Struggling Diet Warriors Chapter 2: The War of Truth! (Revamped!) (Patreon)

The last of the thunder clouds had faded, their imposing threat disappearing while the day wore on. Ryuuji felt it was quite fitting given the results of the… ‘battle,’ if one could call it that.

He mulled that phrase over in his head for a time before he decided that it didn’t quite fit. He ran over the events in his head made his way to the school roof. 

Taiga, with the help of her best friend Minori, had ambushed and humiliated their new classmate, Ami… but the way she had done it, that’s what had set Ryuuji’s teeth on edge. He had watched her large mane of hair as she had ducked and weaved between classmates like a silent predator, stalking her prey until the right moment.

It was a hunt.

Taiga had known, somehow, about Ami’s garter. More importantly, she’d known about the gut it had hidden so secretively beneath its constrictive grasp. 

Ryuuji’s hand hit the door at the top of the stairwell, flooding his vision with the light of the sun. There sat the perpetrators. The huntress and her accomplice.

Taiga’s head turned sharply at the noise, and quickly spread into a malicious grin.

“Well, don’t you look seem proud of yourself,” Ryuuji commented, tossing the bag of dog treats into the trash bin next to them.

Taiga’s grin sharpened like a deadly spear. “Oh, be silent, mutt. The witch had it coming.”

“Yeah, Ryuuji,” Minori chimed, stepping forwards off of the fence into a bubbly pose. “Don’t look so negative!”

“He’s not, that’s just his face,” Taiga replied. But this was said without any heat.

And it was true. He wasn’t trying to be negative. After all, Ryuuji didn’t pity Ami… well, not too much. He had been more upset about the dog treats than anything, but even that had passed. 

Right now, he was just… himself. 

But nobody really ever understood that.

Or, at least, he’d thought nobody did.

He watched Taiga for a moment before he shook his head, trying to clear it. He reached into his bag, withdrawing his boxed-lunch and his drink. It wasn’t worth the thought. Besides, Minori’s positivity had a way of brightening all that surrounded her.

“I wouldn’t think it’d ever get so intense when girls threw down like that,” he said.

“Did you see her face?” Taiga asked snidely. “I mean, I didn’t, her big fat stomach was blocking it from view!” her tiny voice perked into a snigger.

“How did you even know about that?”

Scowling, Taiga opened her arms and sat back. “Am I seriously the only one who noticed her thighs are almost as wide around as my entire body?” she asked the heavens above before turning back to him. “The girl wears a short skirt.”

Ryuuji had noticed. He opened his mouth to say that he’d noticed, and then realized it was probably not a good thing to admit. After all, he was sure many men would have noticed the thickness in the blue-haired beauty’s soft pale thighs, but would see it and what softness rounded from just above as an… asset, when unaccompanied by so large a potbelly.

Minori flexed, “Hopefully we’ve caught the disease in time, and our fellow students will not fall for her seductive and blasphemous ways! Imagine if an outbreak were to occur!”

“It can’t be that bad, can it?” Ryuuji asked.

Minori turned to him, heat in her eyes. “Denial is infectious, almost as bad as calories!” 

She leapt up from her seat, slamming her leg down on the bench right next to Ryuuji. He felt his heartrate increase, looking from Minori’s own soft thighs up to the fire in her eyes. 

“To diet is to be a warrior of truth! The only ones who can gain the blessings of the gods of weight loss must acknowledge their hideous fat!” Her hand flourished, snatching her jacket as well as her top and untucking it from her blue skirt. She hiked it up to nearly her ribs, a blaze of warmth radiating off of her body while she pinched an inch of her own, much smaller, tummy. “Acknowledge it!” she demanded.

Ryuuji felt the heat of a very soft and pale sun flash over his face as he gazed at that inch. He attempted to look anywhere but at Minori’s bare skin. “Alright alright, if you say so,” he said, trying to duck behind his hand. 

His eyes landed on Taiga’s belongings, and he was about to ask what the diet warrior planned to do with the multiple bags of sweets she had crammed into there, when he noticed the small girl’s gaze. 

Taiga’s spine had gone straight, her wavy hair almost bristling. She stepped closer to the fence, looking down from the school roof and towards the school entrance.

He followed her line of sight as she asked, “What’s up with that guy?”

Far below the rooftop, standing at the school’s entrance, was a man… no… a boy? Late-teens, maybe. He wore a large bag on his back, and in his hands… Ryuuji squinted, trying to make out what the rando was carrying. The group watched as his head turned from side to side, scanning the area, before turning and walking off behind the school walls and out of sight.

“The hell is that about?”

No one answered.

******************************************************************************

Ryuuji and Taiga began the short walk home from class. They both lived this way, after all, so it wasn’t weird or anything. They were just neighbors. 

Sure, sometimes he would cook for Taiga… and clean her room… and look out for her when she was sick.

Don’t make it weird, okay?

Taiga’s thoughts ran about, trying to think of any other topic than her and Ryuuji walking home, and centered on the earlier events.

“Hey, Ryuuji. What do you say I make a big fat salad for ya?” Taiga asked, immediately feeling better about this tonal shift in thought. 

Ryuuji raised an eyebrow at her, his strong face looking puzzled. “You can make a salad?”

Taiga felt her posture become haughtier, turning up her nose at the question. “I learned how in elementary school, and they even taught me how to make my own dressing.”

“Then why do I always end up cooking?”

“First, you buy lettuce. Then you rip the leaves off and mash them up, and put them on a plate.” She turned to face him, with a wide grin, “Voila, salad.”

There was a pause before he replied. “Yeah, I can see why I always end up cooking.” That mutt was shaking his head at her. “You don’t even wash the lettuce? And what happened to the dressing?”

Taiga’s hands found her hips. “Nag nag nag, of course you wash it, dummy.”

They were both interrupted by heavy and quick footsteps, and suddenly the form of Ami Kawashima rounded a nearby corner, her momentum carrying her into Ryuuji and nearly bowling him over. 

His arms moved instinctively, wrapping around her to brace himself. Taiga noticed that she was no longer in uniform, instead wearing the bulky looking track suit that she had been crammed into the previous night. She also noticed how deeply fingers had sunken into the ‘fluffy padding’ of the ‘track suit.’

Ami was panting heavily, sweat pouring off her face. She looked like a fat mess. Her hair was shining, obviously unclean, and her face glowed red. “Takasu,” she gasped. “Ryuuji, please, you have to help me. Someone’s following me. Could I walk with you?”

Taiga felt the muscle on her neck twitch. She grabbed the nearest, heaviest thing, not counting that stupid pig, that she could find. It just so happened to be a trash can, so it wasn’t all that different after all.

That idiot was saying something to her, acknowledging her in what was surely another play on his stupid idiot brain. “Hey,” she hissed, interrupting. “You want to step away from him?” 

The pair looked up, apparently startled. His dumb idiot face balked. 

Why did it balk? 

Idiot.

The trash can grinded against the gravel. Taiga fought her eyes over to the girl’s greasy sapphire hair and her ugly model face. “Don’t you ignore me, you whale. Throwing yourself at him, draping yourself all over him all over him all over him.” 

Taiga felt the anger inside of her pulse with ever repetition, and that imbecile, that mutt, had the gall to raise his hand towards her. Ami ducked down against Ryuuji’s chest, Taiga’s chest, and she felt her arms move with brutal ferocity. She lifted the filled trash can over her head and screamed with righteous fury.

“Get away from him, you gluttoness!” she howled, lowering the bin before twirling her body and launching it at the pair.

Ryuuji pushed Ami down, shielding himself with his forearm. She landed heavily on the ground, belly first, and Taiga’s improvised weapon went sailing overhead. 

It struck a nearby pole with a resounding crash, nearly taking out a boy that Taiga hadn’t even seen. With short brown hair and a plain face, the stranger had some sort of camera tied around his neck and was now decorated with bits of trash. The can had impacted right in front of his face. 

It took Taiga a moment to recognize him as the boy from earlier, the weirdo who’d been snooping around school! He was visibly shaking as she glared at him, huffing furiously and looking straight into his eyes. His worry gave way to panic as he turned to flee. He spun around a corner and vanished, whining in pathetic terror.

Taiga let her arms fall to her sides. She watched tension ebb out of Ami’s body while she watched the boy flee. 

Ryuuji placed a hand on her back. Even that made the hair on Taiga’s neck prickle. “Okay,” he said. Ami looked up to him. “What was up with that guy?”

Taiga watched Ami’s face change, slapping on her fake little mask that she loved showing off. “Oh, h-he’s just some fan. He likes taking my pictures a lot. We models are highly craved, people are so interested in me…” and then, for just a moment, a crack in the mask appeared. Taiga stared at it. “I even… I transferred schools to get away from him.”

Ami looked up at Ryuuji. A white drip tightened, and the mask was renewed.

“Are you on your way home? I’m a little scared of running into him again… would you mind me staying at your place? Just for a little while.”

Taiga felt herself speaking before her mind could catch up. “Trust me, I understand. You’ll be coming with me.”

Ami’s weak little act burst like a balloon, her expression turning to Taiga with a flat, disbelieving grimace as she shuffled to her knees. Ryuuji was looking too. She tried to ignore his stupid eyes. “If you could choose between a drafty, old, easily penetrated rental house, and a very fancy, well-kept, and secure apartment with automated locks, which would you choose?”

Ami’s face lit up. “The fancy apartment, of course,” she affirmed. “Takasu, do you-”

“Then it’s settled,” Taiga cut in, her predatory grin growing wider than wide. “You’re going to spend the day over at my place.”

Ami’s excited face fell, “You’ve got to be kidding. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Taiga waved her hand. “Oh, I see, no worries no worries, you can go with Ryuuji to his halfway house apartment that couldn’t even keep me locked out. I sneak in there all the time.”

“Hey! It’s not that bad and what do you mean all the time?!” Ryuuji exclaimed.

Taiga bent over to retrieve her bag, unzipping it slightly. “Oh, and I might throw in a few gifts as well. Some peace offerings.” 

The look on Ami’s face when she saw the treats inside of Taiga’s bag would give her dentist a coronary. Like a master angler, the bait was out and now it was time to set the hook. she zipped up her bag and thrust it over her shoulder. “But if you want to go to the rental with sliding doors that are unlocked by lifting them, it’s none of my business.

She readjusted her bag to cover her laugh as she listened to the little pig struggling to her feet and race after her.

******************************************************************************

Ami followed Taiga into a decent looking complex, passing the door security officer. He tipped his hat to Ami. She released a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding, and felt in good enough spirits to hold up a hand as a wave.

A short elevator ride, and then Taiga opened the door using a secure key. She waved Ami into the front room. It wasn’t all that different from Ami’s place. A comfy single seat chair was set before a long coffee table. Hanging from the wall was a high-tech entertainment system that, unlike Ami’s, appeared exceptionally neglected. There was even dust clinging to the black screen.

Ami felt a moment of pride. Her place might have a few garments kicked into on the floor, but at least her electronics weren’t dusty.

“Take a seat, I’ll be right with you,” Taiga said sweetly, gesturing to the single. She even winked. 

Ami felt herself relax into the chair. It was comfortable, and given there was only one seat in this massive entertainment room, it was evident that the girl lived by herself.

‘Probably cause she tried to punch out her mom for buying her extra extra extra small clothes for her or something. Seriously, who throws a trash can? Trashy people.’ Ami smirked to herself. ‘Heh, I should save that for later.’

After a few minutes, Taiga returned, carrying a single glass of some strange orange liquid. She placed it on the table before Ami. “Here you go,” she said.

Ami took the glass and inspected it. Carbonated bubbles rose to the top to fizzle and pop. She sniffed it. 

It smelled fruity. 

She raised it to her lips and took a tiny taste. The overpowering flavor suddenly exploded in her mouth with brute force, causing her to sit up and cough. “W-*cough* what the hell?!”

“Ryuuji made me a gallon of honey preserved kumquats. I mixed the juice with some soda.”

“This is so nasty, it’s like orange juice. Seriously. You and your ‘diet warrior’ crap.” Ami placed the glass on the table with a sneering laugh, “Even your brain is tiny. Just get me some of that soda.”

As if out of thin air, Taiga suddenly produced a second glass. This one was audibly bubbling, sounding much more appealing and sugary sweet. “Actually, like your gut, my brain is quite large. But I don’t have doctors concerned about me. Here you go. A special treat just for you.”

Ami could smell the sweet tanginess from the drink from Taiga’s hand. She smirked before she snatched it, taking a long pull of soda. It tasted fantastic. She gulped mouthful after mouthful of the glass down, feeling it smoothly funnel and into her stomach. 

Finally, she took the empty glass away from her mouth with a satisfied breath. “So far, this is the best thing about your house.” Ami raised one leg over the other, her tight track pants swishing. “Way better than the company.”

“Oh, do I displease you?” Taiga asked. “Allow me to make you another glass.”

“Please, do,” Ami replied, holding up the empty cup. Taiga took it with a little more force than what was contained in her grin, heading back to the kitchen. 

Ami looked down at the orange drink and scoffed. Who drinks fruit juice anymore?

Taiga returned a moment later with another glass as well as her school bag. Ami took it. “Wow, this is great. If only you were always like this. Like a cute little butler,” she dared before taking another pull.

Something solid startled her when it crashed into the back of her throat. Her hungry sip washed it down before she could catch it with her tongue. 

Ami began to cough.

“Oh, did they not fully dissolve yet? I’m so sorry, I should have waited,” Taiga smiled. 

The girl moved to the table, upending her school bag and the half-dozen sweet sacks, as well as the bigger bags of candy that had stocked them. Chocolate bars, colorful sweeties, packets of flavored sugar, there was even a full-sized lollipop.

Ami growled at her from behind a defensive hand. “You bitch, what did you giv-”

Taiga went to Ami’s side, slapping her leg back down. “You know, I can’t wait till everyone in class sees what a pathetic fatso you are. You’re nothing without your that stomach garter, are you? Or maybe it’s that you’re too much to even fit anymore.” She reached down and dug a finger into Ami’s stomach. 

Ami felt her tummy bounce beneath the poke and batted the finger away. “Whatever, I know about you, Aisaka. All people saw today was you attacking the new girl. Being mean to little old me.” Ami perked her eyebrows and dropped her mouth in a pout. “I never hurt anybody, I’m sweet and kind and everyone’s best friend,” her voice sharpened into a razor then, “and you’re not exactly the most popular girl, miss palmtop tiger.”

Ami’s sneer was cut by her stomach grumbling loudly beneath her tracksuit. She tried to ignore it, to maintain her glare, but it rumbled again. She blinked a few times and had to stifle a burp, before she found herself looking away from the tiny tot towards the mass of food.

“Appetite enhancers,” Taiga said, scooping up the fruit drink. “That’s what I gave you. Hyperactive, too. Four of them, by my count. And you haven’t eaten since lunch, or did I miss the vending machine being emptied out?”

Ami pulled her vision away from the candy and back onto Taiga, but without realizing her sight was filled only by sweets. Her stomach howled, a sharp pain actually creeping up from her empty insides. Renewed sweat trickled down her scalp, her taste buds began mimicking the sugary sweetness in front of her. Her eyelashes began to flutter.

“Look at all this mess. If I were you, I’d get started. You’ve quite the heap to clean up for, and such a greedy girl needs her sweets,” Taiga said coolly before sipping again at her fruit juice.

“W-what’s-” Ami gulped, “the catch?”

“Oh nothing,” Taiga replied as she checked her nails. “But if you don’t start soon, that security guard down stairs will get a lot less friendly with you. And you wouldn’t want to be out on the street, all alone. I imagine your ass is fat enough that he could have seen us from a mile away, trailed us all the way here because you waddle so slow.”

Ami felt bits of fear spring forth from her mind. Images of that man, that freak, came flooding back to her. 

“You’re so weird!” She exclaimed, her hands darting out and seizing a familiar brand of chocolate bar. 

Ami didn’t like chocolate, she loved it. Whenever she felt worried, whenever she was uncomfortable or scared, chocolate had always been there to help. Her hands moved with deft intimacy as they unwrapped the chocolate bar. She took a bite. 

“What kinna pershon gives erh rival food?” she asked through a mouthful.

Taiga smiled before leaning over and grabbing the lollipop off the top of the pile. “Like you could ever be important enough to be my rival.” She turned and walked over to the kitchen.

Ami shuddered the moment she was out of sight. She tried her best, and was failing miserably, to stifle a moan of pleasure as the chocolate spread out, melting around her tongue, and falling down to her stomach. She had polished off one, then two, and was working on a third before she even knew it, yet her stomach was still growling like mad. 

Taiga returned with two huge bottles of dark soda and wordlessly began filling Ami’s glass. Ami forced herself to keep an eye on the brat as she did so, careful to watch that she put nothing into the cup. 

Unfortunately, this meant she was hardly watching what she was putting into herself. Handful after handful of tiny candies poured over her lips and into her belly, and she still felt hollow. It was this feeling of ease, the distraction that Taiga had begun providing, that pulled her attention away from the wrappers that were beginning to pile up at her feet. 

The little girl had begun moving what looked like a rug into the room. She dragged it, grunting with effort, before plopping it down on the ground. 

Ami snatched her glass and drank from it in the middle of asking, “What the hell are you,” but cut herself off as she was startled to find that her glass was empty, and the pop was less than half full. She blinked, only to feel a drab a sweat fall from her forehead and to her eyes. Her face, she noticed, felt so very flushed. Her whole body, now that she thought about it, was starting to feel quite hot. 

Then Ami noticed that Taiga had suddenly seemed to shed her school uniform, now wearing a breezier outfit. “Getting a little warm, pig? Too hot in your blanket?”

Ami went to raise her track shirt, but instead upended a packet of flavored sugar into her mouth. Her hands were almost on auto pilot, and she had to focus on them to get them to respond properly. When she gripped the hem of her shirt, she felt the heat radiating off of her warm and bare belly. 

She looked down at herself, past the latest bar of chocolate she was practically inhaling, to see her shirt resting just above her navel. Beneath the track suit were the tattered remains of her school uniform, and the pale snow-white flab of her stomach bounced as she struck it.

Part of her knew she should be worried, but it was competing with the part of her that was worried about those pills, the part that was worried about Taiga, the part of her that wanted to be cooler, the part of her that was trying to be ashamed of herself, the part of her that noticed her tummy now had chocolate finger prints on it, the part of her that wanted another drink, and, most importantly and taking up by far the largest part of her, the part of her that was hungry.

She tore her track suit shirt up and over, her sweats snapping a sugar stick in half. Her mind instantly focused all its efforts on catching the half of the stick while inside her own sweater, causing her to nearly topple out from the chair. 

With some heavy tugs, the last bits of the sweater off and over her head, she was met with the startling visage of Taiga holding the quarter empty bottle of soda.

The tiger’s malevolent grin grew as Ami felt herself tuck inwards, jaw still chewing despite already having swallowed the last of its contents.

“Open wide~” Taiga sang, before shoving the bottle forwards and upending it.

Ami’s hands flew out to the sides, gripping her chair as she clamped her mouth over the nozzle of the bottle. Taiga increased the angle more and more, forcing Ami to hurriedly gulp mouthful after mouthful, chugging the bottle down into the bottomless pit that-

She coughed and sent the remainder mouthful of soda all over herself as a thousand sensations flowed back into her belly in a wild torrent of feedback. Pain was the first to snap into place, quickly followed by thousands of other details. Her hands left the armrest and found her stomach. 

Ami moaned loudly, forcing her eyes to look down at herself. Brown drips of soda had soaked her bra and were dripping over her massive potbelly. A tiny pool had formed between her fat breasts and her packed stomach, was spilling off down the sides like rain washing down a rolling slope. She let her head lull back and groaned as the sensations pinged from each of her taste buds, all of the receptors in her brain began firing off at a much more manageable speed.

Ami belched, somewhat aware that this was not the first time, while her eyes took in the massacre that lay before her. Taiga held the bottle over her belly, letting the remnants drip onto her. 

Ami tried to say something. 

It came out as a long groan, her lungs refusing to cooperate.

“See? Look at you. What a fat piglet you are. It looks like a piñata was torn apart by your grubby hands.” Taiga said. She dropped the bottle, and it resounded off of Ami’s stomach before dropping to the ground, joining the other empty bottle. 

Ami was practically trapped beneath her own weight, unable to do more but flutter and groan. She raised a useless hand towards Tagia’s smug smile, but even that made her hiss out in pain. Her face felt sticky, her fingers were a mess of colors. She was sure she could move, but the best she could manage right now was an awkward shuffle from side to side in the chair.

A sense of movement directed her eyes towards the television screen. On it, she saw her own beautiful sapphire hair. It was all she could do to not focus on the white balloon who was wearing it. How her track pants had ripped trying to contain her gut, how her bra could barely be seen as the globular stomach heaved with every breath, the light marks on her overworked cheeks, the look of her fingers as they groped forwards, trying to pull her out of the accursed position of this lazy chair.

“Smile for the camera.” Taiga said, patting her stomach. The tight drum thrummed, causing Ami to renew her helpless groans. Taiga pushed her small hands against it harder. “Damn, I thought fat was supposed to be soft, you’re all hard and stuff.” 

Ami finally managed to glare at Taiga, and between heavy pants muttered. “You. Bitch.”

Taiga turned to the camera and patted Ami’s belly again, while her other hand put up a peace sign. It clicked without flashing, and a small whirr began as the picture was printed. “Let’s see you try to hide this, piglet.”