Itsuka Kendo had a long day. Longer and more stressful than anything since the training camp incident. Maybe it was just something she'd have to get used to. She had her license now, and she was working to line up interviews for work-study apprenticeships, not just for herself but for the whole of her class. If she got one, she'd be a real hero. Stressful days would become the norm.

Still... Maybe today would still stick out even then. It was always worse when the stress came from people you were close to.

The ginger martial artist couldn't decide if Saisei's vulgar offer made it worse or better. Who just offered sex like that?! That was crazy! Of course she thought it was a joke, but then Yaoyorozu... Well, not that Itsuka hadn't thought about it a couple of times. Momo was a beautiful girl and completely unashamed of her body. During their internship together she definitely saw Momo naked a lot more than she ever expected to. And there might have been some... Appreciation...

Once or twice.

A few times.

Well, she definitely made a rule that she could only stare for like three seconds! She wasn't made of stone!

So maybe she thought about it a couple of times. In private moments when she could imagine a tawdry scenario, defeating her rival and getting to have some fun with her as a reward... She licked her lips, remembering some pleasant nights alone while wishing she wasn't.

Saisei though... He was an asshole. And she didn't know how to feel about actually fulfilling his wish to see her naked. But she knew how she felt at his stares. As he pushed for more, pushed for her to pose for him. He didn't need to make the offer to let her know he wanted her. She could feel it. Feel his eyes all over her like invisible hands. It was a different experience. A new and unexpected experience.

She shook her head, making a mental note to change her panties when she got back to the dorm. It was nice to have someone appreciate her more muscular physique too. Her costume was designed with hiding some of that in mind. Maybe she could consider a costume alteration? It was pretty early in her career and she hadn't done any real hero work yet. She liked her current look, but maybe something with a bare midriff? Or maybe a window?

Itsuka knew she was getting distracted again, but that solidified her opinion. He probably didn't mean it to, but Saisei's offer did help. Let her get her mind off her problems for a little bit. Because what would come next wouldn't be fun.

She opened the front door of the 1-B dorm building, finding about half the class hanging out in the lounge area. "Did he come out yet?" she asked.

Shoda shook his head. "I tried but he didn't even answer. I don't think he wants to talk."

Well that was tough. Monoma had spent long enough refusing to confront his problems. "Okay."

"You were gone a while," Setsuna commented.

"I wanted to apologise properly. For what I did, not just Monoma."

"Huh. Did you...?" The girl with the body splitting quirk formed a ring with her detached finger and thumb, before detaching her other thumb and poking it through the ring. Vigorously.

Itsuka blinked, before her face turned red. "Eww! No! Who even just asks that out of nowhere?! Also isn't it supposed to be a finger, not a thumb?!"

"From what I heard it should be my whole hand," Setsuna answered with an eyebrow waggle.

With a roll of her eyes, Itsuka did her best not to picture what half of UA had seen as she moved on. Headed upstairs to... The girl's dorms for a quick freshen up and change. Stupid sexy Yaoyorozu and weirdly sexy Saisei– Wait, not sexy just a– Ah, screw it. He was handsome even if he was a jerk. He hadn't gotten with Yaoyorozu for nothing.

But, after her change of underwear, she went right back down and then up the other staircase to Monoma's room. "Monoma?" A knock on the door. No response. "Monoma, it's Kendo. We need to talk." Still nothing. "Mono–" The door latch clicked, the door creeping open slowly to reveal the blond idiot. He looked like hell. His eyes dull and lifeless, still in his rumpled uniform. It looked like he had been crying. "Can I come in?"

He stepped aside, pulling the door open for her. "Sure." Waited for her to come in, before closing the door behind her and following her in.

Itsuka sat in his desk chair, noticing the case for his costume was sitting on the desk. Open. The tuxedo inside gently folded and pressed. Monoma sat opposite her on his bed. "So let's talk."

"What's there to talk about?" he asked. "I screwed up."

"Monoma... 'Screwed up' is a nice way of putting it. You understand that, right?"

"What do you want from me, Kendo?" he asked, head in his hands. "I... I wanted to show he wasn't untouchable! That we weren't just the second string, like Vlad King wanted! It felt like I was the only one doing anything, the one taking the heat, and you weren't helping! And apparently you were going behind our backs talking to them without telling us. I'm sick of us being a punchline!"

Kendo sat and let him talk, let him go on. It was pretty typical for him. But by now, she was tired of it and so was everyone else. "Okay. So far that's Mister Kan and me that you've blamed for what you did. Anyone else you want to drag into your self-pity party? Do you even know what I went to talk to him about, or do you still assume everyone is out to get you?" He didn't answer, which was an answer on its own. "I demanded an apology from him, after what he did. He said no, because he didn't feel any remorse for it, which I still think is wrong. But also because he believed if he came to you and apologised because I told him to, you'd take it as someone babying you and fighting your battles for you. I didn't want to believe you'd see it that way, but you've proven him right today. Just knowing I talked to them is enough to put me on your list of enemies?"

"We're supposed to be in this together! It's us versus them! I–"

No. Enough. Vlad King's way of motivating them all might've hit him the wrong way, but it had to stop. For all of their sakes. "Was it us versus them at the training camp?" The question shut him up. "We are in this together. Do you know where we were while you were hiding in your room? We all went over to the 1-A dorms to apologise. All of us. Even Mister Kan. I had my own stuff to apologise for. Everyone else apologised for you, for encouraging you, for letting it get this bad. We went to take responsibility for ourselves and for you, as your classmates. So when do you start taking responsibility for your actions? Because we can't do it all for you, and we shouldn't have to."

"I know I know I know, okay?! I just! I didn't think it would go this far! I had Shinso's quirk from when he bumped into me, and when he tried to loom over me, telling me I don't work hard enough... I train all of the time! The only reason I got Shinso's quirk was because I train myself to copy them on reflex! I wanted to prove he couldn't just walk all over me, that I'm not helpless! I just wanted to scare him! I thought..." His head fell back into his hands. "I thought... Somebody would stop him before it went too far. I wanted him to know I'm not someone he can just push around."

"You just went from blaming me, our class and our teacher, to blaming your victim and some imaginary person who should've prevented the consequences of your actions for you." It was harsh. Itsuka couldn't ignore how hard he flinched at the word 'victim'. But she wasn't going to let him armour himself in his feelings of inferiority anymore. "Was it Shinso's fault for bumping into you? You did try to shift the blame to him when you got caught."

"I panicked! I, that's not what I'm trying to–!"

She grabbed his hands, pulled them away from his face. Partially to stop his hiding behind them. Partially, "Reflex, right?" she asked. "Now for the next ten minutes, you can do everything I can do." Save for the martial arts training but that would undermine her point. "You used your quirk maliciously, and you paralysed one of the strongest students in our year and forced him to humiliate himself. Congratulations. You showed just how strong you are. The self-pity over how weak you think you are? That's over. No one wants to hear it anymore. We did everything we could to help you, but we can't and won't save you from this."

She stood, turned her back on him as she grabbed the door handle, looking over her shoulder. "It's time to grow up, Monoma."

-(-)-

"Is that him?"

"Eww, don't get too close."

"Yeah, he could whip it out at any second."

"I heard someone forced him to do it though."

"Yeah, right."

"No really! Remember that gen ed guy from the sports festival?"

It didn't take Saiki long to realise he had maybe underestimated what a problem this could be for him. Gossip didn't really care much what the truth was, especially if there was a more salacious story to be told. Someone stealing someone else's mind control quirk to force him to strip in public? It was a little complicated. And much less juicy than a top hero course student being a disgusting perverted flasher. From what he heard, at best people were willing to care that he was forced into it, but even then the blame rarely went as far as Monoma, instead falling to Shinso.

Who went out of his way to apologise to Saiki for someone else using his quirk. They were both put in a shitty spot. And there wasn't an easy way out.

Still... It wasn't like being publicly shunned was anything new for the orphan of a criminal. He could bear it. The stigma would go away eventually. But for the time being he could use some stress relief.

And he wasn't the only one.

"A-Ahh, ahh, ahh!" Mei groaned, her tongue hanging from her open mouth as Saiki bounced her on his lap. "Deep! So deep! Shouldn't fit!"

It was a good progress on the genius inventress' brain reset. Originally she had been calculating the relative dimensions of her tight little asshole and its capacity to contain his massive cock. Now all she could do was express disbelief. She was getting there.

And of course, Saiki's wonderful girlfriend fucking her with a double-ended vibrator was doing a lot of work toward the goal of melting Mei's brain with pleasure. "Don't think about it, just enjoy it sweetie!" she sang in a sweet voice, her covered index fingers running little circles around the mewling girl's stiff nipples. It was a neat little idea she had when she was making the vibrator. Why not make vibrators small enough to fit into the fingertips of gloves? And so both her and Saiki were wearing a pair. Their hands running over the desperately overstimulated girl's body as they fucked her back and front. Working toward making her brain leak out of her ears.

"A-ah-ha-ahh-ahh!" The pinkette girl's whole body shuddered even as they kept rutting into her, not giving her a moment's rest or reprieve as a full-body orgasm consumed her.

"Aww, is puppy having a good time?" Momo asked.

"Heh-heheh...!" Mei giggled in delirium.

"What does puppy say?"

"Woof!" the girl answered, panting for breath. "Woof!"

"Ah! Good–!" Momo shuddered as well, pausing from teasing Mei to squeeze her own nipples with her vibrating fingers as her hips quaked."... Good girl!"

"I'm close," Saiki warned, for his girlfriend's sake. She pulled back, letting the vibrator slip out of Mei's sloppy mess of a pussy as Saiki grabbed her hips firmly. Then fucked her ass much more vigorously, bouncing her and his own hips to slap their bodies together, driving himself to his peak until he burst, gushing another sticky mess into Mei's clutching asshole. The poor girl groaned, her eyes rolling back into her head as she passed out.

"Ah, that was fun," Saiki said as he carefully lifted the fucked out support course girl, leaving her with her ass up in the air.

"I thought you might need something to help you relax after today," Momo said as she joined him on the bed, helping to clean up the insensate girl. First by making a plug for her ass so she wouldn't leave a mess. "I know you didn't do anything to deserve what's happening."

"Well, let's not go that far. I know he was still stewing over what happened last time." It was how he would've been about it after all. "I'm sorry for leaving you to deal with that. I never said it properly before. I know it put you in a bad spot."

"Thank you for saying so," she said as she kissed him on the cheek. "I know it's still hard for you."

It was easy to forget just how much Momo got him sometimes. Sure, she struggled with relating to his upbringing, but when it came to who he was as a person... She probably put more effort into understanding him than anyone else had, though admittedly that was partially for how much of a gap there was. Katsumi didn't have to work anywhere near as hard. He liked to think he met Momo halfway on that but he really hadn't. Or maybe it was more accurate to say he hadn't needed to. Momo Yaoyorozu was proudly guileless. She wore her heart on her sleeve.

Momo giggled as she put Mei to bed, not realising she was still wearing the vibe gloves until she was brushing herself down with them. Well... If she was accidentally getting her motor running again? He bent her over. On all fours over their sleeping pet. "You didn't think we'd be done without you getting a turn did you?" he asked as he slipped inside her.

"Oh, Saiki!"

Some while later, Mei left behind with a drizzle of Momo's girlcum, Momo and Saiki closed her door behind them as they headed downstairs with an arm around each other's waist. Momo resting her head on his shoulder.

"... I love you."

Her head twisted to look at him so fast he could feel the rush of wind from it. "What?"

That was a good question. Saiki felt a sudden rush of panic as he realised what he said. "I... Uh... I don't know. This maybe wasn't the best time to say it, but, I felt like I couldn't not say it." He couldn't for the life of him figure out what it was that changed between a moment ago and right then. The words just seemed to fall out of him and there was nothing he could've done to prevent it.

"... I love you too." And so it was a relief to see Momo with a radiant smile, glowing with happiness , leading into an understated, loving kiss.

They resumed their descent, an uncontrollable spark of excitement and warmth inside both of them. That was maybe a little dampened as they got to the ground floor lounge.

"Come on, does anyone think this isn't the best idea?!"

"It seems like a lot of work."

"When have we gotten cold feet over a lot of work?!"

"How about final exams?"

"... Okay, you got me there."

"I don't know–"

"Look!" Kaminari pointed at the stairwell as the couple emerged. "Yo, Saiki, back me up here! Wouldn't it be great if we put on a show?!"

"Uhh… What?"

"Come on, man! A concert!" the blond explained excitedly. "Look, things have been pretty rough lately and this thing with Monoma hasn't helped! We need something to get spirits up! A real feel-good event for the culture festival! You've seen Jiro's room!" he continued, Saiki's eye drifting toward his more petite girlfriend, looking at them over her shoulder on the couch. "She can play, and sing! It'll be great!"

Momo gasped. "That sounds wonderful! I can play piano!" Her enthusiasm withered a little into confusion as Kyoka cringed downward. "Uh..."

But Kaminari was undeterred. "Right?! And we just found out Bakugo can play drums!"

Katsumi was glaring at Izuku in a way she hadn't for weeks, the frizzy-haired verdette with a likewise familiar nervousness. "Seriously?" Saiki asked.

"What, you think I only give a damn about hero shit like this nerd?!"

"I said I was sorry..."

"I'm kind of amazed your mom put up with you on a drum kit," Saiki mused. "Then again, she's probably pretty used to non-stop banging."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Sero agreed. Having no understanding of the implication, assuming it was about the bomber's quirk.

Saiki shot a shit-eating grin at his feistiest lover as she quietly seethed.

Kaminari continued, oblivious as ever. "With that, I can take guitar and we'll have a full band!"

"Well..." Momo began, not knowing where she was going from there having realised Kyoka's discomfort all too late.

"Okay," the centre of attention finally answered. Her earjacks twirling around one another. "I mean... I guess since everyone's so excited..."

The 1-A students cheered. What followed was a frenetic conversation of people throwing out ideas for what they could do to enhance the event. After all, they were treating it like a class project and only four or five would be needed for the music. Mina was quick to suggest the leftovers could form a dance troupe she could teach. Iida suggested a light show using Aoyama's quirk to which the flamboyant young man eagerly agreed, vowing to twinkle brighter than ever before.

It was an unexpectedly long night, dance lessons being arranged, band practice being arranged, what was and wasn't possible as an event for the festival with Iida and Momo taking the lead on logistics. It was hours before details were hashed out.

Hours before Momo and Saiki could get a moment alone with their girlfriend. "Kyoka, are you okay with this?" Momo asked.

"I agreed to it, didn't I?" Kyoka answered with a little resignation.

"I'm sorry if I pressured you into something you didn't want to do."

"Didn't–" the petite punk looked between the two of them, "Didn't both of you pressure me into sex?"

"Well yes, but you wanted it." Hearing that, Saiki couldn't help but kiss his deviant love on the temple for being a terrible degenerate like him. It might be his fault, he might have corrupted her. He didn't care. It was hot. "This is something personal for you. If you'd rather not do it, I can say it's not feasible and that will be that."

"It's fine. It's not a big deal." Neither of them believed her and within a couple of heartbeats, Kyoka was listening to both of theirs as they pressed her into a hug. Her head sandwiched between both their chests. Breasts and pecs. "You know this isn't fair, right?"

"It's not fair to close yourself off either," Saiki countered, spoken from experience.

The reluctant musician sighed. "I want to be a hero. That's all."

"That's all?" It sounded more declarative than dismissive.

"I could've done music," Kyoka explained. "Mom and Dad are musicians and composers. But I wanted to be a hero, and if I'm gonna turn my back on their profession then I can't do things halfway. I have to give it everything. Go beyond, right?"

"Man that slogan is a double-edged sword," Saiki groaned. "You're allowed to do things that aren't about being a hero, Kyoka."

"I know that but I don't want to!" she shot back, seemingly annoyed at him telling her something she already knew. "If I'm gonna be a hero I want to be the best hero I can be! That means putting everything else aside!"

"You're wrong."

"I'm not!" she insisted, pulling away from the hug and turning to grace him with a scowl. "That's what it takes! You of all people-!"

"Me of all people. But that's not what I meant. You're wrong believing that's what you want."

Her scowl bared teeth. "You don't get to tell me what I want."

"Did you ever stop helping out at the music club?" he asked, recalling when the two of them first became intimate. "Hero students can't take extracurriculars but you skirted the rules because you wanted to. Did you ever stop? Are the instruments in your room just decoration now?"

He had a penchant for asking the right questions. Punching through arguments looking for answers the other person knew and couldn't deny without actively lying to themselves. It had served him well in his time at UA, surrounded by people who wanted to do their best, to be their best, to have integrity. There had only been one real and very recent exception.

But maybe because of who he was, and what he had demonstrated in his time at UA, this was another exception. "It's not about what I want," Kyoka insisted, only halfway acknowledging the truth of the answer he was fishing for. "It's about what I have to do to... To do what I want. To be who I want."

Someone wanted to follow his example. Or maybe she had this attitude before she even met him. But because he did what she was setting out to do, and had achieved success because of it, he was his own counter-argument. But he could change that. "I want to show you something." He had been working to change that.

It only made Kyoka more annoyed as he led the two girls to his room. Maybe she thought he was angling for sex. Momo smiled as she looked at the child's drawing pinned to the wall, having seen it before. Meanwhile Saiki moved under his bed and pulled out a large box with a padlock on it.

"What's that supposed to be?" Kyoka asked with a frown, Momo equally confused.

Saiki let out a breath. "Promise not to laugh." It wasn't said as a joke. He waited, stared at both of them until he extracted a genuine promise from them. Then he opened it.

Kyoka's frown sifted from annoyed to confused as she looked at the contents. "What is all this?"

"This is... Me trying to figure out what I am when I'm not a hero."

Inside were a bunch of seemingly random hobby items. A small musical keyboard. A sketchbook with some art supplies from charcoal to ink to watercolour paints. A handheld game console. A whittling knife and various pieces of wood in assorted shapes. In all, around a dozen different nascent hobbies.

"I also have some plants I keep on the roof," he added, pulling his attempts at artwork out of the box. He handed his sketchbook to Kyoka while picking up a little wooden carving. "This was supposed to be my logo but uh... One of the wings broke," he admitted handing it to Momo.

"Is this supposed to be me?" Kyoka asked, showing him a deformed charcoal portrait sketch with cords noticeably dangling from the ears.

"... Yeah. I'm working on it." Saiki shook his head, trying not to let his embarrassment show on his face any more than it already had. "I gave up everything else so I could be a hero. So I could be the best. It wasn't just about money even if that was a factor. If I scrimped and saved I could've afforded something." He stood, taking the sketchbook back from her and carefully putting it back in the box. "But I couldn't afford the distraction. That was what I told myself. If I wanted to go as far as I could go, I couldn't allow myself anything else. So, I didn't have any hobbies, I didn't have anything in my life except training to be a hero. And you know what? That kind of single-minded obsession made me a shitty person and would've made me a shitty hero."

"You weren't that bad!" Momo insisted, and... He didn't need to respond to that. Kyoka's expression screamed how much she disagreed. Saiki could understand that. He remembered the first hero basic lesson they had when he bore down on her through a storm of soundwaves. He'd definitely made better first impressions.

"Do you know what made me better?" he asked, eyes flicking from one girl to the other. "You. And everyone else. I found something to care about that wasn't just my goal, and that pushed me further toward being a real hero than all the training. Being a hero... It took me too long to realise this, but it's not just being strong and saving people. It's not being in control." He walked past Kyoka's shoulder toward the picture on the wall. He pulled it off and smiled at it, as he had every time he looked at it. "It's being someone who can inspire. Who people admire for all those other things, but also as an example of the kind of person they can be." He turned the picture around so they could see it. The little girl's drawing of her heroes, him among them. "That doesn't come from doing what you have to do. It's from what you want to do. Kyoka, you want to be a hero. You love music. You don't have to give up anything. Everything you love makes you the best hero you can be."

Momo's hands were clasped together over her chest, a wide smile on her face. Kyoka seemed... Less moved. At least until she pushed his arm out of the way and pulled him down by his collar. "Saiki." She kissed him. "Don't take this the wrong way. That is the sappiest shit you have ever said to me, and I can't believe it came out of your mouth."

"Uh– Well, yeah, I was trying to be heartfelt? To get my point across that you shouldn't try to be how I was because it sucks and makes you miserable."

"Uh-huh. I get that. So are you good on tampons? You can have some of mine if you need."

"... This might have been a mistake."

"No, it wasn't," she said, suddenly switching gears. "It's... I think I get what you're trying to say and I'm gonna have to think about it. But right now I'm way too anxious about how sappy this suddenly got? So I'm gonna need you to go back to being an asshole while you pound mine."

"Oh. Alright then." Saiki put the drawing down on his desk, then on second thought flipped it over so it was face-down. "Strip down, anal slut."

"See?" the punk anal slut asked with a smirk on her face as she quickly got undressed. "That's better."

-(-)-

A/N: This chapter seen very early by my generous supporters on THE GREAT FORBIDDEN P! FEAR THE P! LOVE THE P!