Struggling Diet Warriors Chapter 1: The Victory of the Diet Warriors (Revamped!) (Patreon)

Author's Note: This is the first story in the Toradora series, Struggling Diet Warriors, which is the first series that we have elected to totally revamp! A special thanks to my fantastic beta reading team, and a specific shout out to Areku for really stepping up his game for this Patreon project! 

You folks will be given a week's early preview to each of these updated stories. We'll also be attaching the pictures, as well as all the new content that's right at the doors! After this, DeviantArt will be fully updated with the modern formatting style.

Thank you for reading, and please enjoy!

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“She must have quit modeling for some reason.” Taiga contemplated.

Ryuuji shifted the bag from their short convenience store trip. “I don’t know. Of course Ami had a reason, but it’s not like our school is cool enough that she’d take time off for it.”

Ryuuji’s eyes shifted to the short girl as she hummed low enough to be a growl. The palmtop tiger, this unstoppable force that lived in such a small housing, did not take well to the intrigue. Ryuuji felt himself grow a bit more worried. A frustrated Taiga usually meant he would end up in pain…

His gaze returned to the road ahead just as a figure passed by under a streetlight at an upcoming turn and slowed. Taiga, her large hazelnut eyes fixed to the ground, noticed her companion… uh, dog, stop. She looked to him and then forwards.

“Isn’t that…” Ryuuji started.

“The bitch.” Taiga snarled, baring her teeth.

Distracted, Ryuuji didn’t notice Taiga rear back on her legs, as if she was about to pounce. He squinted his eyes at the girl ahead, her dark blue hair mixing with the moonlit background of the neighborhood. She was wearing a hideous green track suit with a strange brown hat and sunglasses, and was carrying a full load of groceries… He felt himself squinting suspiciously, questioning his own eyes, but as she passed under the bright streetlight Ami’s flawless skin was illuminated, and he became sure.

“So, I’m not seeing things, it is her,” he said. “Man, what’s with that getup? Think she’d have a car instead of carrying five bags of… is that all junk food? Think she’s hosting some sort of party?”

“She’s not hosting any party.”

Ryuuji turned, surprised by the icy chill that graced Taiga’s whisper. The girl was staring at Ami’s retreating form with all-encompassing eyes. Ryuuji’s brow tugged down as he turned back to look at Ami.

“Her sweater’s a bit bulky…” he noticed. “Hey, you don’t think she’s gone and stolen… anything… Uhhh, Taiga?” he asked the empty air next to him. “Huh? Taiga?” He face forward to see Ami and the extravagant load had gone, then spun around to see a fleeing mane of brown hair whipping through the wind.

“We just saw something interesting!!” she shouted. “I’ll see you later!”

“H-hey! What about dinner!?” he called raising, the bag up. Taiga’s steps faltered and she stumbled before reaching an alleyway corner. 

Then she screamed, loud enough that Ryuuji was sure that the entire town could hear it, “THE DISH I WANT IS BEST SERVED COLD!!!”

And then she was gone, leaving Ryuuji standing there in the humid dark street. 

A thought occurred to him and he looked back to where he’d last seen Ami.

Why the hell was she wearing a tracksuit when it was so hot out?

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The next day, Taiga never came over for breakfast. When he went to her apartment to check on her, Ryuuji found the dollhouse to be entirely empty. It looked like Taiga had never even come home from the previous night.

“She better be alright…” Ryuuji whispered to himself as he entered the school building. “Oh, what do I care. She’s probably just off doing…” he felt an ethereal sting, his face slapped by the ghost of sharp pain as two tiny shoes striking his cheek with overwhelming force.

“I hope she did not follow Ami…” he whispered.

Outside, thunder boomed.

Ryuuji headed to class with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

That feeling turned to ice when he approached the classroom. Just outside the door sat Minori, the red headed girl that Ryuuji had developed a severe crush on, alongside the little palmtop tiger. Taiga wore a very wide, very pleasant, grin. It was one of the most worrying sights that Ryuuji ever encountered.

The two girls were dressed in their formal uniforms at a decorated folding table that was covered in a variety of small sparkling bags. The bags were lightly colored and the entire display was so extraordinarily happy. Ryuuji approached them with an ever-growing sense of doom.

“What are you two up to?” he asked Taiga. 

Minori raised an arm, flexing it. “The softball team has decided to show its gratitude to this wonderful student body and is giving out snack bags to any and all of our fellow comradely classmates!” 

Ryuuji forced his cheeks not to blush as he looked over at the ever-excited red head, whose glow was shining bright enough to obscure the entire-

He blinked a couple of times before forcing his gaze back to Taiga. The speed of the movement loudly cracked his neck. “Then why are you helping?” he asked, trying to ignore the sudden blossom of pain.

Taiga’s wide grin grew impossibly wider, and her eyes dilated ever so slightly. “I am just nice like that. I even made a couple of special bags. Here’s one for you.” She slunk downward beneath the table before reappearing with a plain brown paper sack.

Minori tapped her chest. “I made the rest of the bags,” she proudly proclaimed.

Taiga glared at her. “Yeah, only cause I stopped you from eating all the candy… and hey! This whole thing was my idea!! Why does the softball team get credit?! Aren’t you in the off season?”

Ryuuji returned a level look, taking the bag from Taiga and holding it out from his body. 

When it didn’t explode, he opened it. 

When that didn’t make it explode, he looked inside it. 

It was filled with bone-shaped dog treats.

Ryuuji felt more than saw the sudden flow of the student body turning away from him, but he only had eyes for Taiga. She smiled at him. 

He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it, and then remembered Minori. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the bright red-headed flower awkwardly laughing and rubbing the back of her head. He looked back at Taiga’s toothy grin, frowned, and stalked into the classroom, ignoring the fervent whispers of his delinquent appearance.

“I will never be able to understand that girl,” Ryuuji muttered to himself. “We’re friends one moment, and then the next thing you know...” he dropped the bag down on his desk to emphasize his point to nobody.

Nobody took the form of Yusaku, Ryuuji’s neighbor in class. Yusaku looked from the bag to Ryuuji. “Oh hey, you got one too?” He held up a gorgeous looking bag with sparkles and designs drawn on it. “Minori gave this to me. She said her ‘feline assistant’ helped make it, but that I’d just missed her. It looks like you got a special one too! Though, so long after Valentine’s day, you’d think they would have picked better snacks.”

Ryuuji growled.

“Oh, wow Kawashima!” shouted a feminine voice. “I love your bag, it looks so cute!”

Ryuuji turned to face the rear of the class. Two girls, Maya and Nanako, were in the back, greeting Ami Kawashima. Ami, for her part, looked like she was trying to avoid the bag at all costs. She held it out at an arm’s length, clasped between two fingers like it contained something rotten. Impressively, she maintained a wide smile that shined over her body language.

“Yeah, the girls said they made is especially for me,” she said, seeming a little embarrassed.

Yusaku sighed. “I really hope she’s not just trying to show off,” he whispered to Ryuuji.

“What’s in it?” Maya asked Ami.

Ami laughed. “Oh, just a bunch of fruits and vegetables. I’ll be honest, I’m not too excited about it. It’s nothing to make a huge fuss over.”

“Maybe they figured that you wouldn’t be into candy, being a model and all,” Nanako replied. “I got a bag filled with enough candy that I won’t be able to go out for the next month if I eat even half of it. I’ll be spending all my time at the gym.” Her face fell and she grumbled, “Which I do enough of already.”

“Mine is too!” Maya mourned. “It’s so unfair to have so many sweets around all the time. And I gain weight so easily…” she poked at her flat stomach, “It’s like just looking at them gets to me!”

“Hey, I’ve got an idea!” Ami exclaimed. “What about we trade, I can take your bags and then you two can share mine! That way everyone wins,” she flashed the girls a big smile.

“Oh no,” Yusaku breathed, fixing his glasses.

The two colorful girls looked at each other, showing hesitation. It was clear that neither of them wanted to give up their sweets so easily.

Maya was the first to reply. “Well, I don’t know… Maybe it’s not, that easy.”

“Yeah, I mean, one or two couldn’t be that bad…” Nanako hesitated.

Ami drew up to her full posture, her wide smile going even wider. “Girls, girls, please!” she exclaimed.

But something else abruptly stuck out to Ryuuji, looking so out of place that he performed a double take. As she rose up, her tiny skirt pulled up and up along her leg, showing a set of thighs that looked more than just shapely. 

Not noticing his wandering eye, Ami continued, striking a speculative pose with a hand on her firm waist. “Do you want all of your work to be for nothing? Really, I’m trying to help you here, can’t you see? If you eat even one piece it’ll turn into two and then three,” she lifted her fingers and began counting, discouraging eyes over a tight sniggering smile, “and before you know it you won’t even be able to fit in your uniform anymore. You’ll totally regret it if you don’t trade with me.” 

With a warm compelling voice, Ami was playing the girls like puppets. She was ditching her own bad bag for two good ones, and then was acting like she was doing the other girls a favor! 

Ryuuji could see the fear that Ami was playing off of in the other girls’ heads as they glanced at one another.

“Well… maybe you’re right,” Maya said. “But what about you? Won’t this mess with your diet?”

Ami laughed and waved a hand in front of her mouth. “Diet? I have never been on a diet!”

That warmth that had been in the air suddenly turned to ice, and every girl in the room froze where they stood. Like a military formation, several women snapped to attention, turning to face Ami and her playthings.

“W-what? Really? There’s no way, I’ve seen you in pictures and magazines! You have to have been on a diet.”

Ami’s laugh became a high-pitched giggle, snidely snickering into her hand while taking malicious joy in their reactions. “Nope, never been on one. I’ve always eaten whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.” 

The frigid temperature of the room dropped further still, and other male students began to catch on as over a dozen eyes were staring with sharp daggers towards the sapphire beauty that was now patting her tight stomach.

“I-is she mocking them?” Ryuuji asked Yusaku. 

Yusaku responded by facing away and closing his eyes.

“That evil…” whispered a nearby girl. Ryuuji spun to face her, see the genuine anger in her shaking fist.

“That witch…” whispered another, and again, Ryuuji looked around. All the girls, he noticed, were quaking with jealousy and rage, cursing under their breath. The entirety of their attention fixated on Ami.

Too busy to notice the tiny brown mane of hair sneaking through the classroom doorway. All except Ryuuji, who was beginning to smell blood in the water and so was high tuned for the feline stalking in their midst. 

He saw her bobbing up and down, instinctively knowing that Taiga was hurrying about on tiptoe from her step, despite the obvious lack of need. The class was lost inside of an arctic gale as Ami went on.

“I have been told I have really good genetics,” Ami ignorantly continued, eyes closed as she bolstered herself. And again, Ryuuji found himself looking at her skirt, at her hips, sensing something was instinctively off. They were too wide, too… thick. Another moment and he saw that they touched in the center, and they had been rubbing up against each other quite vigorously, shown by angry red marks on pale white skin.

Ami usually tried to act clumsy and friendly, but that personality was freezing, replaced by the snow queen. Her chest puffed out as she spoke down to those around her from such great, frigid heights. “I love to eat anything that I want, pastries and candies are some of my favorites, but as long as I eat some healthy foods then I’m fine. I can’t even remember the last time I worked out.”

She laughed, a loud, mocking, and terrible laugh. Even Yusaku was watching her with open shock. Ami opened her eyes and noticed everyone staring at her and froze, hand still to her face.

“… eh?” she swallowed.

“NOW THIS I CANNOT ABIDE!” shouted the excitable voice of Minori from the door. There was a clatter of screams as girls dove out of her way, a red bull charging into the room at a full sprint.

“What in the-” Ami started, but was caught off abruptly as Taiga sprung up behind her, her arms shooting up beneath Ami’s and tightening behind her neck. Ami’s gaze flipped over her shoulder, looking in shock before struggling. “Hey! Let go of me!” she screamed.

With a fierce cry, Minori leapt the remaining five feet and slammed her open palm against Ami’s extremely flat stomach. The fabric reverberated and Ami let out a pained gasp as her diaphragm suddenly collapsed. Her thick thighs slapped each other as she tried to collapse, held up by Taiga’s lock.

“What the hell are you-” Ryuuji started, but Yusaku placed a hand on his shoulder and cut him off with a silencing gesture.

“I knew it!” called the two assaulting girls at once. Minori raised her hand again before bringing it down once, twice, and then Ryuuji noticed a sound that he’d missed the first time. The sound of ripping fabric.

“Release it from your prison, illusion caster!” Minori screamed and brought slapped Ami’s tummy. 

This time there was a terrible, wrenching sound. Ami’s school jacket snapped, golden buttons flinging wide as a large potbelly came exploding outwards. The rounded belly smashed through the uniform, sending fabric flying and nearly hitting Minori in the face with her own rebounding hand. 

Ryuuji just starred in amazement as he saw the beauty queen’s sides form fatty love handles. An awkward tilt from Taiga’s stranglehold made the excess of stretchmarks on the model’s flawless skin abundantly clear. A detached part of him noted just how deep her navel went.

“Found you at last!” Taiga screamed as everyone else went into shocked silence. 

Ami’s pale face was scarlet as she screamed out in terror. She began thrashing, her thighs looking fat now rather than curvy, trying uselessly to free herself from their grasp. Her bulging belly jiggled violently, causing the garter that had been keeping Ami’s fatness in place to fall out from underneath her white dress shirt. She screamed even louder.

“What does your genetics think of this!?” Minori called, grabbing two handfuls of flab. She bounced it up and down, turning Ami’s reddened face turned redder still, highlighted by her the deep blue of her wavering blue hair.

“Ahhhh! Let me go let me go!!!”

“Teacher! This fatso is hiding all her flab in her gut, along with half the school’s cafeteria!” Taiga called. Ami flailed, but she was held tight by the palmtop tiger.

“Heeeellllpp!” Ami called, unaware of the smarmy grins that were creeping over every girls’ face, as if they were watching a public execution. Some of the ice left the air and a few students began to laugh at the display.

“What did you eat for breakfast?” Minori shouted. “I can feel it all inside you!” she squeezed Ami, who let out a gasp, and her fingers sank into her sides before popping back out. She began kneading the girl’s engorged stomach, ignoring her torn uniform. “A full tray of meat buns, four full pints of ice cream, an American feast of dark cherries. Is that a whole tray of donuts? You can’t hide from me! I know your sugary temptation all too well! Beast, I banish you!”

Both girls let go now, backing off two steps and letting Ami really take herself in. She didn’t look at them, could only gape at herself, her arms still wide as if she didn’t know she had any control. Slowly, she realized, but then it was too late. She only had time to look back into Minori’s glare before the bull stabbed a finger out toward her tummy.

“For every girl that struggles with their body, for every girl that works her literal butt off, take this!” Minori screamed. “The divine fist of the convenience store!!” They attacked like warriors, with battle cries that pierced through the classroom’s loudening laughter.

Minori went in low, gripping the pudgy girl’s large waist with both hands, while Taiga went in high, squeezing Ami just beneath her ribs. Minori’s fingers were entirely hidden as her hands flexed against the jiggly substance. Ami’s neck went limp as she tilted her head back in one final terrified gasp.

The girls released her, and Ami slumped with a shocked gasp to the floor. Her knees knocked together, sweat dribbling down her face. In light of her tummy, Ryuuji noticed her face looked fuller, cheeks looked chubbier. How much the exposure damaged that divine beauty. Ami looked as if she could barely breath, her eyes were wide with shock while she cupped her enlarged stomach. She was gasping rapidly in clear panic.

Minori raised a hand and saluted. “For the diet warriors who have fallen before, may you inspire us all to fight on.” Taiga joined her by her side before both girls let out a cheer of victory, high fived, and sprinted from the room. They were accompanied by more than a few cheers.

Ami sat there, tears leaking from her eyes before they scrunched down into a murderous glare. “Those little-”

“A-Ami? Are you okay?” Maya asked. The orange-haired girl looked to be fighting back a smile, though it was a losing battle as eyes couldn’t pull away from Ami’s belly. She leaned over and poked and the torn fabric of her ruined garter.

Ami noticed. 

“I-I-I…” she began to stutter, staring at her exposure, at her revealed secret.

Ryuuji watched as her stomach bounced with each gasp. She was trying to suck it in, he thought, but there was just too much. 

“I gotta go do something!” she shouted and sprinted out into the hallway, down the opposite way from where the two diet warriors had streaked off.

“When I said she would need help ‘taking off the mask,’ this is not what I meant…” Yusaku sighed, shaking his head. He bent over, retrieving the garter. “Oh, man. It looks like it was already being stretched out, too. Are these flakes from… donuts?”

Ryuuji raised his hands, covering his eyes. “I really don’t think I should be seeing this…” he murmured. 

Still, he found himself peeking, and was met as Yusaku’s parental gaze swiveled to him. 

He groaned, thinking about where Ami could have run off to. “Damn it, Taiga… Why did you do that?”

Ryuuji went to the hallway, looking up and down the length. Behind him, people were still going off. The girls were laughing the hardest, almost cackling with spite.

“She doesn’t need to diet! Did you hear that?!”

Yusaku joined him and he glanced at the garter. There were more than donut stains on it, that was for sure. The undergarment was filthy… It was amazing that it had fit in the first place. There was something else happening now, something more than a simple case of overindulgence. He took it in his hand and something about it felt… frosted. Almost frozen with cold, lacking any sort of fire even though that fat tummy had to be warm.

Not knowing what else to do, the man shook his head. “Well, at least my gift wasn’t the worst one handed out,” he joked with a smile.

Yusaku didn’t return it.