Payment…

[POV Reo]

"You are finally here... today we will do something different..." Rumi spoke in a distant voice and rose up from the ground... "Today I will be getting my payment for training you".

That didn't sound very nice... damn...!! That didn't sound nice at all. What the hell did she mean by payment? I know she isn't talking about money because if she was interested in money then she could have lived in a better place with better accommodations.

"I trained you, now you owe me a fight... without holding anything back" Rumi spoke and her aura and pressure started to spike more and more. I could see the hunger for battle dancing in her eyes... well, I should have expected this, she is a battle maniac, after all.

"Quickly, change into your Hero Costume, I will be waiting for you in our usual training spot". Rumi spoked and walked away.

Honestly, I was pretty excited too, the last time when she used her powers to attack me was when she was checking my reaction time. Even though at that time neither of us were interested in fighting each other. I was slightly nervous, slightly scared but my excitement was overwhelming my other emotions.

Now, some people would say that fear makes a person weak or a coward. But I had found out that fear makes you stronger, fear would make you try harder, fear makes you exert more force than your body can, fear makes you run faster than you usually do. Fear drives us to improve and without fear, we would start to stagnate.

But we should never let fear drive us, we should use it to drive ourselves to make ourselves better. While thinking these boring but useful lessons, I was now dressed in my Hero Costume and I was heading towards our usual train spot. I walked up to the place and found Rumi was waiting for me in the middle of the field.

"Now get ready, Reo. Don't hesitate or you will be in a world of pain and if you lose too soon then I would honestly regret training you, after all, I came to like & respect you" Rumi said while crouching on the ground as she had done on the first day.

"Don't worry Rumi, I won't disappoint you" I said while my iron sand had started to move around me in an erratic manner. Usually, I used slashing or piercing shapes made up of iron sand to fight my enemies but I didn't want to do that to Rumi. And if I held back then I would be definitely insulting her. So I was going to use blunt shaped weapons to fight against Rumi.

"Don't hold back!" Rumi exclaimed and jumped towards with full force. Today she was fast as the first day but the force behind her kick was much greater. It didn't budge my wall by it definitely made a small shockwave. Last time I didn't attack her but this time it was different, so I attacked her with a blunt-shaped weapon made up of iron sand. She had already jumped away using the wall as a support and she used her arm to redirect the blunt-shaped object.

She landed on a nearby tree and used that to jump towards me once again, but this time her speed has slightly increased. This time I didn't give her a chance and used my hand gesture to throw another blunt-shaped object towards her. The object slammed on her stomach and made her crash against a tree before dropping on the ground.

"Yes...!! That is what I have been speaking about!" She said while wiping away the blood from her mouth. Damn... is she a masochist too along with a battle maniac...?? That's a fucking dangerous combination.

"Now that the warmup is over let's start the real fight" She said and jumped towards another tree instead of jumping towards me. But this time her speed increased massively, I could no longer be callous about her speed even while I was using my hands. The increase in her speed was very drastic.

With a blood-thirsty grin on her face, she kicked towards my back which was stopped by the iron sand wall, but I couldn't harden the wall to withstand her force. The wall was taken down even if she had to back away but seeing the wall collapse, her grin became more bloodthirsty. Her face may split in two with that kind of grin on her face.

We continued to exchange interactions like this for a few moments before I started to slightly gain on her. It was true that none of us were able to hit anyone after I hit Rumi once before but I could clearly see that now her aura was getting wilder and wilder.

I couldn't let this continue or I won't know if I would have to deal with a wild humanoid rabbit. I gathered all the iron sand around me and I even started to pull out metals from the ground. With a sudden hand gesture, I send a huge wave of iron & metal sand towards Rumi. She didn't look worried at all and even started to giggle like a little girl with a new toy. She kept dodging the waves and the blunt objects which I sent towards her using the trees of jump around.

Suddenly she changed her approach and with a speed more than I could follow she appeared in front of me. I was only able to see a white blur, her speed shocked me. She rose her feet and kicked towards my ribs. It would be really bad if that kick lands on me... no holding back now. I have no problem now if she comes to know my true Quirk.

A translucent shield appeared around my side and stopped her attack. The appearance of the shield shocked Rumi but she still kicked it to check how strong it was. I could clearly see the expressions on her face change.

"So, your Quirk is much more than controlling metals, I see" Rumi said before jumping away again.

I brought back my sand towards me and morphed all of them into solid metal balls. Since the cat is already out of the bag, I don't need my wall anymore. The metal balls immediately flew towards her, she is truly a rabbit. She fucking dodged all of them... even if she didn't look like it, she was quite flexible. I knew that this fight wasn't as simple as the previous one so I also took flight towards her and used this chance to punch at her.

She noticed me coming from a mile away and immediately grabbed my hand so I couldn't back away. She took my bait... as I had already seen that she would always prefer her leg to attack so jumping away with only one leg while you are putting all your body weight on your other feet to kick someone becomes quite impossible. So, I knew that the impact was coming and made another Aegis shield appear to stop her kick. At this moment several metal balls hit Rumi from several different directions.

Those balls hit her really hard, her body rotated due to the force of impact of those metal balls and she released my hand from her grip. I used this chance to land a karate chop on her neck which she had taught me during training. The thing worked as it should have and Rumi finally dropped on the ground unconscious.

"Damn... fighting while holding back is so much tiring" I finally sighed and cursed out loud. I could have used those metal balls to move faster but if I would have done that then she would have been lucky if she ended up with broken and strangely bend limbs but if her luck was on the bad side she would have ended up losing limbs completely.

Now, she had only ended up with some cracked ribs and some bruises on her beautiful body. Speaking of her beautiful body, she shouldn't lie on the ground so I picked her up bridal style and morphed back the metal balls into the sand. I immediately separated iron from the metal sand I pulled out from the ground. I flew towards Rumi's house and laid her on her bed and sat on a chair while looking outside.

Two hours passed and Rumi was finally waking up. "Fuck!! I feel like a truck ran over me" those were the first thing she spoke after waking up. Yeah, getting hit by all those metals balls would definitely make you feel that.

"I am glad you are finally awake... I was slightly worried that I went overboard" I told her with my usual smile on my face.

"So... I lost to my intern? Damn...!! How long was I out?" Rumi looked pretty dejected that she lost to me but finally asked me how long she was unconscious.

"About two hours" I told her, she tried to get herself up from the bed but stumbled slightly. I immediately went and grabbed her shoulder to support her.

"But, that was the best fight I had in a long time, it always kept me on my toes and made me dodge around" Rumi said with obvious joy on her face.

"I also had a lot of fun... maybe we should do this again sometimes. I could come and visit you on Saturdays" I told her. Yes, I also had a lot of fun, even though holding back was too tiresome but it would help me gain better control of my powers.

"Good... I will be waiting and next time I won't be the one losing. Reo... you have to become a full-time Hero quickly. Only you are worthy enough to be my Hero partner" Rumi spoke with obvious joy in her voice. Damn... from the manga I knew she thought only weak Heroes would work with others but if she is asking me to become her partner she definitely thinks of me as her equal.

"I would be happy to" I replied happily...