A few guessed it... There will be a final hospital arc. I can't do without them.

A New Order of Things

What's going on?

He felt numb all over. He thought he should feel pain, but he didn't feel anything.

Sense only returned to him slowly. The first he felt was the exhaustion. Then he started hearing the regular beeping that quickened the moment he became aware of it. Vaguely familiar scents… Then the confusion…

Where am I?

He scrunched his eyes shut, trying to go back to sleep. He took a deep breath, to alleviate the pressure, somewhere in the back of his mind, that told him he should be afraid.

Afraid of what?

He gagged, coughed, as his breath caught against something that was shoved deep into his throat.

And that was when his confusion escalated into panic.

Thrashing he tried to pull free, but his limbs weren't moving the way he wanted them to. His movements were jerky and uncontrolled. At some point his hand knocked against something hard, and a short flash of pain shot through the entire arm. The beeping was so quick, his ears started ringing from it.

There were noises around him. A door banging open, steps, somebody pulling his arms down, then somebody removed whatever that was from his throat.

His eyes roamed over blurry faces that he couldn't place. Their voices and quick commands made no sense to him. Somebody called his name…

Todoroki…

He was being spoken to, but he couldn't focus on that. Instead, his head lolled helplessly to the side and he lost consciousness again.

The next time he woke up, he ripped the many cables and tubes and syringes away from his body without even thinking about it. His hands moved sluggishly. His fingers didn't quite lock around the offending material, and his movements were so jerky, that he almost fell off his mattress. Eventually, he succeeded and felt mildly satisfied at that. The exhaustion from that effort alone pulled him back under.

As he woke up again, all the stuff he had worked so hard to get rid of was back…

He didn't know how often he had removed the cables and tubes from his body. They made him feel trapped and helpless. Yet the nth time when he tried to get rid of them, he found his limbs not moving at all.

First, he thought his body had completely failed him, then he realized he was tied to the bed, his wrists restrained with broad leather straps. He pulled and strained against them. He fought with all his strength, but the leather wouldn't budge. He tried throwing himself off the bed, to throw the whole thing over and bring it all down around him, but he wasn't strong enough, or maybe the bed was locked down as much as him. He tried to use his fire, but nothing happened.

Ultimately, he ran out of energy. Tears of despair were trickling down the sides of his face, as he stared into the darkness. He managed to turn his head just enough to bury the evidence of his weakness in the somewhat stiff pillow.

Eventually, he woke up to people already in the room.

"Hello, Todoroki," a woman greeted him. "It's nice to see you finally awake again." She wore a white doctor's coat. "We're sorry about these," she added with her fingers on the wrist strap of his left hand. "I'd like to remove them if you promise not to rip the cables off again."

He blinked at her, silent and stupid. After a long while, in which he tried to make sense of her words, his lips parted to answer, but his tongue was lolling around uselessly in his mouth. He clenched his jaw shut again.

"That's alright," she said with a fake cheer in her voice. "Just nod if you agree."

He took a moment to find the right muscle groups. Then he nodded.

"Very good." She moved to undo one of the straps. "Now, my name is Awazaki, nice to meet you." He tried to file the name away, but it slipped through his mind almost immediately. "You caused us quite a bit of worry." She winked at him. "But now it's getting better, isn't it?"

He didn't like the way she spoke to him – soothingly, like he was a distraught child.

She came around the bed, to undo the other strap. "Do you think you can remember that, when you wake up tomorrow?" She—what was her name again? —She leaned over him. Big grey eyes. "Not to rip them off I mean?"

Rip what off?

He moved his free hand a little. There was a syringe in the crook of his elbow. Irritated, he lifted the other hand to free it. The arm felt odd as it moved.

"Uh-uh," the woman caught his arm warningly, and pushed it back down. "We leave everything as it is."

What's going on?

He wanted to ask her, but his tongue couldn't form the words. Thankfully she seemed to understand anyway.

"Now, Todoroki, I want to tell you, what happened to you." She wheeled a stool to his bed and sat down beside him. "You're here in the Grand Musutafu Hospital," she announced. "You know where that is? You've been here a few times before."

He didn't know what she was talking about. Was he supposed to know? She looked worried as he didn't give a sign of recognition.

"You've been brought here after you suffered a stroke due to the overheating of your body," she continued, not lingering on the hospital-issue.

This time he nodded. A stroke due to overheating… That made sense. It sounded about right. Of course, he'd suffer a similar issue like his mother.

"I would like to ask you a few questions. Just yes and no questions. Nod or shake your head to answer." She waited for a reaction from him, so he nodded again. "Excellent! Do you know your name?"

Of course, he did… She'd said it often enough… Todoroki…Todoroki… There was something missing he knew. His brows furrowed a little. Todoroki…Enji…

Enji nodded.

"Do you also know your hero name?"

Endeavor!

That was easy enough.

"Very good," she praised him as if he had solved a difficult riddle. "Can you tell me if you are married?"

Married?

For a moment, he had no idea, but as he searched in his brain, it sounded right. Yes… He nodded again.

She frowned a little, but the smile never left her face. Had he answered wrong? He was increasingly aware that those weren't just random useless questions. She was evaluating him…evaluating something, and he felt like he had just failed.

"Do you have a daughter?"

He nodded easily.

"And a son?"

He nodded again.

"More than one?"

At this, Enji had to think. But then he thought so… He couldn't say how many though. Two…Three? Had he lost one? It was all muddled.

"Do you know your job?"

Of course, he did. And she had given him the answer already.

"That is amazing," she applauded him for knowing something so simple. "Do you remember the last thing you did on your job?"

Catching a thief, he thought…No, not the thief… He wasn't sure anymore. It had been the first thing on his mind, but now that he thought about it, it felt far away. A fire… No, a—a Noumu?

It all felt equally right and equally wrong and he was almost certain he was missing something. Trying to concentrate and thinking harder about it, he suddenly felt very exhausted. As if these easy questions had drained him of everything he had. He yawned. His eyes were drooping a little.

"Ah, you're tired, I see," she said. "How about we continue this tomorrow?"

Enji didn't want to push this off. There were a thousand questions in his head, but he had no way to ask them. Helplessly, he didn't know how to convey his needs.

"I need to warn you. We will have to put the restraints back on for the night," she said in an apologetic tone.

Distraught, Enji shook his head. He didn't want them back.

"I'm very sorry, but it's only for your best. You keep pulling the cables off." There was no reproach in her voice, just a sad understanding. "But maybe tomorrow we can see about your family visiting, hm?"

They won't come.

The thought came unbidden and without prompting. He didn't know where it came from, but it felt honest and serious. He wanted to rage against it, but there was only silent acceptance in his heart.

Why would they come?

Why wouldn't they?

It all made no sense to him.

What's going on?

She left him alone. His wrists were still free. He tried to move his arms to roll into himself protectively, the movement was jerky and helpless.

What's going on?

He couldn't remember ever feeling so weak or helpless… The thought brought tears to his eyes. The wetness on his cheeks made him feel self-conscious. This wasn't right. He wasn't himself. Endeavor wouldn't cry so easily.

What's happening?

Enji ended up sleeping through his family's visit. – And why was he still surprised about them coming at all? But they came… They came multiple times and he only ever saw a few minutes of them, and never quite remembered what they were talking about.

The doctors had to tell him almost daily what had happened. He kept forgetting until eventually, he stopped forgetting.

After a battle with the League of Villains, Enji had suffered a bad stroke. A stroke… It wasn't his only issue, but it was the one that kept him tied to the bed and locked in the hospital. He had a spinal injury – that he was told would heal eventually – and a ruined shoulder that would probably never heal completely. Most of his inner organs had been damaged one way or the other by his overheating. However, the worst was the stroke. The stroke made him helpless and weak and…not himself anymore.

He didn't like this weak version.

He couldn't walk, he could barely move, he couldn't even talk. He kept crying about random shit and once a week he woke up with a splitting headache, disorienting confusion, and the feeling that whatever progress he had made the days before, was all lost again.

The doctors told him he was getting better. They made some random stuff up, that he was apparently getting better at. They assured him that his memory was getting better – Yes, sure, because they kept spoon-feeding every bit of information to him. They praised him that his speech was getting better – though to call it speech would be an insult to every two-year-old toddler still struggling with their first words… He wasn't speaking; his tongue was senselessly fumbling around in his mouth.

They applauded him for being able to eat solid food again – which was an embarrassing experience, because – after smearing his first plate of food everywhere instead of eating it because his hands weren't working right – he had to be fed thrice a day like a baby by one of the nurses. It was probably one of the most embarrassing and shameful experiences of his life, only eclipsed the next night, when he was forced to make use of the bedpan.

He hated every minute of it.

"It's a miracle you're even alive," one of the doctors told him one day. "The last time I've seen that much destroyed tissue I'd been looking at a dead person." It was a crude joke, but Enji's lips twitched slightly at the humor. Overheating had wreaked havoc on his body.

While Enji could appreciate the humor, he couldn't quite appreciate the truth of it. What was the point he wondered? He'd rather be dead.

"It will get better," the doctor added after a moment, seeing the despair in Enji's eyes.

Really, he would like to believe that… But he'd been in a coma for four weeks, and that was already two weeks ago… He felt stuck. Whatever miniature steps in recovery he took according to the doctors, Enji didn't see the way forward. He wondered if he would ever leave this bed again on his own accord. Even if, it would still be a long way to also leave the hospital. And then what? He had lost his quirk. The quirk that had defined him all his life.

That was a whole different can of worms that he hadn't even really opened yet. As long as he couldn't walk or talk or eat or shit on his own, there was no point worrying about the quirk and ever getting to work again… But it was still a constant nagging thought on his mind.

Half of it is in the mind, one of the nurses had said once. He just needed to believe that it would get better. But he didn't. He needed to think about all the things he would do once it got better. But… What was even there? What would he do if it ever got better? Sit around in his home alone. Crippled, with the hatred of the public still burdened upon his destroyed shoulder, and the scorn of his children and the guilt of his sins. Why would he want that?

He'd been determined! There was this grand idea in his mind about atoning for his sins by doing good and doing right. But how should he do that if he couldn't do anything? He couldn't walk, he couldn't write, he couldn't talk, he couldn't eat or shit or pee on his own. When he was told things, he needed them to be told twice or thrice so he could still remember the next day.

Even once he learned all that, IFthat ever happened, working ever again would still be an impossibility. He'd be back on the level of a six-year-old as opposed to the level of a two-year-old that he currently felt like.

It felt like karma hitting him in the face with an iron spiked club…one last time – hopefully – and this time he couldn't recover from it.

The doctor sighed. Sitting next to his bed, Enji wondered what he was even doing here. Sitting around and wasting his time with a hopeless case. "It always gets better." He smiled. "I've seen enough strokes in my time to know."

Better! He knew what doctors meant by better. The slow recovery of his memory – meant he was doing better. Being able to eat solid food and shit in his bed – that's getting better. If he stayed stuck where he was now, to them, he would still be better than when he still was in a coma. To Enji, the question was if it would ever get good enough. If it would ever get livable again. Because clearly, they had different standards. Frankly, he'd rather go back all the way to being fed intravenously, just to be spared the humiliation. But to them, the humiliation of shitting and peeing and being fed in his bed was better.

He would tell the doctor so, but he couldn't speak, so he clenched his jaw shut.

"It's a miracle you're even alive," the doctor said again, "so really, no reason to be so doubtful. You had one miracle happen. Why not another?"

How likely was that? Enji thought, scoffing.

"It's thanks to your son, by the way," the man continued clearly just babbling along now, to keep Enji entertained as if he had no other work to do.

He was on his break, Enji knew, but only the gods knew why he'd waste his break talking to a man who couldn't answer. He'd be better served talking to the pigeons outside. They could at least waddle up and down the garden, coo for breadcrumbs, and keep him entertained.

Enji was curious, though. None of the doctors or nurses had talked to him about his family yet, other than mentioning the visits. They always either talked about his condition, his medication, his memory, or his improvement. Enji preferred talking about his kids over all that… Because all that information did, was, make him dread the future.

"He's the reason you're alive. The kid's a hero if you ask me."

Enji knew. He smiled a little. "Sho…" It was one of the few sounds he was able to make. The T didn't work – his tongue didn't want to move right – so he couldn't even say the name.

The doctor chuckled. Then he gave a nod of acknowledgment. "Yes, that one too of course. But I'm talking about the other one. Natsuo."

Natsuo?

What had Natsuo done? Enji immediately felt bad over how surprised he was over the mention of Natsuo.

"Kept you alive. After you fell unconscious. I know my colleagues told you that your heart stopped too. He was resuscitating you. He used his quirk to bring down your temperature too – which was by the way against the law. Left a few nasty freezer-burns on your skin, but you'll hardly know in that maze of scars you already have. Anyway, he kept your heart going for thirty minutes."

Enji stared at the man. Natsuo had…?

"If it weren't for him, you'd be dead long before arriving at the hospital."

Enji's eyes were itching. Natsuo had saved his life? He stared at his hands. Natsuo had kept his heart going for thirty minutes… The thought made said heart ache.

A life worth living, huh? He thought. You owe that life to Natsuo.

If Natsuo thought his life worth saving, what right did Enji have to throw whatever remained of it away? He didn't know if it would ever get good enough again. But shouldn't he at least try?

The thought felt hollow, dreadful, and despairing. Like a shackle tying him to this life. Like a corset forcing him to pull himself together. If Natsuo found it in himself, to save Enji, Enji himself had to at least give it a try. And wasn't that all the doctors were asking of him?

Shit, he felt the tears again. Clumsily, he wiped at his eyes.

"There you are," the doctor muttered, offering a tissue that Enji couldn't hold onto.

Over the days, his memory returned piece by piece. He also started to make sense of his condition.

When the quirk erasing bullet took effect, his already overheating body had also lost its inherent resistance against heat. There was a certain core body temperature that humans couldn't exceed without suffering severe health risks or dying. To him that had never been an issue. Enji's body would still function even at temperatures far hotter than any other human could survive. Even he, however, had been tied to the physical limitations of the tissue his body was made of – the only exception being his skin, which was mostly fire-resistant. Even when his body was so hot, important chemical reactions keeping his body going would be offset, he still wouldn't die from it. But there were still hard limits. Key among them was the boiling point of water. If he kept his body temperature notably below that, he would be – maybe in pain but at least – reasonably safe.

When he lost his quirk, his body had regressed to that of somebody who was born quirkless. Although the loss of his quirk had also immediately caused his body to cool down a few degrees – as he couldn't naturally build up more heat nor keep it stored in his body anymore – his body temperature had suddenly become deadly.

It was ultimately his luck, that the quirk erasing bullet hadn't affected his entire body all at once, but instead, it had spread with his bloodstream and needed a few minutes to take full effect. That had been enough time for Natsuo to cool him down just enough to survive.

Knowing how his quirk worked and knowing that he had been pushing his overheating to the extreme just before losing his quirk, the doctors calling his survival a miracle were correct. He should be dead. Yet he wasn't. Natsuo hadn't just saved him. Natsuo had done something that should've been impossible. It was as if death itself had refused to claim him quite yet…

And why was that? Enji himself would've preferred death, so whichever deity saw fit to spare him – he hoped they had a good reason to do so.

Although he would've preferred to die, he couldn't help but feel grateful to Natsuo.

This life… I owe it to Natsuo. He reminded himself of that almost daily. This miserable life, I owe it to Natsuo. The thought was strangely comforting. This post-hero, post-quirk, post-Endeavor life… He had no right to take it away anymore. It wasn't just his anymore, and surely not his to end.

He found a new way to look at his new situation. As he first woke up, he'd seen it as a punishment to be alive still. Like he was cheated off death. Maybe it was the opposite… Maybe it wasn't just punishment, but ultimately just that… A chance at life. A chance at a new life. A life that would surely be very different and be ruled by struggle, but still life, nonetheless.

Ultimately, even if it was just punishment… Who was he to cry about that? He could still choose how he would take it. Head held high and trying to make the best of it, or head buried in the sand, dying of self-pity.

Of course, it wasn't that easy. Realizing that he could view his position more positively and optimistically, didn't mean that he also saw it as such. Even deciding that he wanted to give it a chance and a serious try at least, didn't mean he also did that. But in the end, it was a simple process: Trying and falling and standing up again. And the most important part, in this case, wasn't the trying…or the falling, but the standing up again. Or the trying to stand up again. And he could do that. He'd always been good at that.

If this was his hardest fall yet… Of course this standing up again would also be the most difficult. Yet, he could at least try. And so far, he hadn't been doing that. He'd been wallowing in self-pity, hardly even bothering to rouse himself although he knew his family would come to visit – too terrified to look into their faces and see…whatever there. He feared their condemnation and disregard almost as much as he did their pity.

So, he hadn't been trying. But he should.

He owed it to Natsuo to try.

And to himself!

Because, whatever else might happen… However long it would take… If he did succeed and if there was a better that was good enough and livable – If recovery was possible, but he didn't even try to get there, wouldn't he just pity himself for the rest of his life? Lament and cry over paths not taken? Wouldn't he hate himself even more than he did now? If there was such a chance at a new life, then he had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

There were days in which he saw no light at the end of the tunnel, no betterment or future or reason to live on. There were days in which however often he told himself that there might still be a chance, so he had to take it – grasp it with both hands – it just didn't work. But then those days would pass… And sometimes, it would last two days, or three, or five… Sometimes he felt like he had fallen all the way back to the moment when he just woke up from his coma.

And then…that was when he had to stand up again…or try to stand up again…or try to try to stand up again.

He just hoped – and really hope was the only thing he had at this point – that eventually… he could stand again. And then from there…maybe he could walk again…write again…talk again…eat and shit and pee again. All on his own.

Enji was never doin so bad before... At this point I guess we're slowly reachin a point where I can finally talk about all the thoughts I had that led to this finale.

I always wanted Enji to lose his quirk and end up having to retire from active hero service. I thought that would be a fitting end. There's a certain irony to the man doing everything to create the perfect quirk, in a way ranking his children according to their quirks usefullness losing his quirk. How I wanted to do it, I wasn't sure for a very long time. At first I wanted him to lose it right in chapter... what is that? 8? When he first meets Dabi/Touya in the beginning of the story. Touya even asked for a quirk erasing bullet then, but Shiggy was more stingy. After that I thought about a scene where Enji would throw himself in front of Shoto, but decided that both Enji and Shoto are by now too competent as heroes for a random bullet just hitting them. It just didn't seem right to me... If overheating Enji is fast enough to throw himself in the trajectory of the bullet, why wouldn't Shoto just be able to evade or block it with his ice... To make that believable, I would've to accept quite a few inconsistencies that I wasn't entirely happy with... So this is maybe less dramatic but it made the most sense to me...

Now... the stroke was another matter. I always wanted him to have SOME repercussion with his quirk. And I liked the idea that once he got his quirk erased his body just wouldn't be able to handle the heat. So I thought about the stroke pretty early but was never sure how bad it would be or if I'd actually go through with it or instead leave it at the quirk loss. just over a year ago, my uncle suffered a bad stroke... After that i kind of wanted to write about it, so that's when I started putting in more hints to that end...

Poor Enji now has to in a way fight his worst battle yet. The thing that always fascinated me the most is just the resilience in the face of the worst odds. In this case, it's not an oponent he can just easily defeat. One of my favorites parts about his character is that even with all the effort he's putting it, time doesn't work to his advantage. He's already well into his fourties and the 'threat of having to retire' was always looming in the background, and Enji doesn't really know how to make things up for his children (or even the country) if not as a hero... Thankfully, he already put a lot of work in, so he doesn't start from zero with his family... and at least this way for the time being his freed of his 'social' duties as a hero.

I did him really dirty I think... He can't do anything anymore... But don't worry, he's getting better. That's what this whole fic is about. He doesn't like giving up... and sometimes, no matter how he struggles, he can't keep up with All Might, at other times, maybe if he just never stops, maybe he'll get better and heal?