"Hey, Zuku!"

Izuku smiled as one of his only school friends ran up to him on the playground. While most of the kids at school avoided him, out of fear for the most part, Kosei Tsuburaba didn't have any such fears.

"Heya Tsuba! What's up?" Izuku saw the way he was approaching him, thanks to Endeavour's training, he was getting better at reading people quickly. The boy was excited about something, Izuku could tell.

Kosei just beamed at him. "So you know how when you did that carbo-whatever, you trapped someone in rock using your Quirk right?" Izuku just nodded, wanting to see what Kosei would do.

"Well, I figured out a way to do that too! Your move inspired me to think of a similar one!" He took a deep breath, and Izuku froze, allowing the boy to show off his new move.

As Kosei exhaled, Izuku waited until he was finished, before trying to move around. It only took him a few seconds to realise that he was trapped in a box. He smiled at Kosei.

"That's amazing Tsuba! What do you call it?" The other boy tapped his chin and looked up into the air, before shrugging.

"I don't know Izuku! I was too busy practising to figure out a name for it. You got any suggestions?" Izuku shook his head, before sitting down on the box and thinking of some.

"Maybe something like Invisible Imprisonment? No, that might take too long to say, it's also kind of a tongue twister. OOH! How about Air Prison!? Simple, and short enough to yell out in a fight!"

Izuku swapped the solid air's state of matter with the air inside the box and walked over to Kosei, who was smiling. "That's an awesome name Izuku! Of course, Endeavour's student would come up with something so good for a hero!"

Izuku just smiled at the boy, and they ran off to play games together for the rest of the lunch break.

The Midoriya's had arrived at the Todoroki household.

Inko had time to stay at the house today and planned on spending it with Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Touya. Inko, after learning that their mother was in the hospital, had practically adopted the children as her own.

Whenever she came over, she would help Fuyumi with things like cooking or other chores. Apparently, Endeavour refused to get a maid, leaving the girl with most of the responsibilities in the house.

While she didn't approve of this, She didn't think it wasn't her place to critique Endeavour's parenting style, especially not so soon after his wife was sent to the hospital due to a psychotic break. (How wrong she was)

Fuyumi had seemed scared when Inko first started helping her, something that set off alarm bells in Inko's head. After a while though, she seemed to calm down and now chatted with Inko while making meals for the upcoming week.

She learned about their Quirks, all of them being interesting combinations of their father's "Hellflame" and their mothers "Cryokinesis" that she was sure Izuku would be fascinated by.

Fuyumi's Quirk was "Temperature Reduction". It allowed her to reduce the temperature of items or people in her line of sight, making them colder. Apparently, she also had an extremely high natural resistance to heat, which Fuyumi herself noted was slightly counter-intuitive.

Natsuo's had gotten a near copy of his mother's Quirk, with all the benefits and drawbacks it gave. It allowed him to generate and shape large quantities of ice at will, as well as a large resistance to the cold.

Touya, in Inko's mind, had the strongest Quirk out of the Todoroki children, barring Shoko. His fire was so hot that its base level was blue fire, meaning that even when not putting in much effort, he could produce flames at around 1500 degrees celsius with ease.

His fire was so hot, it actually hurt him. She had been worried for a while that Endeavour had been the cause of the burn scars on his arms, but apparently it was due to his own Quirk.

This was because he had been born with his mother's resistance to the cold, not his father's resistance to heat, making him basically roast himself whenever he used his Quirk.

Inko was upset at this fact. She had never heard of someone having this much of a backlash to their own Quirk before, and she tried to find a way to help the boy.

She looked up meditation methods that were said to help improve a person's control of their Quirk. She also looked up and taught herself how to treat burns of all kinds, just in case.

She had very quickly integrated herself into the Todoroki household. There were still a few things she was curious about though. Like what happened with their mother.

And why were the kids seemingly scared of their father?

Izuku had been training with Endeavour for 6 months now.

They were currently just doing general exercises. Things like push-ups, sit-ups, etc. It was hard work though, due to the weights Endeavour was making them wear. He really didn't pull any punches as a trainer.

Izuku had already seen the benefits of his training. His swaps had gotten even faster (by 0.1 seconds, but hey, let the kid be happy) and he could swap things faster, and much more than he could before.

He continued practising his analysis under Endeavour's tutelage, getting better and quicker at dissecting someone's Quirk, even from just a few seconds of video. Even Endeavour was impressed by how quickly he absorbed knowledge, not that he would ever let it show.

And this was only 6 months of work! Izuku was sure that by the time UA came around, both he and Shoko would be exemplary students, both Quirk-wise and physical ability-wise. Something had been bugging him though.

Shoko had been avoiding using her fire during training. He could see the way she would shiver as she sent wave after wave of ineffective ice towards him, much to Endeavour's disappointment.

But he didn't know what to do. He had tried asking her why she stopped using it as much, only using it to warm herself up after a sparring match ended, but she had just told him that 'he wouldn't understand' and had walked off.

Izuku had taken that to mean 'please don't talk about it' and was willing to do that for his friend. It hurt him to see her the way she was, but he could keep that to himself for her sake.

Izuku continued talking to the girl, supporting her decision to only use her ice, and she seemed grateful that he wasn't trying to talk her out of it. Apparently, the rest of the family had already tried, although Endeavour had been more angry than concerned.

He did have an idea though on how to get some insight into what was going on. Every now and then, Endeavour would leave around 20 minutes earlier than normal to 'visit his wife' in the hospital.

He had let the fact that she was in Hosu General Hospital out seemingly on accident, not even noticing what he had said. But if what Izuku had heard about the situation from his mum was true, then Shoko's mum, Rei he was told, hadn't had any visitors but Endeavour since being put in the hospital.

So Izuku made a decision. One Sunday, while his mum was out running some errands, he packed a small travel bag with some money and his train card. He wrote a note for his mum telling her where he was going, and that he would be back later before leaving his house.

Headed for Hosu.

It actually went a lot better than Izuku expected.

He arrived in Hosu with little to no trouble, just a rude guy who asked where his parents were when he accidentally bumped into him. The walk from the station to the Hospital was fairly quick, only taking him around 20 minutes.

It had even been easy getting permission to visit Rei. All he had to say was that he was a 'friend of the family' and the mere fact that he knew she was there seemed to be enough to convince the nurse that he was legitimate.

(The nurse would later be fired for this, as well as stealing some supplies)

He got a few weird looks from the doctors, but a quick flash of his visitor's pass seemed to assuage any concerns. (Seriously, this hospital needs better staff).

He arrived at her room. Room 31C of the extended-stay ward. According to one of the nurses he talked to, she was doing really well in the hospital. The nurse noted that she only got really bad after Endeavour visited her, and how much that worried her, but didn't share it with the boy.

He knocked on the door, and he could feel the temperature drop rapidly as he heard soft scurrying towards the door. It opened a fraction, just enough for a steel grey eye, just like Shoko's to appear in the gap.

There was a gasp when the eye moved down to him, and the door shut. Izuku was confused until he heard a soft voice coming from the other side of the door. "Wrong room kid, I'm not who you're here for…"

Izuku cocked his head to the side. "Wait, are you not Mrs Todoroki? The nurse told me this was your room." This got another gasp as the door was opened again, and Rei stared at him.

"Who… who are you? How did you know I was here?" She seemed slightly afraid, but Izuku couldn't figure out why. Was visiting her a bad thing? Was he not supposed to do it?

"My name is Izuku Midoriya! I'm Shoko's friend. Mr Endeavour is training me to be a hero in the future! I heard him mention you were in this hospital and wanted to ask you a few things." Rei's expression was blank.

Internally she was conflicted. This boy had shown up out of nowhere and dropped some massive bombshells on her. One, apparently he had done something to impress Enji, something that happened very rarely. Two, the man had taken it upon himself to train the boy. Three, Enji was letting Shoko interact with him?

She realised she was staring at the boy when he wriggled around a little bit, obviously uncomfortable. She mentally berated herself (in a voice that sounded a lot like Enji's), shaking her head.

She opened the door fully, allowing the boy to enter the room, before sitting on a chair and facing the small boy. "Well Midoriya, I'd be happy to talk to any friend of Shoko's. She's… she's not here is she?"

She had to force herself to not sigh in relief when he shook his head. "No Mrs Todoroki, to be totally honest, no-one knows I'm here but my mum, if she's seen the note yet."

She raised her eyebrow at that. The boy was here in secret? That would explain why Enji hadn't stopped him from visiting her. "So, you said you wanted to ask me something?"

Izuku's face lost its smile momentarily, and Rei briefly wondered if he was here to ask about something Endeavour did. She prayed and prayed that he hadn't hurt her children any more than he already had.

He nodded. "I'm worried about Shoko.-" Rei's breath caught in her throat. "-She's refusing to use her fire, and nothing I said could convince her to. I can see during our sparring matches how much the cold is hurting her, but she only uses it after we're done."

Rei's heart warmed slightly when she saw this stranger crying for her daughter. She knew then and there that this boy was for real, no-one could fake that much emotion.

"I want to help her, like a hero would, but nothing works! I don't want to see her hurt anymore. She's my best friend..." Rei was liking this Izuku Midoriya more and more the longer he talked.

She could feel how sincere he was about caring for Shoko and briefly thanked whatever gods there were for bringing such a kind soul into her daughter's world.

From what he was saying, she could tell that he didn't know the full story of what Endeavour had done to the Todoroki family. She wasn't exactly sure what to say about the problem itself, but she knew her answer to his question.

"Izuku. I'm sure the fact that you're there for her is good enough for now. Some things happened a while ago that changed all of our lives forever. I'm guessing this is the cause of her reluctance to use her fire."

She leaned over and put her hand on his shoulder. He looked at her and wiped away his tears as she gave him a small smile.

"One day, you might know everything that happened, and be able to help her. But for now-"

"Please just stick with her. She needs a friend like you."