Chapter 8: The Manual for Training Giantesses Doesn't Come Included!

Determination was a strange feeling, something Yu already knew well, though this time it felt different.

I already made a fool of myself, so it can't get any worse, right? Fine, if I gotta sweat until I pass out to shut up all those experts, I'll do it.

Standing in the middle of her living room, already dressed in Mt. Lady's purple and ivory suit, she felt the power humming under her skin. The magazine article, the faces of the "experts" on TV, the burning shame, all of it turned into fuel.

She looked at Izuku, who was watching her with a solemn expression, and for the first time since meeting him, she felt she could trust him completely. He had seen past her panic and was offering her a way out. There were no empty speeches or words of comfort coming from him, just the chance to train hard and to leave behind that pit of public misery through real effort.

Yu took a deep breath and planted herself firmly.

Okay. He's probably about to pull out a huge whiteboard, or one of those plans only nerds understand. Something worthy of a drill sergeant.

Yu got herself ready, fully focused, prepared for whatever was coming.

Instead, Izuku pulled out his laptop.

He set it down on the table, opened it, and the screen lit up his focused face. His fingers hovered over the keyboard for a second before he started typing.

Yu raised an eyebrow.

The laptop? Ah, sure, makes sense. Geniuses use laptops. He's definitely about to show me some tactical analysis with graphs and arrows and super long words that I'll pretend to understand while I nod along.

He was a genius. His genius had to manifest itself through technology like the great hero coaches.

She leaned over his shoulder to see what brilliant strategy he was about to reveal.

And then she read what he had just typed into the Google search bar.

How… to train… a sexy and giant… twenty meter tall… girl… for combat.

How to train a giant girl? It wasn't a technical query. It sounded like the title of a perverted light novel.

The image of her career rising from the ashes was replaced by a much clearer vision of her in a courtroom, trying to explain to the Hero Public Safety Commission that her "personal trainer" based his methods on the top three Google results.

"Are you… messing with me?" she managed to choke out.

Izuku didn't even seem to notice her existential crisis. His eyes scanned the screen with his brow furrowed, clearly disappointed.

"Not at all, boss," he replied. "Before putting any plan together I need to gather information. The only thing I actually know is dog training and everything I've read about heroes over the years. I've never trained somebody who turns giant, and just winging it with you and your whole career on the line would be majorly irresponsible."

"There's absolutely nothing to research!" Yu hissed, her voice climbing. "Nobody in their right mind would search for something like that! This isn't fixing a leaky faucet, Midoriya, it's a hero's life on the line."

"Exactly, and that just confirms there's a huge gap in the available information," he said, nodding to himself, pleased with his own reasoning. "Although, to be honest with you, the results were pretty sad. I found a couple of forums where some guys were theorizing without a clue, a super long thread that started talking about heroes and ended up arguing whether King Kong could beat All Might in a fight, and a whole bunch of fanfics of very questionable quality written by some guy who calls himself shurazero."

Yu brought a hand to her forehead and breathed deeply.

"I'm doomed. My personal trainer does his research with fanfics."

"Relax, I tossed those right away," Izuku said, deleting the search with a sigh of annoyance. "Some of them were pretty disturbing, and none of them had any serious bibliography. I'm gonna do this right, just give me a second."

Yu watched, about to suggest they cancel the whole thing and go grab ice cream, when Izuku's fingers started typing again, this time quickly.

New searches appeared, way more coherent.

"Endurance training routines for high impact heroes: comparative analysis."

"Reaction time and agility exercises for body mass alteration Quirks."

"Combat analysis: destabilization tactics."

"Oxygen consumption and muscle fatigue in giantification Quirk users: case study."

He started scribbling in his notebook, muttering to himself.

A small spark of hope kindled inside her again. Okay, the kid's a weirdo with zero common sense, but at least his craziness has a method. A weird method, self taught off the internet, but something is something.

To calm her nerves, she started stretching, swinging her arms and twisting her body. The spandex hugged her figure, a familiar reminder of her purpose. She needed to move, to do something, before the anxiety swallowed her again.

That's when she noticed Izuku had stopped writing. The silence made her look up.

He was staring at her.

Her already nervous mind went into panic mode again. What's he plotting now? Please, don't let it be what I'm imagining.

She heard a low murmur, almost inaudible. She strained to hear it, while part of her was screaming at her not to.

"…Mmm…" He narrowed his eyes. "If the experiment with the butt worked so ridiculously well… then… what about the other soft parts? The universe can't have only blessed the glutes. That would be very undemocratic."

Pure terror gripped Yu.

"…Let's see…" He frowned. "If the butt reacted so well… what about the chest? Makes sense, after all it'd probably grow the same way if I touched it. Might even work as a cushion." He thought about it for a second. "…Yeah. This definitely needs testing."

Yu crossed her arms over her chest, an instinctive shield. The kid's thoughts had gotten too weird, even by her own standards, which were already pretty flexible. Tactical genius or the most complex pervert in the universe? The line between them was getting dangerously blurry.

"Midoriya, don't you dare finish that sentence!" she cut him off, taking a step back.

"I was just thinking out loud, boss," he defended himself, without an ounce of shame. "It's part of the creative process."

"Then think quieter, for crying out loud!"

DING DONG!

Yu had never been so happy to hear her own doorbell. She practically jumped toward the door, grateful to the universe for sending her any distraction that would pull her away from her assistant's "breast hypothesis."

"I got it!" she announced, almost running.

She yanked the door open with a smile of relief painted on her face, expecting to find a delivery guy or any normal, regular neighbor.

The smile froze halfway.

On the other side of the threshold there was no package. There was a woman with bronzed skin and an athlete's body, wearing a white and purple suit that looked built for diving headfirst into a fight. On top of her head, two long bunny ears stood up straight, stiff and trembling with held back tension.

Yu instantly recognized the white mane and the fierce stare. Mirko, the bunny, one of the most feared combat heroines in all of Japan, standing in the hallway of her own building.

"Wait… how the hell do you know where I live?" was the first thing she said. "Almost nobody has my address, I made sure of that."

"I've got my contacts, rookie," Mirko replied, brushing it off, and walked straight into the apartment without waiting for an invitation, forcing Yu to step back a couple of paces. "When you've been in this line of work long enough, tracking down the address of some brat who debuted yesterday is the easiest thing in the world. And believe me, I'm already regretting coming here."

"Hey, you can't just walk into somebody's house like that…"

"I just saw that piece of trash magazine, The Weekly Buzz," the bunny cut her off, planting herself in the middle of the living room with her hands on her hips. "I didn't believe it, so I came to see it with my own eyes. Tell me something, Takeyama, what were you thinking? Five minutes with your license and you're already rolling in the mud!"

"It's not what it looks like, really, I can…"

"A date with your assistant! Seriously, kid?" Mirko went on, raising her voice without a shred of restraint. "Do you have any idea how hard it is for the women in this industry to stop being seen as pretty faces for selling magazine covers? We bust our asses every single day so they'll respect us as real heroes, and you go and serve up exactly the scandal the vultures were waiting for on a silver platter."

"Mirko-san, I really do have a very good explanation…"

"Stop doing the gossip rags' work for them, kid. Every time one of us slips up like this, we all end up looking like a bad joke. And I'm not about to be anyone's joke."

Mirko's gaze swept the room from one end to the other and landed, inevitably, on Izuku.

And fate, always so cruel, chose exactly that moment to play a dirty trick on Yu. The boy's gaze, which the doorbell had cut off mid hypothesis, had returned to his favorite starting point: Mt. Lady's butt, still mercilessly molded by the spandex.

But that wasn't what Mirko saw.

Mirko saw a young guy openly staring at a professional heroine's ass, inside her own apartment, with the girl alone and not a soul around.

The anger on her face shifted into disgust.

"Ah, I see," she said, drawing out her words. "You're not even bothering to hide it. This is gross, Takeyama. I thought you had more dignity than this."

Yu's brain went into panic mode and her words tripped over each other on the way out, turning into a salad of syllables with no rhyme or reason.

"No, no, wait, he wasn't looking, I mean yes he was, but he's training me!" she babbled, waving her hands frantically. "That's why I'm in the suit, we were about to train, he's my assistant, I swear it isn't what you think this is…!"

Every word she let out only made her sound guiltier. Mirko's expression hardened even more, making it crystal clear she wasn't buying a single comma of any of it.

And right when Yu thought she was about to faint from sheer embarrassment, a calm voice cut through the tension.

"Mirko-san, it's a real pleasure to meet you in person."

Izuku stepped forward and placed himself between the two heroines, so calm it was almost insulting given the situation.

"Allow me to introduce myself properly," he said, in a tone so formal it sounded absurd coming from somebody his age. "My name is Izuku Midoriya."

He slipped a hand into his pants pocket. Yu watched him out of the corner of her eye, completely thrown off.

What is this lunatic plotting now?

He pulled out a small, elegant metal card holder, slid the lid open with a clean motion, took out a card, and offered it to Mirko with a slight bow of his head.

"Professional assistant to professional heroes with professional methods. Entirely at your service."

For the second time in less than a day, the whole world seemed to slam to a halt.

Mirko, the heroine who had faced villains the size of buildings without flinching, went speechless. Her fury melted into confusion. She paused, looking between the card and the boy before taking it with two fingers, openly wary, half afraid it might be coated in poison.

Yu felt her soul drop down to her feet.

AGAIN? SERIOUSLY? HE HAS MORE CARDS? WHERE THE HELL DOES HE GET THEM? IS HE CARRYING A PORTABLE PRINTING PRESS IN HIS POCKET? DID HE PUT IN A RUSH ORDER BETWEEN YESTERDAY AND TODAY? DO PRINTING PRESSES THAT DELIVER OVERNIGHT EVEN EXIST AND I JUST DIDN'T KNOW?

The card was offensively high quality, with text slightly embossed and a serious office font. His name was at the top, the ridiculous title in smaller letters below it, and in one corner a phone number and an impeccable looking email address.

Mirko read the title out loud, still dazed by the surprise.

"'Professional assistant… to professional heroes,'" she repeated, raising her eyes to the boy, who kept a serene expression.

The whole thing was so weird that her fighter's instinct couldn't find anywhere to grab on. She couldn't hit him, there was no way to justify it, so she just stood there holding the bewildering piece of cardstock without a clue what to do with it.

Izuku noticed Yu's horrified expression, turned to her for a second, and whispered with a tiny smirk.

"The details don't matter, boss. Preparation is the key to professionalism."

That was too much, and Yu felt a vein starting to throb dangerously in her temple.

After what felt like an eternity, Mirko shook her head to clear it and, almost without realizing what she was doing, tucked the card into one of the compartments of her belt.

"Alright. I have no clue what the hell is going on in here, and honestly I'm not even sure I wanna find out," she said, recovering some of her firmness. "But let it be clear that I still think you're reckless, Takeyama."

And then, to Yu's horror, Izuku's attention fixed completely on the new arrival. His green eyes traveled slowly from the bunny ears down to Mirko's legs.

"Wow. What incredible legs," he let out, with a sincerity that left no room for malice.

He took a step toward her, walking right into her personal space.

Yu felt her heart stop dead in her chest.

This idiot wants to die today. Those legs can split asphalt in half. Should I stop him? Or do I let him learn the hard way once and for all? No, no, if he gets killed in my living room I'm the one who has to clean up the body.

"I-zuku, what do you think you're doing? Leave the bunny alone," Yu hissed.

Mirko looked down at the boy walking up to her without a hint of fear, an eyebrow already arched and her hand ready to swing.

"Hey, shrimp," she said, in a dangerously calm tone. "You really want me to snap you in half?"

Izuku stopped, blinked a couple of times, and far from backing off, he cleared his throat with all the dignity he could muster.

"Ahem. Don't get me wrong, Mirko-san," he clarified, without a trace of embarrassment. "Your legs are very sexy, that's totally undeniable, but what really left me speechless is that they're a genuine combat machine. The videos of you floating around out there don't do an ounce of justice to how good they look in person. You're the best close range combat heroine that exists, and seeing you up close like this only confirms it. It's a huge honor, really."

Mirko raised her other eyebrow, surprised. She was more than used to people staring at her with no shame, but it was rare for somebody to combine the shamelessness with a compliment about her work.

"Damn, kid. You've got some serious nerve, gotta give you that," she said, crossing her arms, and a smile began to creep onto her lips. "At least you didn't stand there stammering and drooling like other guys I've met."

Izuku, far from being thrown off, turned to face the two women, frowning while he tied a bunch of pieces together at once.

"Mirko-san, let me explain why your arrival is the best news I've gotten all day," he said. "Takeyama-san's biggest problem when she goes giant is that she becomes a huge, slow target. Anybody fast who hits her up close before she can react can knock her down, and that's exactly what tripped her up during her debut. And it turns out you are, without question, the fastest and most dangerous heroine at close range in all of Japan. There's no better training partner in this city to find those gaps and patch them up one by one."

Silence settled over the living room again. Yu and Mirko glanced sideways at each other, then looked at the kid, who was connecting dots with a cold logic that was honestly unsettling.

"That's why I wanted to ask you something," Izuku continued, without an ounce of intimidation in front of the bunny. "Would you like to join our training session today? For you it would be incredibly valuable combat data against a giant opponent in a controlled urban environment, with nobody getting hurt. And for us it'd be the perfect chance to polish all of Takeyama-san's weak spots before some real villain finds them first. Everybody wins, what do you say?"

The proposal left Yu with her mouth hanging wide open.

Did he just invite Mirko, who showed up here just to yell in my face, to join my secret and humiliating training session? This kid doesn't have a single ounce of survival instinct.

But Mirko didn't laugh. Far from it, the combat junkie's eyes lit up with excitement. She loved fighting, lived for a good challenge, and the idea of measuring herself against a giantess in a sparring match was a challenge that had never once crossed her mind.

"I'm in, shrimp!" she exclaimed, slamming the palm of one hand against the fist of the other. "I've been wanting to see up close what this rookie is really made of. Let's find out if the giantess is good for anything besides posing pretty on magazine covers."

She turned toward Yu, who was still frozen in the middle of the room, trying to figure out at what exact moment she had lost control of her own morning.

"Move it, Takeyama, don't just stand there like a lamppost," she ordered, already walking toward the door. "You wanted to train, didn't you? Well today's your lucky day, brat, because you just got the best teacher in the whole city, and for free on top of it."

Yu let out a defeated sigh and let herself get dragged along by the current, way too exhausted to fight against it. While the three of them stepped out into the hallway, Mirko leaned over and jabbed her in the ribs with a playful elbow, hard enough to knock the air right out of her in one shot.

"Ghk…!" Yu doubled over a little, bringing a hand to her side. "What's your problem?"

"Hey, Takeyama," she whispered, with a mischievous little smile. "I get it now."

"W-what is it that you get?" Yu stammered, rubbing her sore side.

Mirko winked at her and nodded toward Izuku with a tilt of her chin.

"I get why you got hung up on this weirdo. The shrimp has guts to spare, and trust me, that's worth way more than a pretty face in this line of work."

Yu felt a slight blush rise on her cheeks.

Hung up? Me? On this guy? On the pervert who supersizes parts of my body without warning and hands out business cards left and right like some street vendor?

She shot a sidelong glance at Izuku, who was walking a step ahead with the notebook tucked under his arm and a goofy smile painted on his face, completely oblivious to the social disaster he'd just caused and resolved at the same time.

Ha… Not in a million years.

*****"*

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