Chapter 26 : Brush ‘Em

A/N : Thanks to the people who are giving stones even during the day where I ain't publishing! Please keep it coming ! It's a good motivation for me.

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Around a year later.

It was a busy year for both Kurai and Rumi. They were now a few weeks in their 5th grade.

Indeed, after graduating from 3rd grade, they had that fight where Kurai showed Rumi his 'surprise'.

The 'surprise' was, as a matter of fact, a huge one for Rumi, who was too shocked to even think about such a possibility.

Not even in her wilder dreams she would've thought about Kurai having another quirk. He was already so strong in her eyes that he didn't even need one more.

The result of that fight was pretty underwhelming though, Rumi only remembered seeing sparks, and feeling a huge pain in her stomach. When she opened her eyes, she was on Kurai's lap, looking at the ceiling.

Obviously, she made a fuss over it, but since she couldn't move, she had to swallow her embarrassment and watch Kurai as he took pleasure in torturing her like that.

After that, all the while patting the blushing bunny girl's white hair, he explained to her his circumstances. And told her about his 'second awakening', while it was rare for people to awaken their quirk if they were older than 4 years old, it was not impossible.

Same thing goes for their quirks' evolutions, it was not impossible for people to train their quirks, train them so much that it became better than the original version, still this case was rare too.

Although, it didn't stop Rumi from believing him.

She could see just how much he trained per day, or how strong he was compared to her, so it wasn't a far stretch explanation for her.

That's why, when Kurai told her that his quirk evolved, she had stars in her eyes, thinking that maybe, she too, could reach that result.

Well, Kurai had the electrical part since the beginning but this white-lie was perfect for him.

He will have to use this part when he'll go public after all, so he thought that maybe he should start letting people know bit by bit about his powers, so as to not leave blanks for the future. Or people coming to question him later.

Then they also successfully graduated from 4th grade and were now starting their fifth one.

Last year was pretty fun for Kurai, he didn't know about Rumi but personally he wasn't bored even once with her.

Fighting every single day allowed him to conserve his reflexes, and develop or think about new moves. Just like that coin trick…

He then taught his rabbit friend capoeira, her attacks were based on kicks, and her move-set wasn't large enough for every kind of situation. That's why he thought that it'll help her a lot more in her future hero career.

At least more than him, kicks and fists were fine and all but in front of true strength, all this amounted to nothing. He could still remember those clips of All Might in the US, demonstrating, well, his might, to every American and showing to everyone else that the future is safe in his hands.

Kurai also tried to divert her mind in another way, from what it looked like to him, she was slowly 'curing', or at least her mood swings were less frequent. That's why he introduced sports to her.

Well the bunny girl didn't like anything else apart from fighting, but Kurai knew how to set her competitive side ablaze. Thus, they both started playing volleyball.

Although there was a slight problem. No one wanted to be on their team. And Rumi knew why... It was her fault.

Normally, she would've been angry at herself for penalizing Kurai, then angry at the other kids… But now she 'grew' and simply didn't care about them.

Even Kurai proudly observed her growth from the side lines, and up to this day her 'We don't need your help to win, me and Kurai are enough,... Weaklings.' stayed vividly in his mind as his favorite sentence.

Before, she used to say 'Me, Alone, I'm enough.' Now he could see that she was successfully changing. Albeit she only included him in her talk.

Kurai also wanted her to make her own friends, but it seemed like the bunny girl really respected strength, and no one, except him, was up to her standards.

And anyways, even though they were 2 versus a team of 6, they never lost their games. Sadly, they couldn't start competing for real without 4 other members.

Another major fact that happened last year was that Rumi invited him to her birthday party.

Or more like a private birthday party, since he was alone with her mother. Well, she only stayed to watch them from the sidelines while laughing creepily with her 'fufufus.'.

When Kurai asked her what she wanted for her gift, that muscle head asked for a fight against him at full power. Kurai couldn't believe his ears back then. 'Only an M would love to get beaten during his birthday.' He thought after hearing her utter such words.

Welp… It was her birthday, so in the end Kurai relented… And beat her, although he didn't use his full power, and just knocked her out with a punch. When she woke up that day, she was all smiles even though she just got her ass handed.

She stood up with even more motivation than before, even more will, and already wanted to fight again.

That day, Kurai really felt bad for her, so he offered his body…

...

...

...

...His cat body…

Which successfully diverted her, and made her pat him for the rest of the day.

This happened in March, so it wasn't very far from their exams again. With Kurai's help Rumi didn't have any problems.

And so, now that they graduated, they officially were in 5th grade.

It was already summer, so they were a few weeks in after the start of the school year. They were just about to start their PE class when Kurai's phone (the one Miku gave him), started ringing.

So both chocolate-toned kids entered the small janitor room. They didn't have any choice since phones were prohibited in the hallways.

Kurai didn't mind the closeness, because in his eyes she was still a kid, even if they were now 11 years old. But the same couldn't be said for the white haired bunny at his side.

"Pervert!" Rumi's body started to heat up, feeling his smell and breath tickling her skin.

Picking up his phone, Kurai looked at her weirdly, "Yes?" He answered the call, ignoring the small rabbit.

"Son… It happened again…" It was Akio speaking from the other side.

"What?" Even Rumi was intrigued, even though Kurai didn't put on the speaker, she could perfectly hear them thanks to her enhanced hearing.

"Ayaka-san is pregnant again, her daughter Nejire will have a little brother in a few months." [*A/N*: Butterfly effect so stronk that they had sex more often...]

Kurai deadpanned, "When? Already? Do you know his name?" He swore himself that pregnancy wasn't his thing, but it happened so soon, and again…

"We don't know for sure when but in 2 or 3 months. As for the name, it's Neji… Isn't this cute? Both brother and sister have matching names!"

Rumi and Kurai looked at each other while hearing the name, and both were thinking the same, 'Cringe and lazy naming sense.'

"Neji? Oh yes, for sure… Very cute..." He nonetheless 'agreed' with his dad.

However, Kurai didn't talk for long and then cut the conversation short.

Closing his phone, he said, "Fortunately, we'll be on a trip to Okinawa during the pregnancy."

Rumi opened her mouth big, "OOH! Indeed the trip is this year!"

They both got out of the janitor's room, albeit the rabbit was sweating more than the cat.

"Did you collect enough money?" Kurai asked while they were walking to the PE.

Rumi put her finger on her chin and started thinking, "I don't know if I have enough…"

Turning her face and looking at him, she continued, "I followed your advice tho! I sold all the pens and went around the neighborhood to ask for donations but…"

"You weren't that successful right?" Kurai completed her sentence.

"Yeah… It's not a problem, my mom told me that she could easily give me the rest of the money!"

"Um, I see."

"Wha' 'bout you then?" Rumi challenged him while raising her eyebrow.

"Well… I managed to sell everything, so I don't need my parents' financial help, for I am too handsome." He smugly looked at her from the corner of his eye.

Rumi scornfully laughed, "Of course you did, you bastard!"

She then pushed him towards the boy's locker room now that they've reached the PE gymnasium.

Well, she exerted more force than needed, 'I wanna smash your smug face so bad!' Rumi turned her heel and entered the girls' locker room.

"See you in a bit." Kurai shrugged his shoulders.

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…

Now in their PE clothes Rumi and Kurai stood side by side. They both had red shorts with white tees.

The trip to the lockers was uneventful for Kurai, he got along well with the rest of the class, mainly thanks to his good guy mask he promised to keep for his parents.

Though, it was another story altogether for Rumi.

She kept receiving looks from the other girls, some were even openly disgusted by her.

'It's true that I don't have a soft belly like them…' She rubbed her chiseled abs over her shirt.

*Pip Pip*

Interrupting everyone, the PE teacher, a soldier who looked like a teacher, or the opposite, whistled.

"Shut up little maggots! If I don't have absolute silence in 3 seconds I want EVERYONE to do 100 push ups for me! Is that clear?!"

The whole class actually answered back, seemingly used to the teacher's antics.

"""Sensei, yes, Sensei!"""

"Alright, good." He said in a gentler tone.

Continuing, he declared, "Form 5 or 6 teams for me! Today we'll play volleyball!"

Hearing this, Rumi and Kurai both looked at each other, sharing a grin.

"Time to show our might to those weaklings again!" Rumi high fived Kurai.

In the end, the class made 6 teams. And as always Rumi and Kurai were left alone.

Even the teacher looked like he was used to this because he didn't say anything about it.

Clapping his hands to get everyone's attention, he shouted, "We'll do some sort of tournament, first game, team Kurai and Rumi against Team 2."

Both teams entered the volleyball court which was separated by a net set at 243 cm high.

In fact, that's the official height even in real competition.

Since their team had only 2 members, Rumi was the first to serve. Normally, to win a volleyball game you need to score 25 points in the set played.

And you need to win at least 3 sets. But this time since they only had 2 hours of PE, the teacher decided to put a time limit instead, and lifted the 25 points goal.

Rumi was making the ball bounce on the ground when she caught Kurai looking back.

Nodding at her, Rumi saw him mouthe something, 'Crush 'em ?' She tried to decipher.

She nodded back with a feral grin, 'I don't need to be told twice, heh'.

Throwing the ball high in front of her, Rumi started sprinting forward, just before reaching the line separating the court, she jumped.

She jumped so high and far toward the ball, that she was still in the air after traveling at least ¼ of the court.

Then at her highest point, just before she started to go down, she hit the ball right in front of her.

She flexed her core and smashed the ball with all the strength that she could muster up.

*Smash*

Leaving a small trail of smoke, the ball touched the court on the other side of the net without the other team being able to react.

"1-0 for team Kurai." The teacher shouted.

Rumi, successfully scoring a point, could now serve again.

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"16-0"

She continued her series without ever stopping, even Kurai started to get bored, 'Well... I was the one who told her to crush their hopes.'

The opposing team wasn't even able to see the ball, much less to send it back.

"30-0" Just then the teacher's watch rang out, signalling the end of the match.

"Alright, team 2, disqualified."

That's how they made their way up to the final, Rumi was the only one to serve, she scored for all the games 30 points each time.

While Kurai was left out there to look at her, spectating.

Though, during the finals, they had to play against the official team of the school.

Welp, it didn't mean that they scored a point. The end score was still 30-0 in their favour. Which shocked the teacher too.

This time, the opposite team could successfully send Rumi's serves back. So Kuria was finally able to play too.

When he joined the fray, though, their chances of winning diminished even more.

Although they were only 2, thanks to their reflexes and speed they could cover the whole court. And after accurately receiving the ball and throwing it to the passer, they both prepared themselves for smashing.

They were pretty organised.

In volleyball, each team has the right to touch the ball 3 times, more than that and it's a foul. And each player can only touch the ball once in a row, meaning, you could do a pass to someone and still be able to smash it because he touched the ball after you.

That's exactly what they did, both were covering half the court, when the ball was sent to Kurai's side he made the receive, and passed the ball to Rumi. Who then set the ball high above her for Kurai to come running and smash hit.

Or the opposite, when it was on Rumi's side, she made the defense and then smashed.

Each time they smashed, the point was assured. They both could jump higher than the highest height of the net so smashing that ball in the opponent court and scoring wasn't that hard.

*Clap*

Both dark skinned kids high fived, ""Easy peasy.""

Winning against the official team was something worthy enough, that is if they were normal kids.

"Alright, the class finished! Please go to your classroom. And bravo to team Kurai… for winning… Again."

The school alarm rang after the profesor finished talking.

*Ring Rang Rung*