Going to bed, Wakaba had undeniably been nervous. She had shrunk down to less than 1/10th her height upon waking up the previous day and only gotten smaller from there, being almost 30x smaller by the time she had fallen asleep. She had only managed such a thing after assuring Hinata’s worries and helped her progressively larger friend fall asleep with a few safeguards in place. Those being a dim nightlight to help Wakaba herself get around more easily if needed, and that if Wakaba actually did shrink to a similar level as last time, she’d find a place on Hinata’s body to wait, such as her hair. That way, even if she became so small the others couldn’t see here, they could at least know she was there while trying to find a solution. Wakaba had hoped she would reach some kind of limit to her shrinking and not actually become a microbe, but even her dreams were haunted with the images and nightmares her situation had brought about. Becoming small enough to be inhaled, falling down to the floor with individual boards kilometers wide, to even being reduced to living life as one of the many microscopic things upon Hinata’s body, too tiny to have any existence separate from her childhood friend. It kept her sleep restless, until a gust of wind slammed into Wakaba, jolting her mind free from the black void of sleep.
Wakaba’s eyes flung open in the same second her form was sent rolling what felt like hundreds of meters in only a couple seconds. The girl would’ve flown back even more, if not for her trained instincts kicking in and grabbing a fistful of cloth to bring herself to a stop.
“Nrgn… What was that?” Wakaba groaned to herself while trying to stand, still gripping the fabric with one hand. Her alertness had been raised to max awakeness from the sudden manner she had been woken up. The only thing she could immediately make out was how the white horizon stretched almost endlessly in almost all directions.
Before Wakaba could take in anymore of her surroundings, another great wind came over her, but instead of pushing, this one pulled at her. The suction effortlessly lifted Wakaba off the ground. With a scream, Wakaba gripped the bit of fabric she had for dear life, the powerful suction of the wind yanking over her entire body for several seconds and slowly eating away at her grip. Despite her best efforts, some of the cloth was starting to slip between her fingers, the vortex that felt like the tug of a violent tornado hungrily trying to pull her to the source. She didn’t even dare look back for fear of lapsing focus even for a second and losing her grip.
With only a tiny section of fabric pinched between her thumb and index finger left, grip only maintained from her transformed state’s super strength, the wind released Wakaba from its hold and she dropped onto the soft bedding below in a heap.
Fearing for another assault, Wakaba spun around toward where the gust had come from, but seeing the source only made her entire body freeze up in a horrible combination of awe and fear.
Casually resting on a large landmark of white, there was an immense monument before her. It was circular in shape and cream colored, with two large black looking forests lined up over the center area. Below, was a large and triangular protrusion which rested above a slightly open slit of a cave, which lead to a pitch black abyss beyond it, the entrance at least the size of a large building, hundreds of meters, from top to bottom. On the right side rested an immense wall of purple, seemingly thousands and thousands of strands coming together and stretching off in one direction for at least a few kilometers.
But this was nothing so grand as a monument, a literal mountain watching over the landscape.
It was simply the mindbogglingly huge resting face of Hinata. Those ‘forests’’ were her closed eyelashes. The ‘protrusion’ was her nose, looking like a small hill. The ‘cave’ was her mouth, and the kilometers long strands was Hinata’s silky hair.
Wakaba’s mind ground to a screeching halt in an attempt to comprehend what was before her. Glancing down the side of the bed, there was an entire mountain range under a wall of white, with the furthest and narrowest edges once more the cream color of skin. Her mind immediately jumped to ‘mountain range’, but it was truthfully Hinata’s pajama clad body, now impossibly huge. Yet no matter that she knew what was truthfully there, Wakaba’s head struggled to accept it. Struggled to accept the idea of something living being comparable to the largest mountains in the entire world in scale. To look at Hinata’s entire body now was as if Wakaba were looking out at an entire prefecture in Shikoku. She was an entire island unto herself.
‘How… How small am I…?’ Fear pricked at Wakaba’s mind with the thought. Before gong to bed, Hinata’s entire body couldn’t have been more than a few dozen meters from head to toe in Wakaba’s perspective, maybe close to 100 at the worst. Yet now, the simple height of her open mouth was several times greater than what her whole being was before. Just one side of her peacefully sleeping head inspired a feeling akin to staring at an entire mountain side now.
‘Was that wind Hinata’s breathing?’ A shudder went through Wakaba at the idea. Her friend, not more than 150cm tall in reality, was so monstrously gigantic now that the simple act of her soft breathing, an automatic reaction of the body that wasn’t even a conscious motion, was like being in a hurricane, even with the fact Wakaba was transformed. Those ‘few hundred meters’ she felt flung upon waking up couldn’t have been more than a few centimeters at a normal scale, if that . This was simply too absurd. How tiny was she? She had to be far under a centimeter, maybe even well below a single millimeter in size. ‘Am I… actually a microbe now?’
Another gust of wind came by, yet this one only caused Wakaba to unsteadily sway instead of barrel her over. Hinata had exhaled out her nose this time, fortunately pointed away from Wakaba. But even without being directly in its path, the mere fact she felt it from what looked like hundreds of meters away was of little reassurance. It was fortunate, however, as in her shocked stupor over Hinata turning into a living landscape, Wakaba’s grip on the bed had relaxed. If she had been in the path, they certainly would have gone flying.
‘Wait, she’s going to in-’ Alarms blared in Wakaba’s mind as she realized what came next, but it was too late. In mid thought and motion to grab a handful of fabric as an anchor, Hinata took another deep breath through her mouth. And with nothing anchoring her, Wakaba started flying right toward it!
“Ahhhh! H-Hinata, WAKE UP!” Managing to subdue her screaming for just a moment, Wakaba pleadingly screamed at the top of her lungs, helplessly flying towards the abyss of Hinata’s waiting mouth. Yet her sleeping giant of a friend showed no signs of stirring, blissfully resting while she inhaled Wakaba like a dust particle.
Despite the suction ceasing as Hinata paused her breath for a moment, Wakaba still flew like a ragdoll from inertia, but the change was just enough for her to start falling off course from the center of Hinata’s mouth. Instead of sailing into the dark cavern, Wakaba instead slammed face first into Hinata’s upper lip.
The impact was like hitting some kind of thick water. Wakaba splashed into it like a rock, before tumbling straight into a soft material beneath nearly immediately. Instinctively, Wakaba started moving and trying to push herself back to the surface, yet this ‘water’ was completely unlike normal liquid. It was sticky and thick, resisting her attempts to push it. Trying to swim in it was less like treading water and more akin to moving in syrup. Slow, heavy, weighed down. Even when the reached for the air and felt the top of the ‘pool’, the liquid moved up with her hand, the surface tension holding fast unlike water would. Had she not been transformed, Wakaba would have been helplessly stuck in place to drown, like a fly in honey. But with the enhanced body of her Hero uniform, Wakaba gave one might whip of her hand and felt it breach the surface. With another push against the soft ground, Wakaba shoved herself upward, pushing the top half of her body back into breathable air and leaving the microscopic Hero sticking out sideways. The consistency of the liquid kept her firmly in place.
‘Why is there a pool on Hinata’s lips?’ In no danger of falling, Wakaba glanced around to try making sense of her surrounding and plan their next move, but it was of little help. At her scale, the land of Hinata’s lips looked almost alien. Small bumps and crevices lined the entire surface for hundreds of meters, coming in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Some were so massive as to look like a large ditch, deep enough Wakaba wouldn’t have been able to see out the top standing directly in them. Others were vastly smaller, sometimes only a few of Wakaba’s body lengths. Even at normal size, Wakaba had seen lines and cracks over the surface of lips before, but this was entirely different. The entrance of Hinata’s mouth looked less like a solid object or piece of flesh, and more like some jagged and rocky landscape. If not for the pink color and knowing exactly where she was, Wakaba could’ve easily mistake it for some remote, rocky wilderness instead of someone’s lips.
Just how different was the world from a microscopic perspective? Seeing even more of the world and how something as unassuming as this looked like a desert made Wakaba even more uneasy about seeing the rest.
But it didn’t answer the question of what this pool she was in was. Worryingly, it was so deep Wakaba couldn’t even feel her feet touch the skin anymore with her chest up surfaced. How sticky and adhesive it was became even more apparent when Wakaba did a quick test by raising her hand, only for a wall to rise from the liquid and stick to her hand, yanking it instantly back to the surface like glue once she stopped putting any strength into it.
With another exhale, which didn’ do much aside from slightly shift Wakaba around from the pool she was in, a thought struck the tiny girl. Now that she had some time to look at it, there was a slight shine to Hinata’s plush lips. The liquid, in addition to how sticky it was, also had a weird scent to it, Hinata’s breath permeating every bit of air Wakaba could take in. This ‘pool’ was a faint layer of saliva! And it was still deeper than Wakaba was tall!
But perhaps, perhaps she could use this. It wasn’t the most comforting knowledge to know what it was, but Hinata’s sticky spit kept her completely sideways. With her strength as a Hero, she could use it to swim to more solid ground not near an entrance to Hinata’s body, from which she could then leap to somewhere safe on her to rest until they discovered a way to grow her back. Maybe she could even take refuge in Hinata’s ear. She was literally a speck right now, the possibility of even being visible to the human eye up in the air, but maybe, just maybe, she could at least give some sign she was still alive and be heard there. Even with the backup plans put in place and assuming Wakaba would rest somewhere on her body, Hinata would still worry herself sick not having absolute certainty.
Slowly, Wakaba started wading upwards. Her entire uniform and body was utterly soaked in Hinata’s spit not even a minute into the venture, but at least she had something to go with. She just had to make it the mid section of her upper lip. From there, Wakaba could jump past her nose and be clear of any risk of inhalation. Hinata would never knowingly put her at risk like this, but at a guessed size which made her a bug among bugs, so much of Hinata’s body posed a terrible danger by her simpy existing, regardless of her intent. Having so narrowly avoided going into Hinata’s mouth by a stroke of luck, Wakaba couldn’t help feeling uneasy at the pitch black valley which loomed to one side. With how her lips were, going there would’ve meant almost certainly drowning inside a lake of saliva. Or something far worse which Wakaba quickly brushed aside. ‘I’ll be fine. Hinata won’t… Eat me...’
Wakaba couldn’t be certain how long she trudged along, the process was slow and she barely moved, but she did eventually start making some progress. She didn’t want to risk jumping anywhere close to Hinata’s nose or mouth while she was breathing.
Without warning, Wakaba’s entire world moved like an earthquake, Hinata’s lip shifting with motions that were unlikely to be even consciously noticed by a normal person, but were like being in a landslide to Wakaba. Before the movement could even settle, more motions heralded a terrifyingly huge, slimy pink pillar erupting from the chasm of Hinata’s mouth. It was like watching a skyscraper suddenly appear out of the ground. A sheen of saliva coated the entire side facing Wakaba, numerous bumps and dots lining the whole structure, giving it a look of a mass of dots instead of a solid object. But none of the physical characteristics were the most fear inspiring, it was the skyscraper sized tongue coming directly for her.
Wakaba didn’t even have time to start moving or scream before the fleshy tower impacted like a wet building collapsing on her, squishing her into the soft embrace of Hinata’s plush lips on one end and the many ridges of the tongue on the other, burying her inside a torrent of spit. Barely even a second into the torment, Wakaba felt herself moving downward. She couldn’t even scream inside the puddle of liquid she was trapped in, helpless as Hinata’s tongue claimed its prize and retreated back into her mouth with a new snack.
Frantic and desperate for anything so survive, Wakaba flailed her hands around till they touched some kind of bump with a tip roughly the size of her palm. Without hesitation, Wakaba gripped one in each hand as she started to slide down. It was like standing under a waterfall with the constant stream crashing and sliding over her, but Wakaba held firm with her will to live.
Mercifully, not long after her lungs started to burn and beg for air, the crashing waterfall ceased, leaving Wakaba with barely enough room to stick her head out and relieve her lungs. The air she breathed was damp, hot, every bit carrying with it Hinata’s own breath, but it was something.
Panting, Wakaba tried to look around, only to be greeted by a pitch black and humid location. Not matter which direction she looked, only the sounds of Hinata’s body greeted her. When pulling her tongue back in, the girl’s mouth had clamped shut, robbing its new prisoner of any light, as if to further try and hammer in Wakaba was gone to the outside world and could become a morsel at any second.
At least she had these bumps to hold onto, bumps which rubbed against every centimeter or whatever was like a centimeter now like a squishy rock climbing wall. The sticky grip and being mostly buried in spit was yet another mixed blessing, as it aided in staying attached, but it was slowly rising in concentration. The liquid was beginning to irritate her skin though, almost like an itch. What was she holding onto anyway? It was difficult to tell with no light. ‘If this is Hinata’s tongue, are these her taste buds? They feel almost as long as my legs...’
Determined to do something, but unsure of what, Wakaba’s world was once more interrupted by a massive shift, the force of gravity aligning in such a way she could tell Hinata had now rolled onto her back. That only made Wakaba’s nerves intensify. If Hinata was on her back now, it meant that it wasn’t a row of teeth or her cheek now below Wakaba, it was the most dangerous thing in the huge cave, something from which would’ve been near certain doom if her grip were to falter.
Hinta’s throat.
She had to do something to get out of this, but what? She was beyond too small to be heard from here but already more saliva was being made in response to Hinata’s tongue tasting Wakaba’s whole body with only a few taste buds. The coating of it was now so thick to Wakaba she had to stick her neck out to avoid being submerged. Worse still, the amount spilling into Hinata’s tongue and filling the gaps on her tongue was starting to very slowly push Wakaba outward. There was always it was from her continuing to shrink yet even more, or a combination, but the girl rapidly brushed the thought aside. She didn’t want to think about growing even tinier, not now.
Even the few signs she wasn’t still entirely imperceptible to the macro world only made her situation worse though, from being effortlessly licked up by Hinata’s tongue and then the flood of spit over it savoring Wakaba’s flavor. If she wasn’t much bigger than a single taste bud, yet still sizable enough to be felt, could she go anywhere without this pink leviathan licking her back up? No, that didn’t matter for now. She just had to get somewhere else. Anywhere would be better than becoming a snack, if she could even be called such at this point. Calling herself bacteria felt like a closer comparison.
Making the decision to jump for one of Hinata’s cheeks and pray, Wakaba held her breath and used her unsteady grip on the taste buds to pull herself into the rain of liquid, bracing her legs against the ‘ground’ best as she could.
The world reacted to her squeezes, violently rattling about once more and summoning another waterfall. But this time, the extra motion combined with downward pressure robbed what remained of Wakaba’s grip. Panic gripping her mind, the Hero felt rapid downward motion overtake her. Again, she desperately flailed for something to grab and stop her, but nothing came. All her struggles were entirely powerless against a single strand of spit which had absorbed her so far inside it, there was no hope of touching anything else in such rapids. How could a single twitch of one tongue make her so helpless?
GULP.
Even among the chaos comparable to a whirlpool, that one, horrifically loud and terrifying sound rang out, turning Wakaba’s blood to ice at the implications.
Hinata had swallowed her. She had been eaten.
She hadn’t even felt herself physically pass or even touch Hinata’s throat. She was so small, so insignificant that the ‘tiny’ portion of saliva currently making Wakaba its captive was infinitely more noticeable to her body than the microbe of a person inside it. And as a microbe, Wakaba couldn’t do anything now. All she was capable of doing was waiting to be deposited into Hinata’s stomach as the motions of the waterfall quickened.
But it was starting to look unlikely Wakaba would even make it there. Her lung were already beginning to burn and desire oxygen she couldn’t give, her head was starting to spin, thoughts were growing scattered. However, in the pitch black of Hinata’s gullet, she couldn’t remotely tell how far she’d gone, especially not with her sense of distance utterly shattered. What might have been dozens of meters in her view, likely wouldn’t be more than the width of a single fingertip to anyone else. But no matter what the distance was, if she wasn’t granted freedom soon, she would seriously start drowning! ‘Have... to… get out...’
With her vision starting to go black and spotty, Wakaba was suddenly assaulted by a shockwave which felt like an explosion, tossing her body through the air and giving a fraction of a second for respite till she slammed into more liquid once more.
She may have only gotten a moment of air, but that was all Wakaba needed to regain her senses, yet something new greeted her. This new liquid felt thick and slimy, not entirely dissimilar to the saliva from earlier, it was like some kind of bile. Much more worryingly though, was that where the saliva had started to itch after a while, this one almost burned to be in.
With the slight strength returned to her, Wakaba kicked upward and surfaced with a hungry gasp for air. It was even more unclean than the air in Hinata’s mouth had been, but it was better than suffocating. But it was of little comfort in seemingly delaying the inveitable. With her clarity of mind beginning to return, the true nature of how dire her situation was begun dawning on Wakaba.
She was now in the depths of Hinata’s body, consumed by the sleeping giant and now inside her best friend’s stomach like she were a piece of food instead of a person. But it didn’t matter what Wakaba thought of herself, what the world even thought of her, or even what the very body that had eaten her thought. Human, Hero, bacteria, Wakaba’s classification was irrelevant. She was simply ‘food’ like anything else which entered the rumbling chamber, food to be broken down into nutrients for the body it belonged too.
And already trying to break her down it was. Being inside her friend’s gut, that meant this burning liquid was Hinata’s corrosive stomach acid, already getting to work digesting the new speck in it. At her current scale, the juices acted horrifically fast. Thinner sections of her outfit were already beginning to lose shape and melt off her body from the acidity, the burning feeling progressively intensifying with it. Even with her transformations added endurance, she would barely last a few minutes before being dissolved at this rate! Had she not been in her Hero state, the ocean of acid would’ve likely melted her into part of the soup instantly at this size!
Pain and rapid death lingering over her, Wakaba’s limbs found new strength to try swimming to anywhere safe, but she was in nearly an entire sea, cloaked in perfect darkness that only grew more oppressive with the rumbles of the dangerous gut which sounded like roars, gurgles and groans so loud it nearly made Wakaba unable to hear herself think. The most gentle sways caused by its churning creating tsunamis which threatened to submerge Wakaba and knocked her in random directions even when she didn’t. Even with her refusal to give up, there was not a single spot of hope to look for.
‘I can’t fail here! But what can I do…?’ Was this how she would meet her end? Not to the Vertex, but to the one she was closest with in the whole world, as nothing more than some dust they unawarely inhaled while sleeping? She would never even know what fate had been dealt by their very body. Hinata’s stomach acid would finish dissolving Wakaba into nutrients shortly. From there, she would be processed and turned from friend to body fat for her growing form.
Tamako joked about all the fat going to Hinata’s chest, maybe Wakaba would end up absorbed as part of her bountiful breasts forever, yet not even adding any noticeable amount to them with her microscopic form. No matter what part of Hinata’s body she ended up as though, at least she would always be with her as some small consolation. She could only hope the rest of the Heroes could protect Shikoku without her…
A colossal wave of acid swept Wakaba up in its embrace, ready to bury Wakaba in its depth and finish turning her into food, but no crushing pressure came. Instead, the burning over nearly her whole body lessened drastically, replaced instead by another slimy substance wrapping her up, leaving just enough of her body out of it to breath.
Wakaba blinked a few times as the pain dulled. She wasn’t in the stomach acid anymore, but she had no clue where she was now, she could still hear the waves not far beneath. Reaching behind her, she could feel some kind of fleshy wall past the almost meter deep slime. With it, inspiration and hope struck Wakaba.
By a stroke of luck, she’d been splashed into one side of the stomach walls and stuck in the sticky coating around it. She was slowly sinking back into the lake below, but for now she wasn’t a risk of melting! She had to act fast before anymore acid dragged her back in or she sunk into it though, but already the girl started forming a plan, if desperate.
From this spot, just maybe, she would be able to jump back up Hinata’s gullet. With Hinata on her back, how microscopic Wakaba was, and how things went earlier, she probably wouldn’t trigger any swallowing reflexes. From there, she could use her strength to jump back out of her body, even using her breathing as a springboard to get out. But there would only be one shot for this. If she missed, Wakaba would fall right back into the digestive juices and she doubted luck would work with her a second time. However, there was also the possibility of only hitting another side of the stomach wall, which even if it got her out of harm’s way, would only delay the inevitable at best. She couldn’t try climbing around to look for the way out, that would take far too long and exhaust her too greaty, especially with her stamina already starting to run low after her ordeals. It was a long shot, but Wakaba swore she hear some kind of squelch from above that must've been the esophagus. Any hope, no matter how small, was better than certain death. A Hero didn’t give up when even the faintest hope existed. She was not going to die like this today!
Stomach acid starting to rise and lap at her legs, Wakaba knew it was do or die. With a deep breath, she invoked the power of her trump card, Yoshitsune. A great power washed over her entire body as her clothing transformed. Her half dissolved blue and white uniform was now a clean white loose dress in a style reminiscent of a samurai. Around her mid section rested a deep blue metal armor with maroon and gold highlights. Lastly, around her neck was a long maroon scarf. What she needed now was speed and jumping strength, which was exactly what this even stronger form focused on.
With not a moment to spare, Wakaba shifted through the slime and positioned her body. With a final deep breath and self affirmation, the girl braced her legs and kicked off with all the strength her body could muster.
Launching like a rocket, Wakaba flew through the air tremendously fast. The darkness prevented any sight and with how overpowering every sound made by the stomach was, it was difficult to tell if she made any progress. But all at once, all the groans became muffled, focusing on one single area behind her. Not a second later, Wakaba landed in thick mucus with a dull splash, sinking nearly to her waist.
For a second, Wakaba froze, at full alertness and expecting some new disaster to befall her, but nothing came. No title wave of spit or stomach acid, no swallowing reflex, nothing. She had actually done it, she had managed to escape Hinata’s stomach and land back in her throat! However, the girl refused to allow herself more than a momentary sigh of relief and relaxation. She was not in the clear yet, she still had to get back out of this giant cave, probably a good several kilometers long at least. And she had to do it fast, for it Hinata shifted again in her sleep then who knew what could occur. Ordinarily, she could have crossed that distance in one, maybe two jumps, but fatigue was starting to catch up with her and the mucus along the gullet added resistance in jumping. It’d take her a few, but once high enough Hinata’s breath could carry her the rest of the way out. She only had to hope Hinata would’t swallow another mouthful of saliva, or else it’d drag Wakaba right back where she started.
Pushing her already aching body even further, Wakaba soared up the tube, not even coming close to touching the top between her long jumps that covered easily several hundred meters, each one growing more difficult. She could start hearing the sound of rushing wind from ahead replace the gurgling stomach behind her. Close to her goal, Wakaba slowed her jumps, moving more cautiously. Honed her senses were, she still had only hearing to rely on and estimate where the tornado started. If she got swept up with an inhale instead of exhale, she would get lost as bacteria in Hinata’s lungs, unable to even be felt as an irritant. ‘I have to wait for her to exhale and get pushed out.’
Closing her eyes to focus, Wakaba listed intensely for Hinata’s breathing, how her drawing in air first started as a rushing wave in the distance, only to rapidly grow in intensity before entering the larynx, the rumbling becoming a muffle above her. When she released the held breath, it was the reverse, a rumbling coming from above before exploding in front of her, and then fading. Hinata’s mere breathing was even more unsettling to listen to from inside her body like this. It sounded like a terrible hurricane being generated by every breath in and out. At the normal scale, the sound would’ve been soft, barely audible, even cute from the few times Wakaba had heard it. But now it was far from ‘soft’ as could possibly be. Wakaba had thought her friend’s scale was absurd back at doll size, but it was nothing compared to this. Even now, part of her mind still grappled with trying to understand something like this being an unconscious process in living, a process she herself did with this scale at normal size, and not a great natural disaster. It simply didn’t feel real that she could be capable of this even at normal size. It was similar to being told an impossibly large number and knowing it was enormous, but unable to truly comprehend the scale in one’s mind’s eye.
‘No, enough of that. I can’t get distracted. Need to focus and get this right.’ With a shake of her head, Wakaba refocused herself. She had it down now, she could predict the patterns and see when the flow of air would be rushing outward. She only had to wait for this inhale to finish and…
‘NOW!’
A second before the exhale started, Wakaba jumped, sailing through the air. Timing when the wind would come, Wakaba tensed up and braced her body exactly when it slammed into her back and swept her up in the center of it. It was exactly like being caught up in the world’s most powerful hurricane, sending her tumbling like dust in the wind, an apt comparison with her size unlikely to be far from a speck of it. Wakaba had no control in the slightest as she was carried up Hinata’s throat and to what she hoped would be freedom. Her only indication of going anywhere was the faintest trace of light starting to filter into her blurred world, but it was impossible to make sense of anything with her entire vision one giant blur, other than the light was getting closer and more intense.
Vertigo overtaking her, light instantly flooded Wakaba’s whole world from nearly all direction instead of focused from one. With it, came something Wakaba was able to use in anchoring her sight. Growing ever closer, there was a giant, round and white mountain she was spinning toward. Mountain was the only proper way to describe it. Aside from the lack of a clear peak, the sheer size was every bit matching one of the many rocky formations that dotted Japan’s landscape. In her daze, nothing came to mind of what this mass could’ve been, but all Wakaba knew is it looked infinitely safer than the inside of her friend’s stomach had been.
Almost close enough to crash into it, the ‘mountain’s’ features started taking on an unusual look to them. Uncountable lines wove together in a cross pattern, giving the illusion of a solid object from afar, yet revealing the true nature of many much smaller objects stitched together as one massive structure. Yet, it was imperfect. She couldn’t be certain with how disoriented all her senses were, but were there holes between the cross sections? They were small, not too different in size from Wakaba herself, but there were gaps in the thread looking material. And she was heading right for one!
Trying to orient herself, Wakaba reached out to grab anything and stop her descent, but her hand met only air as she dove right through the slight gap. White and… pink? Overtook all sides of her vision, till she passed through another hole and one direction turned a dark pink with similar composition as the white mountain of before, while another side in her spinning vision was of skin color, with something also pink briefly visible on it that she was barreling right toward!
Even with the wind pressure behind her gone, the leftover inertia and her already confused senses made it impossible for Wakaba to right her posture before the pink pillar came close. All she could do was brace herself before slamming down into it.
The impact wasn’t quite soft, but it wasn’t hard. It wasn’t like the skin of Hinata’s lips or her tongue, but it wasn’t solid, almost like some kind of soft rubber. The impact sent Wakaba tumbling, where she could feel several cracks beneath her as she rolled, one in particular stopped Wakaba and send her rolling down it before she finally came to a stop
Groaning, Wakaba carefully, unsteadily, pushed herself to stand, using her sword as additional support. She felt dizzy, injured, exhausted, but she could not stop yet, not until she was certain they were safe. Even as her head spun and she felt her body swaying in multiple directions, ready to fall over, she refused to succumb to darkness yet. ‘But where am I now…?’
To the best her shaky vision could provide, Wakaba surveyed her surroundings to make sense of them. There was enough light filtering though the ‘sky’ to observe the landscape was bright pink and she appeared to be in some kind of ‘valley’, large walls with cracks and lines running over them blocking out any way to see the sides. The ground also had several holes larger than Wakaba was at various points, including one directly beside her she had almost fallen in. The whole place looked almost rocky with the cracks, yet the ground was warm and flesh like.
The entire world suddenly rising caused Wakaba to stagger sideways, barely staying standing with the aid of her precious weapon. Gears started spinning in her head with the sudden action, the pieces of the puzzle piecing themselves into a clearer picture of her location.
She had been ejected out of Hinata’s mouth or nose while she was on her back. That put her at an angle directly toward her torso. Then there was the round ’mountain’ she had barreled toward, which in retrospect was covered by the same color as Hinata’s sleepwear and Wakaba swore there had been a second, equally large ‘mountain’ directly beside it. Then there had been the skin colored mountain underneath the layers of what had to be fabric. Wakaba’s face started flushing instantly with the realization dawning on her.
This massive pink ‘canyon’ was Hinata’s nipple! Wakaba had become so small, she had fallen straight through the individual threads of her shirt and bra, then right into the crevice of her nipple! How impossibly tiny was she!? This one tiny section of Hinata’s body was an entire landmark right now, akin to being inside some mega stadium even. Those ‘holes’ were ducts leading into the depth of her breast, and they were bigger than Wakaba was!
More flustered than she had been in her life, Wakaba tried to stand and jump again. She couldn’t stay here. It was far too embarrassing, invading Hinata’s personal privacy, and would get her killed upon discovery. She didn’t want to exist as some perverted speck part of her friend’s nipple, but her body didn’t listen to her. She had used the power of a fairy to give her the strength to escape Hinata’s stomach, but it’d come with the price of draining her stamina even quicker.
Legs like jelly, Wakaba’s balance was effortlessly stolen by the landscape suddenly depressing from an exhale and she tumbled to the side-
-directly into the closest hole.
With her consciousness fading, Wakaba reached out an arm to try grabbing onto the outside ring of the hole, but it was too late, her hand only snatched air and the girl plummeted like a rock. She barely had the energy left to let out a scream as the only source of light grew ever distant while she once more plunged into the depths of her best friend’s body.
She didn’t know how long she fell, everything blurred together with blackness starting to overtake her willpower, but eventually Wakaba slammed into something solid, providing a brief jolt which temporary kept the void at bay. But all she could do was lie there, not even able to muster the energy to push herself back upright. So low was her energy, her advanced form faded in a shimmer of petals, leavinlg her original Hero uniform behind.
The only thing left for her was to contemplate the situation with her remaining thoughts, the faintest light from the distant outside world providing the bare minimum of illumination to avoid total blackness.
‘I’m… inside Hinata’s chest...’ The glum thought slammed what remained of her thoughts with the realization of the situation. Despite escaping from her body once before, fate wasn’t content to let her stay gone for long. Even inside one of the ducts of her chest, Wakaba could still tell she was massively outsized. It was difficult to be certain, but this one chamber had to be bigger than an entire large house for her. Had she avoided becoming part of Hinata’s breasts as body fat, only to end up as a pathetically small microbe living inside it instead? Just one of the many similarly sized things over Hinata’s body, too small to be seen as anything distinct from her body. To any normal person, they could be looking directly at her and Wakaba would be entirely impossible to see or distinguish and may as well been some foreign bacteria in her nipple, not anything so lofty as a normal person. One way or the other, Hinata’s body was effectively her world now. She may as well not of been a human anymore, just one of billions of microbes living on Hinata.
Darkness was rapidly overtaking Wakaba’s thoughts, only temporarily stalled from her rough impact. Maybe things would change once some of her energy had returned and she had the strength to move again, but if she kept shrinking would it even matter? With how dangerous the entire outside world had been already, inside Hinata’s breast might’ve been the safest place she could reach, if she could even get out of it. In a twisted way, Hinata was still unknowingly doing what she could to keep Wakaba safe, even if it was only keeping her as a microscopic part of her.
On the verge of passing out, Wakaba clutched her sword tightly for some sense of comfort, letting sleep over take her with the soothing company of Hinata’s heartbeat washing over the entire room. She would try again after rest, but she only hoped that her friends could find some kind of solution before something like the immune system targeting her dwindling self happened. She had to trust in her friends…
Eventually, Wakaba felt herself returning to the waking world. The first thing she noticed was the squishy, almost damp ground beneath her. The entire room was also dark and surrounded by weird pink walls. ‘This isn’t my ro-’
Memories of earlier events flooded Wakaba’s mind as it fully awoke, drawing a large frown from her. Part of her had hoped the events of the previous night were all just a dream, that she would awake in her bed, get ready for class like normal and greet all her friends, her all normal sized friends. Or, at the very least, she would wake up with Hinata’s large but not impossibly so form beside her. But, reality was not so kind, she was still nothing but a speck, she was still inside of Hinata’s nipple, and no different than bacteria.
‘I wonder how small I am now?’ With a sigh, Wakaba thought while pushing herself up. Did it even really matter if she got smaller though? She was already in the depths of her friend’s breast and even before had been so insignificant the mere top of her breast appeared as a whole canyon with hills. She was already in a completely different, microscopic world from everyone else and far from being able to consider a human by anyone’s view but her own. Anything part of her old world was all mind mindbogglingly big
But, even as depressive as the situation was, she couldn’t just sit here and mope. Maybe she could go back up the duct she slipped in, catch a small glimpse of the world, maybe even hear her friends talking about something. Her perspective was part of Hinata’s now, so if someone said something around her, perhaps she could hear some ray of hope that was desperately needed. She could have even sworn Hinata’s voice had called to her, but that had likely been only a hopeful dream already fading from her mind.
Thankfully still transformed, had she not been her fate as a microbe would’ve been certain, Wakaba jumped over to the hole in the chamber, now thankfully sideways. Right away, she could see this single duct was much larger than before. It looked like an entire cave, maybe even cave network would’ve been a better term with how other holes were in various places. The ‘roof’ of it had to be the height of a small building, tens of meters high. The landscape was filled with bumps and slopes disrupting the landscape, many of them easily several meters tall if not more. Once more, the world looked like some alien landscape removed from reality. If not for knowing her exact location and the last two days, Wakaba could not have possibly believed this was the inside of her friend’s nipple. Just one tiny passage way, one of many which came together as a small protrusion on a massively larger orb, which itself was also simply one part of an even greater body. Even the smallest bits were all several orders of magnitude beyond what was currently Wakaba’s existence. Was this even moving? If it was side ways, then Hinata was likely awake as moving, but Wakaba didn’t even notice any significant movement. It was as if she was finally part of the breast, moving with it when it did instead of trying to go against it.
‘Is that… Water?’ After several jumps, Wakaba heard a peculiar sound coming from far ahead in the outside world, now that the sounds of Hinata’s body weren’t drowning out anything else. There was some kind of raging water ahead, sounding like some mega waterfall if Wakaba had to guess. It didn’t just sound like one, however, there were numerous coming from all over, but by far the closest was nearly right in front of her.
Spurred on by curiosity, Wakaba quickened her pace, until she reached the exit of the nipple and stood at it to see what the commotion was. In front of her was a wall of white, comprised of endless stitches and threads of fabric thicker than whole buildings. But past it, there did appear to be some kind of waterfall. It was difficult to make out, and simply staring at it and merely attempting to comprehend the scale made Wakaba’s head hurt, but it was most certainly a waterfall, not that she would look up at its full height to make sure. ‘What’s Hinata doing at a waterfall?’
Some impossibly loud sound came from behind Wakaba, appearing to echo through the entire chamber at once, but all it sounded like was a bunch of noise to Wakaba. Some part of her gut told her it was Hinata’s voice, trying to speak to her, but the difference in scale was just too far beyond her. Hinata was in an entirely different world, one which Wakaba couldn’t even understand and properly make out the words to.
Still trying to comprehend what was being told, Wakaba noticed the waterfall grow immeasurably closer as Hinata must’ve stepped into it. The raging waters suddenly became significantly closer, entire lakes worth crashing over the part Wakaba resided in alone in a fraction of a second., rocking and shaking the area unsteadily, nearly knocking her over.
‘What’s Hinata doing!?’ Searching through her mind, Wakaba recalled her friend bringing up some ‘purification’ rituals mikos like her undertook at times, namely before important events, such as seeing the Shinju. But what was the point of that?
‘Wait, is this place getting… Smaller!?’
At first, the microscopic Hero thought perhaps she finally snapped, but no, the inside of her friend’s nipple was actually getting smaller. No, it wasn’t getting smaller, Wakaba was getting bigger. It was gradual, but she could feel it. Her body had a strange feeling coming over it, somewhat like being pulled on or stretched, but she was actually growing! She had almost doubled in height! Somehow, her friends had actually found a way to remove this curse!
Caught up in the euphoria of realizing she could return to normal, Wakaba's eyes went wide upon realizing what growing larger here meant. She had to get out of here before she got too big to get back out! She could worry about Hinata’s reaction to this later!
‘I hope Hinata isn’t as embarrassed as I am...’
Hinata had been fearing the worst possible outcome upon waking up earlier, the outcome which had seemingly come true. Wakaba was absolutely nowhere to be found. The entire group had searched high and low, yet there was not a single sign of their friend. It had taken all of Hinata’s willpower to not start having a panic attack on the spot, slapped in the face with how Wakaba very well could have shrunk out of existence or too small to ever recover. It had only been Anzu’s quick witted reminder of the backup plan, that if Wakaba became too small, she would stay somewhere on Hinata’s own body, that it had been averted. Her friend had continued to calm Hinata’s nerves by suggesting to contact the Taisha, as they appeared to be capable of at least telling if a Heroes’ vital signs were functional or not. A quick call had revealed Wakaba was indeed alive, but they couldn’t be more specific than that. It wasn’t much, but simply knowing Wakaba was alive helped Hinata regain her composure. As long as she was somewhere, a chance still existed.
However, that had then brought up the question of what to do or if any plan had been made. To Hinata’s relief, they had come up with an idea since Wakaba had gone somewhere on Hinata’s body. They were going to try the waterfall purification ritual of cleansing bodies which mikos often did, under the hope it would in some way ‘purify’ the curse, or at least mitigate it enough to return Wakaba back to a visible size. They did give a few caveats to the plan, however. Firstly, was how Wakaba would only grow if she was somewhere safe, that it may only work up to a certain point and may need time to fully ‘wear off’, and of course it would be useless if the Hero hadn’t managed to stow away on her body. They were working with many unknowns and it was a long shot, but Hinata would do anything for the most important person in the world to her.
It had been a long process preparing and getting to the location, especially as Hinata was extra slow and careful in every one of her movements just in case it was where Wakaba rested, but they had eventually arrived and Hinata donned her traditional robe before moving to the waterfalls alone.
“Wakaba-chan… If you can hear me, wherever you are, hold on tight. We’re gong to try and lift this curse.” Hinata loudly spoke, partially to herself. She didn’t know if Wakaba had heard any of the previous discussion or even could hear her words now, but just in case, she had to try.
With a deep breath, Hinata stepped into the ice cold mini waterfall and started praying.
“Hrn!?” Hinata let out a shrill squeak not more than several seconds into the ritual. She had gotten some kind of answer to her prayers, but not in any way she was expecting. Something around her right breast, in particular right at her nipple. The frigid chill of the water sometimes had a natural reaction on her body from the cold, it wasn’t the first time her nipples hardened during this and she had long since learned to tune out earthly pleasures mid ritual, but this was different. Something was grabbing the most sensitive area of her chest, tightly clinging onto and shuffling over it in some desperate attempt to stay on it, rubbing against and further exciting her to where it was difficult to ignore.
Briefly stepping out of the waterfall, an awkward hope filling her alongside the flushed feelings of this sensation, Hinata pulled aside both ends of her robe and exposed her bare chest, where her eyes went wide.
“W-W-Wakaba-chan!?” Hinata shouted at near full volume, unable to contain her relief at the sight before her. Clinging to her fully erect nipple with both hands tightly wrapped around it and legs straddling the pink part of her chest, was the tiny form of her best friend. She wasn’t much bigger than the object she clung to like her life depended on it, and was missing several sections of her soaked to the bone Hero uniform, but her previously microscopic friend was now in front of her and visible once more.
Before they could even respond, Hinata, rapidly yet with all the care one would use handling a great treasure, pinched Wakaba off her sensitive spot and gingerly deposited them in her palm. “Wakaba-chan, a-are you okay?” Remembering to restrain her volume this time, Hinata delicately asked.
Slowly, shakily, she saw Wakaba rise to her feet, coughing a few times till she could finally speak. “H-Hinata! You did it!”
Hinata felt like her face would split open from how wide her current smile was, happy tears starting to freely fall down her cheeks. “I’m so glad you’re okay, Wakaba-chan!” Unable to help herself, Hinata went for the closest replacement for a hug that could be done with Wakaba’s size, gently placing Wakaba and her palm against her cheek with a warm embrace, taking extra care to restrain her strength and keep the hold painless for Wakaba.
She refused to end the hold for a solid several seconds, feeling all of Wakaba’s tiny body delicately pressed into her cheek and applying the faintest rub to help warm her from the cold water that must have been immensely worse at such a size. However, all things had to end eventually, especially when there were still important issues to address and Wakaba had yet to grow back to full size. Daintily lowering her palm, Hinata rested it just before her eyes, near enough to keep a close eye on Wakaba, while also letting her friend’s voice be heard despite the scale difference. But with the initial excitement wearing off, there was one odd, embarrassing question raised upon in Hinata’s mind.
“Um, W-Wakaba-chan. W-What were you doing on.. there?” Feeling her face starting to flush with embarrassment, Hinata asked awkwardly. Wakaba could be somewhat… Dense, so she would never expect her to do anything so bold like that. “W-Weren’t you going to go somewhere like my hair?”
Even with her small size, Hinata could see the red instantly overtake Wakaba’s entire face. “E-Er, um, l-long story! C-Can I g-grow back to normal f-first?”
“Ah! Sorry, Wakaba-chan. Of course...” Carefully, Hinata raised her hand upwards, letting Wakaba step off it and onto her hair. “Try hiding under my hairband and hold on."
“Alright, I think I’m ready, Hinata!” After some shuffling on her scalp, Hinata received her squeaky answer from her passanger.
“Ah, but one thing, Wakaba-chan. I don’t know if you heard, but the Taisha said that you might only be able to grow back a little bit this way, and that it may take a day or two to fully grow back while the curse wears off, but we’ll still try.” Slowly turning back around to face the waterfall, Hinata stated.
She heard a faint, adorable grumble come from Wakaba in response. “Well… That’s still better than continuing to shrink. But, even if that happens, I know I can trust you to take care of me until I’m back to normal.”
Hinata could help a suppressed giggle coming from her at the affirmation, reaching up to carefully stroke Wakaba’s head with her index fingertip. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if this lasted for another day or so, if we know you’ll be fine. That’s enough time for me to fill up a memory card with unique photos for my album~.”
“L-Let’s just see if I grow anymore!” Wakaba quickly answered with a suddenly nervous voice.
It had been a long and taxing ordeal, but at least the end was in sight now and everyone was safe once more.