Bachiko The Grappler Ch 03

Author's note: This series is my homage to the manga and anime series, "Baki the Grappler". Yes, I know there are about 3 different mangas and, I think, 2 different animes with different titles, but I'll just call the whole thing "Baki the Grappler". So, meet Bachiko. Any resemblance to the original work in terms of characters, plot and theme is entirely intentional. I hope fans of the series will enjoy my homage!

IMPORTANT NOTE: The original character Baki is 13 years of age at the beginning of the series. Bachiko is a 19-year-old girl. Previous chapters included a note here placing her age at 21 – that is by the conclusion of the series. Within this chapter, she is 19.

***

Kaito had never before seen a Yakushi tank up close. Looking at Hanayama Kaori and Bachiko floating in adjacent tanks was a strange experience. He had the depressing feeling that he would be seeing quite a bit of the medical bay in time to come.

What a medical bay, though! The most cutting-edge state-of-the-art medical technology was all around him. The fighters here, at least, could be assured of the finest possible medical care, as he had been told repeatedly.

Which reminded him – he had to ask Bachiko after she woke up about whether there had been fatalities in the Arena before. When Yuriko had flung Kaori across the arena holding on to her skull, Kaito had thought the physics of it would have snapped Kaori's neck straight off. It was a morbid thought that made him shudder.

Thinking of Yuriko was enough to make him shudder, too. Yuriko was... to put it plainly... one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. She was also one of the most supremely intimidating. After witnessing what Bachiko's mother was capable of, both in terms of raw strength and in terms of ruthlessness, Kaito wanted very badly to say that Bachiko took after her mother in physical ability, but definitely not in personality.

However... part of him had noticed Bachiko's sheer love of fighting. The joy that she took in physical conflict, in womanly struggle, had not escaped him. The everyday Bachiko he knew was liked a muted restrained version. There was no feral wolfish grin, no vicious trash talk, no savage display of triumph with a victory pose. He realized he'd been thinking of Bachiko as just some immensely gifted athlete, with a freakishly unusual body. Not just unusual for a girl, but for anyone, male or female!

Now he knew better. Bachiko was a fighter. A budding one, but it was in her lineage. It was in her soul.

He wondered what her father was like.

A sudden movement caught his eye – Bachiko's tank was emptying, and she was coming out of the suspended snooze induced by the breathable liquid that could seemingly work medical miracles. It had been almost an hour, so the timing was about right. And he could clearly see that her hand was fully recovered, as were her other injuries. As far as he could tell, anyway.

The chamber door opened and Bachiko stepped out, her skin still gleaming from the Yakushi liquid. She smiled to see Kaito there, and Kaito felt his heart racing faster. He stepped forward with a towel, ready to dry her off – he had insisted that he be the one to do it instead of a servitor. Bachiko stepped within the circle of his arms and hugged him gently for some moments.

Then she stepped back and wordlessly turned to look at Kaori, still in the suspended slumber, bobbing up and down inside the tank. The scar on her face was already gone. The tattoos remained untouched – somehow, the Yakushi liquid did not recognize tattoos as skin lesions, something the scientists had discovered in the nascent stages of the technology.

Some bodyguards were stationed beside the tank, and they watched warily as Bachiko, still not self-conscious about her nakedness, stood before the tank and silently reached out to touch the plexiglass. After a while, she turned to Kaito. "Let's go."

***

They were back in the Showa Memorial Park. It was near midnight. They would have to catch a ride home on a cab.

The Showa Memorial Park, as it was generally known, was really the Showa Commemorative National Government Park. Formerly an airfield operated by the American military, the land was returned to Japanese control in 1977. Later, the larger part of it was converted into a commemorative park, while another part of the airfield was reserved for use by the military, specifically the JGSDF.

Tourists and locals daily streamed in and out of the scenic grounds, never knowing what went on beneath their feet on certain nights, unless they happened to be part of a select group. As Kaito looked around, he realized that with Bachiko in his life, he was irrevocably a part of that select group.

He was helping to carry Bachiko's duffel bag – a weird sense of chivalry had prompted him to do so, even though it was practically quixotic, given that Bachiko was several times stronger than he was. But Bachiko had simply bowed and thanked him. She hadn't said much beyond a few words since they had left the Park through the gate. Kaito was dying to ask her all sorts of questions – about the match, about her mother, about basically her entire life. He simply didn't know where to begin.

A limousine drew up beside them and slowed to a stop. The chauffeur got out, opened the door, and stood at the ready.

"Bachiko-chan, Kaito-kun. Get in," said Tachibana Fujiko.

Bachiko's small smile appeared again on her face. "Oba-san, thank you," she said with a bow. "Kaito, is this ok?"

"Uh, sure. Yeah. Err, thank you very much, Tachibana-san," Kaito bowed as well. He was hardly going to say no to saving on a cab fare home and riding in the personal limousine of Tachibana Fujiko!

But the silence in the car grew awkward after some minutes. Fujiko and Bachiko sat in silence. Somehow, though, Kaito could sense that a lot was passing between the two. Fujiko wore a look of patient sympathy and understanding. Bachiko meanwhile was pensive, even melancholy, and whenever she caught Fujiko's eye there was a sense of sad resignation in her characteristic small smile.

The car rolled up just outside the street, instead of stopping right at Kaito's door. Before they got out, Fujiko spoke at last. "You did very well, child. And she knows that. She does love you."

"That's a damn funny way of showing it." A moment, then, "I am sorry to be rude, oba-san."

"I hope you can understand someday, Bachiko-chan. Oh yes... your next match. Have they informed you?"

"Yes. Next month. The Russian. Petrovna." Bachiko shaped the unfamiliar foreign syllables with only a little bit of trouble.

"You will want to pay a visit to Hanayama next week, after she's out of the tank. You can see her at their headquarters – she will be making sure her underlings know to admit you."

Bachiko nodded.

"Kaito-kun."

"Huh?! Oh, uh, yes! Thank you for the ride!"

There was a wicked twinkle in the old lady's eye that Kaito fervently wished never to have to see again. "Take good care of my Bachiko-chan tonight. Celebrate her victory properly, young man." And with that, the limousine drove off and they were left alone.

***

Later, Kaito would always cherish that memory of his first time walking home hand in hand with Bachiko. There was a lot to cherish that night, but he'd decided to treasure every portion of it.

He'd always had fond fantasies of the romantic things he'd do with his first girlfriend. And he was now doing one of them, albeit with a girl whose physique was a good match for the top bodybuilders in the nation and maybe the world, and who could lift his entire bodyweight above her head with one arm. Probably.

Still: romantic moonlight walk down the street where he lived – checked off the bucket list!

His mother was already asleep, so they trod quietly up the stairs. Outside the door to his room, he found his steps slowing. "Um," he said.

Bachiko turned and pressed herself against him. "I promised, Kaito," she said. "Unless you're too tired?"

Her musky scent was almost overpowering. The nearness of her, in the semi-dark, had an immediate effect on him, an effect she could feel through her shorts. She chuckled. "It appears you are not."

He swallowed hard, and opened his mouth to speak, to ask if she was sure. But she stifled whatever sound he had started to make, by pressing her hot lips against his. Her kiss was almost as fierce as the one she had given her defeated opponent just hours ago. The mere recollection of that kiss was enough to send the blood rushing even more fully into his cock.

She half-pushed him into the room, using her foot to slide the door shut. She was so... assertive! And rough! She was shoving him down onto his futon, and practically tearing his pants off. She jerked his underwear down the length of his thighs and immediately his engorged member sprang out. She smiled to see it, and bent over to give it a gentle smooth on the head.

Then she stood up and disrobed briskly. Off came her hot pants and tank top. And once more, Hanma Bachiko stood naked and proud in his room.

"Fantastic," was all he could croak, as he gazed upon her physique. "Really fantastic."

She smiled her small smile. There was always a hint of sadness in it, Kaito thought. As he had gotten to know her better, he had begun to perceive more about her. And after witnessing her confrontation with her mother, that incredible Hanma Yuriko woman, he was starting to get an inkling of what exactly troubled his girlfriend underneath the calm veneer she put on every day. But he put that thought aside. His attention was fully taken up by what he was seeing before him.

Bachiko turned her body slightly to the side and struck up a pose, bending her right knee, placing her right palm on her hip and her left hand behind her head. It was an unusually coquettish pose for her, but Kaito was finding that the incongruity added to his burgeoning excitement. "You really think so, Kaito-chan?" she asked, in a voice slightly more high-pitched than normal.

"Y-Yes! Definitely!"

She immediately switched poses, adopting a shy and embarrassed posture, putting a bashful finger to her lips. "I don't know, Kaito-chan. Do you... really find me attractive?"

"Of course I do, Bachiko-chan! You know I do!"

"Will you... show me?" Her eyes were hooded, and her gaze was sly. "Using... that?" A mere tilt of her chin was sufficient to convey what "that" was.

Kaito grabbed his cock. It wasn't anything spectacular, he knew (and part of him still could not believe how nonchalantly Bachiko and Fujiko had been discussing it earlier), but ever since the onset of puberty – and the discovery of porn – it had never let him down. Still, he was so nervous right now that it was starting to interfere with his arousal.

"Don't go flaccid, don't go flaccid..." he mentally recited, as he held his cock in place. A few moments later, he realized he needn't worry. He was so turned on by what Bachiko was doing that his erection was almost painful.

Bachiko stretched lazily, from side to side, extending her arms. The play of the muscles all over her body was mesmerizing. Then she put both hands behind her head, positioned her pelvis over his nether regions, and slowly bent her knees and lowered herself. His eyes were fixated on her pubic mound as it moved closer and closer to the waiting tip of his cock.

This was it. This was going to be his first time entering a woman.

And it was going to be her on top. He found that it suited him just fine.

That first slick, wet sensation of contact was something he'd never forget. Bachiko knew how to draw it out, and the muscle control she possessed in her legs definitely helped, letting her control the pace of the whole thing. First her labial lips enfolded his penis head. Then he entered her more fully, and had to take his hand away – he no longer needed to guide himself into her. His cock was being squeezed gently by a warm, wet cocoon. It felt better than anything he had ever experienced. He could only throw back his head and moan, but he also didn't want to close his eyes. The sight of her in that pose was... indescribable.

Finally her slow squat concluded, with their loins touching – he was completely inside her now. It was better than anything he'd ever imagined, especially when she started squeezing. It was as if her vagina was another strong limb she had full control over – she was kneading him with her pussy, massaging his cock, without moving any other part of her body.

Without knowing it, he had closed his eyes, as he drowned slowly in the delirious pleasure Bachiko was giving him. He opened them with a start, to find Bachiko smiling down at him. He grinned back. His eyes travelled all over Bachiko's sculpted physique. It was incredible, how she seemed to embody that humorous cliché: she had muscles where normal people didn't even have muscles. As he looked at her ridged eight-pack abdomen – there actually were eight – and the obliques, another muscle joke came to him: Bachiko's muscles had muscles!

"I'm having sex with an anatomy chart model come to life," he thought, wildly.

Every single bulge and curve on her body... he wanted to just drink in the sight. The way her small breasts jutted out, each one less than a handful, but dwarfed by the pectoral muscles they sat on, which in their own right were as large as breasts... the sharp lines of definition at the places where the muscles of her upper arms joined with those of her shoulders and upper chest... the way her large laterals made her armpits deeper and more concave than his own...

Then she straightened out her arms to the sides, thrust her chest slightly forward, and lazily curled her arms into a biceps flex pose.

Kaito lost it, right there. And even as his nerdy detail-obsessed mind noted on his behalf, "I'm not wearing any protection!" his body gave in to total mindless surrender. The sheer bliss overcame him, as he squirted again and again, his limbs flailing about, until finally his eyes rolled into the back of his head...

He opened his eyes. It took a few moments for his brain to register that there was sunlight streaming in through the window. Consciousness came flooding back, and a silly grin spread slowly over his face at the recollection of last night's activity. He took a moment to savor the memory of his first time making love.

Then he sat up and looked around. He was still naked, but comfortably wrapped in his sheets. A cursory check told him that his sheets were cleaned and unstained. Evidently, Bachiko had cleaned him up while he was completely conked out, and put him to bed.

The thought warmed his heart. But where was Bachiko?

After getting dressed hastily, he checked his phone. There was a message there from her. It said:

[[

Have gone jogging @ Showa Memorial. Eat a good breakfast. You need to regain your strength. I took too much out of you last night! ~ Bachiko ~~~ <3

]]

"What're you so cheerful about, son?" Naoko's voice jolted him out of his reverie as he sat at the table eating his breakfast: rice, fish and eggs, all steamed, and a thick bowl of miso soup. His mother was getting ready to leave the house, and looking slightly flustered as she primped in the mirror and fussed over her hair. "You've been grinning to yourself like a crazy person since you came down this morning. Had a good time out with Bachiko-chan last night, did you?"

Oh, Mother, if only you knew! But Kaito said nothing, only nodded and tried to smile less obviously.

"She went out earlier, to go jogging. Gosh, her breakfast was huge! You should take up a healthy lifestyle like her, son. Fitness is king! She is certainly setting us a good example, don't you think? Strong body, healthy mind!" Naoko declared.

Kaito's smile faded on its own accord, as other less pleasant memories came to mind: Hanma Yuriko breaking Hanayama Kaori's forearm with sheer grip strength alone, and almost crushing Bachiko's hand shortly after... Kaori's entire body weight smashing Bachiko into the ground... the blood on both girls' faces...

He realized that last night he hadn't gotten the opportunity to satisfy his morbid curiosity about whether there had ever been any fatalities in the Arena. That was just as well! Talk about mood-killers. Yet, he really did want to know. Was this how the spouses and loved ones of soldiers felt? Or in feudal times, the spouses and loved ones of samurai, especially on the eve of battle? His mind just rebelled at the thought of Bachiko sustaining a potentially fatal injury. It was just about unthinkable.

And he also realized that was arguably what the Arena was about, the spirit it embodied: the samurai spirit. Not in the sense of fealty to feudal lords, of course, though he had once heard a friend, a humanities major, declare that today's zaibatsu were more powerful and more capable of exerting control on people's lives than feudal daimyos and shoguns ever were. Not really in that sense... but perhaps, in the way depicted in the stories almost all Japanese children had read about heroic figures like Miyamoto Musashi and the stories of his various duels across the land, culminating in his final showdown with Sasaki Kojiro. Honing one's body and skills... seeking out worthy equals as opponents... testing each other's mettle...

A parallel might be drawn also, to the way expert gamers from all around the world challenged one another at gaming tournaments and other expo events, the masters of fighting games, real-time strategy games, first-person shooters... These modern-day heroes were the idols of people like himself, otaku-types, nerds and geeks and suchlike. Compared to the Arena, though, they were practically mainstream.

As he chewed on his breakfast, his mind turned to the next fight Bachiko had coming up, with the "Russian". He suddenly recalled that Fujiko had told Bachiko to pay Kaori a visit. This seemed strange. Why would she suggest that Bachiko visit her defeated opponent? Would it be safe? Sure, he'd seen evidence of sportsmanship and mutual respect in the Arena itself, but how far did it extend outside the context of the underground fights? Why would Bachiko need to in the first place?

Kaito decided to pay the Arena, and a certain old lady, another visit sometime next week. Perhaps he'd go spectate along with Bachiko, if she wanted. But he had a lot of questions and a burning desire to help his new girlfriend in any way he could, and he sensed that the key to doing that was to find answers.

***

The next week passed in a haze of dizzy delight.

Every day, he accompanied Bachiko on her daily regimen, and got to watch up close as she performed some of the most demanding looking exercises he had ever seen. With every workout routine, she mixed and matched – usually she would start off with some relatively safe-looking movements, the kind you might expect to see in a gym. One of those movements particularly appealed to him: the "bent-over barbell row", she told him it was called. It seemed designed to showcase every muscle on her body.

Then, she'd switch to more dangerous exercises with more violent motions that made him flinch. And yet, her display of power made her even more attractive, in some raw, primal way. The way the bar, loaded up with huge plates, would suddenly leave the floor and end up right above her, supported by her strong arms and her firm, sturdy shoulders...

She also performed some moves that seemed to be from a gymnast's repertoire. Her pull-ups were almost never just simple pull-ups – they would involve her folding her surprisingly flexible body or contorting it in other ways. He understood from her explanation that it built up her core strength, joint flexibility and muscle endurance. She could hang with her body weight for hours at a time and still be reasonably energetic afterwards, but there was not much point in doing merely that.