Chapter 20: The Most Embarrassing Combat Lesson in the History of Heroism!

Mirko's voice kept echoing through the hills, closer by the second, and Izuku had only a few seconds before she'd come leaping over the terrain. He looked at the disaster around him and made the worst possible decision with admirable calm: improvise.

"You okay?" he asked in a low voice, chin tucked against his chest to talk to the pocket without being too obvious.

"I'm nowhere near okay!" Yu huffed, her voice barely escaping the fabric. "I'm a pro heroine, not a keychain! This counts as kidnapping and you're the one to blame!"

"Sorry," he said, though he wasn't entirely sure what he was apologizing for. "It was the only idea I had on hand. Now stay still for a second, this is about to get ugly."

He turned toward the second problem of the day and found Yu's hero gear scattered across the grass: the sleek purple bodysuit she wore for her Gigantification Quirk, along with her gloves and headband, piled one on top of the other.

"This is insane," he muttered to himself as he pushed the fabric deeper. "Terrible way to kick off the week."

The boots and gloves went in first, then the rest of the gear, as he pushed and packed with both hands, though the stretchy fabric of the bodysuit resisted and kept slipping through his fingers, in a humiliating job that was more exhausting than anyone would expect. While he was wrestling with one of the sleeves, a small pink garment slipped from the pile and landed on the grass with a soft flutter.

It was her underwear.

Izuku froze, staring at it. A delicate scrap of lace, tiny, so out of place in the middle of a combat field that it was hard not to notice.

A shriek of horror came from the chest pocket, because Yu, from her fabric prison, had a front-row seat to the whole scene.

"Don't look at it! Don't you dare look at it, Midoriya!" her tiny voice cried, gripped by panic.

With a calm that was downright unsettling, Izuku crouched down and picked it up. He held it between his fingers, lifting it to eye level to examine it with all the tranquility in the world.

Well, she said not to look at it. Picking it up off the ground isn't exactly looking at it.

"Hmm, nice color. Pink suits a blonde beautifully, boss, I mean that as a compliment." He tilted his head and smiled. "I wonder how it'd look on you."

The sound that came out of the pocket was indescribable: a strangled scream mixed with the muffled thud of two tiny fists pounding the fabric.

"You're a monster!" the muffled scream came. "A hopeless pervert, a freckled degenerate!"

"I'm just admiring the design," he replied with the same calm as before. "Acknowledging that you have good taste doesn't make me a pervert, it makes me an assistant with a good eye for detail."

"I'm gonna kill you! Listen to me, Midoriya! The second I get my size back, I'm turning every single one of your bones into toothpicks!"

"Noted. Death threat number fourteen of the week," Izuku said, twirling the garment between his fingers. "And Sunday's barely getting started."

"Would you stop keeping score like it's some kinda record?!" Yu shrieked from the pocket. "And put my underwear down already!"

"I'm holding it with all the respect in the world," he protested. "Look, I'm not even squeezing it. In fact, I'm treating it better than you treat that fancy hero suit of yours."

"Because my hero suit's worth more than your entire wardrobe put together! And stop changing the subject! Put it away right now!"

"As you wish, boss. Though, for the record, putting it away means looking at it one more second. Your call."

"AAAAAH! Don't explain the procedure! Just put it away, you idiot!"

With the same calm, Izuku folded the garment carefully and tucked it into the side pocket of the backpack, zipping it shut so it wouldn't escape again. Just as he straightened up, carrying the weight of a pro heroine's underwear and his boss's shattered dignity on his back, the air split with a thunderous crash.

*

Mirko landed a few meters away and blew open a crater in the ground that made the grass tremble all around. She was drenched in sweat, her white hair a wild mess, and sporting the biggest, most feral grin Izuku had ever seen on her.

"HA! Now that was a run!" she exclaimed, her voice vibrating with adrenaline, her chest heaving. "Think I went a little overboard... but it was worth every second!"

Her red eyes swept the field from one end to the other.

"Takeyama? Hey, big girl! Where are you?" She clicked her tongue and spun on her heel. "Where the hell did Takeyama get to? Did she go cry in a corner about my athletic superiority? Don't see her anywhere."

Izuku felt a frantic drumming against his chest and knew the moment of truth had arrived. His brain flipped through a thousand complicated explanations and landed on the simplest one, which unfortunately was also the most disastrous: he had no other card to play.

He turned to face Mirko, adjusting the backpack on his shoulder, and looked her in the eye.

"She left," he said flatly.

Mirko frowned.

"She left? Just like that? Nah... that's not Takeyama's style."

"She didn't give up," Izuku continued, laying the groundwork. "We had... a little couple's fight."

The sentence hung in the air, and Mirko blinked, completely thrown by what she'd just heard.

"...A what?"

"A couple's fight," he repeated with total nonchalance. "She got mad because I was paying too much attention to your speed... and not enough to her."

Inside the pocket, Yu felt every drop of blood rush to her face.

Couple's fight?! What the hell are you saying, Midoriya?!

The tiny heroine was a breath away from fainting from embarrassment.

Izuku Midoriya, you're a dead man! When I'm back to twenty meters, I'm using you as a paperweight! And if I stay this small, I'm gonna chase you like a wasp until I sting you in both eyes!

"She got... jealous," Izuku finished off, adding a very convincing sigh of resignation.

Sorry, boss. But between inventing a romantic drama and explaining to Mirko that I accidentally shrank you and I'm carrying a naked heroine in my pocket... I'll pick the lie, a thousand times the lie. Lucky I've been watching K-dramas.

Mirko stared at him for a moment, her face shifting from confusion to disbelief as her fighter's brain scrambled to process the news.

"She said she needed space," he pressed on, now fully committed to his terrible lie. "So she decided to head home."

While Mirko chewed on that, Izuku glanced down at his own chest, at the pocket where his boss was suffering a miniature existential crisis.

And he winked at her.

It was a discreet wink, a gesture meant to say relax, I've got this under control, just play along.

From the darkness of the fabric, Yu felt the movement and understood the message, and in that instant she knew what it felt like to die inside. All her rage evaporated and in its place came an absurd resignation: she was trapped inside the most ridiculous lie ever told, and her accomplice was the person with the least social tact on the planet.

"HA! HAHAHAHAHA!"

Mirko's laugh was a roar that echoed across the entire field as she doubled over, slapping her thigh without the slightest attempt to hold back.

"I knew it! I knew something was going on between you two!" she shouted between snorts of laughter. "Jealous?! Ha! Of course she's jealous! That girl's practically steaming every time she looks at you! She acts tough, but on the inside she's being eaten alive by it."

She stepped closer and gave Izuku a slap on the back so hard that tiny Yu bounced off the walls of her prison and cracked her head on what she assumed was a seam.

"Relax, kid, don't worry! She'll come back!" she said, winking at him. "Though, if you ask me... the rookie's not totally off base either. She's got plenty of reasons to be jealous of me."

Mirko crossed her arms, delighted with the gossip.

"Alright, spill, how long have you two been going out?" she asked, with a curiosity that boded nothing good. "Last week I didn't notice anything... though I did catch you checking out her butt every five seconds."

Izuku didn't miss a beat.

"It's recent," he said, shrugging. "You know how she is. It's hard for her to admit what she feels. It's easier for her to yell at me than to accept that she cares about me."

A choked sound came from the pocket, which Izuku covered with a cough.

IT'S EASIER FOR ME TO WHAT?! MIDORIYA, THE MOMENT I GET OUT OF HERE, I'M GONNA MAKE YOU EAT EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE WORDS!

"Ha! I knew it!" Mirko let out a laugh. "The classic proud type. Hey... important question."

She leaned in with a mischievous grin.

"Does Takeyama snore? I've always wanted to know. With that attitude, she's gotta sound louder than a bulldozer."

"Classified couple info," Izuku replied with total seriousness. "A good boyfriend never spills secrets like that."

"Well, would you look at that! A real gentleman!" Mirko gave him another elbow, laughing. "I like you, kid. Takes guts to put up with a giant with that temper."

Her teasing smile faded for a moment.

"Listen. Free advice. You don't chase after the stubborn ones like her. Let them wallow in their own pride. You keep growing, keep crushing it... and when she realizes she could lose you, she'll come running on her own."

Izuku's eyes lit up at the magnitude of the advice.

"You're incredibly wise. I'll remember that, Mirko-san, thank you so much."

Inside the pocket, Yu clenched her fists so hard her arms shook.

Come crawling to him? Keep dreaming, you cocky bunny. The only one who's gonna end up crawling is Midoriya, when I break his face for inventing a romance novel about me.

"Bah, don't flatter me, it's her loss for not knowing how to enjoy a good workout," Mirko tossed out, waving a dismissive hand. "Better for us. And since your girlfriend took off making a scene, you're out of excuses. Let's do something about those noodle arms of yours."

Yu felt her soul drop straight to her feet.

Oh no. Anything but that.

"Right now?" Izuku asked, too quickly.

Mirko bared her teeth in a savage grin.

"Well, yeah, right now! What'd you think? If you're gonna date a heroine, you'd better be able to survive a fight without kissing the ground in five seconds. Move it. Class starts now."

*

And so began Yu Takeyama's new personal hell.

From the warm, swaying darkness of a zipped pocket, she lived through Izuku's first combat lesson, in a world reduced to a constant tremor of fabric and motion, while she listened to Mirko's orders turned into muffled thunder right beside her head, vibrating through the boy's chest.

"Your balance is pathetic, kid! You won't take a single hit like that! Widen your stance, drop your center of gravity, plant yourself in the ground! Come on, lower! Move like you actually wanna fight!"

Yu felt tremendous pressure when Mirko shoved Izuku to correct him and tipped him to one side, leaving her on a dangerous slope inside the pocket, clinging to a fold of fabric to keep from rolling while she felt every muscle in his body tensing beneath her.

"Arms up, you useless twig! Elbows tight against your body! Don't give me that dumb look! You wanna go flying at the first hit? Tighten your guard and stay steady! In a real fight your skin's on the line!"

A series of jolts followed as Mirko forcibly repositioned his arms. For Yu, it was total chaos: the constant brush of fabric against her skin, Izuku's ragged breathing right above her, and the vibrations of his body with every movement felt unbearably intimate and terrifying.

"What the hell are you doing?! You gotta absorb the impact with your whole body, not just your arms!" Mirko roared, clicking her tongue. "Power doesn't come from the shoulders, it comes from the damn hips! Twist your body and throw the punch already! That's how it's done!"

Yu felt a hand a couple of centimeters from her, separated only by a thin layer of fabric, and a panicked shriek escaped her, swallowed by the tracksuit.

Is she getting all handsy with Midoriya while I'm stuck in here?! Why did I have to be the collateral damage in this ridiculous mess?!

"Much better," Mirko grunted, satisfied, finally letting him go. "Now we practice a block. Until you take a real hit, you don't understand how force distributes. Relax, I'm gonna hold back."

Great. "Hold back," says the heroine who can split a wall in half with one kick. If she really hits him, I'm gonna end up stuck to this jacket like gum.

But it was too late. Mirko threw a punch that was a caress to her but slammed against the arm Izuku had raised to block, and the impact traveled through his body and exploded inside Yu's tiny world, sending her ricocheting off the walls of her prison, dizzy and no longer sure which way was up.

"You okay down there?" Izuku murmured toward his chest, taking advantage of Mirko turning to point out the next drill.

"'Okay'?! Not even close!" the muffled voice burst from the fabric. "I've been turned into a pocket-sized version and used as a damn punching bag! I swear, the second I get out of here, I'm rolling you down that hill straight into next week, Midoriya!"

"I'll take that as a yes," he whispered.

"Who're you talking to, kid?" Mirko turned back, one ear twitching on its own.

"Myself," Izuku answered without missing a beat. "Just giving myself a pep talk, they say it helps with performance."

"Weird, but I like it." Mirko cracked her knuckles. "Crazy people fight better. Again, on guard."

And again they went. Yu lost count of the jolts and the orders Mirko was shouting, and at some point she gave up fighting the nausea and just clung to a fold of the pocket, praying for it to end soon.

The lesson dragged on for what felt to her like several lifetimes, and Yu completely lost track of time, as nothing existed but the jolts and Mirko's shouts, with Izuku groaning in pain above her.

"Faster, you useless lump! You think a villain's gonna wait for you to attack?!"

Another jolt threw him sideways.

"Power comes from the hips, not those scrawny arms! Move right!"

A sharp yank threw him off balance.

"Stop reacting after the hit and learn to read the moves before they wreck you!"

If I survive this, Izuku thought between gasps, I'll officially be able to survive anything life throws at me.

And then came the worst part of that hellish session.

"Alright... you've improved a little," Mirko admitted, in the tone of someone who hadn't just handed him a monumental beating. Izuku could barely stay on his feet. "But you're still stiff as a board. Learn how to fall already. In a real fight they're gonna throw you down, and when that happens, you gotta roll and disperse the impact. It's the most basic of the basics. Or are you planning on breaking every bone in your body every time you get slammed against the floor?"

R-Roll, Yu thought, a fresh wave of nausea climbing up her throat.

"Roll?" Izuku gasped.

"Yeah, roll. I'm gonna sweep your legs, you're gonna hit the ground, and you're gonna roll. If you don't roll, you crash, and crashing hurts pretty bad. We clear?" Mirko explained.

"Uh... yeah, I guess..." Izuku murmured, not buying it for a second.

"Then stop shaking and get ready, brat! I'm not warning you twice!"

Yu didn't even get a chance to brace herself. She felt a sudden, overwhelming force at Izuku's ankles, and the world tilted violently, the ground vanished beneath his feet, and there was a fraction of a second of free fall before the impact.

Izuku hit the grass and, obediently, rolled.

For Yu it was a whirlwind of darkness and fabric in which she lost control of her own body, tossed side to side against the seams, at the mercy of physics, unable to tell up from down or right from left, in the middle of total chaos.

When the motion finally stopped, she was dizzy and bruised, her stomach flipped inside out, and the world kept spinning around her even though nothing was moving anymore. Izuku was sprawled on the grass, breathless, with Mirko standing over him and a satisfied smile on her face.

"Not bad for your first time!" Mirko tossed out with a challenging grin. "You've got guts and you know how to take hits without falling apart. I'll let you know when it's time to train again. And if your girlfriend's still mad at you by then, even better: we'll drill those counterattacks into you. It's gonna be a blast!"

With one last savage grin, Mirko launched a jump that shook the ground and disappeared over the hills with another sonic boom.

*

Izuku stayed sprawled on the grass for a good while, breathing hard, his vision blurry. Finally, with a groan, he sat up and with trembling fingers reached for the pocket zipper.

"Yu?" he whispered. "You still alive in there?"

The zipper opened a crack and let in a strip of sunset light.

From the bottom of the pocket, her head spinning and her patience completely gone, Yu let out a moan.

"Still alive... I think."

She adjusted herself as best she could and let out a sigh of defeat.

"Midoriya, seriously... The only thing I want right now is to get my suit back and pretend this never happened. Do you have any idea the heart attack I'm gonna have if anyone saw me like this?"

...A heroine shrunk to the size of a keychain... My reputation just took a critical hit.

And there you have it, the chapter where Yu Takeyama's dignity was officially declared dead and buried under several meters of asphalt!

You gotta give Izuku credit, though. When the pressure ramps up, his brain doesn't reach for the best solution, or even the most logical one... but the most brilliant one in its own weird way.

But let's be honest, this chapter was a full-on rollercoaster of humiliations for our favorite heroine. So it's time for you to jump in. Let's call it the "Yumiliation Meter"!

On a scale from 1 to "I'm gonna use your bones as toothpicks," which do you think was the worst moment for Yu?

A) The pocket kidnapping. (Claustrophobia plus the indignity of being carried around like a keychain.)

B) The forensic analysis of the underwear. (When Izuku decided it was the perfect time to reinvent himself as a fashion critic.)

C) The couple's fight. (Starring in the worst lie ever told, with no way to stop it.)

D) The washing machine experience, courtesy of Mirko. (Getting a taste of combat training from inside a human blender.)