"Smells good. What is it?"
Yu's voice came from the couch, lazy and comfortable. She had been lying there for an hour and a half, reading a fashion magazine with a focus she usually reserved for crime reports. She was wearing an old rock band T-shirt and cotton shorts.
In the kitchen, Izuku stirred the contents of a skillet. The sizzling sound of the oil and the aroma of onion and soy sauce filled the small apartment.
"Katsudon," he answered without turning around. "I figured after a week of intense training, we needed to carb-load. It's the food of champions."
"And of assistants trying to bribe their bosses so they don't have to clean the bathroom this week."
"That's also a strategic factor," he admitted without missing a beat. "But it's mainly for the nutritional value."
Yu smiled to herself and turned a page. It had been a couple of days since Izuku had moved in. There was a second toothbrush in the bathroom, a pair of absurdly large red sneakers by the door, and the nearly constant sound of his analytical murmurs as he studied or cooked. It was… nice.
BOOM.
A deep, dull thud vibrated through the building. The cups on the kitchen drying rack rattled. Yu sat up on the couch, the magazine forgotten in her lap.
"What was that? Construction?"
Izuku peeked out the kitchen window, which faced the main street. "At seven in the evening? I don't think so."
On the living room TV, the variety show was abruptly cut off by an emergency news bulletin. A shaky image, filmed from a helicopter, filled the screen. It showed the city's downtown commercial district and, in the middle of it, chaos.
A robot. A giant, crude-looking robot, about twenty meters tall, with a design that looked like something out of a low-budget eighties sci-fi movie. It was tearing chunks out of an office building and throwing cars as if they were toys.
"...preliminary reports indicate the attack is being carried out by a single individual, a villain who calls himself 'Dr. Gear'," the nervous anchorwoman said. "He is demanding the immediate surrender of the city and worldwide recognition of his 'technological genius'."
Yu stood up, her relaxed expression replaced by intense focus in an instant. "A giant robot. So unoriginal."
"Originality isn't a requirement for mass destruction," Izuku commented, returning to the kitchen and lowering the heat on the skillet. "The design is unstable. Too much weight up top. Its center of gravity is a mess."
"Well, I'm going to teach Dr. Gear a thing or two about gravity," Yu said, heading to her room.
A minute later, she came out in her hero costume. Her civilian clothes had been replaced by the familiar purple and white Mt. Lady outfit. She was adjusting her gloves, her expression purely professional.
"Well, duty calls," she said, her tone carefree. "Don't let the katsudon burn."
Izuku looked at her from the kitchen.
"Don't worry about the katsudon. Just remember what we practiced this week. Footwork is key. Use your center of gravity, not just your arm strength. And aim for the joints. His design is a disaster, look for the weak points in the knees and elbows."
It wasn't a worried goodbye, but a pre-combat strategy session.
Yu smiled. "Got it, coach. Save some for me."
She walked out the door without another word. Izuku listened to her leave, then calmly turned back to his kitchen. He picked up a breaded pork cutlet and carefully slid it into the hot oil. The sound of sizzling filled the silence.
The screams of fleeing civilians mingled with the sound of sirens and crunching buildings. In the center of the devastation, Dr. Gear, a small man in glasses and a dirty lab coat, laughed maniacally from the open cockpit in his robot's chest.
"Behold my genius! The age of heroes with Quirks is over! The future is steel and pistons! The future is ME!"
"Hey, you, the guy in the pile of junk!"
A voice boomed, amplified and powerful. Dr. Gear turned. And there, at the end of the street, she was. Mt. Lady grew to her full size, her figure blocking the setting sun.
"Hasn't anyone told you it's rude to play with other people's things?" Yu said, one hand on her hip, projecting absolute confidence.
"Ah, a hero! Perfect! You'll be the first to fall to the power of the Gear-Annihilator 5000!" the villain shouted.
The robot raised a gigantic arm and threw a punch. It was a slow but incredibly powerful blow.
She remembered Izuku's voice in her head: "Footwork is key."
Instead of stopping the blow, she moved. She pivoted on one foot, an agile, fluid motion that seemed impossible for someone her size. The robot's fist grazed past her head, its momentum throwing it slightly off balance. It was exactly what Izuku had told her would happen.
"Use its center of gravity."
As the robot stumbled, Yu didn't punch it. She squatted down, grabbed the robot's extended arm with both hands, planted her feet firmly on the ground, and pulled. She used the robot's own weight and forward momentum to completely unbalance it.
The metal giant staggered, its gears screeching in protest, and fell to its knees with a crash that shook the asphalt.
From the cockpit, Dr. Gear stared at her, dumbfounded. "What? That's impossible!"
"You'd be surprised what you can do with good training," Yu replied, smirking.
In the apartment, Izuku was whisking eggs in a bowl. The television, its volume turned up, showed the fight live. He saw Yu dodge the first punch and use the robot's momentum against it.
He nodded to himself, satisfied.
"Good. Nice pivot," he murmured, not stopping the whisk. "She saw the opening and took it. Now for the legs. Immobilize it."
On the screen, the robot was trying to get up. Yu delivered a brutal kick to its knee joint. There was a metallic shriek, and the robot's leg locked at an odd angle.
"Yes, just like that," Izuku said, pouring the whisked egg over the pork cutlets in the skillet. "Control the battlefield. Don't let it get up. Now the arm."
"Cheater!" Dr. Gear screamed as his robot struggled to stand on one functional leg. "You fight dirty!"
"I call it fighting smart," Yu retorted, circling her crippled opponent. "It's what happens when you stop thinking that being bigger just means hitting harder."
The robot swung its other free arm, trying to hit her. But Yu was no longer there. She moved with a speed and grace she had perfected over hours of training with Izuku.
She slipped under the robot's arm and grabbed it by the elbow. She remembered Izuku's words from the night before as they reviewed diagrams on his tablet: "This joint is the weakest. If you apply pressure here and here, you can use its own arm as a lever to tear it off."
She planted her feet. She put her entire body weight into the motion. And she pulled.
There was a horrible screech of twisting metal, a sound of grinding gears and snapping cables. With a deafening CRACK!, the robot's arm tore off at the shoulder.
Yu held it in her hands for a second before tossing it aside, where it crashed into a storefront.
Dr. Gear stared. His masterpiece was being dismantled piece by piece.
"No! My Gear-Annihilator!"
"I think it needs a tune-up," Yu said.
Now only the torso and one arm remained. The robot was an easy target. Yu closed in, and this time, she did throw a punch. It was a precise, technical blow, with the full force of her hips and shoulders behind it, aimed directly at the open cockpit.
The metal buckled under the impact. The robot's systems short-circuited in a shower of sparks. And the giant machine finally collapsed backward, silent and inert.
In the apartment, Izuku took bowls from the cabinet. He watched on TV as Yu dismantled the robot with brutal efficiency. He saw the final punch.
"Good form," he said quietly. "Kept her wrist straight."
He put a generous portion of rice in each bowl. Then, he carefully placed the perfectly cooked, breaded pork cutlets on top, and finally poured the egg and onion mixture over them. Dinner was ready, right on time.
The silence that followed the robot's defeat was deafening. Then, it erupted into cheers. The civilians and police who had been watching from a safe distance cheered for their savior.
Yu, standing beside the smoking wreckage of the robot, slowly shrank to her normal size and landed softly on the ground. Relief washed over her, followed by a wave of euphoria. She had done it. And it hadn't been a desperate struggle, but a display of dominance.
Immediately, the press swarmed her with a forest of microphones and cameras.
"Mt. Lady! That was the most incredible performance we've ever seen from you!"
"You seemed stronger, faster! Have you been on a new training regimen?"
"What's your secret?"
She smiled, charismatic and in complete control.
"Well, a hero always has to be improving, right?" she said, her voice calm and clear over the noise. "You can't stand still. You always have to look for ways to be better to protect people."
"But that technique! We've never seen you use judo moves on that scale before!" a reporter insisted.
Yu winked at her. "A girl has to keep a few secrets, right? Let's just say I've been hitting the gym. And I have an excellent personal trainer who's very strict about footwork."
She answered a couple more questions, always with charm and composure. She deflected questions about the specifics of her training, reassured the public that the situation was under control, and finished with a line that would cement her as the new media favorite.
"Thank you all for your support. Now if you'll excuse me, a villain has made me late for dinner, and I don't want my katsudon to get cold."
With that final line, she made her way through the press, leaving behind a group of charmed reporters and a cheering city.
When Yu opened the apartment door, the delicious aroma of katsudon greeted her. She was exhausted and her muscles ached, but a deep sense of satisfaction ran through her. She dropped her keys in the bowl by the door and walked into the living room.
Izuku was sitting at the small dining table, where two steaming bowls were already served. He didn't look up right away.
"You're late," he said, his tone completely neutral. "It's getting cold."
She smiled, letting the day's exhaustion fall away. "Sorry. I had to deal with a pile of junk and a few dozen reporters. You know how it is."
He finally looked up. "Did you remember the footwork?"
"Yeah, Izuku," she said, sitting across from him and picking up her chopsticks. "I remembered the footwork."
They sat and ate in comfortable silence, the only sound coming from the TV in the background, now showing replays of her own victory. The epic battle was over. Domestic life continued. For Yu, that combination was the closest thing to home.