Chapter 38: Don’t Call Me a Bunny!
Summary: That's no Ordinary Rabbit!
Chapter 38: Don't Call Me a Bunny!
As much as learning investigation was interesting, and Nedzu seemed to genuinely delight in teaching it to them…the chimera didn't have unlimited free time at the moment. He'd helped show them the way through tracking down a cross selection of the cameras, recommended some reading to them, then assigned them to try and track the lower priority cameras on their own time. This meant that, so long as they did that in a timely manner and reported back to him every few days, they were free to sign up for some of the other practical workshops. Both Izumi and Momo picked out a couple of such, despite how busy they were. And today's lesson was the one they'd looked forward to the most. They were joined in one of the more basic gyms for their session by Katsuki, which was zero surprise, as well as Ojiro and Mineta, who were much more unexpected.
"I can't wait! We get to meet the Battle Bunny! Maybe even get crushed by those thighs!"
The words, of course, came from Mineta. For all that they had come to grudgingly respect him, he was still Mineta. On this point though, Izumi would privately admit that she couldn't blame him. Miruko's thighs were something worth fantasizing about. She was about to warn him about something in that sentence, though…when her eyes blew wide open as she realized it was too late. Between one moment and the next, Mineta went from energetically waving his arms…to embedded in a nearby wall. The attack had come so fast that only Izumi and Momo had seen more than a flash of white and purple before it happened, and it left the leotard-clad and growling Number 6 hero standing where Mineta had previously been standing.
"Don't call me a bunny, damn it! I'm a rabbit!"
Izumi winced. Miruko was well known to despise the 'Battle Bunny' moniker that the media often used for her. No one was entirely certain why, but her violent reaction was well enough known that only an idiot said it in her hearing. Which, given just how sensitive her ears were, really meant Mineta shouldn't have said it anywhere near a location Miruko was planning to be at soon. Speaking of Mineta, he was surprisingly durable, only whimpering a little as he fell out of the wall. He did look sufficiently scared of Miruko for her to stop growling and take a deep breath, thankfully.
"Alright you five. I'm not a fucking teacher. But the rat let me see all of your year's fights, and you were the students in Group A that I accepted. Pity the Frog Girl is too passive, she'd have benefited from this too, but she clearly hasn't overcome her prey instinct and fights defensively. You five, on the other hand, show both the power and aggressive styles to benefit from what I have to show you."
She grimaced and glared at Mineta again.
"Even the irritating grape midget, though his aggression is more about movement than power."
The Rabbit hero jabbed a finger roughly at Izumi.
"Robogirl! You've got the best combination of form and power. You and I are going to spar so I can show why you're all here."
Izumi blinked but nodded. It did make sense. And she couldn't help but be interested in fighting a Top 10 hero. She grinned and bounced forward, thinking for a moment before shifting into Striker Mode. Doing so got a firm nod of approval from Miruko.
"Striker Mode, right? That's the right choice against me. Not perfect, but you're going to need the speed. Stick to unarmed for now. Now, come at me with everything you've got!"
Izumi blinked, made a 'what, now?' sort of gesture. When she only got an impatient gesture from the Heroine, she shrugged and narrowed her eyes. She quickly analyzed Miruko's stance, immediately realized it wasn't nearly as casual as the heroine was making it look…and launched forward into a straight jab with all the power and speed her striker form allowed. She wasn't particularly surprised when she missed, Miruko pivoting to one side to avoid the blow before continuing her spin to aim a blistering-fast kick at Izumi. The following exchange lasted only a dozen seconds…before Izumi abruptly found herself slammed face-first into the ground hard enough to bounce. Miruko landed on her, a moment later, causing the air to woof out of her lungs. A kick to the ground right next to Izumi's head to prove her victory followed, before the heroine jumped off.
Izumi was stunned enough she took a moment to two to stand, going over the fight in her head. She'd seen the move Miruko used, she'd had the speed to react even! But it had just seemed to slip right through her guard. What the fuck was that? She rolled to her feet, still a bit dazed and confused…but Miruko was actually looking at her with visible approval?
"Not bad at all kid. Better than I expected, given how recently you created those Modes of yours. Know what you did wrong?"
Izumi shook her head, even as everyone else watching looked confused too, glancing between the Rabbit Hero, Izumi, and the monitors that were already replaying the fight in slow motion. Miruko nodded, seeming unbothered by Izumi not getting it.
"Thought not. You've actually got the second smallest issue of all five people here, but all of those issues are essentially the same. Not a one of you has fully adjusted your fighting styles for your body types."
She turned to watch the monitor, pulling a remote from…somewhere. When the fight loop reached the end, she slowed it, then paused it on a specific frame. The one where Izumi had tried to block her kick and failed by the thinnest of margins.
"That block should have worked. But it didn't, because you haven't fine-tuned the basic style to your body. I'd guess that whoever you picked that style of yours up from was several centimeters shorter than you, but fought in boots?"
Izumi's jaw dropped a little as she nodded dumbly. The core of her own fighting style was 2B's, with bits and bobs of other stuff thrown in. She and 2B were the same height, but only if 2B had been wearing her original heels. Since 2B's original outfit had, for some god-awful reason, included 8cm heels (3.15 inches), the difference in their heights had actually been one of the most notable changes between Izumi and 2B's original body. Izumi's mother and sperm donner were 162 cm (5'4") and 178 cm (5'10") respectively, so the additional height over 2B's original form had made some sense. But Miruko had just guessed that little detail from one short spar? Even the heels?
"Thought so. Either you or they did a decent job adjusting the style for the subtle balance difference. But 'decent,' isn't 'great,' and your block was a hair off of where it should have been. That created the hole I was able to exploit, once I identified how much it was off by. Worse, I could keep doing it to you in every fight, every time, until you fix it."
Miruko's eyes left Izumi's baffled form as she pinned the rest of the group. Her finger jabbed out at Katsuki first.
"You actually have the least issue. Your fighting style is rough, but you clearly built it from damn near scratch to specifically suit your Quirk. It just needs to be cleaned up, tightened up into a more exact style. Some of the moves were clearly made when you were younger and shorter, too, and need a bit of tweaking to fit your adult height."
Her finger jabbed at Momo next.
"Your close combat style is the worst. By a lot. I'm guessing you didn't get that power armor of yours working until recently and your style is a fucking mess as a result. You've also copied some boxing of all stupid ass things, which is completely unsuited for your body type. You clearly have training, but badly need to adjust it for your current strength and speed."
The finger shifted to a wave that took in the remaining two students.
"You two are somewhere in between. Tail-kid, you've got fantastic form…for standard karate. But you've only half integrated your tail properly and haven't adjusted the rest of it for the changed center of balance enough. Midget, you're a case like blasty boy where you've tailored your fighting around your Quirk and done a decent job of it. But you obviously haven't put the same number of hours into it, so yours still has farther to go."
She paused, hands moving to her hips and a fierce smirk splashing across her face.
"Now, I've only got a few sessions with you. So expect to experience hell as I beat some basic fixes into your style, kiddies."
All of them gulped, even Izumi. Those kicks Miruko had landed had actually hurt…
... ...
Izumi sank into the ginormous jacuzzi tub with a whimper-moan of half pain and half relief. Her girlfriend winced in sympathy from her own position in the tub, even as both of them let the hot water and massaging water jets do their work on sore muscles.
"Momoooo, why do I hurt everywhere? I'm not suppose to hurt everywhere…"
Momo's lips twitched at the whine in Izumi's voice.
"Now you know what us mere mortals feel like."
Izumi sank so far into the water that her mouth was covered, hiding her pout and murmur of protest. Adorable, but also a bit telling of just how hard they'd been pushed. Izumi was right, after all, that normally she didn't suffer the sort of after-workout soreness that most people did. A side benefit of her android form was a degree of accelerated self-healing. She'd certainly paid her dues in unusual growing pains, which had kept Momo from ever being too annoyed at that fact. But the truth was that, so long as she had QE, Izumi should have healed from mild injuries in maybe twenty minutes.
Today had, however, been eye-opening. Neither of them had even been aware that Izumi's ability to gather QE could eventually be strained enough to slow down. But Miruko had pushed her so hard, depleted her QE repeatedly and abused Izumi's ability to recharge off of Momo's excess One for All energy so thoroughly, that eventually that had actually happened. The end result had been serious progress in several different ways for Izumi…and the sort of bone-deep lingering soreness that normal people could end up with from an intense workout.
Not that Momo had been spared. Her One for All boosted stamina had only caused Miruko to push Momo even harder than she had Izumi, and Momo was absolutely feeling it. There was a reason they'd retreated back to the Yaoyorozu family home and its excessively well-equipped everything, after all. Both of them had been dying for the giant jacuzzi in Momo's personal bathroom. The pair were so sore they'd barely even lingered over the sight of each other's nudity. This was a much less fun use than they normally put the Jacuzzi too, even if they both knew that they'd gained a lot from the session today. Which didn't necessarily mean they weren't half-terrified of the second one they had with the Rabbit heroine in a few days…
"We'll survive. Probably…"
Izumi's uncertain noise at Momo's whispered assurance was less helpful than Momo would have liked. Particularly as Miruko had barely been breathing hard after pushing all five students to the same exhausted state…
... ...
Even if she was keeping an eye on Izumi and Momo, making sure they didn't fall asleep in the Jacuzzi and drown, most of 2B's attention was elsewhere. Today had been…eye opening. It had also crystallized her growing concerns. Up until now, she'd kept her own actions at least mostly within the law. Not because she actually cared about said law, but because she knew Izumi was less blasé about ignoring it than she herself was. It was one of the few differences between her original world and this one that she wasn't overly fond of. YoRHa had been…strict. Unhealthily so, as her therapist had helped her see years ago. But YoRHa had been something of an extreme case among android kind. The rest of the androids had followed only very loose rules, with a lot of room for personal freedom so long as they didn't fuck things up for everyone else.
The result when getting her second chance on life was that 2B didn't respond particularly well to the overly ridged structure of laws that humans had created. That fact had been suppressed for quite some time by the simple delight in her android soul that her creators lived on. But, over time and with a lot of help from her therapist, Izumi, and especially Inko, 2B had formed her own opinions. The basic structure of laws and rules that humanity used made sense. The rigidity of it, as well as the utterly asinine levels they could take it to, did not. Nor could she respect any one specific set of laws overly much. Not when her ability to poke through the vast sea of data all around her had long ago shown her how many of the laws were created to serve the few and oppress the many.
Better to follow a system of morality, than a system of laws, she'd years ago decided. It was, in fact, one of the reasons she supported Izumi in her goal towards heroism so firmly. Heroes had a certain amount of leeway, and the better heroes were the ones that had picked a set of morals for themselves, rather than strictly adhering to the written law. There was, to this day, technically still a law on the books in Japan making public exposure of the thighs or buttocks illegal. She really actually kind of wanted to see one of those rule stickler heroes try to arrest Miruko for that, given that her costume certainly exposed a fair bit of both. She suspected the scene that resulted would be amusing. For everyone but the rule stickler, at least.
At the end of the day, 2B was not an anarchist. But she also didn't really consider the law a valid reason not to do something that made sense. Which is why, while Izumi was properly distracted, 2B was currently sending certain messages. Up until now, she's mostly kept any illegal activity to hacking, but that was clearly no longer enough. Wherever the League was, they had the experience and resources not to be found by her on that field. Given their backer, that even made sense. But it also meant that she was left needing to employ more questionable methods. A few, such as placing an information bounty on the black market, she'd done without much thought and zero moral quibbles. But what she was doing now…she'd refrained until today's painful revelation that there were heroes and villains capable of pushing her and Izumi even at full power. Carefully rechecking her final message, she sent it.
Hopefully, two of her best agents would be willing to stick their necks out a little bit more. 2B thought they both would be. She also thought it was probably better Izumi not know about this until after the fact. She wouldn't like putting them at risk like this, even if it made perfect sense…
... ... ...
A/N 1: Enter Miruko! Honestly one of my favorite MHA characters. Also, for those curious, my own logic behind her not wanting to be called a 'bunny' is that 'bunny' is usually a reference to baby rabbits. Given her small size (She's only 5 foot 2. That's actually canon, despite how a lot of fanart depicts her, she's tiny!), and the crap she most likely got all her life for wanting to be a hero despite having a rabbit-Quirk...I feel it makes sense she'd have a bit of a negative reaction to essentially being called a kid ;-).