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Chapter 19: The Secret in the Pocket
🕑 Added 2025-09-19 15:40:35 +0000 UTCYu's voice was barely a thread of sound, a tiny, panic filled whisper struggling to escape from Izuku's jacket.
"Izuku… what do we do now?"
He stood completely frozen. His brain, which normally operated a mile a minute analyzing hero tactics, was now trying to process a series of logistical problems that no U.A. handbook could cover.
Problem number one: a professional hero, currently doll sized and completely naked, was taking refuge in his clothes.
Problem number two: said hero's uniform, an outfit the size of a small tent, was lying a few feet away, irrefutable proof that something incredibly strange had happened.
Problem number three: somewhere in the fake city, a supersonic battle rabbit, also known as his second mentor, was probably breaking the sound barrier for fun and could decide to return at any moment.
Another BOOM, this time decidedly closer, echoed between the buildings and shook him from his trance. The sound of Mirko approaching. Time was running out.
"Okay," he whispered frantically toward the collar of his jacket. "I have a plan. It's going to be weird. Very, very weird."
"Izuku, my concept of 'weird' has been shattered in the last five minutes," Yu's tiny voice replied, trembling. "How weird can it be?"
"Level: possibly illegal in several prefectures," he admitted. "I need you to not move and, please, don't scream."
"I'm already at a level of humiliation that transcends screaming, Izuku! Screaming would be a luxury! Just do something!" she shrieked, her panic rising with every passing second.
With painstaking care, Izuku picked up the jacket with Yu inside. She let out a small squeak of surprise at the abrupt movement. He held it against his chest for a moment, his mind racing. He couldn't just carry her in his hand. He needed a safe place, a hiding spot.
His eyes fell on his own jacket. It had large, deep pockets. One of them, on the inside, had a zipper. It was perfect. It was the worst idea he'd ever had in his life, but it was also the only one.
"I'm going to move you," he warned in a whisper. "Get ready."
"Move me where? Izuku, wait, what are you—!"
He didn't give her time to protest. Deftly, he reached into the jacket he was holding. His fingers brushed against Yu's small, warm form, wrapped in the fabric's lining. He gently grasped her and placed her in the inner pocket of the jacket he was wearing. He settled her in carefully and pulled the zipper closed, leaving only a tiny opening for air.
"Are you okay?" he asked in a murmur directed at his own chest.
"No! I'm not okay!" the tiny voice replied, muffled by the fabric and full of indignation. "I'm in your pocket! This is a miniature kidnapping!"
"I'm sorry," he muttered, though he wasn't exactly sure what he was apologizing for. "It was the only option. Now stay still."
He turned to face the second problem: the evidence.
Mt. Lady's uniform lay on the ground, a mass of purple and ivory spandex that seemed to mock him. He ran to the suit and started gathering it up. The fabric was heavy, designed to withstand the stresses of a twenty meter tall body. Wrestling with it was a frustrating ordeal.
He opened his backpack and began shoving the suit in by force.
"This is insane," he muttered to himself. "Completely insane."
First, he stuffed in the boots, then the gloves. Then he started on the main body of the suit, pushing and compacting the fabric with all his strength. It was a humiliating and strangely exhausting job. As he struggled with one of the suit's legs, something small and pink fell out and landed with a soft rustle on the dusty asphalt.
It was her underwear.
Izuku froze, staring at it. It was a delicate piece of lace. It seemed incredibly intimate and completely out of place on the ground of a training field.
From his chest pocket, a tiny squeal of pure mortification reached his ears. Yu, from her fabric prison, had a perfect view of the scene.
"Don't look at it! Don't you dare look at it, Midoriya!" her tiny voice screamed, filled with panic.
With an almost sociopathic calm, he picked up the garment. He held it between his thumb and forefinger as if it were a forensic sample, observing it with purely objective curiosity.
And then, with the casualness of someone commenting on the weather, he said aloud, knowing perfectly well she could hear him:
"Hmm. Nice color. Pink complements her skin tone and blonde hair. I wonder how you'd look in it."
The sound that emanated from his pocket was indescribable. It was a mix of a choked scream, a groan of agony, and the dull thud of tiny fists beating helplessly against the fabric.
"You're a monster!" the muffled cry was heard. "A pervert! An analytical sociopath with freckles!"
"I was just making an objective observation," he replied with the same calm, almost as if reasoning with a child. "The design is also efficient. Lace on the edges for aesthetics, but a functional cotton construction in the center. Very practical."
"I'm going to kill you! When I get my size back, I'm going to use your spine as a toothpick!"
With the same indifference, Izuku carefully folded the garment and tucked it into a side pocket of his backpack, zipping it shut. Just as he stood up, feeling the weight of a hero uniform and the shattered dignity of his boss on his back, a sonic boom split the air.
Mirko landed less than ten meters from him, creating a small crater in the asphalt. The ground trembled slightly. She was sweaty, her white hair disheveled, and she wore the biggest, wildest smile Izuku had ever seen.
"Whoo! That was awesome!" she exclaimed, her voice thrumming with adrenaline. Her chest heaved. "I think I broke the sound barrier on that last stretch! Totally worth it!"
Her bright red eyes scanned the empty plaza.
"So? Where did Takeyama get to? Did she go cry in a corner over my athletic superiority? I don't see her anywhere."
Izuku felt a small, frantic drumming from his pocket. This was the moment of truth. His brain, running on all cylinders under the pressure, discarded a thousand complex options. Instead, he clung to the simplest, and therefore most disastrous, solution he could conceive. It was stupid, it was risky, and it was the only card he had to play.
He turned to face Mirko. He adjusted the backpack on his shoulder and looked her straight in the eye.
"She left," he said, his tone flat.
Mirko raised an eyebrow. "Left? Just like that? She gave up? That doesn't sound like her."
"She didn't give up," Izuku continued, setting the stage. "We had... a little couple's quarrel."
The phrase hung in the air between them. Mirko blinked, her predatory smile faltering for the first time.
"A what?"
"A couple's quarrel," Izuku repeated. "She got a little upset. Said I was paying too much attention to your speed improvements and not her... uh... training parameters."
The flood of humiliation that washed over the tiny Yu in his pocket was so intense she nearly fainted. She felt the world shrink around her. A couple's quarrel? Jealous?! I'm going to kill you, Izuku! I swear I'll find a way to grow just to the size of a giant wasp and sting you in the eye! In both eyes!
"She got... jealous," Izuku concluded, adding a sigh of resignation.
Mirko stared at him. Her expression shifted from confusion to disbelief. Her fighter's brain, which simplified the world into problems you could punch and problems you couldn't, struggled to process this new information.
"She said she needed space," Izuku continued, now fully committed to his terrible lie. "She got angry, said something about how I was 'always comparing her to you,' and went home."
As Mirko processed this, her expression slowly beginning to morph into something else, Izuku glanced down at his own chest. He directed his attention to the inner pocket where his boss was suffering a miniature existential crisis.
And he winked.
It was a subtle, conspiratorial wink, a gesture meant to convey: "Relax. I've got this under control. Just play along."
From the darkness of the pocket, Yu felt the slight movement of the fabric. She understood the gesture. And in that moment, she knew what it felt like to die inside. All her anger evaporated, replaced by an icy resignation. She was trapped in the most ridiculous lie ever told, and her accomplice was the most socially inept teenager on the planet.
"HA! HAHAHAHAHA!"
Her laugh wasn't a chuckle; it was a thunderous roar. She bent at the waist, slapping her knee, her laughter echoing across the training plaza.
"I KNEW IT! I KNEW THERE WAS SOMETHING BETWEEN YOU TWO!" she yelled between gasps of laughter. "Oh, for heaven's sake! Jealous! Of course she's jealous! Oh, that girl is so predictable! Always with that serious face, but inside she's pure dynamite!"
She walked over and clapped Izuku on the back so hard that little Yu bounced off the walls of her pocket prison, hitting her head on what she assumed was a seam.
"Easy there, kid! Don't worry! She'll come around!" she said, giving him a conspiratorial wink. "Though I have to admit, she's not wrong to be jealous of me."
Yu, in the pocket, emitted a sound that was a cross between a mouse's squeak and a seized engine. She wanted to scream, to protest, to tell the truth, but she was trapped, tiny, and voiceless.
"Well, her problem if she can't appreciate a good training session," Mirko said, dismissing it with a wave of her hand. "More time for us! And since your girlfriend has temporarily abandoned you in a jealous fit, you have no excuse. Let's work on that noodle guard of yours."
Yu's heart stopped. Oh, no. No, please, no. Anything but that.
"Now?" Izuku asked, his voice sounding a little higher than usual.
"Of course now!" Mirko exclaimed, her smile turning predatory again. "If you're going to be the problem boyfriend of a top ten pro hero, you at least have to know how to not die in the first five seconds of a fight. Consider this part of your marital duty. Your training starts now."
And so began Yu Takeyama's new personal hell.
From the warm, claustrophobic, and swaying darkness of a zippered pocket, she experienced Izuku's first combat lesson. The world was an earthquake of fabric and motion. She heard Mirko's instructions, her voice a muffled thunder right next to her head, vibrating through Izuku's chest.
"Your stance is a disaster, kid! You're completely off balance! Widen your legs, lower your center of gravity! More! I want you to look like you're glued to the ground!"
Yu felt immense pressure as Mirko shoved Izuku to correct his stance, tipping her at a precarious angle inside the pocket. She clung to a fold of fabric to keep from rolling around, feeling every one of Izuku's muscles tense up.
"Now, the guard! Arms up! Elbows tucked in! No, not like that, you idiot! You want your ribs broken? Tuck them against your body! Your life depends on it!"
She felt a series of jolts as Mirko began to roughly reposition Izuku's arms. The experience was sensory chaos. The constant rub of the fabric, the smell of Izuku and his effort, the sound of his ragged breathing right above her, the vibrations of his body as he moved. It was unbearably intimate and absolutely terrifying.
"You have to learn to absorb the impact with your whole body!" Mirko yelled, her voice full of frustration. "The power doesn't come from your shoulders, it comes from your hips! You have to rotate! Like this!"
Yu felt a firm, strong hand grab Izuku's hip. It was inches from her, separated only by a thin layer of fabric. A small cry of panic escaped her but was muffled by the tracksuit. Mirko was manhandling Izuku, and she was... right there! Trapped! It was the most intimate collateral damage in the history of heroism.
"Better," Mirko said, satisfied, letting him go. "Now, a block. You need to feel an impact to understand how force is distributed. Get ready. I'm going to give you a little tap."
No, no, no, please, not an impact. Not a little tap from Mirko, Yu pleaded silently to any deity who might be listening.
But it was too late. Mirko delivered a blow that was gentle by her standards but incredibly firm against the forearm Izuku had raised to block. The impact shot through Izuku's body like a shockwave and felt like an explosion inside Yu's tiny world. She bounced off the walls of her pocket prison, completely disoriented.
The lesson continued for what felt like several lifetimes. Yu lost all track of time. Her existence was reduced to a series of violent shakes, muffled sounds, Mirko's commands, Izuku's grunts of pain, and the constant, humiliating proximity of the situation.
"Faster!"
Wham! Another jolt.
"Rotate your hip!"
A violent pull.
"Anticipate the move, don't react!"
Finally, the climax of her torture arrived.
"Okay, you've improved a little," Mirko conceded, her breathing slightly heavy. Izuku was completely out of breath. "But you're stiff as a board. You need to learn how to fall. In a real fight, you're going to get knocked down. If you get knocked down, you have to roll to dissipate the energy. It's the most basic of basics."
Oh, no. Not rolling. Please, anything but rolling, Yu thought, feeling a new wave of nausea.
"Roll?" Izuku panted.
"Yeah, roll. I'm going to sweep your feet. You're going to fall and roll. If you don't roll, you crash. If you crash, it hurts. Got it?" Mirko explained with brutal logic.
"Got it," Izuku said with little conviction.
"Get ready!" Mirko yelled.
Yu didn't even have time to mentally prepare. She felt a sudden, overwhelming force at Izuku's ankles. The world tilted violently; the ground vanished from beneath him. There was a sensation of freefall that lasted a split second, and then the impact.
Izuku hit the ground and, following Mirko's instructions, he rolled.
For Yu, the experience was a whirlwind of darkness, fabric, and chaotic movement. She was thrown from side to side, slamming against the pocket's seams, her small body completely at the mercy of physics. She couldn't tell up from down, left from right. There was only chaos.
When the motion finally stopped, she was dizzy, bruised, and terribly nauseous. The world was still spinning around her, even though she was no longer moving. Izuku was on the ground, breathless, with Mirko standing over him, wearing a satisfied smile.
"Not bad for a start, kid," she said, panting slightly as she wiped sweat from her brow. "You've got potential. You're tough. Tomorrow, same time. If your girlfriend hasn't forgiven you by then, we'll work on counterattacks. It'll be fun!"
With one last savage grin, Mirko took a ground shaking leap and disappeared over the horizon with another sonic boom.
Izuku lay on the ground for a long minute, just breathing. Finally, with a groan, he sat up. With trembling fingers, he reached for the zipper on his pocket.
"Yu?" he whispered. "Are you still alive in there?"
The zipper opened a crack, letting in a sliver of the sunset's light.
From the total darkness, dizzy and having reached a new, profound level of resignation, Yu could only form a weak, pathetic response.
"I just want my clothes," she whispered. "And maybe a little of my dignity back. Is that really too much to ask?"
