3

The boy slipped through the tiny door into the dim space and calmed his breathing, as if melding into the darkness itself. What came next could make or break the plan. He’d run this simulation in his head hundreds of times, and failure at this point would send all the dominoes crashing down. Quick wits and coolheaded judgment would be key.

The damp earth beneath his feet was still warm, unwilling to relinquish the last bit of heat from the blazing sun, earlier. Or maybe it was his own heat the boy felt, penetrating the ground. At this thought, a bemused smile rose on his face. It made him keenly aware of his own nerves and inexperience, so he paused to collect himself and control the heat radiating from his body and mind. This plan had to succeed. If that meant an untimely death, he’d welcome the grim reaper with a smile.

From between the towering walls on either side, the boy could hear the rustling of the trees in the cool night air and the light lapping of water. Nothing more. This told him that nobody was beyond the walls at the moment. This moment would not go to waste, though.

He felt the inner lake of his spirit grow still, like a mirror’s surface. From now on, no wasted motions to disturb the water. He reached into his baggy clothes and—ever so gently—brought out a small hand drill, whose tip he pressed against a spot on one of the wooden walls, at eye level. The metal ate away at the wood with a whirr that echoed loudly between the walls, but the boy did not panic or falter. Any hesitation now would mean he wasn’t worthy to begin with. No, a life’s worth of resolve had led him to this moment.

The feedback against his hand changed as the drill punched through. Penetration. The boy felt the heat rising in him again, and he fought to suppress it. He reminded himself that this plan demanded absolute caution.

Like the smallest ray of faint sunshine between heavy cloud cover, a thin beam of light crept in through the newly opened hole, half a finger’s width in diameter. To the boy, this beam represented the stairway to heaven, for the source of the light was, to him, paradise.

He swallowed hard and placed the drill on the ground. Body trembling with excitement, he pressed his body to the wall and peeped through the hole. The view? A steamy rotenburo, or open-air bath. The peeper? None other than Minoru Mineta, class A’s embodiment of lust. The plan? What else, but to spy on the ladies’ half of the rotenburo.

Mineta had been anticipating this day, this plan, since before school had even started. No, to hear him tell it, base instinct had prepared him for it since before he’d been born.

The female figure gave Mineta life. It was his reason to exist. A haven in which men could find sanctuary and solace. A home to return to, without worries or cares. But for Mineta, the door to this particular home was shut fast. He would pound away at it, begging to be let in, but security at the door had an innate mistrust of the boy. The more he pounded and the louder he begged, the more suspicious he seemed, until his status changed from mere “suspect” to “criminal.”

But quit was not in Mineta’s vocabulary. If they wouldn’t admit him into the home, the logical workaround would be to peer in from the outside.

Yesterday, the first day of training camp, was when he had stepped up to make his greatest wish come true. With sky-high expectations and operating purely on autopilot, he had attempted to scale the wall from the men’s side of the rotenburo. The wall was actually two walls, though, and waiting for Mineta at the top, between the walls, had been Kota Izumi. The Catnip Inn was managed by the Wild Wild Pussycats (a hero team specializing in mountain rescues), and Kota was the young nephew of Mandalay, one of those heroes.

The goal of this training camp was to prepare the students to test for their provisional hero licenses, which would permit them limited Quirk use, even if only in emergencies. U.A. students wouldn’t typically take the exam until early in their second year, but given the increased villain activity, the school had decided that this crop of first-years had better be allowed to defend themselves.

Today’s menu had consisted of brutal Quirk training starting at 5:30 a.m., but just as those with sweet tooths always have room for dessert, Mineta had plenty of stamina left if it meant going after women. The double-layered wall was an unexpected obstacle, to be sure, but Mineta had been preparing for this since the end of final exams. He’d picked the lock of the door leading to this space between the walls and had brought the drill to create the all-important hole.

In light of Mineta’s failed peeping attempt the day before, the adults had seen fit to stagger the boys’ and girls’ bathing times. The boys of classes A and B had already enjoyed the rotenburo that night and were now engaged in some other nonsense inside the lodge, so no one would come looking for Mineta. This was his chance.

He stepped away from the wall, shut his eyes, and waited. No sense in staring through the hole in anticipation, unless he wanted his eyes as dried out as his teacher’s often were. Better to save his strength for the greatest sight of his life.

A slender strip of sky was visible directly overhead. It was a velvety black—unlike in the city—with a dazzling number of stars, like so many shards of jewels and gems. The rustling of the trees, the hoots of owls, the earthy scent of the ground, the permeating presence of insects all around—Mineta took it all in, becoming one with the summer night.

On the verge of enlightenment, Mineta heard the sweetest sound he could imagine in that moment—the sliding of the door connecting the indoor bath to the rotenburo. At nearly light speed, his eye was pressed to the hole. Shock and horror! The steam from earlier had billowed and spread, whipped by the wind, enveloping the scene in white.

Damn steam!

Mineta cursed the steam to hell for ruining his view of heaven. Still, he could make out a few faint figures.

“Ooh, I love a good rotenburo.”

“The perfect thing to rest one’s weary soul.”

“Mhm.”

He analyzed the voices instantly.

Itsuka Kendo, president of class B.

Ibara Shiozaki, whose Quirk was “Vines.”

Yui Kodai, a girl with a black bob cut.

A few more voices joined the mix. Yes, Mineta was after the class B girls. He’d thought it wise to switch targets, since the girls of class A were on guard after his failed attempt the previous day. Mineta had a high opinion of the class B girls as well. Nothing lacking there, so to speak.

“Huh? You’ve got a scratch on your back, Yui,” said Kendo.

“Hmm?”

“Oh dear. Perhaps one of my vines brushed you earlier… I’m so very sorry!” said Shiozaki.

“Uh-uh.” That was Kodai, likely shaking her head as if to suggest, “Don’t worry about it.”

Mineta could just picture the girls gazing at each other’s naked backs within the steam.

“You’ve actually got quite a pair on you, Ibara.”

“Do I really?”

“Mm-hmm. They say they’ll grow even bigger with a little massaging. Want me to try?”

“Oh my…”

This girl-on-girl exchange played out only in Mineta’s mind, though, as his fictional portrayal of paradise. Mostly, he wished he could somehow transform into a girl and insert himself into the fantasy. But no. Mineta snorted in indignation and composed himself. The actual women just beyond the wall didn’t need any help from his imagination.

“Fwooo!”

He puffed his cheeks and blew into the hole with all his might, hoping to carve a path through the steam. Blow and peep, blow and peep, over and over. To Mineta, no effort was too much to ask for this prize. The blowing left him red in the face, head spinning, but the steam had begun to give way. Mineta spotted some bodies approaching and immediately forgot about his spinning head. At this rate, they’d come into clear view soon, steam or no steam. He stopped breathing and opened one bloodshot eye so wide it might have fallen clean out.

But then, voices he didn’t expect to hear.

“Oh? There’s a hole here…? Better plug that up.”

“But first, a little punishment.”

A familiar shock, as if from a pair of EKG paddles, penetrated Mineta’s eyeball.

“Gahhhh!” he screamed, as the amplified sound of Kyoka Jiro’s heartbeat was transmitted into his body via his eye. They’d never take him alive, though. He could still run while they lacked any evidence of his crime. He toddled toward the door between the walls, but his pursuers were not so easily thrown.

A sickly sizzling sound.

Liquid oozed through the drilled hole and began to melt away the wall. Mina Ashido’s acid worked fast, and she was just as quick to pounce on Mineta. It wasn’t only Jiro and Ashido, though—every girl from class A and B was present and accounted for.

The brief exchange between Kendo, Shiozaki, and Kodai earlier had been no more than a ruse to throw him off guard, and the “steam” was actually the product of dry ice, created by Momo Yaoyorozu’s Quirk to block Mineta’s vision.

“Alas, we were right to be cautious,” lamented Yaoyorozu.

At her side, Kendo said, “Yeah, thanks a bunch!”

“Peeping is unacceptable, Mineta!”

“You’re really gonna get arrested one day. You know that, right?”

“Ah, the little creep brought a drill and everything! This was totally premeditated.”

As the girls closed in around him, Mineta gave up all hope of escape, and his expression warped in rage.

“Wearing clothes into the bath is against the rules!”

“Huhh?”

Of course the girls were clothed. No need to come naked to a sting operation.

“I don’t even approve when they wear towels into the hot springs on travel shows!”

He didn’t regret his actions one iota, and Mineta’s egregious complaint lit the girls’ fuses immediately.

“You…are…the freaking worst!”

“The only one breaking the rules is you!”

“Oh? I’d be happy to strip down and show you the goods if that’s what you really wa—”

A massive palm came swinging at him before he could finish. Kendo’s Quirk, “Big Fist,” hit him with the force of a truck, and Mineta’s world went black.

“Ugh?”

Mineta awoke to find Ragdoll’s round eyes staring at him.

“Aha ha ha ha ha! You back with us? Hey, Mandalay! Pixie-Bob! He’s up!” shouted Ragdoll over her shoulder. Mineta surveyed his surroundings and quickly realized he couldn’t move, bound as he was by ropes that wouldn’t budge.

“No, you’re not going anywhere, I’m afraid. Eraser told us to show no mercy,” said Mandalay sharply.

“If you’d told me there were high school boys out there going around drilling holes to peep at girls, I wouldn’t have believed it,” cackled Pixie-Bob, half-amazed, half-disgusted.

This snapped Mineta back to reality. He remembered getting caught and then smacked unconscious.

Still can’t believe them, violating those holy grounds like that! The bath demands fully stripped bodies!

Even caught and bound in ropes, Mineta was Mineta. He snorted at the unfairness of it all and glanced around the room, spotting a desk and a sofa. The lodge’s office, apparently.

“Well, might as well take our turn, now?”

“Yeah. Can’t wait to wash off this sweat and grime.”

“Bath time, yes!”

Hearing the three Pussycats’ conversation, Mineta gasped and gazed up. The ladies were still in their hero costumes, and from below, Mineta could only see a great pair of mountains bulging from each of their chests.

Why climb the mountain? “Because it is there,” said a great mountaineer, famously, and Mineta would have agreed. Mineta harassed because the boobs were there. And for that he could go to hell, as far as his female classmates were concerned.

Upon noticing Mineta’s line of sight, Mandalay let out the sort of weary sigh that comes only with maturity. Meanwhile, Pixie-Bob grinned and said, “What, want to join us? Kidding!”

“Don’t tease the boy. Now, Mineta—you’re going to sit tight right here until we’re done with our bath,” explained Mandalay.

“We’re locking you in here, too.”

“See ya later.”

With that, the three Pussycats left the room and locked the door, as promised. As soon as their footsteps faded, Mineta started squirming. He would never slip free…or so it seemed, until the ropes just fell away. Like the lock picking, escaping from ropes was another skill Mineta had mastered for just such an occasion. His eyes fell on a paper clip on the desk, and with a little more magic, he had the office door open. He snuck down the hall silently and escaped into the night air. Nearby, the outer wall of the rotenburo stood tall, but Mineta quickly scaled it with his “Pop Off” Quirk and landed inside the rotenburo area. No walls could keep Mineta out when his lust was in control.

“Plus Ultra,” he muttered under his breath, like a grizzled action hero.

Nobody was bathing just yet. They must’ve still been in the changing room, getting undressed. Mineta breathed a smug sigh, pleased with this newfound success. More than at any other moment so far, this respite while waiting for the ladies to undress was deeply satisfying, and it filled him with hope. He was suddenly in the mood for a nice cup of black coffee, or some equally suave way to pass the time.

And this time? Not mere schoolgirls, but grown women. At the thought of those mountain ranges, Mineta’s mouth curled into a goofy grin. The bigger the mountains, the more worthwhile the climb. And if he could summit a pair of peaks at once, he could die happily right then and there. In the back of his mind, Mineta recalled Pixie-Bob’s words.

“Want to join us?”

The “Kidding!” that had followed had been conveniently deleted from his memory bank.

Or maybe she’d said, “Ooh, would you like to, umm, join us?”

The version of Pixie-Bob in Mineta’s mind suddenly turned bashful.

“Please, join us.”

Now it was a request.

“Join us, and we’ll show you a good time, I promise.”

Now just as lusty as Mineta.

Mature babes all the way!

His far-fetched interpretation of Pixie-Bob’s earlier teasing sent a torrent of blood rushing to Mineta’s head and gushing straight out his nose. It splashed against the flagstones, covering them in enough red to suggest a murder mystery at the hot springs.

In his head, he and Pixie-Bob were already bathing together. Her two mountains would rise above the steam. Her slick skin would brush against his. “No fair, Pixie-Bob. Let us get in on that action,” Mandalay and Ragdoll would say. Scrambling to compete for access to Mineta, the three women would surround him with boobs. An abundant, bountiful, beautiful buffet of boobs. There’d been a coup over the central government of Mineta’s mind, and it was now ruled by boobs. As if in some absurdist tale, he imagined waking up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant, sentient boob. While the visions played out, Mineta’s feet guided him to the door leading to the indoor bath.

He peered through the glass. It was steamy inside too, but Mineta could make out the hazy silhouette of someone by the washing station, evidently washing their hair, based on all the shampoo bubbles. While Mineta had been dreaming of boobs, Pixie-Bob must have come in and started to wash up.

“You sure kept me waiting, boobs…” he whispered as he stripped off his top. The rules of this sacred space demanded nudity, after all. Mineta slid the door open gently and slipped into the bath. He was batting one thousand on this covert mission, so far.

“Hmm hm hm.”

Some cheery humming was coming from the washing station. It sounded a bit deep and muffled for Pixie-Bob, but Mineta assumed it was just the acoustics of the space. The figure was now covered in bubbles, head to toe. Pixie-Bob must be the type to save time by washing everywhere at once, Mineta supposed. All the bubbles made her look twice her usual size.

Or maybe she’s into bubble play. Heh heh.

Still ruled by desire, Mineta’s mind leaped for the fetishistic interpretation.

Well, bring it on! he thought, knowing with absolute certainty that there was a real live woman hidden under the bubbles. Unable to resist his urges, he lunged toward the homecoming he’d long been denied.

“Boooobs, I’m hooome! Hmm?”

Instead of reaching around from behind and landing on a woman’s chest, Mineta’s stubby arms and tiny hands smacked up against a broad back. An incredibly muscled back. A pair of powerful hands grabbed ahold of him.

“Ohh? Who’s brave enough to join me for bath time?”

“Eek!”

It was the fourth member of the Wild Wild Pussycats, Tiger. As an extra precaution, Mandalay and her two female colleagues had decided to bathe on the men’s side.

Every instinct told Mineta to run, but he was thrown to the floor and pinned by a leg as thick as a tree trunk. Dumbfounded, he could only watch as the bubbles slowly slid off Tiger’s body, revealing a smorgasbord of rippling muscles. Tiger was in fact a transgender man, though knowing that wouldn’t have been much consolation to Mineta.

“Any last words, kid…?”

“All I ever wanted was to grope some boobs!”

“Maybe Datsue-ba will let you have a shot at hers!” roared Tiger, referencing the demon in the Buddhist afterlife who strips the clothes of the damned who are unable to pay for passage across the Sanzu River.

“Gahhhhh!”

Mineta’s shriek echoed across the summer sky.