Kawaii Showdown

Micca was so pumped up for her upcoming title match against the current kawaii champion, Claire St. Clair in the upcoming Avalanche PPV, and to prepare herself for such a big event, she would come to the gym in order to train. She didn't show up in the gym much ever since she started wrestling in AFW, but with her going to challenge the reigning kawaii champion for the kawaii title, she should start training so that she could take her on. In fact, she might be able to win against her and become the new kawaii champion.

Well, while it's certainly not impossible, it was still pretty improbable, because compared to Claire, Micca was still a relative newbie, and all of her matches prior before ended with losses. In fact, the reason why she was chosen as the first contender for the title was that she randomly stumbled upon the champion one day. So, in short, Micca was just lucky that she got this title shot.

Of course, there's no way Micca could let this opportunity slip away. Coming into the gym, she was prepared to give herself a training regiment to ready herself for the match against Claire. Wearing a pink tank-top and black gym shorts, she went to start her training in the gym. There weren't too many people in the gym, so she felt much comfortable doing the training. She recognized some of the bigger girls of Friction there, but they didn't seem to bother her, so she would keep up with her training, making sure that she could improve herself.

She would show it to Claire and everyone that while she had it in her to fight for the title. It's about time she got herself out of the mediocrity that she had been in ever since she became a wrestler in AFW.

Shiho Funamizu might have been one of the very newest kawaiis on the AFW roster, but she didn't lack for confidence at all. She was new, yeah, and she did not have any professional fighting experience, but so what? There were dozens of girls like that in this league, some of whom had gone onto great success. Being complete amateurs was almost expected for kawaiis, and so the fact that Shiho was so experienced with schoolyard fights already put her ahead of the game! Now that she was officially signed up, the next thing she needed to do was take advantage of her free access to the AFW gym and just get, like, super buff. She was going to debut within the week. She had to make sure she could kick ass no matter what kind of match it was and who she was fighting!

When she walked in, the gym was not exactly crowded, which was good. No waiting in line for a particular machine, or a particular workout area. The blonde smiled as she set her bag down and cracked her knuckles, her eyes scanning the gym like a lioness surveying her savannah kingdom. She was wearing a white sports bra and little blue gym shorts, and she thought she looked damn good, even as the only kawaii girl here.

Or...one of two kawaii girls here. As the brown-haired girl walked by her, Shiho furrowed her brow, glancing sidelong at the other shorty. She took a few seconds before deciding: Nope, not as cute as me. That's good. I'm still number one. With a little smirk, she walked over to the free weights, figuring she might as well warm up with something simple! As she made her way over, she crossed paths with the brunette, brushing past her, giving her a little bump in stride!

Micca had consulted one of the trainers there about where to start. After learning what kind of exercises she should take in the gym, she decided to start with the treadmill. She had never tried it before, so she was actually pretty excited about trying out the treadmill. As she headed over to where the treadmills were placed, she saw a girl coming into the gym, a girl whom she never saw before. Perhaps a new girl. Judging from her size, she's probably also a kawaii, just like her.

She didn't think much about the girl, believing that she's probably here to work out as well. When she reached the area where the treadmills were placed, she stared at them for a moment before returning back to the trainer, bashfully asking for the instruction about how to use it. After listening to the trainer's instruction, she bowed thankfully before timidly heading back to the treadmills.

As she headed over to the treadmills area, the blonde kawaii that she saw a while ago was coming her way. With Micca still a little embarrassed by her not knowing how to use a treadmill, she didn't see her coming, and she ended up bumping her shoulder against the other kawaii's, causing her to let out a yelp. "Eeep!!" Stepping away from the other kawaii, she quickly apologized to her. "Oh sorry, I didn't see you..." she said before she turned around to continue her trip to the treadmills area, expecting the other kawaii to accept her apology.

Shiho wasn't paying attention to anything the other kawaii girl was doing. She let her eyes linger on the brown-haired girl long enough to muse about how interesting it was that they were the only two kawaiis in the gym right now, and then to wonder, for a second, about why there were only two kawaiis in the gym right now. Shouldn't there be more kawaiis? The division needed to grow, and it sure was lucky that Shiho Funamizu was here to revolutionize it! Plenty of inexperienced, soft little girls joined up with notions of making it big, but finally, the first really talented amateur fighter had come to bring kawaii goodness to the masses again!

Shiho snickered to herself, musing about how strong she was going to get with this free, unlimited gym use, and how pairing those new muscles with her already incredible fighting instincts to make herself a super-hot, super-buff, unstoppable force. She was, admittedly, a little distracted by that image as she walked towards the treadmills, and, by the time she crossed paths with the brunette, all she could think to do was try to hip-check the girl out of the way!

And it worked, essentially! The girl backed off and apologized. Shiho turned to her and gave her a longer look up and down. The blonde might have been a bit full of herself, but she wasn't evil, and this girl was cute and apologetic enough to get a pass right now. Shiho grinned and lifted a hand, patting the girl on the head. "That's okay, just be careful next time!" Shiho would tell her, before adding on a question for the other kawaii: "You a rookie here?" She, of course, left off the fact that she was a total rookie, too.

Well, it's good that the other kawaii accepted her apology, but at least she could do so without patting Micca's head. And from what Micca could see, she was slightly taller than this blonde kawaii (the difference was so subtle that she thought that they were around the same height a while ago). Still, considering that she had been courteous enough to accept her apology, Micca thought to just let it slide. "Ah, y-yes... thanks," Micca flashed a smile at the blonde. She noted that this kawaii was pretty cute, which was quite common for all kawaii girls here. She even considered herself cute, not it's neither here nor there.

And then, the other kawaii asked her whether she was a rookie or not. Blinking her eyes, Micca considered her answer. From what she could tell, considering that she had never seen this girl before, she assumed that she's new here. At first she considered telling her that she was also a rookie, relatively. But then, she had been in AFW for five months, despite only having three matches under her belt so far, so she saw nothing wrong with her telling the other kawaii the truth.

"Actually, I've been here for five months already," Micca answered truthfully. Thinking that she should probably showed a gesture of goodwill to the blonde, Micca held out her right hand, offering her a handshake. "My name is Mikagami Arashio, though I prefer if people call me Micca. Nice to meet you," she smiled cutely at the blonde kawaii, trying to offer her a gesture of friendship. It wouldn't hurt to make friends here and there, right?

Shiho was certainly a magnanimous sort, so long as girls didn't try to cause trouble for her! So far, this brunette had gotten in her way, but apologized profusely and seemed to be pretty friendly. Well, Shiho would be glad to make an acquaintance, since she had left all of her friends behind back in Sendai, and she needed new friends here in the capital. As the brunette—Micca, her name was—extended an arm for a handshake, Shiho would grin and snicker, extending her own as well, their hands meeting, Shiho giving Micca's hand a hard squeeze and a few vigorous pumps, just to show off her strength. It might be enough to yank the other kawaii around a bit.

"Aaaah, but five months isn't too long. But you've done a couple of matches so far probably, right? How'd those go?" the blonde would ask, inquiring all those things of her new acquaintance, genuinely interested, seeing as how she had not really gotten into the ring herself yet. It occurred to her she still needed to introduce herself, of course. With a smirk, she would raise a hand with a peace sign to her face, striking a little pose for the brunette's viewing pleasure. "My name is Shiho Funamizu, but you can call me Shiho-sama if you want!" Her friends had balked at using the enhanced honorific back home, but maybe this girl would buy it!

Micca noted that the blonde before her had a firm grip while they shook hands, and yelped a little when the other kawaii shook hands with her vigorously, getting herself yanked around. When asked about her matches, Micca looked a bit embarrassed as she glanced aside, scratching her cheek bashfully. "A-about that... well... I only have three matches so far since then..." she said before sighing. Even though she managed to sign up into the AFW, her record wasn't all that good, with all her matches ended with losses. "All ended with my losses..." she added, sighing again. Still, she didn't really want to vent on a stranger like the blonde before her, so she beamed and said, "But everything else around here is superb and it's fun working here."

When the kawaii finally introduced herself, Micca gave her a blank stare. "Umm... S-Shiho...sama?" Micca said in uncertain tone. The blonde, Shiho, was certainly boisterous and Micca could tell that she's not actually a bad girl, but no one really addressed other people with '-sama' nowadays, barring a few exceptions. "A-about that, w-well..." she felt a little conflicted. On one hand, she saw the need of telling Shiho that calling her with '-sama' was awkward, but on the other hand, she didn't want to offend her. But this was a thing where she couldn't compromise, and she had to choose one over the other.

It was a hard decision, but ultimately, Micca finally decided that she shouldn't offend Shiho by calling her out. "O-okay? L-let's get along, S-Shiho... s-sama?" It felt too awkward that she couldn't even voice out the '-sama' loudly. She wished that she could just call her Shiho-chan instead, because that sound more appropriate and could make things go smoothly for both of them. She didn't know what to think of this Shiho, but at least she didn't look bad. Perhaps they could even get along well and be friends.

Aw, the poor little brunette hadn't won yet in AFW. Shiho didn't imagine it was that hard, so the girl must really be struggling. Against all the cupcake kawaiis Shiho had seen, she could not imagine losing more than, like, one out of every hundred matches. Of course, she was one of those girls who just knew how to handle herself. Maybe this girl, this Micca, came from a background where she didn't have the experience that Shiho did. Or she just didn't have Shiho's sky-high potential!

"Well, it's good that you're enjoying yourself even if you can't win so far. Maybe you need some training from someone like me!" She stuck her tongue out cutely and winked, striking another pose with a finger up in the air. "That must be what you're here in the gym for, right? Training to get stronger? Hoping to pick up that first win, huh? Well, maybe Shiho-sama can help you with that!"

She did notice that the brunette seemed uncomfortable calling her Shiho-sama, though. She put her hand back on Micca, this time on her shoulder, standing up as straight as she could to try to make sure she didn't seem any shorter than the other kawaii. "Is there something making you uncomfortable, huh, Micca-san?"

Micca's eyes were glimmering with excitement when Shiho offered to help her out with her training. She was relieved to know that despite her boisterousness, Shiho was definitely a nice girl. It's definitely a right call to try to befriend her. And then, when Shiho seemed to note her discomfort over her calling Shiho with a '-sama', she hesitated a little before she decided to just tell her the truth.

"W-well, you see... I-I don't think calling you Shiho-sama suits you..." Micca began. She definitely didn't want to offend the blonde kawaii, so she would then add, "I-I think calling you Shiho-chan sounds more appropriate." Micca would give Shiho an apologetic smile. "How does that sound? Don't you think Shiho-chan sounds cuter?" Yes, Shiho was definitely cute no matter how loud she was. Calling her otherwise would be a lie. "Or do you want me to call you Shiho-san instead?"

Shiho was certainly easy to get along with, though occasionally her confident personality chafed some girls the wrong way. That was usually their own fault, of course, because they thought they were better than Shiho when they definitely were not better than Shiho. If there was one thing Shiho didn't like, it was being made to feel inferior when she was obviously not inferior.

Thankfully, with someone like Micca, it was clear that she was not going to try to be a bitch all up in Shiho's face. Micca was a nice girl, that much was clear, and while Shiho might have to be a little hard on her, she was not going to try to humiliate Micca too much, because then Shiho would look like a bully. Still, Micca's resistance to calling her Shiho-sama did kind of rub her the wrong way. None of the girls back in Sendai had wanted to call her that, either. Shiho crossed her arms and kicked at the floor, making a pouty face which saw her cheeks puff out a little bit as she pursed her lips.

"I still like Shiho-sama better..." she would grumble. "All of my friends back home say Shiho-chan, or Shii-chan, so I guess those are fine..." She would look back up at Micca with a determined, hard look. "But maybe I should prove to you that I'm worthy of being called Shiho-sama, huh? Show off just how good I am...in the ring!"