Hi there,

Yesterday I was visiting my parents, so this chapter is a bit late. It's also a bit shorter than normal, but I hope you like it anyway

Fuel shortage

Higher! Higher! Raise the heat higher! Even…

In a puff of wasted energy, the flames just about imploded and vanished. He doubled over with his hands on his knees panting into the empty training room that was still heated from the fire of his flames. But not as hot as it was supposed to be. His limbs trembled as he finally raised himself again until he stood upright, exhaustion dragging his shoulders low.

He was at home in his private training room with a high ceiling. The walls and mat on the ground were made of enhanced material, able to withstand fire. It wasn't flammable, but from a certain heat, it would slowly start melting. Normally, if he wanted to train the absolute heat of his fire, he would do so outside in an area preferably void of people, life and anything flammable, but at the moment, he could neither afford to leave Musutafu for a lengthy amount of time to train nor could he just so much as train in his gardens, without somebody seeing it, snapping a picture, and laughing about the current condition of the No. 1 Hero. He didn't even dare to train like this in the training rooms at the agency anymore, lest somebody saw and thought him weak because of it. In the hours between patrols, he mostly trained his physical strength and quirk control in the Agency.

After five weeks of just sitting around, he had to get fit again. That was a bit embarrassing, but if anybody saw it, they would understand. He had almost died and just came from a lengthy recovery after all. But how could he explain to anybody, that his quirk would almost give out on him at times?

It turned out it wasn't really an issue of control. In fact, it almost felt, like controlling his quirk had gotten a lot easier, though that was surely only his imagination. The problem was rather some sort of… fuel shortage, he was inclined to call it. If he kept his flames low, it was almost no trouble at all, and controlling them was a breeze. But if he tried to raise them higher, it was as if they just sputtered out. He had to force himself just to reach high temperatures that had come almost natural to him just a few months ago.

He didn't even manage a flicker of blue fire yet, and how embarrassing was that? Half of his more powerful super-moves were performed at a temperature that would make his flames blue, some were even hotter, using white flames. Yet now, he couldn't even reach the limits of his ordinary red flames.

Angrily gritting his teeth, he activated his flames again. More! More! Red tendrils of fire, raging flames exploded from his chest. His whole body stood in flames. He screamed in determination as if his fire could derive fuel from his voice alone.

Higher! Even higher! Raise the Temperature…

It died out, his quirk giving up on him even earlier than before. Frustrated, he glared at his hands. They were trembling. Really trembling. Not just a slight tremor. As he grabbed for the water bottle standing next to the door, he couldn't even hold it. And he knew it wasn't from overheating…

This was from exhaustion alone. This was his third hour of continuous training. His body hadn't even come close to reaching the temperature at which it would normally cease to function. His fire had just sputtered out before it could ever come to that.

The trembling, the exhaustion, the blurry sight didn't come from overheating.

"Again!" he told himself.

Dying flames weren't a powerful and mighty thing to behold. They were weak and pathetic and…

Again!

Again!

Again!

Why wouldn't it work?

Finally, he drank the last bit from his water bottle, throwing the empty thing angrily into the corner. If it didn't work, he had to work without his strongest super-moves for now. There was nothing else he could do. So much about being the 'strongest hero'… One thing seemed for sure — incinerating a Nomu was not possible for now.

He took a quick shower and waited for Matsuura. It was Monday, and in an hour it will be 10 am, and he had an appointment with the Hero Association. His day couldn't start any better.

Four hours later, it was already past noon and Endeavor still set with the representatives the Hero Association had sent. He had told his story half a dozen times now, he felt. He hadn't added many more details to the story than what the public already knew. That was obviously the reason they weren't happy with him.

Watanabe Eichi was an old and retired hero, who had started to work for the Association after a crippling wound to his collarbone had ruined every possibility of him ever returning to his old work. Endeavor remembered him as a highly respected hero when he had still been young himself. He had even made it to Top 5 when Enji had just started UA. Now, the hero 'Bumblebee' had lost 20 pounds and all his hair. He also had grown thick eyebrows and a bristly mustache, the hair on his upper lip looking like hard grey wire. Endeavor could still see the scar peeking out from under his collar.

Next to him sat a tall woman with wiry thin limbs, around Endeavor's own age. Aomoto Chizu's formerly brown hair was now mostly grey and bound up in a tight bun. There was no humor on her lips, the thin line of her mouth hadn't moved to give any other emotion apart from open disapproval since they had started Endeavor's interrogation. It seemed her lips thinned out a bit more every ten minutes.

By now, Nakamura and Aomoto did most of the talking. Two lawyers throwing legal jargon at each other. Endeavor himself had mentally long left the conversation. He let his eyes roam around the room. The walls weren't white as he realized now, but a very light pastel yellow-ish. There was a picture of a western-style castle on a mountain, opposite of Endeavor. At first, he had thought it was a painting, but now he saw it was just made to look like one. A picture printed onto an actual canvas after some digital editing. Endeavor, Nakamura, and the two people from the Hero Association sat on opposite sides of an oval table, a laptop and loads of paper between them. Next to them, there was a window giving the most unspectacular sight of the brown and grey concrete front of the ugly six-story building on the other side of the small and empty street. The traffic noise from a close main road that they couldn't see from their window was reaching all the way up to the fourth story of the Hero Association Headquarters here in Musutafu, where Endeavor was now. Every now and then, a loud honking orchestra interrupted their interrogation.

"Todoroki-san, maybe if this is important to you, as you claim, you should listen to what we have to say." That was Aomoto's high pitched voice, her lips thinning into sheer nothingness. They almost vanished on her face.

Endeavor blinked at her, then he glanced at Nakamura and Watanabe, and righted himself in his seat. "You are completely correct, Aomoto-san," He put his hands on the oval tabletop and pushed himself to his feet, bowing shortly into her direction. "I apologize, but I think it's time to end this." Nakamura stood up immediately, packing up his documents on the table.

Aomoto sputtered in surprise, and Endeavor triumphed at finally seeing some sort of emotional reaction from her. He could also see her lips again. They were almost white after she had pressed all the blood out of them for so long. "Excuse me, Todoroki-san, we are not finished."

"Yes, we are," he retorted, "we've been at it for three hours now. I've said everything I can say on the matter. If we're only disagreeing on… legal matters now, I don't think my presence is needed here."

"If you want to keep your license…," Aomoto started, but she stopped as Watanabe put a hand on her shoulder.

"You can call me with your decision," Endeavor suggested and bowed again. "As long as I still have my license, I have work to do. Good Day."

"We will inform you by the end of the week," Watanabe answered, standing up to bow himself. Aomoto followed somewhat reluctantly.

"Good thing you did that, or I might have lost my patience," Nakamura said on their way down, putting a cigarette in his mouth. Normally he didn't smoke unless he was stressed. He had picked the habit up again in the recent couple of days, Endeavor had realized. "Do you have a fire?"

Endeavor glared at him, but used his index finger to light the cigarette.

"I don't think they will suspend your license," he said after a first long drag. "If they wanted to do that, they wouldn't have dragged it out that much. This was just meant to get on your nerves, so you might have to behave in the future."

"Yeah," muttered Endeavor. He had had the same feeling. If he had feared it could cost him his license, he wouldn't have just left like this. But he wasn't willing to spend more time than strictly necessary in that ugly yellow room talking to the two representatives from the Hero Association, knowing full well that they just tried to humiliate him now, but would probably beg for his help during the next big incident. He had more important things to do.

"You mentioned something else yesterday," Nakamura said as he took another drag from his cigarette. Then he pulled out a scarf and hat from his bag, putting it on even before they left the building.

Endeavor watched him a bit amused. They would only be out in the cold breeze for a few seconds before they would reach the car.

"Not everybody has your natural body heat," Nakamura muttered, rubbing his hands in the soft wool of his scarf. "So, what is it?"

"My wife and I will divorce," he informed him.

Nakamura's steps faltered shortly before he caught up to Endeavor again. Enji held the door open for him, as they exited the building. "When?" he asked.

"As soon as possible, I guess," Enji shrugged. "I might need your help with that."

"Sure," Nakamura said, shrugging. Endeavor knew that that wasn't really his field of expertise, but Nakamura didn't mention that. He never mentioned when something was not his expertise. At best, sometimes he'd bring another lawyer in, saying that 'he consulted a colleague who was one of the experts in this matter.' Enji never knew if it was a pride-thing or a lawyer-thing, when they don't admit when they don't have a clue about something.

"I don't intend to make it a dragged-out legal matter. I want this to go as smoothly as possible," Enji said.

"Then you might try to get your financial detail as fast as possible," Nakamura muttered, "divorces are expensive, even the cheap ones."

He had gathered as much.

Matsuura was already waiting for them as they exited the house. Nakamura was sitting in the back seat when Endeavor's phone vibrated in his pocket signaling a text message. It was from Shoto.

- I passed! - it said simply.

Enji's flame surged in pride before he entered the car. As he sat in the back seat next to Nakamura, the lawyer looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Shoto passed the provisional license exam." He grinned. He was admittedly very happy that Shoto had texted him. For most of the school year, he had to find out about Shoto's progress in school in different ways. Most of all through social media and the news, or he had annoyed Principal Nezu for information. It was almost shameful to admit how little he had known about his son's education at times.

"Congratulations," the lawyer said. "Does he already know about the divorce?"

"No," Endeavor looked at his phone, "I'm waiting for the right moment. I guess, if I wait any longer, Rei might just tell him in one of her letters." He sighed. "I'll call him later."

Next chapter, let's meet Shoto, again.

As a little token of Information for today, let's meet Matsuura:

Matsuura Matsutaka is a Driver for the Endeavor Hero Agency who is also Enji's personal driver. He actually doesn't care much about heroes, instead, he just works for Endeavor, because the former number two pays well. He's a rather private person who doesn't like talking much about himself at work, so during all this time when Enji couldn't be bothered to learn his driver's name, Matsuura hardly even realized that his boss didn't know his name. Unlike most other employees of Endeavor, he doesn't really care much about the hero business and the moral obligations that should come with the job. So when his boss turned out to be not quite as spotless as many might have assumed due to him being a hero, Matsuura might have been the only one who hardly even cared. He has a quirk but he doesn't talk much about it, so nobody really knows what it does. He mentioned once, that it has something to do with wood, but that's all anybody knows about it.