Disclaimer: I do not own Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

Heroic Figures

Chapter nine: Slim chance

She woke up in her bedroom one normal enough morning, her headache from the previous day now gone. She slowly rose up from her bed into a sitting position, letting her pixie cut hair that had grown longer in recent times fall about. She wore only a tank top and a pair of sleep shorts as she groaned in mild pain, brought about more by annoyance than actual physical pain, as she got up out of bed.

She walked over to her closet to pick out what clothes she'd wear that day, only pausing when she saw herself in the mirror. There was no denying that she was notably slender; her face was thinning, her ribs were somewhat visible, and her limbs were looking a bit bony. Even the sleep clothes she wore, the smallest size for girls her height available, was looking a bit baggy on her. She clearly had a need to put on some weight.

But putting on weight was the last thing that she wanted to do. Like, ever.

"Don't worry," the girl thought to herself, thinking towards someone that she knew in particular, "That gross hippo won't ever bother you."

...

The girl, now showered and dressed for the day, was about to head out for classes at Faerun High for the day when a male adult voice called out. The voice sounded like it came from a cool guy who was regularly rather chill, but could be firm if the need arose, such as the moment that he was about to have with the girl right now.

"Hey Kyoka," the voice called out, making the girl stop and turn to see a thin but healthy adult man with long blonde hair. This was Kyoka's dad Kyotoku, and he sounded and looked firm, but there was a hint of concern in his tone.

Sighing in a mildly annoyed tone, Kyoka said, "What is it, dad?"

Kyotoku let out a troubled, resigned sigh. "Look, I'm just going to come out and say it. You are really thin, to the point where you're too-"

"I know what I'm doing." Kyoka didn't say anything else before she turned around and proceeded to try to leave the house.

Her dad tried stopping her again. "Kyoka-"

"I CAN'T BE DISGUSTING!"

Kyotoku was cut off, he pulled back the hand he was reaching forward with to put on his daughter's shoulder to stop her. The slender girl, with nothing stopping her, proceeded to leave for the day's classes at Faerun High. After Kyoka cosed the door behind her, Kyotoku looked down, a troubled look on his face. He was very much concerned for his daughter's well-being; he had heard before how teen girls would try to lose weight by any means, even if by doing so they wreck themselves up to a degree.

But he never would have imagined that his own little Kyoka would wind up as one of those girls. Kyotoku blamed him, the boy that Kyoka mentions regularly; Kyoka had said a few times that if she was thin enough, then he would without a doubt like her, think she was hot. She was putting her own well-being on the line because she thinks the end result will be snagging him as her boyfriend at long last.

Later that day at Faerun High when classes for the day were done, Izuku was in the video game club with Uraraka and Tsuyu, discussing a few things. "So yeah, in the week since she defeated him in the tournament we did for the school festival," Uraraka began as she and Tsuyu talked to Izuku, "Yaoyorozu had played ten more PVP games in Heroic Figures against Monoma. The record for those is six wins and four losses in favor of Yaoyorozu."

Izuku smiled at that, happy to hear that his and the girls' classmate was doing well. "Well she can't win them all, but it is great she's still winning a fair bit."

"Yaoyorozu also invited me, Uraraka and all the girls in our class and in B-1 over to a sleepover that occurred over the previous weekend," Tsuyu said, "And a lot of Heroic Figures PVP fights occurred. Yaoyorozu won every one that she fought in."

"Well she has a solid, powerful team," Izuku remarked, "One that is-"

"Hey girls, Izuku!" The three friends were cut off when they heard their classmate Kyoka call out to them. She walked up to Izuku and the girls, a serious look on her face.

Izuku noted the look on Kyoka's thin face. "Can...can we help you, Kyoka?"

The slender girl pulled her bag up. "I brought my Heroic Figures team with me. I want to have a PVP fight with one of you."

Seeing that as the reason Kyoka was being serious, Izuku relaxed a bit, even lighting up a little at the friendly challenge from a classmate. "Oh, sure! I have my team of figures so I can fight you if you want." After a few moments, Izuku had pulled out his six figures for Heroic Figures that he had brought with him; as usual, he had Ingenium, which had become his most notable figure that he owned.

Izuku also had Rocklock, Gunhead and Snipe, other common staples in his six figure party. However, Selkie and Fourth Kind had been swapped out for a slender-looking guy in a baggy All Might themed hoodie with the hood up, and a girl with pink hair in pigtails and she wore a black domino mask and leotard. Seeing the two new figures, Uraraka said, "Hey, those two are new. Who are they?"

"Oh, well the male hero is The Crawler," Izuku began to explain, "And the female hero is-"

"That's Pop Step!" Kyoka said, interrupting Izuku, "She's actually a figure I've been wanting!"

With a bit of a surprised look on his face, Izuku said, "...Uhh, yeah." Izuku then watched as Kyoka pulled her own team of six figures out; Kyoka had Mirko, Ms. Joke, Sirius, Burnin, Uwabami and Midnight. "That's the same team that the lewd short guy from Faerun Magnet had," Izuku noted, "Except that Mt. Lady was swapped out for Ms. Joke."

Kyoka nodded in the affirmative. "Mt. Lady is the heaviest of those six, so I replaced her with a girl who weighed a lot less."

Uraraka and Tsuyu rolled their eyes at that and let out mildly exasperated sighs, but Izuku looked a bit confused. "...Umm, technically yes, but only because Mt. Lady is literally twice as tall as the average playable character in Heroic Figures, being even taller in the anime which can more accurately show her true size when she uses her power. Mt. Lady's weight naturally goes up with her height when she goes giant."

Izuku took a look at the six female heroes in Kyoka's Heroic Figures team, then turned to look back at Kyoka. "...Also, I get the feeling you're aiming more for female heroes who are thin. In which case Mt. Lady should have stayed since, proportionately, she's the second thinnest of the lot that Mineta had." Giving Kyoka a curious look, Izuku asked, "Kyoka, is there a reason why you're basing your team based on how much they weigh in the game and anime?"

"It's because she's obsessed with being thin to the point it's unhealthy," Tsuyu remarked dryly, gently shaking her head in concerned disappointment.

Izuku looked a bit confused by that but said nothing, instead went ahead and set his team up as Kyoka set hers up. Once both teams were ready, the two of them began their friendly PVP fight in Heroic Figures.

...

Izuku, to his surprise, ended up defeating Kyoka relatively easily. Fearing a strategy similar to what Tsuyu's little brother Samidare used in the major tournament to defeat Monoma since Kyoka had Ms. Joke, not to mention how Kyoka also had Midnight who is a useful utility character for her ability to inflict the sleep status ailment, Izuku used certain support item disks on his characters to mitigate the potential threat those two female heroes could pose.

But the efforts Izuku took ended up being for nothing as Kyoka just had her characters use attacking moves only; none of Kyoka's heroes were even equipped with support item disks at all. Izuku also got a boost by making Pop Step his party's leader first, activating her leader ability Idol's Encouragement, which boosted the attack, quirk attack and speed of all of Izuku's heroes by one stage.

Since The Crawler was also in Izuku's party, a secondary effect of Idol's Encouragement triggered just for him, making The Crawler's attack, quirk attack and speed sharply rise instead. Also, when The Crawler's speed went up because of another source, his ability Sliding Speed activated, boosting his speed again by an amount equal to the outside boost. So all of Izuku's heroes were working with plue one to attack, quirk attack and speed, except The Crawler who had plus two to attack and quirk attack and plus four to speed.

The boosts to his heroes' stats went a long way to nabbing Izuku the win against Kyoka. As Izuku let out a little cheer for winning, Bakugo came into the video game club room. "Oh, there you are Izuku," Bakugo said gruffly. He stopped short upon seeing that Izuku was playing with Kyoka in Heroic Figures. "I didn't know Beanpole played Heroic Figures," Bakugo remarked, his interest piqued a little.

"Yeah, she's pretty good," Izuku remarked, "I'd say she's slightly better than that Mineta fellow from Faerun Magnet."

Bakugo took a look at Kyoka's team really quick. "...Yeah, I got details from Mina about how Pennybags fought that midget to get him to zip it. Beanpole here has the same team aside from how she's got Ms. Joke instead of Mt. Lady."

"Yeah, Kyoka had apparently based her team around her obsession with being as thin as possible," Uraraka said, her tone four parts disappointed and six parts concerned.

Arching a wry eyebrow, Bakugo said, "Seriously?" Turning to look at Kyoka who had her back to him, Bakugo said, "Oi, you really ought to stop it with the dieting. I call you Beanpole for a-"

Bakugo stopped short when Kyoka fell over onto her right (she was sitting with Izuku on her left while they were having their PVP fight in Heroic Figures) and just laid there. "KYOKA!" Izuku and the girls yelled in freaked out alarm and worry as they and a similarly rattled Bakugo went about trying to help her and make sure she would be okay.

A few minutes later, Kyoka was laying in a bed in the nurse's office at school while Izuku and the others waited outside of the room Kyoka was in. The school nurse, a short and kindly elderly lady known as Nurse Shuzenji, looked up to the four teens. "She just passed out from hunger is all, dearies," Nurse Shuzenji said, "But I went ahead and called her parents."

Izuku looked really concerned for his classmate who had passed out. "Geez, why is Kyoka so dead set on starving herself and being thin?"

"From what I'm guessing," Bakugo began, "I'd say she's starting herself due to being in love with a boy, and she feels being obscenely thin would make her attractive to him." Bakugo folded his arms over his chest. "It wouldn't be the first time a girl did that thing for that rea-"

Bakugo was cut off when Kyotoku came running into the nurse's office, a panicked look on his face as Nurse Shuzenji was able to keep him from being loud. After the man with long blonde hair had settled down, Izuku and the others talked to him. "Yeah, Mr. Jiro, Kyoka just passed out from being hungry is all," Uraraka explained, understanding why the man would be worried.

Kyotoku looked concerned, but there was also a hint of anger in his expression. "...That little bastard that Kyoka's starving herself for is behind all of this. She thinks he'll only like her if she starves herself close to death, basically."

"She ain't the first to do that for that reason, and probably won't be the last," Bakugo said dryly.

A stronger hint of fury entered Kyotoku's expression. "Rrrrg, if I could just find that little Denki bastard that my daughter's killing herself over, I'd strangle him with his own sphincter as soon as I see-"

"Wait, Denki?" Izuku began, a surprised look on both his and Bakugo's respective faces, "You mean Kaminari?" While Izuku and the girls continued to look surprised, Bakugo had a bit of a troubled, sympathetic look on his face.

Kyotoku turned to look at the students. "...Yeah, that's his full name. You kids know him?"

"He's a classmate of ours," Izuku began, "And there's no way he'd be mean or expect a girl that likes him to starve herself for him. He lack even the smallest jerk bone in his body."

"Probably because he also lacks a brain," Bakugo added in dry snark, "Dumb people tend to be good as well, it seems." Bakugo's mild flash of amusement that appeared in his expression then faded away again, being replaced with his troubled, sympathetic look.

Tsuyu was about to speak up, but she was cut off when Kyoka, who had woken up, got up off of the bed she was laying on and walked out of the room she was in. Kyotoku gave her no room to argue as he said he was taking her straight home, and that she WAS going to eat something. After the two of them left after Kyotoku cleared things, Izuku and his friends looked at each other in concern.

Without even speaking, Izuku, Uraraka, Tsuyu and Bakugo all agreed they had to help Kyoka.

Later that afternoon after classes at Faerun High were done for the day, Kyotoku was sitting across from his daughter as they sat at the table in the dining room of their house. Kyotoku had sat Kyoka down and dropped the first thing he grabbed from the pantry that he saw, in this case a muffin from a plastic container, in front of his daughter. Given how slender Kyoka was, literally any food at all would be helpful.

As Kyotoku stared at Kyoka while she stared at the muffin, they heard a knock at the door. Kyotoku got up to answer it, and was surprised to see Izuku and the others from earlier, plus one other boy with strong yellow-blonde hair. Putting his left hand on the blonde boy's right shoulder, Bakugo said, "Yeah, this here's Kaminari, we brought him over to help clear the air of a few things we know is going on."

Upon hearing that Kaminari was actually over, Kyoka perked up, a look of mild panic on her face. Kyotoku sounded like he was about to lose his temper now that the boy who Kyoka was starving herself over was right there in front of him, but he held back, decided to give the teens here a chance to explain themselves. "...Alright then," Kyotoku said, "I'll give him a chance to clear things up."

"Umm, yeah the guys here told me that our classmate Kyoka was apparently starving herself in the belief that it'd make me like her if she were as thin as possible," Kaminari began in a mildly embarrassed tone, "I would never expect a girl to do that for me. I'm actually a little flattered that Kyoka, or any girl, would like me." Then Kaminari had a bit of a sad look on his face. "But I'm not exactly in the market for a girlfriend right now. I'm still trying to get over how I had to break things off with my bitch of an ex-girlfriend."

"You have an ex-girlfriend?" Izuku said in a surprised tone as he and the others looked at him. Even Kyoka came out to see, having heard that the boy who had (unknowingly) stolen her heart had recently ended a relationship he was in.

Kaminari nodded in the affirmative. "Yeah, she's that Camie girl from Faerun Magnet that Bakugo, Kirishima, Sero and Mina saw begging me to take her back during the recent school festival. But I can't really be with her. She..." Kaminari trailed off, gently shook his head. "...She didn't even try to give me what I really want in a relationship with a girl. All she wanted was to be wild and frisky."

Kyotoku looked a bit surprised by Kaminari's explanation. "...You actually kicked out of your life a girl who regularly offered to get nasty in bed with you. Wow, and I thought that boys your age would love being with such a girl."

Shrugging, Kaminari said, "Yeah, sex is cool and all. But Camie tended to be distant otherwise. She gave me little at all whenever I was feeling down or upset, aside from an 'oh, that sucks'. She also never wanted to just enjoy a cozy night together with me watching a movie on the couch, or just go on a stroll through a park while holding hands with me."

The other teens looked surprised at Kaminari expressing why he didn't honestly enjoy his relationship with his ex-girlfriend, and even Kyotoku softened up a bit. Kaminari even started tearing up a bit when he said, "Then, a week before that big Heroic Figures tournament that Tsuyu's little brother won, my family's cat that we had since I was two died."

Kaminari's expression grew a bit bitter upon starting that part of his story. "...Camie actually chuckled in amusement when she saw me cry about my family's cat dying. That's what sealed it, what told me that Camie honestly just didn't really care about me or how I felt, just what I could give her in bed. As soon as I stopped crying, I kicked Camie out of my life."

"Wow, she doesn't sound like the nicest girl," Kyotoku remarked, his previous fury at Kaminari greatly diminished.

"It's part of why I was thinking Kaminari wouldn't want to try going out with Beanpole right now," Bakugo said, "He's still getting over having dated a wrong girl." Izuku and the girls all looked concerned for how Kaminari was still hurting.

Sighing, Kaminari went on, "To make things even dumber for me, I think that I found a right girl during my early middle school days. I only ever saw her once, the day after my mom got arrested and subsequently was sent to jail for five years, but that girl showed for care for me, offered me more emotional support, in the brief time we hung out together back then, than what Camie gave me in the entire three and a half months were together before I gave her the boot."

A look of surprise appeared on Kyoka's face before she finally spoke up since Kaminari had come over with the others. "...Really?"

Nodding a few times, Kaminari said, "Yeah. My mom getting arrested back then was really tough on me and my dad. I even cried about it, but Tetsutetsu told me to man up, Aoyama said me crying made me look ugly, and Fumikage's twin brother with the weird nickname actually pointed and laughed at me." Izuku and the others were a bit surprised by this, Izuku and Bakugo especially since they went to a different middle school than all of their Faerun High friends.

Gently shaking his head, Kaminari went on, "But that girl from my early middle school days, she...she was none of that. She sat with me, listened to me, even cried a bit with me. She also spontaneously hugged me, and also offered me-"

"-A lemon poppy seed muffin from a basket of muffins she had brought with her to school that day," Kyoka said in a tone of slowly dawning surprise, getting the others to look at her, "Because her mom is a manager at a bakery slash cafe restaurant."

"...Yeah," Kaminari said, "Kyoka, how do you-" Kaminari was cut off when he and the others saw Kyoka rush off to her bedroom, coming back a moment later with a somewhat old middle school yearbook. She flipped the book open, then found a photo that showed three girls; the ones on the left and right were clearly Uraraka and Tsuyu respectively, but the one girl in the middle was a mystery; she had dark colored hair in a short hime-style cut, and there was no getting around how she was very fat.

Pointing to the girl in the middle, Kyoka asked Kaminari, "Is that the girl?"

Kaminari had a look of surprise on his face as he and the others looked at the photo, with the girls looking like they were seeing something they hadn't seen in years. "...Yeah, that's her," Kaminari said, then added when he looked up at Kyoka, "How do you know who that-"

"That was me!" Kyoka exclaimed.

The boys all looked surprised, but Uraraka and Tsuyu both nodded in confirmation. Kyoka even found her profile picture in that yearbook, and it showed the very same very plump girl identified as Kyoka Jiro. "Yeah boys," Uraraka began, "Believe it or not, Kyoka actually used to be rather obese. At her peak in middle school, she was at 200kg."

"Hot damn!" Bakugo exclaimed in surprise, "I had no idea that Beanpole used to be a Wideload! Talk about a drastic transformation!"

"Then one day," Tsuyu went on, "The day after some rude and incredibly jerk man from the video game company that Izuku's uncle works at visited our middle school, all that was on Kyoka's mind was slimming down as much as possible."

Kaminari had taken the yearbook from Kyoka, looked at the photo that had her together with Uraraka and Tsuyu. "So...so that was you," Kaminari said, a hint of sadness in his tone that sounded a bit of joy at finding something long lost, "You were that girl that I was planning to ask out eventually."

"WHAT?!" the other teens exclaimed in surprise.

"You...you were planning to ask me...ask me out?" Kyoka asked, looking surprised; she was even beginning to tear up a bit.

Nodding in confirmation, Kaminari said, "Eventually, yes. That moment we had, where you freely cared about me, comforted me because I was going through a rough patch at the time, gave me the emotional support I would hope for from a relationship with a girl, it made me feel as if you were the right girl. I was planning to find you the day following you comforting me because I wanted to ask if you'd be interested in hanging out with me, with the idea being that the two of us would get to know each other more, and hopefully you'd be interested in going out with-"

Kaminari was cut off when Kyoka rushed him, placed her hands on the sides of his face, then pulled his face close to hers as she planted a kiss right on his lips, surprising not just Kaminari himself but also everyone else. Kyoka pulled away from, tears running down the sides of her face as she smiled in a relieved manner. "...You have no idea how much I dreamed about you being in love with me," Kyoka said, "Just like how I'm in love with you. You even wanted to give me a chance back when I was a fat hippo."

He was a bit touched that Kyoka cared about him so, but Kaminari still offered a tender smile. "You were still kind of cute. And you honestly cared about me, about how I felt. You...you still do care about me and how I feel, don't y-"

Kyoka cutting Kaminari off by kissing him on his lips again gave him all the answer he needed.

The next day at Faerun High after classes ended, everyone in the A-1 and B-1 classes were in the video game club, with Kyoka and Nirengeki fighting each other in Heroic Figures while Kyoka was periodically eating handfuls of chips from a bag she had open. Standing nearby and watching were Izuku, Uraraka, Tsuyu and Bakugo. "So Beanpole is feeling better about herself when it turned out she was that lost girl that Kaminari wanted to try being with back in middle school," Bakugo said.

"Yeah Bakugo, you and I don't know much about it since the two of us went to a different middle school than everyone else," Izuku remarked.

"I just think it's sweet that Kaminari said he'd love to go out with Kyoka," Uraraka said, "And that they're dating now. It's also nice to see Kyoka eating anything at all."

Nodding in agreement, Tsuyu said, "Yeah, and shame on that jerk man who said all of those mean things about Kyoka back when we were in middle school while she was within earshot, saying that her being fat made her unappealing to boys, and that he'd never let his son Shoto date a fat girl."

Izuku and Bakugo both turned to look at the girls. "...You know a detail like that?" Izuku asked, looking surprised.

"Tsuyu and I were with Kyoka back on the day of that incident, so we remember," Uraraka said, "He was a real jerk."

"And you said that the man said his son's name is Shoto," Bakugo went on as he and Izuku looked at the girls in surprise.

Both girls looked a bit confused, but Uraraka said, "...Yeah. Do you boys might know-"

"Is the man standing next to my Uncle Toshinori in this picture the man in question?" Izuku asked as he pulled up a picture on his phone, showing Toshinori standing next to a mildly buff man with dark reddish hair. Both men wore business suits, denoting high positions in the video game company they work for.

Both girls looked at the man standing next to Izuku's blonde skeleton of an uncle. "...Yeah, that buff guy is the man," Uraraka said. Looking up at Izuku, Uraraka asked, "Do you know-"

"That man is Enji Todoroki," Izuku said, cutting Uraraka off and making both her and Tsuyu look at him in surprise, "He's our classmate Todoroki's father."

END, CHAPTER NINE

Author's notes;

I wanted to kick off the romance arc by having a girl fielding a Heroic Figures party that in a way represented an unhealthy obsession she had due to being in love. As such, I picked Kyoka, who ended up beginning the process of recovering in the end when she ended up with Kaminari. But that is only one point; in the end, I established Enji (who is Endeavor in the series proper) as the greater scope jerk. That may seem out of place, but there IS a good reason why I'm establishing him here now.

But more on that later. Speaking of later, the next chapter should hopefully be out before too much longer. It'll be more romance, no doubt about that.