. Again, I’m really not that great of a cook, but I wanted to make something special for you! A home-cooked meal like my Mom used to make for me, and like I can finally make for myself!”
Wiping a grain of rice off her cheek, Rumi reloaded her bowl, the hero’s ravenous appetite having made quick work of her initial serving. “Bullshit you’re not a great cook, this is the best food I’ve even had in my entire goddamn life.”
“I’m sure you’ve had nicer! What about those galas you attend, like the Hero Billboard Charts?” Ippan denied, waving her hands. She may not have been too keyed into the hero sphere but nobody could avoid the annual rankings - one could sense in the air when they drew near.
“Nah, they’re all stuffy and shit,” Rumi complained. “The charts ceremony is normal but the gala afterwards… everyone standing around looking pretty and wasting their time, all the big boys got new bits of arm candy each year to show off… it’s more fucking tiring than actually being on the job.” She finished her statement off with a wave of the chopstick.
“They can’t be that bad. And even the worst times are better if you can commiserate with a friend,” Ippan commented, reminiscing on when she and Mai had been unlucky enough to be beside a puddle when a car came by - she’d just bought that shirt! “Who was your plus-one?”
“Didn’t have one,” Rumi grumbled. “Hey, so… whatcha studyin’ in your course now? Still on hero sociology?”
“Broadly, yes, though we’ve moved to community policing and vigilantism,” Ippan nodded. As the two ate bites of the steaming-hot meal, Ippan began to relax, the presence of Mirko the hero fading into the comfortable Rumi. She leant an elbow on the table and rested her cheek upon her hand as she happily recounted her latest classwork and assignments and what she’d been learning. Sociology still didn’t grip her the way heroics did for the woman opposite her, but she couldn’t say she didn’t enjoy the simple curiosities of learning something new. When she was sleeping better, eating better, and feeling better, it was downright shocking how the rest of the world seemed to brighten up in turn. “...for some reason my extension request was denied, which nobody else ever has, and I’ve never had before or after, so I had to scramble to finish it all in one night!” she finished, giggling at her plight. “B-But I’ve been rambling, sorry. What have you been up to?” She leaned forward attentively.
“Um…” Rumi drummed her fingertips on the table, blushing and averting her eyes from the teal-furred woman’s prodigious chest. “Where to start? I was up in Hokkaido recently, I guess. Was contracted for some rescue work in the snow, all hands on deck type situation. Local heroes shit the bed so HPSC called in Hawks and Endeavour and me. Endeavour to melt the worst of it, Hawks to find people, me to do the heavy lifting and break through stuff that needed a more ‘delicate hand’, since the other guys were already on ice duty. And a bunch of C-listers to pick up the slack and run the civvies to the med tents.”
Ippan tilted her head cutely, swallowing some stew “Rescue work isn’t your forte, is it?”
“Nope, but I’m still pretty damn good at it,” Rumi proudly thumped her chest. “So yeah, went to Hokkaido for a bit. Lots of… snow. Loads of inns and ski places and shit like that.”
“Oh, I’ve always wanted to go skiing! Did you go? Or stay at an Inn?”
“Nah, no time. HPSC rented us hotel rooms nearby - white walls, white beds, western buffet, the whole nine yards. In and out like that,” she frowned.
“O-Oh. Well, you certainly have the money for it. Perhaps you could go in your own time?” Ippan suggested. Strangely, Rumi’s ears drooped a little. “You’d be great at it, I’m sure!”
“No shit, I’d be the best at it. But kind of dumb to go on a holiday by myself outta nowhere, you know?” Rumi took a bite of the carrot, admiring the flavour in her mouth again as she searched for the most tactful of phrasing to make her point. “Kinda fuckin’ pathetic.”
“...You could go with me.”
Rumi perked up. “What?”
Ippan blushed profusely. “I-I just meant, um, that we could go together sometime? I-I-I don’t mean to be presumptuous, it wouldn’t have to be- we could go as friends, too! I… I think it would be nice to go and unwind for a bit, you know? Wind on your ears…”
“...yeah, that’d be… that’d be nice,” Rumi gulped, flicking one of her tall white ears. She and Ippan had similar-looking ones, though the latter’s were a fox’s, and hers a rabbit’s.
Ippan beamed, showing Rumi a rare glimpse of her sharp teeth. Usually, her smiles were shy little things, but for once she was grinning for the world to see - within the walls of her flat, for Rumi’s eyes only. It was a sight the woman felt almost privileged to witness. Gone was the awkwardness of their past interactions… on Ippan’s end at least.
“That reminds me, I just recently watched a really great anime about snowboarding! Have you heard of ‘Snow Fast Snow Issue?’ The third season just dropped a trailer and the animation looks great! I don’t know a lot about snowboarding but the sports fans say it’s the Blue Lock of Snowboarding. I haven’t watched Blue Lock since it’s a really old one but I think that means it’s actually super realistic and faithful to the sport. I’m learning a lot!”
“I, uh… haven’t heard of it,” Rumi attempted a nonchalant shrug. “Don’t watch a lot of anime.”
“Really? I’ll have to introduce you to my favourites! I think you’ll like the fighting ones…” As Ippan began to rattle down names of shows and recounted their synopses, characters, points of interest, Rumi’s gaze wandered around the table and to the rest of the flat as she plunged another spoonful of the tasty, buttery-smooth stew into her mouth, savouring the delicious warmth of the carrots and how the vegetables practically melted in her mouth. Her attention traveled to Ippan’s kitchenette, to the small entrance area, to the hall… a few anime figurines and some photos lined the shelves, with similar posters on the walls, and on her couch was a neat stack of books and papers. It was small, cozy, and lived-in; clearly, Ippan had converted the ratty little accommodation into a home.
Rumi forced a smile, returning her gaze to Ippan, who seemed mortified. “Oh geez, here I go rambling again. Sorry, I’m just- just excited, you should get to talk too! Tell me a bit about yourself! I don’t really know that much.”
“About me…” Rumi smacked her lips. “Well, I was born in Hiroshima to a litter of thirteen. I was the middle kid. Kinda a delinquent in school…” her voice trailed off, ears drooping in that shockingly expressive way that Ippan scrutinized. “...you don’t want to go over high school again. Ran around, joined some fighting rings, anything to get the blood pumping.”
“I’d like to exercise together sometime,” Ippan remarked. “I never appreciated getting the blood pumping until recently.”
Rumi nodded. “After that, my grades weren’t really there to get into one of them fancy-schmancy hero schools, so I picked the only one that would take me and fucking dominated it. Squeezed everything I could outta the place, graduates top of the class - hell, top of the whole school. I started going on solos patrols, which was a real mess for a bit until I got high enough rank to afford starting my own agency.”
“Agency? I thought you travel everywhere. Don’t agencies stay in one place?”
“Usually, but the lady I hired to manage things got the legal shit down so I can do whatever. She takes care of all the merchandising and whatever, books my PR stuff, et cetera. That lets me focus on sticking around the cities with lots of villains and not many bigwig established agencies.” She took another bite of food, visibly appreciating it. “She takes care of the posing for pics, shoots down the ones that want me lookin’ all weak and prissy, and I take care of her paycheck.”
“I’ve seen some of those adverts. Y-Your hero costume really makes you look beautiful, you know?” Ippan shyly praised her, tucking a lock of hair back. “But I think I like seeing you dressed casually even more. I’m still learning about fashion but it strikes a good balance of casual and trendy, like you’re looking good without trying. N-Not that you usually don’t!” Ippan fidgeted with her hands under the table - complimenting someone’s appearance was new territory for her, and she couldn’t help but feel like Rumi would hate her words.
Instead a faint blush appeared on her dark skin. “Thanks. Yours too. Is good, I mean. I like your arms.”
“I worked hard on them!” Ippan joked lamely. “I like yours too. That’s a stretch tee, right? To show them off.”
Rumi raised her arm and flexed her bicep experimentally, as if she’d never noticed it before. “I guess? I… don’t really fuckin’ know about fashion or anything. Sorry.”
“That’s totally fine! I barely know anything to start, haha!” Ippan laughed.
Rumi laughed too. It was… less enthusiastic. The heroine drummed her fingers on the edge of her glass again, then made to stuff her face to fill the silence. Ippan watched her inquisitively.
“You’re really different tonight? Nervous? It’s okay, I’m nervous too. It’s just usually you’re a bit… more energetic?”
Rumi froze mid-bite. “Um…”
Ippan’s face twitched as she tried to suppress a frown, but Rumi, for her middling scholarly prowess, still had a wickedly sharp eye.
She flinched as Rumi’s fork clattered against her porcelain. The hero seemed surprised by how loudly her porcelain had hit the empty bowl, and met Ippan’s eyes with mixed emotions. Ippan could see uncertainty in her gaze, the swirling of negative feelings weighing the hero down. And here she had been, rambling away without a care in the world.
Gingerly, she reached her hand across the table, placing in on Rumi’s wrist and trying to convey through only her touch how she cared for her, was there for her, wanted her to feel safe and welcome in her flat. “Hey… are you okay? You look a little overwhelmed.”
Mirko’s eyes dropped to the table, ears wilting. “Sorry, I don’t really fuckin’... know what to say,” she croaked.
“That’s okay! I-If you’re not really feeling today you don’t have to force yourself,” Ippan reassured her.
“No that’s… ugh!” Rumi stabbed a carrot, stuffing it into her mouth and chewing it angrily. Ippan waited patiently as she did, the woman’s crimson eyes darting around as her frustration visibly amounted. Finally, Rumi swallowed. “I just- I- how do I even do this!?”
“Do what?”
“Talk! Eat! Like a regular fucking person! I don’t- what do I even talk about! I don’t know anything!” Rumi snarled, slamming a hand on the table and only realizing to pull her punch at the last second to avoid it splitting in two entirely, the cheap wood groaning. “I flunked outta high school! I’m a dipshit dropout! All I was ever good for was the fight clubs, and then I got into some shit hero school and all I was good for was the fightin’, and the rescuin’ and the hands-on stuff, but my grades were total crap! “
“T-That isn’t important!” Ippan insisted. Rumi tried to retract her hand but Ippan gripped it forcefully now, not letting the rabbit hero close herself off as her temper flared, her mood worsening. Her legs, already dangling from the high chair needed to sit at a table with the huge Ippan, twitched with the need to kick something, and every hurried placation she tried to offer was rejected as she grew increasingly agitated.
“You’ve got all these- these things to talk about, and plans, hobbies, and interests, and friends, and what the hell have I got to add to that? And all I’ve done for eight years is bust heads! That’s all I’m good at! All I’m good for! It’s all I fucking AM!”
CRACK!
The cheap table broke in two, porcelain shattering on the ground. Rumi puffed in fury, staring at her handiwork and seeming to slump with each huff as the dawning realization that she’d come to a date and broken her date’s table smothered her anger, replacing it with the bitter taste of ash in her mouth.
“A-Are you alright?” Ippan fretted, rushing to Rumi’s side to check her hands, sidestepping the mess on the ground entirely. “T-That… I’m sorry, I didn’t realize… you’ve been sitting on that for a while, haven’t you?”
“No!” she protested, wiping her eyes though no tears came out. Her brow was furrowed so hard her face had become red with a cocktail of exertion and shame. Even step forward Ippan took, Rumi just cowered more before her, trying to hide her disarray.
“F-Fuck off! What did I even do to get you interested, huh!?” Rumi diverted throwing her strong arms out with the force of spears as if to gesture broadly at the whole flat. “You’ve got your own place! I’ve never stayed anywhere longer than a month !! ! You’ve got your studies and your course! I’m some moron who flunked! You can cook fucking… goddamn delicious food and I can’t cook for shit! You’ve got friends, and you can talk to people, and- just…” her energy bled out far quicker than any fight, the tension drooping out from her ears as she slid down her seat, morose. “...why’s a girl like you with her life all sorted out even botherin’ with a pumped-up jackass like me, toots? Don’t sugarcoat it. I know I’m annoying. And a dick. I can barely hold a conversation like a normal person. The one thing I know how to do is the only thing I do do. Now… I don’t know how to do anythin’ else.”
“I… I did put you on a pedestal at the start, but that just intimidated me. It wasn’t why I like you,” Ippan cautiously approached, waiting for Rumi to make a motion for her to back off. She didn’t. Carefully, Ippan wrapped her muscular arms around Rumi, a familiar feeling from months and months ago, creating a cocoon of warmth, a protective shield from the world. Within, there could only be Ippan, and Rumi, and their emotions. “I like your confidence. Even if you don’t have it so much when it comes to… stuff like this, you’re an incredible hero and you love what you do. You’re genuine. You don’t put up a front or deal with what you don’t want to. That’s just what I know now and I already want to know more.”
Rumi let out a shuddery breath, and Ippan clutched her closer. She knew the hero wouldn’t want to be treated as fragile, but how could someone not see this anxious, shaking little rabbit and not want to hold them tight, to keep them safe. Rumi was strong, no two ways about it, but right now… Ippan wanted to let her let go and to be strong for her. “It’s kinda weird after all that stuff I put you through, but it’s still salient to say…” Ippan chuckled softly, trying to convey the affection she felt purely through her wide eyes and smile.
“You don’t have to try and impress me, Rumi. I already like you. And… I know what it’s like, I really do. When we first met, the reason I was so afraid to confront you, or the idea you might actually like me… I felt just like you do now. Inadequate. But instead of getting angry I just… marinated in it. I didn’t hate myself, but I wasn’t a fan either.”
“What changed?”
“Meeting you,” Ippan smiled gently. “Every change I made after, I made for me, but if you hadn’t pushed me down that path in the first place…”
“I can’t just have someone come along and fix me and shit,” Rumi snorted, a sad wet sound. “I gotta do it myself. Ever since I was a kid… you gotta have something pushing you, and that was fighting. I love fighting, but… fuck, I’m twenty-five and I don’t do anything else. I wasted my entire life.”
“You did not, it’s never too late to start trying!” Ippan protested, trying to lift her spirits. “Look at me, I started just now! I… I only ‘wasted’ five years less than you, and you said I have my life together, right?”
“Being perpetually independent is a nice idea,” Ippan sighed. “But we’re social creatures. I learned that in class too. Is it that bad that I started just doing it to impress you if I ended up being so happy, and doing it for me anyways?”
“I guess?” Rumi shrugged fretfully, still twitchy from her earlier breakdown.
“Then I’ll be with you all the way,” Ippan finished.
“But it feels so… weak,” Rumi slumped further into her hold unconsciously seeking the heat blazing out from her core. Ippan ran hot, and seeing Rumi instinctively try to furrow deeper into her arms, into her chest, only fanned the protective flame within her.
“I feel weak all the time. I’m cowardly, too. It’s okay to be weak in some ways,” Ippan reassured her, before she gasped; a bolt of inspiration struck her, and she gave Rumi a shaky, cheesy smile. “I-I-I mean, considering I dropped everything to impress you… I’m already weak for you. I’d love it if you could be weak for me.”
Rumi blushed bright, snickering at the god-awful line, the tension between the two of them breaking, and snuggled closer into her. Gone were her misgivings about the distance between them, and each reminder that the gulf was cleared made her heart soar and happy tears threaten to break out.
“I’d never think less of you if you wanted to vent to me a bit. I’d… I’m the only person you have, right? I’d be honoured.”
“You don’t want to hear my whole fuckin’ life story.”
“Maybe not all at once. But it would take a load off your chest, wouldn't it?
“Later,” Rumi grinned, her confidence seeping back in. The sight of it sent butterflies through Ippan’s chest. “There’s some heavy shit, and right now I’m… I’m feelin’ pretty damn good. Glad I got that off my chest. It’s like-”
“-finishing a run!” Ippan finished.
“Yup!” Rumi chortled. “Thanks. Seriously. You’re like… the one real-ass person in my life. And you’ve got a real ass as well.”
Ippan’s cheeks heated up. “D-Do I? It is rather hard to fit pants to my proportions…”
“You take up two lanes,” the rabbit woman quipped, before clearing her throat. “But, uh, seriously. I don’t feel like bein’ here like this is losing. It feels like… winnin’. You… I can… I feel… ugh, I’m not good with mushy shit. I’m more of a physical person.”
Leaning impossibly further into Ippan’s embrace, she tilted her head up. Her proud ears lay at the side of her head, content and floppy, the fiery brimstone red in her iris consumed by the cool, passive black of her dilated pupils. Her cheeks stretched into a content expression, not the exaggerated, toothy, feral grin she wore when she felt the rush but the look of someone who had finally let herself relax.
Ippan reflected on just how lucky it was a chance occurrence and a few insecurities - on both ends - had ended up bringing this odd couple together. Two women, both adrift in life in different ways, finding solace in each other, making each other’s night better, making each others’ lives better.
Rumi pressed her head insistently against Ippan’s chest, letting the muscular woman lift her off the ground so she could nestle into the alcove her arms formed. “That’s the good shit,” she mumbled, head rising to meet Ippan’s face. “I’m not… I’m not good with words, but you get what I mean, yeah?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I get what you mean.” Ippan leaned forward, giving the hero a tender peck on the forehead, then one on the cheek. “You’re really too adorable like this.”
Rumi looked away, embarrassed even as her leg thumped harmlessly against Ippan’s arms, completely caught in the velvet cage of her arms, and she fought a smile. “Only for you.”
Feeling a surge of heady confidence, similar to the other rushes she’d felt all night, and feeling Rumi’s implicit permission, she took her by the chin with one huge hand and maneuvered Rumi’s rough, chapped lips to her own. “Having you in my arms feels like winning too,” she sighed, leaning forward into a devastatingly sweet and soft kiss that fried Rumi’s brain. The intimacy, the closeness, the loss she craved, it went like cream and butter down her throat, and she let it wash over, dissolving the stress and worry on her face. She closed her eyes and let herself melt for Ippan, for the cute, caring, gentle girl who loomed so high above her. She could put herself at the girl’s mercy and receive nothing but the connection she so craved. Deliberately, perfectly, Ippan pressed forward, bending Rumi’s neck back as they both breathed and groaned into the prolonged kiss. At some point her eyes opened, as did Ippan’s, and they simply gazed, fiery red prey meeting cool slitted predator. Every thought in their minds interwoven, everything they wanted to say passing through the hot breaths down each other’s throat. It was easy to feel inadequate alone. It was impossible when their lips were locked.
Finally, Ippan broke away, panting hot breaths. Her hands were busy cradling Rumi, so the smaller rabbit girl stretched her arm up and wiped the spit off her lips and chin, pushing tufts of hair back into place only for them to slide right back out moments later. They kept staring into each others’ eyes, gazes glued together almost as intimately as the kiss had been, and Ippan fought for the words she wanted to say, to convey what she wanted from Rumi.
“Every time you come into my life you make it better, and you make me want to be better. Be my girlfriend?” Ippan propositioned.
And what could she do but accede? Wordlessly, Rumi nodded, too enthusiastic to vocalize.
“Then…” Ippan blinked those coquettish doe-eyes at her. “...stay the night?”
MONTHS LATER…
Ippan found herself surprised by how easily Rumi slotted into her life.
Her course was still the same, but she found more passion in it too - perhaps, in time, she could use the knowledge she accrued to help write policy for Rumi and other heroes like her? Her social life expanded, mostly thanks to Mai’s bubble of friends. Occasionally Rumi tagged along, and, thankfully, the fashionista gang had acceded to Ippan and Mai’s relentless demands to not act like deranged fangirls and keep the swooning and caterwauling to a minimum.
And exercise, of course, remained one of her three favourite things to do - the other two being watching anime and Rumi. The gratifying burn only intensified and her gains only grew, and each night she came home it felt better than ever. Over the next few months, with the help of expert tips from Rumi, she progressed to deadlift a ton and a bit. Rumi joked about her being a total himbo gymrat now. Ippan’s response was to pin her against a wall whilst her legs were dangling down and gaze deeply into her eyes before kissing the life out of her.
Day-to-day, she had more confidence than ever, but it was only around her strong, beautiful fiery girlfriend that that side of her blossomed fully. Though Rumi’s schedule was hectic and brought her all over Japan, she stayed around in Osaka more, and for longer. Ippan’s bed was huge, for she was huge, and Rumi was always welcome - her favourite feeling soon became a sleepy Rumi unlocking the door in the twilight hours after a night’s worth of patrolling, marching over to the bed and pushing her way into the position of little spoon. Conversely, Rumi’s favourite smell would turn out to be waking up to freshly-cooked breakfast.
Ippan tried new recipes, each one more gratifying than the last for her own sake and the smile on Rumi’s equally. Carrot cake, stir-fries, and a whole manner of vegetarian dishes soon dotted the fridge in ready-made boxes for Rumi to bring out to work.
Perhaps her most cherished moments, above all else, were just cuddling on the couch and sharing the things they loved with each other, basking in the other’s presence. Ippan began to introduce Rumi to her favourite anime, and Rumi had recently taken up self-defense coaching for something else to do, at Ippan’s suggestion - it benefitted the community, it got her out more socially, and it was something other to do than busting heads, even if it nominally included fighting. Every smile on Rumi’s face was broader and more secure than before.
To the world, Ippan was the shy and soft-spoken nice girl who could deadlift a ton and a bit. To the world, Rumi was the brash, hot-headed combat hero who rocketed up in the charts and took no shit from nobody.
But for Rumi, Ippan was a broad shoulder to rest on, an assurance that she was safe, protected, cherished and loved, someone she could be weak and vulnerable with. For Ippan, Rumi was her backup, her ever-reliable partner but also someone she could strive for, who was always cheering her on and encouraging her to do and be better.
Ippan really did love herself when Rumi was in her life. And Rumi, the same. And it was so, so easy for them to find themselves loving each other too.
There was just one tiny chink in the whole thing, one Rumi had been all-too enthusiastic to remedy; they hadn’t gone public. Ippan had been worried about the tabloids, but Rumi assured her she’d make them cower with a single dirty look. Rumi, conversely, had been anxious how she’d be seen when they introduced themselves. Ippan quelled those worries with a single sentence: “Since when did you give a dang how they saw you?”
She’d chosen the Annual Hero Billboard Chart Gala to make their first appearance as a couple. “It’s always go big or go home with you,” Ippan fondly chastised, fiddling with the brilliant orange flower brooch on Mirko’s forearm. They both wore dresses - Rumi’s was austere yet elegant, as white as her ears and hair. Ippan wore a much more complex number painted hues of sunset gold, one that proudly displayed her shoulders and upper arms for all to see. She may have been surrounded by heroes, and it would be reasonable to characterize her as a wuss who’d faint at the sight of blood, but Ippan was still proud of the strength she had - every muscle was her effort laid bare, her body a monument to what made life worth living - simply the joy of it. Completing the outfit was a white brooch on her wrist.
“What can I say? I’ve got a style,” Rumi drawled. Ippan stifled a chuckle as she finished re-touching her poofy blonde ponytail and leaned forwards to give Rumi a peck on the lips.
“For confidence,” she giggled. Rumi imperceptibly relaxed. “Shall we?”
Their cab came to a stop. “It’s funny, I know there’s a shit ton of greasy-ass guys out there who want nothing more than for me to be a little ornament to validate their pathetic fantasies,” Rumi cackled, wrapping a muscular arm around Ippan’s and admiring the form of of her breadth - Ippan’s was more than twice as thick, a simple consequence of her size.
She kicked the door open, grinning madly, and as the cameras flashed she leaned back into Ippan to whisper “they’re gonna bust their fuckin’ lids to see me as arm candy to the only woman more jacked than I am!”
Ippan’s eyes burned at the intensity of the flashing, her ears flicking as she heard shouts and hollers and cheers and murmuring and all manner of reaction to the mystery civilian that exited the cab with Rumi. As the car drove off, she stared down at the carpet, the assembled people, and the path inwards, thankful the doors to the gala were exorbitantly large, enough for her to enter without having to duck her head. Later, she would find out that they were more than a head above her.
It was all a little overwhelming, to be honest. But nonetheless, she began to walk forward, a smile plastered on her face that would become more real once they got a little privacy. Rumi, for her part, clutched her arm tighter and leant on it like a fawning damsel with a shit-eating grin on her face as the press asked their questions.
“MIRKO! MIRKO! WHO IS THIS? YOU’VE NEVER BROUGHT A PLUS-ONE BEFORE!”
“That’s ‘cause nobody was worth bringin’ before!” Rumi roared.
“IS THIS YOUR GIRLFRIEND? ARE YOU IN A RELATIONSHIP?”
“Fuck’s it look like, jackass!? Use your eyes! You think I wouldn’t bag a woman this hot?”
“ARE YOU HOPING FOR A HIGHER POSITION IN THE RANKINGS THAN LAST YEAR?”
“Nah, I’m certain of it!” she laughed. “Enough questions, buzz off, you’ve had your fun! Hey, is that Jeanist?” At Rumi’s signal Ippan blitzed forward, the ravenous pack of reporters left behind in the dust as they slipped through the door and completed registration.
The gala was enormous, a huge ballroom connected to the auditorium, both of which had been rented out by the HPSC - no expense was spared. Rumi, of course, immediately veered over to the food tables, pulling Ippan by the arm. They both drew… pretty much everyone’s attention - the combination of the brash Mirko as arm candy to a no-name civilian twice as tall as the next person over was bound to draw eyes. Heads swiveled along the path they walked.
She awkwardly smiled back at them, before letting her attention be captured back by her girlfriend. “How’s the food?”
“You’ve ruined it for me,” Rumi complained, leaning into her arm and offering a pastry she gladly nibbled on. “Yours is better.”
“Hmmm… want to save our appetites for when we get home?” Ippan suggested. Rumi’s eyes lit up, and she leant into her arm further.
“Fuck yeah,” she dreamily replied. “Now c’mon, I wanna show off to the only people I even vaguely know.”
“We’re attracting a lot of looks.”
“Yeah, cause you’re built like a brick shitterhouse and they’re all jealous of me,” Rumi replied in that arrogant yet endearing way only she could. Ippan, not knowing the way around, let herself be taken to a more exclusive area where the higher-ranked heroes filtered in - spots were reserved for those who’d placed on the top ten last time around, but the top thirty broadly congregated, always networking and trading stories. To a woman without an agency, it was the closest one could have to a water-cooler talk.
Endeavour, Ryukyu, Hawks, and Crust all sat there, the former man the only one controlled enough to hide his astonishment.
“Holy…” Hawks’ voice trailed off. “I… is this a hallucination?"
“Nope,” Rumi smirked, squeezing Ippan’s firm arm. “This gorgeous woman bagged the bunny. I told you I’d only ever go for someone stronger than me.”
“How strong is she?” Crust shook himself.
“Full power kick doesn’t faze her. And now, she can bend me into a fuckin’ pretzel,” Rumi preened, content to brag. Ippan glanced nervously around, receiving a reassuring smile from Ryukyu.
“You’ve got a hero’s physique! What field are you in? I don’t recognize you!” Crust asked amicably.
“S-Sociology!” Ippan replied nervously. “I’m just finishing my second year…”
Ryukyu tutted under her breath. “The great Mirko is a cradle robber.”
“Only thing I’m stealing is your spot,” Rumi jabbed back. “We ran into each other, and it was love at first fight. Couldn’t make a dent in her defense!”
“It’s commendable how much effort you put into your physique,” Ryukyu turned to Ippan. “And from the sound of it, it’s not cosmetic. How strong are you?”
“Only one way to find out!” Hawks laughed, turning to the silent flame hero who sat at the far end of the table. “Endeavour, arm wrestle her!”
“No.”
“Oh, c’mon, it’s all in good fun!”
Yoroi Musha appeared around the corner. “Is the mighty Endeavour refusing a challenge?”
“No.”
Best Jeanist appeared behind Musha. “Has your last thread of hope finally snapped?”
“No.”
Wash appeared behind Jeanist. “Washu?”
“Fine!” Endeavour roared, slamming an elbow on the table. “No quirks allowed.”
“Fair,” Rumi chuckled, already tasting victory and withholding a wicked grin of glee. “Toots, don’t do the joint lock thing, strength only, okay?”
“Okay!” Ippan chirped, placing her elbow on the table besides. Hers was almost twice the width of his, and she had to angle her arm downwards just so Endeavour could reach her hand. To his credit, the man didn’t falter.
“Begin!” Rumi yelled. Endeavour began to strain, pushing against her arm. Perhaps with his quirk’s raw firepower powering the push, he could’ve made some headway, but as it stood… Ippan sat there blinking as she barely budged a millimetre, Endeavour pushing more and more effort into his assault, brow clenching and beginning to sweat. Soon enough, he relented, visible exertion subsiding.
“My word.”
Ippan smiled, now fully in her element - it was just like dumbbell lifts, in a way! Beginning to push down slowly, she relished the gleam in Rumi’s eyes and her gleeful smile, Endeavour straining as she gradually forced his knuckles to rap on the table. To the man’s credit, it was pretty challenging to get there!
She pulled her hand back and let her cheering girlfriend bowl into her. Endeavour looked… contemplative, in a cold and furious way. For someone whose beard was literally made of fire, it was impressive.
Hawks chortled. “That’s the look of a man who just realized there’s a random civilian standing between him and All Might.”
“W-Well I can’t fly, or shoot fire, and with your quirk involved you can exert far more force than me!” Ippan desperately tried to soothe the man’s ego.
Crust shook his head. “He’s not hearing you. Number 1 means number one in everything to a man like him. “
“Oh…” Ippan realized. As Rumi held her arm, she decided to venture somewhere else in the gala, and try to avoid reckoning with the fact that she’d ruined Endeavour’s night.
“Washu!”
A few hours later, after countless glasses of champagne downed by the two super-heavyweights, Ippan found herself seated in the front row, clutching her corsage so tightly it was practically wilting. Rumi’s old placement was coming up, and the suspense was practically killing her!
“And in eleventh, just barely missing the top ten spot, we have…. Yoroi Musha!”
Her adept night vision granted her the clarity to see the man hang his head in defeat in his chair. Only the top ten would be called up to the stage, and for the former number eight, it was quite the dropoff. That, however, wasn’t Ippan’s concern - she was biting her knuckles now, knees drawn to her chest and a cold sweat on her back because RUMI HADN’T BEEN CALLED YET! THAT MEANT SHE MADE IT INTO THE TOP TEN!”
Number ten was Ryukyu, who graciously flew up to the stage. Then, Gang Orca, who trundled up with absolute confidence. Next came Crust, and then Edgeshot, who’d fallen as well. Rumi still hadn’t been called up yet! Ippan was freaking the heck out!!!
“AAAAND AT NUMBER FIVE, SHOOTING UP SIX PLACES IN A SINGLE YEAR, WE HAVE… MIRKOOOOOO!!!”
Rumi dashed on stage, face stretched into a grin so wide it reflected the spotlight. She posed, swaggering in, playing the whole arrogant routine she was known and loved for. The whole time, though, her eyes were locked on Ippan in the crowd.
“Do you have anything you want to say to commemorate this occasion?” the announcer asked, handing her the mic. Rumi seized it.
“Yeah, I got a few words. Villains beware, cause Mirko’s on the streets! And Ippan? This one’s for you, baby!” She shot Ippan a cocky wink that pierced her heart, and when the applause began, nobody’s was more deafening than hers - and not just because her hands were twice as big.
The rest of the ceremony was rote - nothing could match the high of Rumi’s placement. Jeanist, Hawks, Endeavour, and the fashionably late All Might claimed their usual predictable spots, All Might giving a speech that was no doubt inspiring, but Ippan only had eyes and ears for her girlfriend up on that stage.
Eventually, the pageantry ended, and Rumi was set free, bounding up to Ippan’s side almost immediately. “Number five. Pretty sweet, eh?”
“I’m so proud of you,” Ippan hugged her close. “I knew you could do it, but still! Number five! You’re going to be in all the papers tomorrow. Do you want to stick around for the post-ranking celebrations?”
Rumi chewed on the idea. “...Nah, that shit always fucking sucks. Let’s go home. Shall we?” she faux-simpered, lifting a hand for Ippan to take. And when she did, she stared lovingly into Rumi’s eyes, full of humour and adoration.
“...We shall. Dinner?”
“Dinner,” Rumi easily agreed. “What’re we gonna watch?”
‘Lightbulb!’
“That reminds me, Raizenshadou… your sword arts are similar to the ancient master who died at forty-five,” the wizened old man clacked his cane down on the ground.
“You can’t mean…!” A young Raizenshadou gasped.
“Yes, my good friend, I mean your mother, swordmistress of the sakura petals, Faulunshadou. She could summon a blade of willpower so strong it was said to cleave the earth in two.”
Ippan squeezed Rumi again, enjoying how the smaller woman felt in her grasp. The two of them sat on Ippan’s empress-sized bed, the hero between her girlfriend’s legs, staring up at the tiny phone screen she held between her claws. It was an old episode Ippan had seen a million and one times, but just watching Rumi’s reactions made them feel fresh again. Both nursed hot bowls of cheat-day pasta, even though it was two AM in the morning.
Raizenshadou gaped. “Is it possible to learn this power?”
“If you ask yourself it is possible, you will have already failed,” the elderly master chuckled. “Our sword arts are channeled through the heart, Raizenshadou. All you need is determination.”
Rumi raised an eyebrow, leaning into Ippan’s caresses of her scalp and carelessly kicking her leg up and down in her usual adorable way - she knew she could never hurt her, and could go buck-wild with it. “So… his sword is powered by his determined heart, and he wins every single fight by fighting super hard with all his heart and believing in himself and his friends extra hard?”
“Y-Yeah…” Ippan shrugged, averting her eyes. “I-It’s my favourite, and Raizenshadou is such a good main character since he comes from nothing but he fights to be where he is anyway! I’m on the fifteenth season right now, a-and especially the tournament arc, ‘Cup of Souls’, that was really good, wait until we get to that part! He has his doubts when he’s betrayed by… well, that’s a spoiler even if it’s pretty obvious- ”
“His sensei.”
“-him, and his sword starts to shrink because he believes in himself less and less, and then the crowds part and his one friend starts to cheer for him louder than ever before, and-!
“But the whole thing is like that?”
“Y-Yeah…” Ippan admitted, her ears lower against her head. “You probably think it’s pretty dumb, huh?”
Rumi smirked, pulling those loglike arms back around herself and laying back into Ippan’s chest, the rock-solid gains from all of her hard work, and stretched her hand up to reach the screen and press play again. “Nah, this fuckin’ rocks.”
