I was significantly heavier now.

The first few footfalls after I'd invited retribution upon my bloodline sounded like a cannon firing. The next few after that weren't much better, and I'd been forced to give up on trying to make my steps lighter after almost losing my completely legitimate lead in the race.

It was a shame that for as comically overpowered as it was, Overhaul was still beholden to some level of realism. Sure, I could make something smaller with a touch, or bigger for that matter, but I could only really work with materials that were already there. Making things heavier or lighter wasn't an option without adding or subtracting the corresponding amount of materials. That would be ridiculous.

After all, we couldn't all be unfairly cute heiresses wielding literal magic.

…Maybe I could condense something down far enough to- no, no. I needed to set limits for myself at some point. Think of the planet. Think of Nezu's face if I fucked up in a way that he had managed to predict perfectly.

Ugh.

The wind whistled in my ears as I thundered across the landscape, a supremely pissed off bunny on my heels. Rural roads and the occasional building passed us by in a flash as I gradually figured myself out. As heavy as I had been before, a result of continuous Quirk fuckery over the course of months, I'd still easily at least tripled my weight with this latest stunt.

Even if I barely felt it, the world around me would.

Figuring out which part of my foot to push off the ground with came first, how to land second. I probably wouldn't be going over any softer ground anymore without leaving dents, but dents were a far cry from the craters that some poor fucker would probably end up falling into in the coming days. There were going to be a lot of accidents along the roads around my house pretty soon, all of them indirectly my fault, and all of them most likely hilarious.

Maybe it was a result of Chisaki, or Mineta, or even Overhaul itself, but I had the movements figured out within a minute of running. A result of my body adapting to the changes? Did it think that this was a new Quirk, perhaps? Either way, it didn't really matter if I had to literally stay on my toes when I'd just made it impossible to break a bone or joint.

It was with my comfortable lead, along a stretch of road that likely hadn't seen traffic in a while that I twisted on my heel, using that momentum to turn myself around without actually stopping. Mirko had fallen behind somewhat, probably in the aftermath of me figuring out exactly what I was doing, but the sight of my taunting smile was enough motivation for her to speed up even further.

She wasn't actually running. I don't really know what I was expecting, but I really should have known that she would be bounding after me like a rabbit. Even though her strides were far longer, and had to be landing with just as much force as mine, nothing more than the grass beneath her feet so much as shifted as she hopped through with lethal force.

I felt like a bumbling idiot in comparison. Which, honestly? Fair.

I couldn't tell if the pulsating vein in her forehead was due to the strain of hopping this fast, or anger. Though now that I thought about it, it was probably an unhealthy combination of both.

"Are you even trying?" My foot hit a rock. Instead of stumbling, which I probably would have before today, my heel smashed right through it without pause. Falling over in that moment would have been perfect karma, but for once, justice being dead worked out in my favour.

The biggest fragment of that same rock came flying at my forehead a moment later, right before I could turn around and make sure I was still going in the right direction. With no real room or opportunity to dodge, I had no choice but to let it crash into my forehead at a velocity that may very well have been approaching terminal.

Note to self, even with metal bones, shit smashing into your stupid face will still hurt. Also now I had dust and dirt in my eyes.

Nevermind. Karma was alive and kicking. Kicking my ass, if you wanted to get more specific.

"I'M GOING TO KICK YOU A NEW ASSHOLE AND PULL YOUR HEART OUT THROUGH IT!"

Yep, it was just anger. You couldn't get your voice to echo like that if you were out of breath.

The heartbeat it took me to Overhaul my eyeballs, which was perhaps the least pleasant experience in the world, was all the time Mirko needed to close the gap on me. Despite everything, the time I'd spent with her and the sheer amount of preparation I'd put into my body and my mind, a sharp thrill of fear still shot down my spine at the sight of Mirko's eyes within breathing distance of mine.

Fear and, well, you know.

What? It's not my fault that she was too fucking pretty. She'd been too fucking pretty even disguised on that train where I'd first encountered her. Too fucking pretty while mumbling to herself like a psychopath and making me fear for my life without apparently even meaning to.

Too fucking pretty, even after I'd purposefully pissed her off because it was much better than her being ashamed.

…Was that eyeshadow?

"Luna-!"

"Fuck, you're gorgeous." I murmured to myself, ready to take the hit. Conveniently forgetting that those massive rabbit ears planted in her skull weren't just for show.

Watching someone go from perfectly poised and prepared to launch a deadly assault, to flailing under their own momentum, was perhaps one of the funniest things I'd ever seen. Mirko's eyes widened, the rage leaving them, and her entire body slackened as my words settled in her mind. The flip she'd thrown herself into turned into a flop, all of her deadly grace vanishing into a boneless death spiral aimed directly at me.

Of course, being the quintessential gentleman that would make even Gentle jealous… I turned on my heel and used Mirko's own bounding manoeuvre to launch myself further down the road, narrowly avoiding her numb body as she face-planted into the grass.

"Oomph!" Her voice was muffled, mainly by the grass that I'd forced to grow to soften her landing. See, I wasn't totally heartless, just mostly.

"You alright?" I called, from a football field away. My feet were planted just a little too firmly into the ground on landing, though a few yanks was enough to pull them from the indentations I'd made in the dirt road.

Forget what I said earlier. Overhaul could do anything, including fixing potholes that would have taken any local government months to worry about. Yes, I know I caused them, but shut up. Be mad at the politicians.

For a moment, there was no movement. I took a step forward cautiously; had I accidentally missed a rock? Did she actually need help?

Those worries were immediately abated when Mirko launched up with an explosion of dirt and grass, her face so red that it almost looked like she was bleeding.

"RAAAAAARRRGGGGGHHH!"

Her (gorgeous) eyes sought me out. The flames roaring within them promised pain and retribution. If she was a little bit shaky climbing to her feet, well, I could cut her some slack and not mention it anymore.

She took a lurching step towards me.

I turned tail and fucking booked it.

The mountain was right ahead of us, the plateau near its peak calling for me. Much like Mirko was calling for my head, with the thumping of her hops right behind me.

Metaphorically and physically, I might have been flying a bit too close to the sun with this one.

But still, it was better to be burned, than buried.

This time, for sure, she was gonna kill him.

She'd been telling herself that every single time they crossed paths in the past, but this time, she was absolutely going to kill him.

He'd asked for it. With subtext and, because he knew she didn't speak that pansy bullshit, context. Really, there was no way he didn't know what he was asking for here.

Mirko was no teacher, but she did know how she'd learned. In the ring, out on the streets, down in the pits. She'd learned the dodge punches only after eating every single kind. She'd learned how to launch a kick only after hundreds of failures, the innumerable amount of times that her feet had been knocked out from underneath her.

Struggle, adapt, survive, thrive. For a prey animal in a world of Quirked predators, there was no alternative. She wanted to kick, to fight, to win. Saving people along the way was just the natural progression of such an idea.

And hey, it had been working out pretty well for her. She got to wander to her heart's content, battle with any asshole thinking about stirring shit in the country. She was rich, she was famous, she was approaching the top at a speed not seen since All Might himself.

She didn't even have to care anymore that Shishido never returned her calls. Maybe, just maybe, she should have listened to Ryuko that one time about how bad a match they would really make. If she had, Shibuya Ward might have been a bit more intact when all was said and done.

She wouldn't have been surprised if to this day, the competitive bastard was still upset over the fact that even though he outranked her, she'd proven herself much stronger than him. Twice. Before he'd had to run away and leave her high and dry.

Courage of a lion, her ass. She'd enjoy rubbing that in his face, right after she beat him into the top ten.

Right now though, she had another smug bastard to take down a few notches. Hopefully this one would live up to the hype, even if it wasn't self-generated this time.

The trip up the mountain was quick. With no real roads leading up to it and nothing to attract tourists or vacationers, there was a distinct lack of people that Mirko caught onto immediately. Had he known that-

She shook her head, cutting the thought off even as she followed his bounding gait up the side of the mountain. Of course he had known. She'd arrived early enough to hear some stories from his cronies, friends, whatever they really were to him. Nothing that she'd really wanted to hear, they were ridiculously cagey when it came to how they all actually met each other.

It probably had something to do with whatever shitshow they'd pulled that kid from. Her instincts were never wrong, and they were telling her that whoever had that kid before she ended up in that house, they were dead now.

One day she would hear how it all went down, someday soon. She probably should have been embarrassed over the fact that she wanted to hear every story that he had. She wanted to be part of all his stories going forth.

"You're coming on too strong, girl, slow it down," Ryuko's words echoed through her ears as she bounced off the same tree he had, idly noting the dent that he'd left in it. The impact shouldn't have been that heavy… What had he done to himself now?

As she had numerous times before, Mirko ignored the advice. Perhaps for the first time, it felt like the right thing to do.

The mountain evened out eventually, after about a minute of climbing. They were near the top now, far away from even the wildlife they'd been disturbing on the way up. To one side was an outcropping that led up to the actual summit, still tall enough to be blocking out the afternoon sunlight. To the other was a sheer drop, a few tiny ledges being all that stood between them and a series of deadly rocks poking out of the ground.

They had about as much room to move as Mirko usually did at her regular gym. Not entirely ideal for an actual fight, but perfectly workable, at least for her.

For him? Well, they'd figure that out soon enough.

"Alright, this should be-"

By the time he was finally turning back around to look at her, Mirko had already begun. Half of their available ground space shuddered and broke apart under the force of her axe kick, boulders of various sizes erupting out of the ground as the mountain groaned under the force.

"Less fuckin' talkin', Michael!"

"That's not my-" Whatever he'd been about to say withered in his mouth as Mirko spun around, her leg lashing out in a perfect roundhouse kick. The boulder she'd been aiming for, the biggest one that had been kicked up, fractured down into rubble as it flew forth, pelting where he'd been standing with stone bullets that tore up the ground.

He was nowhere to be seen. Mirko's ears twitched, and her lips curled.

"I thought you wanted to FIGHT!?" The muscles in her thigh were bulging. Raising her leg again, Mirko brought it down with her full force, angling the impact away from her position. With a dull roar that anyone in the distance would have assumed with thunder, the rest of the stone exploded apart. Rocks and dirt flew away from the impact sight, and through the curtain of it all, Mirko spotted a flash of purple.

Abandoning the mountain to its landslide, she bounded off as well, the long hair never leaving her gaze. The man attached to it looked dazed, though the lucidity was returning to his eyes far faster than it had any right to.

She'd just have to hit him harder.

The way he gagged as her legs wrapped around his neck was music to her ears. Hands that felt like steel grasped the middle of her thighs before she could squeeze properly/ The gleeful cackle she let out after catching the glare he was shooting her was borderline maniacal.

"You fucking destroyed the mountain!" His voice was nearly lost to the wind. Gravity had them back within its clutches, taking them over the rest of the range and towards a collection of trees that was even further away from any city than they'd already been.

The two of them were just drawn to forests, it seemed.

"It was ugly as shit anyway!" Mirko adjusted her legs, and his grip slipped for a moment. Plenty of time for her to lock her thighs around him properly, before lurching backwards and dragging him underneath her towards the rapidly approaching ground.

"LUNA TIJERAS!"

"ARE YOU FUCKING-"

With an unnatural, screeching groan, his head snapped backwards, all the considerable weight of his body and the significant force of her legs concentrated entirely on his neck. The branches they slammed into didn't slow them down one bit, nor did the two trees that he barreled into and through head first. They hit the ground like a meteor, his back digging a trench that only ended once he'd slammed into a tree thick enough to handle the impact.

The angle his head was pointing at wasn't natural, the bones in his neck poking out in ways that should have been horrifying, but she wasn't worried. Not when he still had such a tight grip on her legs. Not when he was still fighting.

Throughout it all, she rode him all the way down. It wasn't a perfect execution of the move, usually her target would have required some kind of leverage for her to work with, but his body was so sturdy that it almost didn't make a difference.

And, sure enough, she watched as he slowly tilted his head back down. The movement was slow, methodical, and if the grimace on his face was anything to go by, extremely painful. The metallic groaning was back, low enough that she had to actually concentrate in order to hear it.

The awkward lump poking from the front of his throat smoothed back down, and he took a deep breath, coughing wetly into the thigh she had covering his mouth. A shudder went down her spine, coinciding with the grin that stretched across her face, as she felt and then smelled the copper mixed in with the saliva.

She shifted down his body slightly, doing her best to keep him locked in place with her legs. He'd break free soon enough, but until then, she was going to relish this.

The sparks in his eyes when he finally rolled them back down far enough to glare at her weren't hatred. Oh, he was pissed, she could see the thoughts flickering through his mind as though his face was a projector, but she would have been devastated if she hadn't been certain he could take it. Coming on too strong? There was no such thing when she was facing down a predator.

"Are you trying to fucking kill me?" His voice was even lower than his usual deep baritone. There was some red poking out from between his teeth as he growled at her, but just as she thought, he was fine.

He was more than fine, his hands beginning to actually pry her legs apart. Nothing had ever moved her legs against her will before.

He'd be spreading them again once they were done. Like hell she was going to let him get away without a few extra rounds this time.

"You can take it."

Her own voice had lowered to match his. Her lip gloss was beginning to taste like victory.

Until one of his hands fell away from her thigh entirely, and his head flopped back onto the ground with a sigh.

"I hate being right."

Before she could figure that one out, his free hand reached up, tapping against the tree they'd crashed against. From the corner of her eye, Mirko noticed something moving.

She looked up, just in time to catch a fist made of wood right in the chin. The impact was jarring enough for her legs to lose their tension, loosening just enough for his head to slip through the gap. Within one moment and the next, she was flying through the air, courtesy of a second, larger fist made of dirt and stone.

Maybe it was the adrenaline talking, but the smile stretching her cheeks hurt more than the bruise that was forming on her torso from the hit. She landed, skidding slightly across the grass, watching as he slowly pushed himself to his feet.

With his chin in one hand, he cracked his neck to the side, spitting out a glob of crimson saliva. His eyes were narrowed as he turned back to her, inhaling deeply as he prepared to say something-

"We are gonna fuck so hard after this is over."

Whether his sudden coughing fit was because of what she'd said, or the foot she'd planted into his stomach right after, she didn't know.

All that mattered right now was the fight she'd been begging for.