(1) RRR

Breaking things could be cathartic. The sense of power, the release of inhibitions, the feeling of freedom for disregarding the status quo and completely destroying it – there were many reasons why it felt good. Some children threw tantrums vented out their bottled up emotions because of this. She had never thought of it before, but after getting a taste of it apparently during school, she discovered just how fun it was.

“… Hibi-nii… You too… You’re joining too.”

“Shizuku, just because I had to drive you here doesn’t mean I’m joining. You paid for your time here. The parking fee was enough for me. I’m not wasting any more money on something only you are interested in.”

He honestly wished she hadn’t. Then she wouldn’t have convinced their mother to force him to escort her that hot summer day.

Hibiki Yukimura’s younger sister, Shizuku, was an absolute oddball with strange tendencies. Nothing about her made sense in his opinion. As the older brother, he always had to try to rein the second year high school girl in, and when he couldn’t, he had to make sure everyone around her knew or else he and his parents would receive many embarrassing questions. Having to explain everything Shizuku did was a nightmare to the more responsible sibling.

Thud!

“Oof!”

“Nnn…Hibi-nii’s stingy…” his sister’s pulled both of her legs up while seated and slammed her bare feet into his arm. He groaned and endured it. It annoyed him that she always used her feet to retaliate. She always gravitated to using her feet when she could. With her having taken off her shoes while they sat in the waiting room, he could feel each and every toe of her left foot as she put more pressure into his arm. “You should join… It feels good with more people…”

“Feels good? And here I thought being okay with polygamy was crazy enough coming from you,” Hibiki sighed as he grabbed his sister by the leg and forced her to sit properly. “I’d prefer not know about my little sis’s kinks.”

That was right. Besides her love of going barefoot which required constant reminding to get her to at least wear shoes outside, apparently his sister was in a polyamorous relationship - sharing one guy between four girls. How the boy had managed to get a legitimate harem of girlfriends was beyond him, but he had Hibiki’s respect for somehow being able to get Shizuku of all people to cooperate and share.

Sadly, that apparently wasn’t the only kink anymore. The sign that was in front of the door they had entered explained everything.

[RRR Destruction Hall]

The Triple R Destruction Hall was apparently a rage room – something he had read about online. It was one of those places where you could go and completely destroy whatever you wanted to let loose. He had never gone to one before, but it was apparently a good way to release stress and pent up frustrations. His sister didn’t have pent up frustrations, however. He knew that very well.

“Crushing things is fun…” his short haired sister kicked her legs up and down in her seat while scrunching her toes.

He could only stare at the blank face Shizuku was making incredulously. Though it was always hard to read his younger sister’s expressions, there was a pleased aura surrounding her that sent a shiver up his spine. “You need to introduce that Eguchi kid to Mom and Dad already. I need someone who understands my pain.”

“…Eguchi-kun? Oh! I should have asked him to co- Mffph!”

He covered his sister’s mouth with his hand as quickly as he could to cut off the thought she had. “I shouldn’t have said that. That kid probably has enough trouble with you as is.”

Choosing to go to a rage room during her summer break… Shizuku shouldn’t have been allowed inside in the first place because rage rooms required her to be 18 or older; however, RRR apparently had a stipulation that if an adult gave permission, they would allow it. He was the consenting adult…

Honestly, though, why was it that it had to be him? His sister seemed oddly pushy about having him take her. He should’ve pondered that question more carefully. Hibiki had thought he was simply there to sign the paperwork allowing his high school age little sister to enter, but that wasn’t the case. With all of the laws and technology he had lived with for practically his whole life now, he should have realized what the three R’s in RRR stood for.

“Okay Yukim- Oh, sorry. You’re both Yukimura. Shizuku-san, Hibiki-san, we’re good for you two to enter the back,” the bespectacled employee with an RRR T-shirt and a skirt with bike shorts underneath, Akashi, opened the door past the reception to lead them in. “Shizuku-san, the Reduction Platform is ready for your brother.”

“… Huh?”

In Akashi’s hand was a clipboard with the full name of their business emblazoned on the back. RRR – Reduction Rage Room. This was no ordinary rage room where entrants got to break things. RRR was specifically catered for people with a taste for Alteration.

“Reduction Platform?” Hibiki choked on his own saliva, knowing exactly what Reduction entailed – shrinking him in size. “Um… Akashi-san, I’m not taking part. I just came here to sign the form for Shizuku.”

“Oh, that’s impossible. We can’t have a minor take part unless their guardian is present. And because you’re a male guardian, we can’t have you around our facilities unless you are Reduced.”

“I can’t just stay out here in the waiting room?”

“Unfortunately not,” Akashi shook her head. “You signed the form, Hibiki-san. We all have to obey the laws while we’re here. And we are not offering refunds now that we’ve prepared the machine.”

He should have read the paperwork more carefully. Turning to his sister who he was well aware had known about this the whole time, Hibiki silently pressured her for an answer with a glare. Though she kept the same expressionless face as she always did, she put up two ‘V’ peace signs with both hands confidently. This was why she had wanted him to come.

“Let’s have fun… Hibiki Onii-san…”

…

………

……………

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Hibiki Yukimura groaned at the sight before him. RRR was located in a small multi-office complex in one of the offices at the end of the hall. It was supposed small, but that was no longer the case when he was a fraction of his normal size and standing on a table as wide as a field.

“Thank you for being so cooperative, Hibiki-san. Most men would have left right away,” a loud voice thundered down. The blue wall that he was staring at was simply the blue fabric of her bike shorts that employee who had welcomed them, Akashi, was wearing under her short skirt.

Hibiki did not speak. He was not going to waste his time shouting up what looked to be dozens of meters to Akashi’s ears. He waited until the light on the headset and wristband he had been given turned green before he wasted his breath. Pushing the button on the headset to use the microphone, he answered. “The only reason I’m staying is because you said no refunds.”

“Your little sister calling you stingy was a very apt description. Ah, I suppose she’s not so little at the moment.”

“Real funny.” Hibiki was not appreciative of the joke. He was more used to Reduction compared to Shizuku who had only just experienced it for one week a few months earlier, but he still did not like it. “That girl, she definitely knew this and didn’t say anything because she wanted this to happen.”

“That’s typically the case here honestly. Destroying things is one thing, but it’s apparently more fun when there’s someone tiny to witness it all,” Akashi discussed the observations from being employed. From the sound of it, she didn’t seem to be in the same group as his sister… likely because it was her job to clean it all up.

Whaaam!

“Is Hibi-nii ready…?”

“Gwah!”

Another thunderous voice boomed into his ears, but that wasn’t the only boom. A powerful impact hit the table he was on caused by none other than Shizuku who had walked in and bumped into the table. Rather than shaking it, the strike was strong enough that it pushed it and him. He was launched forward, off the table. Desperately as he flew through the air for that brief instant, Hibiki waved his arms, trying to grab whatever he could.

“Mffgh! That… was close…” the shrunken college student face-planted into the wall in front of him. He had grabbed onto the fabric of Akashi’s compression shorts in time to avoid falling after being launched horizontally, but the distance to the ground was so far from his miniscule perspective that he was starting to develop vertigo. “I hate this already.”

To change something’s size and shrink it down to whatever level one desired - Reduction was a powerful invention. It could turn the strongest and tallest objects into no more than a pebble. The durability of anything Reduced was increased, but people who were shrunken down always felt more vulnerable due to the change in scale.

Hibiki certainly felt vulnerable now that the 160 cm short haired girl he had known since she was born was a moving landscape. He was presently only 3.5 cm tall. At 1:50 scale, his sister was comparable to a kaiju at what looked to be 80 meters in height to him. The 168 cm Akashi he was clinging onto resembled more of monumental skyscraper than a person.

“Yes, he’s ready as you can see,” Akashi answered his sister professionally. She took a step back for Shizuku to look. Hibiki ground his teeth and tightened his grip as much as he could to avoid being flung off during her short step. “Since you didn’t state which size you wanted to start with, we’ve currently set his scale for the largest we have available. That’s fifty times smaller.”

“… Hehe… Hibi-nii’s small…,” he heard his sister laugh but he couldn’t turn his head around while holding for his life tightly to Akashi’s shorts like a rock climber to a perilous cliff. His insect-sized self clinging to the woman’s shorts like a piece of lint must have poked Shizuku’s funny bone.

“As your brother is your adult guardian, he’ll have to be with you no matter where you go today. The band we placed on him will adjust his size accordingly if you’d like to change the scale of your room and its structures.”

Akashi’s attention was only focused on his sister. The fact that she didn’t consider helping him or peeling him off her leg said more than enough. The way she spoke treated him more like an accessory than an actual supervising guardian. That was just how it was. From his own experience back in high school with the compulsory Reduction Week, he knew this was how Reduced men could be treated. That was just how society was these days due to the laws of Alteration. If their mother had taken Shizuku instead, she wouldn’t have been shrunken down.  

He wasn’t going to be able to get much say over what was about to happen, and that was probably the most pressing issue for Hibiki. Though Akashi had called him her guardian, Shizuku was the one in control for today.

“… Any size? How about all?”

“If you think you can manage all of them within the time slot you paid for, then yes. Just remember to take Hibiki-san with you when you leave. We’ll add another 1000 yen to your bill if you happen to forget.”

“Am I only worth that much?” Hibiki frowned, wishing he could put his hand to his headset to turn on the mic and snark at Akashi. Sadly, there was no time for that as a thumb and forefinger as thick as his torso pinched him. His body was roughly squeezed and pulled off of the blue bike short wall. “Grk!”

It wasn’t Akashi who had peeled him off but Shizuku. His colossal younger sibling was not the least bit gentle as her fingers pressed tightly into his chest and back. It wasn’t for very long, though. Without even bringing him up to her face, Shizuku let go without warning.

“Whoooaaaaaaah! Ooof!” His fall didn’t hurt too badly due to Reduction’s durability enhancements, but Hibiki landed on his back onto the wooden floor of the Reduction Room. “Hey, be a little more there, Shizu…ku…”

The older Yukimura sibling stopped talking when he realized he wasn’t looking up at his little sister… or rather, not all of her. All he could see above him was the sole of her right foot.

Slaaaam!

“Grk!” Hibiki braced himself as best as he could, but the moment his sister’s house sized foot hit the ground, he was launched a full two meters from his perspective away from the wind force.

Those two meters weren’t even ten centimeters from Shizuku’s perspective. She simply didn’t even have to take another step forward to brought her barefoot towards him. Her big toe, over half the size of his shrunken body, landed immediately next to him.

“Still too big…” he heard Shizuku say. As expected of her, instead of using her fingers to check his size, she was using her toes. Looking up at the towering 40 meter peach skyscrapers that were his little sister’s legs, he noticed something had changed – Shizuku’s clothes. Likely to make sure they wouldn’t get dirty while she was messing around, they had made her change to the same blue tight bike shorts and RRR T-shirt that Akashi had sans the skirt. What was more curious was the large watch that was similar in color to the wristband he had been given.

Vrrrrr!

He understood quickly as Shizuku’s finger pressed onto the screen on her watch. Her toe that was chest level to him rose up to eye level.  

“Huh? Did she just…?” Hibiki only got out that much before everything around him expanded once again. Shizuku’s big toe suddenly shot up to roughly twice his height.

“Changing his size already? 1 centimeter, huh?” Akashi read the display on Shizuku’s watch.

Shizuku answered with a nod. To Hibiki’s dismay his now nearly 300 meter tall sister flanked in on both sides with her right foot’s toes. Her big toe and second toe pinched together, squeezing him in place like a trash compactor.

“Mghph!” Hibiki felt his feet leave the ground as Shizuku put her weight on her heel. He helplessly dangled in the air at the mercy of the girl’s toes.

“A little better…” giggled Shizuku.

“We usually cater our rooms to people who want to just break things, but girls like you do pop up from time to time who just want to mess with the guys they bring,” Akashi noted before looking down at him. Hibiki wondered if she could even spot him wedged between his younger sibling’s toes. “Although, to be able to pick him up with your toes, I think you’re the most dexterous girl we’ve had. Are you okay going barefoot?”

“Yes,” nodded the girl. “It feels better…”

“Better?” Akashi tilted her head. She was confused at his sister’s kinks for a moment, but she soon shrugged. “Well, I don’t judge. Much like everyone else who has paid, you’re free to use the facilities here, Shizuku-san. Please enjoy RRR to your heart’s content.”

“…Seriously, please don’t let her do that,” groaned the shrunken brother. He finally managed to get his hand free to be able to hit the button on his headset that still connected to Akashi’s headset. He was doing his best not to breathe. The pungent salty smell of the sweat and dirt between Shizuku’s toes was close to triggering his gag reflex.

Despite hearing him, however, the young woman glanced down at him and said nothing. Both of them were aware that there was nothing he could do. She waved farewell with a professional smile. This was just business for her and the customer she was working with was Shizuku, not him.

“Whoa!”

That could easily be seen by how he was just being taken along for the ride as Shizuku began to walk. His stomach churned as he was forced upward when Shizuku lifted her foot, and his entire body was rattled by his titanic sister’s footfalls when she landed on the ground.

“Let’s go, Hibi-nii…” Shizuku scrunched her toes and squeezed him one more time before making her way out of the Reduction room.