Returning to the daily grind that was Yuuei's education system was a breath of fresh air for Momo. She felt absolutely nothing but legitimate joy to be back in her seat, being told what problems to solve by her various teachers, and actually making progress in her studies. It was almost serene and zen-like for her, despite the crushing amount of work that she needed to do. She was more than glad to do it though. It wasn't like it was a struggle. She understood it all perfectly, and it wasn't necessarily an issue, though she did need to consult previous notes at times.

To many people, a week away from school would be a gift, even if it was for something like work placement. Not so much for Momo though. She liked to keep busy, and enjoyed the challenges that her academia presented her with on a regular basis. She felt like she was actually achieving something whenever she got her answers right, and she came to learn from the silly mistakes that she made.

When it came down to a choice between what she felt she was the best at, she would always respond with her academic studies. She was aware of her intellect, and she always tried to put it to good use, never letting her mind go numb and rot by neglecting her work. She was always careful to never let her pride blind her to what she was lacking though. As such, she lacked any major ego, and was acutely aware of her flaws, and did her best to learn from them.

And flaws, she had in spades. She'd been aware of them since the Sports Festival, when everything had come to light in such a drastic and sharp way that she became amazed that she ever had been unaware of them.

Momo let out a small sigh as she thought about this, and scanned over the room. All around her were people whom were far stronger than she was, who knew the practical elements of Heroism far more than she would ever.

Sometimes she did wonder, were academics the most important aspect of being a good student? This question applied double for those who were pursuing a career in Heroism. Intelligence was valuable, no question…. But it wasn't necessarily going to be the thing that a Hero could use to put a wall between them, the Villain they fought, and the hostages the Villain had taken. Momo wouldn't ever go as far s to say that one could completely forgo intellect…. But she was surrounded by people whom seemed to possess both immeasurable power, and sufficient intelligence.

Perhaps not the most obvious case to the unaware, but the one that was the most well-known and revered throughout Class 1A was probably Midoriya. A shy, quiet boy whom had surprised everyone, time and time and time again with his intellect and practical know-how, with his persistence and his ridiculously powerful Quirk. Despite being so nervous in conversation, when he was thrown into a battle, he exhibited a cool and calm, yet incredibly strategic mind. He had total faith in himself. At least, that was how it seemed to the onlookers.

What was undeniable was that when he went into battle, he was confident, or at the very least not second guessing what he did as he did it. He had enough faith in himself to go through with a plan that he had, and had the skills to back it up. No one would be able to guess it from looking at him, but he was one of the classes universally respected students, one that everyone seemed to silently agree had the makings of a great Hero in him. The Sports Festival had cemented that idea within their minds, and it would take something even more extraordinary to change their opinion of that.

"Boop. Boop. Boop."

"M-Mina, could – Could you please stop that?"

"No. Boop."

"M-Mina!"

"What? They're cute!"

"Would you two pack that the fuck in already?!" Bakugou yelled over his shoulder, and Momo could swear that she could see his pencil snap in two within his palm.

It was hard to remember that sometimes, especially with how much of a blushing, flustered, and exceptionally awkward mess he seemed to be around Ashido lately, that Izuku was one of the top students in 1A. Their recent relationship had been certainly an unexpected one, and the revelation of it had been totally out of nowhere, mostly thanks to Kaminari and his lack of a thought-to-mouth filter. Still, it was a rather nice thing to see, the Creation Quirk user wasn't about to deny that. As she thought about this, she couldn't help but smile softly as she watched the pink girl gently poke at Midoriya's freckles, reservation and subtly not being one of Ashido's strong points. After all the madness that they had all gone through throughout their first term, something so quaint and normal was just nice to see.

Like it reminded her of her youth – Sometimes, Momo felt like she had aged about twenty years, until she remembered that she was still a first year.

Ashido herself was another person of extreme confidence when it came to her combat ability. It was honestly rather rare to see her in a battle without a grin on her face. She almost seemed to enjoy it, and used it to push herself to improve. A lot of it no doubt came from her carefree personality, and how she never seemed to let her mistakes haunt her. Momo certainly couldn't help but envy that.

Todoroki was another fine example. Without question, one, if not the strongest student in all of Class 1A, his extraordinarily powerful Quirk combined with his quick thinking and cool persona. He already moved and fought like he was a Pro. He knew how to lead with absolute perfection, and how to fight ruthlessly when needed. Without question, it made him one of 1A's most amazing fighters. One who was going to make for an amazing Hero.

Despite the troubles of his home life now, and his recent misadventure with a horrifying villain, Iida was using it to drive further ahead too. He never hesitated in the first place, and he was just getting stronger and stronger.

Bakugou too. Momo didn't even need to go into detail about what a ridiculously talented fighter he was.

And then there was her.

The final bell for the end of classes rang, and all around her, her fellow students began to get up and leave. Aizawa woke from his long nap almost immediately and gave them their flat reminder to remember to keep up with their studies before leaving the classroom before any of his students could, likely just as eager to get home as they were. Some students made beelines right for the door, wanting to get out of the building as soon as possible, while others stuck around for a bit longer, grouping up and waiting for friends before leaving.

Momo didn't have any intention of leaving the building quite yet though. For a short time, she didn't even stand up, or close any of her textbooks. Instead, she remained still, unmoving like a statue, before the outside world called her back.

"Hey, Yaomomo, you coming or what?" Jirou had approached the taller girl with her backpack slung over her shoulder. As close friends who had both fought in the USJ together, the pair of them often walked together on their way to the train stations.

Not today though. "I'm not leaving yet, Jirou." Momo responded politely, shaking her head as she did so. "I have some things here I wish to go over."

"Sure thing. Hope it goes well for you." Jirou nodded in her understanding, before she turned and made her way out the door, offering her friend a wave as she went. It wasn't until her friend left that Momo allowed her fake smile to reside.

More than anything, Momo wanted to get stronger. She knew sight unseen that the final exams for their first semester would be twofold – Academic and practical. And while she was absolutely confident in her academic abilities, she was in no way sure of her combat skills. And that was something she was desperate to improve on. Something that she knew she needed to improve on, or she risked failing the entire exam.

Internally, she debated approaching her classmates for help. People who were far more skilled in fighting than she was. People who actually knew what they were doing.

She ruled out Midoriya immediately, as well as Ashido. While both were skilled fighters, the pair of them were virtually joined at the hip these days, and they no doubt had plans, which she didn't want to get in the way of.

Iida was an option, but he was usually so devoted to his position as the Class President. Indeed, a lot of the time he spent at the school after the classes had ended was devoted to those duties, and it didn't feel right to her to drag him away from those duties for a self-centred reason. Especially not after what had happened to his brother at the hands of the Hero Killer, as well his run in with the Villain. He had enough on his plate without her adding to it.

On the flip side, while most likely completely available, Todoroki was simply in a complete league of his own. The sheer confidence he exhibited and how effortless leadership came to him, she doubted that she could even begin to keep up with him.

And Bakugou…

…That… Simply wasn't going to work for her.

Her fellow students had their own matters to deal with. Interrupting their lives just to request assistance didn't feel right to Momo, though that did leave her at an impasse. Under other circumstances, she could have asked for assistance from their teachers, but no one ever felt comfortable asking for that from Aizawa. The guy was near impossible to understand, and everyone often felt like they were on the verge of expulsion when it came to him. A bit of research onto his reputation had certainly revealed his more…. Strict side, to say the least. As much as Momo wanted to improve herself, she didn't want to risk expulsion due to Aizawa thinking that she wasn't capable. That meant the only other Hero teacher left she could ask was All Might, and she would … But he never seemed to be around. Understandable though. He was the number one Hero in the country, after all. No doubt he was having to go to save citizens elsewhere who needed his help far more than she did.

In a pinch, she could train herself, she supposed… But she had no idea how, what would be the best way to train her Quirk, and what would translate into useful skills that would assist her in the upcoming examinations? Self-assessment wasn't invaluable at all, and Momo knew how to spot her own weaknesses, but that didn't help give her ideas for how to improve on those flaws. If she was working with information only she herself gathered, then she could easily miss something that could be done so much better. And she didn't trust herself not to make all the necessary observations. Besides, how could she be certain that she was making mistakes, and what part of her moves were the mistakes being made?

She was just stumped.

Really, what else could she do other than do more research into materials and their components? If she got lucky, Yuuei's library would be in possession of some detailed pictured encyclopaedias, which she could use to figure out how to create some new materials with her Quirk. If she had more options, that could only be of benefit to her, couldn't it? It made sense to her at least.

And as she let out another sigh, she realized that she couldn't think of anything else to do anyway.

Yuuei's library was, without question, one of the finest when it came to public reading. The school was jam-packed with all the reading material that anyone could ever hope to find. The vast majority of it was academic, which was what most people who came to this section of the building were looking for. Not to say there were no books there just for the pleasure of reading. Comics, Manga, and fiction all shared a shelf at the far back of the room – This was an academic school, after all. Leisure reading took the backseat.

What made Yuuei's library useful was the fact that it was active on requests. With such a large student body, and an enormous focus on it's Hero program, there were an immense number of books that related to specific Quirk types. Ever since the advent of the extraordinary, when the general population began to get Quirks more and more regularly, research books and documented journals based on Quirk types and traits became more and more common. Thesis on activation and origins were plentiful.

Self-improvement books, books that stated would assist their readers in better Quirk control, and everything in-between. Shelves with DVD's also existed for those who were better visual learners than text learners.

Students were even able to request certain types of books and other learning materials. In Momo's case, she was allowed to put in requests for more picture-based encyclopaedia, since it would be of massive assistance for her Quirk. Requests sometimes took a while to arrive though, but when they did, they arrived by the truckload – Sometimes rather literally.

While the internet was an enormous source of virtually limitless information, finding said information could be time consuming and tedious, and the reliability did often have to be called into question. Even then, it had to be certain that the information wasn't outdated. The internet had been around for centuries. It was cluttered with outdated data that needed to be shifted through. Finding out if what was official and accurate could be an arduous process, and frustrating too. That was why the Yuuei library request system was so good. It cut out the researching time and brought the students the important facts and trivia they were looking for, all the background checks for legitimization done before they were shipped to the famous school.

She had been unsure if her request had been fulfilled, but Momo had placed one in a while ago. When she returned to the library and questioned one of the staff who was on duty, she had learned that, indeed, the books had arrived just recently.

A small mountain of books, in fact. At least twenty of them, all based around things Momo could use to far better understand the materials that she would want to create. Several of the books went into great detail to explain the atomic composition of things like useful fabrics, whereas some others provided her with pictorial aids. All of the books she received were useful in some way or another.

Students had to be off of the school's premises by 5:30 PM. That left Momo with an hour and a half to study within the school grounds, and then she could rent out a book or two to take home with her. There were a number of reasons why she simply enjoyed remaining on the Yuuei campus for however long as she could. The most general reason being that she enjoyed the atmosphere, which had a feel of academic drive, rather than back at home, which could feel rather lifeless sometimes.

This is what she would have rather done than her recent internship. This actually had been of use to her.

"Yaoyorozu?"

Momo looked up from her research, finding herself greeted by the friendly smile of Itsuka Kendo.

An amusing coincidence for her to arrive just as she had thought of her internship, Momo thought to herself. Itsuka had been there with her, also on internship with Uwabami, and the two of them had shared a drastic frustration and disappointment with their placement choices. Like Momo, Itsuka had displayed nothing more the desire to improve on her skills as a Hero, eager to make the most out of her placement there.

Neither had gotten what they had wanted from their temporary boss. Still, the pair of them had managed to form a casual relationship between one another, if only in response to their collective frustrations with their workplace.

Momo offered her a smile in response. "Oh, Kendo, hello. I would have thought you would have left by now."

Itsuka showed Momo the books that she had in her hands, holding them so her thumbs were wrapped around the spines. In her left hand, an English language book. In the right, a physical workout self-help book. "I'd love to, but I've got a lot of stuff I need to catch up on. You mind if I sit here?"

"Not at all."

"Thanks." The orange haired girl smiled again, and pulled out a chair just opposite the Creation Quirk user. Momo took a moment to scan the other girl over.

Being in two separate classes, Momo didn't get to interact with Itsuka as much as she did with the likes of Jirou, Ashido or Todoroki. She probably spoke to her more than the rest of her classmates, since both of them were representatives of their classes, Itsuka being the Class President of 1B, and Momo being the Class Vice-President of 1A. Occasionally, they would meet up to discuss matters that would affect the first years, but until their internship, it never really seemed to go beyond that.

Itsuka was shorter than Momo, although it was only by an inch or two. Something about the way that she carried herself made people look to her for a leader. She was rather surprisingly unanimously voted for her position of Class President, even though at the time, the students would have hardly known one another.

Uwabami had commented that Itsuka was cute – And this wasn't something that Momo was going to deny. There was more to her than that though, which was something Uwabami didn't seem to understand about either of them.

At said internship, Momo and Itsuka had been made to share a room together, so naturally, they had to talk a lot more often. There were honestly a lot of things that Momo found noteworthy about the girl. Itsuka seemed to be a lot more blunt about things than her, openly stating her disappointment for whatever menial tasks they had been made to do, and how she had wanted to do something more Hero like since they got there. She wasn't ever rude about it, though anyone who paid attention to her could see that she was eager to actually perform Heroic feats as opposed to putting up with this celebrity-like lifestyle. She put up with the commercial and everything that came afterwards, hoping that there may be a silver lining at the end of it all. There hadn't been.

When they talked, Itsuka made no secret of her exasperation and disappointment at Uwabami. That was all it was. Quiet, tired disappointment. Respect her as a Hero as she may, there wasn't any denying that none of this was what she wanted for herself. She struck Momo as an incredibly humble person, who didn't want to pursue Heroism for fame or for glory. Yet at the same time, she exerted confidence and certainty in both herself and her abilities. Her Quirk was an impressive one with several versatile options that would make her a well-respected Hero come graduation.

That being said, there was something Momo didn't quite understand when it came to Itsuka. Something she couldn't at all place, but there was something there that didn't make sense to her.

"I'm guessing you're studying for the exams at the end of the semester." The Large Fist Quirk user said absently, trying to make casual conversation.

"Hmm?" Momo took a second to process what the other girl had said to her, before gently shaking her head and forcing herself back into reality. "Oh, yes. I… I feel I lost far too much time at the internship."

Itsuka let out a gentle, single chuckle. "Don't remind me." She said. "Compared to everyone else, I really feel like I fell behind thanks to that."

Momo agreed, nodding as she spoke. "I understand. Everyone else seemed to learn so much from their placements…"

"Meanwhile, we were stuck posing in front of a camera."

"Indeed…"

"Monoma and Tetsutetsu still aren't letting me live that down."

"The commercial?" This time, Momo looked at Itsuka with a raised eyebrow. "I thought she said it would take a month before it aired."

"Apparently they wrapped it up early. And Tetsutetsu thought it would be funny to show everyone. I managed to stop them before they could show anyone else, but… Well, you can imagine how embarrassing that was."

They both shuddered. Neither of them were actresses or movie stars or were even particularly used to having a camera shoved in their faces, and nor did they desire such things. It had been a ridiculously uncomfortable and unnerving experience for the both of them. And the end result, neither of them were able to watch without feeling their eyes roll into the backs of their skulls.

The 1A Vice-President was just thankful none of her classmates had seen it yet, though she knew for a fact that it was only a matter of time until they did. She was certain it was going to be either Hagakure or Ashido who ended up uncovering it, and she dreaded the day that they found it. There wasn't any doubt whatsoever that they were going to get all excited about it and charge straight up to her to interrogate her about all of it. Still, Momo knew that those two didn't have any negative intentions towards her and would only do something like that from sheer excitement.

1B on the other hand…She simply didn't know enough about. "...Monoma… He's the person who picked a fight with Bakugou, isn't he?"

"He pretty much picked a fight with everyone in your class." Itsuka corrected, though she sighed as she did so. "He's a bit of a… Weird guy, to say the least about him."

"Seems like a rather… Uncouth thing for him to do." While teasing was something Momo had seen between friends in her own class, she'd quickly noticed that there seemed to be a line that people didn't cross. They did vary from person to person though. She couldn't see Itsuka being too pleased her classmates sharing that commercial around though. She was embarrassed about it as it was, without everyone knowing about it.

"Yeah. I just had to calm him down." The 1B student didn't even move her head. She just held up her right hand in the shape of a martial arts karate chop.

"Is he… Always like that?"

Looking up from the book she was reading, Itsuka seemed to pause momentarily and narrowed her eyes, before holding her hand out indifferently horizontal. "He's not a bad guy when he isn't being… Well, himself, which is most of the time. He's far too competitive for his own good… And I think he might actually have some mental problems. I'm honestly not sure – But he isn't a bad guy at all. He cares about our classmates a lot. I think he and Tetsutetsu got carried away more than anything. Tetsutetsu was the one who showed the video to Monoma first after all, and he just thought it was funny."

Once more, Momo nodded. "I see." She paused briefly. "Our classes don't interact with one another much, do they?"

It was one of the setups that Momo honestly didn't get. She understood the need to separate the classes into two groups of twenty. Forty students all at once would be nearly impossible to teach, and none of the students would receive any of the specialist training that they and their Quirks would need in order to properly develop. That being said, Momo couldn't for the life of her understand why the two groups weren't involved with one another more frequently.

It limited the number of people that the students in both classes knew, which created a slightly isolationist feeling. A number of 1B students simply didn't have anything to do with 1A for one reason or another. It limited the number of Quirks the students were exposed to, which could make some of them develop bad habits when it came to fighting. Joint sessions by both classes could help expose all the students to more varied Quirks, which would only in the long run help them, as they learned to use their own powers to avoid, react, and attack those with different Quirks.

On another note of interacting with a smaller group of people, it meant that their ability to learn to work with different kinds of people was limited too. Twenty was a small number, and it wasn't going to be a good sample for the millions of people out there they would have to work with. Granted, forty wasn't a huge boost in that, but in that regard, a bigger pool was better no matter what way one sliced it.

It cut off a huge number of potential avenues to success, and Momo didn't understand why.

"Yeah, I know." Itsuka agreed. "Vlad King says that it's good for us to have rivals to aim to beat, but I've been debating that it makes sense for us to have some joint sessions with him for a while now."

Momo smiled. "It just strikes me as odd that we're nearly halfway through our first year, yet our classes know nearly nothing about one another."

"I know Tetsutetsu and… The guy who has his own hardening Quirk in your class – "

"Kirishima."

"Right – I know those two interned together, and we did… But that's kind of it. That aside, none of us really know each other, do we?"

All Momo could do was shake her head. It was very true. 1B were like total strangers to her, even though they all shared the same goal, and were in the same course. It seemed odd to her that this was how the school system was laid out – Of course, Yuuei was filled to the very brim with some of the top Heroes and academic minds from all over the country, so she had confidence that the school had some kind of plan and knew what it was doing. All the same though, she wondered what it was, and how it would impact their futures as Heroes.

"I guess it'll be up to us to us to try and fix that, huh?"

Itsuka's sentence made Momo's eyes shoot back towards the other girl once again, this time, slightly wider than they normally were. When they met Itsuka's eyes, the shorter girl gave Momo another smile. The sight made Momo pause. Nothing but genuine kindness and friendliness was behind the smile.

Something about that made her –

"Excuse me, you two." The voice of the librarian suddenly interrupted Momo's thoughts. She and Itsuka both looked towards the older woman, standing a few meters behind Itsuka with several books in her arms. "The library is about to close. If you have any books you want to check out, you should do that now."

Without any hesitation, Itsuka stood up, holding onto her books underneath her arm and against her torso. "Got it, thanks."

Momo blinked and realized that she had zoned out for a second there, for whatever reason. She scratched at the side of her head momentarily, before collecting the books that she wanted to take home with her and returning the remaining ones back to the shelves that she found them on. The whole process took about five minutes, which was finished just before Itsuka had finished renting out her books. The taller girl rented out her books, and the pair of them walked out of the library together.

Peering towards the books in Momo's hands, Itsuka asked, "So, what'd you rent out?"

"Oh, a uh…" Quickly scanning over the title of the book again, Momo spoke aloud, "Alloys and Functions'. It's a specialized encyclopaedia with illustrations and in-depth descriptions of composition."

"That sounds like a pretty advanced read. I'm not surprised though, knowing you."

"It assists my Quirk." Momo explained. "While I can make just about anything that is non-living, I need to know the atomic structure and the makeup of what I'm trying to create. I thought making alloys would help expand my arsenal."

"It's a cool Quirk. There's so much you can do with that."

"Thank you…" Momo knew all of this. Not that she didn't appreciate Itsuka's kind compliments… But Momo had spent a lot of her life being told that she had an incredible Quirk and that she was capable of becoming a grand Hero with it. Her parents had praised her Quirk once it developed and encouraged her development and experimentation with her newfound power. A bizarre mixture of both of her parents' powers, they both had no doubts in their mind that their daughter was going to be an amazing Hero.

Now though, she doubted that.

Her Quirk was powerful, and she knew that it was. But it was wasted on her. She couldn't help but think that. After all, in her hands, it hadn't done a single thing to help her in her battle against Fumikage, and compared to her classmates with more straight-forward combat focused Quirks, her power almost seemed like the odd one of the bunch. One could argue that Hagakure was one of the more baffling cases, but she had found a way to make her Quirk work for her.

That was the difference, she thought to herself. There were plenty of people in 1A who didn't have Quirks that were designed for combat, but they had learned how to develop them and utilize them to make them work. She hadn't. She had thought that she had, but she hadn't.

Against thug level Villains – Sure. But that wasn't really a point of comparison, was it? Those at the USJ hadn't been much more than petty crooks who would normally be found haunting alleyways and racking up minor disturbance complaints, not actively seeking out work in the line of Villainy. When it came right down to it, her strategy had been throwing nets and hitting them with sticks, and then letting Kaminari go loose with his Electrification Quirk. It wasn't even much of a strategy when she looked back on it. When it came down to brass tact's, the two who had saved them back them were Kaminari for his raw power, and Jirou for her 'Human Stun-Gun' improvisation. All she had done was back them up.

Momo had her reasons for wanting to become a Hero, and none of them were routed in fame or glory. Her family was one that had been Heroes for generations, and while that did play a slight part in her choice, that wasn't really the crux.

To put it in as simple a manner as possible, she wanted to give something back. She wanted to help society, because she was so lucky to be where she was, and it only felt right. That was all.

But she didn't know if she was capable anymore. Her fingers gripped onto the books tighter, and her eyes wandered towards the ground. Was she doing the right thing anymore?

"Yaoyorozu?" Itsuka's voice brought Momo out of her thoughts, and she suddenly remembered that she had been in the midst of a conversation. She looked towards Itsuka again to see her with an expression that was somewhere between concern and curiosity, a single eyebrow raised as high as it would go, while the other one buried into her brow. "Are you alright?"

"I… Yes, I – I'm fine." She rubbed her eyes with her free hand, her eyes stinging as she did so. "I apologize. I…. I'm just a bit tired."

Not technically a lie, either. Exhaustion had suddenly caught up with her before she'd even noticed it, but she had powered through her own fatigue when it came to her studies in the past. The vast majority of her exhaustion right now came at her own self-depreciation. So much of it stuck with her that it felt like chains trying to drag her back to the ground.

If she studied hard enough, would she feel better? Would that help? Would it –

"Hey, we're… Friends, aren't we?"

Itsuka's question caught Momo by surprise, and all her thought processes screeched to a halt. Her eyes widened slightly, and she turned to make eye contact with Itsuka.

It didn't go unnoticed by the shorter girl, whom used the fingers on her right hand to twirl some of the strands in her ponytail in an unusual show of awkwardness. "I just mean… I know we don't exactly talk often because of our classes and schedules… But after our internship, and the train wreck that was our internship, I've kind of thought of you as a friend of mine."

She shifted the weight of her body all onto her right leg, making her hip cock out slightly. Her eyes darted towards the corner, and her fingers twirled her ponytail hair around more.

"I uh, I don't want to pry or anything like that. I'm not to be nosy or anything like that. You just seem a bit more, I don't know… Downtrodden, I guess." Her eyes returned to the Creation Quirk user, pushing aside her awkwardness and giving her another smile. "I know it isn't any of my business, but… If there's something wrong, you can talk to me, you know?"

While Itsuka wasn't someone Momo talked to all that often, her words seemed to find a way to make her smile. The feeling of friendship and respect was certainly not unrequited on her end, to make no mistake about it. And it was as Itsuka had said herself – Bridges should be built between their respective classes, and she liked to think that they would be one of those bridges.

Her concern was heart-warming. They didn't know each other all that well, and yet Itsuka was showing nothing but the most genuine of concern. It spoke volumes of the sort of person that she was.

Everything made Momo smile. An honest smile that was the first one she'd managed in a while. "Thank you, Kendo. I… I appreciate that." The taller girl scratched the back of her neck gently, looking away slightly as she did so. "I appreciate your concern too… But, it's nothing right now, I assure you."

"I understand." Itsuka nodded. "Just, if you need someone to talk to that isn't in your class."

"Thank you."

Both of them walked together and through the halls of Yuuei in a comfortable silence until they separated after they left the front gates and went on their separate ways. It hadn't done much for her confidence, but Momo found herself walking with a bit of a happier spring in her step. It wasn't that noticeable to anyone who passed her by, but it was the first bit of real happiness that she'd had in a while since she'd returned from the Snake Heroes office.

Kendo was a friend, but Momo wasn't sure if she could just spring all of her problems onto the girl at once. Plus, she wasn't certain that she wanted to bother her all that much. After all, she was just being friendly. It seemed unlikely that she honestly expected Momo to vent out all her frustrations to her.

Still, it was kind of her to show concern. It made her one of the only people to notice and mention it to her.

She couldn't help but smile.

So, writing these two is a lot trickier than you'd think. Nether of them really fall into a dynamic I'm used to writing, but I'm happy with how this is going so far. These two are cute and I wanna write more of them – So I will! I noticed that there aren't any long running stories with these two – So I'll make the first one! I'm going for a bit of a slower burn, I feel with this one, and I'm testing out some new advice and tips I got from around the place. I'll be testing out a few new things with this story, so that'll be fun!

Since I'm not entirely used to writing these two, if anyone has any criticisms or suggestions on what I could improve, I'd greatly appreciate it. I want this story to be good, and for it to be something I'm proud of and confident in writing, just like my Izumina.

This story will alternate with Awkward Energy – Meaning you get AE next week – It's been long enough and I'm looking forward to getting back into my main story.

I adore this pairing, and for those of you who ask – Yes, this story does take place in the Awkward Energy Universe. Izumina and Itsumomo are both happening side by side. This story will be significantly shorter and focus on Itsuka and Momo, while AE will address it, but it won't be the absolute primary focus. I'll be using this story as well to fill in some of the gaps in my work there. Think of it as being a bit like Marvel comics.

I want to give an enormous thank you to EriJamie on Tumblr for creating the cover art for this story – And the cover art for Awkward Energy. She's talented as hell, and go and check out the stuff she does – She really deserves all the attention she can get.

I hope you guys enjoyed this story – And I'll be seeing you next time – See ya!